Strong to the Bone--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  “That offer still open?” Caitlin asked Frank, trying to sound casual.

  “What offer was that?”

  “Go down to the bar with you.”

  He smiled playfully. “But you don’t drink,” he said, mocking her earlier words.

  “Come on,” she said, mocking his in return, “I’ll keep you company.”

  It was a triplex apartment located in a tightly congested assemblage of matching structures in a Millwood subdivision not far from Caitlin’s apartment in the Lodge at Kingwood complex. Lots of space for the three roommates living here, including the ground-level rec room, where a pool table had been covered with a cheap tarpaulin and dueling scents of spilled beer, strong perfume, and cheap cologne hung in the dead air. It wasn’t as hot or crowded as the dance floor down here, but it was close. A stranger to such crowds, Caitlin found herself instantly regretting accompanying Frank, then realized she’d inadvertently grabbed his hand again to avoid losing him in the clutter of bodies.

  “You got a hell of a strong grip for a girl,” he noted, raising his voice to carry it over the music blaring from a pair of wall-mounted speakers.

  “Jealous?”

  “Curious.”

  “Get your drink.”

  Frank came back to the corner Caitlin had settled in with a red Solo cup for her, too.

  “I hate drinking alone,” he said.

  “I hate drinking period,” she said, holding it in her grasp. “Maybe you forgot that already.”

  “Nope, but you looked thirsty and the punch is as close to a soft drink as they’ve got. Not much stronger than old-fashioned Hawaiian Punch. And I only brought you half a cup. See, I’m not a bad guy,” Frank said, flashing that smile again.

  “Not half a bad guy,” Caitlin said, finding a comfort with him that had eluded her so often in the past.

  And breaking with that past, not resigning herself to spending the rest of her college years wallowing in the same misery that had defined high school, meant making at least a few compromises. So she took a sip from the red cup, and damn if the contents didn’t taste exactly like Hawaiian Punch, true to Frank’s words. She couldn’t even detect any alcohol.

  So she took another sip.

  Then a third.

  The heavens didn’t open, she didn’t feel sick to her stomach, dizzy, or light-headed. And Frank was still there, the dim lighting making his strong features appear softer and more attractive, his sandy brown hair hugging his face and scalp just right.

  “My father’s a Texas Ranger,” Caitlin said suddenly, loud enough to carry her voice over the din of music and dueling conversations.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Frank said, raising his Solo cup in the semblance of a toast.

  “I’m studying law enforcement here. But I’m not sure I want to be a Ranger yet.”

  “I was thinking about police work,” Frank told her. “Nice fit after the service. We got a police tradition in the family, military, too.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Want me to fill your cup halfway again?”

  Caitlin looked down, surprised to see that she’d drained the whole thing. “I think I’m good.”

  Frank flashed a smile that made Caitlin’s insides melt. “You’re a whole lot better than good, girl. You’re as good as it gets.”

  Just then, Caitlin caught the reflection in a mirrored Budweiser sign of an attractive coed with waves of black hair that tumbled back past her shoulders. She had ridged cheekbones and a gleaming smile that showcased the confidence Caitlin only wished she possessed. But the next instant revealed the reflection to be hers, Caitlin left seeing herself in an entirely different regard, for the moment anyway.

  “Hey,” she said to Frank, “you wanna dance?”

  24

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  Caitlin realized she’d laid the root beer down somewhere in the midst of telling the story and picked it up again. The bottle was empty, but she had no memory of draining it, just like she’d had no memory of what happened after she’d drained her half-filled Solo cup that night at the party eighteen years before.

  “I don’t remember going upstairs,” Caitlin continued. “Last thing I remember before I woke up was dancing, I think with Frank, but I’m not sure.”

  She could see the banded tension in Cort Wesley’s neck, the tight sinews seeming to flex.

  “You were in the same house when you woke up?” he asked her.

  Caitlin felt herself nod. “In a bedroom that smelled like lavender. That’s what I remember more than anything—the lavender smell. My jeans didn’t feel right and I realized my panties were gone. I found them on the side of the bed. I’d gotten the jeans back on, and my shirt over my bra that was only half-fastened. I must’ve forgotten the panties.”

  “So,” Cort Wesley started, seeming to think one syllable at a time, “you think Frank spiked your punch with GHB, something like that.”

  “I can’t say for sure it was Frank, but somebody did.”

  “Your father never found who it was?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “And he never found Frank, either. He interviewed all the people I remembered seeing at the party, including the students living in that apartment where it took place. Nobody knew anything about a guest matching his description or personal history.”

  “What about Lone Star College?”

  “There wasn’t much they could do officially, given that the incident occurred off school property.”

  “I was talking about enrollment or registration records for any student matching Frank’s description,” Cort Wesley corrected.

  Caitlin shook her head slowly. Telling the story had made it feel heavy and stuffy. She hadn’t recounted all of it in years and the feeling she was left with reminded her why.

  “I looked at the college ID photos of every male student enrolled at the time, and didn’t recognize a single one of them.”

  “No Frank?”

  “No Frank. And I can’t even tell you for sure he was the one who assaulted me.”

