Justifiable Means

  His voice was waking up now, and she had the feeling he was sitting up. “I understand why you’re jumpy. I probably would be, too. Are you still in the hospital?”

  “No, I’m at home,” she said. “You know, I’m thinking about moving. Maybe I need a new address. Maybe I just need to leave town until this comes to trial.”

  “That’s up to you,” he said, “as long as we can reach you. Are you planning to go in to work today?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t think I can go back there. It would be too hard to face anyone. And his office is there . . .”

  Suddenly she realized that she was babbling like a crazy person, and she had awakened him to do it. “Look, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Or, maybe I did, but I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I’m just a little fragmented. Would you—would you call me when you get to the office today? I’d like to talk to you some more.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “All right, good-bye.” But she held the receiver in her hand for a few moments before finally setting it back in its cradle. Then, going to her favorite chair, still stained with a few drops of her blood from last night, she curled up on it and tried to think what to do next.

  Larry lay in bed for a while after he hung up, wishing there was something he could do to help this distraught woman. He’d seen the way a crisis like this ate at people, how it tore at the fabric of their security and ripped away their trust in all that was good. She needed an anchor.

  He rolled toward his bedside table, fighting the fatigue still clinging to him, and dialed information. Then he sat up and punched in Melissa’s number.

  “Hello?” Her voice was soft, apprehensive, yet hopeful. He wondered who she’d been expecting.

  “Uh, Melissa? This is Larry again. Listen, I was just thinking—would you like to have breakfast somewhere? You obviously need to talk, and I’ve gotten all the sleep I need.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  He could hear the relief in her voice, that someone was taking her seriously. “Yes, that would be great. When?”

  “How about an hour? I don’t live far from you. I could pick you up.” But as quickly as he’d said that, he kicked himself. The last thing a rape victim wanted was another man coming to her apartment. “Or if you’d rather just meet somewhere—”

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “You can pick me up.”

  A little surprised, he said, “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  This time, she didn’t sound quite as forlorn as she said good-bye.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Larry wasn’t sure he would have recognized her if Melissa hadn’t been standing in the door of the same apartment where he’d met her the night before. Her hair had been wet and matted then, and she had been curled up in a blanket most of the time, her eyes raw L and red, her skin pallid.

  But today her hair, a soft baby blonde color, waved down to her shoulders. Soft bangs covered her eyebrows. The skin around her eyes was still red, but their soft blueness was striking even though she wore no makeup. Melissa Nelson wasn’t a woman who needed much help from cosmetics, Larry decided. They would only cheapen the effect of the beauty she’d been gifted with.

  He noticed also how small she was, no more than five-feet-five against his six-two, and he hated the image that crossed his mind of Soames overpowering her. He supposed they should be thankful that she hadn’t been left dead.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Come on in. I have to get my purse.”

  The apartment looked just as he’d left it last night—tables overturned, glass shattered, liquid spilled and congealed on the floor. From the doorway, he could see into the bedroom; nothing had been changed on the bed. Not a pillow had been moved, not a sheet disturbed.

  “I—I didn’t know if the police had gotten all the evidence they needed,” she explained, stepping over some glass and still favoring her left leg. “I thought I’d better leave everything alone until I was sure.”

  He shook his head. “We finished last night, Melissa. We have film and video of the whole scene, and we got fingerprints and a lot of other routine evidence. I don’t think we missed anything.”

  “But are you sure? If I clean it all up, and you think of something you forgot to look for, it’ll be too late.”

  “Have you found anything you think we missed?” he asked, confused.

  “No. I’m just saying there could be something.”

  Gently, trying not to make her feel stupid, Larry said, “Melissa, it’s really okay to start putting things back together. I could help if you want, after breakfast. You can’t keep living in this mess, with all these reminders. It would drive you crazy.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance, if it’ll ensure that he gets put away.”

  “I know you are. You’re very brave. But you really have to start thinking of yourself. You may not even know this yet, but you’ve been traumatized. You need to talk to people who know how to deal with this—even some people who’ve been through it. It would really help you adjust.”

  “I’ll adjust when I know for sure they aren’t going to let him go,” she said. She started out the door, limping slightly, and Larry followed her, locking the door behind him. Every case was different, he thought as they went down the stairs. The last rape he’d worked, the woman had not only showered before she’d called the police, but she’d cleaned up her apartment, trying to wipe away any sign that the man had ever been there. But she hadn’t been able to scrub away the horrible memories, and finally, she had called the police.

  It was odd that Melissa, who had also showered to clean away any bodily memory of the man who’d violated her, had chosen to keep the apartment just as he’d left it. Whether she was incredibly strong, or incredibly paranoid, he wasn’t sure.

  “How’s your leg?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said. “It really doesn’t hurt much.”

