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John D. MacDonald

The Innocent Victims

Tate had forgotten his carton of cigarettes, had left them in his locker, and that was how he happened to be at precinct when the kid came in, in what the doctor later described as a case of shock. Barney was on the desk and in his heavy-footed way he tried to bully the kid into talking coherently. Tate took a look at her torn clothes and bruised face, and he went over and took the hand and wrist that were like ice and took her over to where she could sit down, winking at Barney as he did so, because he didn’t want Barney sore again.

Once he had her sitting down he went back and asked Barney to get hold of a doctor, asked it in such a way that it became half Barney’s idea. Then Tate went back and sat down beside the shaking kid. She was, he guessed, about fifteen. Two years older than his own Adele, four years older than Mike.

She had so much rumpled up hair it made her thin face look small. She had makeup on her mouth, and her clothes looked cheap and new and too tight for her, and she had bleached a streak back through her brown hair. Little kid out for kicks on a summer evening.

Tate didn’t keep after her. He sat in his quietness and he waited, thinking she was probably from this neighborhood, and this was the neighborhood Adele would be growing up in too, that is unless he could get a better rating, or somebody started doing something about prices.

He got her name and address just before the doctor came. Hazel Lesarta, and she lived with her people at apartment 4 C at 1798 Christholm, which was about five blocks from precinct. Dr. Feltman arrived then and looked at her and decided he better take her on over to Cooper General where he could do a better examination and give her a shot so she could get a night’s sleep. He agreed to hold off on the shot until Tate could talk to her, and Tate said he’d be along after he let the family know about her.

After they went out, with Feltman helping her along, Barney said, “You bucking for corporal?”

“A free gift of my services to this great community. Besides, that stuff, it gets personal with me.”

“I know how you feel, Dan. Thank God I got Deedee married off and living way the hell and gone out in the country. Want I should put you down for this? You and Ricks?”

“Sure.” He phoned Jen and told her he’d be later than usual, and heard her exasperated sigh, and told her solemnly she should have married something she could chain in the cellar, and then when she wanted to feed it on time, she could carry a dish down there. That relaxed her a little.

Carrying the carton of cigarettes he walked the short hot city blocks through the night to where the Lesarta’s lived. The outside door apparently didn’t lock. He walked up to 4 C and knocked, and he could hear music. A man opened the door, a beefy man in a T-shirt with a can of beer in his hand. There was one lamp on over in a corner, and a big television set was turned on. Some kids sat on the floor and a woman turned to look toward the door.

Tate showed the badge and said, “Mr. Lesarta?”

“That’s right. What’s up?”

“I’m sorry, it’s your daughter. Hazel.”

The woman came over fast, squeezing by the big man who nearly blocked the door. “What’s the matter? Where is she? Take me where she is!”

“She’s okay. She’s over at Cooper General. Couldn’t get much out of her when she came running into the precinct station over on Flower Street. It looks like she had some trouble over in the park. It was in the paper to keep young girls out of that park until we nail whoever’s making the trouble.”

The woman sagged against the door frame. “Oh, dear God,” she said. “Oh, dear God. The fiend got her. My poor baby. My poor baby.”

Tate stared at the two of them, and looked in at the kids sitting on the floor, when kids that age should have been in bed two hours ago, not up after eleven ruining their eyes.

“Why didn’t you keep your poor baby out of the park?” he asked mildly.

The big man bristled. “What the hell is that to you? Anyway, what can you do with kids. Lock ’em up? She’s fourteen and looks older. Kids got a right to use that park. Why don’t you people get that fiend? My God, he’s been operating all summer.”

There was no point in going into it. Twenty acres of unfenced park, full of trees and bushes, inadequately lighted at night.

The woman said, “I’ll get shoes on.”

“She’s okay. They’ve given her a shot. She’ll be asleep anyhow. And they don’t like visitors in the wards this time of night. Why don’t you go over in the morning?”

The woman made merely a token struggle. When the door was shut Tate could hear the program through the flimsy panel again.

Tate followed the soft-footed nurse down between the beds of the ten-bed ward. There were white screens around the end bed, a small lamp glowing white through the screen. There was a sound of sleep in the ward. Someone moaned softly with each exhalation.

The nurse turned and they stood outside the screens. She said in a barely audible voice, “This one wasn’t hurt as badly as that last girl. She’s had a pill to quiet her. I’ll give her shot as soon as you leave, Sergeant. And Dr. Feltman said there was quite a bit of tissue under her fingernails. He cleaned it out and said he’d leave it at the police lab on his way home.”

“Thanks.”

“Please be as quiet as you can. If she starts to get too excited, use the call button.”

Hazel opened her eyes as he sat down beside the bed. Someone had fixed her hair, scrubbed off her make-up. Her facial bruises were darker. She looked quite small and young in the bed.

“I saw you at the station. You’re a cop, aren’t you? Gee, my voice is all rusty like. He hurt my throat.”

“I want to ask you about it. Tell me everything you can remember.”

“I don’t care to discuss it.”

He smiled a bit, inwardly, recognizing the ersatz drama of the statement as being right out of almost any movie.

“I know it’s tough, Hazel. It’s a terrible thing. But if you tell me, maybe we can keep it from happening to some other girl.”

He saw her think that over and nod agreement. He suspected she would have been disappointed if she had been denied the chance to report to the police. At the moment her fright and pain were submerged by the drama of the situation. And the heartbreak would come later.

“Well, I went to the Empire with my best girl friend, Rose Merelli. We got out about quarter to ten and there were some boys we knew, just sort of standing around. You know like they do. We kidded around and we said it was shorter to go home walking through the park, but we were scared. Really, we weren’t scared, because Rose and me, we’ve walked there lots of times. But we wanted the boys to walk with us. They’re Hank and Dick. I don’t know their last names, and I don’t think Rose does either, but they’re in third year high. We all sat on one of those benches in the park, and they got sorta fresh, you know. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it was Dick, but I was sorta with Hank and he’s too rough. I got sore and said I was going home alone, and they said go ahead, and I guess they thought I’d come running back, scared of the dark or something. Gee, I wish I had. It was pretty dark, you know like it is in there at night, and when you’re alone you think you keep hearing things, and you get nervous, you know. I was going real fast, almost sorta running, and this arm comes, gee, out of no place and grabs me right around the middle and yanks me back through a couple of those big bushes. I tried to yell and I made one little squeaky sound before he got my throat in his hand. He had sort of turned me around and I clawed him. I clawed him real good while he was carrying me up a sort of little hill away from the path. When he got me up the hill, I guess he was sore because I’d clawed his face. He held me by the throat, but not as tight as before and he hit me all over the face with his other hand until I was so weak and dizzy I hardly didn’t know where I was or anything. Then he... did it, and then I could hear him running away, hear him smashing bushes sort of as he ran away.”