Abuse of Power

by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

  “Froot Loops aren’t good for you,” Came said, placing a mound of scrambled eggs on his plate, then heading back to the counter to get his toast.

  Joe stuck his spoon in the eggs, then flicked them onto the floor. He looked over at his aunt and giggled. “Froot Loops.”

  “Yeah, right,” Carrie said, making a face at him. “You’ll get Froot Loops over my dead body, kid. Eat the damn eggs.”

  “I don’t like you,” Joe said, frowning. “I want my mommy. You’re mean.”

  Carrie sighed. Parenting was not easy. Her son was eighteen now, and she had forgotten what it was like to care for a child. Her own life was relatively easy. She had a lovely apartment on Russian Hill, one of the nicer sections of San Francisco. She took most of her meals out. She had a maid come in once a week.

  Rachel’s house was clearly a children’s home. Dirty laundry was stacked in the hall. Toys were scattered all ; over the place. Carrie had tripped on a toy fire truck coming down the hall. How had her sister managed all this while holding down two jobs? Rachel was amazing. The phone rang and she went to the wall phone to answer it.

  “My name is Sherry Lafayette,” a woman’s voice said. “Is this Rachel Simmons?”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “No,” the woman said. “I saw you on television yesterday. I heard the things you said about that officer.”

  “What officer?”

  “Grant Cummings.”

  Carrie started to say she was Rachel’s sister, then stopped herself. She wanted to hear more. “Do you know him?”

  “I don’t want to talk over the phone,” Lafayette said. “Can we meet somewhere?”

  Carrie had no idea what hotel Rachel had stayed at the night before, and the plan was for her to surrender herself at the DA’s office before ten o’clock that morning. Carrie wanted to get to the courthouse before her sister, thinking she could introduce herself to Mike Atwater and see if there were any new developments in Rachel’s case. “Sure,” she said. “Name a location and I’ll be there.”

  “There’s a Catholic church at the comer of Adams Road and Parker. Can you be there in fifteen minutes? I’ll meet you inside. They leave the doors unlocked.”

  “I’ll try like hell to be there,” Carrie said, glancing over at Joe. The boy was still in his pajamas. Getting I It his clothes on was like wrestling with an alligator. Last night, she had gotten his pajama top stuck on his head, and Joe had sunk his teeth into her hand. She started to ask the woman to give her more time, then realized she was listening to a dial tone.

  After depositing Joe, still dressed in his pajamas, next door at Lucy’s via the backyard, Carrie returned to her sister’s house to retrieve her purse off the living room sofa. When she walked out the front door, she saw a car parked a few doors down at the curb, the man inside sleeping. The second she gunned the engine of the Pathfinder, he jumped out of the car and raced over. “I’m with the Globe,” he said. “We want to buy exclusive rights to your story.”

  “Shove off, idiot,” Carrie said, prying his hand off the window and quickly rolling it up.

  “We’re prepared to pay a lot of money,” the man yelled, waving what looked like a contract.

  Carrie threw the gearshift into reverse and stepped on the gas. He chased the car down the driveway, the paper fluttering in his hand.

  Arriving at the church a few minutes after the appointed time, Carrie hurried inside. The church was dark and musty. A dim light filtered through the stained glass windows. She smelled incense and candle wax, the rich oil they used to rub down the wood in the pews. Clothing rustled near the altar. Carrie headed down the center aisle to the front of the church. Seeing a figure in a black raincoat kneeling inside one of the pews, she entered the row and took a seat beside her.

  “Who are you?” Sherry Lafayette said, panicking. “You aren’t the woman I saw on television.”

  “I know,” Carrie said, taking hold of her arm so she wouldn’t flee. “I’m Rachel’s sister, Carrie Linderhurst.

  She couldn’t come because she’s tied up with the cops. Please, tell me what you know about Grant Cummings.”

