Dead Center (The Rookie Club Book 1)

by Danielle Girard

  Emily choked out a sob, her nose red from tears that streamed down her face.

  Jamie set a box of tissues between them. Pulling one out, she handed it to her. "For the record, will you state your full name?"

  "Emily Kathleen Osbourne."

  She gave Emily another tissue and paused. Felt the familiar tightness in her own chest. Watching the victim got tougher each time. It grew harder to hold onto her professionalism, to block out their pain and her own anger. Over the years, the attacks along with their brutal details and lasting repercussions accumulated inside her. What used to feel like a short, quick stab in her early days of conducting these interviews was now a chronic pain. Her guard, too, had been chipped away; the victim's pain seeped into her more easily now than when she'd started. She wondered if the same were true of the rapists. How much time had she spent with men who did this to women? Did that time accumulate the same way? Was some of their evil seeping in as well?

  Emily wiped her cheeks, tried to look brave.

  Jamie nodded her encouragement.

  "I'm ready," she whispered.

  Jamie wasn't ready, she realized. But this wasn't about her. She sucked a quick breath, held on to it a moment and then let it and her resistance fall away. "I'm going to ask a lot of questions," she told Emily. "This is all standard stuff. If you need more time, tell me. If you think of something else, interrupt me. Anything you can tell me will help. Okay?"

  "Okay," Emily squeaked out with a deep breath and a shudder.

  The rape questionnaire included almost sixty questions. Jamie had memorized them years ago. Most victims begged to leave more than once before the interview was over. Jamie understood the desire. More than once, she'd wanted to tell them, "Yes, of course you can go." And they could. They could stop at any time. But they didn't. Jamie and Maxi helped them through it.

  They'd been beaten, violated, shamed, and within hours of the attack—as soon as possible—Jamie's job was to make them go through it again in as much detail as possible. They were warriors, these women. Maybe not before the attack but certainly after.

  When the answers took too long, Jamie waited. She offered water—once a mouth scraping was completed in case of semen or other evidence. But mostly, she stayed quiet and let the victim have her time. Ninety-nine out of every hundred spent it crying. Jamie knew about that, too. That's what her best friend had done. It had lasted for weeks. Seeing the victims in these first moments, before the shock and pain had settled in, before the rape impacted the rest of their lives—their work, their family, their relationships—was probably the easiest job in the recovery process. A few weeks from now, the painful reality of what had happened would be deeper and more difficult.

  She started with the easy questions. "Did you see your attacker?"

  Doe eyes flashed as Emily shook her head. Her bottom lip trembled. "He wore a hood."

  "Did you see any part of him? Any skin?" Jamie pressed.

  "A little part of his hand," she whispered. "Up by his wrist. I saw his wrist."

  "Can you guess at his race?" she asked.

  Emily started to cry again. After a moment, she sucked in a breath. "White. His skin was white."

  Jamie met Maxi's eye. The nurse nodded. The first piece of something.

  "Okay. That's good. Emily, really good." She paused as Emily nodded, her gaze down. A tear slid from her cheek onto the green hospital gown. Her clothes were already en route to the lab.

  Jamie squeezed Emily's shoulder, moved on. "Were they white like mine?" Jamie put out her own hand and slowly twisted it up and down, so Emily could see both sides. "Or more olive, like Maxi's?"

  Emily lifted up her own hand and looked at it as though she'd never seen it before. "I only saw the wrist. It was white—like yours."

  "Okay. Good." Jamie moved on. "Can you guess at how big he was? Height? Weight?" Jamie always said "he." Guidelines said never assume, but Jamie had never had a female rapist.

  Jamie moved quickly through questions on appearance since Emily had seen only his hands. Still, she asked every one. Sometimes a question would unleash an image a victim didn't think she had. That was not the case here. Emily had not seen more than the little strip of wrist. A defense attorney would tear that apart. On the stand, Emily would be pressured about how certain she was that she'd seen his wrist. That it wasn't a white T-shirt or bracelet or watch or... No, it was not enough to go on.

