“Miss, are you all ri-”
“The stairs,” she managed to say, pointing. “He ran that way.”
The man didn’t waste time on words. He darted in that direction, radio out, calling for backup.
Stacy stood, legs wobbly. She heard the cop’s feet pounding on the stairs, though she doubted he would catch the man. Even wounded, he’d had too great a head start.
The lights came on. Stacy blinked at the sudden change. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the books and toppled cart, the trail of blood leading to the stairwell.
A woman rushed toward her, expression alarmed. “Are you all- My God, you’re bleeding!”
Stacy looked down at herself. Her shirt and right hand were bloody. “It’s his blood. I stabbed him with my ballpoint.”
The woman went white. Afraid she might faint, Stacy led her to a chair. “Put your head between your knees. It’ll help.”
When the woman did as she instructed, she added, “Now breathe. Deeply, through your nose.”
After several moments, the woman lifted her head. “I feel so silly. You’re the one who should be-”
“Never mind that. Are you okay now?”
“Yes, you-” she breathed deeply several times “-you were really lucky.”
“Lucky?” she repeated.
“You could have been raped. Those other girls-”
“Weren’t so lucky.”
Stacy turned. The campus cop who had come to her aid was back. He was young, she saw. Probably twenty-five. “You didn’t catch him, did you?”
He looked frustrated. “No. I’m sorry.” His motioned to her hand and bloodstained shirt. “Are you hurt?”
“She stabbed him with her pen,” the librarian supplied.
The campus cop looked at her, his expression a combination of admiration and disbelief. “You did?”
“I was a cop for ten years,” she said. “I know how to defend myself.”
“It’s a good thing you do,” he said. “There’ve been three rapes on campus this year, all during the fall term. We thought maybe he’d moved on.”
Stacy had heard about the rapes, had been warned by her adviser to be careful. Especially at night. She didn’t believe the man who’d attacked her was this rapist. If his intention had been rape, why the warning “To stay out of it”? Why had he been prepared to let her go? He would have dragged her to the floor, tried to get at her clothing.
No. It didn’t add up.
Stacy told him so.
“The MO’s the same. He’s attacked women alone at night on campus. All three have occurred between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. The first right here in the library.”
“This wasn’t that guy. His intention wasn’t rape.” She relayed the sequence of events. How he whispered in her ear to stay out of it. “He was about to let me go. That’s when I made my move.”
“Are you certain of what you heard?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
The cop didn’t look convinced. “That fits the rapist’s MO as well. He whispered into each one of his victims’ ears.”
Stacy frowned. “Then why let me go with a warning?”
The cop and librarian exchanged glances. “You’re upset. Understandably. You’ve had a shock-”
“And I’m not thinking clearly?” she finished for him. “I worked Homicide for ten years. I’ve been through shit a lot more shocking than this. I’m not mistaken about what I heard.”
The young officer’s face reddened; he took a step back from her. She supposed using the S word had put him off, but damn it, she’d been making a point.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said coolly. “I’ve got to call the NOPD. Get someone over here to collect evidence. Tell your story to them.”
“Ask for Detective Spencer Malone,” she said. “ISD. Tell him it’s about the Finch case.”
CHAPTER 15
Saturday, March 5, 2005
12:30 a.m.
Spencer greeted the officer standing sentinel at the door of the UNO library. He was an old-timer. “How’s it going?”
The other man shrugged. “Okay. Wish spring’d get here. It’s still too damn cold for these old bones.”
Only a New Orleanian would gripe about nighttime temperatures in the sixties.
The man held out a clipboard; Spencer signed in. “Upstairs?”
“Yeah. On four.”
Spencer found the elevator. He had been asleep when he’d gotten the call. At first he thought he’d misunderstood the dispatcher. Nobody was dead. An attempted rape. But the victim claimed it had something to do with the Finch murder.
His investigation.
So he’d dragged his butt out of bed and headed what seemed like halfway across the world to the UNO campus.
The elevator reached four; he stepped off and followed the sound of voices. The group came into view. He stopped. Killian. Her back was to him, but he recognized her, anyway. Not just by her glorious blond hair, but something about the way she held herself. Erectly. With a kind of confidence that had been earned.
To her left stood a couple of the campus cops and John Russell, from DIU, Third District.
Spencer closed the distance between them. “Trouble follows you, doesn’t it, Ms. Killian?”
The three men looked his way. She turned. He saw that her shirt was bloodstained.
“It’s starting to seem so,” she said.
“Do you need medical attention?”
“No. But he might.”
He wasn’t surprised she’d gotten the best of him. He motioned toward the library table nearest her. They crossed to it, then sat.
He took the spiral notebook from his pocket. “Tell me what happened.”
Russell wandered over. “Attempted rape,” he began. “Same MO as three earlier, unsolved-”
Spencer held up a hand. “I’d like to hear Ms. Killian’s version of events first.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It wasn’t an attempted rape.”
“Go on.”
“I was working late.”
He glanced at the material on the table, scanning titles. “Research?”
“Yes.”
“On role-playing games?”
She lifted her chin slightly. “Yes. The library was deserted, or seemed to be. I heard someone, behind the stacks. I called out. Got no answer and went to investigate.”
She paused. Smoothed her hands over her thighs, her only outward sign of nerves. “When I reached the stacks, the lights went off. The stairwell door flew open and someone darted through. I started to go after him. That’s when I was grabbed from behind.”
“So there were two people besides you here?”
Her expression registered something akin to surprise. He’d only repeated her words in a different way; clearly she hadn’t put the two together.
She nodded. He looked at the other officers. “Any of the other victims report more than one attacker at the scene?”
“No,” the youngest of the university officers replied.
Spencer returned his gaze to hers. “He grabbed you from behind?”
“Yes. And held me in a way that indicated he knew what he was doing.”
“Show me.”
She nodded, stood and motioned to the campus cop. “Do you mind?” He said no, and she demonstrated. A moment later, she released him and returned to her seat.
“He was several inches taller than me. And quite strong.”
“So how did you get away?”
“Drove a ballpoint pen into his belly.”
“We’ve got the pen,” Russell offered. “Bagged and tagged.”
“And how does this relate to the Finch and Wagner murders?”
She made a sound of frustration. “He told me to stay out of it. Or else he wouldn’t. Then he poked his tongue in and out of my ear. And asked me if I understood.”
“Sounds like a direct threat of rape,” Russell said.
“He was warning me to keep my nose out of the investigation.” She jumped to her feet. “Don’t you see? I’ve stepped on somebody’s toes. Gotten too close.”
“Whose toes?”
“I don’t know!”
“We’ve alerted the infirmary to watch for a student who comes in with a puncture wound to be treated.”