Close: A New Adult Thriller (3 page)

Seven

I was in the middle of a late dinner when the call came to let me know that a young woman called Laura Warner had just walked in off the street to report that the previous evening she had been drugged, and then raped. It might sound kind of sick to an outsider, but part of me, the hard charging career part, was happy to get the call. This kind of case was why I’d wanted to be a detective in the first place.

At twenty-seven I was the youngest person working in the Detective Bureau of the Santa Barbara Police Department. Not that the Investigative Division, as it was officially known, was that large, topping out at around eighteen bodies. I worked the Crimes Against Persons section, which, as the name suggested, dealt with homicide, rape, robbery, battery, assaults, with and without weapons, and all that other fun stuff. It was the kind of police work I’d always wanted to do the stuff that really mattered to people. And I’d worked hard to get where I was. I’d started off in the LAPD cadet program at sixteen, got my college degree in criminology at UCLA, started at the academy when I was twenty-one, and done my time in patrol before making detective. Then, when the job had come up in SB, I’d taken it for personal reasons.

I was a little surprised to catch a rape case, because those were usually dealt with, for good reason, by a female officer. But between people out sick or on vacation we were short staffed. Plus, I did have a rep as being good with vics, especially kids and teens, who often saw me as a big brother figure. So when the Sergeant back in Santa Barbara had filled in the vic’s face sheet, it was no huge surprise that I going to catch this one. The only surprise, judging from the bare details, was that the victim had come to us. Most rape victims didn’t. Conviction rates for rape and sexual assault are low, and the process can be so long and arduous that victims’ complaint that they felt violated all over again by the legal system. Punch someone in the face, you’d be convicted. Destroy someone’s sense of self and trust in others, and the chances were that some smart-ass defense attorney was going to make sure you walked out of court with a shit-eating grin plastered all over your face, and a goddamn commendation for being a good citizen.

I had one other reason to take a special interest in rape cases. Ten years before my little sister had been raped and then murdered by a man called Brody Falco. When he was cornered by the cops, he’d pulled a gun. They’d shot him. It was what was known as death by cop. Even all these years later, it still left me feeling cheated. I’d wanted a trial and the chance to look him in the eye. Death was too good for someone like that. I wanted to see him get life without. Rapists are hated as much by cons inside the pen as by cops or citizens. I wanted Falco to spend the rest of his miserable existence in solitary up at Pelican Bay because he was too scared to be with the other cons. I wanted him to suffer, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Even then it wouldn’t come close to the suffering he’d caused my family. Yeah, Falco had left me with a special place in my heart for guys like him; a dark, cold, hate-filled place.

Jessy’s murder had left me with something else too. It was something that not all cops had. Her death had left me with an appreciation for what victims and their loved ones went through. Something like a rape doesn’t have just one victim. It sucks everyone around that person down into the darkness.

So my job was two-fold. To catch and convict the asshole, and to help the victim as much as I could. Putting it that way made it sound pretty dramatic. The reality was kind of different.

Regular people might have imagined that a distressed young woman walking into a police station in tears and telling a police officer that she had been raped and naming her attacker would have led to a scrambling of squad cars, a loading of weapons, as a modern day posse sallied forth to dispense justice. The reality was far more mundane. A rape investigation was subject to certain fairly unique statutes and procedures in terms of how it was conducted.

When a complaint was made, a uniformed officer filled in what was called the face sheet. The face sheet was the first page of the crime report and it was here that the most basic details were recorded, and, if procedure was being followed,
only
the most basic details: victim’s name, witnesses, and suspect, plus the approximate time and location of the attack. There were two reasons for this. It was important to have only one victim statement on record. If there was more than one statement, details could vary slightly, and those variations would be used by a capable defense attorney to attack the victim’s credibility. Secondly, it was important that the official taking the full victim statement was experienced in that area and sensitive to how difficult and traumatic the re-telling could be. Once the face sheet was filled in, the officer called someone like me and relayed the details.

