Shield of Justice (6 page)

Rebecca led the way back toward their car. “I bet you find that the tissue type matches the semen analysis we have. Janet Ryan must have seen the rape in progress, or she heard something and went to investigate. My guess is that
she
tried to fight the guy off, not Darla Myers. Janet has scratches on her arms and legs as if she got tangled up in the brush. He probably beats her, too, then leaves her for dead, or just panics and runs.”

“Could have gone down like that,” Jeff agreed. “That makes Ryan one gutsy lady, or a crazy one. Most people would have run for help, don’t you think?”

Rebecca shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she didn’t even think about it. She sees what’s happening and just reacts.”

“Then we really need to know what Janet Ryan saw,” Jeff said with finality.

*

Rebecca pulled into the no-parking zone in front of University Central Hospital at 5:45 p.m. She took out the notes she had made at the crime scene that afternoon and was soon absorbed in trying to find some angle that she hadn’t considered.

Catherine felt a surge of pleasure when she spied Rebecca waiting in the car across the street, frowning over her notebook. The convertible top was down, and the detective looked attractively windblown. She was jacketless, and the thin leather strap that circled her shoulders, holding her holster against her side, was apparent as Catherine approached. She had no particular feelings about firearms, and she appreciated the necessity of them in Rebecca’s line of work, but the sight of the gun under the detective’s arm reminded her forcefully of the kind of life Rebecca led.

She admired her and yet, at the same time, wondered what the steady onslaught of danger and violence must do to her. The previous night at dinner, Detective Sergeant Rebecca Frye’s capability and strength had been obvious, but it was the fleeting glimpse of compassion and vulnerability that had captivated Catherine. The complexity of the contrasts made the detective all the more appealing.

As she walked up to the passenger side of the car, Catherine tried not to think about how much she had enjoyed their few hours together, reminding herself firmly that this woman had been there on business. Still, she couldn’t quite dismiss the excitement Rebecca’s presence evoked. “Hi,” she said.

Rebecca looked up, and in a rare unguarded moment, welcomed Catherine with a blazing smile. “Hi.”

The doctor stood motionless, transfixed.
Lord, she’s breathtaking.

“You’re very prompt.” Rebecca leaned over to push the passenger door open.

“Don’t be fooled. It doesn’t happen often.” Catherine laughed, settling into the contoured leather seat, and ignored the quick racing of her heart. She wasn’t used to being so susceptible to a woman’s mere smile. She waited until Rebecca maneuvered into the dense traffic crowding the street in front of the hospital before speaking. “Have you made any progress with the case?”

“Not much,” Rebecca replied, frowning. “Everything points to what we first thought. Your patient interrupted him, probably physically intervened. That means she saw him. She might be able to give us a description.” She gave Catherine a questioning, hopeful look.

Catherine shook her head. “Not yet. She’s heavily sedated and still has only slim recall of last night’s events. It could be a few days, perhaps a week even, before she has any clear recollections.”

“Can I speak to her?”

“She already spoke with the officer who brought her to the hospital.”

“I know that,” Rebecca responded curtly, no longer smiling. “But that was just a preliminary interview, and she was incoherent then. I need to go over things in detail, and I know what to ask.”

Catherine thought about Janet’s fragile emotional state and tried not to consider her own ever-increasing desire to assist Rebecca Frye. Janet must remain her primary concern. “I have an hour scheduled with her tomorrow afternoon. If she’s ready, I’ll let you know. I’d like to be present when you question her. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Rebecca said quickly, turning off the main city arterial onto a twisting two-lane road that led to one of the affluent suburbs. “In fact, I’d prefer it.”

“Well, then, it would seem we don’t have much to discuss over dinner,” Catherine remarked with regret. She realized then just how much she had been looking forward to their time together. More, she had to admit, than she had looked forward to an evening with a woman in a very long time.
This is business, Catherine. That’s all it is to her and all it should be for you.