  Incredibly strong, he decided, with a very high threshold of pain.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he noticed a tiny old woman peering through the crack of her partially open door. Dismissing her as a neighbor still curious about last night, he stepped out of the building and pointed to his car parked on the street. “It’s not much, but it’s paid for.”

  She smiled, and he realized that he’d never seen that expression on her before. It changed her face, softening the lines around her mouth and eyes.

  He opened the door for her, and she got in, careful not to hurt her leg.

  “So what do you like to eat?”

  “Anything’s fine,” she said. “I didn’t really come to eat.”

  He cranked the car and pulled out into the traffic. “We’ll go to this place I know a couple of blocks away. They have great omelets.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  He glanced at her occasionally as he navigated his way through the traffic. She was pretty, he thought, but he had realized that last night. Her eyes gave her face a startling softness and depth. Left alone, undisturbed, what did she think about? What did she like to do—before last night, that is. And how long would it take for her to heal?

  “Do you have family around here?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head. “No. My parents live in Pensacola.”

  “Have you—told them?”

  The turmoil in her eyes grieved him. “No, I haven’t. I’m not going to. Maybe they won’t hear about it.”

  “Well . . . if this goes to trial, it will be in the paper, and since he’s had arrests in other counties, the coverage might reach across the state.”

  She grew quiet, and her eyes strayed out the window.

  “Why don’t you want them to know?”

  She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I don’t think they can take it. It would kill them.”

  “Well, maybe you could get someone to help you tell them. Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  She hesitated fo
r a moment, and he saw the tears filling her eyes. “No,” she said finally, quietly.

  “Well, I could help you, if you want. I’m used to breaking bad news to people.”

  She brought her eyes back to him. “That must be awful.”

  He frowned and thought about it for a moment. “It used to be. I used to dread it, and wish someone else would do it for me. But then I realized that not everyone can bring bad news with any sense of compassion. I can. I finally decided that if somebody had to tell them horrible things, it might as well be me. At least I could know it was handled right.”

  “And what’s the right way to tell a couple that their daughter has been raped?” she asked in a monotone.

  “Well, I’d tell them first that you were all right. That the man is in custody. Those things should give them some peace. Then I’d let them cry and yell and cuss, if they had to. And then I’d tell them what I do in times of deep tragedy, when I don’t know where to turn.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment. “What do you do?”

  “I pray,” he said. “I turn to God. And instead of asking ‘why,’ I ask God what he wants me to do.”

  Those tears resurfaced again, and she looked down at her hands. “If you’ve never asked why, it’s because you’ve never experienced a tragedy so deep that it shakes the foundation of everything you’ve ever believed in your life. Sometimes you have to ask why.”

  “And if there are no answers?”

  “Then you make some,” she said.

  They pulled into the parking lot of the little diner. Neither of them spoke as they got out and went inside. He was a little surprised when she ordered; he hadn’t expected her to be able to eat. He was glad she could.

  Finally, when the waitress brought their food, he got back to the subject they’d started in the car. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About making your own answers. And I thought how convenient that would be if it were possible. But I’ve found that my own attempts to resolve things never work.” He studied her for a moment as he sipped his coffee. “Tell me something, Melissa. Do you pray?”

  Her eyes seemed to glaze over, as if she were deep in a memory from years earlier. “I used to,” she said. “I used to pray all the time.”

  “What made you stop?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Anger, maybe.”

  “Anger at what?”

  She seemed to shake out of her reverie at his question, and looked at him again. “Personal things. Things that went wrong, without any reason. Things that didn’t make any sense.”

  “And you haven’t prayed since?”

  She hesitated. “Some. But I don’t think they were heard. Finally, I gave up.”

  “I can assure you they were heard.”

  She shrugged. “Well, maybe they were. They just weren’t answered.”

  “Sometimes the answer is ‘wait.’ Sometimes we don’t want to do that. Sometimes maybe we’d rather trust in our own strength.”

  “Maybe,” she whispered. “Maybe so.”

  The food came to the table, and he watched as she ate, picking at her food, looking distracted.

  “So do you want me to talk to your folks?”

  She shook her head. “No. I appreciate it, though. If they hear about it, I guess I’ll have some explaining to do. But maybe they won’t hear, and then they’ll never have to suffer through this. I want to protect them from this if I can.”

  “But you need their support, Melissa. You can’t get it if they don’t know.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Melissa whispered. “I can do this alone.”

  He shut up then, realizing that she was not only strong, she was stubborn. And she’d made up her mind.

  After a few minutes, she moved her plate away and folded her arms on the table. “Detective Millsaps—”

  “Larry,” he interrupted. “Please, call me Larry.”

  “Okay, Larry. I wanted to talk to you about the evidence. What’s being done with it?”