  At thirty-two. Sherry Lafayette was an attractive woman. Her hair was dark and wavy, her body slender inside the raincoat. She remained silent for a few moments, then seemed to accept Carrie’s sincerity. “It happened last year,” she began. “It was the week before Christmas. My family owns a small toy store in Oak Grove. I stayed late to take inventory and clean up the stock room. I guess my father accidentally set the alarm when he left, out of habit. When I was ready to leave at around eleven that evening, I forgot to look at the alarm panel and just pushed the button we use to arm the system as I walked out the door. When the system is already armed, I discovered, that button sends a signal to the alarm company that we’re being robbed.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to talk about this,” she said. “I haven’t spoken of that night since it happened.”

  “Please,” Carrie said, lightly touching her hand.

  “The audible alarm didn’t sound,” the woman continued, “but a police officer stopped me just as I was about to get into my car in the rear parking lot. He had his gun drawn on me. Once I told him who I was and showed him my identification, he returned to the store with me so I could reset the alarm. He was handsome and talkative, charming in a sort of overbearing way. He asked me to go for a cup of coffee with him, but I declined, telling him I needed to get home. The Christmas season is exhausting in our business, and I was under a lot of stress. My father is in his late sixties, and the main responsibility for the business had fallen on my shoulders. The police officer seemed put off by my rejection. He kept insisting until he made me angry. I told him to fuck off. That was a mistake, a bad mistake.” She cut her eyes to Carrie. “He wrestled me to the floor. He beat me senseless. He made me perform oral sex on him, then sodomized me.”

  “Why didn’t you report this?” Carrie said.

  “I was too afraid,” she said. “He told me no one would believe me. He said people always take the word of a police officer over that of an ordinary citizen. He said if I tried to report what he had done to me, he would come back and kill my entire family. He said he had the power to monitor my phone calls, have me followed. No matter where I went, he could always find me.”

  “Are you certain this man was Grant Cummings?”

  “Are you kidding?” Lafayette said, her eyes flashing. “I’ve seen him many times since the attack. He stops by the store. Sometimes he parks outside and watches me through the front windows. Other times the bastard comes inside and shoots the breeze with my father, as if nothing ever happened between us.”

  Carrie’s eyes went to the crucifix. “He maintains control that way. That’s what rape is all about, forcing your will on someone, making them feel they’re powerless.” Yet beyond the sympathy she felt, excitement at what this might mean to Rachel was rising. She had to get Lafayette to come forward. “Will you talk to the authorities now?”

  “I don’t know,” Lafayette said, her hands trembling. “He’s a police officer. How can I go to the police?” She turned to slip out of the pew, but Carrie grabbed an edge of her raincoat.

  “The man’s paralyzed,” she said, her voice echoing in the sanctuary. “He can’t hurt you anymore. If you come forward, it will confirm what he did to my sister. If not, she may go to prison.”

  “I’m too afraid,” she said. “Who would I talk to?”

  “I’ll handle it,” Carrie said, reaching into her purse for a pen and a scrap of paper. “Write down your address and phone number. I’ll contact the DA’s office and arrange for them to take down your statement.”

  Sherry pushed the pen and paper away. “I can’t handle a trial,” she said, burying her head in her hands. “How can I tell this story in an open courtroom, read about it in the newspaper? For so long, I’ve felt so weak, so contemptible. I let him brutalize me and get away with it. If I had come forward and told the truth, I
could have stopped him, prevented him from hurting other women. I was a coward.” She looked at Carrie in a plea for understanding. “I couldn’t do it. I was certain if I did, he’d come back and kill my family.”

  Carrie draped her arm over the woman’s shoulders. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” she said. “You might have been right. Sherry. If you had reported the assault when it occurred. Grant’s buddies at the police department could have covered it up. Now that Rachel’s come forward, though, you have nothing to fear. You’ll never have to talk to a police officer. I promise.”

  Comforted, Sherry Lafayette wrote her address and phone number down on the paper, then handed it to Carrie. “I respect your sister for what she’s done,” she said, “I’ll try my best to help her.”

