Claudia Wilkinson, 3.4 Creative Writing Assesment, Chapter One 

I pull out one of the metal chairs and sit down, my body immediately uncomfortable with the feeling of cold against my last night’s creased shirt and black suit pants. Two more chairs are stationed on the other side of the worn wooden table. Furniture is plain, nothing too fancy, suppose they don’t treat murder suspects with luxury. Glaring back at me is the lens of the video camera stationed on the table, intimidating my conscious and the microphone can probably hear my racing heartbeat. I keep catching myself staring at the blank walls. It needs a new paint job, an old top coat of expired paint peeling down the vertical surface. There is a large mirror adjacent to me, two way I suppose, which means that the officers behind it can witness and monitor my every move. Within the reflection, I can see the whole room. It’s barely furnished. Cold lighting illuminates the dark corners of the room, the skirting boards are grey from the pile-up of dust. The four by 6-metre interrogation room seems pretty sound proof as I can’t hear anything from the outside of the room in the precinct nor any of the New York traffic.

It couldn’t have been easy for someone to do this. Apparently, they found my DNA and fingerprints at the crime scene. Soon they will ask me about my whereabouts and an alibi for last night, they won’t believe me when I tell them the truth. Last night is a blur to me, I must have been drugged and a throbbing headache arises every time I try to piece together happened. What I can remember isn’t much. Drinking at FREQ, a huge Ibiza club on 637 West Is what I last recall. I remember setting my drink down to take my shot at the pool table and being a horrible player. I remember laughing at myself with my mates. I can’t make a connection between the faces to voices and the dry ice smoke machine with flashes of an array of blues, acid greens, hot pinks laser lights didn’t help. An abundant smell of high-end perfumes and bodysprays lingers through the electric atmosphere. My heart rate quickened, being in sync with the bass of the electronic music. Everything was going so fast yet so slow. And then I remember nothing.

With any small movement, I can feel the handcuffs digging into my wrists. ‘Have they put them on too tight? Are they suppose to feel like this?’ I wouldn’t know. I have never been arrested or even had a traffic violation. Every action I carry out I am very cautious about. My colleagues at a very well known Law Firm in New York highly respect me and multiple people look up to me with my high success rates of closing cases. I can’t have anyone know that I’m here or else it might ruin my reputation. Racing thoughts in my mind come to a standstill when the unburnished silver door, spotted from years worth of water damage opens. Looking up, I see a female police detective. I would predict she is in her late 20’s. Easily 5ft 8, slender, attractive, if a bit hard looking with the stare. Her hazel eyes highlighted on her tanned freckled face. She has cropped brown hair almost like a boy’s, but her face is feminine and pretty enough to get away with it. Written in gold on navy just above her right breast reads Detective Beckett, NYPD. Standing in a tall firm stance I can see a holstered gun sitting on her hip. I know that she is reading me the Miranda Rights, but the reoccurring thoughts of why someone would want to create mental chaos in my mind blocks out the spoken words spoken by the detective. How can one speak so sternly yet so gentle at the same time?

Why would someone do this to me? I know I’m innocent, but how can I prove that someone has framed me for the murder of Sophia Taylor?