"Alice," she said, "Lila is going with Detective Clapper down to the police station. She asked me to go home with you and get some clothes for her."
I didn't know how to act. Even then I was beginning to realize that Lila didn't know what to do with me around. There was Alice her friend, and Alice the successful rape victim. She needed one without the other, but that was impossible.
The detective drove me home and I unlocked the door. Pat still had yet to come home. The light I had left on had been turned off by someone else. I plunged in. I remembered how Tree and Diane had brought me bad clothes-patched jeans and no underwear. I wanted Lila to have comfort. I pulled down a large duffel from her closet and opened her drawers. I packed all her underwear, all her flannel gowns, slippers, socks, sweatpants, and loose shirts. I threw in a book and from her bed a stuffed animal and a pillow.
I needed things too. I knew already that Lila and I would never sleep in that house again. I walked to the back, where my room was. The door was closed. I asked the detective if I could go in.
I said a little prayer to no one and turned the knob. The room was cold because of the open window through which he'd climbed. I switched on the light near the door.
My bed was stripped. I walked toward it. In the center was a small fresh bloodstain. Nearby were other, smaller ones, like tears.
She had come out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, gone to her bedroom, and played the door game, thinking it was Pat. Then the rapist had shoved her onto the bed on her stomach. She saw the clock. In the darkness, she saw him only for a few seconds. He blindfolded her with the tie from my robe, and then, turning her around on the bed, made her hold her hands in front of her chest in the prayer position while he tied her wrists with bungee cords and a cat leash we kept in the front closet. This meant he had gone through the house while she was in the shower. He knew no one else was home. He made her get to her feet and walk back to my bedroom, where he made her lie down on my bed.
That was where he'd raped her. He asked her where I was during the attack. Somehow knew my name. Somehow knew Pat would not be back until much later. At one point, he asked about the tip money I had on my dresser and took that. She did not struggle. She did as he said.
He had her put on my robe and left her there, blindfolded.
She started screaming, but the boys in the apartment above us were playing loud music. No one heard her or did anything if they had. She had to go through the front of the apartment, outside, and up the stairs, banging on their door until they answered. They held beers in their hands. They were smiling, expecting more friends. She asked them to untie her. They did. And to call the police.
Lila would tell me all of this in the coming weeks. Now I tried hard not to look at the blood, at my bed, at the possessions he had gone through. My clothes in the closet spilled onto the floor. Photos on my desk. My poems. I grabbed a flannel gown to match Lila's, and some clothes off the floor. I wanted to take my old Royal typewriter, but this would seem silly and selfish to everyone but me. I looked at it and looked at the bed.
As I was turning to leave, a gust of wind from the window slammed the door shut. All the hope I had had of living a normal life had gone out of me.
The detective and I drove to the Public Safety Building. We took the elevator up to the third floor and exited into the familiar hallway outside the bulletproof glass that looked onto the police dispatcher's station. The dispatcher pressed the button for the security door and we entered.
"Through there," a policeman said to the detective.
We walked toward the back.
The photographer was holding up his camera. Lila stood against a wall holding a number in front of her chest. Hers, like mine, was written in bold Magic Marker on the back of an SPD envelope.
"Alice," the photographer said upon seeing me.
I placed the duffel with our clothes in it on an empty desk.
"Remember me?" he asked. "I took evidence in your case in eighty-one."
"Hello," I said.
Lila remained against the wall. Two other policemen came forward.
"Wow," one said. "It's great to meet you. We don't get the opportunity to see many victims after a conviction. Do you feel good about your case?"
I wanted to give these men a response. They deserved it. They usually saw only the side of a rape case that Lila, forgotten against the wall, represented: fresh or weary victims.
"Yes," I said, aware that what was happening was all wrong, stunned by my sudden celebrity. "You guys were great. I couldn't have asked for better. But I'm here for Lila."
They realized the strangeness of it too. But what wasn't strange?
They posed her and while they did, they talked to me.
"She doesn't really have any marks. I remember you were real messed up. Madison worked you over good."
"What about the wrists?" I said. "He tied her up. I wasn't tied up."
"But he had a knife, right?" a policeman asked, anxious to review the details of my case.
The photographer went up to Lila. "Yeah," he said. "Hold up your wrist in front. There, like that."
Lila did as instructed. Turned to the side. Held her wrists up. Meanwhile the uniforms surrounded me and asked me questions, shook my hand, smiled.
Then it was time to make phone calls. They set Lila and me up at a desk in the opposite corner. I sat on the top of it, and Lila sat in front of me in a chair. She told me the number of her parents and I dialed.
It was late now, but her father was still up.
"Mr. Rinehart," I said, "this is Alice, Lila's roommate. I'm going to put Lila on now."
I handed her the phone.
"Daddy," she began. She was crying. She got it out and then handed the phone back to me.
"I can't believe this is happening," he said.
"She'll be okay, Mr. Rinehart," I said, trying to reassure him. "It happened to me and I'm okay."
Mr. Rinehart knew about my case. Lila had shared it with her family.
"But you're not my daughter," he said. "I'll kill the son of a bitch."
I should have been prepared for this kind of anger at her attacker, but instead I felt it to be directed at me. I gave him Marc's phone number. Told him we would be sleeping there that night, and that he should call with his flight arrival time. Marc had a car, I said; we'd meet him at the airport.
Lila went with the police to fill out an affidavit. It was late now, and I sat on the metal desktop and thought about my parents. My mother was just now back working again after having a two-year increase in panic attacks. Now I would ruin that. Logic was beginning to leave, draining away from me. With blame so heavy and nowhere to place it but the fleeing back of a rapist Lila could barely describe, I took it on.
I dialed.
My mother answered the phone. Late-night calls meant only one thing to her. She waited at home for the news of my death.
"Mom," I said, "this is Alice."
My father picked up.
"Hi, Dad," I said. "First, I need you to know that I'm okay."
"Oh, God," my mother said, anticipating me.
"There's no way to say it but flat out. Lila was raped."
"Oh, Jesus."
They asked a lot of questions. In answer I said, "I'm fine." "On my bed." "We don't know yet." "Inside the interrogation room." "No weapon." "Shut up, I don't want to hear that."
This last one was a response to what they would say over and over again. "Thank God it wasn't you."
I called Marc.
"We saw him," he said.
"What?"
"Pat called and I went over and we drove around looking for him."
"That's crazy!"
"We didn't know what else to do," Marc said. "We both want to kill the bastard. Pat can't see straight he's so mad."
"How is he?"
"Messed up. I dropped him off at a friend's house afterward. He wanted to stay with us."
I listened to Marc's story. They both had a few shots, then drove up and down the nearby streets in the dark. Marc kept a crowbar in the car. Pat would scan the lawns and houses as Marc slowed down and then sped up. Finally, they heard yelling, and then saw a man running out from between two houses. He ran onto the sidewalk and then, seeing Marc's car, turned quickly and headed back down the block, slowing his pace to a walk. Marc and Pat followed him. I can only imagine what they said and what they were planning.