Shattered Shell

by Brendan DuBois

  There was a chair near the foot of the bed, which I took, and Diane clambered up on the bed, outside of the comforter, and put her arm around Kara's shoulders. Kara blinked and reached up with a free hand and patted Diane's wrist. It was hard not to stare. Her eyes were still puffy, though the scratches on her neck looked like they were healing. Her right cheek was still swollen and her bottom lip looked awful, red and split open. Kara's light brown hair was done in a modified flattop with semi-shaved sides, and I guessed Diane must have washed her hair in bed, and I was touched by the thought.

  “Well," I finally said.

  Kara tried to smile again. "Here to save my soul, Lewis?"

  I crossed my legs. "No, I'll leave that up to Diane. I'm just here for information, Kara, whatever you can tell me, and I'm sorry it's going to be so hard."

  She moved her hand against Diane's, shifted some so that she was looking up at her. "I'm sorry, too. Why can't you just look at the police report? It's all there."

  I made to answer, but Diane was faster. "Because he wants to hear it from you, and doesn't want to read it from some official report."

  Kara shook her head. ''I'd rather just try to forget it all happened..."

  Diane moved closer to her on the bed. "Hush, now. We've talked about this over and over again, hon. You know what we agreed. Please. Lewis is here to help --- you, me, the two of us. I'll be right here. Every second."

  Kara turned her head, looked out the window, and then she looked at me, her eyes filled with tears, but there was no fear or sadness there in those eyes. Just a flat anger.

  "Go ahead," she said.

  I looked down at the notepad, uncapped my black ink ballpoint. "Do you have a fairly good idea of what time it happened?"

  "An exact time," she said, her tone bitter. "At one-fifteen in the morning, on Saturday. I heard someone opening the bedroom door and coming in and I woke up and looked at the clock. I checked the time, and I thought...." and her voice caught for a moment, "I thought it was Diane, coming in. We had made plans earlier, except that she called, 'cause of that fire. So I sat up and said something, and then... then it happened."

  "What do you remember happened first?"

  She let out a breath, as Diane slowly rubbed her cheek. "Oh, shit, well, it all was a jumble, you know? Jesus, I was scared... the minute he jumped on the bed and grabbed me by the throat... I've never been so fucking scared in my life.... I was rock climbing up on Cathedral Ledge last summer, and my harness came loose when I was a hundred feet up, and I started falling and I caught a ledge... I was so scared I peed myself, and that was nothing, not a damn thing, compared to what it was like that night... " She coughed and Diane looked at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, and I knew with absolute certainty that I would never back away from this one. Never.

  "How long was he there for?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

  "Oh, shit, when he left… shit, I checked the clock and it was almost two.... but I knew I was just there, lying, not moving for the damn longest time after he left... He just jumped on the bed and grabbed my throat and said if I moved, if I screamed, then he'd cut me... Um, I just lay there for a bit, trying to pretend I was somewhere else, hoping that someone would rescue me, just like in these fucking romance novels..."

  Diane winced and I knew that a spike of guilt had just gone through her heart. Kara continued, saying, "And he was just pounding me.... Christ, it hurt so much... and I couldn't stand it and I tried to claw his eyes out... and then he started beating on me.... Then I panicked after he left, I started cleaning myself up, cleaning up the room, 'cause I couldn't stand the thought of him still being there, his smell, his fluids, so I cleaned for a while.... I don't remember much else, shit, I'm sorry," and the tears came back again and I so much wanted to stop talking and leave these two women alone.

  Instead I asked, "Did you get a look at him at all? Any features, anything?"

  "No, it was dark. I just know he was wearing jeans, and I think he was white, I'm not sure. It was all going so fast."

  "Was he clean-shaven?"

  "Hunh?"

  "Did he have a beard? Mustache? Something you saw or felt?"

