RCC03 - Beneath a Weeping Sky

by Frank Zafiro

  “Kahn’s an asshole,” Tower muttered.

  “Which kind of asshole?” Sully asked.

  “Shut up with that,” Battaglia told him. He turned to Tower. “He ain’t an asshole. He’s our platoon mate.”

  “Maybe so,” Tower said, sipping his fresh coffee, “but he’s an asshole.”

  “Really? And why’s that?”

  “He’d fuck a catcher’s mitt, for starters,” Tower told him. “On top of that, he treats women like shit.”

  Amen, Katie voiced silently.

  Battaglia thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “I’ll give you the catcher’s mitt thing. But he’s no different than Gio on day shift. Who are we to tell him not to love ‘em and leave ‘em?”

  “We’re nobody,” Tower said. “I didn’t say he should change. I just said he’s an asshole for being that way. He’s an asshole because he tells women lies to get them into bed and then he dumps them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. He did it to a friend of Stephanie’s.”

  “Well, maybe your wife’s friend was a bitch,” Battaglia suggested.

  “Stephanie is my girlfriend, not my wife,” Tower corrected, “and her friend is a sweet kid who got caught up in the badge and promises Kahn made. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m just saying that your asshole platoon mate might just be saying this waitress is a slut because she wouldn’t go out with him.”

  “Maybe he knows because he banged her,” Battaglia countered.

  “Then he’s got no class,” Tower said.

  Battaglia sighed. “Well, I can’t argue that one.” He looked around the table at Sully and Katie. “Thanks for standing up for our platoon mate, guys.”

  Katie shrugged. “Face it, Batts. Kahn is an asshole.”

  Sully nodded in agreement. “She’s right. I’d drive ninety miles an hour on winter roads and fight a dozen pissed off bad guys to save his neck, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an asshole.” He thought about it for a moment, then added, “West Coast.”

  Katie looked askance at him, but he shook his head at her.

  Whatever, she thought to herself. Those two had so many inside jokes between them that it was like their own little language or something.

  “If that’s settled, let’s debrief tonight’s events,” Tower said, his voice dropping into a slightly more official tone. “Aside from the incident under the bridge, what’s your input?”

  No one answered right away. When Katie looked up, she realized everyone was looking at her. She reached for water glass and took a drink.

  “Do you feel safe, MacLeod?” Tower asked her.

  A surge of anger spiked in her chest at his question. “As safe as any police operation,” she said coolly. “Listen, guys. I’m sorry about the bridge thing. I guess I was a little jumpy, but I’m fine now.” She looked around at each of them. “Really.”

  Sully and Battaglia nodded. She could tell they believed her. That was expected. They’d worked with her for over a year now. They knew how she handled herself on the job.

  Tower didn’t respond to her statement. He merely watched her, his eyes appraising her constantly while he sipped his coffee. It made Katie nervous and angry at the same time.

  “There is something I’d change, though,” she said, moving the conversation away from her feelings and to something more concrete.

  “What?” Tower asked.

  “This,” she said, setting the brick-shaped transmitter and all its wires on the table in front of him.

  “You don’t want to be wired?”

  “Not with this. It’s awkward and probably visible, even through my clothes. Plus, if our guy spots it on me, he won’t take the bait.”

  Tower sipped his coffee, then shrugged. “Sorry, MacLeod. We’re not the FBI. We don’t have the latest and greatest equipment. We’re River City PD, which means—”

  “Which means we’ve got crap,” Battaglia finished.

  Tower didn’t argue. “We’ve got what we got.”

  “Can you give it to the tech guy and see if he can rig it to look like a walkman?” Katie asked. “Then I can wear jogging clothes and it’ll look like I’m listening to music.”

  “What about your gun and other gear?”

  “I have a fanny pack that’ll work.”

  Tower nodded. “Okay, I’ll drop it off this morning and see what they can do. Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Katie said. “Can I get some new back up other than these two clowns?”

  Tower chuckled. “Nice.”

  Battaglia and Sully exchanged a glance.

  Katie used the moment of silence, which she knew was the calm before the storm, to sip her water and lean back in her chair. She knew that the exaggerated Irish and Italian accents would come out next, that the insults would fly, that the waitress would be back to flirt with Sully some more and that when it was all finished, she would be ready to go home and sleep.

  Things were once again as they were supposed to be.

  0756 hours

  Heather Torin rose from a night of broken sleep and drifted into the kitchen. She rummaged around for a coffee filter in the cupboard. Suppressing a yawn, she slipped the filter into the coffee-maker, dumped in some coffee and poured water. Then she hit the start button. The ritual had become such second nature that she sometimes barely remembered being awake for it.

  She opened her front door. Outside, heavy droplets of rain cascaded downward, thumping loudly on the plastic-covered newspaper. She retrieved the paper, shook off the excess water and went back inside. The cool, wet air served to wake her up. As she unwrapped the River City Herald and threw away the plastic wrapping around it, the smell of brewing coffee brought her some familiar comfort.

