Lightning

by Ed McBain

  The four relieving detectives were Cotton Hawes, Bert Kling, Meyer Meyer, and Arthur Brown, but Brown and Meyer had checked in only briefly and then had immediately gone out again to interview the victim of an armed robbery. Hawes and Kling were at Kling’s desk—Kling behind it in a chair, Hawes half-sitting, half-leaning on one corner of it, both men drinking coffee in cardboard containers—when the Rape Squad detective arrived.

  “Who do I see about Mary Hollings?” she asked.

  Hawes turned toward the slatted rail divider. The woman standing there was perhaps thirty-four years old, a dark-eyed brunette wearing eyeglasses, a trenchcoat open over a blue dress, and blue medium-heeled shoes. A blue leather shoulder bag was riding on her hip, her right hand resting on it.

  “This the rape?” Hawes asked.

  The woman nodded and opened the gate in the railing. “I’m Annie Rawles,” she said, and walked to where the two men were sitting. At his own desk, Carella looked up briefly and then continued typing. “Any more of that coffee around?” she asked.

  “Cotton Hawes,” Hawes said, extending his hand.

  Annie took it in a firm grip, and looked directly into his eyes. He was six-two or six-three, she guessed, 200 pounds more or less, blue-eyed and redheaded, with a white streak in the hair over his left temple, looked like he’d been hit by lightning or something. Hawes was thinking he wouldn’t mind taking Annie Rawles to bed. He liked these slender ones with firm little tits and no hips. Idly, he wondered if she outranked him.

  “Bert Kling,” Kling said, and nodded.

  Good-looking bunch of guys up here, Annie thought. The one who’d just introduced himself as Kling was almost as tall and as broad-shouldered as Hawes, with blond hair and eyes she guessed were hazel-colored or something, the open-faced look of a farm boy about him. Even the one who was hunched over a typewriter across the room was handsome in a Chinese sort of way—but he was wearing a wedding band on his left hand.

  “You the ones who caught the squeal?” Annie said.

  “O’Brien did, he’s already gone,” Hawes said.

  “I’ll get you that coffee,” Kling said. “How do you like it?”

  “Light with one sugar.”

  Kling headed off toward the Clerical Office down the hall. Carella was still typing.

  “Where’s the victim?” Annie asked.

  “Policewoman took her to Mercy General,” Hawes said.

  “Didn’t we meet one time?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Hawes said, and smiled. “I’d remember.”

  “I thought we met up here one time. You get a lot of rapes up here, don’t you?”

  “Our fair share,” Hawes said.

  “How many?” Annie asked.

  “You mean a week? A month?”

  “Annually,” Annie said.

  “I’d have to check the files.”

  “Citywide, we got about thirty-five hundred last year,” Annie said. “The national figure was close to seventy-eight thousand.”

  Kling was back with her coffee.

  “A friend of mine works out of Special Forces,” he said. “Does a lot of decoy stuff.”

  “Oh?” Annie said. “What’s her name?”

  “Eileen Burke.”

  “Oh, sure,” Annie said, “I’ve seen her around. Tall redhead? Green eyes?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Beautiful girl,” Annie said, and Kling smiled. “Good cop, too, I hear.”

  He’d called Eileen a “friend.” Present-day euphemism for “lover,” even when a cop used it. Scratch the blond, Annie thought.

  The gate in the wooden divider opened, and Hester Fein led Mary Hollings into the squadroom. Hester looked around for O’Brien, saw that he was already gone, and seemed bewildered for a moment.

  “Who gets this?” she asked, holding out the Rape Evidence kit. “I’ll take it,” Annie said.

  Hester looked at her.

  “Detective First/Grade, Anne Rawles,” Annie said. “Rape Squad.”

  She does outrank me, Hawes thought.

  “I filled it in where I was supposed to,” Hester said, and indicated the label on the kit. Under the heading chain of possession, there were three brief, identical information requests to be completed. After “Received From,” Hester had written in Hillary Baskin, R.N. Mercy General. After “By,” she had written in P.O. Hester Fein, and then her shield number. After “Date,” she had written in October 7, and after “Time,” she had written in 7:31 and circled the printed am. Annie filled in the identically requested information below, acknowledging her receipt of the kit.

  “Anywhere I can talk to Miss Hollings privately?” she asked Hawes.

  “Interrogation Room’s down the hall,” Hawes said. “I’ll show you.”

  “Would you like some coffee, Miss Hollings?” Annie asked.

  Mary shook her head. They both followed Hawes through the slatted rail divider and into the corridor outside. Hester hung around as if hoping either Kling or Carella would offer her some coffee, too. When neither of them did, she left.

  In the Interrogation Room, Annie gently said, “I’ll need some routine information first, if you don’t mind.”

  Mary Hollings said nothing.

  “May I have your full name, please?”

  “Mary Hollings.”