  Kara's tone turned quickly. "Why?" she demanded. "Do you think he was kissing me? Do you think he was trying to seduce me after breaking into my apartment and jumping on my bed? Right? Kissing me tenderly on the lips and neck, so I could tell in the dark if the asshole had a mustache and beard?"

  I swallowed, looked over at Diane, and she said, "Kara? Please. Could you tell if he had a beard or mustache?"

  She looked away from us, burrowed into the comforter. "No. He was clean-shaven."

  My hand was beginning to cramp from writing so fast, trying to get every word down exactly, and I said, "Just a couple of more questions, and then I'm finished. Kara, has anything odd been going on the past few weeks before this? Obscene phone calls? Problems with a neighbor or someone at work? Anybody odd hanging around the neighborhood that made you feel uncomfortable? Anything at all?"

  One word. "No."

  "Kara, did he say anything at all that might be helpful in tracking him?"

  She looked incredulous. "Like what?"

  "Like something that indicated he had been following you, or that he knew you at all. Did he say your name?"

  Her tone was the same. "He said three things. At the start, he said if I fought or screamed, he'd cut me. At the end, he said if I went to the cops, he'd cut me. And in the middle, he said, shut up and take it, bitch, take a real man's cock."

  "Oh."

  Kara said, "Why, does that sound like one of your dates, or one of your fantasies?"

  Diane started to say something and I shook my head and put I he pen away and folded up the notebook, and as I left the room I said to Kara and Diane, "I'm sorry this all happened, and I'm sorry I had to do this."

  Downstairs I poured myself a glass of orange juice and looked closer at the photographs plastered up on the refrigerator door. My heart was racing along from the past minutes I had spent upstairs, and I didn't feel particularly happy or proud to be a man. I know that sounds like the classic white male guilt, but tell me how many female rapists there are in prison and that'll give you an idea of what I was thinking about.

  Diane came downstairs after a while, and I was sitting in a kitchen chair, looking out to the flat water of the harbor. A few gulls crisscrossed the sky and the orange and yellow lights of the nuclear power plant were steady from across the marsh. Diane went to the sink and washed her hands and face and dried herself off with a towel, and then turned, leaning back against the counter.

  "I'm sorry about what went on up there."

  "No apologies needed. Whatever she said or did is fine. I don't take it to heart."

  She shook her head. "No, I don't mean I'm sorry that she got upset with you. I'm sorry that you had to see Kara like that."

  "I've seen Kara enough times before to know what she's like. She's just scared and hurting, and that's entirely understandable."

  Both of her hands were grasping the counter. "You don't know what it's like."

  "You're absolutely right."

  "I mean, there she is, upstairs, and she's not the same person anymore, and neither am I. The Kara and Diane that were alive and breathing last Friday are dead. They were killed by an animal that broke into her apartment and raped her. Do you know what she's been going through, besides the trauma and the humiliation and fear? I mean, that asshole wasn't practicing safe sex, you know that? So when she was at the hospital she had to take a morning-after pill, which made her nauseous all this past weekend, and she had to have a shot of antibiotics in her butt, and she's going to have to get an AIDS test in a month, and every month for at least a year. Jesus."

  Diane rubbed at her face, looked out toward the harbor, and her hands were shaking some. "You don't know what it's like."

  This time, I didn't bother repeating myself. I just nodded in agreement.

  After a bit she said, "Let me get you
the Newburyport police file."

  She walked me out, her breath making little clouds in the cold air, and held on to my arm and said, "I've talked to Inspector Dunbar, told him that you'd be seeing him this week. I said you were doing research on a magazine article and were going to use Kara's case as a test example of how sex crimes are investigated in Massachusetts."

  "I imagine he was thrilled by that," I said.

  "You're right, and don't expect too much. Like I said back at the hospital, I don't think he's putting this case on the front burner. Just the way he talks tells me a lot."

  I looked over at her and said, "Does he know about your relationship with Kara?"

  "Oh, I don't know," she said, rubbing at her upper arms. The wind had picked up some and it had gotten colder. "Maybe he does und maybe that's why he's not hot to trot on the case, but I could give a shit. I'm not really counting on him, you know."

