Mistrusting A Memory

by Robert Lubrican

Copyright 2008 Robert Lubrican

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person, lend them your e-reader.  Otherwise, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

******

Foreword: The author spent twenty-one years working as a detective. The language used in this book reflects the lexicon of reality. That lexicon is a bit different than that used in polite society. What is said between co-workers and lovers in private may seem shocking to others in the light of day. But it's how people talk; at least people I have known. I'm not trying to shock you. I just want to open a window into a world you may never actually be able to see up close. This is fiction, but it is based on history and what real people have experienced. In real life, nothing is ever as simple as it should be.

Bob

******

Chapter One

Bob Duncan ran his hand through his hair and shrugged his shoulders to ease the weight of the Sig Sauer in the shoulder holster under his left arm. He sighed. Another rape in a high rise apartment building. When would women learn to take precautions in a neighborhood where there had been four rapes in the last three months?

He reviewed the evidence in his head: purse on the counter in the kitchen, cash and credit cards still in it. Expensive electronics still on the shelves. It wasn't a burglary-turned-rape. Whoever had done this hadn't been looking for money.

He took a look at the bedroom, and pulled open the doors of the jewelry box on the dressing table against one wall. He was pretty sure what he'd find, but he had to look. Yes, it was still there, a mixture of costume jewelry and some very nice, expensive pieces. One necklace, with a gorgeous oval opal in the center, surrounded by rubies and diamonds, had to be worth a thousand. Something silver gleamed, further back in the drawer. He pulled it open and saw a cigarette lighter, probably sterling silver. He picked it up. It was expensive, and engraved. "LJG" in flowing script. He tried the lighter and it ignited instantly. He examined it, curiously. It was a butane model, and the gas usually escaped when one lay around for a long time. He hadn't seen or smelled any evidence that a smoker lived in this apartment. No ashtrays ... no smoker's candles ... no packs of cigarettes, either full or empty. Nothing in the trash. He knew. He'd searched the trash himself.

On impulse he removed the drawer and peered behind it. There it was. His fingers were almost too big to dig it out, but he managed. Virginia Slims. Female brand. He smelled the pack, which was missing four or five cigarettes. They weren't fresh, but they hadn't been in there for months either.

Secret smoker, he decided. He kept going through the jewelry box. In one drawer there was an old driver's license and some pins, like they gave to high school kids to put on letter jackets. He looked at the license, which had expired over a decade ago, to find a fresh-faced pretty girl smiling back at him. Lacey Jean Griggs, age sixteen. Lacey Jean Griggs had saved her very first driver's license. He looked at the picture again. The girl in the photograph wasn't smiling any more. Not now. Not at the hospital, after being raped.

He shook it off. He needed to get moving. He'd taken the pictures, identified the visible evidence, and walked through the crime scene. He needed to get out of the way so the crime scene techs could start collecting the evidence. The victim was at the hospital, being processed, and he needed to get to her, to get her story before anyone contaminated her testimony.

He'd been assigned to the Sex Crimes Unit for three years, but it already felt like three decades. The first thing he'd been surprised about, when they moved him from Property Crimes to Sex Crimes, was the number of women who yelled rape, when they meant something else entirely.

His inspection of this scene had told him immediately that it was a legitimate complaint. The place had a feminine, neat appearance, or had, until someone had been thrown around in it, knocking furniture askew, breaking a vase, and even knocking a hole in the sheetrock of one wall. It was clear that something had taken place on the bed, which was rumpled, and had a large wet stain in the middle of it. The UV light had indicated it was body fluids, but he didn't know what kind. He'd learned a long time ago not to assume there was semen in those stains. Body fluids ... yes ... semen ... not necessarily.

It had been called in as a rape by the paramedics, who had answered a 911 call from a neighbor, who found the victim's door open and heard her moans.

Bob had talked to the neighbor already. Vivian Gage, divorced, the kind of typical nosy neighbor that detectives everywhere thanked God for every time they prayed. Vivian Gage had informed him that Mister Fetterman was away on business, and had identified the victim as "That sweet, dear Lacey" of the same last name. It was Vivian who said she'd complained to the super about how the door at the back of the building didn't close properly, but, of course, he was too miserly to fix the lock.

On his way to his car, he stopped by that door ... just in case. The Fetterman's door had not been forced. She had opened the door, or it had been unlocked. In this part of town, you'd think that wasn't likely. It was more likely she had opened the door, which meant she'd buzzed her attacker in too. She would know who he was.

The door looked okay. He pulled on the handle and it swung inward. He peered at the latch. It looked fine. Working the handle on the inside showed that the latch went in and out properly. The outside handle was, in fact, locked. Why had it opened, then? He bent over and used his pen light to look at the striker plate. A wad of duct tape had been forced in the detent. That would prevent the latch from extending into the detent, which effectively rendered the lock useless.

Somebody had wanted to be able to get in without a key. But that someone had to be inside the building in the first place to be able to sabotage the lock. That meant someone in the building had, at one time or another, invited him in.

Of course it could have been any of a hundred delivery persons or maintenance contractors. There had to be a thousand people who'd been in the building who didn't actually live there. Some of them jimmied locks like this for their personal convenience, so they didn't have to get buzzed in every single time they went in and out on perfectly legitimate business. The tape was circumstantial, but not necessarily put there by the rapist. He took the duct tape as evidence anyway. Maybe he'd get lucky. Tape retained fingerprints really well, sometimes. As usual, the list of potential suspects was longer than a ten dollar hooker's rap sheet.

******

The first thing he checked at the hospital was whether a rape kit had been done on the victim, and who had done it. They didn't have a dedicated nurse on staff for this kind of thing, and some nurses felt like it was too intrusive to process the whole kit. A lot of valuable evidence had been lost by combs not used and swabs not taken. He saw it was Cindy who had done the kit. She was good. He'd have to remember to buy her coffee, or maybe flirt with her a little bit. She was married, but she was also cute and friendly.

Bob was not married. He'd gone straight from college, with a proudly won criminal justice degree, straight into the police academy, where he found out his degree was basically worthless. They didn't care what he knew. They taught it to him all over again ... their way. Still, he knew all the precedents for search and seizure, and interviews and interrogations, so the coursework was easy. The physical part had been easy too, thanks to his love of tennis and racquetball.

Then he had been immersed in the real school ... the streets of a major metropolitan city. It was there he had learned there were four basic types of people.

There were your hardcore criminals, who didn't care about anything or anybody but themselves. Statistically, twenty percent of them were responsible for eighty percent of all crime. Those twenty percent were the ones he thought about at the firing range. If you could put a dent in that twenty percent, you made a real difference in the world. But you only caught a few of them, and made it stick. The rest of the hardcore types were who he dealt with on a routine kind of basis. He knew all of them, and they knew him. It was a game they all played. Cops and robbers ... all grown up.

Then there were your basic ordinary, everyday people who succumbed to temptation, or greed, or jealousy, and did something stupid. They weren't really dangerous to society. They were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong attitude. Prisons were full of them, which was why there was no room for the hardcore types.

The third basic type were who Bob thought of as professional victims. They lived their sad lives in such a way that they were always being preyed upon. Wives who wouldn't leave an abusive husband  ... homeless people who could have a home and a job, if they had the drive to pursue them ... hookers, who wouldn't take advantage of opportunities to learn a new trade, and the raft of believers that you could get rich quick, with little or no work involved.

Finally, there were ordinary Joes and Janes, who just wanted to get through the day, without bothering anybody else and without being bothered. They had values and lived by them. They stopped at red lights at two in the morning, when there was no traffic in sight. They worked hard and played when they could, and raised kids and volunteered at the PTA, or the Library, or any of a double dozen other places where they could feel like they were trying to be good citizens.

That last group comprised about ninety-five percent of society. Just about all their woes could be blamed on the other five percent. Majority rules. Yeah ... right.

Bob reviewed what was available. The lab results weren't done yet, of course. It would take a day or two for that. He asked where he could find Lacey Fetterman and was given an exam room number.

******

Both women in the room jumped when he opened the door, and then remembered to tap. The younger one, fully dressed and sitting in a chair, jumped up perkily and extended her hand.

"I'm Teresa Green," she announced importantly. "I'm Lacey's advocate."

Bob restrained a sighed. He'd hoped he could get to the victim before the rape advocate got there. He ignored Teresa Green, and looked at the woman on the exam table, wrapped in a hospital gown. She looked vaguely familiar. That didn't mean anything. Everybody looked vaguely familiar. You remembered the bad guys. Everybody else - even people you'd met and chatted with - didn't need to take up storage space in your memory.

