by Harry Kraus
After forty-five minutes, she whispered a prayer and let God’s peace wash over her soul again. Oh, God, when will I ever learn to do this before my anxious heart spins its web of woe?
Randy Jensen loved his job as a detective. And he hated his job. It was hours of boredom, moments of terror. But the terror made the boredom all worthwhile. It was the monthly adrenaline that kept him going amid the daily drizzle of stray dog reports and parking violations.
But something about a noisy neighbor complaint at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday nudged him into high gear.
Randy rubbed the back of his neck. “Someone’s mowing?”
“Crazy fool. I need my rest!”
“Where are you located?”
“In Stoney Creek Apartments, just behind the clinic building. That’s where all the noise is coming from.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir.”
Randy was in his patrol car and on his way in less than thirty seconds, praying that this was the break he needed. Tyler Crutchfield had just made a stupid move. If he was dumb enough to stay in town, he was doubly dumb to terrorize the ones who would recognize him. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, lurching the vehicle into a higher gear, and sped toward the clinic.
He slowed when he was a hundred yards from the clinic building, just as a man on a riding mower disappeared around onto the side lawn. Randy stopped the car and pulled his weapon from the holster. Tyler Crutchfield had made his first mistake, and Randy smiled at the thought of making him pay.
The detective sprinted to the side of the building opposite the mowing noise, then peered around into the back parking lot and the grass beyond. When the mower appeared, he squinted just long enough to see that the mower matched the description Claire had given him. Then he paused until the drone of the mower indicated that it had turned and headed back toward the front of the clinic.
Randy sprinted for the supply shed bordering the back lot. He sorted through his options. What if Tyler tries to run me over? I’ ll be forced to kill that scum. He caught himself smiling.
He waited until the tractor turned and started back toward the shed. Then he jumped into the beam of the tractor’s headlights and pointed his weapon. “Stop!” he yelled.
The tractor kept coming. Either Tyler couldn’t hear him, or he’d decided to mow the officer over.
Detective Jensen fired two shots into the air.
The tractor slowed to a stop. The engine died as Jensen ran to the side to get out of the light.
“Lie down on the grass!” he yelled.
The man obeyed. “Don’t shoot!”
“Hands behind your back,” he ordered, pulling the handcuffs from his belt. He snapped them into place and helped him to his feet by a quick jerk on the man’s upper arm.
“Easy. What’d I do? Is there a law against mowing?”
Randy spun the man around and shoved the barrel of his pistol under his chin. “Shut up!”
The officer felt his jaw slacken. “What the — ?”
The man had white hair, a white beard, and skin the color of coffee with cream.
“What’s your name?”
“Sol,” he sputtered. “Sol Diaz.”
Claire waited until 7:00 to call John. She knew he got an early start on most road trips, so she didn’t need to worry about waking him. After two rings, a female voice picked up.
“Hello.”
“I’m sorry, I was dialing John Cerelli.”
“Oh, this is his phone. This is Ami. I work with John. He must have left his phone in my room by mistake. Should I have John call?”
“No, thanks.” Claire hung up. This Ami was enjoying being close to Claire’s man way too much.
Claire looked at her calendar. John wasn’t due back from his trip until late that evening.
She needed an antacid. And a strong cup of coffee. She rubbed the back of her neck and thought about the video surveillance store.
Maybe I’ ll surprise John with a new little potted plant for his office after all.
Chapter Eighteen
It made Claire feel marginally safer to know that the mysterious mower had been apprehended. The man, Sol Diaz, apparently bought the mower from a man meeting Tyler Crutchfield’s description and took his list of jobs and the advice that he cut a few of the lawns secretively as a way of applying for a new position. Sol reported that the man said he was short on cash, and needed to sell his mower so he could move closer to an ailing mother in Savannah.
Randy Jensen took it as a good sign that Tyler Crutchfield had moved on. Claire wasn’t so quick to sleep without a loaded gun at her bedside. She remembered only too clearly the warning the fugitive gave as he fled the office. “I will see you again, Claire.”
John called her cell phone at 8:15. She wasn’t exactly warm to the idea of cuddly talk.
“Hello.”
“Claire, it’s me.” He seemed to hesitate. “Ami told me you called.”
“How convenient that she is able to take care of you and your phone.”
“Claire, what’s that supposed to mean?”
She sighed. She needed to get to work and the phone wasn’t the place she wanted to have this conversation. “Ami told me you must have left the phone in her room. Just what were you doing in her room?”
“I wasn’t in her room. She must have taken my phone from the restaurant table where the team ate last night.”
“She called me at three this morning. Left me a message dripping with sweetness.” She imitated the voice. “ ‘He’s with me now.’ ”
“Honey, that’s crazy. I was in my own room all night. I was dreaming of you.”
“You need to fire this girl. She is after you. I don’t want you working with her.”
“I don’t exactly have the authority to do that. I talked to our office manager, Carol Dawson. She’s looking into my complaints.”
“She’d better do more than that.”
