Westboard thanked her, looking down at the card. Her name was Toni Redding and she was younger than he’d thought by about five years. The photograph on the driver’s license was only about two years old, but the woman who smiled out of it might as well have been an entirely different person than the one standing before him. The young woman in the photograph had a full face and a vibrant smile. Her eyes shined with life and hope. When he glanced up at today’s Toni, her eyes were flat and dead. Only her hair, long, blond and flowing, seemed to come from her previous life.
She seemed to read that he was comparing the picture with her current state. “That was a while ago,” she explained.
Westboard nodded. He removed his portable radio, switched over to the data channel and gave the operator Toni’s name and birthdate. “What’d that guy want?” he asked.
Toni eyed him carefully. Then she said, “Directions to the freeway.”
Westboard smiled. “Well, he left heading the wrong way.”
Toni shrugged. “So I’m bad with directions. Is that against the law?”
“Not the last time I checked. If that’s what you were doing.”
“It was.”
Westboard nodded again. “Okay. You live here in town, Toni?”
“What do you care where I live?”
“Just passing the time while I wait for your name to come back.”
She gave him another suspicious look, then shrugged. “I’ve got a place in Browne’s Addition.”
“Not far, then.”
“No. It’s like ten blocks.”
Westboard immediately thought that if Sully or Battaglia were here, one of them would pop off with something about how convenient that made it for her to walk to work. The quip was humorous, but he figured it would be unnecessarily cruel to cut on Toni. He’d already interrupted her trick. No need to ridicule her, too.
“How long have you lived there?” he asked instead.
“A few months. Why? You a real estate agent?”
Westboard raised his hands in mock surrender. “Easy,” he said. “I’m just talking with you.”
“I don’t like talking to cops.”
“Most people don’t. But it hurts less as you go along.”
She gave him a curious look, but he noticed that her jaw wasn’t set as rigidly as when he’d first approached her.
“Baker-124?” his radio crackled.
“Go ahead,” he told the dispatcher.
“Redding is clear with prostitution entries and a suspended driver’s license.”
“Copy, thanks.” Westboard handed the driver’s license back to Toni. “Here you go. I’m supposed to seize that when it’s suspended, but you go ahead and keep it.”
Confused gratitude crept into Toni’s eyes. Westboard didn’t tell her that his ulterior motive was making sure she had good picture identification for the next cop that stopped her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No big deal,” he told her. “Listen, you don’t have any warrants and I’m not going to arrest you for soliciting tonight. But you need to scat out of the area for the rest of the night. If I see you down here later on tonight, I’ll have to take you in.”
Toni scowled, though not as harshly as before. “The charge wouldn’t stick, you know.”
“I do,” he said, “but you’d still spend the night in jail instead of in your apartment.”
She sighed in resignation. “Okay. You win. I’m out of here.”
“Be careful,” Westboard said.
She turned to go, then paused. She cast a sideways glance at Westboard over her shoulder. “Hey, is that cop all right? The woman cop that got beat up a few nights ago?”
“Yeah,” Westboard said. “She’s fine. Why?”
Toni shrugged. “I just wondered.” She turned to leave, then paused again. “I hope you guys catch that asshole.”
“We will.”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“I agree.”
“There’s lots of men who are assholes, if you really stop to think about it,” Toni said.
“True enough,” Westboard agreed. “You come across a fair number that type?”
She gave him a measured look before asking, “Do you really care?”
“Of course.”
Toni turned back to face him. “I run into them every night. Some nights are worse than others.”
“Maybe you should get away from this life,” Westboard said quietly.
Toni looked away, absently rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Maybe I will. Or maybe you should mind your own business.”
Westboard shrugged in mild agreement. An awkward silence fell between them for several seconds. Westboard expected her to turn and leave, either in an indignant huff or the practiced casualness that he’d come to associate with prostitutes. When she remained standing near him, looking everywhere but his direction, he finally broke the silence, asking her, “Toni, is there something you want to tell me?”
She met his gaze, then lowered her eyes to the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Westboard realized what she was working herself up to. He made it easy for her. “Have you been assaulted?”
She nodded. A tear formed in the corner of her left eye.
“Sexually?” Westboard asked.
She wiped angrily at the tear, nodding again. “Yeah. A few times. But there was this one guy who almost choked me to death about a week ago. He was a bigger asshole than the others.”
Westboard reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “What happened?” he asked her in a soft voice.
“He picked me up. We did our deal, you know? But then in the middle of it all, he started choking me. I almost passed out. Then he threw me out of the car onto the ground.” More tears spilled down her cheeks. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
Westboard nodded his head in understanding. He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Did he say anything?”
“Yeah,” she said, sniffling. “He said he only let me live because I was beautiful.” She laughed nervously through her tears. “Like I’m supposed to forgive him because he threw out a lame compliment or something? What an asshole.”
Westboard removed his notebook from his breast pocket. “I’d like to do a report on this, Toni. If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” she said, taking a tissue from her purse and wiping her nose. “Like it’ll ever go anywhere. Most cops just think getting raped goes with the territory.”
“It doesn’t,” Westboard said. “I don’t.”
She stared at him in appreciation, but suspicion still rimmed her eyes. “Yeah, all right. Let’s make a report.”
“Is there anything else you can remember about this guy?” Westboard asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “He said something strange to me while he was choking me. Something about how he was going to put the whammy on me or something like that.”
Westboard felt a surge of adrenaline in his chest. “He said that to you? Whammy?”
Toni nodded.
“You think you’d recognize this guy if you saw him again?”
“Absolutely.” She nodded emphatically. “He was an asshole. I never forget those guys, because I won’t get into a car with them ever again.”
Westboard raised his radio to his lips. “Baker-124.”
“Baker-124, go ahead.”
“Page Detective Tower to my location.”
“Copy.”
Toni watched him carefully. “Is that important?” she asked him. “What I said?”
He nodded. “Oh, yeah. Very important.”
Thursday, April 25th
Day Shift
1044 hours
Katie tapped lightly on Lieutenant Saylor’s door.
“Come,” she heard him say.
She opened the door and leaned in. Saylor sat at his desk, reviewing a thick stack of paperwork. He looked up as she entered.
“Ah, MacLeod,” he said, setting down his pen and turning to face her. “Come on in. Have a seat.”
Katie sat down gingerly in the chair at the side of the lieutenant’s desk.
Saylor watched her carefully. “How’re you feeling?”
“Sore,” she admitted. “But nothing’s broken.”
“Good.” He paused a moment, then asked. “How are you feeling about what happened?”