She didn’t say anything for a long time. She sat very still. First she looked intently at me, then she looked away. Stared at the wall...or at nothing. I wasn’t sure. Maybe she was looking at something inside herself. But she didn’t move or speak for quite a few minutes. And because she didn’t, I didn’t. Which gave me an opportunity to stare at her.
And maybe that made her uncomfortable because she got up and went over to a low, wooden file cabinet behind her desk, opened a drawer and removed a file and placed it in the center of the desk. Then she came back and sat near me.
“Not many men come to see us, Mr. Rodriquez. That’s why Ellen called me directly and that’s why I agreed to see you. The women come: the victims themselves and their mothers or grandmothers or sisters or best friends or cousins. But their husbands, brothers, lovers, fathers—they almost never come. I was hoping you were a husband or a lover so we could tell you how to help your woman.”
The thought made me colder than the wind outside. “If I had a wife or a lover and she was raped, I would come here, Miss de Leon, because I would want to know how to help her. But all I have are these clients. Can you tell me how to help them?”
She gave me a small, sad smile that made her even more beautiful, and for the first time I realized that she wore glasses. Gold rimmed glasses and gold hoop earrings. And no gold band. “Without naming names, I think we probably already help some of your clients. But I don’t know how we can help you, Mr. Rodriquez.”
“It’s Phil and you can help by telling me what kind of man rapes. And rapes little girls. Who is this bastard and where can I find him!”
“He’s probably not that different from any other man.”
“Bullshit! He’s a sick, evil, murdering—”
“Yes, he’s that. But I meant in his appearance.” She leaned toward me and placed a calming hand on my arm. “Of course he’s sick. But he may not appear demented and deranged, with long matted hair and bloodshot eyes, talking to himself. In fact, he may appear quite normal. Everyman. You may even have seen him, Phil. In fact, you probably have, because serial rapists who prey on children often have legal, legitimate access to them. They’re not strangers.”
I knew that, from the information Yolanda had gathered and from my police department experience, but to hear it from someone who spent her days talking to women and little girls who had been raped made me cringe inside. “Is there anything...I don’t know, strange or different or worth noting about this case? About these particular rapes?”
She reached across the desk and picked up the file, but she didn’t open it. She held it in her lap, both hands on top of it protectively. “You understand that I can’t talk specifics to you?” I nodded and she opened the file but still didn’t look at it. She looked directly at me. “Something’s wrong with the timing. If it’s the same guy, the timing for your seven cases is all screwed up.”
I must have looked surprised or something because she laughed. “Yes, I know about your cases, Mr. Rod...Phil. I’ve been watching and worrying about this situation for a while, and I think it’s more than one guy. Don’t ask me why because I can’t tell you. I won’t do your job for you. But if you come back to me with specific questions, I’ll try to give you answers. Fair enough?”
I stood up and offered my hand. “More than fair, Miss de Leon. Greatly appreciated.”
She shook my hand—a strong, firm grip with a cool, delicate hand. “Call me Connie. I’ll show you out.”
I was out on the sidewalk being jostled by the still busy crowd in front of Beth Israel when two thoughts registered in flashing neon in my brain: Connie de Leon had implied that maybe there was more than one rapist; and I’d implied that I would try to find him or them. I didn’t feel the cold any more as I walked west, instead of heading east and back downtown to the office. I kept hearing the words, “if it’s the same guy, the timing is screwed up.” What did that mean? And who could tell me? Timing. Rapists and timing. Serial rapists and timing. A shrink. A shrink could tell me, but the only one I knew not only couldn’t tell me, she wouldn’t. But I knew how to find one who would.
“I’m sure there’s somebody here who can help you, Phil, I just have to find out who that would be,” Jeffrey Dahl said to me, rubbing his bald pate. The administrator in charge of security for New York University was a very pleasant man and he genuinely liked me. When I explained to him what I wanted and why, he didn’t pause to take a breath before he said of course he’d help.
