Hannah Bronto - Lovers in paradise

"Did he go through the same kind of procedure with her as he did with the others?"

"Essentially the same, with a slight variation, as there had been with the others. He forced her to strip, and then he made her make several 'obscene' calls over the wall screen to men at random. All the while she spoke to these various men, the rapist stood out of direct line with the screen, so identification that way is out."

"Obscene calls?"

"The rapist forced Miss Archer," Jocelyn continued, "although I hardly doubt he had much difficulty, to make sexual advances to these men while in full view of the screen. Remember, she was naked. She was forced to talk obscenely to the men while she masturbated and fondled herself. According to Miss Archer, one of the men actually became so aroused by her he pulled out his cock and jerked off. He came quite copiously, too, she said. All over his wall screen."

"Hum… that's novel, at least. Anything else, Miss Wolfe?"

"There is a lot more detail," she said, "but I don't think it's necessary to go over it now. Its all down in the transcript of the quadcorder tape. I have the tape as well, if you'd like to view it."

"That won't be necessary. The transcript is good enough. Continue, please."

"After Miss Archer made three calls, our man moved in to do his work. From here on it's the same as the others: he put a blindfold over her head, sprayed her with that substance, whatever it was, and when she woke up she was raped. Apparently, she'd faired better than the other two women because she suffered no blood loss. But her cunt was quite bruised and battered. I saw her physician's report, a copy is included in her file, and the results are quite brutal. She was attacked, make no mistake about that."

Commissioner Moran sucked on his pipe. "Hum… what about identification? Did she know him? Does she have any ideas?"

"Negative, sir. Just like all the others."

"Was there any mention of a weapon?" he asked. "A blaster, in particular."

"No, there wasn't. I'll attribute that, and that incredible piece of dialogue she reported the rapist to have said to Mrs. Hudson's obvious lurid imagination."

"I agree," Commissioner Moran said. "What do you say, Mal?"

"Yes. Clearly the woman watches too much wall screen; too many old neo-renaissance films." Commissioner Moran nodded, pressing his finger-tips together again. His chin was resting on his chest, and he was looking at me over the top of his glasses. "Now," he said, sucking on his pipe, "will someone please explain to me what any of this evidence has to do with Plain-clothes Detective Malachi Browne?"

Jocelyn began to giggle again, but I glared her down crossly.

"Our Miss Archer," she said, "was one hot-blooded woman. After the rape she was so bruised she couldn't have any sex. And I mean no sex. She couldn't even masturbate, so you can imagine, how horny she was. Well, all it took was for her to get one long look at Mal's cock, and she got an immediate case of the hots for him. Miss Archer was climbing all over him, touching him, caressing him, telling him how she hadn't been fucked in weeks…"

"Thank you, Miss Wolfe. I think I have the picture." He looked at me, arched one eyebrow, then sucked on his pipe. "All right, now where do we stand?"

"We know all three rapes were committed by the same man," I said. I realized how insignificant this piece of evidence was when weighed against the mountain of evidence it would require to track the rapist down. Still, it was one of the only hard facts we had about this case. I said: "Not only is his M.O. the same in all three attacks, but Crime Lab had established conclusively that all three women were penetrated by the same brutally large cock. The probability percentage of it not being the same man in all three cases is so small that the computer reads it out as insignificant. So, for what it's worth, we're only looking for one man."

"And thank God for that," Commissioner Moran agreed. "All that's needed to make this case any more complicated is for us to find out there are two rapists. No thank you, one is more than enough. What else do we have?"

"We know the rapist was someone who knew the routine of the three women," Jocelyn said. "In every case they were alone when he attacked them."

"What does that tell us?" Commissioner Moran asked.

"It tells us that the rapist was someone who could find that kind of information out about people, or it says he had that kind of information available to him."

"What type of person does that suggest?"

"I've all ready put it through the computer. It's sorting them out now. We'll have someone tracking down any possible leads we turn up, first thing in the morning."

"Good," he said, nodding with approval at Jocelyn. "What else do we have?"

"Lists have been taken from all three women," I said, "of their friends and relatives: husbands, boy friends, lovers, bosses, and anyone else who might possibly have a grudge against them. The whole mass of data has been fed into the computer, and has been checked, rechecked, cross-checked, even randomly-checked. Nothing. No leads, no results, nothing. Not even for Mrs. Hudson, and believe me, she does have a lot of enemies. But everything checks out. And, worst of all: no possible connection exists between the three victims. In short, they were all strangers to each other."

Commissioner Moran frowned. He pulled the pipe from his lips, tamped down the tobacco with a stick match, then struck the match and lit his pipe. He puffed out some smoke.

"Summarize what we have," he said.

"Conclusion: we're dealing with one man," Jocelyn said. "One man whose identity we do not yet know."

Something in my unconscious mind reached out and stung me. "What did you say? Say that again?"

Jocelyn looked surprised. "All I said was that we were dealing with one man…"

"That's it: one man!"

Now Jocelyn looked confused. "I don't…?"

Commissioner Moran pulled the pipe from his mouth. "Do you have something, Mal!" he asked, sitting forward, placing his elbows on the desk.

"I just realized were making the most fundamental kind of mistake. I'm surprised we didn't see this before. Aren't we making a mistake by limiting our investigation to men only. I realize it sounds farfetched, but think about it: isn't it possible that the three women were not raped by a man, but by a – woman!"

Jocelyn blinked twice, and then, as if the idea were physically repugnant to her, her lips twisted into a sour frown, and she pulled back away from me. "Are you crazy?" she demanded. "That's the most…"

"Shhh! Wait," Commissioner Moran interjected excitedly. He physically silenced Jocelyn with an impatient wave of his hand. "At least hear him out. Make your point, Mal."

I collected my thoughts. "Let's re-establish the facts in light of my hypothesis and see what we come up with. One: All three women were unconscious when the rapes took place; therefore, no one can say without reasonable doubt that they were definitely raped by men. Not even the victims themselves can say that.

"Two: We have assumed all along that the reason for the hooded mask was to keep the victims from identifying the rapist. But what if there was another reason? What if the three women were blindfolded to hide from them the fact that the rapist was a woman?

"Three: The only time the rapist might have been seen was when Mrs. Hudson passed a man on the shafts. But that man was wearing a viewer which hid his head. I submit: couldn't the head inside that viewer have been a woman's head?

"Four: The Gynecological Reports on all three women each say that the victims were attacked by a cock of enormous size and thickness, and used with a vicious brutality. But suppose that wasn't a real cock. Suppose that it was a dildo.

"Five-and-Final: The Gynecological Reports again all state that the rapist deposited no sperm into the bodies of the three women. Again: Could not it have been a dildo and not an actual cock which forced penetration?"