"Detective Duncan," he said, displaying his badge. "Mrs. Fetterman?" he asked, formally.

"Yes." Her voice was soft and sounded sad. They always sounded soft and sad.

"I know you've been through a lot," he said, going into his routine spiel. "But I need to ask you some questions. I'd like to catch the man who did this to you."

"All right," she said, her voice cultured.

He noticed that. Most rape victims came from the ordinary ranks of ordinary women, who wouldn't stand out in a crowd for any particular reason. But you couldn't go by appearance, of course. Any woman, from a pre-pubescent child to an eighty-nine year old great grandmother, could end up in this situation. Background didn't tell you much.

Body language, though, spoke loudly, regardless of background. This woman, under the visible bruises, scrapes and pallor, with her long black hair askew, would be beautiful again in a week or two. When the bruises and scrapes healed, she'd be a babe. The way she sat showed the kind of strength that suggested she was used to being confident and in control of her destiny. Her feet hung limply, as opposed to swinging or moving constantly, which would indicate that she was nervous or bored. Her hands gripped the edges of the bed, on either side of her, but she wasn't white-knuckled. She wasn't crying, but that didn't mean anything. Shock did strange things to a person and masked true emotions. All her body language told him right now was that she wasn't terrified and was open to his presence.

That was a good start.

He asked the usual questions, taking notes in his notebook. She said she didn't know who the man was. Her door had been locked. She always locked the door, even when her husband was home. She'd just gotten out of the bath, when the knock came, and the man had announced a gas leak had been called in. He'd said he needed to check her stove, to relight the pilot light, because the gas had been turned off to repair the leak. The instant she'd opened the door, he barged inside. He'd had a knife and had sworn he'd kill her if she screamed.

She believed him. She hadn't screamed.

It didn't seem to make any difference to the man. He'd slapped her. It had taken her two slaps and a fist to learn that she wasn't supposed to get back up, until he told her to. Then he'd raped her, with the knife at her throat, on her own bed. When he was finished, he'd told her he could get in any time, and that if she called the police he'd come back and kill her. She said she had a long, shallow slice from the knife, across her left breast and down onto her stomach, where he'd almost carefully cut her, just enough to make it bleed in places, while he'd told her that. Bob didn't ask to see it. There would be photographs taken later, when all the bruises had had time to develop fully.

While she told her story, she'd been interrupted by her advocate five times. Every time she showed any emotion at all, the girl  -  she couldn't have been more than twenty-two  -  interrupted her, telling her that everything was going to be all right and that she was safe. Bob wanted to tell Teresa Green to shut the fuck up. Everything wasn't going to be all right. Not by a long shot. The guy could come back and carve Lacey up like a chicken being slaughtered. False hope was not what this woman needed. What this woman needed was to know that the animal who had done this to her was behind bars and not coming out for years.

But he kept quiet. Lacey was doing all right, except that she didn't seem to be involved. Not really. It could be the shock ... but she seemed to be holding something back. He believed she'd been raped. Either that, or she and her boyfriend had gotten a little carried away with the S&M stuff, and the nosey neighbor had undone them.

He shook his head mentally. He'd searched the place, from top to bottom. No gags ... no latex clothing ... no whips and chains ... nothing kinky at all, except the vibrator in the drawer beside the bed. And that wasn't kinky. Not these days. Her husband was on the road. According to Vivian Gage, the neighbor, he was on the road a lot, selling something or other. No, this had been rape. Why would she hold something back?

There had been other cases like this, where a man had gotten in under false pretenses and used a knife, making the same threats. Bob had worked two of them, and those women had also seemed to be holding something back.

******

Lacey bit down on the inside of her cheek ... the one that little prick hadn't slapped. She had to retain control. She couldn't just lose it and blubber in front of this man. Where was Paul? She'd asked the nurse to call him. It had been hours since she'd come to this antiseptic, but stinking place. The nurse had seemed so friendly ... so nice ... and then had done such unspeakable things to her ... poking and prodding, scraping under her fingernails, even! Why had she had to pee in a cup? Why had they pulled out some of her pubic hairs?

Teresa's arrival had been good, at first. She finally had someone to talk to ... to ask questions of. It was then that she realized she couldn't talk ... couldn't ask the questions. The girl was hardly out of high school. She'd never been raped. She'd never felt the things Lacey had felt ... was still feeling. She didn't understand the shame and horror. She didn't understand what had happened in that room ... in that bed ... the room and bed she could never go in again.

She felt hopeless. Nothing could fix what had happened.

******

"Just a few more questions," said Bob. "I'll need to take a formal written statement, but we can do that in a day or two, when you've had time to relax."

"I'll never be able to relax again," said Lacey.

"It will be all right," chirped Teresa. "He's almost done, and then we'll find you something to wear, and you can begin your recovery."

"Oh," said Bob, remembering the plastic sack he'd brought into the room and dropped by the door. He went to get it. "I took the liberty of bringing you some clothes." The patrolman securing the scene had told him the victim had been naked when they took her away.

"Thank you," said Lacey, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief as she saw her familiar clothing in the bag. She blushed as she saw the bra and panties. This man had been through her most private things.

"Please describe the man again," said Bob.

"She already did that," said Teresa.

When she had gone over her memory of the man again, and added nothing new, Bob asked the question that was always difficult.

"Try to remember anything odd or memorable about him. What can you remember about how his penis looked?"

Teresa gasped. "You can't ask her a question like that!" she exploded. "This woman has been raped!"

"What do you mean?" asked Lacey, her eyes rolling slightly in her sockets.

"Was it straight or bent? What color was it? Did it have any moles or warts on it?" Bob leaned forward as he saw Lacey's eyes widen. Her pupils got smaller. She opened her mouth to answer, but was, again, cut off by her advocate.

"This is insane!" said Teresa, much too loudly. Lacey winced and then her face went calm. She remained silent.

"Do you know if he ejaculated?" asked Bob.

"I will not stand for this abuse!" shouted Teresa. "Do not answer any more of his questions, Lacey. I'm going to make a complaint this instant! Don't say another word! I'll be right back!" she said excitedly.

She hustled out of the room, leaving the woman she was supposed to be advocating for, in the clutches of the man who was currently "abusing her."

"Finally!" said Bob. "She's gone. Look, I know this is hard, but I need this kind of information. I need it to find him, and we'll need it to convict him. Please, tell me what you can. Just close your eyes and remember. I know it's hard, but please try. We don't have much time. She'll be back soon."

Lacey heard his words ... heard the earnestness, almost pleading in them, and knew he wasn't being crass or lewd. She knew the answers to his questions all too well. She remembered that part starkly. The urgency in his voice robbed her of control and she babbled.

"It was bent. He made me ... he made me use my mouth. He made me put a condom on him. He said I didn't deserve to have his ... seed. He said I was probably diseased, but that he wouldn't let me make him diseased. He made me put him in meeeee!" her last word became a wail of pain and she sobbed.

"That's good," said Bob soothingly. "Let it all out. Tell me more. What did he do with the rubber?"

"Heeee ... took it ... with him," she cried. "He ... said ... he was ... coming baaack," she wailed. "Heeee ... said ... he'd make ... me ... do it ... again! ... that I'd ... do…it ... again!" she sobbed.

"Do what again?" asked Bob, leaning toward her.

He wanted to pat her shoulder. He wanted to hug her, to give her some human contact. She needed human contact right now, but he knew others wouldn't understand. The emotion she was displaying now was normal, too. It was guilt. Something had happened in that room that she felt guilty about. It happened sometimes, but no one talked about it.

It came to him in a split second. Her behavior and the way she'd said things was what did it. It was as he asked the question that would explain all this, that the door opened and Teresa stalked in, the head nurse in her wake.

"Did you have an orgasm?" asked Bob.

"See?" screamed Teresa. "Did you hear that? This man is an animal and I demand that he be ejected this instant! Just look at her! He's completely destroyed her!"

"Out!" snarled the head nurse, pointing to the door.

"I'm not finished here," said Bob.

"Yes, you most certainly are!" said the nurse, her voice rising. "And you can bet your ass I'm going to make you sorry you ever came here, you pervert!"

Lacey was a basket case, and the shouting of the two women had caused her to fall to her side and curl up in a fetal position. Bob knew it would take hours to calm her down, and it was obvious that his presence wasn't helping things now.

"I'll call you about the formal interview," he said to Lacey. Her eyes darted to his, so he knew she heard him.

The head nurse escorted him to the emergency room doors, making sure he left. He didn't say a word to her. She didn't understand either.

******

Bob didn't really worry about the complaint. He knew he could explain things to Mrs. Fetterman, when she came in for her formal interview. He gave it a day then called the cell number he'd gotten from her at the beginning of the hospital interview.