  He set his fork down and leaned back. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re not going to just blow off the hair and fingerprints and everything, and assume that the shirt and knife in his car were enough, are you?”

  Larry shook his head. “Of course not. It’ll all be used in court. Every bit of it.”

  “And, you did have a warrant when you arrested him, didn’t you?”

  Larry nodded. “Search warrants, too.” Her questions bothered him. He wasn’t used to getting the third degree from a victim. She looked at her watch, and he knew that she was calculating how much time before Soames’s bond hearing.

  “Will the judge make an immediate decision about whether to release him or keep him?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I guarantee he’ll keep him. He’d be out of his mind to let Edward Soames back out on the streets.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve seen judges out of their minds before. Outrageous decisions are made in court every day.”

  “That’s one of the hardest things about being a cop. I take ’em in, and they let ’em go. But we have too much evidence on this guy. You really don’t have to worry.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

  He paid the check, and they went back to the car. “I meant it about helping you clean up your apartment,” he said. “I can help you right now.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to go home.”

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

  Her eyes were determined as she faced him. “I want to go with you to the police station, or you can drop me off at the courthouse.”

  “The courthouse? Melissa, you don’t want to be there. You don’t want to see this guy—”

  “I have to know,” she said. “I have to know that they’re not releasing him. Either I can sit in the courtroom and watch the hearing, or I can wait with you until you hear something.”

  “Or I could take you home and call you when I hear.”

  “By the time you call me, he could be at my apartment banging my door down,” she said. “I won’t feel safe until I know for sure.”

  Larry sighed. “All right then. I guess you can come to the precinct. But I can’t stay there all morning. I’ll probably get called away.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I won’t bother anyone. I just need a safe place, until there’s a decision.”

  Larry moaned inwardly, anticipating what Tony would say. But he didn’t have the heart to force her to go home. He’d already taken this much responsibility for her; he might as well finish what he’d started.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The precinct smelled like a locker room when Larry walked Melissa through, trying to find a place to put her while he worked. The waiting area was filled with what looked like a gang, no doubt waiting to post bail for one of their members. Putting her there would be like throwing a lamb to the wolves. She’d already been through enough.

  So he grabbed an empty chair and dragged it around to his desk. “Here,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Checking her watch, she sat down. Larry saw on the wall clock that it was almost ten.

  He tried to recover last night’s train of thought as he sifted through the paperwork he’d left on his desk. He needed more information on the other rape charges against Soames. Names of women. Circumstances. Maybe he could determine his MO, whether he only went after women he knew, or if those pictures found in his apartment were pictures of potential victims. He needed to get a job history, affiliations, a credit report, anything that would help him trace Soames’s steps for the past few years. There might be other women who had been attacked and hadn’t reported it—women who might come forward if they knew someone else had filed charges.

  Whatever it took, he needed to make sure that the system didn’t let Melissa down. She was already, for some reason, very distrustful of it.

  “Hey, how’re you doing?” It was Tony’s voice behind him, and Larry looked up and saw that his partner was address
ing Melissa.

  “Fine.”

  “Is, uh, Detective Millsaps here helping you?”

  Larry grinned. Tony didn’t recognize her. “Tony, this is Melissa Nelson.”

  Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. From last night?”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. “She’s just waiting here for word about Soames’s bond hearing.”

  “What about it?” Tony asked.

  “Whether he’s released on bond.”

  Tony almost laughed, but caught himself. “They’re not letting him out.”

  When Melissa didn’t answer, Larry spoke up. “She didn’t want to wait at home, just in case. Listen, I need to talk to you about some things.”

  He excused himself and whisked Tony into the interrogation room.

  “What’s going on?” Tony asked. “Was she waiting here for us?”

  “No. I picked her up.”

  “You what?”

  “She called me this morning, all upset, worried he was going to get out and come after her. I took her to breakfast—”

  “Oh, brother,” Tony said, shaking his head. “You’re nuts, you know that? Larry, you can’t go getting involved with victims in the crimes you’re investigating. That’s crazy!”

  “I’m not! She’s just scared and paranoid right now. If sitting at my desk makes her feel better, it’s fine with me.”

  “You can’t work with her sitting there.”

  “Watch me.” With that, Larry flung the door open and stormed through it.

  “All right,” Tony said, fast on his heels. “But if she’s here, I’m not going to tiptoe around her. She’s going to have to answer some questions.”

  “Ask away,” he said. “She’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  But Tony didn’t ask. Instead, he busied himself at his computer, punching the keys hard and deliberately, as if to vent some of the frustration he felt. Larry tried to ignore him, doing his own work on the computer, tracking down the work history of Edward Pendergrast, the names of the other two alleged victims who’d pressed charges against him, and any other information he could find.

  After a while, Melissa got up and wandered toward him. “Are you working on my case?” she asked.