“It’s all right,” she murmured. “You’re all right.”
“Do you know your assailant, Mrs. Doniger?” Officer Takuda asked. “Can you identify him?”
Karen’s head was throbbing. She tried to focus on the policewoman but saw only the uniform, and, with a small groan, she turned her head away. Kelly glanced at Azi, but the rape counselor shrugged and shook her head.
“I guess that’s enough for now,” Officer Takuda said kindly. “Perhaps we’ll be able to get a more detailed statement from you later, when you’re feeling better.”
The call came just before seven o’clock. Ted was so frantic by then that it was actually a relief to hear that Karen was only injured. He had spent much of the night talking to the police and calling every hospital in the city, afraid she might be dead. He reached the Emergency Room just as the two officers were leaving.
“She’s had a bit of shock, Mr. Doniger,” Kelly Takuda said. “And she’s a little banged up. But she’s all right, and the doctor says she can go home whenever she’s ready.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“Why don’t we let her tell you about it,” the policewoman replied diplomatically. There were just some things, she had long ago concluded, that belonged between a husband and wife, at least in the beginning.
Ted knew then, of course, like a knife plunging itself into his heart. There was only one kind of injury that the police hesitated to discuss.
Karen was still huddled beneath the blanket when he entered the cubicle. A redheaded woman was holding both of her hands and talking to her, too low for him to catch the words. He came up and put his hand on his wife’s hair and smiled down at her. Tears of relief that she really was alive and even well enough to be sitting up filled his eyes.
“I was so worried,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No, don’t,” he cried. “It’s enough that you’re all right.” But he saw her eyes slip away from his and knew that she wasn’t all right at all.
The redhead took the change of clothes that Ted had brought along and began helping Karen to dress.
“I’m a crisis counselor,” Azi said, after introducing herself. “I’ve been here since the ambulance brought your wife in.”
He saw the angry bruises on Karen’s thighs and, without either of them saying a word, he knew what kind of crisis counselor Azi Redfern was. The knife twisted itself deeper, and he wanted to scream and bash his fists into somebody’s face, as someone had so obviously done to Karen.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
With some encouragement, Karen managed to stand up, but she couldn’t seem to coordinate her legs well enough to walk.
“I’ll get a wheelchair,” Azi offered.
“That won’t be necessary,” Ted told her. He lifted his wife into his arms as though she were a feather and carried her out of the hospital.
The doorbell rang at two o’clock.
“My name is Lamar Pope,” drawled the giant of a man standing on the threshold. He was dressed in a western shirt and jeans, a leather jacket with fringe, and an exotic pair of tooled leather boots. He handed his card to Ted. It identified him as a sergeant for the Bureau of Investigations, Sexual Assault Division.
“Come in, Sergeant,” Ted invited hesitantly. “My wife is resting. I don’t know if she’s up to seeing anyone yet.”
“I won’t stay any longer than necessary, Mr. Doniger,” Lamar assured him. “But we like to get the facts as fresh as possible, you understand.”
Karen was curled up on one of the pale-green sofas in the living room, inside a cocoon of fuzzy blankets. Azi had just brought her a fresh cup of tea.
“I’d sure like to get a statement from you, ma’am, if I could,” Lamar said after the introductions. “To get the inves tigation going. Tomorrow or whenever you feel up to it, you can come down to the department and make it official.”
Karen looked up at him apprehensively. Azi, noticing, sat down beside her.
“They have women investigators in the division,” she said softly. “We can request one, if you prefer. But you won’t find anyone better than Lamar. He’s not just a great detective, he’s one of the most decent men I know.” She glanced up at him and he gave a short nod. “Twenty years ago, his daughter was raped and murdered by a young man who got off because the prosecution didn’t do its job right. Lamar’s been involved in sexual-assault investigations ever since.”
The heavyset officer with the shock of white hair and bizarre cowboy clothes looked nothing at all like her memory of Michael Haller.
