A Faint Cold Fear

  “It wasn’t payback,” he said, and she did not know if she believed him or not.

  Sara put her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress a sob. “Jesus Christ, Jeff.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know,” she said, her voice loud in the room. “My God, did you see those tattoos?” Sara did not let him answer. “He’s got a swastika—” She could not continue. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  Jeffrey was silent. Then, “I wanted you to see,” he said. “I wanted you to know what we’re dealing with.”

  “You couldn’t tell me?” she demanded, turning on the faucet again. She scooped water into her hand so she could wash the bad taste out of her mouth. “What took you so long?” she asked, remembering the way he had pounded Ethan’s head back into the wall. “Did you hit him again?”

  “I didn’t hit him in the first place.”

  “You didn’t hit him in the eye?” she demanded. “His nose was bleeding, Jeffrey. The blood was fresh.”

  “I told you, I didn’t hit him.”

  She grabbed his hands, checking his knuckles for cuts or bruises. They were clean, but she still asked, “Where’s your class ring?”

  “I took it off.”

  “You never take that ring off.”

  “Sunday,” he said. “I took it off Sunday before I talked to your folks.”

  “Why?”

  He relented angrily, “There was blood, Sara. Okay? There was blood from Tess.”

  Sara dropped his hand. She asked the question she would not let herself think when she was in the same room with White. “Do you think he could have stabbed Tessa?”

  “He doesn’t have an alibi for Sunday. Not a good one.”

  “Where was he?”

  “He says in the library,” Jeffrey answered. “No one remembers him. He could have been in the woods. He could have killed Andy, then waited around in the woods to see what was going on.”

  Sara nodded that he should continue.

  “He wasn’t waiting for Tessa, Sara. She just came along, and he took advantage of the situation.”

  Sara gripped the counter again, closing her eyes, trying to reconcile the man in the next room with Tessa’s stabbing. Sara had been in the presence of a murderer before, and what had struck her about that man was that he was so normal, so ordinary. With his clothes on, Ethan White had seemed the same way. He could be just another kid on campus. He could have been one of her patients. Somewhere, back in his hometown, there could be a pediatrician just like Sara who watched Ethan White grow into a man.

  When she could speak, she asked, “Where does Lena fit into all of this?”

  “She’s seeing him,” Jeffrey said. “She’s his girlfriend.”

  “I can’t believe . . .”

  “When you see her,” Jeffrey began, “when you see her, Sara, I want you to remember that she’s involved with White. She’s protecting him.” He pointed at the wall, indicating the next exam room. “That thing you saw in there, that animal—she’s protecting him.”

  “Protecting him from what?” Sara asked. “It’s her fingerprints on the knife. She’s the one who worked with Chuck.”

  “You’ll understand when you see her.”

  “Is this another surprise?” she asked, thinking she could not handle another one, especially if it had anything to do with Lena. “Does she have a swastika, too?”

  “Honestly,” Jeffrey began, “I don’t know what to make of her. She looks bad. Bad like she’s been hurt.”

  “Has she been?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Somebody worked her over.”

  “Who?”

  “Frank thinks Chuck did something.”

  “Did what?” Sara asked, dreading what he might say.

  “Attacked her,” Jeffrey said. “Or maybe he just pissed her off. She told White, and White went ballistic.”

  “What do you think happened?” Sara asked.

  “Honestly, who the hell knows?” he said. “And she’s not telling me anything.”

  “Did you ask her the same way you asked White?” she said. “With your hand pressed into her face?”

  The hurt in his eyes made her wish she could take back her words, but Sara knew that would accomplish nothing. She still wanted an answer to her question.

  He asked her, “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “I think . . . ,” Sara began, not knowing what to say, “I think we both have jobs to do. I think we can’t talk about this right now.”

  “I want to talk about it,” he said. “I need you with me on this, Sara. I can’t fight you and everybody else at the same time.”

  “Now isn’t the time,” she told him. “Where’s Lena?”

  Jeffrey stepped back into the hall, indicating that she should see for herself.

  Sara dried her hands on her pants as she walked past Brad toward the next room. She reached down to open the door just as Frank was coming out.

  “Hey,” Frank said, looking somewhere past her shoulder. “She wanted some water.”

  Sara walked into the room. The first thing she saw was not Lena but the rape kit that had been left on the counter. Sara froze, unable to move until Jeffrey put his hand to her back and gently pushed. She wanted to rail against him, to pound her fists into his chest and damn him for making her do this again, but all the spirit had been drained out of her. She felt completely empty of everything but sorrow.

  Jeffrey said, “Sara Linton, this is Jill Rosen.”

  A small woman dressed in black stood with her back against the wall. She said something, but all Sara heard was a clicking of metal against metal. Lena was sitting on the bed, her feet hanging over the side. She was dressed in a green hospital gown with a ribbon at the neck. She was moving her hand back and forth in what looked like a nervous twitch, and the handcuff around her wrist was clicking on the bar at the foot of the bed.

  Sara bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She said, “Get those handcuffs off her right now.”

  Jeffrey hesitated but did as she instructed.