  Routine was how she’d battled her depression in the past two months. The security she had known her entire life living in a city that was once voted as an “All-American City” had been shattered on that wet day early in March. Since then, she’d kept to her routine, clinging to it with urgency. She rose from bed. She drank her coffee and read the paper. She ate breakfast. She went to work, ate lunch, came home. In the evening, she watched mindless drivel on television – situational comedies, for the most part – and kept her brain from having to revisit those frightening moments in Clemons Park.

  It seemed to work.

  Most of the time.

  Most of the time, she was so busy focused on the task or activity at hand, her mind didn’t have the opportunity to wander. That focus, coupled with her familiar routine, kept the rising panic in her chest at bay, even though she sometimes still jumped at sounds in her office. Even though she still viewed every man who walked past her with fear and suspicion. Despite all of that, she kept it under control.

  Most of the time.

  But not at night.

  It was her dreams that had her at a disadvantage. She couldn’t push them aside with routine or busying about some task. She was vulnerable to whatever dreams may come, and those that came seemed bent on some sort of emotional revenge for having been suppressed during her waking hours. In vivid detail, she heard the sound of her own pounding feet through the wooded area. She felt him knock her to the ground. She smelled the damp earth. She saw her own vision blur with tears.

  Only, in her dreams, these terrible dreams, he didn’t stop. He didn’t run away. In her dreams, he finished his cruel assault on her. He tore at her clothing. He struck her. He screamed at her—

  I’ll lay the whammo on you, bitch!

  —until she stopped fighting him and covered her ears. And then it became worse. Then came the sex. In her dreams, it was a cold, cutting hardness. In her dreams, she cried out, but no one came to help her.

  Now, in the light of the morning, she poured a cup of coffee and tried to shake free of those dreams. She settled into the chair at her kitchen table and opened the newspaper.

  The headline blared at her from above the fold.

  RAPIST STALKS RIVER CITY!
>
  Heather Torin stared down at the thick black newsprint. The corners of her vision collapsed. A rush of darkness pushed inward like a wide tunnel, then a small one. Before her vision became a pinpoint, the sensation subsided. She gulped in her breath. Hot coffee splashed onto her shaking hand and she jerked it away, dropping the cup. Brown coffee splattered across the kitchen table. The cup rolled onto the floor and shattered.

  The words seemed to scream upward at her. She wanted to push the paper away. This didn’t belong in her daytime life. She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to know it. But here it was. It was real and it was directly before her.

  Leaving the spilled coffee and the broken cup for later, she read:

  RAPIST STALKS RIVER CITY by Pam Lincoln

  A serial rapist is at work in our city, police have confirmed. There have been at least three women raped within the past two weeks and police officials believe it has been the work of the same suspect.

  “There are certain similarities in these attacks that lead us to believe it is the same man,” Lieutenant Crawford of the Major Crimes Unit told reporters on Saturday.

  Police have refused to identify the names of the victims, but a source at the River City School District has confirmed that a North Central school teacher may have been the most recent victim. The teacher was assaulted in the school parking lot Thursday afternoon.

  Lieutenant Crawford also declined to describe the “similarities” that linked these assaults. Citing a fear of copycats as well as “an investigative need to withhold certain specifics in order to successfully prosecute,” he would only say that the rapist did not appear to be using any weapons in his attacks.

  “This is typical,” said Miranda Rice of Sexual Assault Survivors, a support group for women who have been sexually assaulted. “The police in this case are more concerned with winning a trial two years from now than saving a woman today.”

  “Not true,” says Julie Avery, a rape advocate who works on the Prosecutor’s Office Crisis Team. “The police are working very hard to catch this man.”

  Avery adds, “Still, women should take extra precautions until he is caught.”

  Dubbed “The Rainy Day Rapist” by local media, the name is somewhat of a misnomer. Although it has been raining during some of his assaults, Lieutenant Crawford dismisses that as coincidence.

  “This has nothing to do with the weather,” he said.

  While police officials would not confirm nor deny the identity of the most recent victim, they did identify where the assaults occurred. The most recent assault did, in fact, occur at North Central High School. Prior to that, a woman was victimized near Friendship Park on River City’s northern edge. The first assault occurred near the bottom of the Post Street Hill in Clemons Park—

  Heather Torin froze.

  Clemons Park.

  The same place he’d attacked her.

  She shook her head. That couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to mean something. She didn’t know what, but maybe the police would.

  She stared at the two words on the newspaper page for a long while, trying to summon up the courage to call. Calling would mean talking. Talking would mean thinking. It would mean bringing the dreams out into the daylight.

  What would everyone say?

  What would they think of her?

  If she talked about it, would this fear that she seemed to be able to keep bottled up in her dreams come out into her waking hours? Would it rampage about, making her jump at every noise and cringe at every passing man?

  The strong aroma of the spilt coffee washed over her as she sat and stared down at the newspaper. Her heart thudded in her ears. She felt every pulse in her fingertips. Her gaze traced through the story again.

  “At least three women,” she read quietly.

  Three.

  Four. It’s been four.

  Or more, she realized. It could be more. There could be other women out there just like her. How many women had this man attacked that police didn’t even know about? How many more would he—

  Heather Torin stopped thinking and reached for the phone.