I paced up and down Dahl’s executive-sized office while he checked his directory and made telephone calls. I looked out of the windows down on the West Village and marveled at the very real difference between my neighborhood—the East Village—and the historically more well-known Greenwich or West Village. Or just plain “the Village” as the world knew it. As far as I could tell, the only thing West had that East didn’t have was NYU and, later, The New School. But as far as I could tell, that had been enough to render the one famous, the stuff of jazz, blues, romance and movies, and other the infamous haunt of biker gangs.
The office door opened after a quick knock and Dahl’s assistant, a former New Jersey Transit cop named Helen something, came in and crossed directly to me and gave me sheet of paper. I’d asked Yolanda to fax over the exact dates and locations of all the rapes. I thanked Helen and she left and Dahl hung up the phone. “Professor Gertrude Bader in the Med School. Psychiatry Department. She teaches and maintains a practice over there. Check in with whoever is on the security desk. They know you’re coming and so does Dr. Bader, but you’d better hurry. She’s got a lecture in exactly twenty minutes.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dahl, you’ve really helped me.”
“I’m glad I could help, Phil. Anything to help rid society of vermin like that.”
I thought of Basil Griffin when he said that word, and I almost smiled. “You’re not from Trinidad by any chance, are you Mr. Dahl?” I meant it as my own private joke and was startled that he was startled by the question.
“Nooo...” he said slowly. “I was born in Barbados but my parents returned home, to Canada, when I was very young. Why on earth would you ask such a question?”
“Vermin. Americans don’t use the term,” I said, and left before I needed to try any further explanation.
Professor Gertrude Bader met me at her office door. I was out of breath from running, but at least I wasn’t cold any more. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Bader,” I managed.
“Don’t thank me, young man, because you’re not getting very much of my time. And anyway it’s not possible—or advisable—to rush a discussion about serial rapists.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and studied me. She was an imposing woman, but because of her aura, not her size. She was somewhere between forty and sixty—I’d put my bucks right in the middle, on fifty—and neither large nor small. What my grandma would describe as “a healthy specimen of a woman.” Her hair was dyed a subdued red and well cut. So was her suit, also a shade of red. Her eyes were green. Clear, cool, unblinking green. Kind, intelligent eyes that saw everything. Eyes that could comfort or kill, depending on the circumstance. “I don’t remember your name. I’m sorry.”
I told her my name and gave her the list of rapes, murders and their dates and told her as quickly as possible what I was doing and why. “I just was told that this list suggests more than one rapist. Is that possible, Doctor?”
She raised the green eyes from the paper and penetrated me with them. “Of course it’s possible. Likely, even.” Then she shrugged and I wished the world could take shrugging lessons from this woman because I swear I heard her shoulders say, “but so what?”
“Tell me what I need to do to make it possible for you to have a rational discussion with me about this list. Please, Doctor.”
She smiled at me then, but only with her mouth, a slight lifting of her lips. Her eyes had changed; had darkened, like the sea does when a storm is brewing. “Find out the level and type of violence in each of these cases, espe
cially where death occurred. That’s a different crime, separate from the rape.” She stopped talking suddenly and looked closely at me. “You do understand about the different kinds of violence associated with rape, don’t you, Mr. Rodriquez?”
I shook my head. I was feeling a little queasy. I didn’t know that and I didn’t want to know that there were different kinds of rape. “I know that rape is about violence and not about sex...”
“You’ve got a lot of homework to do, young man, and I suggest that you take your time about it. Don’t try to rush through this. I said I’d help you and I will, but you waste my time and yours by being unprepared.”
I felt that if I opened my mouth I’d throw up but I had questions to ask. “The murders are different? They mean something different than the other five rapes?”
She nodded her head. “I think so.”
“Would the cops know this?” I asked.
Her entire demeanor altered and she looked at me as if I were in need of her counseling services. “Of course. This is New York City, after all.”