"Hello?" came her soft voice.

"Mrs. Fetterman, this is Detective Duncan again," he said. He didn't make small talk. "I need to set up your formal interview."

"Oh," she said. Her voice sounded flat over the phone. "I already told you what I know," she said.

"I know," he said. "But the prosecutor will need to review your statement."

"Have you caught him?"

"Well, no, not yet," said Bob. He hated this part. "We're working on it, though, and if we find him ... when we find him, the prosecutor will need your statement. It will keep you from having to tell it again then."

He hated this part, too. He was lying. The system required that the victim tell her story over and over and over again. There were good reasons for it. People remembered things as time went by, for one thing, and those little facts and details could make all the difference in a prosecution. Another reason was to catch the liars. Liars couldn't remember what they'd said the last time, and often said something different. The truth is easy to remember. You have to think about it to lie. The average person didn't understand all this, though, and for victims like Lacey Fetterman, it was just torture.

"Teresa said I wouldn't have to talk to you again," said the soft voice.

"Look," he said, impatience edging into his voice. "I'm on your side in this thing."

He winced. That wasn't true either. He was a fact finder, plain and simple. He collected evidence, and it could be used by either side in court. His job was to prove or disprove that a crime had been committed. If there was a crime, his job was then to prove or disprove who had been involved in it.

"What I'm saying," he went on, "is that Teresa's a nice girl, and all that, and she cares about you, but she doesn't understand police work. There are good reasons I asked you the questions I asked you. I can explain that to you when you come in for your formal interview. You want us to catch this guy. We need your help to do it. That's all I'm saying."

"All right," said the soft voice. "When do you want to see me?"

He set up the appointment for the next day and hung up.

Chapter Two

Bob walked into the squad room and tossed his notebook onto his desk. His inbox was full, and he groaned. He could hold his own on the streets. He'd been shot at half a dozen times, and had survived them all. He'd been in two wrecks, and all he'd suffered was a deep bruise in one thigh. He'd processed enough blood and body fluid evidence to infect a hundred thousand people with Hepatitis, or HIV, and was still clean as a whistle. The paperwork, though, would kill him. He knew it, deep in his heart.

That would wait, though. Mrs. Fetterman was due for her interview. He'd much rather gaze on her lovely form than some piece of paper.

There was a note stuck to his monitor: "See Dillworth."

He groaned. Frank Dillworth was the new Detective Captain and he was an idiot. He'd been Captain of Logistics for years, and was pretty good at that, though he'd bowed down to the penny pinchers at every opportunity. Why he'd wanted to take over supervision of an experienced and hardworking bunch of detectives was anybody's guess. He and Bob had had three or four run-ins already and he'd only been on the job for two months. Dillworth didn't know a damn thing about being a detective. Half the time he didn't even know the law. He was a toady ... a brownnoser ... and he was already responsible for two veterans cashing in their chips and retiring, when they could have stayed on for three or four more years.

He knew there was a problem when he entered Dillworth's office to find him fawning over Lacey Fetterman ... and Teresa Green. Teresa looked up and a look of triumph came over her face.

"Yes sir?" said Bob.

Dillworth looked away from Lacey, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. Her eyes went to Bob and then down to her lap.

"I'm reassigning Mrs. Fetterling's case to Simpson," barked Frank.

"Fetterman," corrected Bob. "It's Lacey Fetterman."

Frank's face suffused with dark purple. Bob hoped he'd have a stroke.

"I don't need any sass from the likes of you!" said Frank, his voice rising. "Mrs. ... Fetterman ... has been kind enough not to press charges against you. You're off the case and that's final!"

Bob looked at Lacey, who was looking at him again, through lowered lashes.

"Tell Simpson about the orgasm," he said. "It's important."

Frank leapt to his feet, outrage on his face. "That's it!" he screamed. "You're through! Pack your fuc--" He stopped and went suddenly white. Bob ached to see his eyes roll up in his head as he toppled, a coronary thrombosis doing what needed to be done. "Pack your stuff," he huffed, calmer now. "I'm recommending you be fired. Go see the freaking union rep if you want to, but I'll have your backside for this, Duncan!"

Bob turned to leave. The look on Lacey's face was one of shock ... and something else. He didn't have time to think about it. "Tell him," he said to her. Then he closed the door, before Dillworth could scream again.

******

He didn't get fired. The higher ups knew that the reasons they'd put Frank Dillworth in the Detective Captain chair was because of what he could do for them when they needed a favor, and not because he had a clue. They had assumed he'd just ride the coattails of the experienced and effective force he was put in control of. Good men made a supervisor look good. Nobody thought he'd actually try to investigate anything. They certainly didn't think he'd run off the good men who could have made him look good. Case in point was that he'd gotten Bob reassigned to traffic patrol. Now, they were stuck with the ramifications of their choice.

Dillworth did reassign the Fetterman case to Don Simpson, but Detective Simpson couldn't get anything done on it, because he had to report directly to Frank three times a day and then run off to do whatever lame-brained idea Frank had come up with since the last time he'd reported. The case went nowhere, and finally stalled.

Bob found all this out in the locker room ... most of it from Don, who said he hated Bob because he'd lipped off to the boss, which had pulled Don into the mess and gotten Frank's fingers where nobody wanted them. Bob knew Don didn't actually hate him, but he wasn't happy.

"That bastard will hit again," said Don, sitting down beside Bob. "He's a classic control pervert. Beat her up, made her do things. He even made her cum."

"I thought so," said Bob. "When I talked to her at the hospital I knew she was holding something back."

"I almost didn't find out," said Don. "That little bitch that was with her wanted to approve every question I asked. She said Dillworth told her that was fine! Can you believe that shit?"

"So, how'd you find out?" asked Bob.

"The Fetterman woman finally asked the bitch to be quiet. I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. She said she just wanted to get it over with and started talking. I could hardly keep up with her on the computer. When she said she had an orgasm, the bitch started screaming again, and the whole thing fell to shit. Dillworth wanted to take that part out of the statement, but he couldn't figure out how. I told him I'd already saved it. The stupid fuck bought it. I was lucky to get her signature on it."

"Well, you got it," said Bob. "That's part of an MO. It will help get him, sooner or later." He sighed. "If any of his other victims will admit it too, that is."

"Yeah," said Simpson, putting on his shoes. "So, how's traffic?"

Bob shot him an evil look and Simpson laughed. "Hey, at least nobody's shooting at you!" He grinned. "I might ask for a transfer myself," he said, his smile fading. "I can't get anything done with Frank Fucking Dillworth dogging my tracks. He says I have promise! Can you believe that shit?"

Don Simpson had been a cop for six years and a detective for two. He deferred to Bob's ten year record, but he was very good, when given the chance to be so.

"A nice, quiet squad car and writing a few tickets now and then might be nice," sighed Don.

"I've already gained four pounds," said Bob. "Sitting around all day doesn't do you any good."

"Protect and defend!" said Don, standing up and saluting. "See you later, buddy. I know it doesn't mean much, but I think you're better off."

"Yeah," said Bob, glumly. "Better off." In two weeks, three drunks had puked in the back of his patrol car and another one had puked on him. Everybody he pulled over was irate at him for molesting them. Everybody seemed to feel like they had an inalienable right to drive fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, run red lights at their whim, and park wherever they felt like. He'd been called a communist, an agent of the Gestapo, a "fucking pig" and a "pig fucker." All in just two weeks. If this was "better off," he had no idea how he was going to do his last nine years.

******

A week later, Bob was standing at a vending machine in the gym he belonged to, drinking the last of a bottle of Gatorade, when she walked around the corner and literally ran into him.

"Oh! Excuse me," said that soft voice.

Her eyes lit on his face and widened.

"What are you doing here?" she gasped.

"I play racquetball here," said Bob.

He looked at her. She was beautiful. Her long black hair was held back in a pony tail that reached to her lower back. She was dressed in tight shorts and a white T shirt that clung to her body like it was two sizes too small. Her breasts bulged in that way that announces they're confined in a sports bra and don't like it. There were just the last traces of bruising on her throat and jaw, where her attacker had hit her with his fist.

She had a sports bag slung over one shoulder, the handle of a racquetball racquet sticking out. He noticed that it had sticky tape wrapped around the handle. Well-worn sticky tape. That was interesting. The only people who needed sticky tape were people who were power hitters. It kept the racquet from twisting in the grip. His eyes went to her right hand, but it was bare of a glove. She wasn't sweating, either. She had just arrived.

