The Blue Pen

"She said she was leaving me…for good this time." Ned Peterson’s sing-songy voice and shrug filled the grey interrogation room with a nonsensical whimsy, despite a thin sheen of forehead sweat glistening in the fluorescent lights. "Packed her bags, slammed the door.” He breathed through a salesman smile, “Women…"

Detective Miller, his face a landscape of weary experience, nodded slowly. "Yeah, Mr. Peterson, I've seen a few situations like this. Relationships, they can get… complicated." He placed a hand on Peterson's shoulder, a gesture that seemed almost paternal. The detective even offered a reciprocal smile that, if Ned had been looking for deception would’ve noted, didn’t quite reach his blue eyes.

Ned’s shoulders relaxed slightly, allowing the warm silence to draw him out. "It's just… she was always threatening to leave. And, you know what? She even did a few times.” His smile softened as he looked at the table lost in memory, “She’d stay at her sister Deb’s house over in, uh…Rineyville.” His mocking musical tone returned and he animated his words with his hands, “She’d be there for like one night. I’d go over there and apologize, even though I didn’t do anything wrong, of course, because that’s what she wants to hear, and she’d come back.”  

Ned’s dark eyes darted up from the table to meet Detective Miller’s, almost expectantly. “I mean, things were always great after she came back, ya know?”

Detective Miller remained stoically smiling as he leaned over, his steel chair screeching in the silence, and pulled a small steno pad and a plastic blue bic pen out of his briefcase. He started flipping through the pages, “So, it sounds like you would say your relationship with Claire was overall happy, with a few bumps here and there.” 

Ned’s head tilted slightly, his smile growing a bit hollow as his eyes widened following Detective Miller’s blue bic scratching notes on the pad which was angled to where Ned couldn’t read it, “Yea, I mean we had our moments, sure, but,” he breathily chuckled, “everyone does, right? But definitely happy overall.” Ned’s eyes even followed the pen as it travelled from the paper up to Detective Miller’s mouth, where the detective lightly chewed on the clearly worn lid.

The detective’s eyes, however, stayed fixed on the pad, not looking up as he spoke, "So, she packed her bags and left. And she went to stay with her sister again, presumably."

Ned nodded and quickly repeated, “Right, presumably." 

“And you haven’t seen or heard from her since.” The detective pulled the pen from his mouth and it hovered above the pad awaiting Ned’s response.

Ned’s eyes darted back and forth between the Detective’s face and the bic, "No. Not a word." 

Detective Miller took some more notes, before pausing and using the end of the pen to point to a place higher on the pad, “Her sister is Deborah Crane over in Rineyville.” The pen slowly retreated to rest between his teeth again, this time, not waiting for a response.

Ned folded his hands in front of him, “Mm-hmm.” His smile had twisted its way into cautious disgust. A muscle in his jaw twitched. Detective Miller still wouldn’t look him in the eye and even though when he spoke, he seemed fine, for some reason, the pen–this blue pen controlled the narrative. 

The warmth had been leeched out of the silence leaving the room cold and tangy. Detective Miller broke it with the screech of his chair again as he brought out a manila folder. He kept the pen pinched between his teeth as he took out and placed a photograph on the table in between them. "This is from your living room, Mr. Peterson. From about, I’d say, an hour ago."

Ned's eyes widened, a flicker of panic crossing his face. The chewed bic tapped on the overturned coffee table, the shattered glass, the dark, spreading stain on the pale carpet.

"That… that's not how I left it," he stammered, his voice losing its confident edge. "She must have… she must have trashed the place on her way out. A final act of, ya know… spite."

"Did she?" Miller's voice was low and steady, the pretense of sympathy gone, replaced by a cold, clinical tone. Finally, his piercing blue eyes rose to Ned’s, "Or did you?"

Ned's hands began to tremble. "Me? Why would I do that? I loved her. We had our disagreements, like I said, but I loved her."

"You loved her, but you left marks, Mr. Peterson." Miller placed a series of crime scene photos on the table, each one a stark depiction of the violence inflicted on Claire. Bruises, contusions, lacerations. The blue pen pinpointing all of the pain. "These aren't the marks of someone who simply, hit a 'few bumps here and there’, Mr. Peterson."

Ned's face flushed, a crimson tide rising up his neck and waning in the form of beads of sweat raining down his forehead, "Sh-she was always falling. She was clumsy, ya know? Always tripping over her own feet. Even she’d tell ya that!"

"She was also five foot two, Mr. Peterson. And those bruises are consistent with being gripped, hard. Very hard." The pen lid tapped on the closed manila folder. "The coroner's report indicates defensive wounds. As if she were trying to protect herself. You see, Mr. Peterson, I understand frustration. People make mistakes.” Detective Miller’s blue pen had returned to sit patiently above the paper. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Ned stared horrified at the pen, gesturing, as if pleading to it to be merciful, "I… I didn't mean to…"

The pen quickly scribbled something before pausing, "Didn't mean to…" 

Ned closed his eyes, his voice a broken whisper. "After everything I'd done for her. After everything I'd given her. Claire! She couldn't just…" his voice trailed off. 

Silver silence. The pen eagerly awaited its task. Ned opened his eyes which were immediately drawn to it, staring through it. Ned knew that the pen already knew.

He sighed, relief spreading across his face and body like a wash, "She was always saying things to get a reaction out of me. Like I’m some kinda monster, or something.” He pointed at the pen, now writing again, “She knew how I got when said she was leaving. She just wouldn't stop. I mean, she always came back. I apologized and she was supposed to come back.” 

He shook his head at the pen. The pen wouldn’t understand.  "She was all I had. I took care of her. She was mine. She just didn't get it. I just wanted her to stop. She wouldn't stop."

Detective Miller remained silent looking listlessly at Mr. Peterson, bringing the pen back up to his teeth.

Ned looked down at his hands, his voice flat and lifeless. "She said she was leaving me…for good this time."