Hold Still (26 page)

FIFTY-ONE

November 12th

Caleb stayed at the scene,
promising to follow up with Camille personally once he had wrapped things up there. Kevin hadn’t stopped babbling since they got back into the car. As Nurse Bottinger guided them through Einstein’s ER once more, he kept talking, although only part of what he said penetrated the haze that had fallen over Jocelyn’s mind.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Kevin said. “They’re going backwards. They started with girls on the street and moved on to online ads. Camille is a street hooker. No offense, Rush, but she’s no Jennifer Maisry. Why would they go back to picking up street girls?”

Jocelyn ignored him. Kim stopped in front of a curtain. “She’s in there.”

The silence made Jocelyn cold from the tip of her nose to her fingertips. Grant and Maisry had both cried—howled and whimpered like wounded animals. Camille was silent. Kevin paced in front of the curtain. Jocelyn pulled it back slightly and stepped through, her heart thumping loudly in her chest. Her sister lay on the hospital bed, her bandaged feet elevated on pillows and her hands, similarly bandaged, also resting on pillows at her sides. An IV dripped clear fluid into her right arm. She wore a hospital gown stained with droplets of blood. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even. For a split second, she looked just like their mother. But as Jocelyn got closer, there was no mistaking her gaunt, jaundiced look. The scars left by needles in the crooks of her arms and the sharp lines of her collarbones jutting through the thin gown.

Jocelyn stepped toward the bed and placed a hand on Camille’s forearm. It was white-hot.

Kim stepped in behind Jocelyn to check the IV. “It was really tough finding a vein on her,” she remarked. “She has a kidney infection. That’s why she has a fever. She’s probably had it for a while now—she’s almost septic. That’s not from the assault obviously, but we’re giving her IV antibiotics and fluids. She’s very dehydrated. We gave her morphine for the pain. The shape she’s in, I don’t know how lucid she’ll be. We already took the rape kit.”

Kim left. Jocelyn kept her hand on Camille’s arm, trying to stem the tide of tears threatening to overcome her. It wasn’t working. As the first sob worked its way up her windpipe, Jocelyn wiped away a few tears.

“Oh, Camille,” she cried softly.

With a moan, Camille awoke, turning her head from side to side. She opened her eyes and saw Jocelyn. She blinked several times before smiling weakly.

“Camille,” Jocelyn said, her voice cracking.

Camille shifted, wincing in pain. “Are you crying?”

Jocelyn nodded. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She pulled a chair over and sat in it.

“You never cry. Even when we were kids you hardly ever cried,” Camille said. Her voice was slow and thick, as though it took great effort to speak. Then abruptly, she drew a sharp breath and closed her eyes, face reddening considerably.

“Camille?”

“Just pain,” Camille gasped. “It’ll pass.”

A few minutes later it did, the tension in Camille’s face softening, her color returning to its normal shade. Jocelyn thought she had fallen asleep, but then she spoke, her voice weak and wavering. “They told you what happened? What those men did to me?”

Jocelyn swallowed, biting back more tears. “Yes,” she said. “Camille, I’m so sorry.”

“No . . . don’t be,” Camille said. She didn’t speak for several seconds. Jocelyn expected her to start snoring. Then she said, “I’m sorry too.”

Jocelyn bit her lip. “What are you sorry for?”

Without opening her eyes, Camille waved one of her bandaged hands. “I’m sorry that . . . that this is how I turned out.”

“Camille.”

She was silent again. A single tear slid from one of her eyelids and trailed down her cheek. Her speech was beginning to slur. Jocelyn didn’t think she would be alert much longer. She had to lean in close to hear Camille’s next words. “I want to be done with this,” she murmured. “Done with this life . . . the drugs . . . the men. All of it.”

Jocelyn smoothed her hair away from her forehead. “You can be, Camille. I’ll help you.”

Camille shook her head from side to side very slowly, stopping midturn as though she had drifted off. But then she said, “No, you . . . won’t. You’re always so . . . so angry . . . with me.”

Jocelyn smiled through her tears, realizing that in that moment, for the first time in nineteen years she was not angry with Camille. She was tired of being angry. Where had it gotten her? Where had her anger gotten Camille? Who was she really angry with? Camille for folding when their father brushed the rape under the carpet? For her becoming addicted to drugs? Was she angry with herself because she couldn’t remember what she had seen and therefore couldn’t help Camille? They had been teenagers—kids still. How could they have been expected to take on a world of adults who were prepared to act as though the heinous crime had never happened at all? It was their parents she was really angry with, and they were gone. Her rage lived on, but it had never done either one of them any good.

“I want to be done with that,” Jocelyn said.

