by Frank Zafiro
Kahn’ file stared up at him. He snatched it up and replaced it in his active cases drawer. What a waste of time. The worst the guy would get is a verbal reprimand from his sergeant and told to stay away from Life’s Bean Good. He’d just go find another barista. There was a coffee stand on every corner in River City.
Besides, these cases were a smokescreen. They had to be. Hart knew there were things happening out there that he needed to find. Cops stealing. Faking evidence. Beating people. Just because River City was nestled in Eastern Washington, right in the center of the Pacific Northwest, didn’t mean there wasn’t corruption. Maybe not New York or Los Angeles level corruption, but Hart knew it was out there. The cops were covering for each other, that was all.
They thought they were so smart.
But Hart knew they weren’t as smart as him.
1122 hours
Patricia Reno wished there were an easier way to get thin. Jogging was too painful.
She’d started jogging almost a month before, finally tired of the weight that never came off after Joshua, her second son, was born. Sit-ups, she discovered, did not burn fat and she couldn’t afford a gym membership, so she took up jogging.
As her feet thudded heavily on the pavement, she felt her thighs and belly jiggle. Her breasts flopped uncomfortably. She vowed for the tenth time to buy a sports bra. At least she was starting to notice a little difference in her body. She was now able to just squeeze into clothes she’d worn early in her pregnancy.
If only her husband, Roger, would notice.
Patricia's breath labored in and out of her lungs, but she no longer experienced the ragged throat sensation that she had for the first week. Her wind had improved quickly. That made it easier for her to avoid smoking again. She’d quit the day she learned she was pregnant and hadn't started back up yet, but it was hard. Especially since Roger smoked like a chimney.
She spotted the small park less than a block away. As soon as she ran through that, she would only be five blocks from home. That meant four blocks of running, one block of walking to cool down.
Despite the discomfort, Patricia found that she was beginning to enjoy her daily run. She still struggled with it too much to have a chance to think while running, but with two kids to worry about, the solitude was nice. So was the sense of accomplishment. She hadn't stopped during a run since that first week.
The air became cooler as she entered the park and ran along the twisting trail that led into the small wooded area. The tree roots and turns of the trail forced her to adjust her gait. That nearly killed her three weeks ago, but now she did so much more fluidly and deliberately. She watched the ground, not wanting to trip on the damp earth.
She caught a flash of movement, but before her mind could register and identify it, someone forced a towel into her face. A strong arm encircled her waist and carried her several yards before she felt herself hurled to the ground. A hard heavy body fell on top of her. She lay on her back with her right forearm pinned under the small of her back.
The towel restricted her air. She panicked and flailed frantically with her free left hand, struggling to breathe. The cloth slid up, exposing her mouth. She took a deep, ragged breath. An iron hand clamped over her mouth.
“If you scream, I’ll lay the whammo on you.” A male voice rasped in her ear. “Understand?”
Patricia lay still, stunned.
He jerked her head powerfully. “I said, do you understand?”
Patricia nodded, whimpering beneath his hand.
“Good.”
The hand came away from her mouth and Patricia sucked in a grateful breath. He tugged at her waistband, sliding her sweats and panties down over her knees.
Should I resist?
She gulped more air.
Will he kill me?
He pulled her clothing over her running shoes and tossed them aside. She heard them land on a bush, a moment's rustle, then still.
There was a long pause. She heard paper tearing.
Should I beg? Or just be quiet and let him do it?
How could this be happening to me?
She gasped in pain as he thrust inside her forcefully.
“Oh, my sweet little bitch,” he moaned in her ear, thrusting slowly.
Patricia began to cry softly.
“Unnnnh, Unnnnh,” he moaned, pulling the towel more tightly across her face.
Patricia tried to stop crying, but instead she broke into a sob.
He stopped.
She thought for a moment that it had been her crying that made him stop, that it touched him or even enraged him. She stopped crying, quivering as she waited. He lay across her with the dead weight of a spent man. That was when she realized he was done.
After a few moments, he pulled out of her and rolled her onto her stomach. Panic surged through her again. When he pulled the towel from her head, she sighed in relief.
“Don't look up,” he told her gruffly.
She wouldn't. She never wanted to see his face. If she did she would be dreaming of it every night for the rest of her life.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he growled at her. “Or I will find you again and I will lay the whammo on you.”
“I won’t,” she whimpered.
He gave her a shove in the back of the head to reinforce his warning. She took it with a small cry. Then she lay still, breathing in the humid, earthy smell of the damp soil and pine needles.
What is Roger going to say?
When she was sure he was gone, she fumbled with her clothing, lifting them from the damp earth. Numbly, she pulled her panties and sweats over her running shoes. Then she rose on wobbly legs and stumbled home to call the police.
1314 hours
“Adam-254?” Janice Koslowski’s dispatch voice was pleasantly female.
Officer Anthony Giovanni reached for the mike. “Go ahead. I’m at Wellesley and Division.”
“Deaconess Hospital for a rape report. Contact Charge Nurse for victim info. Deaconess for a rape report.”