  0817 hours

  Janice Koslowski stared down at the crossword in front of her in frustration. The rainy day had her in a foul mood and the puzzle in front of her wasn’t helping. Usually, she was able to knock out the Herald’s crossword within an hour, but she’d been at today’s version for almost two. She found this more than a little frustrating. Worse yet, she didn’t have any excuses. She couldn’t blame it on too many interruptions. For one, she’d been a dispatcher for twenty-two years. Multi-tasking was second nature to her. Handling routine radio traffic while working a crossword presented no difficulty for her whatsoever.

  But secondly, it hadn’t even been very busy so far this morning. Sunday mornings were typically slow and the falling rain outside only served to help that phenomenon. People were either recovering from Saturday night or just holing up inside for a slow, lazy, rainy day.

  So that meant she couldn’t think of an excuse for not knowing a seven letter word for “Ancient Civilization” that ended in an ‘E’.

  “You’re frowning,” Carrie Anne called from her nearby supervisor’s station.

  “It’s raining,” Janice answered, setting down her pencil.

  “Uh-huh,” Carrie Anne answered knowingly.

  Janice sighed. The two women had worked together for too long. They knew each other’s tells. Janice was glad they didn’t play bridge against each other – there’d be no mystery in who was holding what.

  “I can’t get this one particular clue,” she admitted. “It’s an ancient civilization that ends in the letter E.”

  “Ugh,” Carrie Anne grunted, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t ask me. Maybe if it started with E, I could help. Even then, Egypt is about the only one I can think of. I hate History. It’s boring.”

  “Maybe that’s why it’s in a crossword puzzle,” Irina commented dryly from her position on the south side channel.

  “How about Greece?” Elaine guessed from the data channel station.

  “Only six letters,” Janice pointed out.

  “Oh, right.” Elaine frowned. “Carthage?”

  “Eight letters.”

  “Darn,” Elaine muttered.

  “Learn to count,” Irina said in a sing-song voice, her back to the other dispatchers.

  Elaine met Janice’s gaze and mouthed the word ‘bitch.’

  Janice shrugged. She tried to stay out of the occasional sniping that went on between the dispatchers. Before she had to find a way to gloss over the exchange between Elaine and Irina, her terminal dinged lightly.

  She read the screen. It was a 911 transfer, marked as a cold call. The victim wanted to report an attempted rape that occurred back in March near Clemons Park. Janice checked on her list of available units, preparing to dispatch Officer Giovanni. Then something in the call struck her. She paused. Her first thought was of The Rainy Day Rapist, but this was a month old. Then she recognized the name of the park. This was where the first rape had occurred. In fact, she’d sent Gio on that call, too.

  “Carrie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think you might want to page Detective Tower on this call.”

  Carrie tapped the keys on her keyboard, then paused while reading. After a few moments, she said, “You think it’s the guy he’s looking for that tried to rape her, too?”

  “Clemons Park is where the first one happened. It could be a coincidence, but—”

  “But he’d rather know that now than tomorrow,” Carrie Anne finished. She nodded. “I’ll page him. Good spot, Janice.”

  Janice grinned. “Thanks.”

  She turned back to her crossword puzzle, but couldn’t concentrate. A single thought ran through her head. What if this is what broke open the case? What if this was how Tower caught the guy?

  She looked up at her screen and read through the call again. She wondered for a moment what made the woman wait so long to report
it, or why she decided to report it now. Either way, as far as Janice was concerned, Heather Torin was a brave soul.

  Janice smiled to herself. For a rainy day, this might actually turn out to be a good one.

  0946 hours

  Detective John Tower sat at the small kitchen table across from Heather Torin. Julie Avery perched on the edge of her chair next to her. She held Heather’s left hand in both of her own. Heather dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

  “All I can remember is his eyes,” she told them both in a quiet voice. “They were so angry. So...hateful. And I was so scared.”

  Julie patted her hand. Heather smiled at her through her tears.

  Tower looked on, grateful for the connection that the two women seemed to have made. Although he’d interviewed scores of rape victims, he still felt uneasy asking the hard questions while trying to provide some kind of emotional support. Julie’s presence lifted one of those concerns from his shoulders and allowed him to focus on the investigative issues.

  “Did he display any weapons, Miss Torin?” Tower asked.

  Heather shook her head. “Just his...body.”

  Tower nodded. “You mentioned that he was able to tear off your shorts and underclothing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he take off his own clothes?”

  Heather shook her head again. “No. I think he was going to, but then he just...stopped.”

  “Stopped?”

  “Yes. He sort of shuddered and stopped.”

  Tower glanced over at Julie, then back at Heather. “Do you think he—”

  “Yes, Detective,” Heather said, nodding. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I think that he...finished...you know, before he meant to.”

  Tower nodded. A premature ejaculation. That would indicate significant sexual excitement on the suspect’s part, which somewhat shot to hell Julie’s theory about rape. His reaction to the information was strangely devoid of any satisfaction, however.

  “Did he hit you after that?” Tower asked.