RCC03 - Beneath a Weeping Sky

by Frank Zafiro

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 again 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.”

  Stone grunted. “You mean like patrol officers usually do?”

  Tower shrugged, unsure if Stone were joking or if the veteran officer had taken offense. “Hey,” he answered with a grin, “if the crime scene is going to get trashed, I want it done professionally.”

  Stone put his back to the woman in the car, brought his hand up to the center of his own chest and extended his middle finger.

  Tower raised his eyebrows. “Never on a first date.”

  Stone laughed.

  Together they walked to opposite sides of the trail and began their modified line search. Tower’s eyes scanned the ground and the low bushes for anything that could be construed as evidence. He glanced up periodically to make sure he didn’t miss the forest for the trees. To his left, he heard Stone shuffling along.

  Ten minutes into his line search, Tower was sweating profusely despite the overcast weather. He removed his jacket and folded it over the crook of his arm. He felt sorry for Stone, who wore a wool uniform shirt over a bullet-resistant vest.

  As minutes dragged by, his patience wore thin. He’d never been a particularly patient man and because of that, the job of detective often frustrated him. He used to hope that the years of experience would increase his patience level, but all it seemed to do was teach him to cope with the impatience that inevitably rose up. It didn’t take away the tickle of frustration from his gut.

  Tower forced himself to concentrate as he came into a small opening of brush that fit the victim’s description of where the rape took place. He searched high and low, then low and high but saw nothing. The grass did not even appear disturbed.

  “I think this is it,” he told Stone.

  “You found something?”

  Tower shook his head. “No. But this is the only place that fits what she told the officer at the hospital.”

  Stone grunted noncommittally.

  Tower marked the area in his mind and moved on.

  After forty minutes of searching, he reached the north side of the park, which was bordered by a paved street. He waited there, wiping sweat from his brow until Stone comp
leted his sweep.

  “Anything else?” the veteran asked him.

  “Nada. I think that spot I mentioned is where it happened, but the scene looks clean.”

  “Too bad.” Stone wiped the sweat from his forehead and cheek. “It’s muggy out here. I need something cold to drink.”

  “Me, too. Guess I’ll grab something up at Deaconess.”

  “That where the victim went?”

  Tower nodded.

  “This a stranger-stranger or what?”

  “Sounds like a stranger. Did radio put out any calls that might be related to this area? Screaming, suspicious persons, anything?”

  “Nope, not that I heard.” Stone keyed his mike and asked radio if they had received any such calls.

  “Negative,” came the terse reply.

  Stone gave him a shrug. “You think the victim’s making it up?”

  Tower shrugged. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Won’t be the last,” Stone added.

  “Can you throw up some crime scene tape around that area for me?” Tower asked.

  Stone nodded. “How big an area you want roped off?”

  Tower thought about it, then answered. “Make it about twenty by twenty. Center on the break in the bushes by the trail.”

  “Okay. Outer perimeter?”

  Tower waved his hand around the park. “Take the whole park. You don’t have to run tape, though. Not unless you get serious foot traffic. Just keep people out of the park.”

  “I’ll call another unit,” Stone said.

  Tower nodded his thanks and made his way to his car. Once en route to Deaconess Hospital, he plugged his department issued cellular phone into the cigarette lighter and called Forensics.

  Diane answered on the second ring. “CSFU, Diane.”

  “Diane, it’s John Tower. I need you to process a rape scene.”

  “Address?”

  Tower told her where the park was and described the crime scene area. “I don’t know if you’ll find any evidence or not, but at least get some good photographs.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m on my way to the hospital now,” Tower said. “I’ll let you know if I need anything besides the scene processed.”

  “I’ll call if we get anything,” Diane said.

  “Thanks,” Tower replied and broke the connection.

  As he drove, large drops of rain began plopping intermittently onto his windshield. After a few moments, the plops became a steady pour of heavy drops slapping against the glass.

  “Goddamnit,” he muttered. Rain wreaked havoc with any outdoor crime scenes. He sincerely doubted that CSFU would get anything out of their search now.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to stop worrying about the crime scene that he could do nothing about. Instead, he considered the rape itself. Stone had asked if he thought the victim might be lying, but even without meeting her, he doubted it. A daylight, stranger-to-stranger attack was bold. It wasn’t an opportunity rape or a rejection rape. Something like this had to be carefully planned.

  That worried him.

  Tower pulled into the hospital parking lot. He’d been to Deaconess more times than he could count and almost felt like he should have his own parking spot. He settled for the emergency vehicle slot next to a marked patrol car that he imagined belonged to Gio.

  The white-shirted security guard at the emergency room entrance did not know him and started to ask him to step through the metal detector. Tower showed his badge and was waved through. He wondered briefly what the guard would do if a bad guy came to the hospital with a gun and refused to step through the metal detector. After all, the guard himself was not armed.

  He recognized Roberta, the grey-haired, pudgy admissions nurse who pretended to be grumpy at everyone. He’d known her since he first came on the job, back when both of them worked nights. Now, years later, they were both working day tours. Circle of life, he figured.

  He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back, but instead pointed to number three.

  “Is the officer in there?”