Of course. This is New York City, after all. Of course. This is New York City, after all. Of course. This is New York City, after all. The words rang in my brain, bounced off the cell walls, swirled through the grey matter. The words and their unspoken meaning, for I knew full well that Dr. Bader’s implication was that this was one of the most sophisticated police departments in the world, with not only access to every imaginable investigative technique and tool, but which had pioneered quite a few of them. Of course the cops knew they were looking for more than one rapist. They just hadn’t felt the need to tell the parents of the victims...or the parents of the potential victims. But why? WHY?
Dr. Bader had said take my time, but I didn’t have time to take. I’d already wasted too much time relying on the cops to do what I thought was their job. And maybe that’s exactly what they were doing, and I was the one not doing his job. I’d gotten myself so caught in not getting in the way of official police business and thereby jeopardizing my license that I had, instead, neglected the needs and interests of my clients. Maybe it wasn’t my job to find rapists and murderers, but it was my job to tell the people who paid me how they could help protect themselves and their children from the walking nightmares that had invaded their worlds.
Arlene Edwards first looked horrified, then frightened, and then, finally, angry. That’s when she reached into her desk drawer and got out the notebook and pen and began writing down everything I told her. She made me sit down opposite her and speak slowly and I had to repeat everything twice. Her lips had compressed into a thin, tight line and her eyes flashed something I’d never seen in her before, and I had known from the first moment I saw her that she was made of the kind of stuff that didn’t bend or break. But now, on this cold, soon-to-be-December night, I was looking at a stranger. And listening to one, for the Island-accented English she spoke this night was so thick I could barely understand her words. The more she exhorted me to speak slowly and carefully, the faster and more idiomatic became her speech. It took me a moment to understand what was happening, but I finally realized that the woman finally had reached her breaking point and it was only through sheer force of will that she was keeping herself from splintering apart.
Bert and Angie Calle were shattered, completely and totally, and didn’t do a thing to try and control or conceal the fact. And because of that, it took me several lengthy attempts at explanation before they understood what I was telling them and what I was asking them to do. Angie kept crying, which, in turn, prompted wailing from the three-year old twins, which prompted Bert to yell at everybody to shut up. Then he would bury his face in his hands and sob, which would start Angie again, until I finally walked him outside, thinking the cold would help him get control of himself. It worked. He listened to me, heard what I said, and promised to get on it first thing in the morning, after leaving is overnight shift at the Fulton Street Market. I made him promise that he would and then I made the mistake of going back inside with him, to tell Angie good night. She grabbed me with one hand and Bert with the other and begged us not to leave her. Begged Bert not to go to work and leave her alone to be raped and murdered; begged me not to leave them unprotected.
I took a taxi back to the office because I didn’t have the strength to walk. I was so emotionally spent that I’d planned to do nothing more than leave a note for Yolanda, lock up and go home. The only reason I went back at all is because I’d never ended the day without returning to the office, no matter how late, and I wouldn’t start now. I was surprised to find both Yolanda and Sandra there and told them so, barely disguising what I realized was displeasure at having to interact with any more human beings that day. Even human beings I loved, like Yolanda and Sandra.
“It’s not really that late, Phil,” Sandra said looking carefully at me from the tail end of a warm, loving hug.
“I guess not,” I said, in no real hurry to leave her embrace. Maybe some human interaction was OK. “I still get screwed around when the time changes and it gets dark at four o’clock in the afternoon. And I feel like shit, which isn’t helping anything. I guess it feels like nine or ten o’clock because I wish it were. That way, I could eat and go home and go to bed and obliterate this day.”
Sandra laughed, kissed me on the head again, and pushed me away from her, feigning annoyance with me. She was not normally a demonstrative person. In fact, quite a few people found her downright inhospitable, but I knew better. I hadn’t known right away, of course. When I first met Sandra, eight years ago now, I loved her because Yolanda loved her and I loved Yolanda. Now we had our own relationship and I loved her because she was warm and funny and generous and smart. And because she tolerated no bull shit. Ever. From anybody, for any reason.