  “No middle name?”

  Mary shook her head.

  “Your address, please?”

  “1840 Laramie Crescent.”

  “Apartment number?”

  “12C.”

  “Your age, please?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  “Single? Married? Divorced?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Your height, please?”

  “Five-seven.”

  “Weight?”

  “A hundred and twenty-four.”

  Annie looked up.

  “Red hair,” she said, jotting it down on the report form, “eyes blue.” She put an X in the White box on the form, scanned the rest of the sheet perfunctorily, and then looked up again. “Can you tell me what happened, Miss Hollings?”

  “The same man,” Mary said.

  “What?” Annie said.

  “The same man. The same one as the other two times.”

  Annie looked at her.

  “This is the third time you’ve been raped?” she asked, surprised.

  Mary nodded.

  “And it was the same man each time?”

  Mary nodded again.

  “You recognized him as the same man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know this man?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re sure he was the same man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you give me a description of him?” Annie said, and took a pad from her pocket.

  “I did this already,” Mary said. “Twice.”

  Anger was beginning to set in. Annie recognized the anger, she had seen it a hundred times before. First the shock tinted with lingering fear, and then the anger. Compounded now because this had happened to Mary Hollings twice before.

  “I can get a description from the files then,” Annie said. “Were the last two occurrences in this precinct?”

  “Yes, in this precinct.”

  “Then I won’t bother you for a description again, I’m sure the files…”

  “Yes,” Mary said.

  “Would you like to tell me what happened?” she asked.

  Mary said nothing.

  “Miss Hollings?”

  She still said nothing.

  “I’d like to help you,” Annie said gently.

  Mary nodded.

  “Can you tell me where and when this happened?”

  “In my apartment,” Mary said.

  “He came into your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know how he got in?”

  “No.”

  “Was the door locked?”

  “Yes.”

>   “Is there a fire escape?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could he have come in through the fire escape window?”

  “I don’t know how he got in. I was asleep.”

  “And this was at 1840 Laramie Crescent, apartment 12C?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a doorman there?”

  “No.”

  “Any other form of security?”

  “No.”

  “Did he take anything from the apartment?”

  “No.” Mary paused. “He was after me.”

  “You say you were asleep…”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me what you were wearing?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “We’ll need the clothes you were wearing when he…”

  “I was wearing a long granny nightgown and panties.” She paused. “Ever since the first time, I…I wear panties to bed.”

  “The first two occurrences…Did they also happen in your apartment?”

  “No. On the street.”

  “Then this is the first time he’s been to your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sure he’s the same man?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Could we have the panties and nightgown you were wearing? The lab will want to…”

  “I have the panties on.”

  “Now, do you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same ones you were wearing when he attacked you?”

  “Yes. I just…I threw on a dress…I put on my shoes…”

  “When was this?”

  “As soon as he left.”

  “Can you tell me what time that was?”

  “Just before I called the police.”

  “Yes, and what time was that, Miss Hollings?”

  “A little before seven o’clock.”

  “What time did he come into the apartment, would you remember?”

  “It must have been a little after five.”

  “Then he was with you almost two hours.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Yes.”

  “When were you first aware of his presence, Miss Hollings?”

  “I heard a noise, I opened my eyes…and he was there. He was on me before I could…”

  She closed her eyes. She shook her head.

  Annie knew that the next questions she asked would be difficult ones, she knew that most victims bridled at these questions. But the new state Penal Law defined first-degree rape as “Being a male engaging in sexual intercourse with a female: 1. By forcible compulsion, OR 2. Who is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless, OR 3. Who is less than eleven years old,” and the questions had to be asked.

  The new definition was in no way an improvement over the old one, which previously defined a rapist as “A person who perpetrates an act of sexual intercourse with a female not his wife, against her will or without her consent.” Both the old and the new laws made it perfectly okay to rape your own wife, since a related provision of the new law defined “female” as “any female person who is not married to the actor.” The old law had specified “When her resistance is forcibly overcome, or when her resistance is prevented by fear of great bodily harm, which she has reasonable cause to believe will be inflicted upon her.” A related provision of the new law defined “forcible compulsion” as “physical force that overcomes earnest resistance; or a threat, express or implied, that places a person in fear of immediate death or serious physical injury.” In either law, the burden of proof fell upon the victim. Meanwhile, close to 78,000 rapes were reported committed in this nation last year, and hardworking detectives like Annie Rawles had to ask hard questions of women who’d just been violated.

  She took a deep breath.

  “When you say he was ‘on’ you…”

  “He was on the bed, he was on top of me.”

  “Lying on top of you, do you mean?”

  “No. S-s-straddling me.”

  “You heard a noise that awakened you…”

  “Yes.”

  “…and found him on top of you, straddling you.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I reached…I tried to reach…for the n-n-night table. I have a gun in the drawer of my night table, I tried to g-g-get to it.”

