Adlin looked through the two-way mirror and into the sparely decorated room beyond.
“Where did you find her, John?” she asked the officer standing beside her.
“She was actually sitting outside the bus terminal. She was talking to herself and rocking. Some concerned people called for an ambulance when she wouldn’t acknowledge them.”
“What is she saying?”
The detainee’s lips were moving rapidly as she rocked in the chair. Her face was impassive, and her eyes stared beyond seeing. When Adlin asked the question, the woman’s lips stopped, her body stilled, and her eyes looked at the mirror. No, through the mirror. Her eyes met Adlin’s, and saw through them.
“I have to be honest,” John replied, “She has mostly whispered, and I haven’t really been able to catch it. She didn’t respond to questions when we picked her up. We didn’t see anything requiring first aid.”
Adlin looked at the woman carefully, who was now completely still, still staring into her eyes from the room beyond. She was dirty. Visibly dirty, but not in a living rough sort of filth. Her fingernails were broken and filled with earth, and mud was deeply caked in to the knees of her jeans. Smears, possibly from trying to clean off her hands, went down the middle of her shirt and across her thighs. Her hair looked recently washed though, and the clothes looked like they had been clean before whatever misadventure the woman had been on.
“Do you see me?” the woman asked no one in the room. A shiver scampered down Adlin’s spine.
“I know you’re watching me. Do you see me?”
“I guess I am going to go in and see what’s up,” Adlin said to John grimly. “No reason to pretend, right?
She walked into the interrogation room and sat down across from the woman. The woman began whispering again, stroking first one forearm then the other as she did so, no longer meeting Adlin’s eyes.
“Hello. I’m Adlin Marse. Can you tell me who you are?”
The whispering grew faster, even somehow overlapping itself, like more than one voice was in conversation. Adlin strained, attempting to hear what the woman said.
“Would you mind if we took your fingerprints and tried to figure out who you are?” Adlin asked kindly. She was really beginning to think this was an unmedicated psych patient who needed some time in hospital and a med adjustment.
“No we’re not, sweetie, but it’s okay. We can see why you would think so.”
The woman’s voice had a deep reverberation to it, like it was echoing from distance and past, rather than words stated in present, in a tiny room with the one barred window.
“Can you tell me who you are?” Adlin asked again.
The woman smiled widely, opening her eyes so widely the white glistened all around the iris. “Aren’t you a curious one? I bet you got that from your mother, didn’t you?”
Adlin tried to figure out a way to gain some kind of control in the conversation. They didn’t even know that the woman did much wrong beyond frightening some people who came into town on the bus, but something was so off in this. Adlin tried to figure out if she should be the kind and friendly Adlin or the ‘no nonsense’ police interrogator Adlin. This woman wasn’t the same as someone caught after a long investigation with evidence Adlin could confront them with, or testimony. This is a random woman talking nonsense at a bus depot.
“Do you live in the area? Is there anyone we can call for you?”
The woman snorted, then began laughing uproariously.
“Ain’t no one no more, I can assure you that.”
“I’m sorry. What happened to them?”
The whispering began again, this time louder, more overlapped. The strange woman began rocking and stroking her arms in the weird way again.
“Can I get you something to drink maybe? Have you had lunch, would you like us to get you some food?”
The whispers stopped and the woman cocked her head at Adlin. “Can you bring me some tea?” she asked in a voice Adlin hadn’t heard yet. Her heart startled, and she felt vaguely nauseous.
“Right on it. I will be back with some tea in just a minute,” she assured the woman as she hurried out of the interrogation room.
John was waiting in the hallway.
“She is a trip, that’s for sure,” he grinned at her.
“Do we know anything about her at all? Did she have a purse, ID?”
“No. The best we could tell was that she had been sitting there for some time this morning, and the longer she was there, the more curious people got about her, and someone finally got brave enough to get close and call 911. EMS decided she wasn’t hurt and they got a little weirded out by her appearance, so they figured maybe we would know about a missing person and told us to take her for a bit first.”
“Anyone try to run prints on her?”
“You’re welcome to try. We haven’t been able to get close enough to her hands to get a card ready.”