“What’s so bad about this day that needs obliterating?” She and Yolanda were readying themselves to go out into the cold.
I told them about my conversations with Connie de Leon and Dr. Bader and how there probably were two rapists and how much it pissed me off that the cops hadn’t let people know; and then I launched into what I realized, in that moment, was what I really wanted to obliterate from my day and that was the knowledge of there being different kinds of rape. Rape based on how much and what kind of violence was used. The understanding that, armed with that knowledge, I now had to find out from the parents of each of the victims exactly how their daughter was raped. That I now had to find out exactly what was done to Anna Arlene Cummerbatch and Lisa Calle before they were murdered.
I’d been pacing and periodically pounding the walls with my fists while I ranted and I hadn’t been watching Yolanda or Sandra. But now I turned to Yo, to tell her that it would be a good idea if she was with me while I talked to the parents. She was shaking all over. Shaking her head at me, back and forth that no, she wouldn’t do that. Shaking and shivering from head to toe like she already was outside. She wrapped her arms around herself and made a sound that scared me. I reached for her and Sandra yelled at me.
“Goddammit, Phil, what the fuck is wrong with you! Are you crazy, you son of a bitch? What did you do that for?”
I looked at Sandra, stunned, wanting to reply. Then Yo ran out of the door and Sandra started after her. I found my voice.
“What the fuck, Sandra! WHAT? WHAT?!”
She stopped at the door, holding it open, the wild, cold wind blowing in at us. “You don’t know, Phil? Aw, shit. Fuck. You don’t know, Goddammit.” And she was gone, out into the night to catch Yolanda. And I was left to wonder what it was I didn’t know. And the wondering hurt as much as the anger Sandra had thrown at me. Hurt almost as much as watching Yolanda in whatever pain she was in. I’d never seen her close up and shut down before; had never seen her light flicker and fade. But I had just watched Yolanda die— there’s no other way to define what I’d seen happen—and the pain and fear in my gut and higher...up around my heart...made me physically sick.
I went into the bathroom and threw up. I’d wanted to
do that since my visit to Dr. Bader. When I came back out into the office, Carmine was sitting at one of the desks.
“Carmine,” I said.
“Rodriquez,” he said, and kept sitting there huddled in his overcoat, holding his fedora in his hands between his knees.
“We need to talk, Carmine,” I said.
He nodded but still hadn’t looked up at me. “Yeah. I got your note you left at the cafe. About Doc Mason.”
“Yeah. And about your daughter.”
Now he did look at me and I wished he hadn’t. To use Jill Mason’s term, all the bombast had gone from him. He was as hurt and sad as Bert Calle and Arlene Edwards and Daniel Esposito and all the other parents of all the other little girls. But looking at Carmine was different because he was somebody I’d actively disliked. And I’d disliked him because I hadn’t thought him capable of the kind of human emotion I saw etched in his face. I was looking at a man being destroyed by the pain of another person. “What about my daughter, Rodriquez? You found out somethin’?”
I nodded. “Maybe. Looks like there are two different perps, Carmine. Two rapists, not one. And they...they do it... the crimes are different. The one who kills is different from the one who...from the other one.”
“Lousy fuckin’ cops. About time they finally got somethin’ figured out.” His eyes slid away from mine and roamed the room, settling on the back wall. “Where’s Miss Aguierre this evening? Lookin’ at her would sure as hell make me feel a lot better.”
“She’s gone. Carmine, listen. What I’ve got I didn’t get from the cops, but they’ve got something I need and I need you and the other parents to get it for me. Capiche?”
“This shit about two perps, the cops didn’t tell you that?”
I shook my head. “I got it from somebody at Beth Israel, Carmine. Somebody who is not supposed to be talking to me. That’s why I need to come by the same information another way. Then I can have this expert over at NYU analyze and confirm it for me.”
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