  When he had removed the cuffs, she told him, “Get out,” in a voice that invited no discussion.

  Again he hesitated. She looked him right in the eye and crisply enunciated the two words. “Get. Out.”

  Jeffrey left, the door snicking closed behind him. Sara stood with her hands on her hips, a few feet away from Lena. Though the handcuffs were off, Lena’s hand continued to move back and forth as if in a palsy. Sara had thought Jeffrey’s leaving would make the room feel less small, but the walls were still closing in on her. There was a palpable fear in the room, and Sara felt a sudden coldness overwhelm her.

  Sara asked, “Who did this to you?”

  Lena cleared her throat, staring at the floor. When she tried to speak, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “I fell.”

  Sara put her hand to her chest. “Lena,” she said, “you’ve been raped.”

  “I fell,” Lena repeated, her hand still shaking.

  Jill Rosen crossed the room and wet a paper towel at the sink. She walked back to Lena, patting the towel to her face and neck.

  Sara asked, “Did Ethan do this to you?”

  Lena shook her head as Rosen tried to wipe away some of the blood.

  She said, “Ethan didn’t do anything.”

  Rosen placed the towel on the back of Lena’s neck. She might have been wiping away evidence, but Sara did not care.

  “Lena,” Sara said, “it’s okay. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

  Lena closed her eyes, but she let Rosen wipe under her chin. “He didn’t hurt me.”

  “This is not your fault,” Sara said. “You don’t have to protect him.”

  Lena kept her eyes closed.

  “Did Chuck do this?” Sara asked. Rosen looked up, startled.

  Sara repeated, “Was it Chuck?”

  Lena whispered, “I haven’t seen Chuck.”

  Sara sat on the edge of the bed, wanting to u
nderstand. “Lena, please.”

  Lena turned her head away. The gown slipped, and Sara could see a deep bite mark just above her right breast.

  Rosen finally spoke. “Did Chuck hurt you?”

  “I shouldn’t have called you,” Lena told the other woman.

  Rosen’s eyes watered as she tucked Lena’s hair behind her ear. She was probably seeing herself twenty years ago.

  Lena told her, “Please go.”

  Rosen looked at Sara as if she didn’t quite trust her. “You have the right to have someone here,” Rosen said. Working on campus, the woman must have gotten calls like this before. She knew the system, even if she never used it for herself.

  “Please go,” Lena repeated, her eyes still closed, as if she could will the woman away.

  Rosen opened her mouth to say something more but seemed to decide against it. She left the room quickly, like a prisoner escaping.

  Lena’s eyes remained closed. Her throat worked, and she coughed.

  “It sounds like your trachea is bruised,” Sara told her. “If your larynx is damaged—” Sara stopped, wondering if Lena was even listening. Her eyes were closed so tightly it looked as if she wanted to shut out the world.

  “Lena,” Sara said, her mind going back to the forest with Tessa, “are you having any trouble breathing?”

  Almost imperceptibly, Lena shook her head once in a tight no.

  “Do you mind if I feel?” Sara asked, but she did not wait for an answer. As gently as she could, Sara tested the skin around Lena’s larynx for pockets of air. “It’s just bruised,” she said. “It’s not fractured, but it’ll hurt for a while.”

  Lena coughed again, and Sara got her a glass of water.

  “Slowly,” Sara told her, tilting down the bottom of the glass.

  She coughed again, looking around the room like she could not remember how she had gotten here.

  “You’re at the hospital,” Sara said. “Did Chuck hurt you and Ethan found out? Is that what happened, Lena?”

  She swallowed, wincing from the pain. “I fell.”

  “Lena,” Sara breathed, feeling such deep sadness that she could barely talk. “My God, please, just tell me what happened.”

  Lena kept her head down, mumbling something.

  Sara asked, “What?”

  She cleared her throat, finally opening her eyes. The blood vessels were broken, tiny red dots scattered in the whites.

  She said, “I want to take a shower.”

  Sara looked at the rape kit on the counter. She did not think she could do this again. It was too much for one person to handle. The way Lena just sat there, helpless, waiting for Sara to do whatever she had to do, broke her heart.

  Lena must have sensed her trepidation. “Please just get this over with,” she whispered. “I feel so dirty. I have to take a shower.”

  Sara made herself slide off the bed and walk over to the counter. She felt numb when she checked to make sure there was film in the camera.

  Following procedure, Sara asked, “Have you had consensual sex with anyone in the last twenty-four hours?”

  Lena nodded. “Yes.”

  Sara closed her eyes. “Consensual sex?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  Sara tried to keep her tone steady. “Have you douched or showered since the attack?”

  “I wasn’t attacked.”

  Sara walked over, standing in front of Lena. “There’s a pill I can give you,” she said. “Like the one I gave you before.”

  Lena’s hand still shook, rubbing against the sheet on the bed.

  “It’s for emergency contraception.”

  Lena moved her lips without speaking.

  “It’s also called a morning-after pill. Do you remember how it works?”

  Lena nodded, but Sara told her anyway.

  “You’ll need to take one now and another one in twelve hours. I’ll give you something for the nausea. Was the nausea bad last time?”

