Fatal Consequences

by Marie Force

“Save it. Were there any others?”

  “Just one.”

  “Her name?”

  “I don’t know her last name.”

  “What was her first name?”

  “Selina.”

  Sam suppressed a gasp. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Last night,” he muttered.

  Hearing that lovely buzz of pieces falling together, Sam said, “I’m going to need to know how you initially found these women.”

  “I’m not willing to tell you that.” His earlier bravado had been replaced by what looked like fear to Sam.

  “What were you told would happen to you if you ended up in this situation?”

  “I’m not willing to tell you that.”

  “Until you’re willing, you’ll be our guest in the city jail.”

  He launched out of his chair. “You can’t do that! I didn’t kill those women. I have an alibi!”

  “You have information pertaining to a homicide investigation that you are not willing to divulge. That makes you an accessory to murder.”

  Tillinghast appealed to his lawyer. “Do something!”

  “Tell him,” Sam said to the lawyer. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” the lawyer said, tugging his client’s arm to get him to sit back down.

  Tillinghast slumped in his chair. His robust complexion had gone pale and pasty under the fluorescent lights at HQ.

  Sam smiled. “See? Told you.”

  Freddie returned with Lindsey McNamara.

  “He’s all yours, Doc.” Sam called Detective Arnold from the pit. “When Dr. McNamara is done with Mr. Tillinghast, take him to central booking. Cruz, you’re with me.”

  “Where’re we going Lieutenant?”

  “To pick up our old friend Selina Rameriz. Our new friend Tillinghast hooked up with her last night.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep.” Because she was concerned that the word was out about Tillinghast’s arrest, Sam used her radio to order patrol officers to Selina’s apartment as quickly as possible. In her car, Sam flipped on the lights and siren and made quick work of getting to Columbia Heights.

  Two department cruisers were parked outside Selina’s building. Sam was filled with anxiety as she wondered whether she’d find a witness or a victim waiting for her. A quick look at Freddie’s tense face told her he was worried about the same thing.

  Sam was relieved when she saw Selina emerge from the building, escorted by two patrol officers. The young woman was crying and resisting their attempts to escort her to the street, but she was alive. Taking a good look around at the crowd gathered on the street to watch the proceedings, Sam had no doubt that if they hadn’t gotten to her when they did, their killer would have. After they talked to her downtown, Sam planned to arrange a safe house for her until they caught this guy.

  Despite Tillinghast having had contact with both dead women, Sam believed him when he said he didn’t kill them. Besides, his eyes were blue, and Jeannie had described her attacker’s eyes as dark and mean looking. The proof would be in the DNA and in the alibi, which she asked Freddie to confirm with Tillinghast’s wife.

  “Why are you arresting me?” Selina cried. “I haven’t done anything!”

  Sam stepped up to the handcuffed woman. “Solicitation and prostitution. Ringing any bells, Ms. Rameriz?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Selina said even as her face drained of color.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” She gestured to Freddie. “Let’s get her downtown.”

  “Please,” Selina said as tears cascaded down her face. “Please don’t do this. I needed the money. I was desperate.”

  “If you cooperate with our investigation into the murders of your colleagues, I might be willing to talk to the assistant U.S. attorney about immunity for you.”

  “What do I have to do?” she asked, her expression wary.

  “Let’s talk about it downtown.”

  At HQ, Sam was met by the usual pack of reporters. The questions flew at her.

  “Lieutenant, what do you think of the senator’s statement to the media?”

  “Did you put him up to calling Forrester about Gibson?”

  “Why did you arrest Brad Tillinghast?”

  Sam pushed past them and directed Freddie to take Selina to interrogation. She headed for her office where Captain Malone greeted her.

  “What has Nick done?” she asked.

  “He went to Forrester and the media about Gibson. Made quite a statement.”

  “Shit,” Sam muttered. “He shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It seems to have touched a chord in the city. We’ve been bombarded with calls.”

  “Fabulous,” Sam said, wondering what Nick had been thinking.

  “They’ve been calling Forrester too,” Malone continued, “and he is not pleased.”

  “It won’t stop them from releasing Gibson, and Nick has probably created a boatload of political trouble for himself.” This was exactly the type of thing she’d been concerned about when the Virginia Democrats first approached him about finishing out the last year of John O’Connor’s term—her crap landing on his crap and causing him deep shit.

  “That’s on him, Sam. You certainly didn’t ask him to call Forrester for you.” Malone hesitated. “Did you?”

  “No! You know I hate that good old boy network bullshit that goes on in this town.” Frustrated, Sam released the clip that held her long hair and let it fall past her shoulders. “He had a run-in with his deadbeat mother yesterday. He’s not in a good place today. I don’t know why he’d make that kind of statement. He has to know the media will jump all over both of us.”

  “Maybe it’ll help.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” Sam said even though she doubted it would do anything more than cause him a great deal of political heartburn. It would probably also please Peter to see Nick so spun up over his release, but Sam refused to care about what Peter thought of anything.

