“Do you know how long he’s lived
here?” Jesse
said.
“No. He was here when I moved in three years ago.”
“From where?”
“From where did I move?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Am I a suspect?”
“No,” Jesse said. “The question
was unofficial.”
“Really?” she said. “I came from
LA.”
“Me too,” Jesse said.
7
Jesse was eating a pastrami sandwich on light rye at his desk, when Molly brought the girl and her mother into his office just after noontime on Thursday.
“I think you need to talk with these ladies,” Molly
said.
Jesse took a swallow of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. He nodded.
“Excuse my lunch,” he said.
“I don’t care about your damned
lunch,” the mother said. “My
daughter’s been raped.”
“Moth-er!”
“You might want to stick
around, Molly,” Jesse
said.
Molly nodded and closed the door and leaned on the wall beside it.
“Tell me about the rape,” Jesse said.
“I didn’t get raped,” the girl
said.
“Shut up,” the mother said.
Jesse took a bite of his sandwich and chewed quietly.
“She came home from school early and tried to slip into the
house. Her dress was torn, her hair was a mess, her lip was swollen. You can still see it. She was crying and she wouldn’t tell
me why.”
Jesse nodded. He drank a little more cream soda.
“I insisted on examining her,” the mother said. “She had no
underwear, her thighs are bruised. I said I would take her to the doctor if she didn’t tell me, so she confessed.”
“That she’d been raped?” Jesse
said.
He was looking at the daughter. The daughter looked frantic to him.
“Yes.”
“Anyone do a rape kit?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you take her to the doctor,” Jesse said.
“And have it all over town, God no. I had her clean herself up
and brought her straight to you.”
“Clean herself up?”
“Of course. Who knows what germs were involved. And I’m not
