Mary shook her head.
“Shall I do it, dear?”
Mary nodded again.
The second “Pubic Hair Collection Envelope” was lettered in blue. It differed from the first envelope only in that one was lettered “A” and “Combings” and the other was lettered “B” and “Standard.” They both called for the same case information that the nurse filled in before firmly grasping a fistful of hair in Mary’s pubic area. It was important that the hairs not be cut; she quickly pulled some ten or twenty of them loose (Mary gave a short, sharp gasp) and then placed them in the envelope and sealed it.
“Almost finished,” she said.
Mary nodded.
Hester Fein watched.
The nurse opened the plastic bag labeled “Seminal Fluid Reagent.” She removed the small blue tab from the bag. She saturated the cotton pad with distilled water, wiped the wet cotton over and around Mary’s genital area, and then said, “Do they want me to do the test here, or will they handle it at the lab?”
“Nobody told me,” Hester said.
“Might as well do it and get it over with,” the nurse said.
“Might as well,” Hester said.
The nurse opened the blue tab by peeling it apart, exposing the activated acid phosphatase paper. She applied the paper to the wet cotton for several seconds. She removed the paper and looked at it.
“What will that tell you?” Hester asked.
“Presumptive presence of semen will cause an immediate color change in the paper.”
“What color?” Hester asked.
“There it goes,” the nurse said as the paper turned a dark purple that was the exact color of the printing on the acid phosphatase tab.
“So what does that mean?” Hester said.
“Positive for semen,” the nurse said, and returned the cotton pad and the tab to the plastic bag. “They’ll want to test further at the lab, but that’s it for now. Thank you, dear,” she said to Mary, “you were a very good patient.”
Everything was back in the kit again. She closed the lid, picked up the two red police seals, peeled off the protective backing, said to Hester, “You see me sealing it,” and then handed the sealed kit to her, and threw the instruction booklet into the trash can. “You can go now, dear,” she said to Mary.
“Where?” Mary said.
“Back to the station house,” Hester said. “We’ve got a detective from the Rape Squad coming up.”
Mary sat up.
“I...”
She looked around, bewildered.
“Yes, dear?” the nurse said.
“My panties,” she said. “Where are my panties?”
“I got them here for evidence,” Hester said.
“I need my panties,” Mary said.
Hester looked at the nurse. Reluctantly, she handed Mary the manila evidence envelope. As Mary put on the torn panties, Hester whispered to the nurse, “Talk about locking the barn door.”
Mary seemed not to hear her.
The 87th Precinct squadroom was relatively quiet, but then again it was only 8:00 in the morning when the detective from the Rape Squad arrived. The Graveyard Shift had already been relieved, and Genero had run home as quickly as he could, leaving Carella to type up the D.D. reports while the relieving detectives on the day tour drank their customary coffee before getting down to work.
The four relieving detectives were Cotton Hawes, Bert Kling, Meyer Meyer, and Arthur Brown, but Brown and Meyer had checked in only briefly and then had immediately gone out again to interview the victim of an armed robbery. Hawes and Kling were at Kling’s desk — Kling behind it in a chair, Hawes half-sitting, half-leaning on one corner of it, both men drinking coffee in cardboard containers — when the Rape Squad detective arrived.
“Who do I see about Mary Hollings?” she asked.
Hawes turned toward the slatted rail divider. The woman standing there was perhaps thirty-four years old, a dark-eyed brunette wearing eyeglasses, a trenchcoat open over a blue dress, and blue medium-heeled shoes. A blue leather shoulder bag was riding on her hip, her right hand resting on it.
“This the rape?” Hawes asked.
The woman nodded and opened the gate in the railing. “I’m Annie Rawles,” she said, and walked to where the two men were sitting. At his own desk, Carella looked up briefly and then continued typing. “Any more of that coffee around?” she asked.
“Cotton Hawes,” Hawes said, extending his hand.
Annie took it in a firm grip, and looked directly into his eyes. He was six-two or six-three, she guessed, 200 pounds more or less, blue-eyed and red-headed, with a white streak in the hair over his left temple, looked like he’d been hit by lightning or something. Hawes was thinking he wouldn’t mind taking Annie Rawles to bed. He liked these slender ones with firm little tits and no hips. Idly, he wondered if she outranked him.
“Bert Kling,” Kling said, and nodded.
Good-looking bunch of guys up here, Annie thought. The one who’d just introduced himself as Kling was almost as tall and as broad-shouldered as Hawes, with blond hair and eyes she guessed were hazel-colored or something, the open-faced look of a farm boy about him. Even the one who was hunched over a typewriter across the room was handsome in a Chinese sort of way — but he was wearing a wedding band on his left hand.
“You the ones who caught the squeal?” Annie said.
“O’Brien did, he’s already gone,” Hawes said.
“I’ll get you that coffee,” Kling said. “How do you like it?”
“Light with one sugar.”
Kling headed off toward the Clerical Office down the hall. Carella was still typing.
“Where’s the victim?” Annie asked.
“Policewoman took her to Mercy General,” Hawes said.
“Didn’t we meet one time?” Annie asked.
“I don’t think so,” Hawes said, and smiled. “I’d remember.”
“I thought we met up here one time. You get a lot of rapes up here, don’t you?”
“Our fair share,” Hawes said.
“How many?” Annie asked.
“You mean a week? A month?”
“Annually,” Annie said.
“I’d have to check the files.”
“Citywide, we got about thirty-five hundred last year,” Annie said. “The national figure was close to seventy-eight thousand.”
Kling was back with her coffee.
“A friend of mine works out of Special Forces,” he said. “Does a lot of decoy stuff.”
“Oh?” Annie said. “What’s her name?”
“Eileen Burke.”
“Oh, sure,” Annie said, “I’ve seen her around. Tall redhead? Green eyes?”
“That’s her.”
“Beautiful girl,” Annie said, and Kling smiled. “Good cop, too, I hear.”
He’d called Eileen a “friend.” Present-day euphemism for “lover,” even when a cop used it. Scratch the blond, Annie thought.
The gate in the wooden divider opened, and Hester Fein led Mary Hollings into the squadroom. Hester looked around for O’Brien, saw that he was already gone, and seemed bewildered for a moment.
“Who gets this?” she asked, holding out the Rape Evidence kit. “I’ll take it,” Annie said.
Hester looked at her.
“Detective First/Grade, Anne Rawles,” Annie said. “Rape Squad.”
She does outrank me, Hawes thought.
“I filled it in where I was supposed to,” Hester said, and indicated the label on the kit. Under the heading CHAIN OF POSSESSION, there were three brief, identical information requests to be completed. After “Received From,” Hester had written in Hillary Baskin, R.N. Mercy General. After “By,” she had written in P.O. Hester Fein, and then her shield number. After “Date,” she had written in October 7, and after “Time,” she had written in 7:31 and circled the printed am. Annie filled in the identically requested information below, acknowledging her receipt of the kit.