"Special Operations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffin W.E.B)

TWO

Mickey O'Hara drove the battered Chevrolet around City Hall, then down South Broad Street, past the dignified Union League Club. When he came to the equally dignified Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, Mickey pulled to the curb at the corner, directly beside a sign reading NO PARKING

He slid across the seat and got out the passenger side door. Then he walked the fifty feet or so to the revolving door of the BellevueStratford and went inside.

He walked across the lobby to the marble reception desk. There was a line, two very well dressed middle-aged men Mickey pegged to be salesmen, and a middle-aged, white-haired couple Mickey decided were a wife and a husband who, if he had had a choice, would have left her home.

All the salesmen did was ask the clerk for their messages. The wife had apparently badgered her husband into complaining about their room, which didn't offer what she considered a satisfactory view, and then when he started complaining, took over from him. She obviously, and correctly, considered herself to be a first-class bitcher.

The desk clerk apparently had the patience of a saint, Mickey thought; and then-by now having gotten a good look at her-he decided she looked like one, too. An angel, if not a saint. Tall, nicely constructed, with rich brown hair, a healthy complexion, and very nice eyes. And she was wearing, Mickey noticed, no rings, either engagement or wedding, on the third finger on her left hand.

She gave the big-league bitcher and her consort another room, apologizing for any inconvenience the original room assignment might have caused. Mickey thought the big-league bitcher was a little disappointed, like a bantamweight who sent his opponent to the canvas for the count with a lucky punch in the first round. All keyed up, and nobody around to fight with.

"Good evening, sir," the desk clerk said. "How may I help you?"

Her voice was low and soft, her smile dazzling; and her hazel eyes were fascinating.

"What room is Bull Bolinski in?" Mickey asked.

"Mr. Bolinski isn't here, sir," she replied immediately.

"He isn't?"

"Are you Mr. O'Hara, sir? Mr. Michael J. O'Hara?"

"Guilty."

She smiled. Warmly, Mickey thought. Genuinely amused.

"I thought I recognized you from your pictures," she said. "I'm one of your… what… avid readers… Mr. O'Hara."

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded confirmation. "Mr. Bolinski called, Mr. O'Hara," she said. "Just a few moments ago. He's been delayed."

"Oh?"

"He said you would be here, and he asked me to tell you that he will be getting into Philadelphia very late, and that he hopes you'll be free to have breakfast with him, somewhere around ten o'clock."

"Oh."

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. O'Hara?"

"No. No, thanks."

She smiled at him again, with her mouth and her eyes.

By the time he got to the revolving door, Mickey realized that opportunity had knocked, and he had as usual, blown it again.

Well, what the hell was 1 supposed to say, "Hey, honey, what time do you get off? Let's you and me go hoist a couple?"

Mickey got back in the Chevy and drove home, nobly resisting the temptation to stop in at six different taverns en route for just one John Jamison's. He went into the kitchen, finished the quart bottle of Ortleib's, and then two more bottles as he considered what he would do if he couldn't be a police reporter anymore. And, now that the opportunity was gone, thinking of all the clever, charming and witty things he should have said to the desk clerk with the soft and intimate voice and intelligent, hazel eyes.

George Amay, the Northwest Detectives Division detective, who, using the designator D-Dan 209, had gone in on the naked woman call, stayed at the crime scene just long enough to get a rough idea of what was going down. Then he got back in his car and drove to an outside pay phone in a tavern parking lot on Northwestern Avenue and called it in to the Northwest Detectives desk man, one Mortimer Shapiro.

Detective Shapiro's place of duty was a desk just inside the Northwest Detectives squad room, on the second floor of the Thirtyfifth Police District Building at North Broad and Champlost Streets.

"Northwest Detectives, Shapiro," Mort said, answering the telephone.

"George Amay, Mort," Amay said. "I went in on a Thirty-fifth District call for a naked lady on Forbidden Drive. It's at least Criminal Attempt Rape, Kidnapping, et cetera et cetera."

"Where are you?"

