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 completed 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.