Date Rape New York

by Janet McGiffin

  At a sidewalk clothing store, Grazia caught sight of herself in a mirror—pale cheeks, shocked expression, too-large eyes. Is this my new face? she thought, stunned. Is this the face I am taking back to Italy? Her knees went weak. Breathless with anxiety, she collapsed on a doorstep next to an old Chinese woman who was squatting by a dirty basket filled with squares of bamboo leaves wrapped around something. The old woman’s eager, bright eyes followed passersby as she called out her wares in piercing singsong. She poked Grazia in the arm and pointed at the basket. Grazia drew back, shaken by the physical intrusion. She started to rise but her trembling knees wouldn’t hold her. The old woman gave her a toothless grin and returned to calling out in her whining voice. Grazia watched her, oddly soothed by the strange melody.

  “What brought you to this doorstep?” Grazia asked her, knowing the woman couldn’t understand. She was of the age and nationality to have witnessed invading armies and revolutions—both of which spelled rape.

  A sensation of unity with all these women came over Grazia. She felt a physical link to all the women who had survived such upheavals and had chosen to go on and rebuild their lives. She reached for her purse and pointed at the basket. The old woman deftly unwrapped the leaves, revealing spicy, aromatic rice. She showed Grazia how to eat the delicious sweet grains out of the husk. Grazia ate half and gave the rest to the old woman, then wiped her fingers on a handkerchief from her handbag. The old woman shouted at a child loitering nearby. He instantly disappeared into a shop and reappeared with a small teapot and two small ceramic cups. The black brew was pungent and bitter. It cleared Grazia’s head.

  “What are you going to do?” she demanded aloud of herself. “Are you going to continue wandering New York in a daze, eating Chinese food on doorsteps?” No, she realized, this escape wasn’t even a temporary alternative. Her role was to continue her search. For this, she needed to do something better than waiting around on doorsteps.

  She leaned her back against the door and mulled over everything she knew and everything she didn’t. In the back of her mind, she heard the old Chinese woman talking to other old ladies who were leading young grandchildren by the hand or pulling carts of vegetables. A young woman appeared and emptied a large bowl of wrapped rice bundles into the old woman’s basket.

  Grazia roused herself. These women were helping each other. With only today, Wednesday, and Thursday left, that’s what Grazia needed: help. And she knew who could give it to her, if only he would.

  She pulled out her journal and made a to-do list. Then she took out her phone. To her surprise, there were six missed calls: two from Cindy, one from Janine, two from Detective Cargill, and one from Nick. She returned Nick’s call first.

  “I watched the CCTV tapes,” he said. “You and your girlfriend were easily recognizable. She was holding you up. The camera shows only the doorway, so I couldn’t see what happened after you got outside. But after about ten seconds, Laura came back in. Right away, she went out again pulling a suitcase. I remember giving it to her from behind the bar. After about thirty seconds, a single guy went out. Whether he’s connected to your situation or not, I don’t know, but he fit the description that the old lady saw—dark knit cap pulled low, dark down parka. He kept his face down, which is suspicious. People always look up when they go outside.”

  “Thanks, Nick,” she said, surprised at the efficient tone of her voice. “Call me if any of those Italians come into the bar.” Detective Cargill was her next call. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” He was practically shouting.

  “Chinatown. We need to talk.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “Why? I’ll take a cab.”

  He gave her the address of a small eatery near her hotel. The first cab that stopped was driven by a man in a turban. No anxiety. With a wave at the old Chinese woman watching her from the doorstep, Grazia climbed in.

  Chapter 25

  Detective Cargill was occupying a back booth in a narrow hamburger joint redolent of fried grease. He held a coffee mug between his hands. Grazia slid into the booth. The red plastic bench had been inexpertly repaired with duct tape. She ordered hot tea. It arrived quickly, a teabag floating in tepid liquid.

  Cargill watched her vainly dipping the teabag to persuade the tea to infuse. “I’m no good at touchy-feely stuff,” he began awkwardly. “Cindy keeps trying to teach me, but I’m a slow learner.”