While he was examining her, she examined him too. He was taller than she was, by a couple of inches. Out of his suit, he looked rugged, rather than beefy. His tank top was wet in a drooping oval from his neck to his stomach, and his arms and wide shoulders had a sheen of sweat on them. He was wearing a headband and two wristbands that were dark with sweat, and the hand holding the bottle was gloved. His left hand held an E-Force Lethal 160 racquet. She stared at the racquet. Those things cost over three hundred dollars, and she was shocked to see a mere detective ... ex detective? ... holding one. All in all, he looked as lethal as the racquet.

She felt a flutter in her belly. It horrified her and she shrank back.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," said Bob, seeing the look of horror on her face. "I'm not mad about anything."

His tone brought her back to this place ... here ... in the gym she was so comfortable in. It was the only place she could go to battle the demons that ate at her. Here, on the court, she could slam them ... slam him. Her rapist was only the latest of a string of frustrations she had battled on the racquetball court at the gym. Before that it had been her boss, whose eyes undressed her constantly. She'd gone out on her own because of that, and was now in direct competition with him, running a successful business called Fashion La Femme. Her customers had come with her. Before that it was her lemon of a car, which Paul wouldn't let her get rid of because it was only two years old. Sometimes it was meat, which she was trying not to love, because Paul had become a vegetarian. Occasionally it was her mother, who never listened and forbade her to talk about divorcing Paul.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said, her chin jutting a little.

"Good," he said. "You any good?"

"What?" She looked confused.

His left hand came up and the tip of his racquet touched the handle of hers. "Are you any good at racquetball?"

He saw her shoulders and jaw stiffen. "I do all right," she said, almost lazily. Her comment didn't match her body language. He almost smiled. That handle alone said she did better than "all right."

"My partner had to leave," he said, letting his invitation hang.

"You'd play a girl?" she asked, her hazel eyes showing interest.

"You're probably not supposed to talk to me anyway," he said indifferently. "What with me being a beast and all."

Her eyes got guarded at that. "Why did you ... ” She didn't finish her question. "I was looking for a pickup game," she said instead.

That was another clue to her level of expertise at the game. Most people who weren't any good, or had just started, had set partners they played with. The best way to get your ass handed to you was to get in a pickup game with somebody you didn't know and who was probably a lot better than you.

"I've got the court for another hour," he said.

"Another hour." She repeated, her eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, I do two hours, three times a week."

"You're good, then," she said. Now her body and her voice showed interest.

"I do all right," he said, straight faced.

"Let me put my shoes on," she said.

He watched her pull out court shoes. He was impressed that she didn't play in street shoes. When she pulled out sweat bands, like his, a glove, and wrap around eye protectors, he smiled. Then she took out velcro wraps. She leaned forward letting her long hair drape in front of her, and put three of them around the hank of hair, so it wouldn't fly all around on the court.

He could already tell this would be good.

******

She was better than good. She was so good that he actually got a good workout. She was light on her feet, lightning quick, and had a deadly catch off the back wall, where she leaned just so and picked up the ball three inches off the floor. It stayed three inches off the floor, usually ... all the way to the front wall. She knew how to put English on it too. Quite often it hit the wall and rolled, instead of bouncing. That it rolled right to him was no accident either. She was taunting him. The ball almost never squeaked when she hit it.

There wasn't anything you could do about that. The low kill shot was impossible to return, because it just wasn't returnable. It was simple physics. But, when he forced her to put it up on the wall, there were lots of things he could do with the ball.

He used the first two games to probe. She was, as he had thought, a power player. That meant the ball was everywhere, and moving fast. But, as he well knew, because he played the same way, it also meant that the ball bounced hard, and that meant you could stay in middle court, where you could reach almost everything.

He tried slamming the ball so it would come directly at her. In power play that meant you had to be quick to step aside and address the ball, or just boink it, with the racquet right in front of you. Boinked balls were easy kills. Her speed amazed him. She rarely boinked, choosing instead to fall aside and use the back wall. She was good at that too, hitting it just hard enough to get it from the back to the front, on a high arc that gave her time to adjust and made him move forward.

Her serve died in the back corner, and she ran ten points in a row, just on that serve, until he figured out a way to scoop it out of the corner. He lucked out twice, barely getting the ball to the front wall, where it hit that corner and dropped to bounce rapidly back to her serving position. She hadn't reacted, because she thought he'd missed the serve.

She was poetry in motion, whenever he got a chance to actually watch her play. Which wasn't often. He hadn't played anybody this good in years, and it was pure joy.

Ten games later they sat, leaning against the wall, gasping for air.

"You're good," she panted.

"You're no slouch, yourself," he panted back. "Do you belong to this gym?"

"Six years," she said, taking a breath between the two words.

"I can't believe I haven't seen you play," he said.

"This isn't my usual time," she said. "I usually play in the morning. Things ... changed." Her last comment came with obvious unhappiness.

"Changed?" he said, automatically.

At first he thought she wasn't going to answer. As tired as she was, her body announced that this was a very sore point. Finally she relaxed a little, but didn't look at him. "Paul is divorcing me."

Bob stifled a groan. Rape led to divorce in a lot of cases. Hubby couldn't understand why she no longer wanted him to touch her. Hubby blamed it on her, like everybody else did. If you were running in the park, alone at night, you were just asking for it. If you wore slinky clothes, you deserved what you got. You didn't fight hard enough. You didn't say "NO" loudly enough. There were no marks on your body, to show you fought at all - or not enough marks to satisfy him. There were a thousand reasons that people assumed the woman brought it all on herself. Some men thought of their raped wife as diseased, and wouldn't come near her. At the time the women needed them most, a lot of men ran away.

"He got a copy of my statement," she went on. "When he saw that part about the orgasm ... well ... "

She stopped. She was tense again.

"Why did you tell me to do that?" she asked, her voice heavy. "It ruined my life. Now that stupid captain of yours doesn't even believe I was raped."

"He's an idiot," said Bob. "There are very good reasons why that information is critical. I could explain it to you, but not here."

"Why not here?" she asked.

"Because it's complicated, and you'll have more questions, and I'm thirsty."

She blinked at him. "I'm thirsty, too."

"You want to get something to drink?" he asked, and felt stupid instantly.

"Are you asking me out?" Her voice held something other than just question in it.

"Of course not," he said. "That wouldn't be ethical, and our little friend Thelma would be irate.”

"Teresa," Lacey corrected him.

"Whatever," he said, levering himself up. "She'd be irate. She'll be irate if she finds out I even talked to you."

"She means well," said the woman, accepting his hand and letting him pull her up. She had a strong grip. He knew that already. Her racquet had twisted in her hand exactly once during play.

"She helps rapists stay free," he said darkly. "She gives bad advice, at the wrong time, and women like you stop cooperating with the police."

"I cooperated," she said, wounded. "I even did what you said, and look where it got me." She frowned. "What else could I have done?"

"It's not your fault," said Bob. "None of this has been your fault. You're the victim here. The problem is that the system re-victimizes you. It stinks, but there's very little anyone can do about it, especially when people like Tanya and Frank Dillworth get involved."

"Teresa," said Lacey, gently.

"Teresa," he said heavily. "I don't remember names unless the person I'm remembering needs to be arrested."

"Well," she said, her voice soft again. "Since you aren't asking me out, and since we're both thirsty, I don't suppose anybody could complain if we both sought out something to drink at the same place."

They left the court, walking side-by-side. He stopped at the vending machine and dug into his sports bag for quarters.

"What's your pleasure?" he asked.

"White wine," she said.

He looked at her. Her head was cocked sideways, like she was evaluating him again.

"Showers first," he said.

******

She was waiting for him when he emerged from the locker room. She had on a maroon blouse and tan shorts, with sandals. Her hair was still in the pony tail, and was dry. She saw him looking at the pony tail.

"It takes too long to dry. I'll wash it when I get home." She seemed unconcerned that he was looking at her, but he forced himself to look at her face, feeling the loss of being unable to let his eyes linger on her body. She was a startlingly beautiful woman. But she had troubles enough without him acting like a caveman, and probably didn't have too high an opinion about men right now anyway. He felt guilty all of a sudden. He was attracted to this woman, and he had no business being attracted to a woman in her situation.

"Delvechio's?" he said.

"My, my," she said. "The man has a three hundred dollar racquet and drinks at the most exclusive joint in town, too."

He shrugged. "You work, you get paid ... you may as well enjoy it."

They walked. It was only a block and a half, and both their cars were in the parking garage, which was probably as close as they could get to Delvechio's anyway.

Claude, the matre d', met them at the door with a professional smile.

