Conflict of Interest

by Jae

  Aiden entered the bedroom, where Ray was busy sealing evidence bags. "Hey, Ray," she greeted him. "Found anything?"

  "The usual – semen stains, hairs, and fibers on the bed. Already photographed and bagged it." Ray sighed. "Doesn't look like he left anything else behind, not even a condom wrapper. No signs of a struggle or forced entry in the living room. Ms. Kinsley was right; the window seems to be the point of entry."

  They walked through the apartment to reconstruct the sequence of events. "He must have climbed up the fire escape at the back of the building, found the half-open window, and climbed in. I think in the darkness, he crashed into the side table." Ray pointed to the piece of furniture half in front of the window. "That's probably what woke the victim up."

  "Ms. Kinsley," Aiden corrected. She didn't really know Dawn, but she couldn't think of her as just another nameless victim.

  Ray nodded. His nostrils quivered as he suppressed a yawn. "Right. So, I'm thinking he's someone who doesn't have access to the building and who's never been to the apartment before, otherwise he would know the layout of the furniture and not bump into it."

  "Hey, boys and girls," Okada said as he entered the apartment with his partner.

  "Neighbors were a complete waste of time – no one saw anything." Ruben shook his head in frustration.

  "Except for Mr. Bundy, the one who called us," Okada threw in.

  Ray looked up. "His name's really Bundy?"

  Ruben shrugged his slim shoulders. "Yeah. Not everyone's entitled to a nice unique name like Bennet," he teased. "Some have to share a name with a mass murderer or a shoe seller."

  "Did Mr. Bundy tell you anything other than his name?" Aiden interrupted their joking. She had no patience for it at the moment.

  Okada raised his eyebrows. "Someone is missing her beauty sleep," he mumbled.

  "We could all use a few hours of sleep," Ray intervened before Aiden could answer. "So let's get this over with, okay?"

  "Mr. Bundy was walking around the block with man's best friend at about four a.m.," Okada explained. "When Fifi started barking, he looked up and saw Ms. Kinsley hanging halfway out of the window. He begged her not to jump." Okada curved his lips into one of his cynical half smiles. "Little did he know she didn't want to end her life but her phoneless state –"

  "...until she called down to him to call 911 because she'd been assaulted," Ruben said.

  Aiden rubbed one of her tense shoulders. "He didn't see our perp?"

  Okada shook his head. "Neither hide nor hair."

  "Speaking of hairs..." Ray brushed his hand over the legs of his pants. "There has to be a feline roommate hiding somewhere around here – there are cat hairs everywhere, and I found a litter box in the bathroom."

  "Okay, guys, why don't you head on home?" Aiden suggested. "There's nothing we can do until we have some lab results."

  While Okada and Ruben headed for the door without hesitation, Ray didn't move. "And what are you gonna do?" he asked.

  Aiden stripped off her latex gloves with tired movements. "I'm going to catch a few hours too."

  "A few hours?" Ray raised a mocking brow. "You look like you could use a three-month hibernation, not just a few hours of tossing and turning."

  "I could," Aiden agreed with a sigh. "But seeing as how I'm not going to get three days, much less three months, I'll take a nap and then head back to the station to let Ms. Kinsley sign her statement."

  Ray studied her. "I get the feeling this one's personal for you."

  "Yeah. I guess it is." Aiden shrugged and looked around the apartment as if in search of an explanation. "She works with sex crimes too, Ray. She's almost one of us. She didn't deserve this."

  Ray nodded. "No one does."

  Side by side, they trudged down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 5

  "DETECTIVE? Detective Carlisle!"

  Dazed, Aiden rolled around and lifted herself up on one elbow. "Uh?" She blinked at the sudden brightness and peered through sleep-swollen eyes at the young officer standing before her bunk bed.

  "There are two women in the squad room asking for you," Ronny Pratt reported.

  Aiden rubbed her eyes and swung her legs out off the cot. A quick glance at her wristwatch showed her that she had slept for four hours. Trotting over to the squad room, she clipped her holster back onto her belt and finger-combed her short hair into some semblance of order.

  Dawn Kinsley and an older woman, whom Aiden recognized as Dawn's mother, sat in front of her desk, two paper cups with teabags in front of them.

  "D... Ms. Kinsley, ma'am." Aiden nodded at the two women as she eased herself down into her desk chair.

  "Dawn's okay, Detective," the younger woman said. "You've helped me through situations that surely warrant a first-name basis."

  Aiden inclined her head and studied Dawn. The bruises on her face and around her throat were more pronounced now, and she looked as if she hadn't slept for even a minute. Sitting with her back to the noisy squad room full of strangers seemed to make her jumpy.

  "Here's your written statement." Aiden handed her the document. "Please read it thoroughly, and don't hesitate to tell me if there's something wrong or missing in there, okay?"

  While Dawn read, Aiden's glance met Mrs. Kinsley's over the bowed head of her daughter. Her eyes leaned more toward gray than Dawn's, and her hair was a little darker, but the family resemblance couldn't be denied. Neither could the look of sad helplessness in those gray eyes.

  Aiden had to look away, and she was glad when Dawn finished reading.

