Precious Blood (4 page)

“There are window guards in the kitchen, but I figured if I made it to the bathroom at the end of the hall, I could try to climb down the trellis into the garden.

“That’s when she started to scream. He must have stuck something in her mouth, because she suddenly stopped. It
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was like I was paralyzed—I knew he was hurting her, and I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t move.”

Seeing her start to shake, Jenner said, “About what time was that?” Keep her focused on the details.

She shook her head. “Maybe eleven p.m.? A little later, maybe.”

He nodded. “Then what happened?”

“I was too scared to move. I just lay there under the kitchen counter, trying not to breathe. Smelling the linoleum and just . . .
listening
to him doing stuff to her. I kept telling myself, he’s going to rape her and then he’ll leave, and then it will be over, and we’ll be okay in the end. But then I heard the drill.”

She picked up the tumbler and drained it, then put it back on the table. She looked at Jenner, then slid the glass to him.

He poured and set the tumbler in front of her.

“He turned up the TV real loud, but I could hear him using the drill, like . . .” She breathed slowly, concentrating, then continued, stronger now. “It didn’t sound like when you drill wood.

“That went on for a while. And he was talking to her, but she wasn’t saying anything. Then I heard the whipping sound, over and over, and she wasn’t making any noise. And he kept talking to her, but I just knew she was dead. I could feel it. And I think he was taking pictures, too; I think I heard a Polaroid camera—I recognized that sound when the print comes out.”

“And you were in the kitchen? Did you see a flash or anything?”

She closed her eyes, trying to remember. She shook her head.

“No, I didn’t see a flash. But I was tucked all the way under the counter, and I wasn’t looking out. I knew if he came back to the kitchen to get his stuff, he’d find me—he’d left his badge on the table, and his jacket was on a chair, with his walkie-talkie.”

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Garcia asked if she’d got a good look at the badge; she hadn’t. It looked like a typical white metal police badge.

Jenner asked if Andie made any noise after she’d first heard the camera.

“No, I don’t think so. But the TV was really loud. And there was some kind of burning smell—I don’t know what that was.”

Garcia said, “Did you see or smell smoke?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t like a smoky smell, more chemical, like metal or something. I didn’t recognize it.

“I was trying not to hear what he was doing to her. It took him a long time, and then he stopped moving around, but he didn’t leave. I was lying there waiting for him to come in and find me and hurt me, but he stayed in the living room. And then I realized he was just watching TV. And that was when I decided I was going to get out of there alive.”

She looked up at them, her words now fast.

“I checked his jacket for his gun, but it wasn’t there. So I took a kitchen knife and started to crawl down the hallway to the bathroom, trying to stay in the shadows. I’d only made it halfway to her door when he said,

“Ana?”

She lunged to her feet and ran, but he was incredibly
fast. His fist grabbed her hair, jerking her backward, the
knife flying out of her hands, her hair ripping out of her
scalp as she spun around the corner.

She stumbled to the door handle, slammed the door
hard on his reaching hand. He gasped and pulled back.

She closed the door and slid the bolt, and he was instantly pounding at the door, trying to kick it in. She ran
to the window, threw it open, and screamed as she tried
to squeeze through the bars, the whole room booming as
his foot smashed against the door.

She could hear the door splintering as she breathed in
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and out, trying to wedge herself through the gap. There
was a shattering noise as he burst through, and she
pushed hard, and finally swung out onto the trellis, but
immediately lost her grip and fell onto the trash barrels
fifteen feet below.

Half-conscious on the wet flagstones of the yard,
unable to breathe, she looked up; he was standing there
in the window, looking down at her in the rain. His face
and chest were covered in blood—he was naked.

He was smiling through lips smeared with Andie’s blood,
smiling at her as he said, “Ouch! That had to hurt!”

He watched her struggling to catch her breath, struggling to crawl.

“Run along. I’ll come for you so we can play
later . . .”

Then she was crawling, moving across the rotting
leaves and glistening flagstones toward the back wall.

“But where will you go? No more Mommy. No more
Daddy. Poor little Ana! All alone . . .”

He heard her sob, and his tone changed abruptly.

“I hope you’re not crying for that bitch! You know, she
wasn’t really your friend. I’d barely started on her when
she gave you up: she told me you were there, tried to get
me to play with you instead!” He laughed sharply. “I
didn’t believe her, but I guess the little whore was telling
the truth . . . So, where were you hiding?”

She’d reached the sundial now, and managed to pull
herself to standing.

He started to clap slowly, the sounds echoing in the
wet garden. Then he stopped and said, “You do know
there’s nowhere you can go, don’t you? Wherever you go,
I’ll come for you. And I’ll take you away, and make you
special, too.”

“Then I climbed up onto the sundial and pulled myself over the wall; I cut myself on the bottle glass in the concrete
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on top. I went through the yard, out the gate onto Sixth, yelling the whole time, but it was cold and pouring, and there was no one on the street. No one to help . . .”

She breathed out. Jenner could smell the alcohol on her breath; when she spoke, he realized she was starting to slur her words. “I called 911 from the pay phone on B, but then I thought, what if they send
him
? So I ran to the all-night Laundromat and called my uncle’s satellite number, but couldn’t get through. Someone must have called 911 for me, because the cops came to the Laundromat pretty quick.”

She gave a little smile. “But I was already moving by that time—they drove straight past me. I stole the raincoat from the Laundromat and ran to your building. It took forever to get through to Uncle Douggie from his apartment; he told me to call 911, but when you dial 911, they know where you’re calling from, so I wouldn’t. He couldn’t dial 911, so I gave him Andie’s home number in Boston to tell her dad.