"Mrs. Fetterman!" he announced, bowing slightly from the waist. "How delightful to see you again." His eyes turned to Bob. "And Detective. I hope nothing is amiss."

"We thought we'd talk away from the noise and bustle of the office," said Bob.

Claude eyed the sports bags that each was carrying.

"Yes," he said, completely unconvinced. "How nice. Let me just seat you in a nice, private booth." His job was to make the customers smile. What they did while they smiled was none of his business.

Chapter Three

There was an uncomfortable silence in the booth, as they waited for the waitress to come and take their drink order. Once she was gone, Lacey looked at him, obviously waiting for him to speak.

"It's like this," said Bob, starting in on a speech he'd given countless times, to countless women like this one. Well ... not quite like this one. This one was a lady. She had class. He rarely dealt with women of her class. But all he had was the speech, and some facts and figures, and that usually helped them understand what had happened to them and why it wasn't their fault.

"Rape isn't about sex." He waited for her to disagree, but she just stared at him, one eyebrow raised. "It's about domination ... control ... it's about making the victim helpless and degrading her."

"And that makes him feel ... " her voice quavered.

"Powerful," said Bob. "It makes him feel like he's the most powerful person present - that's what gets him off. He wants to feel like he owns you ... can make you do anything he wants you to, and that you are completely helpless to stop him."

"So I should have fought harder," she said.

"Not necessarily," he said, caution in his voice. "Some rapists are so weak and insecure that resistance unhinges them. The typical tactics taught to women like you, in the classes you've probably been going to, are to make noise, draw attention, use your keys on his face, or your knee in his groin. With that kind of rapist, that works. The problem is that with some of them, it doesn't work. That just makes them mean, because you didn't enslave yourself instantly. They punish you for your uppity behavior. The parallels between how a rapist feels about his victim and how a slave owner felt about his slaves, in the 1850s, are startling."

"But how can you fight? How can you prepare?" she asked, clearly upset.

"Sometimes you can't," said Bob. "That's why it's so important to find these men and lock them away. Most rapes, of the kind you suffered, where the woman doesn't know her attacker, are committed by very few of the total number of rapists."

"Some women know who raped them?" she asked, aghast.

"Most women know their rapist," said Bob. "Statistically, if you removed the women who get into trouble with a man they know, we wouldn't have a rape problem in the United States."

"You mean date rape," she said.

"Yes, and drunk victim rape, and women who have a rape fantasy and it gets out of hand, and women who want to believe what happened was rape when, in fact, it probably wasn't."

Her body language suddenly screamed at him. She was so tense that she looked like she might actually jump up and run. Her hands gripped the edge of the table until there was no blood in her fingers.

"Calm down," he said immediately, soothingly.

"I'm calm." Her voice was so tight it had risen an octave.

"No you're not," he said gently. "You're screaming inside. What's wrong?"

She sat, rigid, for moments longer. He wanted to touch her again, but didn't.

"Look," he said finally. "This isn't easy to understand. Sometimes things happen that don't make sense."

Still she sat, frozen. The horror was back in her eyes again, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at something that wasn't even in the same building they were in.

"Is there something else?" he asked quietly. "Something else you didn't tell me?"

Her eyes cleared and then filled with tears. One ran over and trickled down her cheek.

"Tell me," he said. "You need to understand, and I can help you do that."

"You can't help me," she whispered.

"I think I can," he said. "You can't tell me anything I haven't heard before." He leaned forward. "Things happen that women are ashamed of and think is their fault. That's almost never true, but they think it's true. Something like that happened to you ... didn't it."

Her eyes went down to the table. "Yes," she whispered.

"Tell me," he said.

"I can't," she moaned. "It's so terrible."

"I already know you had an orgasm," he said. "You think that's terrible, but it isn't. I can explain that, too. What else happened?"

"Paul and I ... " she said and then faltered. "We used to play ... games."

"Rape games," said Bob.

Her eyes snapped to his. She was horrified again, but this time it was the horror of being unmasked.

"How can you know that?" she panted. "How did you know I had an orgasm? It's like you can see into my brain!"

"Calm down," he said. "I told you, I've heard it all before. You're not as strange as you think you are, and you did not let yourself be raped."

"If only I could believe that," she moaned. "Paul is sure I did it on purpose ... that I let a man in, while he was gone ... that it got out of hand, like you said." More tears were coursing down her cheeks.

Bob handed her his napkin, and she took it and dabbed gently at the streaks.

"But I didn't!" Frustration was in her voice. "I didn't let him in. Not like that. I never saw him before! He was just a repairman ... except that he wasn't, and I couldn't do anything!"

"That's right," said Bob, his voice soothing. "You were helpless. He'd have killed you if you'd have struggled too much. Rapists with knives mean what they say. You had no choice."

"Then why did I have an orgasm?" Her voice was a hoarse, shouting whisper.

"You couldn't help that either," said Bob.

"You're just trying to make me feel better," said Lacey. "Teresa tried to insist that I didn't have an orgasm ... that it was pain that I mistook for an orgasm, but I know the difference between pain and an orgasm. I felt both that day."

"I'm sure you did," said Bob. "As I said, Teresa is young and inexperienced. She's also poorly trained, as a lot of rape advocates are."

"So explain it," she said. She was calmer already, with the hope that he could do just that.

"An orgasm, whether it's in the male or female, is a physical process. The sexual organs are stimulated during the sex act. When the stimulation reaches a certain threshold, the body does things to relieve the stress, and an orgasm takes place. It's simple biology. The man ejaculates and the semen sooths the penis, causing it to deflate. In the woman, it causes her to want to lie still and rest. All that is nature's way of making babies happen. If the body is stimulated, it reacts. There's nothing you can do about it."

"But some orgasms come with less ... stimulation ... than others," she objected.

"That's the mental aspect of things. Your mind can supply some of the stimulation required. But even if your mind is totally against what is happening, the body can be manipulated in such a way that an orgasm has to take place, whether you want it to or not."

"So it was a fluke. He just happened to go long enough that I couldn't help it," she said.

"I suspect not," said Bob. She gaped at him and he went on. "For some rapists, who know what I just told you, part of the domination of the victim is to make her have an orgasm. He knows she will be humiliated beyond anything else he could do to her, especially if she doesn't understand what's happening, like you didn't. It is the ultimate debasement of the victim. He makes her believe she wanted the whole thing to happen. Some women, who are repeatedly attacked by the same man, actually form a bond with their attacker. They come to believe that they just didn't know they wanted this kind of treatment. They voluntarily become enslaved."

She sat back. Her wine was untouched. He pushed it toward her.

"Take a sip. Do you see what I mean when I said none of this is your fault? You were manipulated all the way. He was an expert in making you feel that way. You really do have nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about."

"But what about the rape games?" she moaned. "That's why Paul thinks I did all this on purpose. He's sure that I was cheating, and that the man I was cheating with got carried away."

"I don't know Paul," said Bob. "But I do know he's an idiot. Your fantasy - the one you played with him - didn't involve knives, or hitting ... did it?"

"Of course not," she said, flushing. "I can't even believe I had that fantasy now, but it wasn't anything like what happened to me. After what happened, I feel perverted for ever thinking that fantasy was hot."

"Your fantasy wasn't about rape," said Bob. "It was about playing at rape ... pretending rape ... pretending to be helpless when, in fact, you knew quite well that you were not helpless. You could stop it anytime you wanted to and, if you're like most other women, you did stop it on one or more occasions."

She shook her head. "How do you do that?" she asked, her mouth open. "It's like you've been looking into my life with a secret video camera."

"You're not as different, or as odd, or as perverted as you think," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "You're just a woman, trying to understand why her world is falling apart."

She sipped her wine.

"So it really wasn't my fault." For the first time she made a statement of it, rather than a question.

"Nope," he said.

"I opened the door," she said softly.

"You should be able to open your door any time of the day or night." said Bob. "When someone chooses to victimize you, because you are trusting, they are victimizing you. You aren't inviting them to do anything."

She was quiet for five minutes, during which she finished her wine. Her eyes were far away again, but she wasn't tense this time.

Finally she focused on him again. "Are you going to catch that son of a bitch?"

"It probably won't be me," said Bob, truthfully. "I just make traffic stops these days."

She looked shocked. "That's my fault!" she moaned.

"No, it's not. It's Tracie's fault, and Dillworth. They're both so misguided that they think they did the world a favor."

"You know her name is Teresa," said Lacey, softly.

"What I know is that, since I got booted out of Sex Crimes, the man who raped you has raped two more women."

