Stranglehold. Part 32

A: Uh-huh.

Q: n.o.body else?

A: No.

Q: What else does he do? Can you tell me more?

A: Well ... that's what he does. That's all he does.

Q: How does he mess with you, Robert? What do you mean by "messes" with you?

A: He puts his thing in. Back here.

Q: He puts it in? Puts it in where? Do you have a name for it?

A: Rear. (slightly inaudible) Q: What?

A: The rear.

Q: He puts it in your rear. Is his thing hard or soft?

A: Hard.

Q: Hard. And does that hurt?

A: Yes.

Twenty-eight.

The Good News and the Bad News

"We can't release him to you."

Lieutenant Sweeney lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out away from her. They were standing in the gray hallway outside the cubicle where Robert had been interviewed. He was still inside and she could see him there sitting with Cindy, who'd come down with her to provide moral support.

"What do you mean you can't release him?" she said.

"Dammit, I was afraid of this," said Sansom. He looked at Andrea Stone, who sighed and shook her head. "Edward Wood called you, didn't he?"

"That's right," said Sweeney, "reminding us that the boy was under a court order giving custody to his father and removing it from his mother."

"What are you saying?" She felt dizzy. Like she'd fallen down into some insane eat-me drink-me rabbit hole again.

Was this ever going to end?

"Well, there's no way we're giving him back to his father. Not after this. But I can't hand him over to you, either, Mrs. Danse, much as I'd like to. I'm sorry. Best thing we can do now is put Robert up in a shelter for a few days, until the judge can view this evidence."

"A shelter? Jesus! Hasn't he been through enough?"

"Just for a couple of days. It won't be long, I promise."

"Oh, Christ. He's barely gone on two overnights in his entire life. Much less a shelter."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Danse. They're not exactly snake pits these days."

"Will I be able to see him?"

"Whenever you want."

"Will Arthur be able to see him?"

"Only under supervision. I'll make absolutely sure of it." She looked helplessly at Sansom and Andrea Stone. "Isn't there something ...?"

"It's the law, Mrs. Danse," Sweeney said gently.

The law. She was beginning to hate the words.

She felt suddenly very tired. She sat down on wooden bench opposite the window. She could see Robert smiling inside the cubicle. Cindy had said something funny to him. It helped to have Cindy there.

"Give me a minute, will you? A minute alone, I mean. I just want to sit awhile. Then I'll go in and ... I'll tell him."

"Take your time. We'll go get some coffee," Sweeney said. "If you need anything we'll be right down the hall here."

"Thank you. You're ... very kind."

She saw the psychologist wince. Obviously he was dealing with his own feelings on this and didn't feel particularly kind.

Right now neither did she.

Arthur, she thought, you've got an enormous amount to pay for. Hurt all around.

She wondered if he'd ever pay.

Most of them didn't.

"He's evidently stated that you had a.n.a.l intercourse with him on several occasions. Including the afternoon in question," said Wood. "He described it in detail. And what's this business about a rabbit?"

Arthur gripped the phone like he wanted to squeeze it in half. He was glad Wood wasn't around to see the face that stared back at him from the office minor. Wood wouldn't like what he was seeing there.

"He's lying," he said.

"It doesn't matter if he's lying. It only matters whether the psychologists, and ultimately the judge, believe him. And from what my source at the troopers' station tells me, he's been pretty convincing."

"Christ! So now what do we do?"

"We wait. I'll obtain a copy of the tape and look it over. There'll be another hearing in a couple of days to see if the judge wishes to amend his ruling. Just the lawyers present. I'll argue coercion on the part of your wife and-if, from the look of the tape, I feel I can get away with it-leading on the part of the psychologists. I'll talk to Robert and see if he might not recant his testimony. Then we see what happens. In the meantime it might be a good idea to go visit him. It'll look good for you. I'll call with the shelter's address first thing tomorrow. Try to get some sleep, Arthur. You looked awful in court this morning. No offense."

Wood said good night and hung up the phone.

He'd visit him all right, he thought. He'd visit the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

And the G.o.dd.a.m.n f.u.c.king little piece of gash was going to seriously wish he hadn't.

Twenty-nine.

Forest Night

It had only happened to her because she'd done the right thing.

The party had lasted from nine till two in the morning and by then even though she was only nursing white wine spritzers she was really too high to drive, she didn't drink much, and because she came to the party alone and as usual was going to leave alone she decided it was better and wiser to walk back home-and she was over halfway there with n.o.body around anywhere when the man pulled up in his big black car opposite, going south to her north, and stopped the car and got out and walked over and pointed a gun at her and said, get in.

By now he'd raped her twice on the woodland floor at gunpoint and Marge Bernhardt was pleading for her life. It wasn't much of a life.

