Money To Burn (34 page)

He carried her back to the triage room and laid her on a stretcher, then stood guard as if to protect her from evil. At first, the nurse on duty barely disguised her distaste, assuming that the redhead was one more co-ed too stupid to know when to quit drinking. But after I explained the situation, her attitude changed abruptly. She exchanged a glance with the attendant. He strode from the room. I followed. He picked up a clipboard on the check-in desk and flipped to a sheet of paper near the bottom of the stack. He read through it, then pushed a red button on the wall and picked up the phone.

A doctor came rushing out of an inner hallway and I followed him back to the triage room. He meant business. He checked the pupils of the girl’s eyes and monitored her pulse. Then he ordered a toxicology scan, IV drip and a private room, stat. The girl was whisked away before I could blink.

No one told me anything.

When I returned to the waiting room, the front desk attendant avoided my eyes. He turned away, leaving me to stare at his long black braid and broad shoulders. I knew something was up when he didn’t even bother to ask me her name or request other data. When a hospital passes on insurance information, you know bigger forces are at work.

I waited under the harsh fluorescent lights, alone and feeling vaguely guilty, listening to the hum of the vending machines. The only other person in the waiting room was an old white bum s cd wm thleeping upright in his chair, one hand wrapped around a bloody, badly bandaged thumb.

I was almost asleep myself when the cops arrived, anxious to talk to me. Not a couple of bored uniforms, either, but two serious-looking detectives in plainclothes, their badges and notebooks at the ready to convince me they meant business. I didn’t know either one of them, which meant they weren’t homicide.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked as they examined my credentials, always a heart-stopping moment for me. “I thought this kind of thing happened all the time in a college town.”

“Depends on what you think happened,” the taller and thinner of the two men answered, handing me back my license without comment. “Why don’t you tell us why you were following her in the first place?”

I gave them an abbreviated version of events, one heavy on evasion and light on truth. I said I’d been tailing a college kid because a client suspected him of having an affair with his wife and had stumbled onto his meeting with the redhead by accident.

They wanted to know Jake Talbot’s name. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it.

“You’re putting me on the spot,” I said. “Client confidentiality and all.” God, but I hated to sound like a lawyer.

The shorter, fatter detective didn’t like that much. “You’re interfering with an ongoing investigation by the Durham Police Department,” he said gruffly. “I don’t think you want to get into a pissing match over this.”

I looked at them, surprised. “What are we talking about here?” I asked.

The two men exchanged glances and that was when it hit me.

“Shit,” I said, disgusted. “The guy who’s raping Duke co-eds.”

The plump detective raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

“Look,” I pleaded, “if I were that girl, I’d give you his name in a heartbeat. But how do I know she wants to press charges, or even have this incident known by anyone other than you and me? That’s something I think she’s entitled to decide for herself. You know as well as I do that if this gets out, her photo will be all over the papers.” And how, I thought to myself, once the media found out that Jake Talbot was involved. Gag order or not, the national press would swoop on it and the poor girl would end up on “Hard Copy.”

“Look,” the tall detective said grimly, “you could be our first, only and, hopefully, last relia cy, omable witness if this guy is the one.”

Good God, and I’d videotaped the entire episode.

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling as guilty as if the video camera in my back pocket were a kilo of cocaine.

“This is part of the whole rape drug trend sweeping this great country of ours,” the first detective said sarcastically. “The victims are doped at the bar where the perp first spots them and he’s good at what he does. He doesn’t move in on them until they’re so far gone that they don’t even remember meeting him the next day. We don’t have a single clue, not even an artist’s sketch based on some figment of a vic’s imagination. The drug causes them to black out, even though they look like they’re walking and maybe even talking. These girls are missing hours on either side of the rapes, and the friends they’re leaving behind in the bars are usually drunk as hell. They can’t tell us doodly-squat.”

The fat one got impatient. “Yeah, lady,” he interrupted. “So decide if you’re going to protect a scumball or maybe side a little bit with your sisters.”

“What makes you think she’s a victim of the same guy?” I asked.

“She fits the profile exactly. That’s why we were called. Every emergency room in the Triangle is on alert to let us know when a potential victim comes in. We saw one in Raleigh Saturday night, found wandering near NCSU, which means the guy is really starting to get around. We’ll know for sure when the drug screen comes back, but I’m willing to bet my badge she’s part of it.”

When he finished, the tall detective stood calmly, waiting for what he had said to sink in.

I tried to think. If Jake Talbot was the campus rapist, my only regret was that I hadn’t kicked his balls up and out his ears. I’d be happy to do what I could to put the guy behind bars where he could find out for himself what it was like to be on the receiving end of a rape.

But I had meant it when I said I thought it was the girl’s right to decide whether or not to pursue charges. It wasn’t a copout. I’d had more than one client in the past who had been raped and come to me for help tracking down her assailant. None of these women wanted the cops involved, none of them wanted to take the stand and testify. They just wanted help finding the bastard who had done it to them.

I’d done my job and located the guys. My clients had taken their vengeance from there, no questions asked by me. After a couple of times, I’d learned not to try and convince a raped woman to take her pain public. She either dealt with it privately or worked it out in court but, either way, it was her call, not mine. Besides, the one client who changed her mind and pressed charges ended up embroiled in a lawsuit for slander, teaching me how much the c hoeans the search for justice could cost a woman on top of what she had already paid.

Like it or not, it was the redhead’s decision.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t make that call yet. Let me talk to the girl.”