I cradled my cell between my shoulder and ear as he gave me the victim’s name, Laura Warner, age, twenty, and the fact that she was an junior at the university. My first question was a crucial one. “She give you the time of the attack?”

The Sergeant on the other end of the line paused for a second. “Early hours of the morning. She thinks she was drugged first but I kept that off the face sheet.”

The fact that Laura had waited until the evening to file a report was far from unusual. Days, and even weeks, would sometimes elapse between an incident and a vic telling anyone. It took a lot of guts, more than people could ever imagine. Less than twenty four hours was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

“Okay, so keep her there if you can. I’ll call Becky and get her over there, then we can take her over to Cottage and get her checked out.”

Becky was Becky Hatten, a Rape Crisis Advocate from the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center, and Cottage was Cottage Hospital where they had a specially designed unit in a private building where the medical/forensic exam would take place to ensure the victim’s well being and also, crucially for my job, to gather evidence.

“We have witnesses?” I asked the Sarge.

“She had a friend and her boyfriend staying over at this guy’s house, but they weren’t present during the assault.”

Direct witnesses to rape were rare. They would have to be interviewed but their statements could go either way in court.

On TV cop shows, the person whom the complaint was made against, the bad guy, was usually referred to as the perp. In truth, perp was most un-cop like language. When I asked the next question, I used the default cop term.

“Who’s the asshole?”

“Oh, this is the best part,” the Sarge said with barely contained glee. I was waiting for the name of an attorney, or maybe a local politico, perhaps even one of the many wealthy and retired show business or sporting figures who littered the landscape around Santa Barbara.

“Someone special?” I prompted.

“One of the Harpers.”

Everyone in Santa Barbara knew the name. They Harper clan were the west coast’s answer to The Kennedy’s, except without the same level of political success, although that was hardly for lack of trying. I didn’t need to ask the follow-up, there could be only one member of the Harper clan dumb enough to do this. The rest of the Harper men would have had the sense to use an escort service, or to leave a hefty pay-off.

“Bentley?” she said.

The Sergeant came close to a chuckle. “The one and only.”

Most cops in Santa Barbara knew Bentley Harper by sight. He was like Peter Pan with an attitude problem, hanging out in bars and clubs on State Street, the big man on campus, although he had never even graduated high school and was probably older than some of the younger professors. From what I knew of him, he was a poster boy for how to screw up your kids by giving them everything on a plate without them having to work for it.

Bentley’s name had been mentioned before in connection to a serious sexual assault of a young woman. But before the investigation had got under way, the victim had recanted her statement. The department strongly suspected that she had been paid off although nothing was ever proved, and no one, least of all me, was going to go after a rape vic for deciding not to cooperate any further with law enforcement. It was a depressing part of being a copper. Sometimes the bad guys got away with it, especially if they had money and friends in high places.

I began to walk back to my car. With every step, my nerves jangled with excitement. This was a real cop’s case, and they didn’t come that often in sleepy Santa Barbara.

Climbing into my car, a beat-to hell Accord, I turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. I yanked down hard on the steering wheel as I reversed out of the restaurant parking lot, then buried the gas pedal. I wanted to get to Laura Warner before anyone else did.

Right now, she was Laura Warner, the vic, but that would change. She’d become a lot more to me. Hell, she would become everything.

Eight

Laura was in a side room with Becky Hatten from the Crisis Centre when I arrived. Becky came out to talk to me. We’d met a couple of times before but always when I’d been with a female colleague. The Crisis Centre preferred to have a female officer present, which I understood. “I’m sorry,” I told Becky. “We’re short-staffed. How is she?” I asked, glancing towards the door of the side room.

“In shock. Pretty raw.”

“Can you come in with me?” I asked. Laura had already spoken to Becky and it was important that she didn’t feel she was just being passed along from one person to the next, like a parcel.

I followed Becky into the side room.

“Hi Laura, I’m Drew Stanner from the police department.”

Laura nodded, her eyes puffy and red from crying. She had long chestnut brown hair, and chocolate brown eyes with delicate features and pale, porcelain skin. My heart broke for her as I knelt down next to her.