She stroked Camille’s hair until her sister started to snore lightly. Jocelyn pulled her chair up closer to the bed and sat by Camille’s side. After several minutes, Camille jerked awake, her face red and contorted in pain, her body folding in on itself. Her breath was labored. Jocelyn stood and squeezed her bicep. “You okay?”

Camille nodded. “Cramps.”

As the pain eased, so did the tension in her body. She relaxed against the pillow, her face paling once more. “Sit,” she said to Jocelyn. “Sit down and tell me something good.”

“Okay,” Jocelyn replied, easing back into her chair. She thought for a moment. Then, “Your half of our inheritance is eight million dollars.”

Camille’s eyes widened. For just a moment, she looked awake, lucid. “What?” she croaked.

“Yeah.” Jocelyn smiled. “And if you spend it on drugs, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Camille met her eyes. Her shoulders shook. At first Jocelyn thought she was crying. She reached out to her sister. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was a joke. I mean, I don’t want you to spend it on drugs, but I was trying to—”

Laughter spilled out of Camille’s prone form. Her smile looked pained, but it was there. “I know,” Camille spluttered. “I know you were joking. It’s okay.” Once the laughter subsided, she looked back at Jocelyn. Again, she fought to keep her eyes open.

“You don’t have to stay awake,” Jocelyn said. “I’ll stay here. I’ll sit with you as long as I can.”

Camille nodded. As she drifted back to her morphine-induced slumber, she mumbled, “We’ll be okay now. It’s . . . it’s . . . over. Everything will be . . . okay.”

An hour later, Jocelyn found Kevin lingering at the nurses’ station. He looked at her the way he looked at child victims. She held a hand up in his direction. “Don’t do the pity thing.”

He inched his way over to her, his phone held in his outstretched hand. “I called Inez,” he said. “She’s on a call, but she said she would text you when she’s done.”

Jocelyn pulled her phone out of her pocket. There were three missed calls from Caleb, one from Inez, and two texts from Inez. She pulled up the text messages from Inez from five minutes earlier.

Kevin told me what’s going on. Call me.

I have to go home for an hour. Meet me there.

Jocelyn put the phone back in her pocket and looked at Kevin. “Caleb should interview her. Will you stay with her till he gets here?”

Kevin nodded. “Of course.”

“I’ll meet you back at the Division in an hour or two.”

“Sure,” Kevin said as she walked away. “Rush,” he called after her. She turned back toward him. “I’m sorry,” he said.

FIFTY-TWO

November 12th

“The girls are asleep in
Raquel’s room,” Martina said as Jocelyn entered the house.

The older woman motioned to the video monitor on top of her television. The two-inch-by-two-inch screen showed the girls curled up next to one another. Olivia snored openmouthed, Lulu tucked tightly against her chest, blankie covering her legs.

“I thought you were on until midnight,” Martina said. She stood, pulling a green-and-white afghan over her shoulders. She was a few inches shorter than Jocelyn, but she peered up into Jocelyn’s eyes, the wrinkles in her caramel face deepening. “What’s going on?”

Jocelyn managed a weary smile. “Nothing. Just work stuff. I need to talk to Inez. Is she here?”

Martina motioned over her shoulder. “She’s out back.”

Jocelyn raised a brow. “Out back?”

Martina nodded solemnly. Jocelyn made her way through the darkened dining room, which Martina had long ago converted into a playroom for the girls. Jocelyn dodged a hippity-hop ball and a miniature stroller on her way to the kitchen. The back door was closed, but Jocelyn could see through the sheer curtain affixed to the block of windows in the door that the backyard light was on.

The door creaked slightly as she opened it. There on the other side of the screen door, standing in the circle of light cast by the outdoor bulb was Inez, wearing nothing but her bra and underwear—plain white cotton, both of them. She called them her utilities or her “utes.” She only wore them to work. She saved the fancy stuff for her husband. In spite of everything weighing on her mind, Jocelyn laughed.

She stepped out into the yard. “What are you doing?”

“Watch where you walk,” Inez said.

Her uniform lay in a pile behind her. To her left were her boots and vest. Her gun rested at her feet. She picked up a spray bottle of cleanser from the outdoor patio table and started spraying her boots. Whatever it was had bleach in it. The smell stung Jocelyn’s eyes.

“I got a domestic,” Inez explained. “Over on North Third. You should have seen this place. There were so many fleas, I think they were signing a petition for squatter’s rights in the back room. They were goddamn everywhere. I could feel them jumping up into my pants. I left that place in a flea cloud.”

Jocelyn smiled grimly. “Let me guess. The caller didn’t press charges.”

Inez snickered. “Of course she didn’t press charges.”

