Dunn sat me in the kitchen and asked me to tell him exactly what had happened, and I did, I told him all of it, as best as I could, as coherently as I could. When they’d arrived, both he and Watanabe had worn looks of earnest concern, even excitement.
When I was finished, the looks were gone.
“Were you hurt?”
“No, not . . . not really. Scared out of my mind, but not . . . you know, not hurt.”
“He didn’t assault you?” Watanabe asked.
“No. He made me give him my clothes, but that was all.”
“If we took you to the hospital, would you consent to a doctor running a rape kit?”
“No, what? Why? He didn’t rape me, he didn’t touch me. He never touched me after he put me in his truck.”
“He put you in his truck, he made you strip, he drove you around, and he took you back here?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Dunn asked, “Can you describe the truck?”
“It was a Ford, a big one.”
“What color?”
“Blue, maybe green? It was dark.”
“You didn’t see the license?”
“It was an Oregon plate, that’s all I know.”
Dunn spoke on his radio to someone, telling them that they were looking for a big Ford truck, blue, maybe green. I didn’t hear the response he got.
“And you say your things were inside when you got back?” Watanabe asked. “Is anything missing?”
“No, not that I can tell. I haven’t had a chance to look.”
“But it doesn’t look like anything’s missing?”
“No, but I haven’t had a chance to look.”
“I understand that.” He glanced around the kitchen. “It doesn’t look like there was a break-in.”
“It happened outside!”
Dunn and Watanabe nodded.
“When was your last drink?” Dunn asked.
“I had a drink, I had a drink when I was on the phone with the dispatcher person.”
“Before that?”
“I told you,” I said, and I really did try not to sound shrill, but I was seriously starting to fray. “I’d just gotten home, I’d been on tour. I just got back from Australia.”
“You were drinking on the flight?”
“That was hours ago!”
“How long have you been on tour, Miss Bracca?” Dunn asked.
“A year, almost exactly.”
“And this house has been empty all that time?”
“No, I’ve been home a couple times, and I had my brother checking on the place.”
“What’s his name?”
I hesitated, then figured if my brother had done something so bad they knew who he was, they’d certainly already know his name.
“Mikel,” I told them. “With a k and not a c and an h. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“We’re just trying to be thorough.”
“My brother didn’t force me to strip in the back of a pickup truck!”
“We’re not saying he did.”
“You’re saying you think I’m making this whole thing up.”
“There’s no physical evidence here, Miss Bracca,” Dunn said. “There’s nothing missing, you don’t appear to have been injured; in fact, you maintain you weren’t. We’ve got cars out in the neighborhood, they’re looking around, but all we’ve got right now is you, and frankly, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“I’m not making this up,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
“You’re describing a kidnapping, that’s serious stuff. And then what looks like the start of a sexual assault. But it doesn’t track, it doesn’t execute.”
I stared at the cops opposite me. “Why would I make this up?”
“We’re not saying you’re making this up.”
“There was a man with a gun, he made me take off my clothes—” But Watanabe interrupted me, holding up his hands, trying to soothe. “Miss Bracca, we’re taking a report, and we’ll put out a description for this guy, have a car stay in the area. But this doesn’t really sound like a stalker, or even a break-in. It sounds like maybe, just maybe, this was a guy thinking he had a mugging or something, and then he realized who you were, and he realized how far over his head he’d gotten.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“We certainly believe that you believe something happened,” Dunn said.
“So that’s it?” I asked after a second.
“We’ll file a report,” Dunn said, and from his tone I could tell he was moving into wrapping-up mode. “Keep an eye out, and there’ll be a patrol in the area. You should have some detectives calling you to follow up tomorrow.”
“And that’s all?”
“Miss Bracca, I understand your frustration. But there’s really no evidence of any crime having been committed.”
I nodded, not because I agreed. It wasn’t enough to say that I’d been terrified and humiliated, and trying to convince either of them that it hadn’t been just some mugging gone wrong, that it had been a stalker, seemed suddenly like a very egotistical claim to make.
And I was tired and out of cigarettes and still feeling a little hungover. The clock on the VCR was telling me it was four minutes to five in the morning. That just made it all seem even more surreal.
They were on their feet, and I realized they’d already said good-bye. I got up and shook each of their hands at the door, and they gave me new smiles, not professional now, and they each told me it had been a pleasure to meet me.
“Love the new song,” Watanabe said. “ ‘Queen of Swords,’ I just love that song.”
“It’s a great tune,” Dunn added.
I was too drained to be angry, or even annoyed. Cops come to my house to take a report, they turn it into a fan event.
“Thanks,” I said, and smiled right back at them, the way I always do when the people I meet stop being people, and turn into fans. “Thanks a lot.”
They left me alone, real happy to have met a rock star.
CHAPTER 4
For a minute after the cops pulled away, I just kept watching the street from the living room window. Rain was still falling lightly, my apple trees drooping from the weight of the water. Not much more to see beyond that. Silhouettes of parked cars in front of houses still sleeping, and a darkness that was heavy and wide. Irvington has few streetlamps.
The house creaked, then went silent again. It was a new noise to me, and I had to think it through before deciding that it was nothing to be alarmed about. My home had been built in 1923 in what was called locally the Portland craft style, and which I supposed up in Seattle was referred to as the Seattle craft style. It was barely two stories, a portion of the attic having been converted into the master bedroom with a bath. There was another full bath on the ground floor, near the guest room, and then the kitchen and the living room, some pantry space. The basement had been finished when I purchased the place, and I’d left detailed instructions on how I wanted the space converted into a music room, but I didn’t know if the contractors had done as asked. I didn’t feel much like finding out.
I’d closed on the house only two weeks before the tour had begun, and since then had been home only three times, the longest for a stretch of seventy hours back in July. We’d returned for a show out at the Gorge, about ninety miles east of Portland, one of those multiband, all-day affairs hosted by the local alternarock station. The gig had sucked, but those radio-hosted megashows always do—too many bands all vying for the limelight, and never a chance to get a decent sound check, so you never know what you’re going to be stepping into. When you play live and loud, there are monitors set up on the stage—essentially small speakers—positioned so the musicians can hear themselves. Kinda crucial.