  Ratso gave Jimmy Townsend a ride home in his dilapidated Chevy Nova, pulling to the curb in front of his house shortly before eight Wednesday morning. “Forget what Miller said last night about Rachel,” Townsend told him. “He was talking out of his asshole. Nobody’s going to kill anyone.”

  “Why?” Ratso said.

  “Look, pal,” the hefty officer continued, “I like you, okay, but some of the things you say are a little strange. Why didn’t you tell me you were from Pakistan? What’s the big secret? Why would you want people to think you’re Mexican?”

  “I didn’t want the officers in the department to look down on me,” Ratso said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “You think because I’m from Pakistan that I’m an inferior human being. People in this country have more respect for black gangsters than they do for people like me.”

  “Well,” Townsend said, thinking the man had a point, “I don’t look down on you, Ratso. I don’t give a shit where you came from. We’re all the same, you know. Just because your skin is different doesn’t mean you’re an inferior person. I’m not like that, man.”

  Ratso’s eyes shone with pleasure. “You are an honorable man,” he said. “I will be your friend for life. I have never heard words so eloquent.”

  Townsend glanced at his watch. The nurse he had hired still had another hour left on her shift. “Tell you what. Why don’t we get ourselves some breakfast?”

  “Of course,” Ratso responded, honored that the man wanted to eat with him. No one but Grant had ever asked to share a meal with him. Most of the time he passed the night without food, cooking his meal when he got to his apartment.

  Townsend cracked open his wallet, finding only a few bills inside. “You got any money on you?”

  Ratso smiled, depressing the gas pedal. “I will pay. I have money. For a friend, I always have money.”

  Rachel stepped up to the reception desk at the DA’s office Wednesday morning at 9:33. She had not brought a change of clothing when she had left the house the night before. By the time she’d finally checked into the Marriot around midnight, she’d been so drained, she had passed out on the bed without removing her clothes. Her shirt was wrinkled, and her jeans felt as if they had shrunk on her body after being soaked by the rain. Her hair had dried into a mass of tangled red curls. “I need to talk to someone,” she said.

  “Oh, my God,” the receptionist exclaimed, “you’re Rachel Simmons.” She glanced down at her desk. “I was just reading about you in the newspaper. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

  “Do you know which DA has been assigned to my case?” she asked politely. “I’m here to turn myself in.”

  The woman picked up the newspaper and placed it on the top counter. Rachel saw her picture on one side of the front page. Smaller photos of Cummings, Miller, Townsend, and Ratso were encased in a black-bordered box on the opposite side, under the caption, “COPS IN THE HOT SEAT.”

  “Would you sign your name across your picture?” the woman asked, looking on her phone list for Blake Reynolds’s extension.

  “I’d rather not,” Rachel said.

  “Why?” the woman asked. “Now that you’re famous, your autograph might be valuable.”

  Rather than make a scene, Rachel wrote her name across her picture. The woman thanked her, then buzzed her in through the security doors. “Blake Reynolds will see you. His office is the third door on the left,” she told her. “I’ll ring him and tell him you’re here.”

  People stared at her as she passed through the open area where the clerical staff worked. She bowed her head, her face burning in shame. Before this was over, the world would know everything there was to know about her. Her past, her mother’s occupation, the fact that she had once been kidnapped and held hostage, the things Grant had done to her. Once you passed into the public domain, people thought they had a right to ask you for your autograph, invade your privacy, hound you relentlessly. She ducked into Blake Reynolds’s office. He was speaking on the phone. When he saw her, he quickly hung up. Dennis Colter was slouched in a chair facing his desk. Seeing Rachel in the doorway, he craned his neck around to look at her.

  “Didn’t we go to high school together?” Colter said, smiling.

  “Yes,” Rachel answered, focusing on Blake Reynolds as if no one else was in the room.

  “You’re the girl who was kidnapped, right?”

  Rachel ignored him, speaking to Reynolds instead. “I came to turn myself in.”

  “I spoke to Mike Atwater early this morning,” Reynolds said, motioning for Rachel to have a seat in the remaining chair. “He’s been looking for you. Something has turned up regarding Grant Cummings that might have an impact on your case.”