After spraying her boots liberally, she moved on to her vest. She motioned to her uniform. “That’s the third one this year. I can’t believe the way these people live.” She hopped from foot to foot to keep warm. There were goose bumps over every inch of her flesh. She glanced at Jocelyn. “We gonna talk about this or not?”

Jocelyn folded her arms and looked at the ground. “Raeann Church is dead. She was the only one who saw this guy.”

Inez froze, her hand still wrapped around the neck of the spray bottle. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “Are we going to talk about Camille?”

Jocelyn’s lower lip trembled. “They got her, Inez. They crucified her. They hurt her.”

Tears leaked from her tired eyes. She flopped down on the back steps and wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her jacket. She thought of Camille laying in the hospital bed, violated, mutilated, and broken—for the second time in her short life. Jocelyn had been powerless to stop it both times. Perhaps if she had been strong enough to see justice served for her sister the first time, Camille would not be in that bed now. Perhaps if things had turned out differently, Camille would never have turned to the streets. She opened her mouth to try to share her thoughts with Inez, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not yet. What she really wanted was a few moments of silence—a few moments without demands. A few moments hidden from the world so she could grieve; Inez gave her that, letting her weep quietly on the steps while she bagged up her uniform and finished spraying her boots and vest.

She tugged the hose over to Jocelyn and handed it to her. “You gotta hose me down. Really get my feet.”

Jocelyn looked up at her friend. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing out here.”

Inez put a hand on one hip and pointed at the back door. “I can freeze my ass off for five minutes, but I cannot bring fleas into the house where my baby sleeps. So hose me down.”

Inez hugged herself as Jocelyn aimed the nozzle at her. “Listen,” Inez said as Jocelyn’s finger pressed against the nozzle. Jocelyn paused and met Inez’s eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Camille’s got a lot of problems, a lot of flaws. She’s made a lot of mistakes. But you know what she is? She’s a survivor.” She paused a moment to let that sink in. “She’s a survivor,” Inez repeated. “She will survive this.”

Jocelyn swallowed. It was true. She had never looked at it that way, but Camille survived everything and just kept going. She said a little prayer that Inez was right—that Camille would survive and that maybe, just maybe, she would turn a corner in her sad, tortured life.

“But the next woman these guys pick up may not survive,” Jocelyn said. “Our only witness is dead. Even if we get Warner and Donovan, they’ll never give the guy up. It’s awfully fucking convenient that immediately after we got authorization for a composite sketch, Raeann Church turns up dead. Inez, I think this guy is one of us, and whoever it is—he’s close to us. How else would they know we were looking for her?”

Inez sighed. She crossed her hands in front of her and rubbed her upper arms vigorously while walking in place. “Joce, they sent a GRM out. The whole police force knew we were looking for her. If it is a cop, it could be anyone. If you think it’s someone close, I don’t think we’re looking for a cop.”

Jocelyn’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Inez motioned toward the hose. “Get my feet, would you? I can’t stand out here all night.”

Jocelyn squeezed the nozzle, shooting cold water at her friend’s feet.

“Whoo,” Inez hooted, hopping up and down. “What I mean is,” she continued, her teeth beginning to chatter, “there was someone else there the night of the press conference, someone who’s been close to this case all along.”

Jocelyn sprayed upward toward Inez’s waist and over her upper body. She gave her friend a puzzled look as Inez bent to get her hair wet. Inez flipped her hair back up and rolled her eyes at Jocelyn. “Jesus H.,” she said, exasperated. “You are so fucking thick. Phil!”

Jocelyn’s fingers went limp against the nozzle, the stream of water dying in her hand. Her mouth hung open. Inez walked behind her and banged on the back door. A minute later, Martina’s hand poked through a crack in the door, a thick, blue terrycloth robe in it. Inez took it and wrapped it tightly around her glistening body.

“Phil?” Jocelyn said dumbly.

Inez stepped toward her and took the hose, stowing it back on its hook, her hands trembling with cold. “You’re looking for a good-looking white male with blue eyes, brown hair. Someone who takes care of himself. Didn’t you tell me that Raeann Church said he could be a lawyer?”

Swallowing over the growing lump in her throat, Jocelyn nodded.

“He reduced the charges on Warner and Donovan, which allowed them to make bail.” Inez lowered her voice in a faux male imitation that sounded nothing like Phil. “He’s the one who keeps saying, ‘They didn’t drive the nails in.’ He was there when you and Caleb told everyone about Raeann Church and the sketch. And Joce, I hate to break it to you, but this shit is personal. They went after Camille. What are the odds?”

Jocelyn practically fell back onto the steps, staring at the water pooling around Inez’s feet. She tried to imagine Phil—the man she had dated for so many years, the man who had touched her so many times and so intimately—driving nails into a woman’s hands and feet.