  Before she joined Freddie in the interrogation room, she tried to call Nick, but his phone went right to voicemail. She wondered if he’d shut it off to dodge the deluge of calls from the media or to avoid the call he knew would be coming from her.

  When Sam entered the interrogation room, Selina startled and wiped the tears from her face—a pointless gesture, since they kept right on coming.

  “Are you going to report me to INS?” she asked. Her English was slightly accented but fluent nonetheless.

  “That depends on whether or not you cooperate with our investigation.”

  “What do you want to know?” Her eyes darted between Sam and Freddie.

  “May I have your permission to record this interview?” Sam asked.

  Selina stared at the recorder for a long moment before she nodded.

  “Tell us how you came to be involved in providing sex for money,” Sam said.

  “You have to understand, if I hadn’t been desperate, I never, ever would’ve gotten involved in something like this.”

  “We’re not here to pass judgment, Ms. Rameriz,” Sam said. “We’re trying to figure out who killed your coworkers. How did you become involved?”

  “It was on a break at work,” she said softly. “I mentioned that my mother needed an operation and we didn’t have the money. Regina said she might be able to help me.”

  Questions cycled through Sam’s mind, but she stayed quiet and gave Selina the chance to collect her thoughts.

  “Regina said she knew someone who helped girls like us who needed fast money.”

  “Who was this person she referred to?”

  “I don’t know,” Selina said. “Regina gave me a phone number and told me to call if I was interested. She said I could make thousands of dollars in a single night.”

  “Did you know what you’d have to do when you made that call?”

  Selina shook her head. “I was led to believe that we provided escorts�
�literally—to men who needed dates for events. I thought that’s all it was. Apparently, if another of their girls refers you, she gets a bonus. I found that out later.”

  “What kind of information did they want from you before they took you on?”

  “I had to send a photo, a health screening, background. That kind of stuff.”

  Sam couldn’t believe the health screening hadn’t been a giveaway for what the men were really after. “How did you find out it was more than dates to parties?”

  “The first time I called, the woman I talked to was really nice. She said a man had requested a date for a black-tie gala and was willing to pay for a beautiful woman. All I had to do, she said, was dress formally and meet the man at the event.”

  “Which was held where?”

  “At the Reagan Building downtown. I was told to enter the building on the 14th Street side and to wait for him inside security.”

  “And this was when?”

  “January 18.”

  “Did your contact give you the name of the man you were meeting?”

  She shook her head. “I was told he’d know to look for me. A short time after I arrived, he came through security and walked right over to me.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Older, balding, overweight.” A shudder rippled through Selina’s petite frame.

  “He never gave you his name?”

  “He said his name was John and asked me not to speak to anyone we met other than to exchange greetings.”

  Sam wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the guy using the name John. “So you went to the event?”

  “We made a brief appearance, said hello to a few people, but it was obvious he didn’t want to be there. I couldn’t understand why he’d gone to so much trouble and expense to hire me if he didn’t want to go to the party. For what it’s worth, I think he was someone important—people were very…solicitous toward him.” She took a drink of the glass of water Freddie had gotten for her.

  “How long were you at the party?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  “What happened when you left there?”

  Sam noted Selina’s hands were trembling so badly that the water in the glass threatened to spill over. “He had a car waiting, and he said he’d take me home except once we were inside, the car headed away from the address I had given him. I asked him where we were going, but he wouldn’t answer me. While we were in the car, he started touching me.” Her voice had gotten so soft it was almost a whisper.

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked him to stop. I said that wasn’t what I’d agreed to, but he just laughed. He said he loved it when girls played hard to get. We were in the car for a while before it stopped at a hotel outside the city. I wasn’t sure where we were. That’s when I started to get really scared. I couldn’t believe Regina had done this to me.” She took another drink of water. “He told me if I didn’t want to get hurt, I’d be very quiet and do exactly what I was told. Then he dismissed the driver and all but dragged me into the hotel.”

  “Did he check into the hotel?”

  She shook her head. “He already had a room key.”

  “Did you have to go through a lobby or were the rooms outside?”

  “Outside.”

  He’d chosen the place with that in mind, Sam thought, so no one would see him dragging an unwilling woman into a room.

  “What happened once you were inside the room?”

  Selina looked at Freddie and then beseechingly at Sam.

  “Detective Cruz,” Sam said. “Would you mind giving me a few minutes alone with Ms. Rameriz?”

  “Not at all,” Freddie said.

  On her pad Sam wrote: Get the info on the Jan. 18 event @ Reagan. Video. Witnesses that put her there with bald guy.

  He nodded, got up and left the room.

  “What happened at the hotel, Selina?”