  Lena might have nodded, but Sara was not certain.

  “You might have cramping, dizziness, spotting.”

  Lena stopped her. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Sara asked.

  “Okay,” she repeated. “Yes. Give me the pills.”

  Sara sat at her desk in the morgue, her head in her hands, the telephone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she listened to her father’s cell phone ring.

  “Sara?” Cathy answered, concern straining her voice. “Where are you?”

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “We don’t know how to check that,” her mother said, as if it were obvious. “We were starting to get worried.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” Sara said, looking at the clock out in the morgue. Her parents had been expecting her to call an hour ago. “Chuck Gaines has been killed.”

  Cathy was too shocked to be worried anymore. “The boy who ate your macaroni project in the third grade?”

  “Yes,” Sara answered. Her mother always remembered people from Sara’s childhood by something stupid they had done as kids.

  Cathy said, “Well, how horrible,” not making the connection that Chuck’s death could somehow be related to Tessa’s stabbing.

  “I’ve got to do the autopsy, and there are some other things.” Sara did not want to tell her mother about Lena Adams or anything else that had happened at the hospital. Even if she tried, Sara did not think she could articulate her feelings. She felt raw and exposed and wanted nothing more than to be with her family right now.

  “Can you come in the morning?” Cathy asked, a strange tone to her voice.

  “I’m going to come tonight as soon as I can,” Sara said, thinking she had never wanted to leave town more than she did right now. “Is Tess okay?”

  “She’s right here,” Cathy said. “Talking to Devon.”

  “Well,” Sara said. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Probably first one,” Cathy answered cryptically.

  “How about Daddy?”

  Cathy paused before answering. “He’s okay,” she said, in a way that was far from convincing.

  Sara tried to hold back her tears. She felt like she was barely treading water as it was. The added strain of worrying about her relationship with her father was going to pull her under.

  “Baby?” Cathy asked.

  Sara saw Jeffrey by the shadow that fell over her desk. She looked up, but not at him. Through the window she saw Frank and Carlos talking by the body.

  Sara said, “Jeff’s here, Mama. I need to get started.”

  Cathy still sounded concerned, but she said, “All right.”

  “I’ll come as soon as I can,” Sara told her, then hung up.

  Jeffrey asked, “Is something wrong with Tess?”

  “I just need to see her,” Sara said. “I need to be with my family.”

  Jeffrey got the implication that this did not include him. “Are we going to talk about this now?”

  “You handcuffed her,” Sara said, torn between hurt and outrage. “I can’t believe you handcuffed her.”

  “She’s a suspect, Sara.” He looked back over his shoulder. Frank was staring at his notebook, but Sara knew he could hear every word they said. Still, she raised her voice just to make sure.

  “She was raped, Jeffrey. I don’t know by whom, but she was raped, and you shouldn’t have handcuffed her.”

  “She’s part of a murder investigation.”

  “She wasn’t going anywhere in that room.”

  “That wasn’t the point.”

  “What was the point?” she demanded, still trying to keep her voice low. “To torture her? To make her break?”

  “That’s what I do, Sara. I get people to confess.”

  “I’m sure you get them to say a lot of things just to stop you from hitting them.”

  “Let me tell you something, Sara, a guy like Ethan White responds to one thing.”

  “Oh, did I miss the part where he told you what you wanted to know??
??

  Jeffrey stared at her, clearly trying not to yell. He finally asked, “Can’t we just go back to how things were this morning?”

  “This morning you hadn’t handcuffed a rape victim to a hospital bed.”

  “I’m not the one that withheld evidence from you.”

  “That’s not withholding evidence, you ass. That’s protecting a patient. How would you like it if someone used my rape kit to frame me?”

  “Frame you?” he echoed. “Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon. She looks like somebody beat the shit out of her. Her boyfriend has a criminal record as long as my dick. What the hell else am I supposed to think?” He made a visible effort to check his temper. “I can’t dictate my job by what pleases you.”

  “No,” she said, standing. “Or by common decency either.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she hissed, slamming the door closed. She had stopped wanting Frank to hear. “You saw what she looked like, what he did to her. You must have the pictures now. Did you see the lacerations on her legs? Did you see the bite marks on her breast?”

  “Yes,” he told he. “I saw the pictures. I saw them.” He shook his head as though he wished he had not.

  “Do you really think Lena killed Chuck?”

  “Nothing ties White to the scene,” he told her. “Give me something that ties him to the scene. Give me something other than her bloody fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

  Sara could not get past one point. “You shouldn’t have handcuffed her.”

  “Am I supposed to ignore the fact that she might have killed somebody just because I feel sorry for her?”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do,” he told her. “Do you think I like seeing her like that? Jesus Christ.”

  “It could have been self-defense.”

  “That’s for her lawyer to decide,” Jeffrey said, and though his tone was harsh, Sara knew that he was right. “I can’t let how I feel about her interfere with my job, and neither should you.”

  “I guess I’m just not as professional as you are.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Eighty percent of all women who are raped experience a second attack at some point in their lives,” she told him. “Did you know that?”

  His silence answered her question.