by Janie Crouch
Tina began crying in earnest.
“Okay, I want you to stop there, Tina.” Sherry reached out and touched the other woman’s arm. “Right before he hit you, were you able to see his face at all?”
“No, I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “The sun was too bright behind him. And then he hit me too fast. I’m sorry.”
“Tina.” Sherry’s voice was shaky, difficult to hear over Tina’s sobs.
“I got all of this before. Why drag her through this again?” Spangler muttered.
He hated to admit it, but Jon had to agree. They already knew Tina hadn’t seen her attacker’s face. No matter how good a forensic artist Sherry was, there was no way she could force Tina to describe something she hadn’t seen.
Jon started to interrupt, but Sherry held out an arm to silence him.
Sherry began again with a stronger voice. “Tina, listen to me. I know you didn’t see his face. That’s okay. That’s not what I want to ask you.”
Tina was visibly relieved. “It’s not?”
“No, what I want you to do is stand up. Freeze in your mind those first few seconds of when your attacker entered your house.”
“Stand up right now?” Tina took a deep breath in and blew it back out.
“Yes.” Sherry put the sketch pad down and stood with her. “Okay, now think about the man in the doorway. You were about three feet away from the door when he pushed in and struck you the first time, right?”
“Yeah, that would be about right.”
“Okay, so concentrate on before he pushed you to the floor. When you were looking at him in the doorway, what angle did you have your neck?”
Tina looked over at Sherry. “I don’t understand.”
Sherry walked over to Jon and slipped her hand under his arm to get him to stand. Then she brought him to stand about three feet away from Tina.
“See how you have to crane your neck back to look at Agent Hatton? Was your neck like that?” Sherry went over and grabbed Zane, who was about five-ten, and pulled him around to the other side of the table next to Jon. “Or was it more like looking at Detective Wales?”
Jon realized what Sherry was doing.
“Detective Wales,” Tina responded. “Definitely more like Detective Wales.”
The men sat. Sherry reached over and squeezed Tina’s arm. “That’s good. Helpful.”
“Really?” Tina looked around the room.
“It lets us know that your attacker was probably around five foot nine or ten,” Jon said. “That’s good, usable information.”
“Thank God.” Tina began crying again. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being so useless.”
Sherry put her arm around her. “The opposite, in fact. Very helpful. I’m going to talk to the other women and we’ll continue piecing things together. But that’s enough for today. Maybe we can talk again another time.”
Tina was obviously exhausted. Zane helped her gather her things and walked her out.
“Why did you stop just when you were getting somewhere?” Spangler asked.
“Knowing when to quit is just as important as knowing when to push,” Sherry said as she took her seat. “Memory is a fragile thing. Pushing too hard or for too long can do more damage than good.”
“You’ve got her subconscious thinking down a different path than it was before. She might begin to remember more details,” Jon said.
“I hope so,” Sherry said. “Because knowing your perp is about average height is not going to help you catch him.”
She was withdrawing in her chair, wrapping her arms around her midsection. Sherry had needed a stop to the questioning just as much as Tina had.
“Like you said, it’s a detail we didn’t have before. We’ll just keep adding details together as we get them.”
Spangler stood. “Yeah, well, knowing his probable height is not going to stop this guy. So you just put that woman through hell for no reason.”
He left shaking his head, Jon and Sherry staring after him.
Chapter Sixteen
Sherry felt a little nauseated, as if she was going to throw up. Was Spangler right? Should she have kept pushing? Had she stopped to spare Tina or to spare herself?
Had she stopped because she knew if Tina did happen to remember something concrete, there was no way Sherry was going to be able to draw it?
Spangler would just have loved that.
“Whatever you’re thinking, you need to just cut it out right now.” Jon was looking at her from across the conference room table.
“Maybe I should’ve kept going.”
“She’d had enough. Like you said, pushing would’ve been detrimental.”
“Yeah, but I think I actually stopped because pushing would’ve been detrimental for me, not her.”
Jon came around and sat on the edge of the table, his long legs stretched out in front of him, next to her chair. “It would’ve been detrimental for you both. You made the right call. If you hadn’t ended it when you did, I would have.”
“I don’t trust myself anymore, Jon.”
He reached over and rubbed her chin with his thumb. “Baby steps.”
Sherry just shrugged. She was afraid baby steps weren’t going to get them where they needed to go fast enough.
“Let’s get out of this room for a while, okay?” he said.
But out in the detective area where all the desks were visible and everyone seemed to be looking at them, it wasn’t any less stressful for Sherry.
“You want to take a walk outside?” she asked. “I need some fresh air.” He would never let her walk on her own.
They walked in silence. Sherry appreciated that Jon understood that she just needed some time to pull herself together. The police station was in the more industrial, less touristy, side of town, so it wasn’t as nice as walking on the beach, but at least it was quiet.
