“Did you try to defend yourself with your left...?”
“No.”
“You didn’t strike out at him or...?”
“No. He had a knife!”
Okay, Annie thought. A knife. Forcible compulsion if ever there was.
“What kind of knife?” she asked at once.
“The same knife he had the last two times.”
“Yes, what kind, please?”
“A switchblade knife.”
“Can you tell me how long the blade was?”
“I don’t know how long the goddamn blade was, it was a knife!” Mary said, flaring.
“Did he threaten you with the knife?”
“He said he would cut me if I made a sound.”
“Were those his exact words?”
“If I screamed, if I made a sound, I don’t know exactly what he said.”
Threat, express or implied, Annie thought, fear of immediate death or serious physical injury.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“He... lifted my gown.”
“Were you struggling?”
“He had the tip of the knife at my throat.”
“Held the knife to your throat?”
“Yes. Until...”
“Yes.”
“He... when my... my gown was up... he... he put the knife between my legs. He said he would stick the knife in my... my... my... in me if I... if I so m-m-much as s-s-said a word. He... he... tore my panties with the knife... cut them with the knife... and... and... then he... he... d-d-did it to me.”
Annie took another deep breath.
“He was there for two hours, you say.”
“He k-k-kept doing it to me, doing it to me.”
“Did he say anything at all during that time? Anything that would lead to indentifi...”
“No.”
“Didn’t accidentally mention his name...”
“No.”
“Or where he was from, or...”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing. Not wh-while he was... was...”
“He was raping you, Miss Hollings,” Annie said. “It’s okay to say the word. The son of a bitch was raping you.”
“Yes,” Mary said.
“And he said nothing?”
“Not while he was... raping me.”
“Miss Hollings, I have to ask this next question. Did he force you to engage in any deviate sexual intercourse?”
She was quoting from the Penal Law defining First-Degree Sodomy, another Class-B felony, punishable by a maximum term of twenty-five years in prison. If they ever caught him and could convict him on both rape and sodomy, he’d spend the rest of his life behind...
“No,” Mary said.
Annie nodded. Simple First-Degree Rape. Twenty-five years if he got the max. Three years if he got a lenient judge. Out on the streets again in a year if he behaved himself in prison.
“B-before he left,” Mary said, “he...”
“Yes?”
“He... he said...”
“What did he say, Miss Hollings?”
“He...”
Mary covered her face with her hands.
“What did he say, please?”
“He s-s-said... ‘I’ll be back.’”
Annie looked at her.
“He was smiling,” Mary said.
3
The padded mailing bag arrived by parcel post on Tuesday morning, October 11. It was addressed to the 87th Precinct, and was accepted at the muster desk by Sergeant Dave Murchison, together with the rest of that morning’s mail. Murchison looked at the bag suspiciously, and then held it to his ear to listen for any ticking. In today’s world, you never knew whether there was a bomb in a package with no return address on it.
He didn’t hear any ticking, which didn’t mean a damn thing. Nowadays, you could fashion homemade explosive devices that didn’t tick at all. He wondered if he should alert the Bomb Squad; he’d feel like a horse’s ass if they came all the way up here and discovered there was a box of chocolates or something inside the bag. Murchison had been a cop for a long time, though, and he knew that one of the first laws of survival in the Police Department was to cover your flanks. He picked up the phone and immediately buzzed Captain Frick’s office.
There were 186 uniformed policemen and sixteen plainclothes detectives working out of the Eight-Seven, and Captain Frick was in command of all of them. Most of them believed that Frick was beyond the age of retirement, if not chronologically, then at least mentally. Some of them went so far as to say that Frick was non compos mentis and incapable of tying his own shoelaces in the morning, no less making decisions that could very easily affect the very real life-or-death situations these men confronted daily on the precinct streets. Frick had white hair. His hair had been white forever. He felt it complemented the blue of his uniform. He could not imagine holding down a job that would compel him to wear anything but the blue uniform that so splendidly complemented his dignified white hair. The gold braid, too; he liked the gold braid on his uniform. He liked being a cop. He did not like being told by a desk sergeant that a suspicious-looking package had just arrived in the morning mail.
“What do you mean, suspicious?” he asked Murchison.
“No return address on it,” Murchison said.
“Where’s it postmarked?” Frick asked.
“Calm’s Point.”
“That’s not this precinct,” Frick said.
“No, sir, it’s not.”
“Send it back,” Frick said. “I want no part of it.”
“Send it back where, sir?” Murchison asked.
“To Calm’s Point.”
“Where in Calm’s Point? There’s no return address on it.”
“Send it back to the post office,” Frick said. “Let them worry about it.”
“Suppose it blows up?” Murchison said.
“Why would it blow up?”
“Suppose there’s a bomb in it? Suppose we send it back to the post office, and it blows up and kills a hundred postal clerks? How would we look then?” Murchison asked.
“So what do you want to do?” Frick asked. He was looking at his shoes and thinking he needed a shine. On his lunch hour, he’d go for a shine at the barber shop on Culver and Sixth.
“That’s what I’m asking you,” Murchison said. “What to do.”
Responsibilities, Frick thought, always responsibilities. Cover your flanks, he thought. In case there’s flak from upstairs rank later on. You never knew when departmental heat would come. It struck like lightning.
“What is your recommendation, Sergeant?” he asked.
“I am asking for your recommendation, sir,” Murchison said.
“Would you suggest we call the Bomb Squad?” Frick asked.
“Is that what you suggest, sir?” Murchison said.
“This would seem a routine matter,” Frick said. “I’m sure you are capable of handling it.”
“Yes, sir, in what way should I handle it, sir?”
Both men were extremely expert at covering their flanks. It seemed as if they had reached an impasse. Frick was wondering how he could vaguely word an order that wouldn’t sound like an order. Murchison was sitting there hoping Frick would not tell him to open the damn package. Even if there wasn’t a bomb in it, you opened these padded mailing bags and all sorts of crud that looked like chopped asbestos fell out onto your desk and your clean blue pants. He did not want to open that bag. He sat there wondering how he could maneuver Frick into giving him definite instructions that would take the damn thing off the muster desk before it exploded in his face.
“Do as you see fit,” Frick said.