Victim Dirk Wallace entered Royal Jubilee Hospital at 2:55 A.M. He was placed in critical ward with life-threatening injuries.

Victim Dirk Wallace is currently under heavy sedation and unable to provide identification or statement. He is a 43-year-old married father of two daughters, a newborn of three months and a 6-year-old. He is employed by WHITE WATER TOURS as a sales representative. His coworker JEFF MALIN has provided statement to the effect that Mr. Wallace often drank at the King’s Hotel and on the Friday night in question was probably “celebrating payday.” Mr. Wallace has no criminal record. He has had numerous calls of support and concern from a wide range of respected members of the tourist industry and whale-watching community.

It looks so bad.

All this time I thought they had no idea and fuck off and die ’cause the joke’s on me.

Cheer up, Edmundo says. Cheer up. Lemmy wouldn’t say cheer up after giving me this report to read. He’d say, Let’s snort a line, let’s get some brass knuckles, let’s start a war.

“They’ve got all these facts and—”

“It’s just circumstantial, Sara, it doesn’t prove a thing. They have no evidence that you stabbed this fellow—”

“But they know I had a knife. They have a picture!”

“You were a young girl alone on the streets. You had a knife, so what? It’s a scary world, right?”

It’s really getting to me that he’s not more upset by their words.

“Can I have a glass of water?”

“Sara, I’ve brought you twenty-five glasses. You’re drinking this place dry.”

“Do you think they’ll find that girl in the Polaroid, ’cause I don’t want her involved.”

“Police have better things to do than chase down teenage runaways. You know what they call girls like Justine? They call them Bic lighters.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bic lighters, you know, disposable.”

“She’s not a Bic lighter!”

“Look, Sara, stop worrying about other girls. Worry about yourself.”

I look back at their words, and it feels like every one of those dates and names and times is a tentacle threatening to strangle me.

I should just confess. I should. Just tell the judge what really happened ’cause they’ve got it so wrong.

I tell Edmundo I want to confess.

He says that’s dumb. Just dumb.

He suggests I keep my mouth shut. I’ll only get myself in more trouble if I talk. He advises me to just let him do the talking.

But how can he talk for me? Maybe if I wrote a report, I could make the judge understand because my words would smell like cigarettes and perfume. They wouldn’t be so dead and false and untrue.

“I want to write—”

“I’m meeting with the judge in half an hour.”

“Can’t I just write what really happened, ’cause it’s a long story and I have a lot to—”