The fat detective threw his notebook to the floor in disgust. “Oh, that’s just great,” he said angrily. “While you’re busy protecting her feelings, he’s going to be right out there doing it some other woman. Have you thought about that?”

I had. “Just let me talk to her first,” I asked. “Then I’ll tell you what I can.”

The fat cop started to protest, but his partner dragged him away to the other side of the waiting room. We sat in silence, in opposite camps, for the longest hour of my life. Not even the sympathetic glances of the desk attendant, who’d overheard our conversation, made me feel any better.

Finally the doctor appeared. “She’s conscious,” he said. He looked confused when all three of us hopped to attention. “Her name is Karen Wilson. We’ve notified her parents. They’re on their way down from Richmond.”

The doctor said nothing more until we were down the hall. “Keep it short,” he ordered as he led us back to an elevator. We rode to the third floor in silence, the short detective glaring at me and the tall one staring at the ceiling.

We reached the girl’s room and I stopped, blocking the entrance. “Alone?” I asked in my nicest voice, knowing that only a few degrees separated skating on thin ice from being forced to try and walk on water.

The tall detective nodded and pulled his partner back. They retreated to the hallway as I crept inside. I had no doubt that they would eavesdrop once my back was turned, but I didn’t plan to say much anyway.

The young girl looked tiny lying in the glaring white hospital bed, surrounded by pillows and machines. Her face was pale and mottled with vivid freckles that had been masked by makeup earlier. Her eyes were open and staring dully out the window, tears running down her cheeks. She had a black eye and a cut in one corner of her mouth that had swelled to an angry red. Her right cheek was bruised and purplish spots marred her arms. A long scratch led down her neck and across her chest, until it disappeared beneath the sheet.

She mumbled something and I leaned over her to hear better. “What did you say?” I asked softly.

“I want my mom,” she repeated in a weak voice. Tears trickled down her cheeks and ran into a deep groove etched around her mouth. She had aged about ten y cd ae and a ears in the last four hours.

“They’ve called her,” I said. “She’ll be here soon.”

“I don’t want her to know what happened to me,” the girl said suddenly, struggling to sit upright.

I gently pushed her back in the bed. “Nothing happened to you,” I assured her. “Not like you think.”

“It didn’t?” she whispered.

“He didn’t get a chance.”

She lay back against the pillow, eyes closed. “I can’t remember,” she said. “I remember being at the bar and then I couldn’t find my friends in the crowd and…” Her voice trailed off. “Then I was here and my body really hurts down there and I thought, oh no, I thought…”

“I stopped him before he could,” I assured her. “You don’t remember meeting a guy at the bar?”

She shook her head. “I mean, I met a lot of guys, but I don’t remember one in particular. Are you a policewoman?”

I explained who I was and that I had been following someone when I saw her leaving the bar. “I didn’t see him do it, but the police think he dropped something in your drink. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. He’s that kind of guy”

“Then you know who he is,” she said. She frowned. “Did you tell the cops?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“His father has a lot of money,” I explained. “When the papers find out, the news will be everywhere. They’ll learn who you are eventually, no matter how much the courts try to keep your name out of the media. His father will make sure of that to scare you off. Your photo will probably be printed. But no one will ever explain exactly what happened, so everyone else will always wonder what he did to you. People will talk about you and you’ll know it. Do you go to school here?”

She nodded weakly. “At Duke,” she whispered. “I’m going to be a sophomore. My parents let me come up a few weeks early to find a nice apartment.”

“Off Highway 70?” I asked.

She shook her head. “On Anderson Drive. Why?”

“He took you to an apartment off Highway 70.”

“Oh.” Her voice grew smaller as she become lost in the thought of what had happened to her. “And you followed me there?” she asked.

I nodded. “I couldn’t see exactly what was happening but I heard enough to make me break down the door.”

“And if you hadn’t…” her voice broke and she started to cry. I let her cry it out for a couple of moments, handing her tissues from the box by her bed. Finally, she took a deep breath and sat up straighten “My head hurts,” she said. “And I want to throw up.”

“That’s the drug he gave you,” I explained, moving the plastic basin closer just in case. “The doctor gave you more drugs to counteract it. You’re going to feel lousy for a couple of days.”

“So this guy is rich and he’s going to get away with it?” she asked suddenly, anger overcoming her fear.

“Not if you don’t let him,” I said. “That’s what I wanted to ask you. If you give me your permission, I’ll tell the police everything I know. They’ll press charges. And they’ll probably find enough evidence to tie him to other rapes as well. If you don’t want me to tell them, I won’t say a word.” Which didn’t mean I wouldn’t find another way of dealing with Jake Talbot.

She thought about it. “What if I just want to forget the whole thing?” she asked, avoiding my eyes.

“He might do it to someone else,” I said. “In fact, he probably will. And I doubt I’d be around to stop it.”

“Meaning some other girl would get hurt even worse than me?” she asked.

“Much worse,” I told her. “Take how you feel right now and multiply it by a million. That’s how that girl would feel.”

There was a silence.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “What if no one believes me? What if no one believes you?”

I took the camera from my back pocket and placed it on the bed in front of her. “I have this,” I explained. “It’s a camera.”

“You have pictures?” she asked, horrified.

I nodded. “Videotape of him talking to you in the bar, th cn ton’ten leading you outside. And what happened later, in the apartment. I filmed it through the window of the bedroom.”

“I want to see it,” she said, reaching for the camera.

I stopped her, thinking of how she had looked when I burst in the bedroom, her pale legs splayed and her limp body flopping all over the bed as Jake Talbot experimented with her, propping her up first here and then there, like she was an inflatable doll instead of a human being.