  "Everything's correct," Dawn said, took the pen Aiden held out for her, and signed the document. "What else?"

  "Nothing, for the moment. We have no eyewitnesses, so our hope's on forensics coming up with something that will help us ID and apprehend the perpetrator. If that happens, we'll need you to identify him in a lineup," Aiden said. She could see that Dawn was fidgeting, unable to sit still and do nothing while her rapist was free to roam the streets. "We'll need your help when the police sketch artist comes in. Is there anything we can do for you until then? Are you okay at your mother's for now?"

  "She can stay for as long as she wants to," Mrs. Kinsley said.

  "Do you need anything from your apartment?" Aiden looked down at her own wrinkled clothes. She had decided that it would be a waste of time to drive home just to sleep a few hours and then turn around and drive back to the station, so she had crashed on one of the bunk beds in the "dungeon," the small, a little smelly room next to the locker room.

  Dawn shook her head. She didn't seem eager to have anything from her apartment with her. "No, thanks, I have several changes of clothes at my mother's."

  "There might be something you could do," Grace Kinsley interjected softly. "Her cat is still in the apartment. I offered to go and get it, but Dawn doesn't want me to see... and she can't go back there, not so soon after..."

  "I understand." Aiden looked at Dawn, who glanced down, a little embarrassed at her mother's implied request. "I could retrieve the cat for you," Aiden offered. At Dawn's doubtful look, she added, "It's no trouble, really, I should go home to change clothes anyway; it's not a detour."

  Dawn lifted a single eyebrow. "Do you have any experience with cats?" she wanted to know.

  Aiden shrugged. "I don't want to marry it. I'm just going to put it into a transport box. How hard can that be?"

  Dawn smiled genuinely for the first time all day. "Famous last words, Detective."

  "Hey, I'm a police officer." Aiden grinned cockily. She was glad that Dawn had found a little of her sense of humor and wanted to keep the lighter mood for as long as possible. "If it resists arrest, I'll convince it to comply with my gun."

  The smile disappeared, and Dawn blanched as if Aiden had threatened her with the gun.

  Aiden wanted to slap herself. God! You idiot! You don't joke about that with a woman who has been threatened by a rapist's gun just a few hours ago! "I'm sorry," she said hastily, "that was really thoughtless
of me. I should know better." She glanced from Dawn to her uncomfortable looking mother. Nice first impression, you genius!

  "No!" Dawn extended her splinted hand pleadingly in Aiden's direction. "No, it's okay, really. I don't want to think about it every second of the day, and I don't want you to think about it every time you see me. I don't want to be just another rape victim, okay?"

  "Okay." Aiden inhaled and exhaled deeply. "So, any last-minute advice about handling that tiger of yours?"

  Dawn visibly relaxed. "She's a tigress, and she's probably hiding under the bed." She sighed as she thought about that particular piece of furniture. "Maybe I should have tried that."

  "Hey..." Helplessly, Aiden searched for words. Ronny Pratt's return interrupted whatever she might have said.

  Dawn jumped when the young man stepped up behind her to announce, "Picasso's here now."

  Aiden nodded. "That's our sketch artist," she said. "He'll work with you to create a sketch of the perp so we can send it out to all precincts."

  "If you'd follow me, please." Ronny Pratt gestured in the direction of a small interview room.

  Dawn rose but looked back at Aiden.

  "I'll be there in a minute," Aiden promised. "I just have to look through the stuff in my inbox real fast."

  Reassured, Dawn followed Ronny across the squad room, leaving her mother with Aiden.

  "Thank you," Mrs. Kinsley said.

  Aiden looked up from her inbox, embarrassed by the gratitude in the gray eyes. "Just doing my job, ma'am."

  "I know, but she feels safe with you – and that's worth a lot in a time like this when she doesn't even feel safe in her own home... or in mine."

  Aiden tilted her head in acknowledgment but couldn't think of an appropriate answer. "Okay, let's go and watch an artist at work."

  * * *

  Dawn Kinsley's apartment was a crime scene. The yellow "do not cross" tape announced it, and the fingerprint powder still lingering on the furniture spoke its own language.

  Though she had been here before, Aiden found herself hesitating to enter the bedroom, the place where Dawn had lived through such terror. She didn't have much of a choice, though, because according to Dawn it was the cat's most likely hiding place.

  Cautiously, she stepped over tattered books, knelt down next to the pieces of glass on the bedroom floor, and peered under the bed. Two yellow-green eyes looked back unblinkingly. "Okay." Aiden rubbed her hands together and remembered that she had forgotten to ask Dawn about the cat's name. "Tiger... hey, kitty-kitty, come here."

  The cat didn't move an inch.

  Aiden tried again, this time in her gentlest voice, the one that worked with even the most frightened children.

  Now the cat moved – but in the opposite direction, hiding even deeper under the bed.

  "Great!" At a loss, Aiden went in search of the cat food. The cat hadn't been fed in almost twenty-four hours, and she hoped that it might succumb to the smell of food if not her charming personality.