  “No. He’s in our break room.” Her tone of voice suggested that in her opinion, Gio was trespassing there. Tower was surprised that Giovanni’s legendary charm hadn’t softened her up.

  “Thanks, Bertie,” Tower said, smiling again. “Did you lose some weight?”

  She gave him a flat gaze. “Hardly,” she answered. He noticed the corner of her mouth twitch upward before she caught herself.

  Almost got ya, Tower thought to himself.

  Officer Giovanni was sipping coffee from a small Styrofoam cup and staring down at his report when Tower entered. He greeted the detective.

  “Anything at the scene?” Gio asked.

  Tower shook his head. “Can you give me a thumbnail sketch of her account? I’ll read your report later.”

  Gio nodded. He took another sip of his coffee and set down his pen. “It’s pretty straightforward. Basically, she was jogging southbound through Clemons Park when a male attacked her. He blindsided her and knocked her down. Then he put a towel or something over her face and pulled her a little ways off the trail. He raped her vaginally, turned her onto her stomach, removed the towel and left.”

  “Any suspect description?”

  “She never saw his face.”

  Tower cursed. Gio sipped his coffee.

  “Did he say anything to her?” Tower asked.

  “Uh, yeah. I wrote it down. Called her a bitch and threatened her. I’ve got the exact quote in my notes.”

  “Did he ejaculate?”

  “She thinks so.”

  “Did the doctor find any semen or anything?”

  Gio shook his head. “No. She told him that the last sexual encounter with her husband had been two weeks ago. Doc said there was trauma and small tears but no fluids.”

  “She a Forty-eight?” Tower asked, using the code for a mentally unstable person.

  “No, not at all. Nice lady. Just shaken up.”

  “Understandable. Anything else?”

  “She did say that once he had her pinned, there was a few seconds where he paused and she heard some paper ripping.”

  “Paper?”

  Gio nodded. “I’m thinking maybe he gloved up.”

  “A rapist that uses a condom?” Tower asked, skeptical.

  Gio shrugged. “Safety first.”

  Tower scratched his head. “Or he didn’t want to leave any evidence.”

  “Could be,” Gio agreed. “Maybe he didn’t want to pull an O.J.”

  Tower considered. With DNA technology making leaps and bounds, identifying someone from their semen was a distinct probability. Thanks to the O.J. Simpson trial, pretty much everyone was aware of that. The use of a condom was the obvious preventative. It also indicated greater preparation and planning.

  Tower cursed under his breath. Then he said, “She’s in number three, right?”

  Gio nodded.

  “You can take off,” Tower told him, “if you’re done.”

  “Nah. I promised to take her home afterwards. Her husband couldn’t be reached.”

  Tower thought about offering to drive the woman home so Gio could leave, but supposed that the officer had established a good rapport with her. It was best not to shuffle the victim around from person to person. “Does she have an advocate with her?”

  “No, she wanted a friend instead. Her name’s Sally. She’s been helpful.”

  “Good. You want to introduce us, then?”

  “Happy to.” Gio rose and led him toward room number three.

  On the way, Tower asked, “Clemons Park is the name of that little park there, huh?”

  “Yeah. I had to look it up myself,” Gio said. He stopped at the door and knocked softly. Someone said “come in,” so he opened the door and entered.

  Patricia Reno sat on the bed, crying softly. Another woman stood at her bedside, consoling her.

  “Patricia?” Gio asked. “Are you rea
dy to talk to the detective? Because if you want to wait—”

  Patricia Reno nodded, wiping at her eyes. “No, I’m ready. I’m sorry. I was fine until Sally got here.”

  “No need to be sorry,” Gio said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He pointed at Tower. “This is Detective John Tower. He might have a few questions for you. John, this is Patricia Reno. The other woman is her friend, Sally.”

  Tower nodded at Sally and stepped up next to Patricia. “Mrs. Reno, I really don’t have too many questions for you right now. I’ll read the officer’s report and be in contact with you after that. Probably in a couple of days. But I have been to the scene already.”

  He described the small opening and she nodded emphatically. “Yes, that’s it. That is exactly where it happened.”

  Tower nodded. “I searched the area. Unfortunately, there was no physical evidence there that I could see. Our forensics unit will photograph it and search it again.” Tower leaned forward slightly. “Ma’am, would you recognize the man’s voice if you heard it again?”

  Patricia’s eyes widened. She nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. I’ll never forget that voice.”

  “Good.” Tower knew they would never get a conviction off a voice identification, but every little bit helped. “That’s really all for now, Ma’am. I wanted to meet you and let you know who I am. This way, when I call you in a day or two, you can put a face with a name.”

  “Thank you.”

  He handed her his business card. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Patricia clutched the card, looked down at it for a moment, thinking. Then she shook her head. “No, I think that the officer...that Gio already answered them.”

  “All right. And he gave you a card with some resources available to you? Counselors and such?”

  She dipped her chin again.

  “Okay. Is Sally driving you home?”

  Sally nodded. Patricia looked up at Gio. “Sorry,” she said in an apologetic tone.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Gio told her kindly. “I can see you’re in good hands.”

  “Well, you’ve been so nice and you’ve been waiting here so long just to give me a ride...”