“Okay, Laura, first of all, I want to say how brave I think you are for coming to us. It takes more guts to do what you did walking in that door than anything else I see on the job.”

Laura nodded, head down, eyes on the floor.

“So, Becky and I are going to take you over to Cottage Hospital to get you checked out. Then, after that, if you feel like you have the energy, I’m going to take a statement.”

Becky broke in. “If you’re too tired, or you need a break, then it can wait.”

Laura’s head was still down. “I took a shower this morning,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t the best news, but I didn’t want Laura to know that.

“Don’t worry about any of that. What you did, what you didn’t do,” I said. “There is only one thing I want you to do for me, Laura. Do not beat yourself up about any of the choices you’ve made, before or since this happened to you. None of this is your fault.”

Laura’s head rose a little and she looked at me, like she was seeing me for the first time. Becky put an arm around her as she rose tentatively to her feet. “I’ll bring my car around back. Meet me out there,” I said, walking out of the room.

I waited in the corridor for the medical and forensic examination to take place. Becky had gone inside with Laura, a nurse, and a doctor. They were all female, and all trained and experienced in dealing with victims of sexual assault. It was another ordeal, but one that nowadays was at least cushioned a little.

I would wait to see how Laura looked after the exam before making a decision on whether to do the primary victim interview now, or wait until morning. Usually the closer to the event the better, while memories were still fresh, but she looked pretty wiped out. It was already past ten in the evening and the interview could take two or three hours. It was the most sensitive, difficult and crucial part of the investigation. But if went well, the good stuff came afterwards taking the asshole into custody. His interview with me wouldn’t be nearly as delicate attorney present, or not.

Almost a full hour later, the door of the exam room opened, and Laura emerged with Becky from the Crisis Centre. Dark half moons of fatigue shaded under her eyes. I knew straight away that the interview would have to wait until morning. She had already made mention of a drug to Becky, which meant her memory would be fragmented at best. As rape cases went, a drugged victim made things tougher. That was why assholes like Bentley did it in the first place. However, it also meant that it then became a crime which had been pre-meditated, and judges tended to be a lot harsher in their sentencing when someone had sat down and thought it through like that. As every minute passed, the stakes were rising.

Nine: Laura

I was still in shock. Going in to have the physical examination hadn’t been as bad I thought it would be. That might have been because I’d told myself to expect the worst. I’d imagined all kinds of fresh invasions of my body, all sorts of horrors. But it had been okay, uncomfortable, but bearable. The lady from the Crisis Centre, Becky, had been really kind. She’d reminded me a little of my mom.

The thought of my mom hit me like a train. How was I going to tell her? I couldn’t even imagine where I’d begin, or what the words would be, never mind what order I’d put them in. She’d been so worried about me going away to college, and I’d hated leaving her on her own. I could feel my throat start to tighten just thinking about her.

She’d find a way to blame herself. She always did when stuff went wrong. She could never see that sometimes the universe just threw bad stuff at you. It was always down to something she’d done, or hadn’t done.

I was crying now. Becky and the lady doctor who’d examined me had left me alone in the examination room while I got dressed. I was sitting on the leather couch with the paper sheet over it, sobbing.

The tears came in waves. My throat was raw. I could taste the salt of my own tears as they ran down my face. I felt like I’d never be able to stop.

Reaching over to a side table, I grabbed some tissues. I blew my nose.

There was a gentle knock at the door.

“Uh, come in,” I said.

“Are you dressed?” Becky asked from the other other side of the door.

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

The door opened and Becky’s head appeared. “You want another few minutes? There’s no rush. Or if you want to talk.”

I shook my head, pushed off the couch and stood up, feeling a little woozy. One of the worst moments of the exam had been when the doctor had told me that I couldn’t drive, or work for the next twenty four hours in case the drug I’d been given impaired my ability. It felt like I was still being violated, that Bentley still had a hold over me.

“No, I’m okay,” I told Becky.