"In a phone booth on Northwestern. The victim's been taken to Chestnut Hill Hospital. The Thirty-fifth Lieutenant and Sergeant are at the scene. And Highway. And a lot of other people."

"Go back to the scene, and see if you can keep Highway from destroying all the evidence," Shapiro said. "I'll send somebody over."

Detective Shapiro then consulted the wheel, which was actually a sheet of paper on which he had written the last names of all the detectives present for duty that night in the Northwest Detectives Division.

Assignment of detectives to conduct investigations, called jobs, was on a rotational basis. As jobs came in, they were assigned to the names next on the list. Once assigned a job, a detective would not be assigned another one until all the other detectives on the wheel had been assigned a job, and his name came up again.

The next name on the wheel was that of a detective Mort Shapiro privately thought of as Harry the Farter. Harry, aside from his astonishing flatulence, was a nice enough guy, but he was not too bright.

What Amay had just called in was not the sort of job that should be assigned to detectives like Harry the Farter, if there was to be any real hope to catch the doer. The name below Harry the Farter's on the wheel was that of Richard B. "Dick" Hemmings, who was, in Mort Shapiro's judgment, a damned good cop.

Shapiro opened the shallow drawer in the center of his desk, and took from it a report of a recovered stolen motor vehicle, which had come in several hours before, and which Detective Shapiro had "forgotten" to assign to a detective.

When a stolen motor vehicle is recovered, or in this case, found deserted, a detective is assigned to go to the scene of the recovery to look for evidence that will assist in the prosecution of the thief, presuming he or she is ultimately apprehended. Since very few auto thefts are ever solved, investigation of a recovered stolen motor vehicle is one of those time-consuming futile exercises that drain limited manpower resources. It was, in other words, just the sort of job for Harry the Farter.

"Harry!" Mort Shapiro called, and Harry the Farter, a rather stout young man in his early thirties, his shirt showing dark patches of sweat, walked across the squad room to his desk.

"Jesus," Harry the Farter said when he saw his job. "Another one?"

Shapiro smiled sympathetically.

"Shit!" Harry the Farter said, broke wind, and walked back across the squad room to his desk. When, in Shapiro's judgment, Harry the Farter was sufficiently distracted, Shapiro got up and walked to the desk occupied by Detective Hemmings, who was typing out a report on an ancient manual typewriter. He laid a hand on his shoulder and motioned with his head for Hemmings to join him at the coffee machine.

"Amay just called in," Shapiro said after Hemmings had followed him to the small alcove holding the coffee machine. "We've got another rape, it looks like, on Forbidden Drive by the Bell's Mill bridge over the Wissahickon."

Hemmings, a trim man of thirty-five, just starting to bald, pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

"Amay said that he could use some help protecting the crime scene," Shapiro said. "I just gave Harry a recovered stolen vehicle."

Hemmings nodded his understanding, then walked across the room to a row of file cabinets near Shapiro's desk. He pulled one drawer open, reached inside, and came out with his revolver and ankle holster. He knelt and strapped the holster to his right ankle. Then he went to Shapiro's desk, opened the center drawer, and took out a key to one of the Northwest Detectives unmarked cars, then left the squad room.

Shapiro, first noting with annoyance but not surprise that Harry the Farter was still fucking around with things on his desk and had not yet left, entered the Lieutenant's office, now occupied by the tour commander, Lieutenant Teddy Spanner.

"Amay called in an attempted criminal rape, kidnapping, et cetera," Shapiro said. "It looks as if our scumbag is at it again. I gave it to Hemmings."

"Where?" Spanner asked.

"Forbidden Drive, by the bridge over the Wissahickon."

"Who's next up on the Wheel?" Spanner said.

"Edgar and Amay," Shapiro said.

"What's Harry Peel doing?" Lieutenant Spanner asked.

"I just sent him on a recovered stolen vehicle," Shapiro said.

Spanner met Shapiro's eyes for a moment.

"Well, send Edgar if he's next up on the Wheel, over to help, and tell him to tell Amay to stay with it. Or, I will. I better go over there myself."

