Would he fit in with her theory or flout it? By the end of the afternoon she would either feel vindicated or be painfully reappraising her ideas.
However, she did not want to leave until the last possible moment. Lisa was still very fragile. Jeannie figured the best thing she could do was sit and talk to her about men and sex the way they always did, help her get on the road back to normality. She would have liked to stay here all morning, but she could not. She was really sorry lisa would not be at the lab to help her today, but it was out of the question.
“Yeah, one,” Jeannie said in answer to the question. “There was one guy I wanted to marry. His name was Will Temple. He was an anthropologist. Still is.” Jeannie could see him now, a big man with a fair beard, in blue jeans and a fisherman’s sweater, carrying his ten-speed bicycle through the corridors of the university.
“You’ve mentioned him before,” Lisa said. “What was he like?”
“He was great” Jeannie sighed. “He made me laugh, he took care of me when I was sick, he ironed his own shirts, and he was hung like a horse.”
Lisa did not smile. “What went wrong?”
Jeannie was being flip, but it hurt her to remember. “He left me for Georgina Tinkerton Ross.” As if by way of explanation, she added: “Of the Pittsburgh Tinkerton Rosses.”
“What was she like?”
The last thing Jeannie wanted to do was recall Georgina. However, this was taking Lisa’s mind off the rape, so she forced herself to reminisce. “She was perfect,” she said, and she disliked the bitter sarcasm she heard in her own voice. “Strawberry blond, hourglass figure, impeccable taste in cashmere sweaters and crocodile shoes. No brain, but a hell of a big trust fund.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Will and I lived together for a year when I was doing my doctorate.” It had been the happiest time she could remember. “He moved out while I was writing my article on whether criminality is genetic.”
“Men are creeps.”
“Will isn’t really a creep. He’s a beautiful guy. He fell for someone else, that’s all. I think he showed really bad judgment in his choice. But it’s not like we were married or anything. He didn’t break any promises. He wasn’t even unfaithful to me, except maybe once or twice before he told me.” Jeannie realized she was repeating Will’s own words of self-justification. “I don’t know, maybe he was a creep after all.”
“Maybe we should return to Victorian times, when a man who kissed a woman considered himself engaged. At least girls knew where they were.”
Right now Lisa’s perspective on relationships was pretty skewed, but Jeannie did not say so. Instead she asked: “What about you? Did you ever find one you wanted to marry?”
“Never. Not one.”
“You and I have high standards. Don’t worry, when Mr. Right comes along he’ll be wonderful.”
The entry phone sounded, startling them both. Lisa jumped up, bumping the table. A porcelain vase fell to the floor and shattered, and Lisa said:
She was still right on the edge. “I’ll pick up the pieces,” Jeannie said in a soothing voice. “You see who’s at the door.”
Lisa picked up the handset. A troubled frown crossed her face, and she studied the image on the monitor. “All right, I guess,” she said dubiously, and she pressed the button that opened the building door.
“Who is it?” Jeannie asked.
“A detective from the Sex Crimes Unit.”
Jeannie had been afraid they would send someone to bully Lisa into cooperating with the investigation. She was determined they would not succeed. The last thing Lisa needed now was more intrusive questions. “Why didn’t you tell him to fuck off?”
“Maybe because she’s black,” Lisa said.
“No kidding?”
Lisa shook her head.
How clever, Jeannie thought as she swept shards of porcelain into her cupped hand. The cops knew she and Lisa were hostile. If they had sent a white male detective he would not have got through the door. So they sent a black woman, knowing that two middle-class white girls would bend over backward to be polite to her. Well, if she tries to push Lisa around I’ll throw her out of here just the same, Jeannie thought.
She turned out to be a stocky woman of about forty, smartly dressed in a cream blouse with a colorful silk scarf, carrying a briefcase. “I’m Sergeant Michelle Delaware,” she said. “They call me Mish.”
Jeannie wondered what was in the briefcase. Detectives usually carried guns, not papers. “I’m Dr. Jean Ferrami,” Jeannie said. She always used her title when she thought she was going to quarrel with someone. “This is Lisa Hoxton.”
The detective said: “Ms. Hoxton, I want to say how sorry I am about what happened to you yesterday: My unit deals with one rape a day, on average, and every single one is a terrible tragedy and a wounding trauma for the victim. I know you’re hurting and I understand.”
Wow, Jeannie thought, this is different from yesterday.
“I’m trying to put it behind me,” Lisa said defiantly, but tears came to her eyes and betrayed her.
“May I sit down?”
“Of course.”
The detective sat at the kitchen table.
Jeannie studied her warily. “Your attitude seems different from the patrolman’s,” she said.
Mish nodded. “I’m also deeply sorry about McHenty and the way he treated you. Like all patrolmen he has received training on how to deal with rape victims, but he seems to have forgotten what he was taught. I’m embarrassed for the entire police department.”
“It was like being violated all over again,” Lisa said tearfully.
“It’s not supposed to happen anymore,” Mish said, and a note of anger crept into her voice. “This is how so many rape cases end up in a drawer marked ‘Unfounded.’ It’s not because women lie about rape. It’s because the justice system treats them so brutally that they withdraw the complaint.”
Jeannie said: “I can believe that.” She told herself to be careful: Mish might talk like a sister, but she was still a cop.
Mish took a card from her purse. “Here’s the number of a volunteer center for victims of rape and child abuse,” she said. “Sooner or later, every victim needs counseling.”
Lisa took the card, but she said: “Right now all I want is to forget it.”
Mish nodded. “Take my advice, put the card in a drawer. Your feelings go through cycles, and there will probably come a time when you’re ready to seek help.”
“Okay.”
Jeannie decided that Mish had earned a little courtesy. “Would you like some coffee?” she offered. “I’d love a cup.”
“I’ll make some fresh.” Jeannie got up and filled the coffee maker.
Mish said: “Do you two work together?”
“Yes,” Jeannie replied. “We study twins.”
“Twins?”
“We measure their similarities and differences, and try to figure out how much is inherited and how much is due to the way they were raised.”
“What’s your role in this, Lisa?”
“My job is to find the twins for the scientists to study.”
“How do you do that?”
“I start with birth records, which are public information in most states. Twinning is about one percent of births, so we get a set of twins for every hundred birth certificates we look at. The certificate gives the date and place of birth. We take a copy, then track down the twins.”
“How?”
“We have every American phone book on CD-ROM. We can also use driving license registries and credit