  “He…he ordered me to take off my clothes. I begged him not to touch me. I told him he could have his money back, that I’d never tell anyone if he’d let me go. He laughed at me, and when I bolted for the door he dragged me back and slapped me so hard I saw stars. After that I was kind of out of it, but I was aware of him undressing me and touching me.” Her voice caught on a sob. “I kept pleading with him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He said he’d paid for sex and that he wasn’t leaving until he’d gotten what he’d paid for.” By now she was crying so hard she could hardly speak.

  Sam gave her a couple of minutes to regain her composure. “Did you have sex with him, Selina?”

  She nodded. “He hurt me. I was screaming and crying, so he put his hand over my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I think I blacked out for a time. When I came to…He was…I was facedown on the bed and he was…Oh God, the pain. I’ve never felt pain like that.”

  Sam reached across the table for her hand. “He raped you, Selina. He raped and sodomized you. No matter what he paid for, the moment you said no, it became a rape.”

  “I was so stupid,” she said between sobs. “How could I have been so naive? Of course that’s what he wanted. No one pays thousands of dollars for a date to a party.”

  “How long were you in the room with him?”

  “All night,” she whispered. “It went on and on. I was in and out of consciousness. Every time I came to, he was on top of me, inside me. I thought it would never end.” She wiped away tears. “Finally, I woke up and he was gone.”

  “You never saw him again?”

  She shook her head. “I took the longest shower and got dressed before I ran out of there and hailed a cab to take me home.”

  “You have no idea where you were? You didn’t notice any landmarks or anything that stood out to you?”

  “No. Wherever it was, I’d never been there before. I was so anxious to get out of there that I didn’t pay much attention to anything but finding a cab.”

  “Do you still have the dress you wore that night?”

  Selina glanced up at her, startled. “It’s in the back of my closet in a suitcase with the other things I wore that night.”

  Sam wanted to jump up and down with glee. “What compelled you to keep it?”

  “I remembered that intern who slept with the president…No one believed her until she produced the dress. I figured I should keep it just in case I ever had a chance to punish him for what he did to me.”

  “That was very good thinking. May we have your permission to retrieve it?”

  “Yes, of course.” Selina folded her hands on the table, but Sam noticed they were still trembling.

  Sam got up and went to the door to find someone to get the suitcase from Selina’s apartment. “Take it to the lab right away,” she said to the officer after Selina signed a consent to search form. Returning to the table, she encouraged Selina to continue her story.

  “The next day, three thousand dollars was deposited to my checking account. It was enough for a down payment on the surgery my mother needed.”

  “Did you seek out medical attention?” Sam asked, knowing the answer before she asked the question.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have insurance, and I wired all the money to my family.”

  “Were you injured enough to need medical attention?”

  “Probably. Everything…down there…hurt. I had bruises all over. I could barely move for days. I had to call in sick to the cleaning company for the first time since I worked there.”

  “What did you say to Regina the next time you saw her?”

  “I asked her how she could’ve led me to believe it was just a date. She seemed shocked that I didn’t know what ‘date’ meant when thousands of dollars were involved. She apologized profusely and said that what had happened to me had never happened to her. I think she reported the guy.”

  “To whom?”

  “To the people who run the service.”

  “And who is that?”

  “I don’t know. I was just given a number to call to arrange the initial date
.”

  “Do you still have that number?”

  “It changes all the time.”

  “How do you get word of the change?”

  “I receive a text message from an unavailable number.”

  “How did you end up going on another ‘date’?”

  Selina’s shoulders sagged. “I needed more money. My mother’s surgery cost forty thousand dollars.”

  “I find it hard to believe that you were able to bring yourself to do this again after what happened the first time.”

  “I was terrified. But I was far more terrified of the cancer killing my mother before she could have a surgery that doctors said would save her life.”

  “You were able to um…perform, despite being terrified?”

  Selina looked down at the table and then back up at Sam. “The fear seemed to…you know…turn them on. I’ve since learned that fear is a fetish.”

  Sam fought back a shudder. Just when she thought she’d heard everything on this job…“How many other guys were there?”

  “Eighteen,” Selina said, chagrined. “As of last night, I have the money I need. I’m all done.”

  So Brad Tillinghast had been the last, Sam thought. “Walking away is an option?”

  Selina seemed taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?”

  “The people who run this…operation. They allow women to say ‘no more’?”

  “Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I’m wondering if Regina and Maria tried to quit.”

  Selina’s eyes went wide. “They were killed because they wanted to quit?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  Selina’s hand landed on her chest over her heart. “Oh my God.”

  “Did you tell anyone you were done after last night?”

  “Not yet.”

  That may have saved her life, Sam thought. “What were you told about confidentiality?”

  “Just that it was imperative I never speak of these liaisons with anyone. Not that I would have anyway.” She pinched her lips as if to hold back a sob. “I was so ashamed. If my parents had any idea where the money was coming from…”

  “Where do they think you’re getting it?”

  “I told them I’d met a lovely man who was well-off, and he gave me the money.”