She was horrified.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I still talk to some of the boys," he said. "Your rapist ... the one who knows how a woman's body works and uses it against her? That's called a modus operandi - an MO. There are other things he does too, like the use of a knife and propping doors open, so he can sneak in. These other women ... their cases have everything yours did ... except that they can't admit to the orgasm part, or some of the other things he made you do. They think if they admit to that, no one will believe they didn't want it to happen."

"That's what I believed," she said, nodding her head. "But what does it matter? I mean if you catch him, you catch him, right?"

"It matters because it ties cases together on much more than mere circumstantial evidence. Say we catch him for your rape. He goes away for ten to fifteen. He'll be out in six, on good behavior. But, if we can tie him to all three, and any more he's done or going to do before we catch him, he becomes a serial rapist. Now he's going away for life, with no possibility of parole. See why I ask those questions? See why it matters?"

"Yes!" she said excitedly. "I understand perfectly. So why don't you educate the advocates?"

"Because they won't listen to us. We're the enemy. We're the bullies who re-victimize the poor women and force them to remember what happened to them. They don't want to believe that a woman can have an orgasm during a rape. Their definition of orgasm has to include pleasure."

"What can I do to help?" she asked. Her attitude was upbeat again.

"Well, you could become a rape advocate yourself," said Bob, smiling. "You'd be a lot better than Tara." He grinned. "We have to stop talking about her. I'm running out of names that begin with T."

She stood up.

"I have to go. But I want to thank you for explaining all that to me. I really do feel much better."

"No problem. Keep your door locked. I don't want to worry you, but if you tripped his trigger, he might actually want to see you again."

"What do I do if I do see him again?" she asked, a little fearfully.

"If it's on the street, do nothing. Act like you don't recognize him at all, but go into a store or someplace, like you're shopping. Ask the clerk to call 911. If he or she won't, then hide behind the counter or start screaming your head off. Draw as much attention as you can. Your rapist will want none of that and will take off."

"But you won't catch him!" she moaned.

"It will unnerve him. He won't feel in control. If we're lucky, that will make him lose interest in you and pick another victim."

"Great, now I'm responsible for him picking some other poor woman to put through what he put me through."

"Well, you could always gouge his eye out."

"What?"

"If you're close enough to reach his face, stick your middle finger into his eye socket, on one side, and hook your finger around behind his eyeball. Jerk like you're trying to start a lawn mower and his eyeball will pop right out of his head. It will hang there by the optic nerve. He'll fall on the ground, and somebody will come and arrest him."

"That's horrible!" She blanched.

"What he did to you is horrible. His eye can be fixed. Nobody can fix what he did to you."

"I really have to go," she said.

"Sure."

She started off, her bag hung over her shoulder. Ten steps away, she stopped and turned.

"Detective?"

"Yeah?"

"Racquetball? Wednesday? Same time and place?"

"Make it six PM and you're on," said Bob.

"Six, Wednesday," she said. "I'm going to embarrass you."

"Don't bring any friends to watch," said Bob. "You might be the one who gets embarrassed."

"We'll see," she said, confidently.

He was smiling as she walked away. This time he got to watch, and she was pure joy to watch. She had that unconscious sway to her hips that announced she was passionate and relaxed. He was surprised, in a way. Most women took a lot longer to learn to relax again, after something like Lacey had been through. They had to learn lots of things over again ... if they could.

******

Bob checked his watch for possibly the hundredth time. He'd been checking all day, as he patrolled and interacted with the public. It had worried him, because he was distracted, and being distracted was dangerous. Traffic was pud duty, but it was still dangerous. You never knew when some motorist would snap and do something stupid ... to someone else ... or to you.

He was distracted by Lacey Fetterman. He couldn't get her out of his mind. Young, healthy, beautiful - she'd had everything going for her, until she was raped. Then her husband had tossed her away like a used tissue. Her world had been destroyed. She was trying to cope, but her internal demons weren't helping. He was going to play racquetball with her in six hours ... five hours and ten minutes ... five hours ...  four and a half hours ...  It went on and on. The last thing Lacey Fetterman needed was a horny detective ... ex-detective ... ogling her and wishing he could see what the rapist had seen.

He walked forward to the car he had stopped for weaving in and out of two lanes, cutting off and almost hitting a car. When he approached the driver, she was still talking on her cell phone, one hand up, telling him to wait. She reached for documents and handed them through the window, still talking. The conversation was about a sale she'd just been to. Rather than confront her, he wrote while she talked.

"Sign here," he said, pointing to a line on the ticket with his pen, which he offered the woman.

"I'll call you back in a sec," she said into the phone and flipped it closed. She turned to Bob. "You're actually going to write me a ticket?" she whined. "I didn't hurt anything!"

"You almost caused an accident," he said, patiently. "The ticket is for inattentive driving. I'd suggest you leave your cell phone in your purse while you're driving."

"Why do you hate me?" screamed the woman, her face twisting into a mask of rage. She ripped the pen from his hand and threw it at him.

"Ma'am, you need to calm down," said Bob patiently.

"Fuck you, pig!" she screamed. She reached for the ignition.

"If you drive away from here," said Bob, his voice suddenly heavy, "I'll have to stop you again, and this time you'll be going downtown in the back seat of my car. Just sign the ticket. It's not an admission of guilt. You can still plead not guilty in court."

"Fucking pigs!" spat the woman. "Harassing citizens ... I pay your fucking salary!" she yelled. "You work for me!"

Her phone rang, on the seat beside her.

"Don't answer it!" warned Bob. "We're not quite finished here."

The woman picked up the phone anyway, looked at it and flipped it open. As she was putting it to her ear, he reached in and pulled it from her hand.

"Shirley can't come to the phone right now," he said, into the mouthpiece. He slapped it closed and threw it past her to the other side of the car. While she was still shocked, he leaned down and picked up his pen.

He stood up to find she hadn't been as shocked as he'd thought she was. Her hand was coming out of her purse, and there was a hunk of nickel plated .25 automatic in it.

He reacted without thinking. His left hand reached through the window and grabbed the slide of the weapon. He twisted it away from him, toward the front of the car, bending her wrist painfully, until she had to let go. Her finger was stuck in the trigger housing, and she pulled. There was a sharp report and the plastic lens covering her speedometer cluster starred.

Bob wrenched the pistol from her finger, eliciting a howl of pain as her finger was jerked loose, and then pulled the door open. Thankfully, she wasn't wearing a seat belt. A small part of his mind said it would remind him later to add that to the ticket. He pulled her out by her hair, stuffing the pistol into his left pants pocket.

The woman struggled, screaming constantly, but was no match for Bob, who got her on the ground and put a knee in the small of her back. He cranked one arm up behind her until her fingers were at the back of her neck. She wailed, as he got the other arm and pulled it back. Her pretty dress was pressed into the dirty, oil-soaked pavement, and her legs kicked, showing nice thighs, as he cuffed her.

"You're under arrest for aggravated assault on a police officer in the commission of his duties," said Bob, breathing deeply, to avoid panting. He went through the rest of the spiel, as she continued to scream at him. He didn't question her. He just pulled her up and tossed her, still screaming into the back of his patrol car. She started kicking at the windows, and he got a shot of peach colored panties under the dress.

His radio call, which included "shots fired," got some attention. Four more cars screamed in. One had the patrol supervisor in it.

"Let me get this straight," said the beefy man. "You stopped her and wrote her for inattentive driving, and she tried to kill you?"

"That's pretty much it," said Bob. He pulled out the pistol and handed it to the supervisor, who sniffed the barrel and shrugged.

"Okay," said the man, handing the pistol back to Bob. "We'll cover your turf. You have a shitload of paperwork to do."

Bob checked his watch. Three hours and forty-five minutes.

He might just make it.

Chapter Four

He was, in fact, five minutes late. Jeff Quincy, the patrol captain, had been just as incredulous as the patrol supervisor, and had used up half an hour being convinced that this wasn't some kind of mistake. When it turned out that the woman was the wife of a city councilman, it got more interesting, but the gun and the bullet hole in the dashboard pretty much told the story. This would be extremely difficult to sweep under the carpet.

It helped that the woman insisted she had only been trying to defend herself, as "that corrupt cop" tried to extort money from her at gunpoint. It didn't hurt that two witnesses had identified themselves to the detectives who responded to the scene, either. Their story matched Bob's, though neither one had seen her pull the gun. They were, however, quite positive that Bob never pulled his, even after they heard a gunshot.

As he arrived at the gym, he saw Lacey, waiting for him. She was already dressed for play.

"Sorry," he panted. "Got held up at work."

"You'd think criminals would be smarter than to try to stick up a cop," said Lacey, smiling.

"Ha, ha," said Bob. "Be ready in a minute."

