by Mikey Lee
“Hmm…what did you sell?” Seth asked trying to lighten the mood seeing that Jen was becoming more embarrassed about internet dating sites than she was talking about her attack.
“I think… oh, it was one of those exercise table thingies…you know the one that flips you upside down.”
“You mean an inversion table?” Seth was always curious about one of those. Man, the things Zee and I could do with one of those.
“Yeah yeah, an inversion table.” Jen said.
“So Jen, if you had to guess, where would be a good place for me to start looking for this guy?” Seth tried getting back to business.
“Hmm…maybe the gym on campus. I sometimes go there to use the pool and swim a couple laps after classes.”
“Anyone there stick out in your mind?” Seth glanced down tilting his neck a bit to try to make eye contact with Jen.
“Well…hmm…maybe the desk guys where I check in, or the towel guy. After I sign in and take a towel from the counter, I can sometimes hear them whispering as a walk away.”
Seth raised his eyebrows, “what do they say?”
“Oh, I don’t know what they actually say, but I can tell they’re talking about me,” Jen said.
“Is there anyone else? Maybe a classmate, or even still, a professor?” Seth asked.
“Oh no, not a professor…” Jen let out a small little chuckle. “All of my professors are really old and kind of on the fat side or they’re women… I would definitely know if it was one of them.” Jen shook her head.
“As far as a classmate…I don’t think so. The only one that kind of fits the description…well he’s actually getting better grades than me, so I know he doesn’t even have time to plan something like this let alone actually carry it out. Plus, I think he’s married. And I think he was in the Marine Corps.” Jen added that last thing like she was trying to vouch for him.
A fellow devil dog, huh. “Oh yeah, a Marine huh…what’s his name if you don’t mind. I too was in the Marine Corps.” Seth said.
“Shawn with an ‘H’ I think… It might be the S-E-A-N.” Jen answered.
“Do you know his last name?” Seth asked.
“No, actually I don’t know, he sits in the back and doesn’t talk too much… but I tell you, when he does talk and he answers the professor’s questions… well lets just say he’s been the only student I’ve seen to answer a question and then get the professor to shut up.” Jen said proudly.
“Jen, you said that no one else would fit the description of this guy. Did you get a good look at him? Any scars, scratches, moles, or birthmarks that stood out to you?” Seth asked as he readjusted his pen on the note pad.
“Oh boy… ok… I knew this was coming.” Jen said as if she had rehearsed this in her head.
“Typical white guy, no scars or scratches. I actually tried to scratch the hell out of him but every time I had enough balance to reach back all I got were jeans. All I really saw of him was hands and forearms. But based on what happened and how it happened, I think he’s roughly 5’9” – 6’ tall and as far as weight… I have not a clue.”
“So you could see his hands. Meaning he wasn’t wearing any gloves?”
“Correct.” Jen confirmed.
“Ok ok… what else can you tell me about him?” Seth asked. Fingerprints. I have to get fingerprints if this fucker wasn’t wearing gloves.
“Hmm… not much. It all happened so fast.” Jen said with the demeanor as if she was letting Seth down.
“Not a problem Jen… you’re doing awesome, girl.” Seth said, actually making eye contact with her.
“This is where its really going to get hard, and if you want to take a break, I fully understand.” Seth lowered his voice in an attempt to emphasize his sincerity.
“Can you tell me what happened…what went down last night? How did it happen?” Seth said just above a whisper but loud enough for her to hear.
Jen looked down at her coffee again and tried to swallow what must have felt like a bowling ball. “Well, I was doing laundry, and I just finished loading the dryer and before I could hit the button to turn it on, the laundry room door flew open and there was this guy pinning me against the dryer.” Jen closed her eyes.
“He bent me over the dryer, and at some point I must have pushed the button to start it. I tried to yell but the sound of jean buttons and hoodie zippers in the dryer muffled me yelling.” Jen shook her head back and forth.
In Seth’s peripheral he could see Ashley’s eyes starting to tear up as she covered her mouth with her fingers.
“Jen darlin’…if you need to slow down…” Seth said softly, “I know this is hard, but trust me, this…this is all this is going to help me.”
Jen continued to stare at the sidewalk but she determinedly kept talking. “He held my head down over the dryer by the back of my neck.” Jen’s breathing became faster.
As Jen continued to tell what horrifying things this scumbag did, Seth became more and more enraged. No matter how many times he heard a victim tell his or her story, he couldn’t stop the anger that bubbled up inside of him. Jen told her story, and his second notepad started to fill up fast. Coming near the end of Jen’s nightmare Seth started to think that arresting this guy was not going to be good enough. Seth really wanted to have the fire department on standby when he caught him so that Seth could give him an enema with the fire hose. Surprisingly, Jen did extremely well with details of the attack that took place.
Enough was enough, it was time to find the douchebag of the year and fuck his world up.
“Jen, let me tell you…you did outstanding.” Seth said, “There’s just a few more things I need. Did you, when you went to the hospital, did you get a rape kit done last night?”
“I did. The officers that came to talk to me at first suggested I go to the hospital and get that done.” Jen replied.