“Claire, she — ”
“We’ve talked about this before. I shouldn’t have to ask twice.”
“I’m with you on this, Claire. The problem is, Ami puts on a different face for everyone else. I’m afraid it may come down to my word against hers.”
“She is stalking you, John. If you can’t see that, then you are blinded by her sweet little voice. What does she look like?”
John cleared his throat.
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
“Claire, I think you’re pretty. Ami means nothing to me.”
“She means something to me.”
“I’ll talk to Carol again. I’ll tell her exactly what Ami did, calling you in the night. That should convince her.”
Not wanting to jeopardize their business meetings, and because he’d driven separately so he could avoid time alone with Ami, John decided to wait till they were back in the office to confront her. Thursday morning, he looked up from his desk as Ami entered. He took a deep breath. It was confrontation time.
“Ami, have a seat.”
She smiled. “You sound so serious. Am I being sent to the principal’s office for bad behavior?” She crossed her legs, allowing her skirt to inch upward on her firm thigh.
“Did you call Claire McCall when we were in Richmond and claim to be with me?”
She nibbled on her lower lip and looked up like a puppy caught chewing on her master’s shoes. “You were with me.” The lilt in her voice tickled down the scale. Playful. Teasing.
“But we weren’t together at three in the morning. You’re getting me in trouble.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“Ami, you are crossing a line. We are professionals. We aren’t in a relationship outside work.”
“Maybe,” she said, drawing out the word. When she finished the sentence, each word was emphasized like the determined report of a stiletto heel on tile. Click, click, click. “I want more.” She paused. One more heel strike. Click. “You!”
He stared ahead, not understanding. Ami’s desire for h
im stood out head-and-shoulders above a simple office crush. What had Claire called her? An erotomanic stalker? “I’m engaged.”
“But you’re not married.”
He sighed. “I think you should look for other work. It isn’t working out for you to be so close to me.”
She hesitated. John studied her expression. There, in spite of her playful demeanor, he saw the first hint of something that scared him. Desperation. A will to stop at nothing to get what she wanted. He saw it in a flash and then it disappeared, dissolving into a flirtatious smile.
She drew her index fingertip in a small circle on the top of her knee. “I get it. You don’t want to dip your pen in the ink at work. If I quit, we can date.”
“No,” he said, a little more loudly than he intended. “We aren’t dating!”
“John,” she said, standing and walking around to the other side of his desk. “I know you have feelings for me. You blush every time I whisper in your ear.”
“I’m a man.” He pushed back from his desk and cleared his throat.
“I’ve noticed.” She sat on his desk, facing him, not caring that her skirt was pushing even higher on her thighs. “John,” she whispered, “Claire McCall isn’t worth your time.” She lifted a manicured fingernail, punctuating the air. “What was it you told me when I first came. You said you were on a roller coaster with your girlfriend.”
John remembered making the off-hand comment and winced.
“I’d never treat you like that,” she said softly. “I am ready to meet your needs.”
His mouth was dry. He met her gaze, feeling the magnet of temptation. Her tongue touched the little dimple in the center of her upper lip. Weakening, he shook his head in resolve. She stopped the rotation of his head with her hand against his chin.
“Look at me,” she said.
He obeyed for a moment, aware that his will was draining away. He lifted his chin from her hand. “No,” he said. “This isn’t right. You don’t know me. You’re obsessed.”
“Obsession with a good thing isn’t a crime, John.” She brushed her knee against his thigh. Her eyes darted across his face, hungry, desperate.
He looked at the open door to the hallway. Where was Bob Estes when he needed him? John’s thigh was on fire.
“You really want me to quit? This is the best job I’ve ever had.”
John diverted his eyes from her legs. “I think it’s best.” He hesitated, then looked up at her face, trying to avoid her skirt.
Her expression darkened. “You don’t want to reject me, John.” She leaned forward until he could feel her breath on his face.
He searched for his voice, unable to speak through the desert dryness. “I — , I — ”
“Don’t do this to me, darling.”
“You’re not — ”
“Shh,” she said, silencing his protest with a finger on his lips. “You don’t want to break my heart. Not now. I’ve been through too much.” She pushed her mouth into a pout and moistened her lips with a dart from her tongue. Her lower lip quivered until she sucked it beneath an even row of perfect teeth and bit down. “We’re together, you and I,” she said, touching the edge of his face. “My darling John.”
His voice was raspy. “No,” he said, pulling his face away from her touch. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head with a quick little bob. “No,” she said, a little louder.
John shook his head, matching her movement. “We can’t be together.”
She turned up the volume. “No. Don’t do this.”
He was finally getting through. He could see the tears forming in her eyes. Those beautiful eyes, he thought.
Her hands traced the angles of her slender neck down to the lapels of a silk blouse. Her grip tightened. Suddenly, with her eyes locked on John’s, she ripped open her blouse, sending buttons bouncing from the office walls. She quickly unfastened her bra and pulled her blouse from her skirt. Then she shrieked, high and shrill, “No!”
John stood, off balance and mouth agape.
