Katlyn Duncan - As You Lay Sleeping

“I don’t know what else to tell them,” I’d said after Mom told me about the phone call.

“I’m sure they’ll let us know when we get there” was all she’d said.

Kat sent me and the girls a text when she arrived home but her parents weren’t allowing visitors to the house. I assumed they were keeping curious eyes away from the scene of Joe’s death while grieving. I understood completely, while Rachael and Brittany bombarded my phone with texts trying to persuade me to sneak over to the house with them to see Kat. I didn’t think they wanted to appear uncaring; in fact, I think they wanted to support our best friend, but they were going about it the wrong way.

I decided to keep quiet to everyone about going to the police station. I thought Detective Devereaux was going overboard for an overdose, but I didn’t want that comment to get back to Kat and somehow make her more upset. I knew how quickly a comment or story could turn into something else when others decided to put their own spin on it. I’d been the victim of that a few times since the beginning of our friendship.

When we arrived that morning at the station, I expected to see the detective right away. Instead, I was taken down a hallway and told to stop in front of a random table. The gruff officer instructed me to stand there while he opened a few drawers and pulled out a sheet of paper and an ink pad.

“Excuse me,” Dad said. “Are you going to fingerprint my daughter?”

The officer cleared his throat, there was enough mucous rattling around in there to choke a horse.

I swallowed, unable to hide my grimace.

“I’m following orders, Mr. Daniels. You can take it up with Detective Devereaux if you’d like, but I can guarantee she won’t get out of it. Might as well let it happen.”

Mom looked from Dad to the officer. “Is she being charged with something?”

“Not as far as I know. Since she is closely affiliated with the victim, her prints will help differentiate the others at the scene,” the officer said. “Place your thumb here, miss.”

My eyes snapped to his, then slid over to my parents. Dad let out a deep exhale and nodded.

Mom still glared at the officer.

I did as he asked, wanting this humiliation to be over as soon as possible. The girls would never let this go if they saw me being fingerprinted. I had no intention of taking up a life of crime but I didn’t like having my fingerprints in whatever records they kept.

Afterward, we were told to go into a waiting area. We sat there for about fifteen minutes. Mom grumbled to Dad about the detective not being transparent about the visit while she was on the phone with him. Dad tried to calm her down.

My nerve endings fired all at once when I saw Detective Devereaux coming down the hall toward us.

He shook hands with my parents, then me. For the briefest moment, he looked at my hand. I suspected he wanted to make sure I had been fingerprinted, adding more fuel to the fire burning inside of me. The ink hadn’t successfully come off even after I scrubbed them, so I hoped he’d be satisfied with the amount of humiliation I suffered.

“I’d like to have a word with you, Mr. and Mrs. Daniels,” Detective Devereaux said, then turned to me. “We won’t be long.”

He turned around and walked away.

Mom squeezed my hand and then took Dad’s before walking away.

I slumped into the uncomfortable plastic chair and waited. I flipped through my phone. There weren’t any unread texts. I suspected Kat had more things to worry about, while Rachael and Brittany were waiting for her to initiate the conversation. Good. I didn’t want to make up any excuses on my location. I sat there for another thirty minutes, waiting for my parents to come back.

A door behind me opened and I glanced over my shoulder. I expected a hardened criminal to appear, struggling against officers. A stark contrast to me, furthering the point that I didn’t belong in a police station.

Instead, a familiar strawberry blonde entered the waiting room and sat in one of the chairs across the room.

Her blue eyes met mine and widened immediately. Kat hugged her purse against her body and launched from the bench and headed over to me. I looked around for her parents but I didn’t see them. Were they being interrogated like my parents were?

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She tugged at the ends of her hair. She was nervous.

For some reason, that relaxed me a little bit. “They called me in here to do fingerprinting.” I showed her my hands for effect.

She turned hers over too, the pads of her fingers gray like mine. “I can’t get this crap off. I feel like a criminal!” she moaned.

“The officer said they were excluding our fingerprints from others at the scene. Do they really think someone else did this to Joe?”

She scoffed. “Well, duh. That’s why we’re doing all of this and why they’re holding his body for another day.”

I frowned. “Holding his body where?”

“At the morgue.” She sniffed and pulled a tissue from her purse, dabbing her eyes. She was making her mascara smudge more but I didn’t dare tell her. “Did you say something to them?”

“About what?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. They seem to think his death wasn’t accidental. Which is ridiculous. Everyone loved Joe.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So what did you say to make them think otherwise?” Her eyes narrowed.

“N-nothing,” I stammered. “Maybe they’re looking into all possibilities.” I recalled Detective Devereaux’s icy glare from yesterday’s questioning. He had suspected something from the beginning. I wondered how long it would take him to figure out he was wrong.

“Maybe,” Kat said wistfully. “Mom is freakin’ out over the arrangements. She wanted to have the wake and funeral as soon as possible. So the news that they were holding the body longer made her flip.”

“I can imagine.”

“Can you?” Kat said, looking through me.

I swallowed. “Not actually, but I—”

Her chin dropped to her chest. “I’m taking my frustration out on you. Sorry. This really sucks.”

I patted her shoulder, unsure of what else to say. I didn’t want to get on her bad side again.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“They’ll be up here shortly. I couldn’t stand being downstairs any longer.”

“Downstairs?”

She sighed dramatically. “At the morgue. God! Are you even listening?”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, mentally chastising myself. Kat was obviously grieving and I didn’t want to continually upset her delicate state.

“Anyway,” she said, turning in her seat. “How long are they going to be down there?”

I had a sneaking suspicion that she wanted to be anywhere but there. It was understandable but a niggling sensation made me think it had more to do with me instead of her state of mind. It was the same sensation that lived with me for many years until I found my place in our group.

My parents came around the corner. It was only the two of them, no Detective Devereaux in sight. I stood up and went to them.

“What did he want?” I asked.

Mom looked to Dad, then back to me. “He asked us some questions.”

“About what?”

“Let’s talk about this later,” Dad said and walked past me.

I turned to see him talking to Kat. She offered him a brave smile and my heart broke for her. As much as the detective annoyed me, I could imagine whatever suspicion he had about Joe’s death putting a bigger strain on her family.

Mom offered her condolences, too, and asked Kat if she wanted us to sit with her until her parents arrived.

“No, thanks,” Kat said. “I’ll be fine.”