"Yes, sir," Mort Shapiro said, and walked back across the squad room to his desk, where he sat down and waited for the next job to come in.

Officer Bill Dohner used neither his siren nor his flashing lights on the trip to the Chestnut Hill Hospital Emergency Room. For one thing, it wasn't far, and there wasn't much traffic. More importantly, he thought that the girl was upset enough as it was without adding the scream of a siren and flashing lights to her trauma.

"You just stay where you are, miss," Dohner said. "I'll get somebody to help us."

He got out of the car and walked quickly through the doors to the Emergency Room.

There was a middle-aged, comfortable-looking nurse standing by the nurse's station.

"I've got an assaulted woman outside," he said. "All she has on is a blanket."

The nurse didn't even respond to him, but she immediately put down the clipboard she had been holding in her hands and walked quickly to a curtained cubicle, pushing the curtains aside and then pulling out a gurney. She started pushing it toward the doors. By the time she got there, she had a licensed practical nurse, an enormous red-haired woman, and a slight, almost delicate black man in a white physician's jacket at her heels.

"Any injuries that you saw?" the doctor asked Dohner, who shook his head. "No."

The LPN, moving with surprising speed for her bulk, was at the RPC before anyone else. She pulled the door open.

"Can you get out of there without any help, honey?" she asked.

Mary Elizabeth Flannery looked at her as if the woman had been speaking Turkish.

The LPN leaned into the car and half pulled Mary Elizabeth Flannery from it, and then gently put her on the gurney. She spread a white sheet over her, and then, with a little difficulty, pulled Dohner's blanket from under the sheet.

"You're going to be all right, now, dear," the LPN said.

Dohner took the blanket. The doctor leaned over Mary Elizabeth Flannery as the LPN started pushing the gurney into the Emergency Room. Dohner folded the blanket and put it on the front passenger-side floorboard. Then he picked up the microphone.

"Fourteen Twenty-Three. I'm at Chestnut Hill Hospital with the victim."

"Fourteen Twenty-Three, a detective will meet you there."

"Fourteen Twenty-Three, okay," Dohner said, and then walked into the Emergency Room.

None of the people who had taken Mary Elizabeth Flannery from his car were in sight, but he heard sounds and detected movement inside the white curtained cubicle from which the nurse had taken the gurney. Dohner sat down in a chrome and plastic chair to wait for the detective, or for the hospital people to finish with the victim.

The LPN came out first, rummaged quickly through a medical equipment cabinet, muttered under her breath when she couldn't find what she was looking for, then went back into the cubicle. The nurse then came out, went to the same cabinet, swore, and then reached for a telephone.

Then she spotted a ward boy.

"Go to supply and get a Johnson Rape Kit," she ordered. "Get a half dozen of them, if you can."

She looked over at Dohner.

"She hasn't been injured," she said. "Cut, or anything like that."

"I'd like to get her name and address," Dohner said.

"That'll have to wait," the nurse said.

A minute or two later, the ward boy came running down the waxed corridor with an armful of small packages. He went to the curtained cubicle, handed one of the packages to someone inside, then put the rest in the medical equipment cabinet.

Officer Dohner knew what the Johnson Rape Kit contained, and how it was used, and he felt a wave of mixed rage and compassion for Mary Elizabeth Flannery, who seemed to him to be a nice young woman, and was about to undergo an experience that would be almost as shocking and distasteful for her as what the scumbag had already done to her.

The Johnson Rape Kit contained a number of sterile vials and swabs. Blood would be drawn from Mary Elizabeth Flannery into several of the vials. Tests for venereal disease and pregnancy would be made. The swabs would be used to take cultures from her throat, vagina, and anus, to determine the presence of semen and alien saliva, urine or blood.

It would be uncomfortable for her, and humiliating, but it was necessary to successfully prosecute the sonofabitch who did this to her, presuming they could catch him.