  Boy, did I know. "I understand." I looked back up at the condo unit, and wondered if Kara could see the two of us down here, chatting. "So far I have a pretty good idea of how Kara is doing, but tell me this: How are you doing, Diane?"

  A too quick nod. “I’m doing okay."

  "The hell you are," I said. "How are you eating, and how are you sleeping?"

  She looked away. "Here and there --- when I can forget about it for a few minutes, which is tough --- I sleep a little or get a bite In eat. I took today off and I'm going to take at least a couple of more days off this week, but it's going to be hard, especially with those goddamn arsons. But Jesus, Kara's always refused to learn how to use a weapon, and I get so frightened just leaving her by herself for an hour or two."

  Then she turned and said, "I hate to admit, God I do, but I'm scared. I'm scared of what happened and I'm scared of that guy out there, whoever the hell he is, and I'm scared he might be stalking her, for whatever reason. I feel bad enough, not being there the night she was... the night she was attacked. If anything else were to happen to her, I swear I'd take a dive off the Dow Memorial Bridge and not come up for air."

  "I know," I said. "Look. Felix and I were going to do some work this week, see what happens. And I'll start tomorrow with that inspector."

  "Okay," she said, and she pulled a key from her jeans pocket and passed it over. It was on a heart-shaped pink locket, and the sight of it damn near broke my heart.

  "A spare key to Kara's place," she said. "I imagine you'll want to check it out."

  I put the key away. "You imagined right."

  “And promise you'll call if anything comes up?"

  "Promise."

  I unlocked the door to the Rover and reached out for a brief hug, and Diane hugged me back, but for the first time in the years I've known her, there was a slight hesitation there, a slight resistance that was probably something on a cellular level going on with her, for her woman was back up there hurting, and here she was, hugging the enemy.

  I understood the hesitation. But that didn't mean I liked it.

  I like to think that I share some things with the young. A sense of wonderment about the night sky. A childish pride in our space program. And cooking skills that have never graduated much beyond boiling water. To get around endless meals of rice and soup, I've made an arrangement with the head chef of the Lafayette House across the way. The arrangement consists of clandestine meetings at the restaurant's back door, folding money on my part being passed to him, and some of the best dishes the Lafayette House has to offer, passed on to me.

  So after a dinner of haddock stuffed with crab and lobster meat, along with a red potato dish and large salad, and washed down with a glass of Robert Mondavi red, I was stretched out on the couch, comforter across my lap, fire in the fireplace, and reading a thin file that described an evening of horror for a young woman not fifteen miles away from my peaceful room, the sounds of the wind, and the crackle of fire.

  The preliminary incident report was fairly straightforward. It began with Inspector Dunbar being called from his home at two-thirty a.m. the past Saturday by the Newburyport dispatcher, and then arriving at the hospital about fifteen minutes later. There, the report said, he interviewed "one KARA MILES, age 29, of 64 B High Street, Newburyport," who claimed that earlier that evening that she had been raped by "u/k male who broke into her second floor apartment." Dunbar wrote that "KARA MILES" had obviously suffered some trauma, and he went into some detail about the extent of her injuries, which --- despite the fire and the warm comforter --- chilled me. Some evidence of vaginal bruising, though any semen evidence (which I knew would be important for DNA testing) was not readily available due to Miles's taking a shower and performing a douche upon herself before stumbling down the street to the hospital. The standard Massachusetts Sexual Assault Kit had been collected and the chain of custody for this evidence was being maintained. An examination of Kara's apartment indicated that entry had been gained through the front door, and there were some signs of a struggle in the bedroom. There was no evidence, however, of any burglary being committed.

  There were two other apartments in the building. Sixty-four C was empty. The bottom floor apartment, 64 A, was occupied by the building's owner, one "JASON HENRY, 67," who was home on the night of the assault and said that while he had heard some voices from upstairs, it was nothing so unusual that would cause him to be concerned.

