V.
Mandy Jacobs had been a nurse and Tyler had fallen for her the first time he had met her, scribbling orders down in a patient’s chart. She had waited patiently for him to finish writing, reviewed the orders and had smiled shyly as she closed the patient chart. Tyler had been hooked by her big blue eyes and blonde wavy hair. As he got to know her, he learned that Mandy was smart, beautiful and he wanted her. So far in life, he had always gotten what he wanted. He went after her with the same intensity he did everything and for Mandy, no was not an option.
“Have lunch with me,” Tyler suggested after they had finished with a patient. Mandy was flattered but wasn’t sure if she should agree. “It’s just lunch,” Tyler told her in an attempt to convince her. “I’m buying.” He offered her a big grin that she couldn’t ignore.
For a few weeks, when their schedules allowed, they had lunch together. Tyler had sensed Mandy’s inexperience; usually he wasn’t willing to wait so long to get a woman to bed. With Mandy, he knew it would be worth the wait.
Lunch progressed into to dinner a few times. After their first official date, Tyler had sent flowers to Mandy. She was falling for his charm. By the third dinner, Tyler was confident he would be bringing Mandy to his apartment. Tyler’s desire for her had only grown over the past few weeks and he had decided tonight, he would have her. She had eagerly agreed to go back to his place for a drink. She had never physically been with a man, nor had she felt such desire for one. Mandy was head over heels for Tyler.
Tyler didn’t offer her a drink when they got inside the apartment. His mouth hungrily crushed down on hers. Mandy enjoyed the taste of him, the feel of his hard body against hers. It wasn’t until he had gathered her in his arms and dropped her onto his bed that she began to feel a little nervous. The anxiety grew as she felt his obvious erection straining against his pants. Tyler didn’t seem to notice as he was busily ridding Mandy of her clothes. “You are beautiful,” he told her as he undid her bra and her lips were all over her. Somehow Tyler had lost his shirt and pants, Mandy didn’t know when that had happened. And then he was naked, on top of her and she could feel the tip of him nudging her.
“Tyler, I’ve never…”
“It’s okay baby,” he told her as he thrust forward and Mandy felt a jab of pain. Tyler had known Mandy was inexperienced but hadn’t realized she had been a virgin. At the moment, with her heat and tightness, he didn’t care. He lost himself in the pleasure and the fact that she was writhing beneath him made it hotter.
“Tyler, it hurts,” Mandy tried to tell him, tried to move his big body off hers to no avail. “Stop,” she whispered. He didn’t hear her and kept thrusting, faster and deeper. Mandy started to cry; she felt like she was being ripped in two.
“Fuck, baby, you are so hot,” Tyler hissed as his body tensed and he started to climax. “Fuck!”
Mandy felt his heavy frame relax and finally he rolled off from her. As soon as she could, she bolted into the bathroom, grabbing her dress up off the floor along the way. She could feel something seeping from between her legs; she saw blood and his semen. My God, she thought, he hadn’t even used a condom.
After several minutes, Tyler got up from the bed and slipped on a pair of shorts. He gently knocked on the bathroom door. “Mandy, baby, are you okay?” He could hear soft whimpers through the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were…a virgin.” He couldn’t believe it, but the sex had been incredible! “I lost control, baby.”
She opened the door. She was still crying. “I asked you to stop.” Mandy looked up at him with a look of devastation in her eyes. “You hurt me.” She had been under the assumption that Tyler had actually cared about her, maybe not as much as she cared for him, but some. The realization, after the rough sex, that he had wined and dined her over the past few weeks just to get into her pants.
“Hey, I didn’t know you had never…” Tyler cleared his throat. After the sex they had just had, he didn’t want to blow it---he definitely wanted her again. “”I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I promise the next time will be better.” Tyler looked at her with a wide, sexy grin. “I can make it really good for you, baby. I promise.”
Mandy stood, leaning against the vanity, considering what he said. Sex for the first time had been a disappointment, but the thought that it could be good with Tyler was intriguing. She did find him incredibly sexy and hot. “Not tonight,” she told him, not closing the door on the possibility of being with him again.
“So you’re okay?” She nodded. “Let me take you home,” Tyler suggested.
They stayed together for a few more months. Tyler delivered on his promise to show Mandy how good sex with him could be. But she was looking for more; Mandy wanted to be married and have kids. Tyler just wanted a companion to spend time and sleep with.
“I need to know this is something more than a roll in the hay with you,” Mandy said after Tyler finished with her. The sex had been fantastic, as always, but she as tired of him pulling away, emotionally and physically, after the deed was done. And she knew their relationship was common knowledge amongst their colleagues. Mandy was embarrassed to think they would all know she had just been used for a good time.
“You know I’m not that guy,” Tyler told Mandy as he rolled out of the bed away from her, grabbing his jeans to slide on. “I’ve told you from the beginning that I wasn’t into serious relationships.”
“I can’t do this anymore.” Mandy sat up, clutching the comforter around her naked breasts. “We’re done, Tyler. I think you should leave.”
“You think that’s it?” Tyler’s face tensed with anger.
