I know something about rapes. She needs to see a doctor. If nothing else he might be able to give her some sedation. Who’s her gynecologist? I can call him for you.”
“Is there some kind of medical thing they can find out who did
it.”
“The hot bath tends to wash away
evidence,” Jesse
said.
“Well then, I won’t take her. The doctor may not tell, but
someone will. The nurse, the receptionist. The doctor’s husband. I
am not going to have her the subject of a lot of filthy talk all over town.”
Jesse finished his pastrami sandwich and drank the last of his cream soda and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He put the napkin and the empty can and the sandwich wrapper in the wastebasket. He rocked his chair back and rested one foot on the open bottom file drawer in his desk, and tapped his fingers gently on the flat of his stomach, and looked thoughtfully at Mrs.
Pennington.
“Why don’t I talk to her alone,”
he said.
“You think she’ll tell you things she won’t tell her own
mother?”
“Sometimes people do,” Jesse said.
Mrs. Pennington frowned. She put her palms together and tapped her upper lip with the tips of her fingers. She’s pretty good-looking, Jesse thought. A little too blond, a little too tan, a little too carefully done, maybe, teeth a little too white. Face is kind of mean, but a good body.
“This entire incident must remain
confidential,” Mrs. Pennington
said.
Jesse nodded.
“Can you promise me that?”
Jesse shook his head.
“You can’t?”
“Of course not. We don’t plan to blab about it. But, if there
are arrests, indictments, trials, someone will hear about it.”
“Oh God,” she said. “I cannot
bear, cannot bear, the
scandal.”
“Being raped is not scandalous behavior,”
Jesse
said.
“You don’t understand.”
Jesse didn’t say anything.
“I can’t discuss this any further.
I’m taking my daughter
home.”
“Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with this,” Jesse said. “Or
she will.”
“I want my daughter,” she said.
Jesse stood and went to his office door.
He yelled, “Molly,” and when she appeared he said, “Bring the
girl in.”
When she saw her daughter, Mrs. Pennington stood.
“We’ll go home now,” she said.
Candace’s eyes were red and swollen. A bruise had begun to
darken on her cheekbone. She seemed disconnected. Jesse looked at Molly. Molly shook her head.