  Grazia held up a hand. “Don’t. I don’t want to feel. I am putting that aside until I’m ready for it.”

  “Which will be when?”

  “When I’ve found the men who did this to me. That means two rapists and whoever heard me talk about my client and called the Building Safety Department.” She noticed she could say “rapist” without whispering now. But it didn’t feel like she was talking. It felt like someone else with a quiet, dead voice.

  Cargill was looking into his mug. “Postponing that feeling stuff doesn’t work, if you want to know. You bury it, and it shows up in the wrong place and the wrong way.”

  “I’m not here for psychological advice. What I want is this: three days of your detective time—today, Wednesday, and Thursday—of searching for the man who attacked me, until I climb on that plane Friday and fly out of your life.”

  Cargill put down his coffee mug. “What will you do if, during these three days, we find these guys?”

  “I will take the next legal step, whatever that is. You can advise me.”

  “And if we don’t find them?”

  “I’ll fly to Naples, get a psychiatrist, and start another career besides law.”

  Cargill looked at her soberly. “You honestly believe we can find three people in three days? With no leads, no witnesses, and you having no memory?”

  “Janine said to have faith in you.” Grazia pulled her journal out of her bag and slapped it on the table.

  Detective Cargill’s gaze shifted to the snowy sidewalk. “The last woman who had faith in me, I let her down.” He turned his gaze back to Grazia. “Even if I thought we could achieve this, which I don’t, I have to run it by my captain. This morning, he closed your case.” He took a long drink of coffee.

  Grazia waited. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like someone was drumming on the tabletop. If Cargill didn’t help her, she could hire a private detective. But Cargill was better. He knew her; he knew the case.

  Finally Cargill looked at her. “You’ve got that journal in front of you. I’ll bet there’s something in there that will get this show back on the road.”

  Grazia smiled. A weight lifted off her shoulders. This morning, she had been fumbling in mental fog, overwhelmed by jumbled feelings and thoughts. Now she had walled her feelings behind the soaped mirror in Cindy’s washroom. She felt detached and alert, like she did at work when she was building a case. She opened her journal. “Aren’t you going to take notes, Detective Cargill?” she smiled.

  “Call me Cargill; everybody does.” He drew his battered notebook from his jacket pocket and slapped it on the table the same way she had. “Shoot.”

  “First, some questions. What happens to the rape kit after you close my case?”

  “It gets filed.”

  “What happens to the DNA results from the medical examiner?”

  “Those are the property of the medical examiner. If you find a suspect in Italy, the Naples police force can request them. Your clothes, you can get back. If you’re planning to chase down these guys in Italy—which I’m not recommending, but I have a feeling it’s on your agenda—I suggest you take those clothes to a private DNA lab in Naples. Then if you find a suspect, you won’t have to file a request with the medical examiner. That takes time.”

  “How do I get my clothes back?”

  “You go over to the medical examiner, on East Twenty-Sixth Street. Not far from your hotel. I’ll call them that you’ll pick them up.”

  She jotted the address in her journal while Cargill made the call. Then she
moved to the next point she had written while sitting on the doorstep in Chinatown. “The CCTV videotapes.” She held up a hand as Cargill started to interrupt. “Don’t bother applying for a court order for the Hotel Fiorella CCTV tapes. They won’t let you look at them even if the judge goes there in person. This morning Stanley told me that the hotel manager has the tape in his office safe while he waits for upper management in Italy to approve viewing it. The same for getting the phone company to trace the call that came for me Sunday night. Upper management in Italy has to approve.”

  “Stonewalling us, are they?” Cargill raised an eyebrow. “I’ll chat with Stanley. We were partners before he retired and went to fat in that office. He’ll tell me what’s going on.”

  “If you chat, do it outside his office. The room is probably bugged. We don’t need their CCTV anyway. Nick looked at the CCTV video from the Brazilian Bar.” She told him what Nick had related about the man following Laura outside.