The "chain of evidence" would be carefully maintained. The assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, presuming again that the police could catch the rapist, would have to be prepared to prove in court that the results of the probing of Mary Elizabeth Flannery's bodily orifices had been in police custody from the moment the doctor handed them to Dohner (or a detective, if one had shown up by the time the doctor was finished with his tests) until he offered them as evidence in a courtroom.

Detective Dick Hemmings arrived at the Chestnut Hill Hospital Emergency Room twenty minutes after Officer Bill Dohner had taken her there. He found Dohner sitting in a chair, filling out a Form 75-48, which is the initial Report of Investigation. It is a short form, providing only the bare bones of what has happened.

Dohner nodded at Hemmings, who sat down beside him and waited until he had finished. Dohner handed the 75-48 to him. In a neat hand, he had written:"Compl. states a W/M broke into her apt, forced her to perform Involuntary Deviate Sex. Intercourse, urinated on her, tied her up, forced her into a van, amp; left her off at Bell's Mill Road amp; Forbidden Dr."

"Jesus," Hemmings said. "Where is she?"

"In there with the doctor," Dohner said, nodding toward the white curtained cubicle.

"Hurt?"

"No."

Dohner reached in his pocket and took out the cord he had cut from Mary Elizabeth Flannery's wrists. "This is what he tied her up with."

Hemmings saw that Bill Dohner had not untied the knot in the cord.

"Good job," he said. "Make sure the knot doesn't come untied. Give me a couple of minutes here to find out what we have, and then take the cord to Northwest and put it on a Property Receipt."

Dohner nodded. He held up a clear plastic bag, and dropped the cord in it.

"I got this from one of the nurses," he said.

A Property Receipt-Philadelphia Police Department Form 75-3-is used to maintain the "chain of evidence." As with the biologic samples to be taken from Mary Elizabeth Flannery's body, it would be necessary, presuming the case got to court, for the assistant district attorney to prove that the cord allegedly used to tie the victim's hands had never left police custody from the time Dohner had cut it from her wrists; that the chain of evidence had not been broken.

Property Receipts are numbered sequentially. They are usually kept in the desk of the Operations Room Supervisor in each district. They must be signed for by the officer asking for one, and strict department policy insists that the information on the form must either be typewritten orprinted in ink. Consequently, evidence is almost always held until the officer using a Property Receipt can find a typewriter.

"Anything happen at the scene?" Dohner asked.

"The Mobile Crime Lab got there when I was there," Hemmings said. " Nobody that looks like the doer has shown up. How long did he have her there?"

"I didn't get hardly anything out of her," Dohner said. "Just her name, and what this guy did to her. She's pretty shook up."

Hemmings finished filling out the form, acknowledging receipt of one length of knotted cord used to tie up Mary Elizabeth Flannery, signed it, and handed the original to Dohner, who handed him the cord.

"You might as well go, Bill," Hemmings said. "I'll take it from here."

"I hope you catch him," Dohner said, standing up and giving his hand to Hemmings.

Then he went outside and got in his car and started the engine and called Police Radio and reported that Fourteen Twenty-Three was back in service.

Mary Elizabeth Flannery looked with frightened eyes at the stranger who had entered the curtained cubicle.

"Miss Flannery, my name is Dick Hemmings, and I'm a detective. How are you doing?"

She did not reply.

"Is there anyone you would like me to call? Your parents, maybe? A friend?"

"No!" Mary Elizabeth Flannery said, as if the idea horrified her.

"I know what you've been going through," Hemmings said.

"No, you don't!"

"But the sooner we can learn something about the man who did this to you, the better," Hemmings went on, gently. "Would it be all right if I asked you a couple of questions?"

She eyed him suspiciously, but didn't reply.

"I need your address, first of all," he said.

"210 Henry Avenue," she said. "Apartment C. They call it the Fernwood."

"That's one of those garden apartments, isn't it?" Hemmings asked, as a mental image of that area of Roxborough came to his mind.

"Yes," she said.

"How do you think this man got into your apartment?" Hemmings asked.

"How do I know?" she snapped.

"Is there a fire escape? Were there open windows?"