******

An hour and a half later, they were sitting against the wall of the court again, gasping for breath. She had won six games, he had won five. He was impressed.

"I'm ... embarrassed," he panted.

"You ... should be ... " she panted back. "I was ... only ... playing ... at half ... speed."

He grinned. "You should ... have brought ... your friends after all," he gasped.

A look of pain flitted across her face.

"Haven't ... got any ... left," she said. She breathed deeply several times. "They all act ... like I have AIDS or something."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"There is the support group," she said sadly. "But I don't think any of them are into racquetball." She brightened, but not much. "I did find an apartment."

"Good," he said. "Lock your doors."

She looked at him, her mouth open.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Habit."

"Thank you," she said suddenly.

"What for? You won fair and square."

"No, for caring," she said. "Of everybody, you've been the nicest to me. You treat me like I'm normal."

"You are normal," he said.

"You know what I mean," she said.

"You're welcome."

"I'm having some trust issues ... with men." Her voice was dull.

"Gee," he said. "I wonder why?"

"See!" she said, smiling a little. "You're willing to talk about it. Everybody else just tells me to forget it and move on, like it was just a broken fingernail or something."

"It's uncomfortable to talk about," said Bob. "They want to put a Band-Aid on the owie, so they can think about something less troublesome."

"Anyway, I just wanted you to know I trust you. You're the only man I think I can trust right now."

Bob groaned. "Thanks a lot!"

"What?" she looked hurt.

"You trust me? That's the kiss of death! Next you'll be telling me you just want to be friends!"

She blinked, then laughed. "Are you flirting with me?"

He shook his head. "Wouldn't be ethical. You're vulnerable right now. Add that to drop dead gorgeous and kickass talented on the racquetball court and I'd be a heel to take advantage of you."

Her eyes narrowed and then her brow furrowed.

"You didn't let me win."

He laughed. "You got that right! Nobody's beat me six games in one session in years!"

"You know what happened to me. You know about my ... past. But you just treat me like a friend." She looked confused.

"See?" he chuckled. "There's that word ... already."

"You treat me like a normal woman," she said, not smiling.

"You are a normal woman."

"Other men who know ... there aren't many but they won't even look at me," she said. "Yet here you are ... flirting with me."

"Okay, maybe a little," said Bob. "It's probably just an aftereffect of almost getting shot, so don't pay any attention to it."

"Shot?"

He told her about the councilman's wife.

"You're kidding!" she squealed. "She tried to kill you over a traffic ticket?"

He shrugged.

"You're taking this awfully calmly," she said.

"No I'm not. It drove me to flirt with you. I'm almost out of control." He grinned. Then his grin faded. "Really, I'm sorry about the flirting. I know you don't need that."

"That's all right," she said. "At least from you."

******

As Lacey walked to her car, she thought about what had just happened. For an hour and a half, her mind had been clear. Trying to keep up with Bob on the court took all her concentration. It had been wonderful to do something that made her forget. And afterward, sitting there. She had said it was all right for him to flirt with her, but she wasn't sure about that. It had felt good, for a few seconds. Then everything had rushed back into her mind.

She shuddered, and took inventory again, for possibly the thousandth time. Her body was healing. Soon, there would be no trace to show what had happened to her. She had spent almost an hour, sitting in front of a mirror, staring between her legs. It didn't look any different. It didn't feel any different. The pain when the man had first forced himself into her had been excruciating. There had been no natural lubrication to ease his entry, and it had felt like he was tearing strips of skin from inside her. It didn't look that way, though. Of course, then her body had betrayed her and the lubrication came, bringing with it horror in her mind as she felt her body coming alive under his thrusting hulk. She had hated herself then, not knowing what to think and then thinking that she was so perverted that she was actually approving of this horrible man and the horrible things he was doing to her. Thankfully, most of the details were just a haze in her mind. But that orgasm couldn't be forgotten.

Now, at least, she understood why it had happened. Thanks to the detective ... no ... she thought of him as "Bob" now. "Detective" was so formal ... so distant. He was so different, in so many ways, from any other man she'd ever met. He seemed dangerous, but not in a scary way. She knew he'd played hard. He hadn't cut her any slack at all. His flirting had brought with it instant suspicion that he was gaming her ... setting her up. But he hadn't made any moves. Other than the flirting, anyway. And only a teensy little bit of that. She tried to remember where he had looked at her, on those few occasions she had been with him. She couldn't remember. She'd had too many other things on her mind, then, to think about where he was looking.

Most men looked at her body. Except those who knew she'd been raped. Those men wouldn't even look at her at all. At first, she thought they somehow felt responsible for what had happened to her, but soon she realized they viewed her as something tarnished ... sullied ... not worthy of their evaluation or interest.

That caused her more anguish. She didn't want men to evaluate her or be interested in her. Not yet, anyway. At the same time, she still wanted to be desirable. It frustrated her, because she couldn't decide what she wanted and no one would help her sort it out.

The girls at work seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened, but they couldn't meet her eyes anymore. The women in the support group just droned constantly about how it wasn't their fault. She knew that. The monster that had done this to her was at fault. She hated him with a white-hot anger. She wasn't concerned about what he'd done to her body. That would heal - was already mostly healed - but what he'd done to her spirit ... for that, she wanted revenge.

She sat there, in her car, and the urge came over her. She got into the console and pulled out a cigarette and her lighter. She hated smoking, but sometimes she had to do it. She had managed to get to where she only smoked one every other day or so ... before the rape. Now, she was back to five or six a day. After taking three deep drags, she lowered the window and threw the butt out. She started the car and pulled out of the garage into traffic. She had to wait for one of the city's finest to move from in front of her and it made her think of Bob again.

Of them all, Bob treated her most normally. He said whatever was on his mind and didn't sugar coat it. He treated her as if she weren't diseased. With him, she felt almost normal. He'd given her his card, in the beginning, in case she remembered anything. He'd even written his home number on the back. She remembered being astonished that he'd give her such personal information. She felt the impulse to call him and reached for her purse to find the card and her cell phone. Then she remembered the story about the councilman's wife and left the phone where it was.

When she got home, she put her stuff away and showered.

Then she dug out his card and called him.

******

"Duncan," came the almost gruff voice on the phone.

" Detective? Bob? This is Lacey Fetterman."

"Are you all right?" came his immediate question.

"Yes," she sighed. "I'm fine. I don't know why I called."

"You wanted to talk to somebody," he suggested.

She realized he was right. She still didn't know what she wanted to talk about, but he was right. She just wanted to hear a friendly voice.

"I guess so," she said.

"You want to talk on the phone or in person?" he asked.

She hadn't thought that far ahead.

"I don't know," she said, feeling helpless.

"Well, you haven't had time to eat. Do you like shrimp?"

"I love shrimp," she said. "But I'm trying to learn how to be a vegetarian."

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" he asked.

"Paul is ... " She stopped. She had been trying to become what her husband - her soon to be ex-husband - had become. "I love shrimp," she said, impulsively.

"You want to meet me there, or pick me up, or have me pick you up?" he asked, his tone businesslike.

She was silently amazed. He didn't just decide anything. He gave her options. He gave her too many options, in fact, and her mind stalled, trying to figure out which one to take.

"We should probably drive separately," she said. "You have to go to work tomorrow."

"Actually, I'm off tomorrow," said his steady voice. "I'm moving to swing shift tomorrow night."

"Oh," she said, not knowing how to respond.

"Why don't you pick me up," he suggested. "The place I'm thinking of isn't far from my place."

He gave her instructions on how to get to his building, and they hung up.

******

On the way there, Lacey realized he had intentionally put her in control. By having her pick him up, she would know where he lived. She would be in control of the car. She would control how long they spent together and could end it any time she chose, and not be dependent on him to get home. She wondered if he had done that on purpose ... or if it had just happened that way.

These were the kinds of things that were driving her crazy. She read into every situation ... analyzed everything around her. Even at work, she wondered if people had ulterior motives. Her attacker had planned his assault. She knew that now. He had rigged the door, downstairs. He had chosen her. He may have even known that Paul was out of town. He had manipulated her at every turn, taken every shred of control away from her. He had even made her body betray her. She felt the rage well up inside her again, and noticed she was speeding.

She had to pull over to get her composure back. By the time she saw Bob, standing on the curb, she was breathing normally again. Her stomach hurt, but she knew that would pass, too.

Chapter Five

The place he directed her to was a tiny hole-in-the-wall she would have never given a second glance. She realized how hungry she was the instant she walked in, through the door Bob held for her, and the scent of wonderful, delicious things hit her like a sledge hammer.

"Vinny!" Bob called out to a man, standing at the grill, wearing a white paper hat.