“Great… also you told me this took place in your laundry room?” Seth mentioned kind of confused.
“Is this laundry room inside your apartment, or is it inside the building of your apartment?” Seth tried to clarify.
Jen explained, “The laundry room is actually in the basement of my apartment building. Normally you would need a key to even get into the building but the front door has been broken for months. The building is an old Victorian house that’s been converted into six different apartments.”
“Ok cool, Jen, just to cover my butt… I’m going to need you to sign a form that allows me access to your apartment and the building, along with the laundry room. Is that ok with you?” Seth said.
“Oh, of course.” Jen said.
“Great. I’m going to have Ashley take you back to the station and have you fill out that paperwork.” Seth explained, “I’m going to head on over to your building and look around, if you don’t mind?”
“Ok.”
“I’ll catch up to you later, ok?” Seth said as he reached out to shake Jen’s hand. He was going to find this guy. Seth didn’t like making promises to victims, but he was willing to do it here if it meant making Jen feel even slightly comforted. He pinned his eyes to hers. “I’ll get this fucker. I promise.”
Chapter Five
“Hey baby, what’s up?” Seth said in a rush when answering the phone.
“Not much, I was just straightening up the basement and came across some of your pictures from the Marine Corps.” Zee said while putting the phone on speaker. “I really like this one of you standing on the catwalk at the barracks with your shirt off. Thank God you still have that body. Fuck you’re hot!”
Seth shook his head while sitting in his squad car. He wasn’t even going to respond to that. “Ah crap honey, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make dinner tonight. I just got a case I’m working on as we speak.” Seth was kind of reluctant to inform Zee of this news. While she and her sister couldn’t be more different, she still liked her sister and liked even more when Seth joined them.
“Is she ok?” Zee asked.
; “Well, besides what she had to go through last night, yeah, she’s going to be fine… she’s one tough cookie.” Seth said, “She’s going to be a lot better once I catch this fuck-tard.”
“You always do baby.” Zee said, “Well listen, I’ll bring home a plate of leftovers for you if I remember, and I’ll let everyone know you said hello.”
“Thanks baby, I love you.” Seth said, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Love you too…be careful.” Zee seemed to always have to add that in.
As Seth pulled up to the address he noticed a grassy park across the street with a parking lot next to a basketball court. Continuing around the block to try to get a better look around he grabbed his camera from the passenger seat. He started snapping pictures of everything around the area before Seth pulled into the parking lot and parked at the end spot.
Well, would you look at this…a perfect vantage point to see everything in Jen’s apartment.
Looking around there was nothing unusual: a standard basketball court and trashcan overflowing with empty water and Gatorade bottles. Seth pulled the camera up to his face and zoomed in, pointing at Jen’s living room window.
Hmm… from here with this camera I can tell what channel Jen’s watching on her tv.
Seth opened the door and noticed a small piece of paper on the ground. Psshh, with a trash can less than two freakin feet away. It’s just a gas receipt.
Seth stepped out of the car and looked around. It appeared like there was a sub shop catty-cornered from the apartment, and he definitely intended to go talk to the owner to see if they had a video camera outside that would have caught something. He opened the trunk to grab his fingerprinting kit and tossed the piece of paper in there. He put the fingerprinting kit and tape measure in his suit jacket pocket and his camera in the other pocket. Seth grabbed his phone and called Ashley. One good thing actually came out of today… I figured out what the hell Ashley’s name is. Seth laughed to himself.
“Precinct 41…”
“Ashley, its Seth…” Seth cut her off from going through the boring ass spiel.
“Hey, did Jen sign that paperwork for me?” He asked, “I’m getting ready to go into her building.”
“Yeah, she did. She said that she was going to hang out at the library this afternoon.” Ashley said.
“Cool. As far as today, I don’t think I’m going to need to go into her apartment, but listen… can you do me a favor and call the hospital and have them get me the results to the rape kit they did on Jen last night as soon as possible, please.”
“Will do.” Ashley said excitedly.
“Thanks Ashley, let me know when the results show up. Go grab one of my cards off my desk… my cell number is on them, call me.”
“Okie dokie” Ashley replied, trying to be cute.
Walking across the park, Seth looked at Jen’s apartment building and gazed at the surroundings. Wow, not much for cover around here. If I were going to spy on someone where would I be? He pulled his camera out and snapped pictures of everything he could see. He walked right up to Jen’s living room window, standing under it with his back up against the wall and looked around. Hmmm… where I parked is about the only spot that I can see where someone could watch Jen. Ok then, at least I know where this guy sat. He started snapping pictures of the entry points and area surrounding the apartment, looking for different vantage points.
Moving over to the front door, he inspected the door and frame. Standard crappy apartment building door, and not a lot of area for me to pull a good print from. With a deep breath, he threw his head side to side cracking his neck. Let’s see what we’ve got inside. He used his foot to open the door and noticed that the door didn’t even close all the way. Yep, just as I thought. No forced entry here. Stepping inside the hallway he spied a row of mail slots for each apartment on the right hand wall. On the left, Jen’s apartment door. Just beyond Jen’s door, hugging the wall on the left were stairs going up. And on the right was a walkway with a left turn leading to stairs going down. Hmm…down we go to do some laundry. With every other step, he snapped some more pictures so that he could recreate the scene later without returning to the actual apartment. This new digital camera Zee got me for Christmas is awesome.