Ami shook her head, tussling her bangs. She lunged forward, grabbing him by the tie and pulling him forward onto the desk and on top of her. Her lips met his as she grabbed his shirttail from his pants.
Again, she screamed, and he felt her breath in his open mouth.
Off balance, John began to pull away. His attempt sent a potted plant and a container of pens clattering to the floor. “Ami, stop!”
Her hand gripped his back, her nails scratching a trail of pain. “Let me go,” she yelled.
She pushed him back as he stumbled to his feet again. He looked up to see Bob Estes and Carol Dawson standing in the doorway. “What?”
Carol gasped.
John touched his lips, pulling his fingers away with a smudge of pink lipstick. Ami stood, the front of her blouse ripped and gaping. She attempted to pull herself together with one hand and with the other, planted a quick slap to John’s cheek. She turned, and with Carol’s arm around her, rushed sobbing from his office.
Bob Estes shook his head. “What was that?”
John stammered. “She attacked me.”
Bob glared at him. “She told me you’ve been hitting on her.”
“Wh – what?”
“I don’t get this. You give me all that crap about you and Claire wanting to honor God in your physical relationship and then you — ” He stopped and looked around. “You’re a hypocrite.” He walked away.
John stood, dazed.
What just happened? He thinks I was the aggressor?
John felt moisture on his back. He reached around to touch his skin and pulled his fingers away, moist with blood.
He rubbed his fingers together and pulled them apart, sticky with blood and sweat.
Then he walked to the restroom, aware of the eyes of the office on his back.
As he passed Carol’s office, he heard Ami’s soft sobs. He could only shake his head and open the door to the bathroom.
Two hours later, Ami answered the last of a hundred questions by a Brighton police detective and went through the humiliation of an exam by a sexual assault nurse examiner. To say it was thorough was an understatement. At the end, the nurse scraped and collected material from beneath her fingernails, placing the contents into a plastic bag which was sealed for forensic examination.
After the ordeal, she went home, turned on a CD of Creed, and put a frozen dinner in the microwave. She looked at her own reflection in the door of the microwave and puckered her lips. John will think twice before rejecting my advances.
As she waited for her lunch of stir-fry, she called her mother.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hello, dear. I haven’t heard from you for a while. Are you okay?”
“Sure, Mother. I went to Richmond with work. John Cerelli was there too.”
“You do know about Claire McCall? She claims she’s engaged to him, you know.”
“John has mentioned her. She’s delusional, Mom. Probably suffering from whatever craziness runs in her family, that Huntington’s disease or whatever.”
“Just be careful.”
“I’m going to have to change jobs.”
“I thought you liked it there.”
“I do, but John thinks it would be best. He thinks the other employees will think it’s unfair if he spends any extra time with me. Once I’m not in the same office, our relationship will be able to proceed unhindered.” She sighed. “I think he’s the one, Mom. I really do.”
“Oh, Ami. I hope you don’t get hurt.”
John had been sent home pending a full investigation. Carol, her face grim, had told him that Ami had resigned, and when he tried to explain his side, she waved her hand dismissively. “Save it for the police.”
Pacing nervously, John called and told Claire that Ami had resigned after he suggested her conduct had been inappropriate. As much as he wanted to share everything with Claire, he couldn’t bring himself to go over the details of Ami’s attack
over the phone. He was just glad Ami had decided to go through with a resignation. He wasn’t happy about the police getting involved, but his reputation had been good up to that point, and he was confident that the event would eventually fall behind him.
Claire sighed. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“It’s nothing,” he responded. “I don’t blame you. You’ve been through a few losers.”
She laughed. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“Well, I’ve got to make an early start in the morning. I’ve got to go up to Winchester to visit an orthopedic group to do a demo.”
“I love you, John.”
“You too. See you this weekend.”
John hung up and walked to the refrigerator, where he lifted a milk jug to his lips. Just then, he heard pounding on the front door.
“Easy,” he mumbled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve got a doorbell. Don’t break the door down.”
He opened the door to see a uniformed man. “Mr. Cerelli?”
John nodded.
“I’m Detective Baker with the Brighton City Police. I’d like you to come with me down to the station for a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“What’s this all about?”
“Ami Grandle. She’s reported you in connection with a sexual assault. I’ll need you to come with me.”
“Sure,” John muttered. “Let me get on my shoes.”
On Thursday afternoon following her work, Claire kept her usual counseling session with Joanne. This time Claire sat in her office opposite an empty chair with a tape recorder running. Joanne Phillips slipped her arm around Claire’s shoulder and nudged her to continue. “I know it seems a bit artificial, but getting this all out in the open will help. Just say the things you need to say as if Wally were able to be sitting right here and understanding you.”
Claire pressed her fist to her lips and closed her eyes. The memories flooded back. Her room. Hearing her father’s voice. Smelling his breath, soured with whiskey. Feeling hands groping beneath her clothes.
“I remember you in my room.” She halted, squeezing her eyes even tighter, but not able to keep back the tears. “You touched me.” She stopped, trying to remember.