Okay was a relative term. What I meant was I’m not dead. I’m safe. He didn’t kill me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be really okay again. I felt like a different person. I didn’t know how I could have felt the same. I’d always sort of trusted people, but that was gone now. The world seemed different now; darker somehow.

“Detective Brody has offered to drive you home. If that’s okay with you? We could get you a cab.”

“Whatever you want to do,” said a man standing behind Becky. “Oh, and no one calls me Detective Brody, unless I’m in court. I’m Drew.

I was shocked. Somehow I’d expected Detective Brody to be a woman, and also I hadn’t expected someone who didn’t look much older than me. The first thing I noticed about him was how big he was. I was five six, not exactly a shrimp, but Drew was easily six feet two, with broad, muscular shoulders, and an equally broad chest that tapered in a V-shape to his waist, like someone who’d been on their college swim team. He had collar length, tousled brown hair, a two-day stubble, and the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen. But there was a softness in his eyes too. I could see it in his smile. There was something in the way he looked at me that instantly made me feel safe.

“You’re a Detective?”

I said it without thinking. What I meant was that I had an idea of what a Detective looked like (overweight, middle-aged, losing their hair, gruff), and this definitely wasn’t it. Drew looked like a younger version of Gerard Butler. He even had the same deep voice, though not the accent.

He helped up his hands. “Laura, can I call you Laura?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“We’re a little short-staffed right now. Usually we’d be able to assign you a female officer. I wanted to come down here straight away to let you know how seriously we take your complaint. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so if you’d like me to drive you back home, I can go through what happens next.”

Drew apologized as he cleared a bunch of papers from the front passenger seat of his Accord. He stepped back and held the door open for me as I got in. I noticed the gun he had holstered on his right side. I wondered if he’d ever had to use it, but didn’t want to ask him. Drew closed the door, walked round to the driver’s side and got in.

Before I’d left, Becky had given me her card and written her cell phone number on the back. She’d told me that I could call her anytime, day or night. It did make me feel a little better,

Drew glanced over at me, expectantly. I drew a blank until he said, “You’ll have to tell me where you live?”

“Sorry, I’m so....” I said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

I gave him the address of my dorm building and we took off. We pulled out of the hospital parking lot and hung a right. It was dark. This time last night I had been in the club with Kish and John. I still had a bunch of missed calls and texts from both of them that I hadn’t had the energy to answer yet. I was dreading what I would tell them, John especially. I felt embarrassed, and hated myself for feeling like that. I wasn’t the one who should have felt ashamed.

Drew glanced over at me. There was something about sitting next to him that made me feel truly safe. It wasn’t just that he had a gun, that he was a cop. There was something else. He looked so in control. I couldn’t imagine a situation that he wouldn’t be able to deal with. He was so young, for someone doing the job he was, but he seemed, I dunno, like an old soul, like someone who’d seen way more of the world than someone of the same age. Despite my exhaustion and the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, my heart rate kicked up a notch.

“Can I ask you something? I said.

He shrugged his broad, muscular shoulders. “Ask away.”

“How old are you?”

He laughed. “Twenty seven. Twenty eight next month.”

A July birthday, which meant his star sign was Cancer. That kind of explained the hidden depths beneath the tough exterior vibe I was getting from him.

“Don’t worry,” he went on. “I get asked that a lot when I tell people I’m a Detective.”

“I didn’t mean to...” I babbled. I wasn’t sure what I hadn’t meant to do? Question his ability? Make myself look dumb?

Thankfully, he stepped in to save me, and re-directed the conversation. “So, Laura, I have to sit down and take a more detailed statement from you.”

“Oh,” I said. We were back to my being rape-victim Laura. For a second I’d had a moment when I’d been plain old Laura again. It had been nice.

Drew hesitated. “We could do it tonight, but it’s already getting late, so maybe tomorrow would be better? It’s really your call.”

Part of me wanted to get it over and done with, but he was right, it was late. I was exhausted. I felt a little bit sick, but hungry at the same time. “Tomorrow would be fine.”