  “Mrs. Springer already gave us that description. Fits every male in New York in the winter.”

  “There’s body language, Cargill. If we find a suspect, the videotape will verify him.”

  He shrugged. “I’d have to see the video. I’ll apply for a court order for both of them. It will be interesting to see what happens. What next, Miss Conti?”

  “Call me Grazia. Everybody does.”

  “Grazia.” His smile opened up his whole face. “All this organized thinking is making me hungry, Grazia. You want something?”

  “More tea. And tell them to actually boil the water.”

  “Feeling better, I see.” He shouted their order and turned back to her. “What else is in your notebook?”

  “Laura said she took me outside, then she went back inside for her suitcase because her airport van had arrived. She came back outside and a taxi pulled up. She grabbed it and opened the door for me. Maybe the taxi driver saw the man who followed her out.”

  “No way. It was dark, and he wouldn’t care about who was on the sidewalk.”

  Grazia consulted her notes. “Maybe the van driver remembers Laura helping me get in the taxi. He was waiting for her to get into his van. Maybe he saw the man.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Or maybe she shared the van with someone she knew. Maybe they talked. The van driver might remember what they said.”

  “I’m already searching for the taxi driver and the van driver. No responses. Next?”

  “Like I told you at breakfast, Sophia has located Laura’s hotel. It’s near the Brazilian Bar. Sophia also gave me a list of Italian men who were staying in hotels walking distance from the Brazilian Bar. This afternoon, after my hypnosis session at my hotel, I’m going to search online for their photos, starting with those staying at Laura’s hotel. Maybe a photo will trigger a memory.” She had a thought. “I wonder if I would recognize the man sooner if I looked at the photos under hypnosis. I’ll ask Evie. Anyway, I’ll give you the names and photos that I recognize, and you can take it from there.”

  Cargill raised his eyebrows. “Take it from there?”

  She frowned impatiently. “Get cheek swabs to get DNA identities of the men who are still registered at their hotels,” she snapped.

  Cargill waited to answer until the waitress had plunked down Grazia’s steaming mug and Cargill’s two hamburgers with double basket of fries. He shoved the fries toward Grazia and picked up a hamburger. He examined it on all sides. Then he squeezed mustard and ketchup from plastic bottles into a pool and dipped the burger into it.

  “Let me get this straight,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “You want me to walk up to some rich Italian men staying in New York’s more expensive hotels and demand a DNA cheek swab because an amnesiac drug-facilitated assault victim imagines that one of them might have assaulted her? In five minutes they’ll be at the Italian consulate screaming police harassment, and I’ll be out of a job.”

  “How else are you going to track down these men? They have ruined my life, don’t you understand!” Grazia flung down the French fry she had picked up. Her voice was drenched with disappointment and despair. She put her hand over her mouth, shocked. She had thought she was detached, cool, with her feelings safely barricaded behind the soap screen on Cindy’s mirror. Now she had tears in her eyes! She scrabbled in her purse for her handkerchief but couldn’t find it, so she searched her coat pocket. She came up with a wadded handkerchief and a food-stained paper napkin. She shoved them back in her pocket, grabbed Cargill’s stack of paper napkins, and covered her eyes. When she took her hands away, Cargill had put down his hamburger and was watching her. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  Cargill resumed eating. “Did Laura know any of the men on this list of the maid’s?”

  “You know Laura won’t remember anyone!” she shouted. She covered her mouth.

  Cargill watched her take a sip of tea. “Grazia, I’m with you all the way about finding these guys, except that my hands are tied on approaching Italian male tourists until I’ve got something specific on them. Do your online photo research so I know what they look like and a bit of their background and we’ll talk again. What’s next?”

  “Manuel. We have to find him. He’s my only real witness.”

  “He went to Italy.”