“Just get out,” Mandy sighed. She didn’t want to have this argument with him again. He knew what she wanted and if he couldn’t deliver than it was done between them. It was as simple as that.
Tyler yanked down his jeans and jumped back onto the bed. Mandy was taken by surprise as he roughly threw her down onto the bed and was immediately on top of her. “You’re mine,” he told her in her ear as he forced himself into her.
“Stop it, Tyler! Stop it!” She tried to get him off her, slapped at his arms. It only seemed to encourage him, as Tyler grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head, driving himself into her harder and faster.
“I own you.” His words were cold and menacing. “Oh, so good. Fuck!” His body quivered with his orgasm. And then he got up off her and again, slid into his jeans. “See you at the hospital, babe,” he sneered at her as he left her apartment.
Mandy couldn’t get out of bed for hours. She sobbed, on the verge of hysterics, almost not believing that Tyler had raped her. And threatened her. What was she going to do?
She called in sick to work the next day. No way could she face Tyler at the hospital. She hadn’t reported the rape; she couldn’t admit what she had let happen. And there was no way she could submit herself to the rape exam.
Tyler tried to call, but she didn’t pick up. He spent over ten minutes banging on her apartment door the next day before he left. “I know you called in to work,” he had yelled through the locked door. “I know you’re in there. Open the door!” His voice had been strange; Mandy recognized a loss of control in it that was so uncharacteristic of Tyler and it scared her. She didn’t get out of bed to open the door for him. Eventually, he had stopped banging it and had left.
“I need to go out of town, deal with some personal things,” she told her nurse manager on the phone. “It’s an emergency. I’m sorry.”
“Is everything alright?” Her boss was worried; she had caught the tremor and fear in Mandy’s voice.
“Everything is fine. Don’t worry. I just need a couple weeks.”
Mandy had packed her bag and was on her way out the door when Tyler caught up with her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked as he roughly grabbed the bag out of her hands.
“Just give it back,” Mandy barked. She couldn’t even stand to look at him.
“I told you that I owned you and I meant
it.” He had the bag in one hand and with the other; he roughly dug into her shoulder. “You’re coming with me.”
“Leave me alone!” She tried to wiggle out from underneath his hand but he applied more pressure and it hurt.
He led her to his car, opened up the front passenger door and pushed her to sit. Her bag got tossed into the back seat and they drove off. Two weeks later, when Mandy didn’t call or return to work at the hospital, her boss called the police. Mandy could not be found; she was missing.
Tyler had been questioned several times by the police. They found him at his home, at the hospital. Tyler quickly tired of seeing the detective approach him. He kept insisting that he didn’t know anything---he didn’t know where she was and hadn’t heard from Mandy. They didn’t believe anything he told them.
There was suspicion but nothing could be proved that Tyler had anything to do with Mandy’s disappearance. But at the hospital, their colleagues had known they had been seeing each other. Mandy had been a skilled and respected nurse; the rumors of Tyler having done something to her made his job at the hospital uncomfortable and difficult. After a few months of feeling the brunt of the silent accusations, Tyler moved to Maine.
***
Mia had fallen asleep while waiting for Jason to come back to the cottage. She awoke in the morning finding she was alone. She checked her cell phone, wondering if Jason had called. No call. She checked her email and found nothing but announcements of sales from her favorite stores. Where was he? She wondered as she brewed fresh coffee. Mia fought the urge to call him; she wouldn’t because obviously he didn’t want to be around or talk to her right now.
As she sat in the small eat-in kitchen, sun streaming in the expansive windows that gave a partial view of the ocean, her cell rang. Mia answered quickly, assuming it would be Jason. She was wrong.
Lieutenant Ross from the Maine State Police was on the other end of the call. “Dr. Hitchcock, I was hoping I could pay a visit at your place. I know that you are off today.”
“Do I need to call my lawyer?” Mia questioned.
“I have questions, not accusations, but you always have the right to talk to council.” There was a long pause until she finally told the Lieutenant Ross that he could come by with his questions in an hour.
Since the lieutenant had spoken with Mia and Tyler at the hospital yesterday morning, he and ten other state police investigators had been pouring over evidence, reviewing forensics and interviewing every person who had attended the church service. At present count, one man was dead, autopsy pending to verify the official cause of death, five people still hospitalized and nine others who had experienced symptoms but not serious enough for hospitalization. They all had ingested the coffee, some just a few sips. Many of them reported the coffee had “tasted strange” with a bitter taste. So far, none of the parishioners who had skipped the coffee had become ill. The common denominator amongst those with the gastrointestinal symptoms was the coffee.
Discussions with Homeland Security and the federal Centers for Disease Control occurred; it was ruled out early that the poisoning had any link to terrorism. Residual arsenic in water was not uncommon in Maine; the church well water supply was also tested and proclaimed toxin free. No herbicides or insecticides, known to contain arsenic, were found on the church property. So far, nothing, other than the brewed coffee and the coffee pot it had sat in, had revealed arsenic. The evidence was not adding up to come to a conclusion that this had been an accidental poisoning. Someone had been very angry.
“Thank you for speaking with me.” Lieutenant Ross appeared on her doorstep exactly an hour later. Mia invited him in.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked him as she motioned for him to have a seat on the couch.