Vinny looked over his shoulder, grinned, and held both hands up in the air, a spatula still in one.

"You got me, copper," he said. "Take me away."

A well-padded woman, wearing a waitress outfit that was at least two sizes too small for her, came toward them. She was beaming, but most men wouldn't have noticed. She had what looked like acres of cleavage, almost bursting out of the top of her uniform.

"My favorite flatfoot in the whole, entire city," she gushed. She hugged Bob and then looked at Lacey. "My my, Bob, you sure have come up in the world!"

"Aw, gee, Donna," said Bob. "I just keep trying to find a woman who can compete with you, that's all."

"Hey!" called out Vinny, who was using the spatula to cook with again. "Quit hitting on my wife! Behave yourself, or I'll call a cop or something!"

"Don't you pay him any mind," cooed Donna, batting her long, over-mascaraed eyelashes at Bob. "I couldn't compete with this one in a million years." She looked back at Lacey. "Honey," she said, "welcome to Santini's, where we serve great food, regardless of the ne'er-do-well you come in with."

There were only six tables in the place, five of which were occupied by people who paid no attention to their entrance at all. Most were busy with shoving food into their mouths. Donna led them to the remaining table and held the chair for Lacey, who sat and then looked up to find the waitress looking down at her. "Sweet or dry?" she asked.

"Sweet," said Lacey, her mind still whirling. Obviously, Bob was well known here. It was almost like walking into some place that was run by your relatives. You were welcome. It was obvious and taken for granted.

"Sweet it is," said Donna. "And I'll bring you a cudgel to manage him with." She tossed her head toward Bob, who was sitting there looking perfectly innocent.

"Shrimp!" said Bob. "Lots of it."

"And what's wrong with my lasagna?" asked Donna archly.

"My lasagna," came Vinny's faint voice.

"The lady likes shrimp," said Bob. "And she's on the verge of becoming a vegetarian."

A look of horror crossed Donna's face. "Oh! Well, then, that's different. Veal's not on the menu tonight, but I could get Vinny to make you one that will solve that little problem."

"Shrimp is fine," said Bob. "And some fried clams too," he added, as an afterthought.

"All right," said Donna. She turned to Lacey. "Sweetheart, I'm so glad he got you here in time."

She hurried off, as Lacey's jaw sagged.

"Sorry," said Bob. "I should have warned you. We like to kid around a little."

"I guess so," said Lacey, weakly.

"You okay?" he asked, concern in his eyes.

"Yes," she answered habitually. "I don't know," she added, honestly.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked.

"I don't know that either," she said, helplessly.

"Tell me where you grew up," he said.

"What?"

"Your childhood. What was it like? Good? Bad? Indifferent?"

Donna returned with two glasses that had to hold half a bottle of wine each. The one she set down in front of Lacey was dark violet. The first sip revealed it to be a Sangria that was rich and fruity.

Once he got her started, she couldn't stop. For an hour, when she wasn't cramming her mouth full of the most delicious shrimp she'd ever tasted, or taking gulps of the sinfully sweet and rich wine, she talked constantly.

She told him how she'd grown up in a strict, conservative family. Her father was a blue collar worker in an auto plant. When she was thirteen, she and two male playmates had been caught playing doctor and she'd been sent to her grandparents, who lived so far from anywhere that the only boys she didn't see at school were cousins who lived in a trailer with her aunt and uncle, behind the big house.

It turned out her cousin's interests were the same as the boys she'd been removed from. Unknown to her grandparents, her sexual education had moved forward at a rapid pace. It was mostly hanky-panky, and mostly harmless, though she became intimately aware of the functions and capabilities of the male sexual organ.

She'd had a pet cow that she milked, and a dog and three cats. She remembered those as the best years of her life.

She told him how she'd gone to college to get an MBA, because everyone said that would take her far. She'd met Paul there and had finally gotten up the courage to let a man go all the way. Because of that, she was sure she loved him. When he'd proposed, she'd said yes - not because the idea of marrying him made fireworks go off, but because she'd thought she loved him and marrying the man you loved was what you were supposed to do.

It wasn't until she had said that that she realized she had blurted out all kinds of personal things, without even thinking about it. Bob had listened and eaten, the whole time, without saying a word.

"I can't believe I just told you all that," she moaned.

"I'm a policeman," he smiled. "I know all the tricks of interrogation and how to get you to spill your guts. Don't feel bad."

She ignored him. "I hardly know you!" she said. "Why would I tell you all those things?" She seemed upset.

"May I make an observation or two?" he asked gently.

"Yes," she said, for lack of anything else to say.

"It sounds to me," he said softly, "that for most of your life, other people have told you what to do and how to feel. You've been bouncing along in life, from place to place, doing what you thought was expected of you. Now, here, sitting with a policeman, you did the same thing. I asked you to tell me about yourself and you did."

She stared at him. That didn't make any sense at all. She'd done what she wanted to do. Hadn't she? She thought back to what she'd just told him and it hit her. He was right! The only things she'd done of her own free will were the secret things. Even then, the boys ... her cousins ... had called all the shots, except for actually having intercourse with her. She hadn't let them do that. She'd wanted to, but was too afraid. And school. She remembered now that she'd talked about archeology, but her grandmother had pooh-poohed that. Nobody could make a living in archeology. Business was the ticket. An MBA would open doors for her.

Had it? Her shop was doing well. Her clientele was loyal. Her employees ran the day-to-day retail part, while she concentrated on ordering and finding new fashions. She had an office, but most of her work could be done anywhere she had access to an internet connection. It was one of the reasons she'd gone out on her own in the first place. She'd already repaid Paul the money he'd fronted her, and the loan she had with the bank was well in hand. Her work hours were flexible. She was even going to be able to get by without Paul's income. It would be tight, but her needs were few. What did she want out of life?

She realized she had no idea. She had no dream - no long term plans. She didn't know where she wanted to be in five years, or what she wanted to be doing. While she didn't have a dream, she felt like she was in one ... a bad dream, and couldn't wake up.

She realized he was looking at her, waiting for her to reply. She had no idea of what to say.

"Another observation," said Bob, suddenly, "is that what happened to you ... the attack ... is just part of that cycle."

That got her attention. She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that, if what I said is true, you're used to doing what is expected of you. You follow orders. You followed his orders too."

"I had to!" she moaned.

"Yes!" he agreed. "You had to."

"But what does that mean?" she whined.

"You're having difficulties right now," he said.

She realized he was waiting for her to confirm that and nodded.

"You want your life back."

She nodded again and had an errant thought that she was doing just what he had said she did ... she nodded, because he expected her to do so.

"My other observation is that you haven't been in control of your own life at all up to now. But now, you have a chance to take control of your life and change it. Right now, you are footloose and fancy free. Your husband is leaving you. You have a new place to live. You can do anything you want to do, Lacey. You can go back to school, or change jobs, or howl at the moon. Life is wide open for you, right now, and you have the chance to change everything. You said you just want your life back, but, from the sounds of it, you're lucky you lost that life."

"That's cruel!" she whispered.

"It's just an observation. You're beautiful. You're young. You're intelligent. You could have the world on a string. You could have any man you wanted, as soon as you decide whether you ever want another man or not. It doesn't have to go back to that world in which you just react to the whims of others."

"You're saying for me to look on the bright side," she said tensely.

"Not at all. I'm saying that you have opportunities now that you didn't realize you had before this happened to you. You had them then, too ... you just didn't see them. Right now you feel helpless and alone. You are anything but helpless. You can do anything you want to do right now. You can turn what was the most negative thing you ever experienced into something that makes your life immeasurably better."

"I'm all alone!" she said.

"No you're not," he said. "You have Vinny and Donna. They'll recognize you any time you come in here from now on. Ask them a question and they'll tell you what they honestly think. You have me. And that's just a start. There are lots more people out there who will help you do what you want to do. Finding them is tricky, sometimes, but they're there."

Lacey heard what he said and it all made perfect sense. Why, then, did she feel so resistant to the idea? He was right. She could do anything she wanted. That meant she'd have to decide what she wanted, though, and she had no idea what that was.

"I own a business," she said. "A successful business. I can't just walk away from that."

"Do you love the business you own?" he asked. "Is it really what you want to do, or is it something you thought you should do?"

In a burst of clarity, Lacey Jean Fetterman had an epiphany. It was as if the sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up her whole life. It started with her business. She'd done that because she thought she could be better than the horrible man who had harassed her in her previous job. She'd complained about it, and Paul had encouraged her to start her own business. It went on to other things, both past and present.

That was a preview of Mistrusting a Memory. To read the rest purchase the book.

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