"There's a back," she said. "Little patios."

"You live on the ground floor?"

"Yes."

"Did you hear any noises, a window breaking, a door being forced, by any chance?"

"The windows were open," she said. "It's been hot."

She thinks I'm stupid, but at least she's talking.

"When were you first aware that this man was in your apartment?"

"When I saw him," Mary Elizabeth Flannery snapped.

"Where were you, what were you doing, when you first saw him?"

"I was in my living room, watching television."

"And where was he, when you first saw him?"

"Just standing there, in the door to my bedroom." She grimaced.

"Can you describe him?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"He was wearing black overalls, coveralls, whatever they call them, and a mask. That's all I could see."

"What kind of a mask?"

"A mask, over his eyes."

"I mean, what color was the mask? Did you notice?"

"It was a Lone Ranger mask," she said. "The kind with a flap over the mouth."

"Black?"

"Yes, black," she said.

The Lone Ranger, Hemmings thought, wore a mask that covered his eyes only, not with a flap over his mouth.

"Did he have anything with him?"

"He had a knife," she said, impatiently, as if she expected Hemmings to know all these details.

"What kind of knife?"

"A butcher knife."

"Was it your knife?"

"No, it wasn't my knife."

"Do you remember if the windows in your bedroom were open?" Hemmings asked.

"I told you they were; it was hot."

"How big was the knife?" Hemmings asked, extending his index fingers as he spoke, and then moving his hands apart.

"That big," Mary Elizabeth Flannery said, when she thought his hands were as far apart as the knife had been large.

"And it was a butcher knife, right?"

"I told you that."

"I mean, it couldn't have been a hunting knife, or a bayonet, or some other kind of a knife?"

"I know a butcher knife when I see one."

"Miss Flannery, I'm on your side."

"Why do you let people like that run the streets, then?" she challenged.

"We try not to," Hemmings said, sincerely. "We try to catch them, and then to see that they're put behind bars. But we need help to catch them."

There was no response to this.

"What happened then, Miss Flannery?" Hemmings asked, gently.

"I told the cop what that filthy bastard did to me."

"But I have to know, and in some detail, I'm afraid," Hemmings said.

"He threatened me with his knife, and made me… oh, Jesus!"

"Can you tell me exactly what he said?"

She snorted. "You want to know exactly what he said? I'll tell you exactly what he said, he said'Very nice,' that's what he said."

"What kind of a voice did he have?"

"What do you mean, what kind of a voice?"

"Was it deep, or high pitched? Did he have any kind of an accent?"

"He had a regular voice," she said. "No accent."

"And then what happened?"

"Then… he came over to me, and cut my clothes."

"You were sitting where? In an armchair? On a couch?"

"I was laying down on my couch."

"What part of your clothes did he cut? What were you wearing?"

She flushed and turned her face away from him.

"Jesus!" she said.

"Miss Flannery," Hemmings said. "Sometimes, when it's hot like this, and my air conditioner's not working, and there's nobody around to see me, when I watch television, I do it in my underwear. Was that what happened with you?"

She nodded her head, but still kept her head turned away from him.

"Bra and pants, is that what you were wearing, because it was so damned hot?"

"Just my panties," she said, faintly, after a moment, and then she flared. "You're trying to make it sound like it was my fault."

"No, I'm not, Miss Flannery," Hemmings said, with all the sincerity he could muster.

He probably would have broken in if you had been wearing an anklelength fur coat, but looking through the window and seeing you wearing nothing but your underpants didn't discourage him any, either, Hemmings thought. And was immediately ashamed of himself.

"You say he cut your clothing? You mean your underclothes?"

"He came over to me and put the knife down the front of my panties and jerked it," she said.

"Did he say anything? Or did you?"

"I tried to scream when I first saw him, and couldn't," she said. " And then when he was using the knife, I was too scared to scream."

"Did he say anything?"

"He said, 'Let's see the rest,'" she said, very faintly.

"What was he doing with the knife at this time?" Hemmings asked, gently.