“No,” he shook his head. “But thank you.” He sat and took out a small notebook. “Can you run through all the symptoms of those you treated Sunday in the emergency room?”
“Varying degrees of gastrointestinal symptoms. The first man I treated and transferred, he was the worst, with the beginning of multi-organ failure.”
“He passed,” the lieutenant interjected.
Mia sighed. “I’m not surprised.”
“Did any of the patients you treated tell you anything that you think would be helpful in possibly understanding what happened?”
“You mentioned yesterday that the preliminary tests were positive for arsenic. Has this turned into a criminal investigation?”
“We are going down many avenues.” He didn’t discount her intelligence and that she knew he was giving a lame answer. He cleared his throat before he shifted the line of questions. “I understand that you recently moved here from Boston?”
“Yes.” Mia eyed the lieutenant with skepticism. Where is this going?
“You lived with someone… Jason Howard?”
“What does this have to do with what happened at the church?” Mia gave a cool stare, knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“From what I understand, you applied, interviewed and took this job all in a span of a couple weeks, even though you had an offer from Boston Medical Center, where you were finishing your residency.” He shifted uncomfortably on the couch and then went for it. “It appears you wanted to leave Boston quickly? Eager to leave Mr. Howard?”
“I thought you said you weren’t here to accuse me of anything,” Mia angrily replied.
“I am not accusing you of anything.” Lieutenant Ross sighed and continued. “Did you know that Jason, Detective Howard has been put on administrative leave from the Boston Police Department?” He didn’t miss the look of confusion mixed with surprise dart across her face. She hadn’t known. “Do you know his whereabouts on Sunday morning?” She didn’t but stayed silent. He took the silence as the assumed ‘no’ he had expected. Lieutenant Ross stood. “I appreciate you speaking with me, doctor.” He walked to the door and stopped short, turning to face her. “Do you know where he is now?” Mia shook her head.
***
Jason ran for over an hour. He returned home, sweaty, breathless and sore. He hadn’t run in weeks and was out of shape. Prior to Mia’s miscarriage, Jason had run a mile or two almost daily. He had a weight bench in the cellar of the brownstone that he hadn’t used since then either. Nothing had been right since Mia had lost the baby. He took a shower, decided against shaving, and after dressing in jeans and a sweat shirt, noticed he had a missed call. Had Mia tried to get a hold of him? He played the message and listened. It hadn’t been from Mia; Internal Affairs wanted to talk with him. He sighed as he went back to the bedroom, into the walk-in closet, and changed into a suit and tie.
Martin Durrell was the union representative that met Jason outside the police department, on the sidewalk in front. He was almost to retirement, pudgy and balding, the remaining hair snowy white. “Good morning detective,” he greeted Jason with an outstretched hand. Jason shook it, merely nodding. He was not in the mood for this. “We are here just to listen to the official complaint and what the concerns are. There will be a second meeting where we will rebut, after we have a chance to strategize.”
“Fine,” Jason sighed. What did it matter? He had acted out of line with the physicality towards the suspect and the total lack of respect for his commanding officer. Whatever was eventually decided, Jason thought he had earned the punishment. Even worse, he didn’t care.
They sat in a conference room listening to the account, according to Internal Affairs, of what the filed complaint was and the information surrounding it had been gathered. Jason sat, half listening to the fair account of him slamming the suspect up against concrete wall, as well as the exchange about the incident he and Saunders had engaged in. He spent more effort on focusing out the large windows that overlooked a busy Boston sidewalk, watching traffic and the people walk at various speeds down the street.
“Detective Howard,” Durrell interrupted his thoughts. “Did you have anything you wanted to say at this point? Before we have a chance to furt
her review this information?”
“No.” Jason almost just admitted to his actions but from the angry stare he was getting from Durrell, he knew that would be a mistake.
“Then I guess we are done here.” Durrell rose from his chair and motioned Jason to follow him. “Gentleman.” Durrell shook hands with the two internal affairs officers who had done the majority of the talking.
Outside, Durrell didn’t hide his displeasure with Jason. “You realize that this could cost you your job? Civil suit?” That was unlikely but Durrell was trying to get some reaction from the detective. Apathy had been written all over Jason’s face through the meeting. Durrell sighed. “We’ll meet in a few days and go over this.”
“Call me.” Jason shoved his hands into the pocket of his coat and walked towards the parking garage to fetch his car. He felt exhausted although it was only past noon, and he planned to go back to bed.
***
After leaving Mia’s cottage, Lieutenant Ross headed to the hospital. Earlier in the morning, he had received a call with an update of all of the five victims that had been hospitalized. Two were still intubated and sedated in critical condition. Three were now well enough to be able to give a statement.
Carla Brody sat tall in the hospital bed, her whitish hair piled high on her head. Her son had brought her items from home, including the warm pajamas she wore. “How can I help you?” she greeted the lieutenant. “You have some questions?”
“How are you feeling Ms. Brody?”
“I’ll be fine, they tell me. Home tomorrow. What a tragedy that has happened here in our little town.” She sighed, her fierce blue eyes staring at Ross.
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