The Rookie Club: Dead Center Part 2

San Francisco General Hospital was a series of square brick boxes, stacked and connected like a child's LEGO creation but without the color and creativity. The building lacked symmetry. Or interesting architecture. What it screamed was functionality and Jamie supposed that made sense. General was not a particularly happy place.

Though some mothers did give birth at General Hospital, the building had only seven labor and delivery rooms. On the other hand, as the city's only level one trauma center, General Hospital treated more than one and a half million people each year and almost five thousand trauma patients. The city's worst injuries came here. Maybe the architect thought an attractive structure would be hypocritical for the building's grim reality.

Jamie took deep drags off her cigarette and steeled herself for the worst part. This was always where she considered a transfer to Homicide. It would be easier. They got grieving, angry families, but no victims. But leaving s.e.x crimes wasn't an option. Not for her.

This first day, only hours after the rape, the victim had yet to realize how the rape would change her life. Jamie knew. She had witnessed her best friend raped when they were young. It was why she did the job. To make up for that day. For just standing there, watching helplessly. Every time she stood in front of S.F. General, she was back to that day, watching that man...

She sucked the last drag off her cigarette, dropped it in the ashtray outside the emergency entrance, where thousands of others had gone before. She opened her Timbuk2 bag and found a pack of spearmint gum. Popped two. Then she squeezed out a dollop of antibacterial lavender-scented lotion and rubbed it into her hands and dabbed a little on her neck. Smelling like flowers and spearmint, she walked through the emergency room entrance to the back hall, where the rape exam room was located.

2R was a tiny exam room, painted in a light yellow. A single bed sat in the center-allowing Jamie and the a.s.sisting nurse, Maxi Thomas, to circle the victim for evidence collection. Maxi and Jamie had been doing this together a long time and on the rare occasion that Maxi wasn't on call when Jamie had a victim, Jamie appreciated her even more.

2R had very little in terms of equipment. Three bright, blinding lights shone from overhead and two exam lights on swivel stands that could be moved around the room. Other than that, the room had boxes of tissues, and gloves, and the materials they used for evidence collection. Nothing else. If a victim required an x-ray or scans, she (or, very rarely, he) was moved. Unless a victim was physically unstable, she stopped at 2R. Jamie paused at the door and took her last breath before entering.

When the door opened, she stared at the same eyes she always saw on a victim-wide, red rimmed, terrified, humiliated. Perhaps it was penance for not being attacked all those years ago, but Jamie took the gaze head-on. Only today it was a face she knew. Today it was her fault.

She blinked hard. "I'm so sorry, Emily."

Emily Osbourne shuddered. She ran a hand over her bare arm. Her right hand was wrapped with an Ace bandage. The bandage was just a temporary hold until evidence was collected. The arm was probably broken.

Jamie balled a fist and sucked in a breath. b.a.s.t.a.r.d. She fought the temptation to look away. Instead she studied Emily. Her left eye was swollen closed, the rim purple where the blood pooled above her cheekbone. Blood stained her upper lip where her nose still bled. Sitting in the pale green hospital gown, Emily looked about seventeen.

Jamie's cell phone buzzed on her hip. "Vail."

"It's Klein. I checked the records on Marchek."

Marchek was her serial rapist suspect. He had spent six years in jail after being convicted without the help of DNA evidence. Now he was out. Marchek had a penchant for women in authority. Two officers of the court and a judge were his victims. He'd used condoms, but finally one woman identified him. Now his DNA was on record and Jamie thought he was good for the latest crimes, too. They showed consistency with his MO, but so far Jamie didn't have any evidence to run against his DNA.

An anger retaliatory rapist, Marchek loved to beat his victims. Head and face, especially. Jamie had brought him in yesterday afternoon for questioning on an attempted rape in the police station parking lot. A traffic officer, Jill Muhta, had gotten away unharmed. She'd been unable to ID him, so they had no choice but to cut him loose.

Marchek was also suspected in two other police officer attacks. Though targeting police officers was inherently risky, Jamie knew the police represented an attractive target for more violent, anger-motivated criminals. The police represented power, and for someone like Michael Marchek, a woman police officer was the ultimate prize.

"Thanks, Klein. What time do you have him leaving?"

"He signed out at 7:58 p.m."

"Anyone see him leave?"

"A guard named Cash saw him leave the building. Walked out the front toward Bryant."

"And after that?"

"Nothing. Cash was just talking a smoke break. Said Marchek turned left on Bryant and that's all he saw. You think he's your guy?"

Jamie blew out her breath. "I do."

Emily began crying again.

"You want me to send patrol to pick him up?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Jamie snapped the phone shut and blinked hard. Emily Osbourne had been attacked at 8:19 p.m. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had literally gotten out of jail and walked over to the department in search of a new victim.

