Precious Blood

by Jonathan Hayes

  She said, “Dr. Jenner. My name is Ana de Jong . . .”

  He’d recognized her from the hallway photos. Apparently, he’d been wrong about the second victim.

  “How did you get in?”

  She started to shake. “Please . . . My uncle . . . He said I should come . . . He had keys to your loft in his studio downstairs.”

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  He, Douggie, and Jun all kept keys for one another’s apartments. “He told you to just come into my loft? When was that?”

  She began to cry, slow, coarse sobs racking her body, and as she bent, she let the raincoat fall open, and he saw the blood smeared on her sweatshirt.

  “You’re hurt—”

  “I . . . I cut myself . . . Climbing over a wall.”

  She dropped to her knees, her face in her hands; there was blood on her fingers, too.

  He said, “I’m going to call 911—I want you to go to a hospital, and I have to tell the police you’re alive.”

  She shook her head urgently. “No! No police! ” She was biting her lip, eyes filling with tears. “Please . . . you can’t call the police.” She laid her arm across her belly. “It’s just cuts—really, just cuts . . . It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  The blood on her clothes seemed mostly dry. He stood, waiting for her to stop sobbing.

  When she didn’t stop, he said, “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

  She straightened, sniffling.

  He was silent a second, then asked if she needed a lawyer.

  She looked at him, eyes wide, and said, “A lawyer? Why would I need a lawyer?”

  “I know about your roommate. And now you’re here, covered in blood, and you won’t let me call the police.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I think perhaps you should speak with a lawyer—”

  “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! You know about Andie?

  Is she . . .” Her voice trailed off as she mouthed the word.

  She was lying to him now—how could she have got out of the apartment and not known her friend was dead? She was manipulating him—enough. He stood, picked up the phone, and dialed Garcia.

  “Who are you calling? ”

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  “The detective leading the investigation into your friend’s death.”

  “Please don’t . . .” She grabbed his arm. “Please, Dr.

  Jenner. My uncle said you’re his friend, and that you’d help me.”

  Voice mail. Jenner left a message, asking Garcia to call.

  “Listen, this is your business, not mine: you can leave if you want. But if you’re going to stay, you’ve got to talk with Lieutenant Garcia.”

  She stood in front of him, trembling, twisting the bloody cuff of her sweatshirt sleeve. Looking down, he saw her jeans were covered with doodles, little hearts and random figures in ballpoint pen. When she looked at him, her gaze reminded Jenner of an automatic camera trying to focus when its batteries were too weak.

  He shook his head.

  “Come into the kitchen and sit down—you look exhausted.”

  She asked if she could use his bathroom. He waited for her at the kitchen table. When he heard her in the bathroom, crying hard, he got up, turned the taps on, and noisily banged pans and plates around in the sink.

  After a quarter of an hour, the bathroom door slid open, and she came over to the kitchen area. He motioned to a chair, and she sat, holding her stomach a little gingerly.

  “It hurts?”

  She nodded.

  “I should look at it. You want some water?”

  She shook her head, then jumped up as the entry phone buzzer rang. Jenner picked up to see Rad’s face on the monitor. “Hey, Jenner, let me up—I’ve got follow-up.”

  Jenner buzzed him in.

  He turned to her.

  “Miss de Jong, Lieutenant Garcia’s a good cop. He’ll be straight with you. If you haven’t done anything wrong, tell him what happened, and I promise he’ll help you.”

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  She rubbed her eyes wearily. “You know him?”

  “Maybe ten years now.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Look like?” Jenner blinked.

  She was serious.

  “Hispanic, early forties. Average height, a little thick in the middle. Black hair, mustache. Why?”

  “And you trust him?”

  “With my life.” It was true.

  She stood in front of him, hugging her shoulders, and said,

  “I don’t have much choice.”

  “I also know some good defense attorneys.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer. I just need someone I can trust.”

  She slipped back into the bathroom. Jenner shrugged, and opened the door to wait for Rad.

  Garcia walked in, coat over one arm, paper coffee cup in the other hand.

  “So, there’s been a development: apparently there was a 911 call early this morning. The patrol responded to 311B, found nothing, and called it in as a false alarm. The original call came from a phone box over on Avenue B, so they couldn’t do anything else.”

  Garcia was nosing around by the counter. “You got decent coffee, Jenner?”

  Jenner shook his head. “Actually, I was just about to go back to bed.”

  “So why did you call . . .”

  He trailed off, staring over Jenner’s shoulder, seeing Ana de Jong in the bathroom doorway.

  Jenner made the introductions. Garcia nodded warily. “You okay? You know, we’re looking for you . . .” He sat down.

  “I was hiding.”

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  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want to die.”

  Rad shook his head and sat heavily in Jenner’s armchair.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Where were you?”

  “In a Laundromat over on Avenue B, then in my uncle’s loft downstairs.”

  He was watching her closely. “Were you in the apartment when your roommate . . .”

  She nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I did. That was me calling from the pay phone near the Laundromat.”