Last night’s storm seemed to have broken the heat wave. It was cooler, in the low eighties, more traditional for weather in June here. The air was muggy, full of the rain from the past few hours.
At first breathing the outside air—even as muggy as it was—was exactly what Sherry needed. Jon’s presence in the conference room had done a pretty good job of keeping the cold away, but the last of the chill was vanquished by the coastal heat.
After walking awhile, Sherry started to get the feeling—as she had a few days before when walking to Jasmine Houze’s house—that someone was watching her. She stopped and turned but, like then, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Sherry shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Not nothing. You were doing okay and then you got all weirded out.”
“I just felt like someone was watching us,” she said.
“I didn’t see anything or anyone out of place.”
“I know. It’s just me. This happened a couple of days ago, too, when I was walking to Jasmine’s house. Plus, I also felt like everyone was staring at me at the police station.” She sighed out loud. “I’m pretty sure these are signs I am either losing my grip on reality or that I am just really, really self-involved.”
Jon put his arm around her. “Well, I can officially attest that neither is correct.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.”
They turned to work their way back to the station. Sherry wasn’t surprised when Jon made her stop at one of the hole-in-the-wall barbecue joints. The man loved his food. Maybe she couldn’t make him stay in Texas, but brisket probably could.
Where in the world had that thought come from?
Despite last night, there had been no talk of a relationship—long-or short-term—between them. Sherry assumed Jon would be heading back to Omega headquarters in Colorado on
ce this was over. She’d be staying here, or at least returning to Houston.
The thought didn’t sit well with Sherry. She refused to force the “we need to talk about our relationship and where it’s going” conversation after only one night with him.
That was one thing she would just have to let happen on its own accord. She had enough on her mind without worrying about their relationship. It would have to be discussed later.
Back at the station, sitting at Jon’s desk, looking over the notes she had taken from this morning’s talk with Tina, Sherry could feel eyes watching her again. She’d like to draw a picture of the man in the doorway whom Tina had described—even with all the blanks. But the negative looks from almost every direction were damaging her calm. Her calm was pretty damn precarious to begin with.
At least this time she wasn’t the only one who noticed it.
“You guys are the talk of the entire building,” Zane said as he came over to give Jon a file.
Jon just shrugged. “What’s new? They’ve been shooting daggers at me since day one.”
“Yeah, well, Spangler is telling everyone who will listen that you’re putting these women through unnecessary hardship—his words, exactly—by bringing them in again to talk to Sherry.”
Sherry met Jon’s eyes across the desk. Jon shook his head before looking back at Zane.
“He’s arguing that Sherry doesn’t have the expertise to be working a case of this magnitude. That you brought her here because the two of you are romantically involved.”
Sherry’s eyes flew to Jon’s again. Again, he gave a tiny shake of his head.
“Well, Spangler is an idiot. Because first, Sherry has an impeccable record with the Bureau over the past two years and it will stand up to any scrutiny. And second, my idea of romancing a woman does not involve me bringing her in to talk to people who have been sexually assaulted.”
“I pretty much argued those two points with him. So now I’m not on the popular side, either.” Zane shrugged.
“If I didn’t know better, I would almost think that Spangler is deliberately stalling this case.”
Zane shook his head. “I don’t think he is. He’s just used to being the head honcho around here. Giving up the glory on the last big case before his retirement doesn’t sit well with him.”
“He can keep all the glory,” Sherry said. “I don’t want any of it.”
“Neither do I,” Jon agreed. “I don’t care who takes the credit. I just want this bastard caught.”
“Spangler is not such a bad guy. He’ll come around.”
Sherry wasn’t so sure.
“I didn’t have any luck with tattoo artists in the area,” Zane continued. “I’ve got some men taking the picture around to more shops farther out of the immediate vicinity. I also took it by the hospital this morning to show Nurse Carreker and some of the other staff and EMTs just before coming here.”
“Good, you never know when that will net some results. Nurse Carreker runs a tight ship.”
Sherry looked at Zane, who nodded at her before looking down to ardently study the file in his hand. Interesting that he had gone to the hospital to show the tattoo drawing just as Caroline was likely to be arriving to clock in for her shift.
Sherry decided not to bring up that point. Neither Zane nor Caroline ever seemed to want to discuss Zane and Caroline.
“I’ve got to meet with the captain and the mayor for a couple of hours,” Jon said after Zane promised to keep them informed if he heard anything and left. “You want me to take you home or do you want to stay here?”
Really, Sherry didn’t want to do either. The thought of sitting at her house alone wasn’t appealing, especially given the story she’d just heard over and over from Tina. But staying here at the station without Jon around wasn’t particularly tempting, either.
“I don’t guess I can talk you into letting me walk on the beach while you’re in your meeting.”
“Alone?”