That was on her. Jamie had gotten him riled up. She'd hoped to taunt him into saying something. Like most criminals who committed serial crimes, he wanted to boast. He was proud of his work. A perfectionist. The best way to rile a perfectionist was to tell him that he wasn't perfect. That was what she'd done. She used the failed attempted rape of Officer Muhta to provoke him.

"I'd hate to think you'd lost your touch. Prison will do that, I hear." Marchek was not the explosive type. He held it in but she knew he was angry. She'd done everything in her power to make him angry. And then, what? She'd walked away. Three hours later, they cut him loose. Her captain had denied her request to have him followed. They didn't have the manpower. Osbourne was attacked in the stairwell. Her stairwell. He'd come to s.e.x Crimes, her department. The only reason to come there was to find her.

He was looking for her and instead, she let him walk right up to another officer. Christ. It should have been her on this table not Emily. How could she have been so stupid?

Chapter 5.

Jamie Vail drew a slow breath to calm herself. This was not the time for self-recriminations or pity. This was Emily's time. Turning her focus to the interview at hand, Jamie announced the time, date, day of the week, and location of the rape, for the recording. But she wrote nothing. Her job was to watch for anything the tape would miss. Maxi would record important details, including victim's race and gender. 99.5 percent of the cases she saw were female, but she'd had male victims, too. It was no easier with them.

"For the purpose of the recording, I'm Jamie Vail. I'm an Inspector with the San Francisco Police Department's s.e.xual a.s.sault Unit." She lowered her voice. "Have we contacted your family?"

Emily started to cry.

Maxi Thomas patted her shoulder ever so lightly. "We called her parents. They're back in Connecticut. She has an aunt coming down from Stockton. We called her boyfriend, too, but didn't reach him."

Parents. Aunt. Boyfriend. She was a daughter, a niece, and a girlfriend. She wondered how the boyfriend would handle it. She had seen a wide range of reactions, most of them bad. Husbands and boyfriends often displaced anger at the rapist onto themselves or the victim. Some couldn't handle the idea that their partner had been with another man as though the rape were some sort of infidelity. Others lacked the ability to be patient while the victim recovered. Often, she didn't want to be intimate for a long time. It was an impossible scenario. From Jamie's experience, a rape either made a couple indestructible or it flat out ruined them. Unfortunately, odds favored the latter.

"Thanks, Maxi." Jamie focused on the victim. On Emily, she told herself. "I'm here to catch this b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Emily choked out a sob, her nose red from tears that streamed down her face.

Jamie set a box of tissues between them. Pulling one out, she handed it to her. "For the record, will you state your full name?"

"Emily Kathleen Osbourne."

She gave Emily another tissue and paused. Felt the familiar tightness in her own chest. Watching the victim got tougher each time. It grew harder to hold onto her professionalism, to block out their pain and her own anger. Over the years, the attacks along with their brutal details and lasting repercussions acc.u.mulated inside her. What used to feel like a short, quick stab in her early days of conducting these interviews was now a chronic pain. Her guard, too, had been chipped away; the victim's pain seeped into her more easily now than when she'd started. She wondered if the same were true of the rapists. How much time had she spent with men who did this to women? Did that time acc.u.mulate the same way? Was some of their evil seeping in as well?

Emily wiped her cheeks, tried to look brave.

Jamie nodded her encouragement.

"I'm ready," she whispered.

Jamie wasn't ready, she realized. But this wasn't about her. She sucked a quick breath, held on to it a moment and then let it and her resistance fall away. "I'm going to ask a lot of questions," she told Emily. "This is all standard stuff. If you need more time, tell me. If you think of something else, interrupt me. Anything you can tell me will help. Okay?"

"Okay," Emily squeaked out with a deep breath and a shudder.

The rape questionnaire included almost sixty questions. Jamie had memorized them years ago. Most victims begged to leave more than once before the interview was over. Jamie understood the desire. More than once, she'd wanted to tell them, "Yes, of course you can go." And they could. They could stop at any time. But they didn't. Jamie and Maxi helped them through it.

They'd been beaten, violated, shamed, and within hours of the attack-as soon as possible-Jamie's job was to make them go through it again in as much detail as possible. They were warriors, these women. Maybe not before the attack but certainly after.

When the answers took too long, Jamie waited. She offered water-once a mouth sc.r.a.ping was completed in case of s.e.m.e.n or other evidence. But mostly, she stayed quiet and let the victim have her time. Ninety-nine out of every hundred spent it crying. Jamie knew about that, too. That's what her best friend had done. It had lasted for weeks. Seeing the victims in these first moments, before the shock and pain had settled in, before the rape impacted the rest of their lives-their work, their family, their relations.h.i.+ps-was probably the easiest job in the recovery process. A few weeks from now, the painful reality of what had happened would be deeper and more difficult.

She started with the easy questions. "Did you see your attacker?"

Doe eyes flashed as Emily shook her head. Her bottom lip trembled. "He wore a hood."

"Did you see any part of him? Any skin?" Jamie pressed.

"A little part of his hand," she whispered. "Up by his wrist. I saw his wrist."

