Irrefutable (3 page)

Janet finally emerged from the room two and a half hours after she entered.

“Well, what did you find?” Alex said.

“She has some scrapes on her face and hands where she was pushed to the ground from behind. There are bruises that look like possible ligature marks on both wrists. Evidently, at some point, her hands were bound behind her.” Janet handed him the sealed evidence kit. “I looked for a needle mark in all the obvious places, but didn’t see anything.”

“A needle mark?” Alex said, as he signed the chain of custody form.

“I figure if she doesn’t remember anything, she must have been either knocked out or drugged. If it was a drug, it would have probably been injected. I think it would be hard to get her to swallow something during an attack.”

“Do you think?” Alex asked with a note of sarcasm.

Janet placed her elbow on the counter. “I could see under the UV light that there was semen, but there wasn’t really much evidence of vaginal trauma. I drew blood and did all the swabs. She’s ready for you, if you want to talk to her.”

“Thanks.” Alex approached the exam room then turned to Janet. “I just need a chaperone, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure thing.”

Janet knocked on the door and slowly opened it. As they entered, the woman on the exam table withdrew, pulling the sheet up around her neck. “Who is he?”

“It’s okay.” Janet said

“My name is Detective Sergeant Alex Mendez.” He held his badge in front of him for the woman to see. “I’m with the Cypress Village Police. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“I already told the nurse everything.” She pointed toward Janet, who had taken a position leaning against the wall.

“Yes ma’am, I understand, but I need you to tell me.” Alex smiled warmly, as he sat on a stool next to the exam table. Alex understood the need to be on her level. He didn’t want to seem intimidating by towering over her.

She was, what Alex considered to be, an attractive woman. She looked to be in her mid thirties and was obviously in great physical condition. The scrapes on her face, the running make up and her disheveled blonde hair couldn’t disguise the fact that she took good care of herself.

She let out a long sigh. “How many times will I have to go over this?”

“Just this once,” Alex smiled. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The woman closed her eyes for a moment. “I was jogging on the track out at McMannus Park when someone knocked me to the ground from behind.”

“And, about what time was that?”

“It was probably close to eleven.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a well used tissue. “I run five miles and it usually takes about an hour. I think I was on my last lap, so yea, around eleven.”

“Did you get a look at the attacker?”

“No. I landed on my stomach and he was on my back as soon as I hit the ground.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No…not a word.” The woman furrowed her brow as if she had just realized that this struck her as odd.

“And, then what happened?”

“The next thing I remember was waking up on the ground, naked.” A solitary tear ran from the corner of her eye, down her left cheek.

Alex looked around the room for a box of tissues. Janet pointed toward the small counter by the sink. Alex handed the box to the woman. “You don’t remember how you got there?”

“No.” she took a tissue and wiped her eyes. “
You
probably can’t
imagine
what that felt like.”

“No ma’am.”

“The humiliation, the fear. I had no idea where I was or what had happened.” The tears were flowing freely now, her voice quivering. “Do you have any idea how vulnerable you feel when you wake up in a strange place, naked, with no way to cover yourself and no idea why you are even there?”

Alex started to answer, but realized the question was rhetorical. “Did you notice anyone unusual, following you, acting strangely before the attack?”

“Not that I recall.” The woman wiped more tears and blew her nose. “Excuse me, I’m sorry.”

“Not at all,” Alex smiled. “Any strange phone calls or hang-ups?”

“No.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Okay Ms. Dixon, I know this has been a difficult experience. I appreciate your time.” Alex stood. “Ms. Freeman here will give you a packet with information about support groups, victim’s rights and such. I’ll leave one of my cards in it. If you think of
anything
, call me day or night, alright?”

She nodded, but said nothing. Alex wished her well and they left the room.

“Well, what do you think?” Janet asked as they approached the nurse’s station.

“She’s not much help,” Alex placed his clipboard on the counter. “Will she be staying tonight?”

“I don’t know. Dr. Levine saw her when she came in. She’s had a head CT and x-rays, but you’ll have to talk to him to see what he found.”

“Levine, I haven’t heard that name before. Is he new?”

“He’s been here a couple of years. I guess it
has
been a while since you were in here.”

“I’ve been in here a few times in the last couple of years. I don’t remember the name.”

Maybe you came in on his off days,” Janet said.

“Maybe so. Where would I find him?”

Janet pointed to the far end of the nurse’s station.

Alex approached the other end of the counter where the doctor was engaged in a heated telephone discussion. Alex assumed it was a personal call when the doctor used the words bitch and attorney in the same sentence. The doctor looked to be in his early fifties. He was a short, plump fellow with a thin line of hair that formed a ring around his head, as if it were sliding down from the top. Alex could tell by his accent that he was from the northeast somewhere, New England, maybe Boston.