  “Like what?” Rachel asked, although her voice held no excitement.

  “If you don’t mind,” Reynolds said to Colter. “I think it would be better if I spoke to Mrs. Simmons privately.”

  “But we’re old friends,” Colter said, eager to cash in on his acquaintance with Rachel now that she was front-page news. “Didn’t I ask you to dance one time and you refused? I think it was the Valentine’s dance at school. You had on a red dress with a bow in the back.”

  “I didn’t go to dances,” Rachel said. She had walked the halls of her high school unnoticed, afraid of her own shadow. Colter had been a football player, one of the most popular boys at the school. In the three years she had attended high school with him, he had never said one word to her. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

  “No,” Colter insisted, “I remember your red hair. I’m certain you attended that Valentine dance.”

  “That’s enough, Dennis,” Reynolds said, coming from behind his desk to shoo him out of his office. Turning back to Rachel, he said, “I’m sorry. This is so big now that everyone wants to get in on the action.”

  Celebrity lawyers. Famous criminals. Rachel shook her head, sucking a portion of her lower lip into her mouth. What was happening was ugly and tawdry. Why would people want to become involved? “What were you talking about earlier? You mentioned a new development.”

  “Oh, yes,” Reynolds said, returning to his desk and putting on his reading glasses. The young attorney had a baby face—small nose, large eyes, smooth skin. The heavy frames on his glasses made him look older and more professional. “Your sister received a call this morning from a woman by the name of Sherry Lafayette,” he said. “We have someone on the way to her house right now to take a statement from her. She says Grant Cummings raped and sodomized her last year around Christmas.”

  Rachel leaned forward, her heart pounding in her chest. “I knew he was a rapist.”

  “Well, it looks as if you were right,” Reynolds said, making a little clicking noise with his mouth. “I’m also looking into the other incidents you mentioned, the attacks that occurred in the orange grove near your house. One of the victims committed suicide last year. The other woman moved out of the state. We’re trying to track her down.”

  Rachel felt a heavy sensation in her chest. “You mean, this Sherry Lafayette is not one of the women from the orange grove?” Her mind was spinning. How many women had Grant brutalized?

  “No,” he said. “Cummings attacked her while he
was on duty, after she accidentally set off a holdup alarm in her father’s toy store.”

  “He threatened to kill her if she reported it, right?”

  “More or less,” Reynolds said, pressing his glasses into his nose. “We spoke to the family of the woman who killed herself. They say she never got over the attack. She became agoraphobic, refusing to leave the house. She gassed herself by letting her car run in a closed garage.”

  Rachel gasped. A few moments later, she said, “How will this affect me?”

  “The status of your case might be better discussed with a defense attorney,” he told her. “All I can tell you legally is it certainly can’t make matters worse for you. Sherry Lafayette coming forward is a huge break. It confirms everything you’ve said about Grant Cummings, about the threats and intimidation he made to you following the assault.”

  “It doesn’t clear me, though,” she said.

  “I can’t give you legal advice,” Reynolds said, doodling on a yellow notepad. “But I will tell you one thing to give you at least some insight into your present legal dilemma. With what we’ve learned this morning, you’re moving closer to vindication.”

  Rachel’s eyes expanded. “Does that mean you’re not going to arrest me?”

  “No,” he said, dropping his pen. “If the case is going to go down. Bill Ringwald wants it to go down in the courtroom. When we get to the preliminary hearing stage in a few weeks, the judge could put a stop to it then. He could refuse to hold you to answer in superior court.” Rachel’s face fell at this news, and Reynolds moved on brusquely. “Who’s going to represent you?”

  “Carrie Linderhurst,” she said. “She’s my sister.”

  “You need a competent defense attorney,” Reynolds said. “I know most of the attorneys who practice criminal law around here. I’ve never heard of your sister.”

  “Her practice is in San Francisco,” Rachel said, deciding it made no sense to tell him that Carrie didn’t specialize in criminal law.