  "He bound you?"

  She nodded.

  Jamie knew he had used duct tape. Pieces of it were still stuck to Emily's forearms. It would have to be removed for evidence, but that could wait. "Anything else besides the tape?"

  Jamie was never surprised by the extents these assholes went to—tape, plastic bindings, handcuffs. It wasn't to prevent escape. Duct tape alone was enough for that. The overkill was all part of the fantasy.

  "No other binding?"

  Emily shook her head.

  Jamie waited for a moment before moving on. From an earlier scene, evidence suggested her serial rapist had used some sort of restraint across the victim's chest, too. She didn't want to plant ideas in Emily's mind, but she wanted to ensure nothing was missed. "How about a strap across your middle? Anything like that?"

  "No. He sat on me."

  "Can you show me where?" Jamie asked.

  She touched a rib. "Here."

  Maxi prodded softly along Emily's ribs until she located the most sensitive spot. The dark edges of a bruise were already forming on the skin. With Emily holding her gown up, head turned, Maxi photographed the bruises. Maxi marked the chart before retying Emily's gown. She would have to be photographed again in a day or two when the bruises were fully formed, but neither Jamie nor Maxi mentioned that now.

  Next, Jamie walked Emily through how the rape had occurred. Every question helped to create a map of the rapist's MO. How did he attack? Con, blitz, or surprise? Was anything stolen?

  Some of the best cases were the ones where the perp took a piece of jewelry, then gave it to a girlfriend, or one time, to his mother. In that case, his mother had known it was too nice for her bum son to afford and she'd called the cops. A bold move for the mother, but as she said, "If he's stealing from someone else, what makes me think he won't do it to me? Or worse."

  In Emily's case, it was a blitz approach, which made sense since she hadn't seen him. Nothing stolen.

  "Did he wear gloves when he touched you?"

  The victim paused at that. "I saw his hand."

  "Without a glove?"

  She nodded. "I think—I thought so." Then she shook her head. Tears fell faster. "Oh God. Now I'm not sure."

  "Emily, it's okay. This is hard. It's a lot to digest. Are we moving too fast?"

  "No. No, it's okay."

  Jamie turned to Maxi. "Let's try for prints." They'd dust for prints on her skin. Maybe they'd get lucky. How many times had she prayed for a break like that? Way too many.

  After a moment, Jamie continued her questions. Did he use a condom, did he talk, threaten, bribe? No condom, she didn't think. Shawna Delman had said the same, but they hadn't gotten any DNA from Delman's exam. Jamie wondered if Osbourne's would be the same.

  The next part was the worst. "Can you tell me where he touched you?"

  Emily choked on a sob.

  "We're just going to walk through it slowly."

  Maxi pulled a fistful of sterile swabs from a drawer.

  "Maxi's going to take a swab from each place." Jamie paused. "This is going to suck, Emily. It's the worst part. We'll do it as fast as we can but we have to do it right. As soon as it's over, I'll buy you a soda, okay? You're a Coke drinker, right? You said you hate Pepsi, right? You were teasing me because I said I couldn't tell the difference. You thought that was nuts, remember?"

  Emily nodded, tried to smile.

  Jamie touched Emily's arm again. She never touched her victims, but Emily was different. She was a colleague. The third one she'd interviewed in a week. It got worse every goddamn time. When w
ould it end?

  Jamie stepped back. "Can you do this?"

  Emily's back straightened. "Yeah. Let's do it."

  "Anywhere he came into contact with you—his hands, his skin, his penis."

  Tears streamed down Emily's cheeks.

  "I know this is tough. We're almost done."

  "You know what they don't ever tell you?" Emily said.

  Jamie waited, her gut tight.

  Emily wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. "You get all that defensive training, you know? I wasn't even going to be a police officer and I got it. And I paid attention. I thought it was important." She shivered, some memory stirring her.

  Jamie winced, wished she could make this all go away.

  "But it didn't help," she whispered. "I didn't do any of the things we learned. I couldn't even think. I just shut down." She looked up, tracks of tears like stripes on her face. "I just laid there and let him do it."