Gio keyed the mike. “Copy.” Then he muttered, “Thanks a lot, Janice.”
A rape report. That meant a long interview, a long report and then he had to put the rape kit on property. The rape kit was a real pain in the ass, too, requiring some swabs to be placed in the drying room, some blood vials in the refrigerator and some property in the property bins. Gio looked at his watch. It was 1314 hours. This would definitely take him into overtime.
He drove past Franklin Park, wondering for a moment why a south side unit hadn’t been dispatched. Deaconess Hospital was clear on the other side of downtown. The answer came to him almost immediately, though. The rape must have happened on the north side, so a north side unit got sent.
As he dropped down the Division Hill and headed downtown, he did a little bit of quick figuring. Even with the rape kit, he should be done with the call before it got to be too late. Besides, the girl he was seeing that afternoon didn’t get off until three or so. That’d leave him plenty of time to get home, shower and change, rape report or not. And if he didn’t, he figured the girl would wait.
The girl, he thought. Melanie. Or Mallory. Whatever it was. She’d wait.
Six minutes later, he pulled into Deaconess, parking in a slot marked for emergency vehicles only. Before exiting the patrol car, he gathered up his face sheet for the report and a steno pad from his bag. Rape reports needed to be detailed and details were easier to write in a steno pad than the small pocket notepad all officers carried in their breast pocket.
The white-shirted security guard gave him a professional nod as he walked through the sliding doors to the emergency room. Gio nodded back with a small grin, ignoring the metal detector that loomed over fully half the entryway. He could hear the creak of his leather equipment as he walked up to the front desk.
“Charge nurse?” he asked the frumpy, gray-haired R.N. that sat behind the admissions desk doing paperwork. When she looked up, he gave her his best Giovanni hello smile.
The R.N. was unmoved. “No, I’m the Admissions nurse,” she said in a clipped tone. “Are you here for the rape victim?”
Gio nodded.
The R.N. pointed at an open door with a number three hanging above it. “She just finished the exam. Should be about thirty or forty minutes before they have the kit ready for you.”
“Thanks,” Gio said, still smiling.
The nurse gave him a curt nod and returned to her paperwork.
Gio walked to the room. Past the open door was a drawn curtain, providing privacy to the patient in the bed. He paused just inside the entryway. “Uh, ma’am?”
“Yes?” Her voice sounded small.
“Police officer, ma’am. Are you dressed?”
“Yes.”
Gio pushed the light curtain aside and stepped in. He saw a woman about thirty seated on the small bed. Her sandy brown hair was tousled and she wore a pale blue hospital gown. She watched Gio with a hint of shame in her expression.
He felt a flash of guilt for his earlier reaction to getting this call. Yeah, he might be a little late for a date that he wasn’t even going remember a month from now, but that was nothing compared to what this woman had just gone through.
“I’m Officer Giovanni, ma’am.”
She gave him a shaky nod.
Gio smiled softly. “If you want, you can call me Gio.”
The woman took a wavering breath. “Okay. Gio.” She said the word tentatively, as if she were trying it out. “Gio.”
“Can I get your name, ma’am?”
“I’m Patricia,” she answered, her voice still soft. “Patricia Reno.”
Gio noticed the tremor in her voice despite its soft tone. He moved slowly towards the bedside, then stopped. “Do you mind if I stand next to you?” he asked her.
Patricia looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “That’d be fine.”
“Thanks,” Gio said. He moved next to her bedside. Aware that a rape victim had experienced the ultimate loss of control during the assault, he always tried to find ways to restore some measure of control to their lives as quickly as possible. “Do you like to be called Patricia?” he asked. “Or Pat? Or is Mrs. Reno best?”
“Patricia,” she answered. “I go by Patricia.”
Gio still made no effort to open his steno pad. “Is it all right if I call you that?”
“Sure,” she said. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” Gio said. After a short pause, he continued. “Ma’am, I understand you were assaulted.”
Patricia nodded slowly, looking away. Her lip quivered. “He… I was raped.”
“Do you know who did this?”
She shook her head.
“When did this happen?”
“About forty minutes before I came up here, I guess.”
Gio opened his pad and noted the time frame.
“Where did this happen, ma’am?”
She let out a long, wavering sigh. “In a park, about five blocks from my house. I don’t know the name.”
“That’s all right. Where do you live?”
She told him her address. Gio wrote it down.
“Was it possibly Corbin Park?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I know that one. It’s a little park. With some trees…”
Gio nodded. He knew which park she meant. It was about three blocks north of Corbin, just below the hill. He’d have to look up the name on his map.
“That’s good. That will help a lot,” Gio said in an encouraging voice. “Now, do you remember where in the park this happened?”
She took another wavering breath. “There’s a spot on the trail where there’s a break in the bushes. About in the middle of the park. I was running towards my house. It happened there.”
“Okay.” Gio smiled warmly. “Patricia, I am going to call the detectives and send them down there to see if they can find any evidence. Then I’ll be right back to talk with you about the rest of what happened. Will it be all right with you if I take some notes?”
