No Place Like Home

by April Hill

  "Jesus Christ!" Hank shouted when he saw me. "What happened?" I guess I looked worse than I thought, because right away, he asked Starides if anyone had called for an ambulance.

  "I don’t need an ambulance!" I wailed, and then, of course, I came completely unglued. Hank and everybody else in the room apparently already had it in their heads that I’ve been raped, and in his best policeman manner, Hank started trying to elicit some intelligent information, holding me the whole time and trying to calm me down.

  "I don’t need a doctor!" I screeched, finally. "Nobody raped me, and I’m not hurt!"

  Hank stopped stroking my hair, and looked at me like I was crazy. Starides and Avila just looked confused.

  "Take a deep breath and just tell me what happened," Hank asked quietly. He was holding me at arm’s length, and talking to me calmly, in the same placid tone of voice he probably used persuading people not to jump from tall buildings.

  "Somebody got in the house," I said, trying hard to remain calm and explain. "And…beat me up, I think."

  "You think?" Hank repeated. He looked at me again, and saw of course, no marks on my lovely face or person. He turned to the other cops, who shook their heads vigorously.

  "We didn’t see nothin’ Hank,” said Demetrius. “And I swear to God we never took our eyes off the place."

  "Not...beat up," I mumble, "Exactly."

  Hank was trying to be patient. "What, exactly?"

  When I shook my head and began to blubber uselessly, Hank took matters into his own hands, pulled off the bedspread, and began inspecting me, inch by inch. Like the gentlemen they had already proven themselves to be, Starides and Avila turned around.

  "Shit!" Hank murmured, when he arrived at the single area of injury. "What the hell…! What was he...What did the son-of-a-bitch use?"

  I shrugged.

  "I’m not really hurt, Hank, I promise,” I pleaded. “ Call off the ambulance. Please!"

  He pulled me closer. "Sorry, babe. I can’t do that. You need to tell me what happened, and you need a doctor. Did you get a look at whoever did this to you"

  I shook my head miserably, and heard the ambulance shrieking up the hill and into the driveway.

  In one of my least successful attempts at humor to date, I said:

  "I don't need an ambulance. All I really need is maybe twenty or thirty band-aids. Big ones, maybe?"

  At the hospital, I endured several awful hours of questioning by an assortment of doctors, a few policemen, and one very nice woman from the rape crisis center, all of them hideously polite, and each of them bending over backwards not to comment on the unusual nature of my injuries. At first I thought they were all just being considerate, but then it came to me that nothing probably surprised these people. They insisted on doing a rape exam, even though I swore to everyone present that I'd been conscious the whole time and knew for a fact that I hadn’t been raped. The examination was horrible, painstakingly thorough, and completely humiliating. Hank stroked my hair and held my hand the whole time and didn’t even complain when I left deep nail marks in his palm. Later, he quietly explained to me that perverts get their jollies in any number of ways, and that my particular pervert may have left "evidence" on me without my knowing it. Even later yet, I was disgusted to learn that he’d been right. The creep had deposited “souvenirs”—on my back, on my bed, and in my newly neatened underwear drawer.

  Hank slept that night at the hospital, in a metal chair next to my bed. Very sweet, but he snored. Romances have been ruined by less.

  The next morning, while I was still asleep, Hank made some phone calls, then came and sat down next to my bed again.

  "Hi," I mumbled incoherently. (The only good aspect of my adventure had been the free drugs.) "What’s up?"

  "They found the...the weapon," he said softly. "Under the couch."

  Suddenly, this information struck me as funny. "The weapon?" I repeated. "The weapon! My God! Why does everything that happens to me have to be like some ridiculous comic opera? I'm almost afraid to ask. What was the 'weapon'?"

  "A couple of wire coat hangers, wrapped in a towel and wound together into two hoops. It’s odd, too. The towel is the reason you weren’t that badly injured. The handle was covered in duct tape, but we didn’t find any prints."

  "You mean, like a rug beater?" I asked. Hank winced at my description, but nodded.

  "How appropriate," I groaned. "A movie freak like ‘moi’ getting the Joan Crawford treatment, and a perpetrator who shares my passion for duct tape, into the bargain. Did you know that you can fix a hem with duct tape, or do your own breast lift?"

  Hank heaved a weary sigh. "That’s not funny," he said. Okay, I admit it. I don’t always know when to be serious.

  "Oh, of course it’s funny, Hank,” I groaned. “Don’t go stupid on me now, when I need you most."

  All that remained of my "injuries" by this time was a hazy memory and a lot of darkish red "loops" on my otherwise flawless ivory backside, but a few minutes later, a nurse who looked and behaved like Attila the Hun came in to tell me I had to spend another night at the hospital. Since there was absolutely no good reason for this that I could see, the announcement irritated the hell out of me, considering how much it was going to cost.

  "Don’t worry about it," Hank said. "I took care of it."

  "I appreciate the gesture, but you just made a really bad financial move, Detective. My credit sucks."

  "I know," he said with a grin. "I ran your TRW, first."

  "Why can’t I just go home?" I whined. "There’s nothing wrong with me, except some very slight bruises. And that I’m insane, of course, but you already knew that."

