“For that fool who let you walk away?” Mercer said.
Flo laughed nervously. “Yeah. For him.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“Not at first. I mean, just the sound of the water kind of whooshing through.”
“Then what happened?”
“I heard him before I saw him. I heard him, like he was talking to his dog. Nothing strange about that. He was calling to his dog, like, ‘Here, Buster. Come back to me.’”
Who did I know with a dog named Buster? It sounded familiar to me, which was a minor distraction from Flo’s story.
“Then he was like blocking the end of the tunnel, asking me if I saw his dog.”
“Did you?” I asked. “Did you see the dog?”
Flo looked at me as though I was off base. “Dog? That boy didn’t have no dog.”
Both Mercer and I knew what was coming next.
“But I turned to look behind me and that’s when he grabbed me.”
“Grabbed you how?” I asked.
“Yoked me,” she said, hooking her right arm across her neck. “Yoked me and bent me over backward so my knees gave out and I fell on the ground, all the time him pulling me off the walkway in between the trees.”
“And-?”
“That’s when he started yelling crazy stuff at me. Calling me ‘bitch.’ Telling me I was gonna burn in hell for what I done. Telling me my sister was a devil,” Flo said, shaking her head and rubbing her shoulder.
“Your sister?” Mercer asked.
“I don’t have a sister. That’s what I’m saying ’bout crazy. Then I see his penis.”
“Did he let go of you to unzip his pants?” I said.
“Nope. He never let go of me. His pants was already unzipped. He was hard by the time he threw me down.”
Perhaps he’d been masturbating in the bushes, like he’d done when he approached the Austin sisters.
“What did he do then, Flo?”
“More crazy talking. He was mad at me for fighting him. That’s when he ripped my halter. Tore the thing clear off.”
“What kind of crazy talk?” I asked.
Flo kept stroking her shoulder and upper arm, which clearly bothered her. “All about the devil and stuff. But then he wanted me to say things. But I didn’t want to say ’em. He was all like sitting on top of me, so I couldn’t move, and my back was aching from rolling on all those rocks and branches.”
“Tell us the words, Flo. Tell us, please, what the man wanted you to say.”
“Don’t put this in your report, okay?” She was almost squirming in her chair now.
Mercer coaxed her just to repeat what had happened. We knew it wasn’t her choice of words; it was her assailant’s.
In a voice not much louder than a whisper, Flo said, “‘I’m a ho.’ He wanted to hear that. Two, three times maybe. He wanted me to tell him how big he was and how much I wanted him inside me.”
Tears started to streak down her cheeks as she spoke, and at that moment the whole image began to come together for me.
“He made me use the F-word, saying I needed him to do that to me. But I wasn’t saying it loud enough for him,” Flo went on. Then she paused and looked at Mercer. “It was almost funny, what crossed my mind. I was so scared my boyfriend would be coming along and he’d see me half naked, saying that to another man, and he’d think I’d gone off and done that to spite him.”
The modus operandi that Mercer hoped we might take from Flo’s story was coming together. The faked approach that stopped most walkers in their tracks, helping another park person to find a lost dog; the dog’s name, Buster; and the same man, a rapist, then demanding that his victim call herself a whore and compliment his private parts and prowess-I actually knew that MO.
“You’re almost there,” Mercer said.
“It was ’cause I wouldn’t talk louder and I wouldn’t hold still that he got so mad. Took the piece of pipe out of his back pocket and threatened to bash in my face with it.”
He told his victims he’d make them so ugly no man would ever look at them again, beating them to a pulp with a twelve-inch lead pipe.
“He held it right up to my cheek so I could feel the cold metal, so’s I knew he wasn’t fooling around. That’s when I saw he had some words tattooed on his hand,” Flo said, touching her cheek with her fingertips. “Looked like two separate words, but it was too dark to read what they said.”
“What words did he use when he had the pipe in your face?” I asked.
“He said-he said he’d make me so ugly that no man would ever look at me again.”
“I’m glad you didn’t let him do that, Flo,” Mercer said.
“So then this couple must have come up through the arch. I was thrashing around and screaming again ’cause this maniac was ripping at my shorts, trying to get his business all up in me. And this couple-they was Hispanic, and the guy was really heavyset and tough-looking. I yelled to them for help. That’s when the dude got off me and started running, without even zipping up his pants. The Spanish guy is the one who picked me up and walked me out to the cops. He’s why I didn’t get raped.
“That’s what I know.” Flo exhaled and sat back in her chair. “That’s what happened to me.”
“Thank you for giving us all that detail, Flo,” I said. “I promise you we’re going to find this man. We’re going to get him before he does this to anyone else.”
She trusted Mercer, but she was pretty well convinced that I was just bluffing. She rolled her eyes and looked up at me. “Now, how you gonna do that, Miss District Attorney?”
“Because you just told me who the crazy man is, Flo.”
“No, ma’am,” she said, standing up, “I have no idea who he is. I just want to go home now, if you don’t mind.”
She stepped past me and opened the door to walk out of the room.
I closed it behind her and leaned against it. “There I was, racking my brain to think of all the guys I sent upstate. I never thought of the ones that beat me.”
Mercer smiled. “You’re serious? You know this guy?”
“Crazy-ass dude is right,” I said. “Raymond Tanner. Raped three girls in St. Nicholas Park, looking for his imaginary puppy named Buster.”
“Back when? How’d I miss this?”
Tanner’s MO was as distinctive a signature as his fingerprints.
“While you were hospitalized, Mercer. After the shooting.”
“You tried the case?”
“And lost. Not guilty by reason of insanity. Raymond Tanner should have been behind bars for the rest of his life.”
FIFTEEN
I was at my desk at 7:30 on Wednesday morning, pacing in front of the window. Papers were strewn all over the desktop-notes and sketches from Angel’s investigation-and on the floor, my Raymond Tanner files.
“You’ve got to calm yourself, Alex,” Mercer said when he arrived fifteen minutes later with coffee and Danish. “The whole department will be on this guy’s tail before noon.”
“Impossible. I’ve been up all night. There’s still no one picking up phones in admin at the Mental Health Unit at the Fishkill Correctional Facility.”
“Scully’s on top of it. We pulled photos of Tanner and the entire case folder is up at One PP.”
“How come he isn’t all over the news this morning?” I asked. “How come there isn’t a manhunt for him already?”
“The commissioner first wants to check that Tanner isn’t tightly tucked away in his cell at Fishkill. That could put a hitch in your theory.”
“I hope Scully has better luck than I do. I’ve checked our files. We haven’t even had a first letter about a fitness hearing yet. This whackjob is supposed to be in a secure facility till I’m in a rocking chair. He’s as dangerous a psychopath as they come.”
“How’d you treat him in your closing argument?”
“Like the beast he is.”
“Well I guess he’s had a few years to work on his body art, thinking of you the whole time. That could explain the tattoo.”