Sherry almost giggled at the way his eyebrows raised so high.
“Uh, no,” he said.
“I don’t want to stay here, Jon. There’s enough staring with you here. I’m not sure what will happen with you gone.”
“I can ask Zane if he can hang around. Just run interference.”
“I don’t need to be babysat. Zane has other stuff he needs to do.”
“I’m sorry I can’t cancel this meeting. It’s about strategy with the press. Keeping people calm right now is one of the best things we can do. Law enforcement is going to become a lot more difficult if people start trying to take things into their own hands or see an attacker in any person who looks at them wrong.”
The city had been on the verge of panic for the past few weeks. Jon’s expertise in this area was probably as critical for the case as Sherry’s was with the victims.
“How about if I go over to the hospital? There’s a nice outdoor sitting area with some gazebos. Public yet quiet. Lots of people around but not any who will bother me.”
The hospital was only a couple of blocks away.
“Okay, I’ll walk you,” Jon said. “Promise me you’ll stay there. No walking alone.”
“Promise.”
* * *
HAVING SOMETHING GO right was a nice change of pace in the case. Jon left Mayor Birchwood’s office feeling as though for the first time in the nearly two weeks he had been here, someone had actually listened to him.
Working the press in a case like this was just as important as the police work. The city was on the verge of panic and it was now up to the mayor to keep that from happening.
Captain Harris had tried to skew information to make Jon look incompetent, but fortunately the mayor wasn’t interested in any sort of imagined rivalry between local and federal law enforcement. He just wanted what was best for his city.
When the captain realized Birchwood wasn’t looking for a scapegoat, the three of them were able to work as a team to come up with a media plan as well as to discuss the case and what was happening with the investigation.
Either Spangler hadn’t gotten to the captain with his opinion about Sherry yet or the captain felt it wasn’t in his best interest to bring it up. He hadn’t interrupted when Jon talked about her and what they’d discovered so far about the general height of the attacker and the tattoo.
The mayor had asked for Jon’s advice about the statement he was giving on live television tonight. Jon had encouraged him to ask the public to maintain common sense, caution and safety in numbers. Not to open the door to anyone unfamiliar.
“Anything else?” Mayor Birchwood had asked.
“I would appeal to the heart of being Texan,” Jon replied. “I’ve been here two weeks and I already see how people here band together. Remind them that they are Texans. They can take the heat. They’re strong.”
The mayor jotted down some notes. Even Harris nodded.
“Okay, good. Are we looking at people with previous records?” Birchwood asked.
“Always,” Captain Harris responded. “As Agent Hatton will attest, it’s hard to pin this guy down to specifics.”
Jon agreed. “He’s very smart. Genius IQ probably. Very controlled. Knows how forensics works and is careful not to leave any traceable evidence behind.”
The mayor grunted. “And that other attack? Not the same guy?”
“No, sir,” Harris said. “It became evident that he was just using some basic information from media reports of the attack to try to get away with terrorizing his brother’s ex-girlfriend.”
“I’m glad you were able to distinguish him from the real rapist before we reported that we had made an arrest, only to discover we were wrong. That would’ve been a major embarrassment.”
Jon very decidedly did not look at Captain Harris.
“What about this tattoo?” the mayor asked. “Should we release that to the press?”
Harris and Jon glanced at each other. That was a tough question. Jon deferred to Harris, since it was ultimately his call.
“I think we should wait,” Harris said to the mayor. “Only use it if we have no other options.”
“You don’t think it might help us find the guy?”
“I just think we might get too many people accusing too many other people of possibly being the perpetrator. Vigilante justice could get out of control.”
“I agree,” Jon said. “The tattoo doesn’t seem to be involved with any gang symbols, but that doesn’t mean that our guy is the only one out there with it. We don’t want people taking the situation into their own hands.”
“And he doesn’t know we know about it,” Harris finished. “That could possibly give us an advantage. Especially in a lineup.”
“Should I mention you’re working with this Sherry Mitchell?”
Jon didn’t want her name out there and he knew Sherry wouldn’t want it, either. “Not by name, definitely. But mentioning the department is working with a forensic artist for details beyond just facial features might help put the public a little more at ease.”
“All right,” Mayor Birchwood said, standing. This meeting was obviously at an end. “Thank you, gentlemen. I know I don’t have to say this, but catching the attacker is of utmost importance. The city is balancing precariously right now. Tourist profit margins are down because no one wants to bring their family where there’s a door-to-door rapist.”
Jon and Harris both nodded. They, more than anybody, knew what was at stake here.
“Please keep my office posted if anything changes.” The mayor showed them to the door.
“I hope your new forensic artist can get more information soon,” Captain Harris said as they walked down the hall to the elevator. “Everything the mayor said in there was right. The city is going to blow up soon if we don’t get a handle on this case.”