  "The doctor wants to keep you under observation for one more night. Besides, I want you here until I can check out a couple of things. I’ve got a guard on the door."

  "I want to get out of here," I complained. "And you can take the damned watchdog off the door, too. I’m bored, not afraid. You seem to have some clout around here. Go talk to someone and get me sprung."

  Hank glanced around, apparently to be sure that we were alone, and then, just like that—no more Mr. Nice Guy.

  "What you need to be afraid of is me, kiddo," he said in a stage whisper. "Because if you don’t shut up, and start doing what you’re told for once in your life, I swear I’m going to call the whole damned staff in here and blister your bare, mildly bruised ass in front of everyone who cares to watch. You got that?"

  "God, what a grouch!" I whispered back. "Threatening to beat a bedridden invalid." Still, there was a look in his eye that made me suspect he might actually do it, so I shut my mouth and started thinking about whether to order the chocolate pudding or the Apple Betty for lunch.

  That night, after he got off work, Hank arrived to sleep in the chair next to my bed again, insisting that he was going to take me back to his place the next day, when they let me out. The following morning, though, two very young-looking CSI geniuses (one male, one female) showed up to inform me that they "felt," after an exhaustive eighteen hour investigation, that the assailant was probably just a passing, "opportunistic" intruder.

  Hank lost his customary cool and called the young investigators stupid fucking assholes, and even I was beginning to distrust that "opportunistic" word. When I asked if my attacker’s "M.O." wasn’t just a bit out of the ordinary, the CSI kids explained patiently that the guy was "probably not truly dangerous," but that I should probably move, or maybe find myself a dog and/or a room mate—maybe a 300 pound linebacker, the young lady remarked coyly. I wondered if maybe Demetrius might be interested in being my roomie.

  Hank had another suggestion, though. Two suggestions, actually. The two investigating officers should "stick their theories up their stupid asses, where their heads already are," and I should move into his place at Malibu—permanently.

  There is something about me that I really hate. I have this bizarre tendency to take a stand at entirely the wrong times, on entirely the wrong issues. I had been pant
ing for precisely such an invitation from this man since approximately three hours after we met, and now that he had suggested it, I heard myself refusing.

  "Why the hell not?" asked Hank, as any rational person might under these circumstances. "You’ll be safe there."

  "I’ll be safe at home," I said stubbornly. "You heard them. They think what happened was an ‘opportunistic’ crime. The guy will probably never come back, and never bother me again."

  "And you want to take that chance?" he asked. "What if the teenage geniuses are wrong?"

  "You could get me a gun," I suggested.

  Hank closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, like he was asking God for patience. "Yeah, and you could also blow your damned toe off. No guns."

  "What about that linebacker idea?" I quipped. "It works for me. Something very big, very young, very healthy. What exactly is a linebacker, anyway?"

  He wasn’t amused. "What about cutting the crap and letting me go over there and get all your stuff?" The signs were unmistakable. Hank was losing his sense of humor again.

  "I’ll be just fine," I said, trying hard to sound more mature and less scared than I really was. "I’ll lock all the doors and windows, and…."

  Hank erupted. "Of all the stupid…!"

  "Now you’re calling me stupid, too?" I exclaim, in not very convincing outrage.

  "I’m not calling you stupid," Hank said, in his oh-so-patient voice. "No, you know what? I take that back. I am calling you stupid—for even thinking you’d be safe in that godforsaken rat-trap, after everything that’s already happened. For God’s sake, Karen, this bastard knew your name. " He slammed his hand down on the bed table, spilling a cup of coffee all over the sheet. Now, I was really pissed, and ready for a fight. No one can call one of Mom’s rental properties a rat-trap but me.

  "Of course he knew my name,” I screamed. “It’s on the fucking mailbox! Why don’t you just stay away from my rat-trap, if you don’t like it, and leave me alone? Who asked you, anyway?" I sometimes amaze myself with the wit and originality of my arguments.

  "This discussion is finished,” he said coldly. “I’m moving out of there, today."

  I began to sulk, which has always been one of less appealing traits when I’m not getting my way. "I’ll go and stay with Mom or Mona, then," I said petulantly. "I'm beginning to think I don’t like you as much as I thought."

  "You don’t have to like me," Hank said grimly. "Just do what I tell you, for once."

  "Stop giving me orders!" I shouted back. I stopped just short of sticking my tongue out at him, which was just as well, because I had apparently pushed a couple too many buttons, already. With one quick movement, he flipped me over on the bed, lifted the tail of my fetching, backless hospital gown and slapped each of my bared cheeks, just once, but hard enough to get my full attention. Then he started yanking my stuff out of the tiny hospital-room closet and stuffing into a large plastic shopping bag. I lay there and watched him, astounded at the stern and proprietary nature of not only the smacks, but of his tone. One second later, he seemed to remember why I was here in the first place, and started apologizing.