“I guess it’s all right,” Karen consented.
Lamar sat down in the opposite chair and produced a pad, a pen, and a microcassette recorder from various pockets.
“This is so I don’t forget anything,” he said, gesturing to the recorder. “And this,” he said, holding up the pad and pen, “is so that I have something to do with my hands. I’m trying to quit smoking.”
“Would you like something to drink, Sergeant Pope?” Ted asked.
“Well, sir, if that’s tea your wife’s having, I wouldn’t say no to a cup if it was offered.”
Azi went to the kitchen to get the tea and Ted retreated to the study, leaving Karen and Lamar alone.
“I’m sorry about your daughter,” Karen murmured.
“I appreciate that, ma’am,” he drawled. “I surely do.” He pressed the little red button on the recorder. “Well now, suppose you tell me, in your own words and at your own pace, exactly what happened.”
It took Karen almost an hour to recall it all, from the moment Robert had approached her in the downtown parking garage to the moment he left her in Golden Gate Park. Lamar scribbled copious notes, stopping her every now and again to ask for a clarification or a further detail.
And through it all, the soft-spoken giant was kind and gentle and supportive.
“You’re doing just fine, ma’am,” Lamar said when Karen began to falter. “And we’re almost through. Now, you say that, after he forced you to have sex with him, the man got into his car and drove away, and just left you there?”
“I think so,” Karen replied. “I mean, I guess he must have, because I was still there when the jogger came along. But I really don’t remember very much about what happened—you know, afterward.”
“What kind of car was he driving?”
“A Mercedes. Black.”
“What was he wearing?”
Karen thought a moment. “I think it was a gray suit with a little stripe in it, a white shirt and a gray-and-maroon tie. And black loafers with little tassels.”
“All right,” Lamar coached. “You say you met him in the garage and he took you for a drink and then offered to drive you home.”
“He offered to drive me home first and then we went to have a drink,” Karen corrected.
“At any point in the evening, did he happen to tell you his name? Where he lived? Where he worked?”
Karen stared long and hard at the police investigator. He seemed so fatherly, with his white hair and careworn face. But behind the sympathetic blue eyes, she knew, was a keen mind. She wondered if it was also a fair one.
“He didn’t have to tell me his name,” she said finally. “I knew who he was. That’s why I agreed to let him drive me home. I’ve been working as a volunteer at his campaign headquarters for three months. His name is … Robert Drayton Willmont.”
Lamar’s left hand shot out and hit the stop button on the microcassette recorder. He sat there frozen with shock, wondering what the hell he had stumbled into, and why it had been his accursed misfortune to be the investigator on call this particular day.
There was no point in asking if she was positive of her identification. Obviously, she was. There was no point in asking if there were any political motivations behind her accusation. If there were, she would certainly not admit it. There was no point in asking her anything more at all until he had time to digest what he had already heard
.
“I think that about does it,” he said finally. “I will ask you not to discuss this with anyone until the department completes its investigation and decides how to proceed. Due to the rather special circumstances involved here, I think it would be wise if the press were kept out of this as long as possible.”
“I have no intention of talking to the press,” Karen declared with dignity. “Or anyone else.”
Lamar dropped the recorder back into one pocket, stuffed his pad and pen into another, and hefted himself to his feet.
“I thank you for your time, ma’am,” he said. “No need to bother your husband. I can see myself out.”
“Goodbye, Sergeant.”
Karen watched him go. Thirty years ago, it had been a fine, upstanding Harvard law student who had never been in any trouble. Now, it was a United States senator who was seeking the highest office in the land. Her word against his. And another male police investigator. She wondered if there was any justice to be had in the world.
It was evening. Ted had sent Amy off to spend the night with DeeDee because Karen didn’t want her stepdaughter to see her the way she looked. Then he called Natalie.