  Garcia motioned for Jenner to join him away from the kitchen area. He spoke quietly. “I’m thinking this might be a better place to talk to her than over at the precinct.”

  He glanced at her, then turned back to Jenner again.

  “Whatever happened, the kid looks like she’s had a rough night.”

  She sat down opposite them. She made a little grimace and said, “It’s like a job interview.”

  Garcia made a show of opening his notebook, taking out his pen. “Okay, Ana. I want you to tell us exactly what happened.”

  She hesitated; the uncertainty made her seem terribly, terribly young.

  He pressed her, his voice soft. “Ana, listen: I’m trying to help you. If I was doing this by the book, I’d bring you in right now.” He paused. “Basically, you tell your story here, or you tell it at the precinct. Your call.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Here.”

  She sat. She clasped her hands, working her thumbs together, looking down at the floor. But when she tried to start, the tears returned; Garcia got up and sat next to her, draping his big arm over her shoulder as she wept.

  She looked up at Jenner, face flushed and wet. “I think I need a drink.”

  Garcia looked to Jenner and nodded.

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  Jenner poured her a large scotch and set the tumbler in front of her. She took the glass and took a big gulp, then made a face. She sniffled a little and looked down at her hands.

  Garcia looked at her in mock suspicion and jostled her shoulder. “Hey! Are you even old enough to be drinking this?”

  She wiped her eyes and said with a weak smile, “I’m twenty-one.” She t
ook a sip of whisky, coughed, then said,

  “I’m sorry—I’m not used to this stuff.”

  Jenner sat at the table. “Can you tell us what happened now, Ana?”

  She nodded. And then she began, her speech quiet and halting.

  “Andie and I were in Cancun for Thanksgiving. We just got back this afternoon—we hadn’t even finished unpacking.

  We got pizza, and then Andie had to work on her law school Web page, so I went into my room and lit up a blunt. It was like, maybe, ten p.m.? I heard the buzzer, and a minute later Andie came running in and told me to put out the joint because there’s a cop outside. I was freaking out, but Andie said just stay in my room because he was just there about something for school.”

  Realizing what she’d just admitted, she turned to Garcia; he was scratching away in his notepad, not reacting. Reassured, she went on.

  “So I closed the door and opened my window to air the room out. I heard Andie say she was alone, but then they went into the living room, and I couldn’t hear them so well.

  “I was pretty high, so I just lay there and waited. After a while I realized that Andie wasn’t talking anymore, just the guy. Then I heard her kind of . . . screech.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I picked up the phone, but it was dead, and my cell was in the kitchen. I got up to see what was Precious Blood

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  going on, but before I opened the door, I heard him hit her, hard, and I heard her fall, and then I got really scared.”

  Her shoulders were shuddering. “And then I didn’t do anything . . . ”

  Jenner said, “If you’d tried to do something, he’d have killed you. There was nothing you could have done—you have to understand that.”

  A tear was trickling down her cheek. “You weren’t there.”

  “No. But I saw what he did.”

  She gave a dismissive half shrug, then sharply pulled the glass toward her and took a good belt of scotch; this time, there was no grimace.

  She wiped her mouth, then continued, her jaw set.

  “First thing he did was turn on the TV, really loud. Then he started moving all around the apartment, searching. I heard him go into the kitchen, then the telephone suddenly jerked and started sliding toward the door—he was following the cord to my bedroom. I got under my desk just as he came in.

  “He yanked the bed away from the wall like it weighed nothing, then went through the closet, and then he came over behind the desk. I thought he’d found me, but he just opened up the wardrobe. His feet were right next to my head; he was wearing army boots and they had pink mud on them, and I could smell blood. But he didn’t look under the desk.”

  She took another gulp of whisky.

  “Then he went to the bathroom, and then Andie’s room.

  When I heard him start to go in her room, I went into the kitchen, but I couldn’t find my cell. I could hear her moaning. I heard him coming back, and I hid under the counter until he went back to the living room.

  “There are window guards in the kitchen, but I figured if I made it to the bathroom at the end of the hall, I could try to climb down the trellis into the garden.

  “That’s when she started to scream. He must have stuck something in her mouth, because she suddenly stopped. It 26

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  was like I was paralyzed—I knew he was hurting her, and I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t move.”

  Seeing her start to shake, Jenner said, “About what time was that?” Keep her focused on the details.

  She shook her head. “Maybe eleven p.m.? A little later, maybe.”

  He nodded. “Then what happened?”

  “I was too scared to move. I just lay there under the kitchen counter, trying not to breathe. Smelling the linoleum and just . . . listening to him doing stuff to her. I kept telling myself, he’s going to rape her and then he’ll leave, and then it will be over, and we’ll be okay in the end. But then I heard the drill.”

  She picked up the tumbler and drained it, then put it back on the table. She looked at Jenner, then slid the glass to him.

  He poured and set the tumbler in front of her.

  “He turned up the TV real loud, but I could hear him using the drill, like . . .” She breathed slowly, concentrating, then continued, stronger now. “It didn’t sound like when you drill wood.