“He called later, and said he couldn’t reach you, but I should just go on up to your loft. And that you were one of his best friends, and you were going to help Andie’s dad, and you would help me. And I said I would, but I was scared, I guess. When I finally went up, you were gone.”

She looked at Jenner and flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean to just, like, break in like that. I knocked, but there wasn’t any answer, and I couldn’t stay in the hall, so I went in.”

Jenner said, “Why didn’t you say anything when I got home?”

“I didn’t hear you come in—I think I fell asleep for a little.

I was in your TV room. I heard you in the shower; I waited a bit until you were, like, decent.”

Garcia said, “And the rest, we know.”

They were all quiet for a while. Garcia had her describe the man—white, mid-thirties, average height, muscular build.

Shortish hair, she thought. Clean-shaven. American accent,
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nothing special. That was about it; she’d only seen him briefly, through the rain, a silhouette in the dark window. She didn’t recognize him, had no idea how he knew all about her.

The detective stood, cell phone in hand. “You’re going to have to make a formal statement at the precinct. And we’re going to need you to look at mug shots.”

She looked to Jenner, pleading. Jenner said, “Rad, do you think—”

Rad shook his head. “Jenner, this has to be by the book.”

Jenner steered him to the door.

“Sure, she has to make a statement, but does it have to be
now
? This thing about the shield and the police radio . . .

Can you keep her out of it for now, at least until you know what’s going on? Maybe take her statement here?”

Garcia gave a slow shrug. “I don’t know what to do. I feel for the kid, but we both know this piece of garbage is probably faking it, tinning his way in with a fake shield. He’s probably some kind of rent-a-cop or something, some scum-bag with a fake badge, a burglary kit, and a Radio Shack walkie-talkie. She’s a witness, she’s seen him, she’s got to help us.”

He looked back at her, sitting at the table, watching him decide her fate; his face softened.

He breathed out wearily. “Okay, I’ll tell you what: when I know what’s going on, I’ll get together with Silver and the bosses, and we’ll have a nice sit-down and decide what to do. I’ll get Internal Affairs on board. She can rest up here for now, but make sure she understands that sooner or later she’s coming in.”

Rad slipped on his coat, walking toward the door. He turned. “And Jenner? She’s your responsibility now. She doesn’t leave this apartment without me knowing about it.

Okay?”

Jenner nodded, and let Garcia out.

And then he was alone in his apartment with Ana.

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*

*

*

They looked at each other for a second. He saw the shiver of her thin shoulders in the gray hooded sweatshirt, and then she lifted a hand to her brow in exhaustion, and he saw all the blood again.

He shook his head. “C’mon. I better have a look at those wounds.”

She swayed as she stood; he couldn’t tell if it was fatigue or because she was pretty drunk.

In the light of the bathroom, standing in front of him as he sat on the edge of the tub, she stripped off her sweatshirt and stepped out of her jeans, hiking up her tank top with her good right hand so Jenner could examine her wounds. She looked straight ahead, stiffening as he swabbed her belly with peroxide, clenching her teeth but making no sound.

The wounds were ragged, but the glass hadn’t gone deep. He cleaned her palm, then did his best to close the injuries with Steri-Strips, wrapping her hand in layers of gauze.

“Finished,” Jenner said. “I don’t have anything your size, but there’s pajamas in the closet behind you. Just leave your clothes in the tub—later, I can get you something to wear.”

There was a muffled “Thank you” as he closed the door behind him.

When she hadn’t come out after fifteen minutes, he tapped on the door and let himself in. She was sitting on the floor in his pajamas, crying. She’d been sick, and Jenner wiped her face with a damp washcloth, and then led her to the bed.

He sat beside the bed for an hour; she would quiet and then start to cry again as the grief and fear carved through the exhaustion. He finally gave her half an Ativan, and she was asleep before she’d finished her water, slumped against him.

He let her head down onto the pillow and tugged the sheet up over her chest.

He went back to the bathroom. He wiped several coat
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hangers down with rubbing alcohol, then carefully hung her clothes to dry. He took three clean paper shopping bags from the kitchen; when the clothing was dry, he’d use them to package it for the crime lab.

He quickly examined the clothes for hairs or fibers or secretions, but there was so much blood he couldn’t see anything, particularly under the soft glow of his bathroom lighting. The blood on the uppers of her white K-Swiss sneakers looked dry, so he dropped them into a paper bag, crumpled it shut, and put it by the front door.

Lips drawn tight, Whittaker took the front stairs down into the morgue. The day’s autopsy list had been short, and the techs, having put away the bodies and wiped down the tables, were watching videos in the lounge or smoking in the loading bay. The corridors were deserted save for a couple of empty gurneys, the dull gray metal of one tarnished by broad smears of drying blood.

He looked down the dingy hallway and sighed. It certainly was a grim place. The pale blue tiling on the walls was dirty and battered, and the linoleum flooring had been patched so many times that it kept catching the brake guards on the gurney wheels, and tearing up even more. The chronic damp had corroded the wiring, and a quarter of the fluorescents along the main corridor were either out or flickering; the only light that worked reliably was the bug zapper.

Morale was low lately—the chief’s illness, budget cuts, the general debilitation of the institute, all had taken their toll.

But soon it would be his to put right: the chief would sooner or later have to accept that you just can’t fight pancreatic cancer, that you have to give in, embrace it, and let the world move on.

The thought soothed him, and he hoisted his shoulders and set off in search of Roundtree, the mortuary director.

Roundtree could deal with Jenner.

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*

*

*

Jenner tried Pyke yet again. There were some tinny clicks and a burst of digital static, then the furred buzz of a ring tone. Pyke picked up on the second ring.