  Jamie felt her own tears well and fought them back. "It's not your fault, Emily. Whatever happens, you cannot blame yourself for this." Jamie searched for something more to say but came up empty.

  Emily straightened her back. "Let's get this over with."

  Jamie stood. "You're sure?"

  "Positive. I just want it over."

  Jamie slowly began the process. "Let's start with his hands. You think he wasn't wearing gloves, so where do you remember his hands?"

  "He touched my—" She caught her lip in her teeth. "My neck. He grabbed it."

  Using clear tape on the skin, Maxi tried to lift prints off of her neck. The process took ten minutes and in the end, Maxi shook her head. No prints. They printed her hands, arms, and inner thighs with the same result.

  "Okay, Emily. The last thing we have to do is talk about the sexual assault. Did he put his penis in your mouth?"

  "No." Emily cupped her face and started to sob. "Thank God, no."

  They'd already taken a vaginal swab, so the physical collection was done. "I think we're ready for that Coke now."

  "I'll go," Maxi said.

  "Thanks." Jamie pulled money from her pocket and offered it to Maxi, but she waved it away.

  "You want diet or regular?"

  "Regular," Emily said.

  "You?" she asked Jamie.

  "Regular's perfect."

  Maxi left and Emily turned to Jamie. The tears had momentarily subsided when Emily said, "God, I wish I was just regular again."

  Jamie exhaled, the knot in her gut heavier than ever. "Me, too, Emily. Me, too."

  When Maxi returned, they drank their Cokes while Maxi photographed Emily using a highly-sensitive film designed to pick up any marks that were emerging on the skin. Aside from the obvious injuries, Emily had a series of bruises that had yet to fully form and a jagged mark inside her thigh that Jamie suspected may have been caused by the knife during their struggle.

  "We're done with the physical evidence. I just need to ask about anything he might have said."

  Emily's mouth dropped open. "God, I almost forgot." She paused and the weight of Emily's stare felt like a physical burden.

  "What did he say?" she asked.

  "He said to tell the inspector hello."

  Chapter 6

  Jamie arrived at the station at 1:10 a.m. The assistant district attorney, Chip Washington, was seated in an interview room, drinking bottled water. Jamie set her things down, poured a cup of thick, overcooked coffee, and brought it to the table.

  Washington wore navy sweatpants and a gray Cal Berkeley sweatshirt along with his dress shoes. "Nice outfit."

  He glanced at his feet. "They were the closest to the door when the phone rang."

  "Sorry."

  He shook his head. "Don't be."

  "Any word on what CSU found at Marchek's?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

  "No hood, no blood. They're doing a sweep for fibers, but you've been in his house."

  "He's clean."

  Washington raised a brow. "That's an understatement. He's obsessive."

  Jamie dropped her head. "Christ."

  "They did find a single blond hair on a jacket in the closet," Washington said.

  She looked up. "Emily Osbourne is blond."

  Washington nodded. "I sent someone to General Hospital to pick up her sample." He glanced at his watch. "That was an hour ago. They promised to run it ASAP and call me." He patted his cell phone.

  "You want to wait for the call?"

  Washington shook his head. "Let's bring him in."

  "Try to shake something loose? I did this earlier tonight and it didn't get the reaction I'd hoped for."

  "Maybe we can nail him now. He didn't have long to clean himself up."

  "I hope you're right." Jamie buzzed the guards to bring Marchek in. The process took him out of jail custody and into hers. It looked good for the record, that they'd treated him respectfully. She made a note about offering him something to drink. That looked good, too. Somehow, though, she always managed to forget to actually do it.

  Though the interview room was barely large enough to fit a table and four chairs, Marchek would come here. The room they'd used before was bigger, more industrial. This had more of a conference room feel and she hoped a new venue might make Marchek more agreeable. She needed every little edge.

  She wanted him to think he was about to leave. The closer to freedom he felt, the more apt she was to get something out of him. This was just a little chat between old friends.