“She won’t admit it but I know she’s in pain,” he said after a brief explanation. “I need to go out and pick up a prescription the doctor ordered, but I don’t want to leave her alone. Can you sit with her until I get back?”
“Of course I can.”
“I won’t be long.”
Natalie knew her own remedy for pain. She took a full glass of brandy up to the bedroom.
“Drink,” she instructed.
Karen sipped the fiery liquid but it had little effect.
“Did Ted tell you?” she asked through swollen lips.
Natalie nodded. “I can’t believe it,” she lamented. “I feel like this is all my fault. I didn’t argue when you said you were going to join his campaign. I realize now I should have. I guess, way down deep, I wanted to believe he had changed. It just never occurred to me that this could happen twice.”
“Or me,” Karen said. “That’s why I got into the car with him. I thought, well, he’s an important person now, he’s certainly older, and he should be wiser, and besides this is 1992 and he’s got so much to lose, he’d be crazy to try anything— so why should I be afraid?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to do anything. It’s up to the police to decide what they’re going to do.”
“Talk about a bombshell,” Natalie murmured. “Nobody’s going to want to come within a hundred miles of this.”
“You and Ted and the investigator are the only ones who know who it was. If the police don’t prosecute him, I don’t want it going any further.”
Natalie groaned. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
“Please don’t blame yourself,” Karen said. “It’s not your fault. I’m an adult. Whatever I did, I did all on my own.”
Ted held her all night long, rocking her, caressing her. With Natalie’s help, he had gotten some hot soup into her on top of the brandy, but she couldn’t seem to get warm.
“I didn’t tell them,” she said.
“You didn’t tell them what?”
“About… about the other time. They would have thought me so stupid to let it happen again.”
“But shouldn’t they know?”
Karen shrugged. It was so long ago, and it was my word against his. Besides, that was then and this is now, and it would only confuse things.”
He remembered the night, barely six months ago, when she had told him about her first encounter with Robert Willmont. He remembered holding her tight and promising her that he would never let anyone hurt her again.
He was sick inside because he hadn’t been able to keep his promise. He couldn’t understand what kind of man would brutalize a woman, then not even remember it and turn around and do it again. He had not been thrilled when Karen said she wanted to work for the Willmont campaign, but he hadn’t argued all that strenuously against it, either. Not when she was sure it would be a positive step toward putting the past behind her. But now he wished, with the impassioned accuracy of hindsight, that he had objected.
“Save America!” was rapidly becoming a powerful slogan throughout the country, a heady concept that was rallying thousands to the cause every day—and the man behind it all had turned out to be nothing but a brutal rapist.
Ted Doniger was a gentle, caring man, a true Libra, who believed that sufficient good existed in everyone to balance out almost any bad. It was just that, as his father used to say, you had to look a little harder to find it in some. As hard as he now looked, Ted was unable to find sufficient good in Robert Willmont.
He stared into the darkness, choking on an unfamiliar anger that burned so hot inside him that, had he owned a gun, he knew he would have gotten up in the night and used it.
nine
It was a point with Lamar Pope that he never used elevators if he could help it. More a matter of innate impatience than any specific effort at exercise, he habitually walked up to the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice, the solid gray building that occupied a whole block of Bryant Street and looked so oddly out of place in the dismal neighborhood of warehouses, factories, and body shops.
This morning was no exception. Lamar climbed the steps, taking two at a time, and lumbered down the corridor to Room 436, where the Sexual Assault Division was located. Going directly to the rear of the shoulder-high partitioned space, he spent some minutes rummaging through the bottom drawer of his desk before making his way into the lieutenant’s cramped office and dropping heavily into a chair.
It was eight-thirty on Friday and he had been sitting on his bombshell for almost forty-eight hours. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. Lieutenant Mike Perrone had been a policeman for twenty-three years and in charge of investigations for five. There wasn’t a whole lot he wouldn’t believe. Every day, as he got ready to leave for work, he told his wife he didn’t know how much longer he could stand to stay in the Sexual Assault Division. Too many of the victims had begun to haunt his dreams.