Adlin sighed. With further cuts to Medicaid, hospitals were encouraging EMS to bring in fewer indigent patients, especially ones that weren’t in need of stabilizing medical care.
“Oh well, I will get her some tea – see if she can calm down and talk with a little patience.”
John stayed guard outside the interrogation room while Adlin retrieved a cup of tea, some sugar and sweetener packets and returned to the room.
“Here you go.”
The whispers had started again, occasionally with a whimper within them.
“What’s your name?”
“Violet is good enough.”
“Violet.”
“OH yeah. I am ultra violet.” The woman began the weird cackling laugh again and shook her head to stop it. The whispers and whimpers began.
“Violet, what are you whispering about?”
Continued whispers, with the whimpering becoming more consistent – it was quiet but plaintive, like the early cries of a newborn infant.
“Violet?”
“You know, you know, oh you know Ms Adlin. You have always known the whispers.”
Violet gave Adlin a sly smile, one of secret knowledge and blackmail, of buried secrets unshared.
“Don’t you Ms Adlin?”
Adlin shook her head, frustrated and confused to have so little direction and control in the interview. She was debating SOP. There was nothing to hold her for except maybe vagrancy.
“You want to know what you don’t know, Adlin?”
The voice had changed again. This one was matter of fact, but encouraging and friendly.
“What don’t I know, um, Violet?” Adlin was really pretty sure this wasn’t Violet, but it was the only name she had been given.
“Oh you know, you just forgot, Adlin. Would you like to remember again?”
Adlin was beginning to feel vaguely panicked. What accusation was there that this strange woman might say? What if it shows up on video? Would they investigate it? More than ten years in law enforcement and she hadn’t even had a speeding ticket before. What could Violet possibly be suggesting?
“I’ve been there, Adlin, do you want to go there with me?”
“Where? Do you have information about an investigation?”
“Investigation!” Violet exclaimed.
The whispers and strange stroking began again. Adlin was pretty sure this was one for a quick psych hold. There was no reality in whatever these whispers foretold.
“Come with us, Adlin, and we will investigate,” the whispers assured her. Something in them spoke of secret knowledge she did not want shared. Out loud she offered, “Would you like to take me where you were?”
Violet suddenly stood and began walking toward the door, trailing a hand behind her to lead Adlin. Adlin stood and followed.
“I’ll take you to my car, and you can tell me where we’re going.”
They walked past John, who offered to go with her. Violet shook her head. Adlin gave John a helpless shrug.
“I don’t think she’s dangerous,” she tried to assure John.
“You don’t know where she is taking you,” he responded, looking at her with concern.
“I’ll radio for backup if it looks suspicious.” She assured him before following Violet into the early evening.
Violet walked to Adlin’s patrol car and stood, waiting, at the passenger side.
“You should really be in the back,” Adlin explained gently, “Protocol.” She opened the back door and helped Violet into the back seat before closing the door behind her. Violet looked out the window at her and gave her a wide-eyed smile. The uneasiness had settled as a permanent ache between her shoulder blades. Adlin found herself chewing the inside of her cheek and shook her head. She had been an investigator now for a couple of years. The young woman was strange, but didn’t seem dangerous.
Once on the road, Adlin looked in the rear view mirror at her passenger. “Just tell me where to go, okay?”
“Get on the interstate east to exit 129.” Adlin was a little surprised at how direct the answer was, but began following the driving directions.
Off the exit they drove almost twenty miles, until they were in a fairly wooded place. Adlin rolled down the window. This place reminded her a lot of home. They weren’t more than ten miles from where she grew up now.
The whispers were back, the whimpering louder. Violet began scratching at her forearms now and moaning, but Adlin didn’t need further directions.
“I turn right up here,” Adlin said quietly. The noises became a drone of noise, itching inside her skull. “No. No one was ever supposed to…”
“Are you remembering who I am?” asked the echoing strange voice again. “Do you remember me now?”
Adlin pulled off to the side of the little dirt track she was on.
“How?”
The woman was smaller, a child now, but just as dirt covered. Now her extremities were purple, though, and her face pale but mottled.
“How did you know?”
Violet walked to a turned up place in the ground. Adlin fell to her knees.
Violet pointed to the ground.
“You can bury your past as deeply as you like. It never means we will stay quiet.”