"Can you guess at his race?" she asked.

Emily started to cry again. After a moment, she sucked in a breath. "White. His skin was white."

Jamie met Maxi's eye. The nurse nodded. The first piece of something.

"Okay. That's good. Emily, really good." She paused as Emily nodded, her gaze down. A tear slid from her cheek onto the green hospital gown. Her clothes were already en route to the lab.

Jamie squeezed Emily's shoulder, moved on. "Were they white like mine?" Jamie put out her own hand and slowly twisted it up and down, so Emily could see both sides. "Or more olive, like Maxi's?"

Emily lifted up her own hand and looked at it as though she'd never seen it before. "I only saw the wrist. It was white-like yours."

"Okay. Good." Jamie moved on. "Can you guess at how big he was? Height? Weight?" Jamie always said "he." Guidelines said never a.s.sume, but Jamie had never had a female rapist.

Jamie moved quickly through questions on appearance since Emily had seen only his hands. Still, she asked every one. Sometimes a question would unleash an image a victim didn't think she had. That was not the case here. Emily had not seen more than the little strip of wrist. A defense attorney would tear that apart. On the stand, Emily would be pressured about how certain she was that she'd seen his wrist. That it wasn't a white T-s.h.i.+rt or bracelet or watch or... No, it was not enough to go on.

"He bound you?"

She nodded.

Jamie knew he had used duct tape. Pieces of it were still stuck to Emily's forearms. It would have to be removed for evidence, but that could wait. "Anything else besides the tape?"

Jamie was never surprised by the extents these a.s.sholes went to-tape, plastic bindings, handcuffs. It wasn't to prevent escape. Duct tape alone was enough for that. The overkill was all part of the fantasy.

"No other binding?"

Emily shook her head.

Jamie waited for a moment before moving on. From an earlier scene, evidence suggested her serial rapist had used some sort of restraint across the victim's chest, too. She didn't want to plant ideas in Emily's mind, but she wanted to ensure nothing was missed. "How about a strap across your middle? Anything like that?"

"No. He sat on me."

"Can you show me where?" Jamie asked.

She touched a rib. "Here."

Maxi prodded softly along Emily's ribs until she located the most sensitive spot. The dark edges of a bruise were already forming on the skin. With Emily holding her gown up, head turned, Maxi photographed the bruises. Maxi marked the chart before retying Emily's gown. She would have to be photographed again in a day or two when the bruises were fully formed, but neither Jamie nor Maxi mentioned that now.

Next, Jamie walked Emily through how the rape had occurred. Every question helped to create a map of the rapist's MO. How did he attack? Con, blitz, or surprise? Was anything stolen?

Some of the best cases were the ones where the perp took a piece of jewelry, then gave it to a girlfriend, or one time, to his mother. In that case, his mother had known it was too nice for her b.u.m son to afford and she'd called the cops. A bold move for the mother, but as she said, "If he's stealing from someone else, what makes me think he won't do it to me? Or worse."

In Emily's case, it was a blitz approach, which made sense since she hadn't seen him. Nothing stolen.

"Did he wear gloves when he touched you?"

The victim paused at that. "I saw his hand."

"Without a glove?"

She nodded. "I think-I thought so." Then she shook her head. Tears fell faster. "Oh G.o.d. Now I'm not sure."

"Emily, it's okay. This is hard. It's a lot to digest. Are we moving too fast?"

"No. No, it's okay."

Jamie turned to Maxi. "Let's try for prints." They'd dust for prints on her skin. Maybe they'd get lucky. How many times had she prayed for a break like that? Way too many.

After a moment, Jamie continued her questions. Did he use a condom, did he talk, threaten, bribe? No condom, she didn't think. Shawna Delman had said the same, but they hadn't gotten any DNA from Delman's exam. Jamie wondered if Osbourne's would be the same.

The next part was the worst. "Can you tell me where he touched you?"

Emily choked on a sob.

"We're just going to walk through it slowly."

Maxi pulled a fistful of sterile swabs from a drawer.

"Maxi's going to take a swab from each place." Jamie paused. "This is going to suck, Emily. It's the worst part. We'll do it as fast as we can but we have to do it right. As soon as it's over, I'll buy you a soda, okay? You're a c.o.ke drinker, right? You said you hate Pepsi, right? You were teasing me because I said I couldn't tell the difference. You thought that was nuts, remember?"

Emily nodded, tried to smile.

Jamie touched Emily's arm again. She never touched her victims, but Emily was different. She was a colleague. The third one she'd interviewed in a week. It got worse every G.o.dd.a.m.n time. When would it end?

Jamie stepped back. "Can you do this?"

Emily's back straightened. "Yeah. Let's do it."

"Anywhere he came into contact with you-his hands, his skin, his p.e.n.i.s."

Tears streamed down Emily's cheeks.

"I know this is tough. We're almost done."

"You know what they don't ever tell you?" Emily said.

Jamie waited, her gut tight.