  “Seems obvious,” Cort Wesley said, fidgeting and lifting up his beer bottle in the hope of finding more inside.

  “What’s wrong?” Caitlin asked him.

  Cort Wesley laid the empty bottle back down. “What’s wrong? How about the fact that you’re just telling me about this now?”

  “I don’t like talking about it.”

  “But this is me you’re talking to.”

  Caitlin took a deep breath. “After I stopped mixing bourbon with my root beer, I gave up trying to figure out who’d assaulted me. The hospital confirmed what I knew already, and my dad drove in to pick me up. Took me straight home, even though I know he wanted to start questioning anyone and everyone. We never talked much about whatever progress he ended up making, but I could tell it wasn’t to his liking.”

  “What else do you remember, Ranger?”

  “Trying to forget the whole damn thing. And being scared all the time, looking back at every young guy who gave me a second glance to see if I remembered them, to see if they were the one. I think I committed myself to becoming a Texas Ranger driving back home that day with my dad.”

  Cort Wesley didn’t look convinced. “Maybe you should sit down with a sketch artist and see what he comes up with for this Frank.”

  Caitlin blew into the rim of her root beer bottle to produce a whistling sound. “I haven’t told the story to anyone in a long time, Cort Wesley.”

  His facial muscles had tensed and his jaw looked locked in place. “But you just did, and I don’t think you woke up this morning with the express goal of spilling your guts, which tells me there’s something else in play here.”

  “Austin PD did a rape kit on the girl I pulled out of Stubb’s last night.” Caitlin swallowed hard, felt her breath lodge in her throat. “Her assailant’s DNA was a match with mine.”

  * * *

  Caitlin had rehearsed those words so much while waiting for Cort Wesley to get home, she thought
saying them out loud would have no effect on her. But she felt the tears start to spill before she could get ahead of them with a swipe of her sleeve. Cort Wesley wrapped an arm around her shoulder and drew her in close, waiting for her to resume on her own.

  For a time, Caitlin didn’t think she would, but pushing more words out might stem the flow of her tears, and she picked up again, after clearing her throat. “According to Doc Whatley, there’s a definite match but no ID on who the DNA belongs to yet.”

  “You never thought to tell me this before?” Cort Wesley said, his words trapped somewhere between a question and a statement.

  “I wouldn’t have today, if that DNA match hadn’t surfaced. Tough enough being a female Texas Ranger without being a female Texas Ranger who was sexually assaulted. And when it happened, I don’t know, I guess I blamed myself a bit.”

  “Too much.”

  “Nobody made me go to that party, Cort Wesley.”

  “That’s like saying it’s your fault your car got stolen because you parked it on the street.”

  Caitlin could feel the heat radiating off him, his muscles tightening beneath his shirt and his free hand squeezing the beer bottle so tight, she was afraid it was going to crack.

  “It makes sense now,” he said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Why you shot that man in Stubb’s last night.”

  “I never wanted to kill anybody more than I wanted to kill him.”

  “If that were the case, he’d be dead right now.”

  “That’s what I told Captain Tepper. I guess reason prevailed. I didn’t see him swiping that girl’s cell phone and wallet, I saw him raping her and I felt like it was me. Trying to set things right, I guess.”

  “By ruining your career?”

  “In that moment, nothing else mattered. There was that night eighteen years ago, another victim, and someone I could finally punish.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “Your turn, Cort Wesley.”

  “Huh?”

  “You said you had something to tell me, too.”

  “Oh, yeah. Never mind.”

  She eased herself from his grasp. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Think you have to treat me with kid gloves, all of a sudden.”

  Cort Wesley forced a smile. “I thought I always treated you with kid gloves.” He pulled the scrap of paper, on which Guillermo Paz had scrawled the black truck’s license plate number, from his pocket. “I need to know where I can find the owner of this truck, Ranger.”

  PART THREE

  I now propose to render reasons why the Texas Rangers are superior and the only class of troops fitted for such service. They are excellent horsemen, accustomed to hardship, and the horses of Texas having been raised on grass, can perform service without requiring grain … except to recruit their strength for a few days, when returned from a hard scout; the Texians are acquainted with Indian habits and also their mode of Warfare. They are woodsmen and marksmen. They know where to find the haunts of the savage and how to trail and make successful pursuit after them.

  —Governor Sam Houston in an April 1860 letter as reported in The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821–1900 Mike Cox, Forge Books, 2008

  25

  PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS

  Kelly Ann Beasley lived with her parents just outside of Austin in the beautifully manicured Pflugerville subdivision on Brown Dipper Drive, notable for the fact that virtually every tree in the community was still a sapling. Some had yet to shed the ties that bound them to waist-high stakes driven into the ground to hold them steady so they’d grow straight and tall.

  Caitlin found that an apt metaphor for life, though human beings were seldom granted the same luxury past childhood that for Kelly Ann had ended the night before last. Her house was sided in faux brick that looked natural set against the auburn shutters and taupe garage door. She noticed the welcome mat was upside down.