He watched an older man with dementia being led back to his room by a nurse who lightly scolded him for wandering about.

The doctor acknowledged Alex by holding up one finger then continued his conversation.

Alex heard something else about a lawyer and a cold day in hell, not that he was listening, but it was hard not to hear. The doctor was speaking quite loudly, evidently oblivious to his surroundings.

Alex waited patiently as he watched the activity in the ER. Nurses went in and out of rooms. The chatter of EMS and fire crackled from a small two way radio on the back wall. Alex heard something about a car wreck on the north side of town. His pulse quickened for just a moment, but quickly returned to normal. He was sure Carmen was safe at the dance.

“Sorry you had to hear that.” Dr. Levine said as he finally hung up the phone.

Alex smiled. He figured everyone in the department heard it.

“Can I help you?” The doctor asked.

“Yes, is Ms. Dixon going to be released?”

“And, who are you?” The doctor looked at Alex over the reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Alex Mendez with the Cypress Village PD. I’m investigating the assault.” Alex presented his badge.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “We just get a lot of people wanting information about patients. HIPPA prohibits us from releasing information without their consent.” He removed the glasses and laid them on the counter. “It’s to protect their privacy, but I think it’s sometimes gets in the way…”

“I understand what HIPPA is. So, will she be released?”

Levine took a deep breath. “Well, we’ve drawn blood work and spun her head to …”

“Spun her head?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“A CT scan of her head, to see if there is any brain injury. You see, sometimes a patient can seem fine, only to drop dead after a few hours from a head bleed that was overlooked. Sometimes these bleeds only begin to show signs and symptoms several hours after the injury. By then, it’s often too late. To be perfectly honest, just between you and me, most of the time we do them just to cover our ass, but in this case, I think it was warranted.”

“So, will she be going home?” Alex was beginning to get frustrated.

“So far all the tests have been negative. I’m still waiting for a drug screen. With her amnesia about the event, I would suspect a head injury but her CT was normal. It’s possible that she was drugged, but until I have the results, I can’t be sure. She is lucid right now. Any drug she may have been given has long since been metabolized.”

“Will she be going home?” Alex raised his voice this time.

The doctor pulled his head back and looked at Alex, eyebrows raised. “Yes, she will.”

“Thank you.” Alex said, walking away.

He returned to the other end of the nurse’s station. “Where did they find this guy?”

“So, now you’ve met Dr. Levine. How did you get away from him so quickly?” Janet laughed. “We all call him Cliff, you know, from Cheers. He is always full of useless, unsolicited information. And, he loves to toot his own horn.”

Alex just shook his head. “Do you know if Ms. Dixon has anyone here for her, maybe family?”

“No. We haven’t notified anyone. She asked us not to.”

“Well, the doctor said she will be released, so I’ll arrange for patrol to give her a ride home.” Alex gathered his notebook, report forms and the evidence kit and turned to leave.

“You take care now.” Janet said.

He walked toward the exit and waved over his shoulder without looking back.

Chapter Three

There were a handful of people on the track when Alex pulled into the parking lot. He counted four cars. He parked away from the other vehicles and watched the joggers for several minutes before finally getting out of his car. He walked through the lot, writing down the license number of each vehicle on a small spiral pad. He shined his small, keychain flashlight into each car, looking for anything unusual, anything that could be used to restrain a person.

“Hey! What are you doing?” A man in a jogging suit approached Alex. “I said what the hell are you doing? That’s my car.”

Without looking at the man, Alex pulled one side of his sport coat open, revealing his badge and the .45 caliber handgun that hung, quite menacingly, in the shoulder harness. The man backed away.

Alex placed the pad in his shirt pocket and walked to the edge of the track. He stood, hands in his pockets, surveying the scene. The mile long track seemed to go on forever. He could never imagine himself running laps on it. The walk across the infield would be far enough. It wasn’t that he was lazy; he just didn’t have the energy, or the motivation.

A young man jogging by, acknowledged Alex with a small wave. Alex nodded to the jogger and crossed the track into the grassy infield.
Where did you hide?
He looked across the field to the far side of the track. Along the tree line, he noticed an area that was dark. Two lights were not working. He scanned the rest of the lights around the track. They were spaced about every fifty feet, all illuminating the ground around them with a round yellowish glow, each blending into the next. All, except for the two along the tree line.
That’s where I’d be.