  “Says Edmondo. Stanley got an email this morning from Manuel saying the same. But I talked to Manuel before I went to the Brazilian Bar Saturday night. His mother was home from the hospital. He said he didn’t need to go to Italy.” She flipped through her notebook and read aloud. “Manuel warned me to keep my hand over my glass at the Brazilian Bar. He wants to go back to Italy to work. We planned to meet Sunday afternoon to give him my mother’s contacts. She may be able to find him a hotel job in Italy.”

  “You had an actual appointment to meet?”

  “He was going to call or email me to set the time. His email and phone are in my contact list. But he’s not answering my emails or my calls.” She looked Cargill in the eye. “He’s been kidnapped.”

  Cargill choked on his burger. “In New York? Get serious.”

  “They kidnapped him so he can’t describe the man who brought me to the hotel.”

  “Grazia, kidnapping is a federal crime. It’s bigger than rape. Nobody is going to kidnap a desk clerk to conceal a rape. And who do you mean, ‘they’?”

  Grazia put her elbows on the table. “Listen, Cargill, two men, probably Italians, did terrible things to me Saturday night. I think they were at the Brazilian Bar and they were working together. They kidnapped Manuel to conceal what they did.”

  “Conspiracy to rape and kidnap. It’s a stretch, Grazia,” said Cargill patiently.

  Her voice rose. “Manuel told me to keep my hand over my drink. He knew something was wrong. He was warning me. Now he’s disappeared!”

  Cargill started on his second burger. “What else have you got?”

  “My boss is probably sending detectives from Miranda Security Systems in Naples to New York to prove that I blabbed about Kourtis Cement at the Brazilian Bar, which was overheard by someone who informed the media and the Naples Building Safety Department. Laura told me that I did talk about the Naples construction industry and a contractor who was using substandard materials. She says I didn’t name Kourtis Cement but my boss will make the Miranda Securities investigators find evidence that I did.”

  Cargill squirted more mustard into the pool on his plate. “Your boss doesn’t own Miranda Security Systems. They will decide for themselves whether or not to follow his orders. Grazia, listen: why not call them? Confess. Get them to help us find these three suspects.”

  Panic hit. “I can’t tell them! They will immediately discover that I was drugged and, and. . . all the rest.”

  “They know,” Cargill stated flatly. “They called me this morning.”

  The room swam. Black spots appeared before Grazia’s eyes. When she opened them, she was lying on her back on the bench, and Cargill was fanning her with a menu. Grazia sat up. She waved away th
e hovering waitress and her repeated offers of brandy.

  Cargill resumed his seat and looked at her for a long moment. Then he reached across the table and took both of Grazia’s hands. His eyes seemed extraordinarily sad.

  “Grazia, we need to talk. Cindy called this morning after you left. She said you smeared liquid soap all over the washroom mirror. To say that Cindy is worried about your mental condition would be the understatement of the century. She wanted me to put out an APB when you didn’t answer her phone calls. She called Janine, who is equally worried. The two of them tied up my phone all morning. They were both very relieved when I called to say you were meeting me here.”

  Grazia tried to pull her hands away, but Cargill tightened his grip. “Would you mind explaining why you smeared liquid soap all over Cindy’s mirror?”

  Grazia kept her gaze on the tabletop, unable to meet his worried eyes. “Because I couldn’t look at the face in the mirror,” she whispered. “The face was raped by two men, and she doesn’t even know what they look like. It hurts too much to look at her. So I put her behind the soap.”

  Cargill nodded. He let go of Grazia’s hands and sat back, looking at her. Then he picked up his hamburger and took a big bite. “I can understand that,” he said through a full mouth. “I’ve had a few times in my life where I couldn’t look in the bathroom mirror. How long are you planning to leave this lady behind the soap?”

  “Until it’s time for her to come out.”

  Cargill put the last of his hamburger in his mouth and wiped the grease off his fingers with a stack of paper napkins. “This woman I’m talking to right now—the one who fainted when I mentioned that Miranda Security investigators know she was drugged and raped—how does she fit into this bathroom mirror scenario?”

  “Her job is to find out who drugged and raped the woman in the mirror.”