  An Austin detective had called ahead on her behalf, so she’d be expected. Kelly Ann’s mother answered the door before Caitlin could even ring the bell, staring at her badge as much as her face after closing the heavy door behind her.

  “I googled you after that detective said you were coming,” Carolyn Beasley said, once greetings were exchanged. “I thought your name rang a bell. Now I see why.”

  “I’ve been in a few scrapes, ma’am, that’s all.”

  “My daughter’s in the television room,” Beasley continued. “She’s pretty much moved in there. If you’d like I could…”

  “That’s okay, ma’am, just point me in the right direction.”

  * * *

  Kelly Ann Beasley was curled up, pillow in her lap, watching cartoons that dated back to when Caitlin was a little girl. And that’s what she looked like sitting there on the couch: a little girl smiling and chuckling the day away, so the world beyond this room couldn’t touch her.

  Except for a broken right cheekbone that had swelled to twice the size of the left one, and an arm held in a sling to support her dislocated shoulder.

  “Remember me, Kelly Ann?”

  Kelly Ann looked at her, focusing on the Texas Ranger badge just like her mother had, then quickly back at the wall-mounted television. “A little. It’s all still a blur. But I’ve been meaning to call to thank you for what you did.”

  “It was my job.”

  Kelly Ann turned her way again, holding her gaze on Caitlin this time. “No, you were off duty. Somebody told me that. I don’t remember who.”

  Caitlin sat down in the chair nearest to Kelly Ann. She felt suddenly hot and light-headed, as if she was having a flashback to that night at the party in Kingwood when the contents of half a Solo cup had turned her life upside down, and there’d been no one to rescue her.

  “I’d like to ask you some questions, Kelly Ann, if that’s okay.”

  Kelly Ann lifted the pillow from her lap and hugged it against her chest with her one good arm. “I already told the detectives everything I could remember.”

  “Would you mind if we went over it again?”

  “The police told me I wouldn’t have to answer any more questions,” Kelly Ann said, suddenly reluctant to look at her.

  “I’d like to ask you a few myself, if that’s okay,” Caitlin said softly.

  “Could you come back later? Tomorrow?”

  “It’s important, Kelly Ann, and it’s important we do it now. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

  She studied the television, as if Caitlin wasn’t in the room at all. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  Kelly Ann slowly turned her gaze toward her. “How?”

  Caitlin swallowed hard, just as she had last night before telling Cort Wesley her story, the familiar lump forming in her throat. “Because it happened to me, too. A long time ago, when I was just about your age. Your mother recognized me when I got here, on account of all the men I’ve shot in the line of duty. People ask me all the time how it is I keep at it without all that gunplay taking its toll. I mostly just shrug off their questions, but the truth is I think every time I fire my gun, I’m really shooting at the man who hurt me. I can’t put a face on him, but I can put a face on all these others.”

  Kelly Ann tightened her stare, seeming to see Caitlin an entirely different way. Suspicious at first, then almost like she was looking in a mirror. The glow off the television screen that took up most of the wall formed the room’s only light, keeping her features lost to the shadows where she seemed comfortable. Her hair was tied up in a bun and she was wearing a loose-fitting tracksuit with her name and a number embroidered across the left collar.

  “Thirteen.” Caitlin nodded.

  “No one else ever picks it, but it’s my favorite number.” Kelly Ann seemed to perk up, at least slightly. “I play volleyball. We won our division this year.”

  “Did you go to the party with your teammates?”

  Kelly Ann nodded. “Bu
t we got separated. Hard to keep track of everyone in all those people.”

  “I’ve read the statement you signed,” Caitlin told her. “So I’m up on all the facts. But when this happened to me, I left some things out, either because I was embarrassed or didn’t remember—I don’t really know which to this day.”

  Kelly Ann swallowed hard, looking like a little girl in the meager light coming off the television. “How old were you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “I just turned twenty-one. Did they ever catch the guy who … hurt you?”

  “Not yet,” Caitlin said, just firmly enough as she held Kelly Ann’s stare. “It’s been over a day since you spoke to the Austin detectives. I’m wondering if you may have remembered anything else.”

  The young woman shook her head. “Sorry, no.”

  “Don’t be sorry. This wasn’t your fault, none of it. Not now and not then.”

  “Did you know the man who hurt you?”

  “Not until that night. A guy handed me a glass of punch that had been spiked with a so-called date-rape drug. I say ‘so-called’ because I hate that term. It’s a rape drug. No reason to give dating a bad name.”

  Kelly Ann swallowed hard again. “Is whatever I say to you confidential?”

  “Insofar as I won’t share it with anyone outside the immediate circle of the investigation, you bet.”

  “Does that include my parents?”

  Caitlin nodded, and leaned forward in her chair to put less space between her and Kelly Ann. “You’re a legal adult, so it sure does.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise. Scout’s honor,” Caitlin said, making what she thought was the proper hand gesture.

  “I was never a scout.”

  “Neither was I, but I think it still works. And if you want to tell me something about the man who assaulted you, I’ll even keep that between us, if it’s truly what you want.”

  Now it was Kelly Ann who leaned forward, lowering her voice when she spoke. “It wasn’t a man.”