RAPIST STALKS RIVER CITY!
Heather Torin stared down at the thick black newsprint. The corners of her vision collapsed. A rush of darkness pushed inward like a wide tunnel, then a small one. Before her vision became a pinpoint, the sensation subsided. She gulped in her breath. Hot coffee splashed onto her shaking hand and she jerked it away, dropping the cup. Brown coffee splattered across the kitchen table. The cup rolled onto the floor and shattered.
The words seemed to scream upward at her. She wanted to push the paper away. This didn’t belong in her daytime life. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to know it. But here it was. It was real and it was directly before her.
Leaving the spilled coffee and the broken cup for later, she read:
RAPIST STALKS RIVER CITY
by Pam Lincoln
A serial rapist is at work in our city, police have confirmed. There have been at least three women raped within the past two weeks and police officials believe it has been the work of the same suspect.
“There are certain similarities in these attacks that lead us to believe it is the same man,” Lieutenant Crawford of the Major Crimes Unit told reporters on Saturday.
Police have refused to identify the names of the victims, but a source at the River City School District has confirmed that a North Central school teacher may have been the most recent victim. The teacher was assaulted in the school parking lot Thursday afternoon.
Lieutenant Crawford also declined to describe the “similarities” that linked these assaults. Citing a fear of copycats as well as “an investigative need to withhold certain specifics in order to successfully prosecute,” he would only say that the rapist did not appear to be using any weapons in his attacks.
“This is typical,” said Miranda Rice of Sexual Assault Survivors, a support group for women who have been sexually assaulted. “The police in this case are more concerned with winning a trial two years from now than saving a woman today.”
“Not true,” says Julie Avery, a rape advocate who works on the Prosecutor’s Office Crisis Team. “The police are working very hard to catch this man.”
Avery adds, “Still, women should take extra precautions until he is caught.”
Dubbed “The Rainy Day Rapist” by local media, the name is somewhat of a misnomer. Although it has been raining during some of his assaults, Lieutenant Crawford dismisses that as coincidence.
“This has nothing to do with the weather,” he said.
While police officials would not confirm nor deny the identity of the most recent victim, they did identify where the assaults occurred. The most recent assault did, in fact, occur at North Central High School. Prior to that, a woman was victimized near Friendship Park on River City’s northern edge. The first assault occurred near the bottom of the Post Street Hill in Clemons Park-
Heather Torin froze.
Clemons Park.
The same place he’d attacked her.
She shook her head. That couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to mean something. She didn’t know what, but maybe the police would.
She stared at the two words on the newspaper page for a long while, trying to summon up the courage to call. Calling would mean talking. Talking would mean thinking. It would mean bringing the dreams out into the daylight.
What would everyone say?
What would they think of her?
If she talked about it, would this fear that she seemed to be able to keep bottled up in her dreams come out into her waking hours? Would it rampage about, making her jump at every noise and cringe at every passing man?
The strong aroma of the spilt coffee washed over her as she sat and stared down at the newspaper. Her heart thudded in her ears. She felt every pulse in her fingertips. Her gaze traced through the story again.
“At least three women,” she read quietly.
Three.
Four. It’s been four.
Or more, she realized. It could be more. There could be other women out there just like her. How many women had this man attacked that police didn’t even know about? How many more would he-
Heather Torin stopped thinking and reached for the phone.
0817 hours
Janice Koslowski stared down at the crossword in front of her in frustration. The rainy day had her in a foul mood and the puzzle in front of her wasn’t helping. Usually, she was able to knock out the Herald’s crossword within an hour, but she’d been at today’s version for almost two. She found this more than a little frustrating. Worse yet, she didn’t have any excuses. She couldn’t blame it on too many interruptions. For one, she’d been a dispatcher for twenty-two years. Multi-tasking was second nature to her. Handling routine radio traffic while working a crossword presented no difficulty for her whatsoever.
But secondly, it hadn’t even been very busy so far this morning. Sunday mornings were typically slow and the falling rain outside only served to help that phenomenon. People were either recovering from Saturday night or just holing up inside for a slow, lazy, rainy day.
So that meant she couldn’t think of an excuse for not knowing a seven letter word for “Ancient Civilization” that ended in an ‘E’.
“You’re frowning,” Carrie Anne called from her nearby supervisor’s station.
“It’s raining,” Janice answered, setting down her pencil.
“Uh-huh,” Carrie Anne answered knowingly.
Janice sighed. The two women had worked together for too long. They knew each other’s tells. Janice was glad they didn’t play bridge against each other — there’d be no mystery in who was holding what.
“I can’t get this one particular clue,” she admitted. “It’s an ancient civilization that ends in the letter E.”
“Ugh,” Carrie Anne grunted, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t ask me. Maybe if it started with E, I could help. Even then, Egypt is about the only one I can think of. I hate History. It’s boring.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s in a crossword puzzle,” Irina commented dryly from her position on the south side channel.
“How about Greece?” Elaine guessed from the data channel station.
“Only six letters,” Janice pointed out.
“Oh, right.” Elaine frowned. “Carthage?”
“Eight letters.”
“Darn,” Elaine muttered.
“Learn to count,” Irina said in a sing-song voice, her back to the other dispatchers.
Elaine met Janice’s gaze and mouthed the word ‘bitch.’
Janice shrugged. She tried to stay out of the occasional sniping that went on between the dispatchers. Before she had to find a way to gloss over the exchange between Elaine and Irina, her terminal dinged lightly.
She read the screen. It was a 911 transfer, marked as a cold call. The victim wanted to report an attempted rape that occurred back in March near Clemons Park. Janice checked on her list of available units, preparing to dispatch Officer Giovanni. Then something in the call struck her. She paused. Her first thought was of The Rainy Day Rapist, but this was a month old. Then she recognized the name of the park. This was where the first rape had occurred. In fact, she’d sent Gio on that call, too.
“Carrie?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you might want to page Detective Tower on this call.”
Carrie tapped the keys on her keyboard, then paused while reading. After a few moments, she said, “You think it’s the guy he’s looking for that tried to rape her, too?”
“Clemons Park is where the first one happened. It could be a coincidence, but-”
“But he’d rather know that now than tomorrow,” Carrie Anne finished. She nodded. “I’ll page him. Good spot, Janice.”
Janice grinned. “Thanks.”
She turned back to her crossword puzzle, but couldn’t concentrate. A single thought ran through her head. What if this is what broke open the case? What if this was how Tower caught the guy?