First Offense (9 page)

“Detective Abrams told me there were a lot of people that stopped. Did you see a man about my age, crew cut, small eyes, tall, stocky build? Someone that looked like a drill instructor, maybe?”

“Look,” Sawyer said, getting annoyed, “I was trying to help you. I don’t remember.” His anger mounted as he added, “The cops treated me like I was a suspect or something. Let me tell you,” he said, “if I had to do it again, I don’t know if I would stop.”

Ann swallowed, feeling a pang of guilt. If she didn’t talk Glen out of filing charges against him, this poor kid would really be bitter. He’d never help another person the rest of his life.

“That district attorney was there,” Sawyer interjected, as if he could read Ann’s mind. “You know. Glen Hopkins.”

“I didn’t mean him,” Ann said.

Sawyer continued, “Don’t they teach those guys first aid? I mean, he didn’t seem to have a clue about what to do. All he did was just stand there and look at you like a lame dick. My dad’s a doctor, so…”

So, Ann thought. Glen wasn’t quite as cool in a crisis as he was in a courtroom. Then she thought of an ulterior reason he might be so determined to file against Sawyer. He was her lover and he’d panicked. Sawyer had shown him up.

“Why are you asking me all these questions?” Sawyer said, getting more restless by the second. “I thought you asked me here to tell me something good, not interrogate me like another cop.”

“I’m sorry,” Ann said, embarrassed. “I really am grateful for what you did, Jimmy. Why don’t you sit down a minute? It’s a little difficult to carry on a conversation this way.”

Sawyer was standing next to a large artificial palm tree. He looked behind him nervously and then back at Ann. “I have to go. I don’t want to sit down.”

“Whatever,” Ann said, frustrated by the way he was acting. The waitress had arrived, ready to take their order. “Are you sure you don’t want something? Maybe a soft drink or some ice cream?”

When Sawyer didn’t answer, Ann shrugged and started ordering. All the while, though, she watched him out of the comer of her eye. He was staring at a plastic leaf on the palm tree as though it contained the mysteries of the universe. As soon as the waitress left, Ann said his name several times, and he didn’t respond. Suddenly the picture came clear. He was high on drugs. Exactly what, she didn’t know, but she knew now why he wouldn’t eat, why he couldn’t sit still, why his palms were sweaty.

Ann always trusted her instincts, and they told her Sawyer was nothing more than just another screwed-up kid on drugs. He might have stayed straight for his day in court, but Jimmy Sawyer was a user. Peering up at him, she tried to see if his pupils were dilated. “What are you on, Jimmy?”

“What?” he said, giggling as if she had just said something outrageously funny.

“Are you on drugs right now?” Ann’s guess was LSD or speed.

“No way, man. I have to go.” He turned and quickly walked away.

“Hey,” Ann yelled, shooting to her feet. “Get back here.” He was her probationer. She couldn’t let him get away with this no matter what he’d done for her. The last time she’d tried to cut a probationer some slack, the man had taken five hits of LSD and then later stabbed his wife, saying she was a demon from hell. The girl had been only twenty-three years old, and the couple had three tiny babies. Ann didn’t take chances anymore. Her responsibilities to both the court and the community were too grave. But Sawyer was already out the door, and Ann was too weak to chase him down.

“What a world,” she said, sitting back down in her seat. She would have to test Sawyer for narcotics. The way it looked, the test would come back dirty and Ann would end up responsible for sending the man who’d saved her life to jail.

Chapter
5

A
nn pulled out of the government center parking lot in a white county car, proceeding on a case that was uppermost in her mind. She would contact one of the victims in the Delvecchio rape, the one who had been Glen’s teacher. Prior to the brutal attack, Estelle Summer had led an independent and active existence, even though she was in her mid-seventies. According to her children and neighbors, she’d had her own comfortable home, her friends, and her club work. And she’d been a neat, well-groomed woman, pretty for her age. That is, until she met up with Randy Delvecchio. The rapist had been waiting inside her bedroom closet. Once the woman had walked into the room, he’d sprung out and placed a knife at her throat. Wearing a stocking mask, the attacker forced her onto the floor, frightening the old woman so much that she had defecated in her pants. Randy had been a real sweetheart, Ann thought grimly, even going so far as to get a washrag and clean her up. Once he had done so, he had proceeded to beat her, rape her, and force her to orally copulate him. Then while Estelle lay on the floor, beaten and in shock. Randy had gone to her refrigerator and made himself a ham and cheese sandwich. For dessert, he had flipped the old woman over and sodomized her.

