Dialogue shows you who a character is
- Carolyn Ferreira

- Oct 5, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 13, 2023
Time for another writing sample! This sample is based off a prompt where two people meet and one of them knows something. The second person is trying to find out what the first person knows. Even though I enjoy reading crime drama, I don't often write it, so this was a nice exercise for me. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Dennis Blake requested this session when he found out he was being sent to Ely State Prison, a maximum-security facility four hours north of Las Vegas, in the middle of the desert. He recently confessed to the murder of 13-year-old Anabel Willis of Summerlin, but he never gave us a body. If he gave up the location of the corpse, he could serve his life sentence at Lovelock Correctional Center instead, according to the court.
When I entered interrogation room 2 at the Summerlin command center, Dennis was already there, cuffed to the table. At forty-five, he was over a decade older than me, of average build, and balding.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Blake. My name is Detective Elisa Rivera. I understand you are prepared to give up the location of the body of Anabel Willis.”
He stares at me intently through his thick, smudged glasses. “I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and I really want the family to have some peace and be able to bury their daughter.”
I didn’t believe him for a second. No one who kills a 13-year-old girl has compassion. “I understand you watched her on the playground at The Vistas Park before you took her. Is she buried near there?” I asked.
I saw a hint of a smile peak out at the corner of his mouth. “I can’t tell you where her body is.”
“What? I thought that was the whole point of this meeting!” I said, raising my voice. He was enjoying toying with me, and it was quickly getting on my nerves.
“I can’t tell you where her body is. But I can tell you where her torso is.”
I held back a grimace. “Her torso?”
“Yes. Her torso. Her head and limbs are buried in a few spots out in the desert past Mountain Springs, so you’ll never find those, but I can tell you where the torso is.” I swallowed sharply to hold back some bile. He continued. “The torso is in a shallow grave by the Ash Creek Spring in Red Rock Canyon.”
She didn’t have any distinguishing marks on her torso according to her parents, so without fingerprints or dental, we had no way of confirming that the torso was Anabel Willis. “If we go to Ash Creek, and the torso happens to be there like you say, how am I supposed to know the torso is even Anabel’s?”
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
“Mr. Blake, you know that I can’t just trust you on this. If you want to transfer to medium security, you’ll have to give me more than that.”
“I buried her with her dark brown teddy bear. The one with the blue-checkered bow tie. Her parents can identify it. She wouldn’t let go of it the whole time she was with me.” Disgusting.
I looked toward the two-way glass, knowing my captain and partner were watching from the observation room. “Horton. Let’s get the dogs out there right away.” Turning back to Dennis, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Blake. If this pans out, you have a deal.”
I got up to leave, but he stopped me as I grabbed the handle. “Detective Rivera, don’t you want to hear about the other bodies?”
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