  "Oh hell, babe, I’m sorry!" he groaned. "I completely forgot about..." He pointed to my lower half, and visibly winced. To tell the truth, that part of me had already recovered very nicely, but I wasn’t about to tell him that, and blow my advantage. He caressed the newly pink area tenderly, which was nice, and kissed me very gently. (No, of course not there!) Next, he actually begged my forgiveness for his momentary oversight, like I believed it was an actual oversight. Still, I was impressed enough by his performance to agree to move to his place.

  Three hours later, I was putting my things away in Hank’s roomy, extraordinarily neat closet and checking out his sparkling clean refrigerator. I was discovering that the man of my dreams had very peculiar eating habits. There wasn’t an Oreo or a chocolate-chip cookie in sight, no cheese puffs in the pantry, and the freezer was totally devoid of frozen pizza and rocky road ice cream. I sat down and made a long, detailed shopping list. It looked like I was going to be here for a while.

  * * *

  Close to a month went by with no signs of progress in apprehending the fellow to whom I was now variously referring as the "Spanking Creep" or the "Phantom Flagellist," neither of which Hank considered funny. But the longer the investigation went, the more ridiculous I felt. I had been interrogated several times, and asked to repeat the tale so often I began to think I was the butt (pardon the pun) of some secret departmental joke. Hank assured me that everyone was taking the whole thing very seriously, but I had my doubts.

  Why was it, I wondered, again, that everything bad that happened to me had a faintly comedic aura about it? When I was a kid, everybody in the entire world got chicken pox in the first or second grade. My schoolmates became virtual moonscapes of livid pox, covered from head to toe with the little beasts. I, on the other hand, developed the foul pox in my senior year of high school, and needed a damned doctor’s note to prove that I wasn’t malingering. Why? Because I had a single, lonely pock—one giant zit-thing in the precise middle of my forehead, like a bulls-eye. I looked like I’d been shot at close range.

  The only bone I’ve ever broken is my big toe, which then became infected and swelled to the size of a zucchini the night before I was scheduled to be maid of honor at my cousin Barbie’s wedding—drop dead gorgeous Barbie. So, the maid of honor lurched down the aisle in lavender chiffon, a floppy purple hat with purple roses— and no shoes. Someone had improvised a bewitching purple satin bandage on my gigantic toe, which gave me a gait like Quasimodo. Barbie's wedding video could have been a huge winner on The World's Most Grotesque Videos

  By this time, while I was relieved that I hadn't been raped, sodomized or brutally butchered, I was also beginning to see my "assault" for what it really was—more humiliating and ludicrous than actually terrifying. And the rest of it? Larry, and Esteban? Just coincidence, most likely. All right, so my neighborhood wasn’t the best place to take a late—night stroll. Not everybody gets to live in Niceville. It was time to go home, before I wore out my welcome with Hank. Besides, living with Mr. Clean is not that easy, folks. I had begun to develop dishpan hands. So, one afternoon, I simply told him I was leaving— again.

  At first, he tried reason, which fell on deaf ears, naturally.

  "Thank you for letting me stay," I said politely. (Mom always taught me to say thank you when I had stayed overnight at someone’s.) "It was very kind of you. To share your bed, and all." (This last part didn’t come out exactly the way I intended.)

  "Well," he said mildly. "I did what I could to show you a nice time. Did you have a nice time, by the way?"

  I started to blush. "Yes, I had a nice time."

  Hank grinned. He wasn’t going to let me off that easily. "Yes, but did you have a very nice time?"

  "Okay, smartass, yes! I had a very nice time. A spectacularly nice time, as you know perfectly well! And if you’re expecting me to fall apart and giggle, you can give it up. I don’t giggle!"

  He smiled. "Funny, that’s not the way I remember it."

  I plopped down on the bed, pouting. "Okay, Hank, what do you want from me?"

  "I want you to admit that you’re wrong, and to unpack that stupid suitcase. Besides, until I say otherwise, that house of yours is still a crime scene."

  "That’s blackmail, and it stinks," I snapped. "I’ll go to Mom’s, then."

  "Sure, you will," he said, chuckling. "Why not Mister Frankie’s?"

  "Okay, I’ll stay at Mona’s for a few days, until you finish at the house." (I was bluffing here. I stayed with Mona once, for three days, and ended up in the emergency room with smoker's cough.)

  Hank stopped smiling. "Drop it, Karen. You’re not going back to that house."

  "That Fleming guy in your office said it’s perfectly safe."

  "Fleming is an incompetent asshole. It’s not safe now, and it’s not going to be safe until we catch the guy. Can you g
ive me one good reason you’d want to go back there, even when we do get this creep? "

  "It’s my home!" I wailed. (Okay, even I didn’t believe this.) "Why can’t you see that I need to do this? Just skip all the testosterone and look at it from my side, for once. Can’t you understand that I’m tired of being the person everybody has to take care of?"

  "That’s a lot of crap," he said, "and a stupid reason for risking your life."

  I stood up and started for the door.

  "I’m going back to my house, and you can’t fucking stop me!" I said coldly. "It’s a goddamned free country!" No, it wasn’t the brightest thing I could have said. I was scared, and mad, and I’d had about twenty minutes sleep in the last three days worrying about all this, but I was also getting just a little fed up with Hank treating me like the village idiot. That’s Mom's job.