Estelle Summer would never live independently again. The woman had been so terrorized by the assault that she suffered from severe insomnia. Months after the attack, she lay awake night after night, shaking in her bed with fear. She had proceeded to build a fortress around her house, expending all her meager savings to install sophisticated alarms, build fences, hire security officers to stand by her door all night. When that didn’t calm her fears, Estelle had boarded up all the doors and windows and refused to leave the house. Her weight had plummeted to sixty-eight pounds. She became incontinent and was forced to wear diapers. Finally her children had placed her in a nursing home.

After thirty years in the public school system, a respected and dedicated teacher, Estelle Summer was unable to enjoy her retirement, her few remaining years on this earth. No wonder Glen was so intent on punishing this man to the full extent of the law.

Ann parked in front of the nursing home, a long brick building set far back from the road, and got out and headed to the entrance. Lovely multicolored pansies were planted along the walkway leading to the front door, but through the open windows Ann could see the hospital beds and wheelchairs.

“I’m here to see Estelle Summer,” she told the nurse in the lobby. An attractive woman in her thirties, the woman had fluffy blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes.

“Oh,” the woman said, her face blanching, “are you a relative?”

“No,” Ann said, removing her county identification and flashing it. “I’m a deputy probation officer. I need to talk to her about a case.”

The woman looked at the identification card and then slowly raised her eyes to Ann’s face. “Ms. Summer passed away three hours ago.”

Ann lurched back from the desk, as if pushed by some invisible force. She knew it was fear, but she didn’t know why. She had never even met Estelle Summer. Why was she so stunned by this woman’s death? It had to be the shooting, she told herself She knew now what it felt like to be terrified, helpless, desperate. Estelle had counted on the police to find her attacker and bring him to justice, but before they did, it was too late. Would this happen to Ann? Would they never find the person who had shot her? Would the fear grow and grow until it consumed her every thought?

“Did Ms. Summer have a heart attack?” Ann asked, unable to walk away.

The nurse glanced over her shoulder and then back at Ann, standing and leaning forward over the counter. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t her heart.” The nurse dropped her eyes and started mindlessly rearranging the various items on her desk. Ann could see that her hands were trembling. “She quit eating,” the nurse said. “We tried to tube-feed her and she just pulled the tubes out.” The woman looked up. “You know what she said to me right before she died?”

Ann didn’t answer.

A metal chart in her hands, the nurse slammed it down on the desk. “She said you people were going to let that animal that raped her off, that the jury was going to find him not guilty. That’s why she wanted to die. She said she didn’t want to be alive when the verdict came in.”

“But that’s not true,” Ann protested. “The trial—”

The nurse flipped her wrist at Ann, dropping back in her seat. “Trials,” she said, a disgusted look on her face. “I know all about the big promises you people make. I was raped too. One night two years ago when I was working at County General, I was walking to my car and this guy jumps me and drags me into the bushes. I did everything the cops said: I pressed charges, I went to court.” She stopped and inhaled, almost too shaken to continue. “He was found not guilty and released. Know how that made me feel?”

Ann slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it made you feel horrible.”

“Horrible, huh?” the woman said, her voice loud and abrasive. “That’s not the word I’d use.”

A frail elderly woman suddenly appeared at the counter, a look of confusion on her face. “I need a size eight, young lady,” she said. “I want to exchange this dress.” Placing a limp bath towel on the counter, she looked around for a sales clerk to assist her.

“Go on back to your room, Mabel,” the nurse said, handing her back the towel. “It’s almost time for dinner.”

Once the old woman had tottered away, the towel dangling from her hands, the nurse returned to their conversation. “The doctors wanted to keep that poor woman alive, put her on life support and all. Well, I knew she was already dead from the day she came in here. Estelle died when that guy raped her. He stole her will to live, you know, ripped it right out of her.”