“It will take a few hours. You can have someone with you. Becky from the Crisis Centre, a friend, whoever you want.”

That reminded me, I still had to tell Kishani. It felt like a huge favor to ask her. “Okay, thanks,” I said, swiping at a stray strand of hair that had fallen over my face.

Neither of us said anything for a while. After another minute had passed, I asked Drew: “So how long have you been a police officer.”

He glanced over at me with his bright blue eyes. “Five years total. Just going into my second year as a Detective. I was in the cadets with the LAPD then I went to college.”

“Here?” I asked.

“UCLA,” he said. “Seems like a long time ago now. You know what you want to do when you finish up?”

I could feel my face start to flush. I did know, but I didn’t often share what I wanted to do. It seemed like telling people I wanted to be an astronaut, or a high altitude balloonist.

“I’d like to be a writer.”

He was staring straight ahead through the windshield. When John had asked me the same question on our second date and I’d told him, he’d laughed. That was when I’d known that we might date, but we didn’t have a future. More than looks, or muscles, or a hot body, I needed someone who took me seriously as a person. That included my plans for life.

Drew glanced back at me. “That’s great. What kind of writing? Like journalism, books?” He stopped speaking. “Is that a dumb question?”

“No,” I said, back again to being normal Laura, “No, it’s not a dumb question. I’m not sure yet really. Journalism’s tough these days. Fiction maybe. Short stories. Novels. That sort of thing.” I don’t know what it was about him that made me want to confess my darkest secrets. Maybe the way his eyes penetrated mine and seemed to look right into me.

“Sounds like fun. All I get to write are reports. Speaking of which, what time do you want to do the statement tomorrow?”

I wasn’t sure. If I wanted Kishani to come in with me, that meant I had to tell her tonight, and I was already drained. And I didn’t want to tell Kish before I told my mom. And, if I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell Kish, I was dreading telling mom.

“Could we maybe do it the day after?” I asked.

Drew was quiet. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if I was going to back out or had already had a change of heart.

“I just really need a day to...”

To do what? I wasn’t even sure. Get my head cleared? That was going to take longer than a day. A week? A month? Who knew? Maybe it would never clear.

We were getting near to the campus. I felt a flutter of nerves in my stomach. I wasn’t scared of being alone so much as having to face what had happened. Sitting here in the car with Drew, we could talk about stuff, anything. When I switched off the light tonight, it would just be me and what had happened.

“Laura.” Drew’s deep voice snapped me back into the present. “That’s fine. We can do it then. Whatever you feel more comfortable with. That’ll give me some more time to see if I can find a female officer to take the statement.”

“No,” I said, a little too suddenly. “That’s fine. You can do it.” I was starting to blush again. I hoped he hadn’t noticed the rush of blood to my cheeks. “I mean, I already know you, and you know what happened, pretty much. I’d rather not start over with someone new.”

We pulled up outside my dorm building. “Shall we say eleven am?” he said. “Just ask for me at the front desk, and I’ll come get you.”

“Okay.” I made no move to get out.

“You want me to walk you in?” he said.

I did, but I shook my head. These were the little things I was going to have to face on my own if I wanted to get my life back.

I just sat there, not wanting to leave the car or Drew’s comforting, exciting presence. Drew leaned over to brush a loose strand of hair out of my face and I just sort of fell against his shoulder. I didn’t want to cry anymore in front of him. I wanted to regain some of what we’d had on the car ride over just two people chatting about themselves, and liking what they heard. His left arm came around my shoulders as he pulled me into him. I took a deep breath inhaling his masculine scent, feeling the muscles of his chest and arms against my body as he hugged me.

Drew suddenly stiffened, and straightened up and turned away from me. He reached up to the dashboard and picked something up.

I took the hint and opened the passenger door.

“Hey,” said Drew. “This is my card.” He handed me a white business card. It read Det. Andrew Brody, Santa Barbara Police Department. He had already written his cell number at the bottom. “You need anything. Day or night. You just call me okay. This might get rough, but we’re going to get you through it.”