She knew that.

Four months ago nearly to the day the man she was going to marry was killed in his car, sideswiped by a drunken sixty-year-old man. She thought of it as murder. Dean was an electrician and made good money and they were going to have kids. Maybe two or three kids. They had already looked at a house. She'd never quite put herself back together since. Her life was work at Denny's and the gym after that and her three cats Beast and Vinni and Zoey and then at night reading or watching television.

She didn't date. She didn't party. Deciding to go to Mary's twenty-fifth birthday party was an aberration, an act of will compounded by longtime allegiance to her best and dearest friend, who had comforted her and kept her sane since the night they pulled Dean's blackened body, cut practically in half by the smashed-in driver's side door, out of his 1994 Mazda.

It wasn't much of a life but it could be more someday and now maybe it would never be anything, nothing, as Dean's had become nothing that night and she realized what that truly meant now and she pleaded with him.

She was tied by her wrists to the limb of an oak tree, each wrist tied separately to the limb for some reason and the lengths of rope slightly uneven so that she was standing canted on tiptoe and all she could think to say was please please please as she watched him in the moonlight. He was walking back and forth in front of her looking up, searching for something, and the gun was in his pocket but instead he held a knife which he'd taken from the shoulder bag.

He reached over her head to the left and cut a branch away and then stripped it of leaves using his gloved left hand. The gloves too had come out of the bag.

He walked over and popped the top b.u.t.ton of her blouse with the knife. He'd raped her with her clothes on, cutting just the panties away. They lay in front of her like a patch of snow in the moonlight.

He hadn't even removed her Reeboks.

When the b.u.t.tons were gone he cut the neck of the blouse at the back and tore it down and then cut through each sleeve. She could feel the cold blunt edge of the blade travel along her arms. The blouse fell away and the cold night air on her flesh made the trembling even worse.

He used the knife on the b.u.t.ton of her skirt and then unzipped it and pulled it down and off her. He stepped back and looked. He swung the branch back and forth. Once. Twice.

It whistled in the silence.

He put it down on the ground and reached into the bag again, and took out two thin white dish towels. He balled one up and approached her.

"Open," he said.

She shook her head. "Please," she said. "No." The thought of the gag was terrifying to her. If she couldn't talk to him then there was no possibility of stopping him. None.

She couldn't have him use the gag.

"Open!" he said and placed the point of the knife against her bra, unerringly finding the fear-hard tip of the nipple, and pressed in. The pain was electric. She licked her lips and parted them, aware of the salt taste of tears.

He shoved the cloth into her mouth and tied the other towel over it, catching long thin strands of her hair in the double knot behind her head.

She saw him reach into the bag again and heard a soft tinkling sound as he took something from the bag and placed it in his right front pocket and then turned and put something else into his back pocket as he did so. Then he walked over.

He reached up and she watched him as he pulled the knot free of her right wrist. The knots he'd used were some sort of trick. She'd been tugging at them so hard her wrists were raw, but all he did was pluck the center of this one and it fell right off her.

The hand and wrist throbbed with returning circulation and it seemed to affect her entire body. She saw bright yellow spots in front of her eyes in a surrounding, shimmering blackness and then as it cleared saw him reach into his pocket and take something out, so that whatever it was, was still in his hand when he grabbed her wrist and held the back of it flat and open to the wide thick trunk of the oak tree and she felt the sharp point of something against her palm, his powerful wrist against hers, holding it in place.

She felt a stab of pain against the center of her hand as he reached into his back pocket and suddenly she knew what all of this meant. Knew what he was doing.

"No!" she screamed beneath the gag and just as the hammer came down she pulled hard from the shoulder for all she was worth. The hand moved just inches, and she felt the thickness of the nail pierce the delicate web of flesh between her third and fourth fingers and thud deep into the tree.

She heard him curse and reach into his pocket for a second nail.

It was the only chance she'd get.

She screamed again and pulled.

The flesh tore away with a surprising, terrifying resistance. She was aware of blood pouring from the wound as she reached up and grabbed the rough limb of the tree with both hands and hauled herself up and swung back, kicking at him while he still fumbled in his pocket for the second nail, felt a moment of elation as her shoes connected solidly with his chest that was as frightening as anything that had happened to her all night long because now there was hope.

She reached up with b.l.o.o.d.y slippery fingers and tugged at the second knot exactly as he had done.

And suddenly she was free.

She saw that kicking him she'd sent him flying into a stand of white birch opposite. He had fallen, was trying to stand, but his fall had wedged him into the low, four-limbed bole of one of the trees and he couldn't find sufficient purchase at an angle that would allow him to haul himself up.

And maybe she'd hurt him. Maybe he was dazed.

It gave her that moment. That precious second to run.