“Lay it on me,” he invited.
“Okay,” Lamar nodded. “I’ve got a woman who claims she was raped by Robert Willmont.”
“Senator Robert Willmont?”
“That’s the one.”
Perrone, a medium-sized man with a barrel chest and a thin mustache, threw back his head and guffawed.
“You’re right,” he cackled. “I don’t believe it.”
Lamar shrugged. “The trouble is,” he responded, chewing the end of an unlit cigarette, “it may just be true.”
The smile on the lieutenant’s face slowly faded. “The Prince of Pure? The squeaky-clean people’s advocate? The trumpeter of ‘Save America!’?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. When? Where?”
“Tuesday night, Golden Gate Park.”
“Where’s the report? I haven’t seen anything about it come through. All hell hasn’t broken loose.”
“I buried it,” Lamar declared. “All things considered, I thought that was the smartest li’l ole thing to do until we knew where this was going.”
Perrone nodded. “Okay, what have you got?”
“I’ve got her statement,” Lamar told him. “I’ve got her physical condition. I’ve got all the stuff that the Rape Treatment Center collected, including fingernail scrapings—she says she scratched him pretty good. I’ve got a footprint at the scene. And I’ve got her positive identification.”
“Hell, this smells like a setup to me,” the lieutenant muttered. “What is it—two months before the primary? Shit! That’s a pretty timely coincidence.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Lamar agreed. “That’s why I’ve been playing it so close to the vest. But I have to lay it on the line. I’ve spent the last forty-two hours checking her out. If she’s got any political axes to grind, I can’t find them. On the contrary, everything I�
�ve learned about her so far leads me to believe that she was honestly committed to Willmont’s philosophy.”
“Christ,” Perrone breathed. “You don’t really think it’s possible, do you?”
“Gut feeling?” Lamar asked.
“Yeah.”
“Anything’s possible.”
“What do you want to do with it?”
“I think we’ve got enough for a friendly chat.”
“Well, make sure you cover our asses first, but good,” Perrone said. “What have you done with the stuff?”
“I relabeled the RTC evidence. Now no one but me can find it. I listed the cast we made of a footprint at the scene under a John Doe. I took the report filed by the uniforms that answered the call and the medical report and the photographs that were taken at the hospital and lumped them all under an alias. I erased the mention of his name from my tape record. I guaran-damn-tee you this isn’t going to leak until we’re ready to make a move.”
“All right,” the lieutenant sighed. “Let me look at the report. If I agree with you, we’ll call him in.”
If there was one thing Mike Perrone had learned in the last five years, it was that Lamar Pope was never wrong.
“He won’t come in,” the investigator replied.
“Hell, I know he won’t,” Perrone snapped. “But we damn well gotta follow procedure.”
“I tell you, Hal, it’s absurd,” Robert Willmont raged at his attorney over the telephone. “The woman’s a goddamn liar. This whole thing is a frame, can’t you see that?”
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Hal Sutton replied calmly. “Besides, they just want to talk to you.”
“The hell you say. They’re not going to haul me down there for one of their interrogations like I was some common criminal.”
“I’m sure we can arrange a compromise,” the son of the former senior partner of Sutton, Wells, Willmont and Spauld ing said. “I’ll handle it. But first, you’d better tell me exactly where this is coming from.”
“She’s a volunteer who works at headquarters,” the senator explained. “Her car wouldn’t start, so I offered her a lift home. We went across the street to a bar and had a few drinks and talked for a while. Then, on the way to her place, she got sick or something, asked me to pull over. She got out of the car and disappeared, so I got out, just to make sure she was okay, and the next thing I know, she’s jumping me. I mean, she was worse than those crazy groupies who follow after rock stars. She was all over me, scratching and biting. Hell, I couldn’t get away from her.”
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