  * * *

  Aiden shifted her weight from foot to foot, causing the transport box she carried to tilt from side to side and the captured cat inside it to let out a long hiss. "Shush! Quiet!" Aiden pleaded. "Do you want them to think I'm torturing you?" She fell silent when the front door of Grace Kinsley's apartment opened.

  "Oh, Detective. You're bringing the cat already? That'll cheer her up. Come in, come in." Grace Kinsley ushered Aiden and her living cargo into the apartment. It was on the first floor, with large windows and a sliding door leading to the deck and the backyard. Aiden could understand why Dawn didn't feel safe in her mother's home – of course, Dawn wouldn't feel safe anywhere at the moment, but being in an apartment with so many unsecured entry points only added to the feeling of being in danger.

  "Go on in, Detective," Mrs. Kinsley said. "Dawn's is the second door on the left."

  Aiden knocked softly. "Dawn? It's Detective Carlisle."

  The door inched open, and Dawn's pale face peered out. When she saw Aiden, the transport box with the cat in one hand, a bloody scratch on the other, she swung the door open.

  Aiden entered the room in which Dawn had apparently lived as a teenager. Posters of movie and pop stars were still plastered to the walls, but other than that, it was furnished in the same chaotic-cozy style that dominated Dawn's apartment.

  She set the transport box down next to a bright red desk. "Please don't say 'I told you so,'" she pleaded with a lopsided grin.

  Dawn laughed, a wonderful sound in Aiden's ears. "Didn't cross my mind. I was too worried to be a smart-ass."

  Embarrassed, Aiden rubbed her scratched hand. "Ah, don't worry, it's nothing." It burned like hell, but you couldn't have one of Portland's finest whining about a tiny little scratch.

  "About my cat," Dawn continued with a smile.

  Aiden couldn't help answering the smile with one of her own. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that she was dealing with a rape victim. She sensed an inner strength and a unique sense of humor in Dawn that was a little shaken but basically unbroken.

  "Where has she been hiding?" Dawn asked, opening the transport box. The two women watched as the cat shook its long-haired coat, stretched its pale body, and strode majestically away from its prison. A bushy, chocolate-colored tail twitched, and sapphire eyes glowered at Aiden. The cat let out a complaining "Mrrrow!" and circled Dawn's legs once before disappearing under the small bed.

  "She was under the bed, just like you said."

  "You didn't try to wrestle her out from under there, did you?" Dawn asked, nodding down at Aiden's hand.

  Aiden snorted. "Oh, no. Even I know enough about those furry demons not to try that. It all started out pretty promising. We had a nice bonding moment over a can of cat food, but the harmony was destroyed when I tried to put her into the transport box. That's when I became closely acquainted with those three inch claws."

  Dawn smiled for a moment before she became serious and pointed to the still lightly bleeding scratch across the back of Aiden's hand. "Did you wash that out?"

  "No." Aiden waved dismissively. "Like I said, it's just a scratch."

  Dawn shot her an exasperated glare. "A scratch that could become infected like any other untreated wound. It's not like Kia sterilized her claws because she knew a police officer would come and try to put her behind bars." She left the room and returned with the first aid kit, taking out a wad of cotton wool and soaking it in hydrogen peroxide.

  Aiden grimaced.

  "What? Don't tell me you're squeamish, Detective."

  "I'm not!" Aiden protested and let Dawn take her scratched hand. The fingers cradling her own were soft and warm. The touch sent a tingle through Aiden's hand, and she jerked back.

  "Sorry," Dawn whispered, obviously thinking her careful treatment of the scratch had caused the twitching.

  Aiden shook her head. "It wasn't you. Must be the loss of blood making me weak in the knees." She hid her true feelings behind the joke, something the majority of cops was very adept in.

  The comment enticed another smile from Dawn, who looked as though she was ready to say something, but then thought better of it.

  A knock on the door interrupted them, and Mrs. Kinsley peered around the doorway. A surprised but pleased expression appeared on her face when she saw the smile curving her daughter's lips. "Can I interest you in a cup of coffee, Detective?"

  Aiden hesitated. Normally, she would politely decline anything a victim's or witness' family offered, preferring to draw a clear line between her professional and her personal life. Come on, girl, she mentally rolled her eyes, it's a cup of coffee, not a marriage proposal. It's well within the bounds of professionalism. Officially, she wasn't even on duty, and the lab results wouldn't be back until the next day. It wasn't as if she had anything pressing to take care of, so she finally nodded.

  "Black, no sugar?" Mrs. Kinsley asked.

  Aiden nodded again and watched Mrs. Kinsley's retreat. "So, you got it from your mother, then?
Correctly guessing people's coffee preferences, I mean."

  "Maybe," Dawn gave her a mysterious smile, "or maybe we're both just too stingy to offer our guests sugar and milk."

  Aiden grinned and then studied Dawn closely. Behind the thin layer of joking and smiles, Aiden could sense constant pain and fear. She knew the rape was ever-present in Dawn's mind, playing itself over and over again. "We'll get him," she said.

  Dawn pressed her lips together. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Detective." Her troubled gray eyes gazed directly into Aiden's. "It's not that I don't trust you or the police in general, but I know the statistics. I know that most rapists will never spend even a single day of their lives in prison."