The Interrogation

By Beverly Greene

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I searched through my memories, hoping to find the name stored there somewhere. Perhaps it was Jason that they were after and not me. Maybe I just had some information that they needed and if I gave it to them I would be let go. I thought and thought but couldn't remember any Jason in recent years.

"The only Jason that I can remember is a guy that I knew in high school. Honest!"

I panicked as the truth flew out of my mouth. Maybe I did have something to do with it. Maybe Jason did something while we were going out in high school and I was somehow responsible for it too. But, Jason had been a nice guy and I couldn't imagine him doing anything that would warrant anything resembling my current situation. Besides, I thought to myself, as if attempting to reassure myself that I would somehow be all right despite all of the indications to the contrary, that was a very long time ago.

"You didn't just know Jason McEnroy, did you? You actually dated him from May 24 to August 18 during your sophomore year of high school, didn't you?"

She circled around me like a vulture circles a dead deer as she spoke with such fierceness in her voice that I feared that I would again be speechless.

"Yes, that's true. But I don't know what that has to do with anything."

I was confused and pleaded with my eyes for more information, more clues to this puzzle. I just couldn't seem to wrap my brain around why this woman cared who I had dated 10 years ago or how she knew the specific dates. I could hardly remember all of that now. It all happened so long ago, almost as if in another lifetime.

"That has everything to do with why you are here!"

The voice boomed with such hatred that I held my breath, waiting for a physical blow to accompany it.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you not also date Richard Stam in fall of your junior year?"

The strange woman who now seemed to me to tower over my small, seated body like an Amazon ripped out of her own time and brought to the present to torture me for some unnamed crime. She continued to circle around me as I flipped through memories of days long passed for a reason, a possible indication of what I might have done as I kept my eyes on the floor in front of me in fear of bringing upon even more wrath from the voice.

"Yes, but why are you asking..."

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