The on-call gyno who showed up at the emergency room was a young woman with red hair and a good backside who whisked into the examining room, took one look at KC, and whisked me out with one brisk all- inclusive gesture. I sat in the waiting area and looked at people with bruises and cuts and breathing problems and stomach pains as they came and went. I read several ancient copies of
After about an hour, the gyno came out and said, “Mr. Spenser?”
“Me,” I said.
“Come in please.”
I went in. KC was in a johnny and those silly slippers that they give you. Her hair had been combed and her face washed and she seemed a little foggy. A large black woman in a nurse suit hovered around and looked at me disapprovingly.
“I’m Dr. Tripp,” the red-haired woman said. “Mrs. Roth says I may speak freely with you. What is your relationship to her?”
“Employee,” I said.
“In what capacity?”
“I’m a detective. She hired me to prevent this from happening to her.”
“She may wish to rethink that,” Dr. Tripp said.
“She may,” I said. “Was she raped?”
“She was.”
“No doubt of it?”
“None. There’s vaginal bruising. There’s semen. The police have been notified.”
KC stared at her.
“No,” she said thickly. “I don‘ wan’ that.”
“Mrs. Roth, I’m required to,” she said. “Neither you nor I have a choice.”
“Tranquilizer?” I said.
“Valium. You’re not with the police.”
“No. I’m a private detective.”
“Really,” she said. “Do you know who did this?”
“I think so,” I said.
“No. He din’t,” KC said. “I will swear he din’t.”
Dr. Tripp stared at her.
“You’ll protect the man who did this?”
“I don‘ know who did,” KC said.
Dr. Tripp looked at me. I shrugged.
“I would like to keep her overnight,” Dr. Tripp said.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I said. “Maybe you can put the cops off until tomorrow.”
“One reason I want her to stay,” Dr. Tripp said.
“Will you stay wi‘ me?” she said to me. “I won’ stay ‘less you stay wi’ me.”
“It’s permitted,” Dr. Tripp said.
“Oh good,” I said.
Spending the night sitting in a chair by KC Roth’s bedside was about as appealing as a Howard Stern film festival. I took in a lot of air through my nose and let it out the same way. Dr. Tripp and the black nurse and KC all stared at me with various degrees of male-oriented hostility.
“Sure,” I said. “Be glad to.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
In the morning, under the stern gaze of Dr. Tripp, the Reading cops were solicitous, and KC was uninformative, and I was tired. KC insisted that she didn’t know her assailant. The cops clearly did not believe her but couldn’t figure out why she’d protect him, and neither could I. They had a young female assistant from the Middlesex DA’s office who seemed bright and sympathetic and was pretty clever in some of her questions but not bright enough, or apparently sympathetic enough. KC refused to change her story and finally resorted to crying, which worked. The crying may have been sincere. She had been beaten and raped, but I also knew that she could cry at will, and life had made me cynical.
After the cops left and the bright young sympathetic DA went with them, Dr. Tripp told KC that a social worker would stop by to talk with her in a while. And that Dr. Tripp felt that KC should stay another night. KC nodded. Her crying had dwindled to sniffling. She patted her unswollen eye with a Kleenex and blew her nose and sat up a little higher in the bed.
“Keep that eye cold,” Dr. Tripp said as she went out.
We were alone. I handed KC one of the compresses from the tray on her bedside table. She held it against her