"Oh, my God! Is thisnecessary!"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid it is."

"He was pushing me in the breast with it, with the point."

She turned her face to look at him, then as quickly averted it.

"Then he said, 'Take your panties off,' and I did," she said, quickly, softly. "And then he took me into my bedroom and made me get on the bed, and then he tied me to the bed-"

"What did he use to tie you to the bed?"

"My panty hose," she said. "He went in my dresser and got panty hose and tied me up."

"Up?" Hemmings interrupted. "Or to the bed?"

"To the bed," she said. "I've got a brass bed, and he tied me to the headboard and footboard."

"On your back? Or on your stomach?"

"On my back," she said.

"And then what?"

"Then he started talking dirty," she said.

"Do you remember what he said?"

"What do you think?" she flared.

"Can you tell me exactly what he said?" Hemmings asked.

"Jesus!" she said. "He used words like 'teats' and… and 'pussy' and words like that."

"Anything else?"

"Isn't that enough? Or do you mean what he did to me?"

"Anything and everything you can tell me, Miss Flannery…"

"Then he started taking off his overalls-"

"Let's get that fact straight," Hemmings said. "Overalls are what farmers wear, if you follow me. They have straps over the shoulders, and a sort of flap in front. Coveralls are what mechanics sometimes wear. They cover everything; they have sleeves. Which was he wearing?"

"Coveralls," she said. "Black coveralls."

"Black, or maybe dark blue?"

"Black,"she said firmly.

"Sometimes people who wear coveralls get them at work," Hemmings said. "And they have embroidery on them, or little patches. 'Joe's Garage,' or something like that. Or a name embroidered. Did you notice anything like that?"

"No," she said, surely.

"When he took off his coveralls, did you notice what kind of underclothes he was wearing?"

"When I saw what he was doing, I closed my eyes."

"And?"

"And said Hail Marys," she said.

"And then what happened?"

"He wasn't wearing a T-shirt," she said, "an undershirt. I saw that much. He was barechested. He was hairy. He had a lot of hair."

"And then what happened."

"I felt him getting on the bed, and when I opened my eyes, he was on top of me."

"Lying on top of you?"

"No! Kneeling, squatting, over me. Over my head. And he had all his clothes off."

"And then what did he do?"

"He told me to suck it," she said, bitterly.

"He meant his penis?"

"What do you think?"

"Was he erect? Did he have an erection?"

"No," she said. "No. He said, 'Suck it and make it hard.' "

"And he put his penis in your mouth?"

"He had his goddamned knife on my throat!"

"And forced his penis into your mouth?"

"Yes, God damn you, yes!"

"And did he ejaculate?"

"What? Oh. No. No, thank God, he didn't."

"What did he do?"

"After a while he took it out, and sat back on his heels and… played with himself."

"Did he ejaculate then?"

"All over me," she said, almost moaning, "my face, my mouth, my chest

…"

"You said he was hairy," Hemmings asked. "Did you notice anything else? Were there any scars on his body? Any marks? Any tattoos? Anything like that?"

"I was trying not to look at him."

"You had your eyes closed all this time?"

"He pushed me with the knife and made me open them," she said. "He said he wanted me to watch."

"And after he had masturbated, what did he do?"

"He sat there, on my legs, for a while, and then he got off and put his overalls, coveralls, back on."

"Did he go to the bathroom, anything like that?"

"He went to the bathroom on me," she said, in mingled horror and fury. "He got off me, off the bed, and then stood by the side of it and… pissed all over me."

"He stood by the side of the bed and urinated on you. Before or after he put his coveralls back on?"

"Before," she said.

"And you didn't see any markings of any kind on his body?"

"I told you already, no."

"And then what happened?"

"He cut me loose and made me roll over, and then he tied me up again," she said.

"When Officer Dohner found you, Miss Flannery, your hands were tied with lamp cord. Do you remember where he got that?"

"No," she said.

"He cut the panty hose with which you were tied, is that right? He didn't untie you?"