“If you ever want anyone to talk to,” Ann said, handing the woman her business card before leaving, “I’m a good listener.”

“Yeah,” the nurse said. “A lot of people listen, but listening isn’t going to get it. Tell that to your bosses, huh? Do that for me.”

Emotionally drained, Ann made her way out of the nursing home. No, she told herself on the walk back to the car, squinting in the bright afternoon sun, she would not live the rest of her life in terror. And she would not let this woman’s death go unpunished. By his actions Randy Delvecchio had killed Estelle Summer. The nurse was right. He had stolen her will to live.

As she got in her car and cranked the engine, Ann’s mind was clocking at breakneck speed. Glen couldn’t possibly know yet that Estelle had died. She was a valuable witness in his case against Delvecchio, and her death could conceivably cause them to lose the rape conviction related to her assault. According to what Glen had told her, they didn’t have enough evidence to try Delvecchio on the outstanding homicides. And if he lost even one of the rape counts, he would be devastated.

Turning onto the main thoroughfare, Ann saw a station wagon with the words “Hughes Funeral Home” on the side enter the alley behind the convalescent home. They were coming to take Estelle Summer away. Ann’s hands locked on the steering wheel and her foot depressed the gas pedal, the needle on the speedometer surging as she raced down the street.

Estelle was no longer able to confront her attacker, but Ann certainly could. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was after four o’clock. By the time she got back. Randy Delvecchio should have been returned to his cell.

At the courthouse, Ann headed straight to the jail, eager for the confrontation ahead of her.

Once she had cleared security and had a visitor’s badge pinned to her blouse, the jailer led her to a bank of glassed-in booths. “I told them at the front counter I wanted a face-to-face,” Ann said. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” the jailer said, compressing his lips. “We’ve had some problems with this inmate.”

“What kind of problems?”

“He jumped one of the other inmates. Doc thinks he’s a psycho.”

“Of course he’s a psycho,” Ann snapped. “He’s a fucking maniac who likes to rape old women. Go get him, all right? He’s just my type.”

“Hey, suit yourself,” the jailer said, shuffling off to get the prisoner moved to a secured interview room, the huge ring of keys on his belt rattling and jangling as he walked down the tile corridor. While he was gone, Ann composed herself. She was going to be sweet as pie to this monster—and then nail him. A few minutes later, the jailer returned and escorted Ann to the door, unlocking it and then locking it again once she was inside.

Ann carried no notebook, pen, or tape recorder. That was how she worked. Prisoners didn’t say much when a person wrote down or recorded everything they said. Ann had an excellent memory. That would suffice.

“Hi, Randy,” she said brightly, her voice a few octaves higher than usual. “Remember me? I talked to you on your bail review. Ann Carlisle with the probation department. How you doing in here? Pretty tough one, isn’t it?”

The young man was actually very handsome, almost pretty in a way. His enormous dark eyes were fringed with thick lashes, and his hair was neatly trimmed in a popular style, sort of a boxy, squared-off look. Wearing a jail-issued jumpsuit, he was slouched low in the chair.

“I don’t remember you,” he said. “But I knows I didn’t get bail.”

Ann carefully took a seat, watching his eyes. It was dangerous to interview violent offenders alone like this, locked inside a small room with them. Most of the other probation officers opted for the alternative: the prisoner safely behind bulletproof glass. But like tape recorders and notes, glass partitions tended to keep people from opening up. Ann took her chances. If she hit a buzzer, she could attract a jailer’s attention—that is, if she could manage to get to the buzzer.

“Randy,” she told him, “there was nothing I could do for you on the bail review. See, you were already on probation for burglary when these new crimes occurred. That shows the judge that you’re not a good risk for bail. That’s also why I’m here, to prepare a violation of probation report on the burglary case.”

“They gonna give me probation again?” he said, an expectant look on his face.

“That depends on what the jury says on the rapes. Randy.” Ann arched her eyebrows, unable to keep herself from striking at least one blow. “Of course, if they do find you guilty, you’ll be going to prison for a very long time. You won’t be eligible for probation no matter what I tell them.”