“That’s fine. Could I call my husband, though?”
Gio nodded. “Of course. Or I can call him for you, if you like.”
She thought about it for a moment, then nodded her head. “Yes. That would be better.” She gave Gio the phone number.
“All right,” he said. “I’m going to call the detective, then your husband, then I will be back in about five minutes. Do you need anything? Would you like me to get the nurse?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ll… be okay.”
Gio turned to go.
“Officer?”
He stopped and faced her again. “Yes, Patricia?”
She swallowed nervously and gave him a plaintive look. “Tell me honestly. Is there any chance of catching this man?”
Gio returned her questioning stare with a frank, even gaze. “At this point, I don’t know yet, Patricia. I really don’t. But we are going to try. I promise you that.”
Patricia’s eyes teared up. “It’s just that…he said he’d come back and find me…”
“The most important thing,” Gio said, “is that you’re safe now. You’re here and you’re safe.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her breath caught as she spoke. “I didn’t… I didn’t fight back… I should have done… I could have…”
Gio returned to her bedside. Carefully, he let his hand rest lightly on her shoulder. “Patricia, this wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause this to happen. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have…I should have fought or…”
Gio shook his head gently. “You did what you needed to do in order to survive. That took guts. Just like telling me about this takes guts.”
Patricia thought about his reply, meeting his gaze.
“This is not your fault,” Gio whispered to her.
Slowly, she gave him a small nod in return.
Gio nodded back and gave her a warm smile. Then he left the curtained room to call the Sex Crimes Unit of the Investigative Division. He didn’t bother to glance at his watch.
1428 hours
Detective John Tower replaced the phone receiver with a muttered, “shit.” A rape report. He was in the middle of a nasty date rape case and didn’t need another case dropped on him. But he was up next in the rotation and that was the reason Lieutenant Crawford transferred the call to him.
Unfortunately, this one didn’t sound like much of a workable case, either, Tower reflected as he slid his jacket on and adjusted it around his shoulder holster. The victim didn’t know the suspect. Usually, they did.
Tower shrugged. Well, maybe she’d be able to give a good suspect description. He could check the Department of Corrections records for registered sex criminals and have her look through some photos. He might get lucky.
He picked up the phone and dialed police dispatch. He spoke briefly with the supervisor, Carrie Anne, and asked her to send a patrol unit to the park to secure the crime scene.
Lieutenant Crawford strode into the Sex Crime Unit bullpen. “You headed out on that stranger-to-stranger?”
“Yeah,” Tower replied shortly, hanging up the phone.
“Where’s the vic at?”
“Deaconess.”
Crawford’s unlit cigar poked out of his mouth around his dark, drooping mustache. No matter how hard Tower tried, he couldn’t shake the image that Crawford was actually the actor from the TV show Cannon. He had the balding hair, the heavy stomach and fat cheeks, everything. All he was missing was the bad 1970s suit. He even had the cigar, which he chewed on but dared not light despite his long tenure on the department.
“Keep me updated,” Crawford ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Tower said on his way out the bullpen.
Come to think of it, he thought as he walked down the hall, that was a pretty damn bad suit. Maybe not 1970s bad, but pretty close.
He smiled.
Outside, the clouds were full of gathering blackness and he expected it would rain aga
in before quitting time. Tower started up his car and drove directly to the small park that Officer Giovanni had described on the phone. As he pulled up, he saw that there was only one marked car on scene. He recognized Jack Stone standing near the car, but didn’t know the civilian woman seated in the front seat.
“Hey, Jack,” he greeted the gruff veteran.
“John.”
“Citizen ride-along?” he asked, gesturing toward the woman in the car.
“Yeah,” Stone said with a nod. “She just went through the Citizen’s Academy. Real pro-police. Block Watch captain and everything.”
“Good,” Tower said. “We need all the support we can get.”
Tower turned his attention to the small wooded area just to his north. The park was small by park standards, less than one square block, but it was huge by crime scene standards. He chewed on his lip, considering his best course of action.
“You want some help?” Stone asked.
Tower nodded, still thinking. She had used the trail, so he would start there.
“Let’s do this,” he instructed. “The trail is the center of the park. The victim was pulled from the trail. Let’s start on each side of the trail and walk through the park. We’ll start on the south side and work north. If we find anything, we’ll stop and section it off. Hopefully, we can at least pin down where this occurred.”
Stone nodded. “Okay. Are you going to call out Forensics?”
Tower considered. The Crime Scene Forensic Unit was much better equipped to photograph and collect evidence. But they needed something to work with first. “If we pin down where it happened, we’ll cordon it off and have them come down here and work it.”
“What about bringing the victim down here?”
“If I have to. But I’d rather not, at least not right away.”
Stone shrugged. “What about my rider? Can she help at all?”
Tower considered for a moment, then shook his head. “No. But she can stand at the curb and observe, if she wants to. I don’t want her to accidentally trample evidence.”