Alex walked across the field toward the dark area. A bright light appeared from behind him. He looked back toward the parking lot to see headlights, as the man who had confronted him, prepared to leave. Alex turned back toward the far side and continued across the field. He could hear voices in the distance behind him. He turned again to see the remaining joggers standing between the cars in the lot. As the last of the cars drove away, the track was empty, deserted, like it would have been the night before.

A gentle breeze blew across the field from the water just beyond the trees. Alex could smell a hint of fish as he neared the far side of the track.

There was no yellow tape, no X marking the spot where the attacker hid, waiting for his prey to come within range.

It had been nearly twenty four hours. There have been scores of people here, runners, children playing, dogs chasing Frisbees. The chance of finding any evidence at all was slim, but he had to try.

Alex stood under one of the darkened light poles. There was just enough light for him to see that the bulbs had been shattered. He used the small flashlight to look on the ground around the poles for broken glass. He found only a few small pieces in the grass along the edge of the track. There were no large pieces. The area appeared to have been cleaned up. By who, he had no way of knowing. He walked along the dark area of the track, looking into the trees as he went. It was dark enough to provide cover for anyone who wished to go undetected. On his second pass he noticed a small opening in the trees that he’d missed the first time. It was narrow, but wide enough for a person to get through quickly and quietly.

Alex stood at the opening.
Where did you wait?
He slowly entered the trees, looking around for the best place to hide and watch. He turned to face the track. From here the view was obstructed by trees and small bushes. He moved slowly to his right, looking for the best view. He stopped when the space between the trees gave a clear view of the part of the track that leads toward the dark area. From here the attacker could have seen her coming.
Is this it? Is this where you watched her?

He shined the small flashlight along the ground all around him. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he would know it, if he saw it. He took a step back and shined the light at the base of a large tree. He moved it slowly along the roots then he saw it. He almost missed it. It was partially hidden under a dead leaf. But there it was.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic zip lock bag and a pair of tweezers. He moved the leaf and using the tweezers, picked up the small plastic cap.

It was two inches long and thin, less than a quarter inch in diameter. It looked like a cap from a hypodermic needle.

Alex held it up in the beam of his light. Inside, he could see a tiny drop of fluid, near the tip.
You did drug her.
He placed the cap into the bag and sealed it, then placed the bag and tweezers in his pocket and walked back across the field to his car.

Carmen would still be at the prom and Alex wasn’t in any hurry to get back home, so he drove. He had no particular destination. He just drove.

The old marina, as it was now known, was the remains of what was once, the most popular recreation spot on Lake Duvall. Until fifteen years ago, the outdoor stage that overlooked the pool was the setting for live music every weekend during the summers.

Hundreds would gather to eat in the restaurant or have their food and libations delivered by bikini clad waitresses to the poolside tables while they enjoyed the free concerts. Local radio stations often held summer parties here, complete with bikini contests and all the barbeque the partiers could eat.

Now it was nothing more than an empty shell of a building, its crumbling, graffiti covered walls served only as shelter for the occasional squatter. The pool had long since been filled in and the stage was gone. The floating boat slips had moved to their new location, on the other side of the lake. The only other structure that remained was the old, wooden pier, with its Styrofoam pontoons disintegrating into the dirt.

Alex parked the car in the crumbling lot and walked through the knee deep grass toward the now deserted marina. He wasn’t sure why he came. He didn’t expect to find any evidence here.

“Remember when we used to come out here late at night and make love on the end of the pier?” Allyson was walking beside him.

“I remember.” he said.

“The one time, when we thought we were alone…”

“And the light came on in that sailboat.” Alex said. They both laughed.

“You jumped in the water because you were afraid someone would see you naked.” Allyson teased.

“Yea, and you stayed on the pier,
hoping
to be seen.”

He walked slowly to the edge of the pier and stepped up. The weathered boards groaned under his weight.

“Good times.” he said, softly. He pictured the scene twenty years ago. Cabin cruisers and sailboats rocked gently in their slips, the sound of water lapping at their hulls. He could smell the burgers cooking on charcoal grills. He could hear the partiers, laughing and talking, as they enjoyed the warm summer evenings on the decks of their boats. He thought back to a carefree time when children splashed and played in the water, when he and Allyson talked about getting married and the yacht they would grill burgers on someday.

Now, the pier rested on the hard, dry ground. The lake had been lowered fifteen years earlier to expose land that would be used to build, what is now, The Cove.

The shore line, now some fifty yards from the end of the pier, makes the memories of the marina in its heyday, seem even more distant.

Alex walked to the end of the pier and sat down, still thinking of Allyson and the times they had here. He let his feet dangle off the edge. But now, like Allyson and the dreams they shared, the water was gone. His toes hit only dirt.