  And that was that.

  I read and reread the report for a while, looking at the sparse language of Inspector Dunbar's, trying to think of what I was going to do if I was lucky enough to catch him tomorrow. One thing was for sure: I was going to pump him for more information, since the preliminary report was dated and timed for late Saturday afternoon. Some new information, some kind of progress, must have come up since he wrote his report.

  And when I read the inspector's words for the last time before stoking the fire and going upstairs, I came back to the one thing that disturbed me at the outset, and was still disturbing me as I got up from the couch. It was just a small thing, just one line in a multipage report, yet it was an inconsistency that I didn't like, not at all.

  For when Inspector Dunbar asked Kara if the attacker had any facial hair, she had said she was sure the man had a mustache.

  I knelt before the fireplace, jabbed at the dying embers with a poker, and just remembered, over and over again, what Kara had said to me earlier. The man had been clean-shaven, she had said.

  It didn't make sense. And when I was finished with the fire and put up the grate and turned down the thermostat and shut off all the lights downstairs and checked the locks, it still didn't make sense.

  So I went to bed.

  Chapter Six

  The Newburyport Police Department is in a two-story brick building on Green Street, near Merrimack Street in the heart of the downtown, which is an attractive collection of brick buildings that look like they've been there for hundreds of years. There are some touristy-type shops that butt right up to old hardware stores and lunch counters that are a haven for the natives. I parked in a municipal lot across the street and walked to the building, sloshing through rough half-frozen slush. The river and the marinas and the drawbridge spanning over into Salisbury were visible from the station, which had an old-fashioned blue-and-white sign at the entrance that said POLICE.

  When I had called earlier, Inspector Dunbar hadn't seemed particularly cheerful over the phone, and he said he had a half-hour free in the afternoon. I went through the glass doors and into a reception area, and told the receptionist I was there to see the good I inspector, and I was surprised that my hands were moist and my heart was racing right along, like I was seeing a prisoner instead of a cop, and then I walked down the hallway.

  Inspector Ron Dunbar's office was the opposite of Diane Woods', so I guess police detectives don't necessarily share furnishing tips. While Diane's office is organized chaos, with files piled on the desk and cardboard filing containers on the floor, and enclosed by green cinder-block walls, Dunbar's office was a study in neatness. The walls were
a pleasant light blue, with framed certificates and awards hanging up. A neat desk, with manila folders piled in some semblance of order. Diane's sole window is barred and has a view of the rear parking lot of the Tyler police station. Dunbar's view was much more pleasant, the busy downtown and the wide Merrimack River.

  Dunbar had short-trimmed black hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and light blue eyes that disconcertingly almost never blinked, so it always looked as though he were gazing at you in surprise. He had on a blue button-down shirt and a Scottish tartan wool tie. He leaned back in a black leather chair and looked at me sideways, holding a water jug in his hand, the kind that runners use, with a long, flexible straw.

  After I sat down I handed over my business card, to which he shook his head and gave it right back, and then he started right off, without even pretending to be polite.

  "Mind telling me what the hell you're looking for?" he asked.

  "Information about the Kara Miles case," I said, opening up my reporter's notebook. "I'm considering doing a story about violent crime in tourist communities during the winter, when the money is tight and the tourists go home."

  "And why this case? Just because Diane Woods is a friend of yours?"

  "That and other things," I said, not wanting to get into a deep discussion of what I was up to. "It just seemed to be the type of case that would fit into the story."

  "What kind of case might that be?"

  "Violent rape, in the middle of the night, middle of winter," I said. "Not exactly the typical crime one would associate with a tourist city like Newburyport."

  "So what makes you the expert?"

  Boy, this was getting more fun with every minute. "I never said I was an expert. I'm a writer, one who's lived in the area for a while, I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what happens in the towns around here."

  "So because of that, I should spill my guts about an open investigation?"