“Good,” Rebecca replied, turning her eyes from the road to glance at Catherine expectantly. “I still want to take you to dinner.” She didn’t want to think about what it meant; she only knew she didn’t want to say good night to Catherine Rawlings quite so soon.

“Good,” Catherine answered softly, immediately forgetting her cautionary thoughts of an instant before. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Rebecca pulled into a tiny, tree-shaded parking lot behind a three-story, hundred-year-old mansion with a wide pillared porch, French doors, and leaded glass windows that looked as if it were someone’s home. It was. Catherine glanced at Rebecca in surprise when she recognized the restaurant. DeCarlo’s was exclusive, expensive, and renowned for its world-class chef and quiet, intimate décor.

“Do you happen to have a reservation?” Catherine asked as they walked up the flagstone path. She couldn’t imagine they would be seated without one.

“No,” Rebecca answered, apparently unconcerned.

Less than a minute after Rebecca gave her name to the maître d’, who smiled at her with obvious pleasure, the owner, Anthony DeCarlo, approached.

“Ah, Rebecca,” he said by way of greeting, taking her hand in both of his. “You stay away too long.”

“Anthony,” Rebecca responded quietly. “How are you?”

“I am fine. We are all fine.”

“Good.”

“Come. I have a nice little spot just for you.” He showed them to a secluded table that afforded a view of the sweeping lawns and luxurious gardens. He left them to ponder the eclectic selections artistically displayed on fine parchment menus, promising to send the sommelier immediately.

“Do you come here often?” Catherine asked, more than curious about the special service they were receiving. They had been seated without delay, despite several parties waiting ahead of them.

Rebecca shrugged uncomfortably. “Not for a long time. But whenever I do, Anthony insists on waiting on me himself.”

She’s embarrassed
, Catherine thought, intrigued. She waited, knowing there was more.

“His daughter disappeared a few years ago,” Rebecca continued in a low voice, remembering the run-down rooming house and the frightened teenage girls inside. When she looked at Catherine, she couldn’t quite disguise the pain of the memory. After so many girls in so many squalid squats, the sorrow had become a dark ache in her eyes. “She was fifteen years old, working on her back for a pimp who had promised her the excitement a girl her age longs for. What he gave her was a needle in the arm and a beating if she didn’t earn enough.”

She hesitated, wondering how to describe the rest. She didn’t know how to explain what she felt when she found Anthony’s youngest daughter strung out on smack and turning tricks for twenty dollars a pop—anger so intense that she forgot she was a cop. Her overwhelming need to stop the waste and the abuse blinded her to the consequences of what she was doing. She’d been on the verge of beating the young pimp with her bare hands and, if Jeff hadn’t interceded, she probably would have done serious damage. She was grateful now that Jeff had stopped her, but the rage still seethed, fueled by her daily witness of the devastation of lives and the destruction of dreams.

“I brought her home,” she finished, keeping the anguish to herself, refusing to acknowledge it. That was the price she paid to maintain her sanity, even though people who couldn’t see past her cop’s eyes had accused her of being cold and uncaring.

Catherine, though, so sensitive to the sounds of silence, caught glimpses of Rebecca’s secret tears in the expressive planes of her face and the ever-changing depths of her dark blue eyes. She ached for the young girl who had nearly been lost but even more for the detective who had found her.

“You returned his child. To him, that would be life’s greatest gift. He’s trying to thank you without making you uncomfortable,” Catherine said softly. Rebecca winced, and Catherine continued lightly, “You’ll just have to tough it out, Detective. I don’t imagine he’s going to stop.”

Rebecca heard the gentle mocking in Catherine’s voice and caught the glimmer of a smile on her full lips. The knot of anger in her chest loosened, and her tension miraculously dissipated. She broke into a grin that brought a flash of brilliance to her eyes and a youthful energy to her face. “Well, Doctor…if that’s your professional opinion…”

“It is,” Catherine responded, rewarded by the light in Rebecca’s eyes.
She’s even more beautiful when she smiles.