  “That went on for a while. And he was talking to her, but she wasn’t saying anything. Then I heard the whipping sound, over and over, and she wasn’t making any noise. And he kept talking to her, but I just knew she was dead. I could feel it. And I think he was taking pictures, too; I think I heard a Polaroid camera—I recognized that sound when the print comes out.”

  “And you were in the kitchen? Did you see a flash or anything?”

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember. She shook her head.

  “No, I didn’t see a flash. But I was tucked all the way under the counter, and I wasn’t looking out. I knew if he came back to the kitchen to get his stuff, he’d find me—he’d left his badge on the table, and his jacket was on a chair, with his walkie-talkie.”

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  Garcia asked if she’d got a good look at the badge; she hadn’t. It looked like a typical white metal police badge.

  Jenner asked if Andie made any noise after she’d first heard the camera.

  “No, I don’t think so. But the TV was really loud. And there was some kind of burning smell—I don’t know what that was.”

  Garcia said, “Did you see or smell smoke?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t like a smoky smell, more chemical, like metal or something. I didn’t recognize it.

  “I was trying not to hear what he was doing to her. It took him a long time, and then he stopped moving around, but he didn’t leave. I was lying there waiting for him to come in and find me and hurt me, but he stayed in the living room. And then I realized he was just watching TV. And that was when I decided I was going to get out of there alive.”

  She looked up at them, her words now fast.

  “I checked his jacket for his gun, but it wasn’t there. So I took a kitchen knife and started to crawl down the hallway to the bathroom, trying to stay in the shadows. I’d only made it halfway to her door when he said,

  “Ana?”

  She lunged to her feet and ran, but he was incredibly fast. His fist grabbed her hair, jerking her backward, the knife flying out of her hands, her hair ripping out of her scalp as she spun around the corner.

  She stumbled to the door handle, slammed the door hard on his reaching hand. He gasped and pulled back.

  She closed the door and slid the bolt, and he was instantly pounding at the door, trying to kick it in. She ran to the window, threw it open, and screamed as she tried to squeeze through the bars, the whole room booming as his foot smashed against the door.

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  and out, trying to wedge herself through the gap. There was a shattering noise as he burst through, and she pushed hard, and finally swung out onto the trellis, but immediately lost her grip and fell onto the trash barrels fifteen feet below.

  Half-conscious on the wet flagstones of the yard, unable to breathe, she looked up; he was standing there in the window, looking down at her in the rain. His face and chest were covered in blood—he was naked.

  He was smiling through lips smeared with Andie’s blood, smiling at her as he said, “Ouch! That had to hurt!”

  He watched her struggling to catch her breath, struggling to crawl.

  “Run along. I’ll come for you so we can play later . . .”

  Then she was crawling, moving across the rotting leaves and glistening flagstones toward the back wall.

  “But where will you go? No more Mommy. No more Daddy. Poor little Ana! All alone . . .”

  He heard her sob, and his tone changed abruptly.

  “I hope yo
u’re not crying for that bitch! You know, she wasn’t really your friend. I’d barely started on her when she gave you up: she told me you were there, tried to get me to play with you instead!” He laughed sharply. “I didn’t believe her, but I guess the little whore was telling the truth . . . So, where were you hiding?”

  She’d reached the sundial now, and managed to pull herself to standing.

  He started to clap slowly, the sounds echoing in the wet garden. Then he stopped and said, “You do know there’s nowhere you can go, don’t you? Wherever you go, I’ll come for you. And I’ll take you away, and make you special, too.”

  “Then I climbed up onto the sundial and pulled myself over the wall; I cut myself on the bottle glass in the concrete Precious Blood

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  on top. I went through the yard, out the gate onto Sixth, yelling the whole time, but it was cold and pouring, and there was no one on the street. No one to help . . .”

  She breathed out. Jenner could smell the alcohol on her breath; when she spoke, he realized she was starting to slur her words. “I called 911 from the pay phone on B, but then I thought, what if they send him? So I ran to the all-night Laundromat and called my uncle’s satellite number, but couldn’t get through. Someone must have called 911 for me, because the cops came to the Laundromat pretty quick.”

  She gave a little smile. “But I was already moving by that time—they drove straight past me. I stole the raincoat from the Laundromat and ran to your building. It took forever to get through to Uncle Douggie from his apartment; he told me to call 911, but when you dial 911, they know where you’re calling from, so I wouldn’t. He couldn’t dial 911, so I gave him Andie’s home number in Boston to tell her dad.

  “He called later, and said he couldn’t reach you, but I should just go on up to your loft. And that you were one of his best friends, and you were going to help Andie’s dad, and you would help me. And I said I would, but I was scared, I guess. When I finally went up, you were gone.”

  She looked at Jenner and flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean to just, like, break in like that. I knocked, but there wasn’t any answer, and I couldn’t stay in the hall, so I went in.”

  Jenner said, “Why didn’t you say anything when I got home?”

  “I didn’t hear you come in—I think I fell asleep for a little.

  I was in your TV room. I heard you in the shower; I waited a bit until you were, like, decent.”