"He tried," she said. "And then when he couldn't, he got mad. And then he got even madder when he couldn't find any more panty hose. He pulled the dresser drawer all the way out and threw it on the floor."

"And after he had tied your hands behind you, what did he do?"

"He said we were going for a little ride, he wanted everybody to-"

"To what?"

"To have a look at me."

"Are those, more or less, his exact words?"

"He said he wanted everybody to see… my private parts, and to see his come all over me."

"Then what?"

"He found my raincoat…"

"Where was that?"

"In the hall closet," she said. "And he told me to get up, and he put my raincoat over my shoulders. And he said that if I tried to run away, he'd…he'd stick the knife up… in me… he'd stick the knife between my legs."

"And then?"

"He took me out the back and put me in the back of his van."

"Tell me about the van," Hemmings said. "Where was it?"

"In the parking lot behind my apartment."

Hemmings tried and failed to recall a mental image of the garden apartment complex parking lot.

"What kind of a van was it?"

"Avan," she said, impatiently.

"Where did he put you in the van?"

"In the back."

"Was there a door on the side, a sliding door, maybe? Or did you get in the front?"

"There was a sliding door. He opened it, and told me to get in and lay down on my face."

"Did you see anything in the back of the van? I mean, was it plain in there, or did he have it fixed up with chairs and upholstery? Was there a carpet, maybe?"

"No. The floor was metal. And there was nothing in there. Just avan ."

"Did it look to you like a new van, or one that has been around awhile? Was it scratched up, maybe? Was there a peculiar smell? Anything like that?"

"It was dark, and I had my face on the floor, and I couldn't see anything," she said.

"And then what happened?"

"He got in front and started it up, and I guess he just drove me to where he pushed me out and the cop found me."

"Did anything happen while you were in the van? Did you hear something, maybe, that stuck in your mind. Can you think of anything at all?"

"I thought he was going to kill me," she said. "I was praying."

"Tell me about what happened when you got to Forbidden Drive," Hemmings said.

"I knew we'd left the street," she said. "A regular street, I mean. It sounded different under the wheels."

That response disappointed Dick Hemmings a little; if she had picked up on that, she more than likely would have picked up on anything else odd that had happened. Therefore, nothing interesting had happened.

"And?"

"And then he stopped, and I heard him opening the door, and then he told me to get out. He said that I should walk away from him, and if I turned around to look, he would kill me."

"And he was still wearing his mask?"

"Yeah."

"And then?"

"He took my raincoat off, and pushed me, and I started walking," she said. "And then I heard him driving off."

"Did you know where you were?"

"I thought the park," she said. "We hadn't come that far. But where in the park, I didn't have any idea."

"Did anyone come by before Officer Dohner got there?"

"No," she said. "I saw lights, headlights, and started walking toward where they were going past."

"I'll certainly be talking to you again, Miss Flannery," Hemmings said. "But this is enough to get us started. Thank you for being so frank with me."

"I hope he runs away when you catch him, so you can shoot the sonofabitch!" she said.

"Maybe we'll get lucky," Hemmings said.

I shouldn't 't have said that.

"What happens to me now?" Mary Elizabeth Flannery said.

"Well, I guess that's up to the doctor," Hemmings said. "He'll probably want you to spend the night here."

"I don't want to spend the night here," she said, angrily. "I want to go home."

"Well, that's probably your decision…"

"How am I going to get home? I don't have any clothing, my purse…"

"If you'd like me to, Miss Flannery," Hemmings said, "I'll be going to your apartment. I could bring you some clothing, and if you can work it out with the doctor, I'd be happy to drive you home. But if you want my advice, I'd stay here, or at least spend the night with your family, or a friend-"

" 'Hello, Daddy, guess what happened to me?'"

"I'm sure your father would understand," Hemmings said.

She snorted.

"What my father would say would be, 'I told you if you insisted on getting an apartment by yourself, something like this would happen.'"

"Well, what about a friend?"

"I don't want to have to answer any more questions from anybody," she said.

"Well, I'll go get you some clothing," Hemmings said. "And bring it here. You think about it."