Never could Catherine remember being moved so deeply, so quickly, by anyone, and the force of her response was frightening. She listened to the pain of others every day, and although she cared, she could distance herself in order ultimately to help. But it had been different with Rebecca from the first moment she had seen her.
I hardly know her. Why do I want so badly to take the sadness from her eyes?

Rebecca startled Catherine from her reverie with the words, “Then it’s
my
professional opinion that we should enjoy dinner. No more business tonight.”

Catherine agreed happily and, after following the detective’s suggestion to try the house special, settled back contentedly with a glass of wine. Over the course of the delicious meal, she found herself telling Rebecca about her life.

“I’m an only child. My father was a college professor and my mother a doctor, also a psychiatrist,” Catherine said, thinking about the estate on which she had grown up, not far from this very place. “I loved my parents, and I’m quite certain they loved me. I rarely saw them, however; at least that’s how it seemed to me then. They had me later in life; I think I may have actually been an accident. They were both very active in their professions, and I lived away at school from the time I was ten.”

Rebecca watched her while she spoke, hearing the distant tone creep into her voice as she remembered aloud. She heard the sadness, too. “Were you lonely?”

Catherine stared, surprised by the question, wondering how she knew. “I was,” she admitted. “I always got the feeling that I was an interloper in their lives. They were madly in love, I know now, and I don’t think that they really needed—or wanted—a child to make that complete.”

Her parents had always maintained an emotional closeness with each other that sometimes made Catherine feel excluded. As a result, although this was something she didn’t share with Rebecca, Catherine was reserved in her own personal life. She wasn’t interested in casual relationships, and she’d never found anything to compare to the intensity of what she had witnessed between her parents.

She smiled at Rebecca, who was regarding her seriously. “Don’t misunderstand. They were loving and supportive, and I wouldn’t have traded them, now or then.”

Rebecca nodded. “So noted.” Realizing they had strayed into very personal terrain, she searched for more causal ground. “What do you do for entertainment?”

“I love to read and take long bike rides. I’m a sucker for old movies, and I have been known to spend several hours in a bookstore on more than one Sunday morning,” Catherine answered. “How about you?”

Rebecca grinned ruefully. “Ah. I’m a pretty typical cop, I’m afraid. When I’m not working, I’m working out. I have on occasion been known to read a book, though.”

“How did you decide on law enforcement?”

“I didn’t decide,” Rebecca said with a shrug. “I was born into it, like a lot of cops. My father was a beat cop for forty years, just like
his
father. I always knew I would be a cop, too. I took a slight detour and went to college first, but there was never any question I would be a street cop.”

“And do you like it?” Catherine asked, interested professionally on one level but much more intrigued because she wanted to know the woman beneath the cop’s armor.

Rebecca looked startled, as if the idea were new to her. “There’s nothing to like or not like. It’s what I do.”

It’s what I am
. She didn’t say that, but Catherine heard the words nevertheless. Rebecca’s pride and satisfaction were evident in her voice. She looked more at ease now than Catherine had ever seen her, and Catherine found herself appreciating the handsome detective’s quiet charm and attentive companionship.

“A family legacy, I see,” Catherine commented lightly. “I’m sure your father is proud.”

“He was,” Rebecca admitted, her expression distant. Then she added, her voice steady, “He answered a domestic dispute call eight years ago. When the wife opened the door, her husband shot her and my father. He died at the scene.”

“I’m so sorry,” Catherine responded softly, appreciating the depth of the detective’s loss.

“Thanks,” Rebecca acknowledged. “It happens.” She smiled faintly at Catherine and pushed back in her chair, letting the memory go. She didn’t want to think about that now, not when she was enjoying the doctor’s company so much. “I promised no shop talk,” she added. “Tell me about the next movie on your list to see.”