Carolyn McSparren - Bachelor Cop

He scrolled down to O’Hara’s notes on his interviews with her. She swore she remembered nothing about the rape or beating. The blow to the head and jaw had apparently knocked her out for some time. She did say the man wore some kind of mask.

The forensic report was bleak.

No fibers from mask, ropes or carpet were found. Probably bound her with something like rubber-covered electrical wire. No extraneous hair. No DNA. That meant he’d worn gloves and used condoms. Possibly laid a new tarp on the floor of the vehicle he’d used to transport her.

Randy wished criminals didn’t pay so much attention to the CSI shows on television. Those guys had fancy laboratory facilities that produced immediate results. Maybe on Mars. In Tennessee most trace had to be shipped to the Nashville crime-scene lab, which was so backed up sometimes they couldn’t process evidence for months.

The Memphis crime-scene team suspected the rapist had shaved his body to avoid leaving so much as a pubic hair, and wore some kind of rubber or vinyl suit—maybe rain gear or a wet suit. He was too damned careful for this to be his first rape. So did O’Hara know of other rapes that might fit the same pattern? Were they actually dealing with a serial?

Unless Detective O’Hara had some new developments, Helena Norcross’s rape was a bona fide cold case. Lieutenant Gavigan hated rapists as much as he hated killers, so Randy should be able to look into it officially.

He poured himself a fresh cup of coffee in his oversize mug while he waited for the aging printer to crank out the report. Then he slipped it into a fresh manila folder and shoved it into the top drawer of his desk to give Gavigan at their morning meeting.

If Streak’s rapist was still out there, Randy wanted to hand her his head on a pike. Although that probably wasn’t nearly as romantic as red roses.

RANDY LEANED BACK and propped his loafers on his desk.

Outside, traffic noises picked up. In another hour the February sun would rise, but he still had the squad room to himself. Since budget cuts, central precinct homicide detectives only worked days.

He was no stranger to interrogating rapists and convincing them he understood and sympathized. Although he didn’t. They thought it was about sex, the great god, orgasm. Actually, it was about dominance—assault with a deadly weapon. The rapist wanted to humiliate and destroy the victim’s humanity. He exerted total control. Even if his victim healed physically, she might never regain her sense of being in control of her life.

The fact that Streak had joined his class proved she was still fighting for her prerape sense of self. He would give her all the help he could.

He doubted his other class members had similar experiences, but you never knew. He glanced at the clock. Jack and Liz wouldn’t be in for a while yet. He had time to check out the other class members online.

Sarah Beth Armstrong, the first he checked, seemed like a nice old lady, but anybody could have a record.

When the screen lit up, he slammed his cup down so hard that coffee splashed on his desk. He grabbed a handful of tissues from Liz’s box and mopped it up before it could reach his keyboard. The desk had survived worse.

Sarah Beth had only a couple of speeding tickets, but when he followed the link, he found a homicide report. Eight years earlier her thirty-year-old daughter had been carjacked and killed by three nineteen-year-old gang-bangers. Sarah Beth, her husband, Oliver, and two children under eighteen were listed as next of kin. No husband listed for the daughter.

All three men were now serving life sentences without parole.

Sarah Beth seemed, what? Together? In his professional experience, the death of a child, particularly by violence, was the hardest kind of grief to survive. She’d had eight years, but that kind of pain and loss didn’t go away.

Next he checked Francine Bagby. Squeaky-clean, except for the 911 calls about noncustodial parents and drunks she’d already mentioned. He pitied anyone who went up against her with anything less than an antitank gun.

Nothing about Amanda Donovan, the lawyer, either. He recognized the name of her firm, however, as the biggest and toughest divorce firm in west Tennessee. No lack of material for nasty confrontations there.

Nothing on Ellen Latimer, aka Mrs. Claus.

Next he checked Lauren Torrance, the newlywed. Another surprise. In the previous year there had been three reports of loud arguments called in by neighbors. No signs of physical abuse, so no arrests.

Little Bunny was actually Gaylene O’Donnell Yates from Ittabena, Mississippi. Even though she was only five foot three, she’d won second runner-up for Miss Mississippi, and had married a plastic surgeon. The surgeon, Wilton Yates, had just won a malpractice suit over a boob job that had supposedly gone wrong. A disgruntled ex-patient was threat enough to send his wife to self-defense classes.

Her beautiful rack was probably silicone. Pity.

Finally, he pulled up Marcie Halpern. When she didn’t pop up, he entered variants of Marcie and found nothing, not even a speeding ticket.

His coffee was now tepid, so he added a dollop of hot from the carafe he had made, and drank it in a single pull. Even the women who didn’t show up in police reports probably had secrets they didn’t want revealed.

Randy had secrets, too. Without them, he wouldn’t have become a cop, and he’d be married with two-point-five children, a mortgage and a bass boat. He’d fall asleep on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner with the entire Railsback clan, instead of eating a tuna sandwich alone at his desk. He always volunteered for duty on holidays.

It was an excuse to avoid his family. He talked to his mother on the phone once a week or so, but never spoke to his father.

Maybe not all families were toxic, but his was right up there with Three Mile Island.

HELENA DROPPED Milo and Viola at the front door of their school on her way to her morning class. “Marcie will pick you up after day care. Tonight is my self-defense class. I’ll tuck you in when I get home.”

“Can we come with you?” Milo asked.

“Not tonight. Sorry.”

“Mo-o-om,” he whined. “I promise I’ll just lift the little weights.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Viola said. “Not never.”

“Then you go home with Marcie,” Milo snapped.

“Both of you go with Marcie.” She kissed them goodbye and watched Milo stalk up the stairs, while Vi bounced behind him. Helena had given up attempting to bribe him into waiting for his sister. He raced ahead to join his friends. Helena watched until both children disappeared inside the school.

She pulled out into the stream of cars that had disgorged their children. Traffic was sluggish, but she’d allowed extra time before her class. She turned on NPR, listened to five minutes of one disaster after another, then turned the radio off. They never seemed to report good news.

How could she keep her children safe, yet allow them enough freedom to grow? How could she teach them to avoid monsters without destroying their trust in decent people? How could she protect them from her own fears? Her panic attacks came less frequently and were shorter and less severe, but she still had them.

She forced herself to turn into Overton Park. This early she could drive the winding roads through the golf course and the Old Forest without meeting another car. Her sweaty palms slipped on the steering wheel, and she could feel the pulse thrumming in her throat. “You can do this,” she whispered.

In the two weeks since she’d begun to drive to work through the park, she hadn’t dared to turn from the main road into the Old Forest. She’d promised herself that today was the day. She would stop by the side of the road where she’d been found, maybe even get out and look at the spot. Demystify it. It was only a bunch of shrubbery.