Ed McBain - The Last Dance

"I was raped," she said.

"When did this happen?"

"Last night."

"What time?"

"I don't know."

"You don't. . ."

"Sometime after eleven o'clock."

"Where, Miss Riddock?"

"My apartment."

"How'd he get in the apartment?"

"I invited him in."

"Was this a date?"

"No. We work together."

"Tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened."

"You don't. . ."

"I don't remember. But I know I was raped."

"Were you drinking, Miss Riddock?"

"Yes."

"How much did you drink?"

"All I had was a beer. We were drinking beer while we watched television. Reverend Foster had done an interview earlier that evening. We were watching it on television."

"Reverend Foster is?"

"Gabriel Foster. Who's protesting all over the city this morning. Don't you know Gabriel Foster? I should be in Majesta right now."

"So you were watching television . . ."

"Yes."

"And what happened?"

"I don't remember."

"But you say you were raped."

"Yes."

"If you can't remember anything . . ."

"There was blood," Lorraine said. "When I woke up this morning. In my bed. On the sheet. I'm not due for two weeks," she said. "It wasn't my period. Anyway, it wasn't that much blood. Someone raped me," she said.

"Lorraine . . ."

"I'm a virgin," she said. "I was raped."

A female doctor at Morehouse General examined Lorraine and discovered a freshly ruptured septate hymen and multiple genital lacerations indicative of forcible entry. A nurse prepared two vaginal-smear slides, gathered samples of whatever loose hairs she could comb from Lorraine's pubic area, clipped comparison samples of Lorraine's own pubic hair, and then did an acid phos-phatase test on a swab from Lorraine's genital area. The immediate purple reaction indicated presumptive presence of semen. They were still well within the seventy-two-hour testing limit for Rohypnol: they found in her urine sample the metabolite that indicated exposure to flunitrazepam.

Annie Rawles herself went to make the arrest.

Annie spotted him easily among the forty or so men and women marching in the bitter cold outside the Fifth Precinct. Like all the others, he, too, was carrying a sign that read truth and justice. Like all the others, he, too, was chanting the words over and over again. But he was the only white man in the group. Lorraine Riddock had described Lloyd Burton as a somewhat nerdy type wearing eyeglasses, some five feet, nine or ten inches tall,

with brown hair, brown eyes, and a zitty complexion. He fit the picture exactly.

Annie fell into step beside him.

"Mr Burton?" she said.

He turned, startled.

"Yes?" he said.

"Lloyd Burton?"

"Yes?"

Their breaths clouded the brittle air between them.

"You're under arrest, sir," she said.

A black woman marching behind him said, "You goan 'rest him, you better 'rest me, too."

"Not unless you committed rape, ma'am,' Annie said, and yanked a pair of cuffs from her shoulder bag, and began reciting Miranda.

She questioned him in the same room where three hours earlier Lorraine Riddock had described him. He had a somewhat reedy, high-pitched voice that resonated irri-tatingly in the small windowless space. In the adjoining room, Lieutenant Albert Genetti, Annie's immediate superior on the Rape Squad, watched through the one-way mirror, listening intently.

"Where were you last night at eleven o'clock?" she asked Burton.

"Home watching television," he said.

"Where's home?"

" South Third."

"Anyone with you?"

"No, I live alone."

"Sure you weren't up here on Talbot and Twenty-eighth?"

"Positive."

" Talbot?"

"No."

"Apartment D?"

"Don't know it."

"Watching television with a girl named Lorraine Riddock?"

"No, I wasn't. I was home alone."

"You know Lorraine, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. But I wasn't with her last night."

"Well, you were with her at the First Baptist Church, weren't you?"

"Yes, but not later. Not at eleven o'clock, which is what you asked me."

"You were present at Gabriel Foster's press conference, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was."

"The television tape substantiates that."

"I know. I saw it."

"Lorraine's standing right there next to you. On the tape."

"I know."

"Where'd you see it? The tape."

"On the news that night. At home."

"Didn't you drive Lorraine home after the press conference?"

"Yes, I did."

"Didn't you go up to her apartment at a little before eleven last night?"

"No, I dropped her off downstairs."

"Didn't you go up to her apartment to watch the eleven o'clock news?"

"No, I went home to watch it."

"Didn't you sit drinking beer with her while you watched the news?"

"No, I went home to watch it."

"Didn't drink beer with her?"

"No."

"Didn't drop two tabs of rope in her beer?"

"I don't know what that is, rope."

"Where'd you get the rope, Mr Burton?"

"I don't know what rope is."

"Mr Burton, you know we're permitted to take your fingerprints, don't you?"

"Well, no, I don't think you are. If you plan to do that, I want to change my mind about having a lawyer here."

"You can have a lawyer anytime you want, but it won't change the fact that we're allowed to take your fingerprints. If you want to call your lawyer . . ."

ChapterOne

"Truth and Justice has its own lawyers."

"Good, go call one of them. You want to make this a political issue, fine. All / want to do is charge you with first-degree rape."

"Then I'd better call a lawyer right now."

"Good, I'll get you a phone. And if it'll make you feel more comfortable, I won't take your prints till he gets here. What I'd like to do, you see . . ."

"You already told me. You'd like to charge me with first-degree rape."

Yes, you rapist bastard, Annie thought.

"That's the plan," she said. "But first I want to compare your prints against whatever we get from a pair of beer bottles in Lorraine Riddock's kitchen."

Burton's face went pale.

"Forget something?" she asked.

Junius Craig was one of a staff of five black attorneys employed by Truth and Justice. Alone with Burton, he informed him that "engaging in sexual intercourse with a female incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless" constituted violation of Section . of the Penal Law, defined as Rape in the First Degree, a Class-B felony punishable by a minimum of three to six and a max of six to twenty-five. He suggested that if Burton

for a moment believed his fingerprints might match the latents on the beer bottles in the victim's kitchen, or if he thought for a further moment that samples of his pubic hair might match anything they'd recovered from the girl's pubic area, or if—as yet another possibility— he felt DNA testing might come up with a positive match between his semen and anything they'd swabbed from the girl's vagina . . .

"And make no mistake," he warned, "they are going to get those samples from you. My guess is they'll seek a court order . . ."

"Make them get a court order for my fingerprints, too," Burton said.

"They won't need one. In fact, under Miranda they won't need one for the samples, either. But they'll play it safe because they snatched you from a line of civil rights marchers. So what do you say?"

"About what?"

"About any of these possibilities."

Burton did not answer.

"Because if you think any of them are possibilities, I suggest we start shopping a deal right now. Twenty-five in a state pen is a long time."

"She wanted it as much as I did," Burton said.

"You're lucky you're white," Craig said.

"Anyway, Walter Hopwell gave me the rope," Burton said.