  “Do you have a permit for the gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “You tried to get the gun…”

  “Yes. But he grabbed my wrist.”

  “Which wrist?”

  “The right wrist.”

  “Was your left hand free?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you try to defend yourself with your left…?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t strike out at him or…?”

  “No. He had a knife!”

  Okay, Annie thought. A knife. Forcible compulsion if ever there was.

  “What kind of knife?” she asked at once.

  “The same knife he had the last two times.”

  “Yes, what kind, please?”

  “A switchblade knife.”

  “Can you tell me how long the blade was?”

  “I don’t know how long the goddamn blade was, it was a knife!” Mary said, flaring.

  “Did he threaten you with the knife?”

  “He said he would cut me if I made a sound.”

  “Were those his exact words?”

  “If I screamed, if I made a sound, I don’t know exactly what he said.”

  Threat, express or implied, Annie thought, fear of immediate death or serious physical injury.

  “What happened then?” she asked.

  “He…lifted my gown.”

  “Were you struggling?”

  “He had the tip of the knife at my throat.”

  “Held the knife to your throat?”

  “Yes. Until…”

  “Yes.”

  “He…when my…my gown was up…he…he put the knife between my legs. He said he would stick the knife in my…my…my…in me if I…if I so m-m-much as s-s-said a word. He…he…tore my panties with the knife…cut them with the knife…and…and…then he…he…d-d-did it to me.”

  Annie took another deep breath.

  “He was there for two hours, you say.”

  “He k-k-kept doing it to me, doing it to me.”

  “Did he say anything at all during that time? Anything that would lead to indentifi—”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t accidentally mention his name…”

  “No.”

  “Or where he was from, or…”

  “No.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing. Not wh-while he was…was…”

  “He was raping you, Miss Hollings,” Annie said. “It’s okay to say the word. The son of a bitch was raping you.”

  “Yes,” Mary said.

  “And he said nothing?”

  “Not while he was…raping me.”

  “Miss Hollings, I have to ask this next question. Did he force you to engage in any deviate sexual intercourse?”

  She was quoting from the Penal Law defining First-Degree Sodomy, another Class-B felony, punishable by a maximum term of twenty-five years in prison. If they ever caught him and could convict him on both rape and sodomy, he’d spend the rest of his life behind—

  “No,” Mary said.

  Annie nodded. Simple First-Degree Rape. Twenty-five years if he got the max. Three years if he got a lenient judge. Out on the streets again in a year if he behaved himself in prison.

  “B-before he left,” Mary said, “he…”

  “Yes?”

  “He…he said…”

  “What did he say, Miss Hollings?”

  “He…”

  Mary covered her face with her hands.

  “What did he say, please?”

  “He s-s-said… ‘I’ll be back.’”

  Annie looked at her.

  “H
e was smiling,” Mary said.

  The padded mailing bag arrived by parcel post on Tuesday morning, October 11. It was addressed to the 87th Precinct, and was accepted at the muster desk by Sergeant Dave Murchison, together with the rest of that morning’s mail. Murchison looked at the bag suspiciously, and then held it to his ear to listen for any ticking. In today’s world, you never knew whether there was a bomb in a package with no return address on it.

  He didn’t hear any ticking, which didn’t mean a damn thing. Nowadays, you could fashion homemade explosive devices that didn’t tick at all. He wondered if he should alert the Bomb Squad; he’d feel like a horse’s ass if they came all the way up here and discovered there was a box of chocolates or something inside the bag. Murchison had been a cop for a long time, though, and he knew that one of the first laws of survival in the Police Department was to cover your flanks. He picked up the phone and immediately buzzed Captain Frick’s office.

  There were 186 uniformed policemen and sixteen plainclothes detectives working out of the Eight-Seven, and Captain Frick was in command of all of them. Most of them believed that Frick was beyond the age of retirement, if not chronologically, then at least mentally. Some of them went so far as to say that Frick was non compos mentis and incapable of tying his own shoelaces in the morning, no less making decisions that could very easily affect the very real life-or-death situations these men confronted daily on the precinct streets. Frick had white hair. His hair had been white forever. He felt it complemented the blue of his uniform. He could not imagine holding down a job that would compel him to wear anything but the blue uniform that so splendidly complemented his dignified white hair. The gold braid, too; he liked the gold braid on his uniform. He liked being a cop. He did not like being told by a desk sergeant that a suspicious-looking package had just arrived in the morning mail.

  “What do you mean, suspicious?” he asked Murchison.

  “No return address on it,” Murchison said.

  “Where’s it postmarked?” Frick asked.

  “Calm’s Point.”

  “That’s not this precinct,” Frick said.

  “No, sir, it’s not.”

  “Send it back,” Frick said. “I want no part of it.”

  “Send it back where, sir?” Murchison asked.

  “To Calm’s Point.”