“No,” she said automatically. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. The word just came out.

Inez squatted in front of her, peering into her face. “Joce, think about it. You’ve been at each other’s throats over this. Who would make this more personal than Phil? They got Camille.” She placed extra emphasis on Camille’s name, as if Jocelyn didn’t already grasp what had happened to her sister.

“How many hookers are in this city? These guys weren’t even targeting street hookers before this. Anita Grant? Jennifer Maisry? They’re high class. They’re escorts. Why go from women like them to Camille—no offense,” Inez said, echoing Kevin’s earlier sentiments. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Jocelyn chewed her lower lip, her mind trying to work through it.

This is going to sound weird, but he smelled good. Like soap or cologne or something. Clean.

He had a big, thick silver watch. I think it was Michael Kors. It was expensive.

He could have gotten any woman.

He was take-charge. He seemed, you know, like he had a lot of school maybe. He used words I didn’t understand.

She hung her head and laid her face in her hands. “Oh, good God,” she groaned.

Could it be? Could Phil—straight-laced, power-suit, Lexus-driving, cutthroat Assistant District Attorney Phil—be a serial rapist? A man who got off on hurting women? He was a prick and a major pain in the ass. He was insensitive, petulant, and—as evidenced by the scene with Caleb on her porch—mean. But a sadist? A criminal? In cahoots with the same types he put in prison on a daily basis? He would have to be living a double life.

“Jocelyn?” Inez said.

She met Inez’s eyes. “Phil’s mom,” she said. “She lives in Delaware.”

Inez’s mouth twisted. “What?”

Jocelyn stood. “Phil’s mother is still alive. Zachary Whitman said the third guy was playing out a fantasy about his mother. That’s why he thinks it was that kid from Society Hill who was exonerated back in—”

“Stop,” Inez said, curling a hand around Jocelyn’s biceps. She shook her lightly. “Listen to yourself. You’re not looking at the evidence—at what’s right in front of you. Are you really going to base your investigation on something you got from a dude who’s being charged with child porn—”

“I think Simon set him up,” Jocelyn put in quickly. “He’s a criminologist.”

Inez shook her head, droplets of water flying. In the half-light of the backyard, her lips began to look blue. “He’s a piece of shit. He was the lookout the day your teenage sister was gang-raped. Are you really going to go on something he told you?”

Jocelyn winced. When she didn’t speak, Inez shook her again. “Jocelyn.”

She pulled her arm away. “I don’t—I can’t—” she stammered.

“Look, I know it’s a lot to take in,” Inez said, her demeanor softening. “I’m just saying you should take a closer look at Phil. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m crazy—”

“No,” Jocelyn said. “You’re right. I mean what else do we have to go on? And I shouldn’t be basing my investigation on anything Whitman says—I mean I shouldn’t rely on it.”

I need evidence.

Her cell phone rang. As she pulled it out, Inez opened the back door and ushered her inside. The warmth of the house was overwhelming—a hot blast causing an almost immediate sheen of sweat on her face. She pressed the phone to her ear as Inez put on coffee. “Rush,” she answered.

There was silence. “Hello?” She pulled the phone away from her ear to check the number, but she didn’t recognize it. “Hello?”

Then the soft sound of a familiar voice. “Rush?”

“Anita?”

“Yeah, I uh—”

“Are you okay? Did you remember something about the attack?”

“I’m fine. No, I didn’t. I need your help. It’s Pia. She’s at Northwest. Apparently, her and her friends were in a store on Germantown Avenue when it was robbed. She talked to someone there, but I can’t pick her up. I was wondering if you could bring her home. I don’t know who else to call. My mama’s in the hospital, and Terrence is on the road with his football team.”

“Anita, I’m not a taxi service,” Jocelyn said. There was a heavy exhale on the other end of the line, and immediately Jocelyn felt guilty. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m having a bad night. I’ve got a lot going on and—”

“I know,” Anita said quickly. “I know. You know I don’t like asking for help. I never would. I’d come down there and get her myself for sure, but I’m—well, you know. I’m not getting around so great right now. Please, Rush. It’s getting late. I need her home with me. She’s ten years old. She’s my little girl.”

Her little girl. Jocelyn felt a small pull inside, like a strained muscle. A heartstring, maybe. What if it was Olivia? What if Jocelyn were the one battered and injured, unable to get to her daughter to get her home safely? What if she swallowed her pride and reached out to someone for help for Olivia’s sake and that person turned her away? She was a single mom, just like Anita. She was lucky to have Inez, Martina, and Kevin, small support system though they were. Anita had no one.

“Okay,” Jocelyn said. “Sit tight. I’ll ride over to the Division and get her.”