  Marchek arrived a few minutes later. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, shoes without socks. They'd dragged him from home without any notice.

  She thanked the officers for bringing him over and motioned Marchek to a chair.

  "Please, Michael."

  "Don't call me that," he said. The words came out a long, low hiss like a tire losing air.

  Marchek preferred people use his surname. Or Mike. Never Michael. In the courtroom at his last trial, he literally flinched at the sound of his full name. His lawyer said it was what his father called him when he was about to get a beating, so the D.A.'s office used it as much as they could during his trial. The effect was that he appeared twitchy and strange to the jury. A point for the good guys.

  She'd never asked why he didn't want to be called Michael. Something about his early home life, she suspected. Perhaps that was why she always used it. Maybe his mother was tough on him. Maybe his father was tough on her. Early in her career, Jamie had bucked the idea of the stereotypes. Bad home life, early exposure to violence—particularly on the part of the father—rapists were always tagged with the same psychological markers. Jamie had met rapists who had strong parents with successful marriages and successful careers. She'd met some that were like a list of every stereotype in the book. Truth was, more fit the stereotypes than didn't. Over the years, she found herself less interested in how they'd grown up and more focused on putting them away.

  Aside from his first name, the other thing Michael hated was slovenliness. He was careful about his appearance. His curly dark hair covered him. It spilled out under the cuffs of his jacket and down the backs of his hands. The hair on his head was kept short. A number four cut if she were guessing. He was normally cleanly shaven but now, his jaw was covered in a dark shadow that suggested he could grow a beard in a few days. She wondered if the hair bothered him. He seemed like someone who might shave himself from head to toe to be rid of it. His eyes were dark. In certain light, she'd seen green in them. But usually, like now, they looked flat and brown. He narrowed them, scanned the room.

  He wore bleached undershirts and work pants. At the moment, though, his carefully kept appearance was bedraggled. His shirt was dirty and untucked, his pants barely buttoned. He wasn't happy.

  His home was like a technology-manufacturing clean room. The floors were hardwood. A small black tray at the door held his work shoes. In the bottom was a half inch of liquid bleach, which made the whole place stink. She had wondered how he slept with the smell. Surely, it couldn't be good for hi
m. But it hadn't killed him yet. Unfortunately.

  Marchek had few material possessions. No books or music, no TV, which seemed odd for a guy who worked in a video store. A small hobby bench sat in the center of the living room. From what she had seen, he built mostly small planes. She'd seen one floater plane, too.

  In the bedroom closet, his clothes were folded and stacked on two shelves. A half-dozen pairs of pants and maybe ten shirts. Three were collared ones with the logo of the video store, Video Mania. They had a stack of their own. The others were white undershirts. Hanes. Medium. Underwear and socks shared a separate shelf. He owned only two coats—one of heavy wool that looked like it had come from an army surplus store and the light brown denim Carhartt work jacket he wore now. No shorts, no bathing suit, no robe. Not even pajamas. Marchek didn't seem to believe in surplus.

  "This won't take long," she told him.

  "Then I leave."

  It wasn't a question, so she didn't answer it.

  Marchek touched nothing. Instead, he used a foot to kick the chair out then turned to sit. Held his hands in his lap. He hadn't touched anything. He was a neat freak and the tendency not to touch anything could be part of that. But she also thought he was wary of leaving prints. Criminals tended to create wonderfully elaborate conspiracy theories about how police entrapped them. Even the guilty ones.

  "It's amazing what science has done for forensics," Washington said. "Tests can show that two pieces of duct tape came from the same plant and how close in time. We can actually prove that two samples came from the same roll even if they're not successive pieces."

  She watched Marchek. A corner of his mouth turned up. A smile. She paused, let the information sink in a bit.

  He lifted a hand, focused on his thumb. Ran a finger across it like he was petting a tiny animal.

  "You're in trouble, Michael."

  One cheek bounced in and out like he was chewing on it.

  She continued. "This will be three strikes. No chance of parole next time."

  He ran his finger along the thumb more slowly as though considering an offer. Something about the motion was childlike.