Seth made his way down the stairs to the laundry room. The downstairs was kind of dim and musky with damp air. The lights on the ceiling all worked, but it took a bit of time for his eyes to adjust. At the bottom of the steps to the left was the laundry room. The door looked like an old 7-Eleven front door, all glass with the single metal bar across the middle on both sides. The door only opened going into the laundry room. Kind of an inconvenience with your arms full of a laundry basket. Inside the laundry room it seemed kind of standard for this college town apartment: three washers on the right wall and three dryers on the left wall. As he continued to click away on the camera he remembered his notes. Jen was man-handled back there, back at the second and third dryer. Walking up to the third dryer Seth swapped the camera for the fingerprinting kit in his jacket pocket.
Now standing in front of the dryer Seth began looking for areas that might have been touched by sir fuck-face. Oh well, let’s get to it. Seth started dusting the tops and the front of dryer two and three, and just for shits and giggles, he covered the first dryer with lycopodium powder, and twisted the shit out of the sirchie fiberglass brush until his knuckles started to crack. He brought his face down closer, and looked for anything present, only to find not a single fucking trace of skin oils anywhere. What the fuck? In an apartment building with half a dozen or more people living here, I get nothing?!? Seth stepped back for a second. In the horrific, tragic attack that Jen went through, could she have confused washers with dryers? Turning around, Seth stared at the washers now, cracking his fingers and wiggling his wrist. Fuck it. He decided to start on washer three and work his way back to the damn door.
I’m going to dust the fucking out of this place if I have too. He covered the tops and front side of the machines with the powder; and again, not a single fucking print. Was this douche-nugget wearing gloves? No no, Jen described his hands. She knew that he was a white guy based off of them. I’m not even getting a print from Jen down here. Seth was determined to find a print and began dusting the stair railing all the way to the front door. Near the top of the steps Seth found a couple of prints, not great ones but there were prints. And on the outside of Jen’s living room window Seth gathered a few as well. There was no bedroom window because of the connecting buildings. Tomorrow, I’ll begin running these prints I got… on second thought… fuck tomorrow. Walking back to the car, Seth pulled out his phone to call the precinct and noticed the time. Damn its 5:30 already.
“Precin…..” Ashley started. Seth cut her off before she could even get the first word out.
“Ashley, its Seth, did you hear anything back from the hospital yet?”
“Nope, not yet.” Ashley purred, relaxing to the sound of Seth’s voice.
“Are the guys from the records and the lab tech boys still there?”
“Yep, those guys don’t seem to ever leave. They’re back there.” Ashley said in a slightly more business tone.
“Great, let them know I’m on the way back to the station and that I have some prints I want them to run.” Seth directed, while opening the trunk of the car and tossing the print kit back.
“Thanks Ashely.” Seth said quickly and hung up the phone.
While starting the car Seth called Zee.
“Hey there baby.” Zee said, not expecting a call so soon. “You’re definitely not going to make dinner tonight are you?”
“No baby, and sorry again. I’m actually on the way back to the station now. This one is going to be a hard one. I can tell already.”
Back at the station Seth walked in and spotted Ashley sitting at the front desk.
“Anything from the hospital yet?” Seth asked as he stormed past the desk.
“Yeah, I called them again to see what the status was and t
hey said some kind of machine went down. They’ll have the results in the morning for you.” Ashley replied while trying to follow Seth back to the lab.
“Keep on the that for me.” Seth said while walking through the lab doors.
“Hey guys, I pulled some prints today and I need some info on them quickly.” Seth said to the lab techs.
“Okie dokie.” The dorkier of the two lab techs replied.
“What do you think? How long until you can get me a name?” Seth wanted the answer to be a few seconds.
“Hmmm…not really sure, these look like good prints, but they might not be full prints. I’ll run them and call you with some updates Detective.” Jesus, the lab tech sounded like he was still going through puberty.
“Great, thanks kid.” Seth acknowledged, patting his shoulder.
Back up in his office, Seth pulled out his camera, removing the SD card. Just as he was about to sit down at his desk in front of the computer, Ashley walked up and popped her head in the door.
“What’s up Ashley?”
“Detective Lane, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me assist you today. I got into police work to help people, and today was the first time I felt like I actually…” Ashley said, speaking kind of softly.
“Ashley, look darlin, you’re doing me a favor by helping me out the way you are. I need you to really stay on top of the tasks that I’ve gave you.” Seth said while putting the SD card in his computer waiting for the print button to come up on the screen.
“The most important person right now is Jen… and we need to catch this guy quick, fast and in a hurry for her sake—you understand?” Seth spoke with a caring yet strong voice as he clicked the print button.
Ashley glanced at the printer, interested to try to catch a glance at the pictures. Seth leaned back in his chair, blocking Ashley’s view. It’s not that he was opposed to anyone viewing the pictures, but definitely not before he did.
