Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

I take a gamble. I reach over and grab one of her hands. It's clammy with sweat and it shakes. She doesn't pull it away.

"I used to pass out," I tell her. "After it happened. For no reason at all."

"Really?"

"Don't pass it around," I say, smiling, "but yes. Really."

"Truth, honey-love," Callie says, her voice soft. Cathy pulls her hand away from mine. I take this as a struggle for strength on her part.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I've been taking pills for anxiety since it happened, until about two weeks ago. I decided I wanted to wean myself off them. They turned me into a zombie, and it's time to get strong again. I still think I made the right decision, but"--she waggles her hand--"it makes things harder, sometimes."

"Do you have coffee?" Callie chirps.

Cathy frowns. "Sorry?"

"Coffee. Caffeine. Nectar of the gods. If we're going to sit and listen to something horrible, I think coffee is sensible and recommended."

Cathy gives her a faint, grateful smile.

"That's a great idea."

The normality of a cup of coffee seems to calm Cathy. She holds on to the cup as she speaks, stopping to take a sip when things get too rough.

"I'd been poking around in the case files for years, trying to find something that would convince a senior detective to take another look. You have to understand, while I was considered a decent cop, I was still just a uniform. It's a whole different social strata, the plainclothes and the unies. The guys in Homicide are driven by statistics. Solve rates, murder rates per capita, all that stuff. If you want them to add an unsolved to the pile--particularly if it means taking it out of the solved column--you'd better have something compelling. I didn't."

"The wrist-bruising wasn't enough?" I ask.

"No. And let's be honest, I don't know if it would be enough for me, if the situations were reversed. The bruising was noted, but per the ME's notes, it could have come from any number of things. Her husband grabbing her wrists too hard, for one. Remember, she's supposed to have strangled him."

"That's true."

"Yeah. Anyway, I'd been chasing this for a few years, on my own time, and getting nowhere." She pauses, looking uncomfortable and ashamed. "To be honest, I wasn't always pushing on it the way I should have. Sometimes, I doubted the whole scenario. I'd lie in bed at night, thinking, and I'd decide I didn't believe her, that she was just a messed-up kid who'd cooked up a story to explain the otherwise senseless deaths of her parents. I'd generally come back to my senses, but . . ." She shrugs. "I could have done more. I always knew that, in the back of my mind. Life just kept moving forward. I can't really explain it." She sighs. "In the meantime, I did my job and got my promotions. And then, I went for detective." She smiles at the memory. She's probably unaware that she's doing it. "Passed the test with flying colors. It was cool. A big deal. Even my dad would have approved."

I note the use of the past tense regarding her father, but I don't press her on it.

"I wanted Homicide, but I was assigned to Vice." She shrugs. "I was a woman, and not bad looking, but I was tough. They needed someone to play hooker. I was disappointed at first, but then I started to enjoy it. I was good at it. I had a knack."

More of that unconscious smiling. Her face is animated.

"I kept in touch with Sarah. She was getting harder and colder every year. I think I was the only thing keeping her in touch with herself, in a way. I was the only person who'd known her the whole time that really cared." She turns her sightless eyes to the kitchen window, contemplative. "I think that's why he came after me when he did. Not because I'd become a detective. Not because I was poking around. Because he knew I cared. He knew he could count on me to pass on his message if I thought it might help Sarah."

"What message?" Callie asks.

"I'll get to that. The other thing . . . I think it was time to take me away from her." She turns her head to me. "You understand?"

"I think so. You're talking about his overall plan for Sarah."

"Yes. I was the last one left who knew who Sarah was, inside. The last person she could be sure of. I don't know why he let it go on as long as he did. Maybe to give her hope."

"So he could snatch it away," I say.

She nods. "Yep."

"Tell us about that day." Callie's voice is soothing, a gentle push. Cathy's hand grips the coffee cup in a reflexive motion, a brief spasm of emotion.

"It was just like any other day. That's the thing, I think, that throws me the most. Nothing special had happened on the job, or personally. The date wasn't significant, and the weather was as usual as it comes. The only difference between that day and another is that he decided it was the day." She sips from her cup. "I'd finished up a late shift. It was past midnight when I got home. Dark. Quiet. I was tired. I let myself in and went straight for the shower. I always did that. It was symbolic for me--do a dirty job, come home and shower it off, you know."

"Sure," I reply.

"I got undressed, I took my shower. I put on a bathrobe and grabbed a book I was reading--something trivial and silly but entertaining--and then I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a seat right here." She pats the arm of the easy chair with one hand.

"Different chair, same location. I remember putting my coffee cup down on the table"--she goes through the motion, caught up in the memory--"and the next thing I knew, there was a rope around my neck, pulling me back, so fast, so strong. I tried to think, to do something, to get my hands up between the rope and my neck, but he was too fast. Too strong."

"We call that a blitz attack," Callie says, her voice kind. "In the case of a strong attacker, it's successful most of the time. There probably wasn't much you could have done."

"I tell myself that too. I usually believe it." She sips from her cup. It's her lip that trembles, this time. "He knew what he was doing. He yanked back and up"--she grabs her own throat, demonstrating--

"and I was out within seconds." She shakes her head. "Seconds. Can you believe that? He could have killed me right then. I would never have woken up. I'd have died. But . . ." Her voice trails off. "But I did wake up. Over and over. He had the rope twisted around me, John Wayne Gacy-style. He'd tighten it up, cut off the blood to my brain, I'd go out. He'd loosen it and I'd come around. Then he'd tighten it up again. I woke up once and my bathrobe was gone. I was naked. I woke up again, and my hands were cuffed behind my back, my mouth was gagged. It was like drowning over and over again, and waking up in a new part of the nightmare every time. The thing that was worst of all, for some reason, was that he didn't speak. "

I can hear the stress in her voice, the anxiety at this particular part of the memory.

"I remember thinking I just wanted him to say something, to explain, to make it make sense. But nothing." Her hands are still shaking and restless. She clasps them in her lap, she rubs her arms with them. She is a portrait of unconscious, continuous, nervous motion.

"I don't know how long it went on." She manages a somewhat wry, somewhat sickly grin. "Too long." The sunglasses again, looking at me. "You know."

"I know," I agree.

"Then I woke up and he let me stay that way. I was on my bed, hands and ankles cuffed. It took me a little bit of time to really come around. I remember wondering if he'd raped me, that if he had, I wouldn't know for sure."

"Did he?" I ask.

"No. No, he didn't."

Still no sexual pathology with females, I think to myself.

"Go on," I say.

"He started talking. He said, 'I want you to know, Cathy, that there's nothing personal in this. You have a part to play, that's all. Something you have to do for Sarah.' " Her lower lip trembles. "That's when I knew. Who he was. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before that, but it hadn't. 'Here's what's going to happen,' he said. 'I'm going to beat your body and you'll probably never be a cop again, Cathy Jones. When it's done, you'll tell them you have no idea who could have done this to you, or why. If you do otherwise, I'll destroy Sarah's face and dig out her eyes with a spoon.' "