She pulled out of her parking space and drove off.
As she left the campus she noticed a police cruiser tuck in behind Steve’s car. She checked her speedometer and slowed down to thirty.
It seemed Steven Logan was smitten with her. Although she did not reciprocate his feelings, she was kind of pleased. It was flattering to have won the heart of a handsome young hunk.
He stayed on her tail all the way home. She pulled up outside her house and he parked right behind her.
As in many old Baltimore streets, there was a row stoop, a communal front porch that ran the length of the row, where neighbors had sat cooling themselves in the days before air-conditioning. She crossed the stoop and stood at her door, getting out her keys.
Two cops exploded out of the patrol car, guns in their hands. They took up firing positions, their arms stretched out stiffly, their guns pointed directly at Jeannie and Steve.
Jeannie’s heart stopped.
Steven said: “What the
Then one of the men yelled: “Police! Freeze!”
Jeannie and Steve both raised their hands.
But the police did not relax. “On the floor, motherfucker!” one of them screamed. “Facedown, hands behind your back!”
Jeannie and Steve both lay facedown.
The policemen approached them as, cautiously as if they were ticking bombs. Jeannie said: “Don’t you think you’d better tell us what this is about?’
“You can stand up, lady,” said one,
“Gee, thanks.” She got to her feet. Her heart was beating fast, but it seemed obvious the cops had made some kind of dumb mistake. “Now that you’ve scared me half to death, what the hell is going on?’
Still they did not reply. They both kept their guns pointed at Steve. One of them knelt beside him and, with a swift, practiced motion, handcuffed him. “You’re under arrest, cock-sucker,” the cop said.
Jeannie said: “I’m a broad-minded woman, but is all this cursing really necessary?” Nobody took any notice of her. She tried again. “What’s he supposed to have done, anyway?”
A light blue Dodge Colt screeched to a halt behind the police cruiser and two people got out. One was Mish Delaware, the detective from the Sex Crimes Unit. She had on the same skirt and blouse she had worn this morning, but she wore a linen jacket that only partly concealed the gun at her hip.
“You got here fast,” said one of the patrolmen.
“I was in the neighborhood,” she replied. She looked at Steve, lying on the floor. “Get him up,” she said.
The patrolman took Steve by the arm and helped him stand.
“It’s him all right,” Mish said. “This is the guy who raped Lisa Hoxton.”
“Steven did?” Jeannie said incredulously.
“Rape?” Steven said.
“The patrolman spotted his car leaving the campus,” Mish said.
Jeannie noticed Steve’s car for the first time. It was a tan Datsun, about fifteen years old. Lisa had thought she saw the rapist driving an old white Datsun.
Her initial shock and alarm began to give way to rational thought. The police suspected him: that did not make him guilty. What was the evidence? She said: “If you’re going to arrest every man you see driving a rusty Datsun …”
Mish handed Jeannie a piece of paper. It was a flyer bearing a computer-generated black-and-white picture of a man. Jeannie stared at it. It did look something like Steven. “It might be him and it might not,” Jeannie said.
“What are you doing with him?”
“He’s a subject. We’ve been doing tests on him at the lab. I can’t believe he’s the guy!” Her test findings showed that Steven had the inherited personality of a potential criminal—but they also showed he had
Mish said to Steven: “Can you account for your movements yesterday between seven and eight P.M..?”
“Well, I was at JFU,” Steven said.
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing much. I was supposed to go out with my cousin Ricky, but he canceled. I came here to check out where I had to be this morning. I had nothing else to do.”
It sounded lame even to Jeannie. Maybe Steve was the rapist, she thought with dismay. But if he was, her entire theory was shot.
Mish said: “How did you spend your time?”
“I watched the tennis for a while. Then I went to a bar in Charles Village and spent a couple of hours. I missed the big fire.”
“Can anyone corroborate what you say?”
“Well, I spoke to Dr. Ferrami, although at that point I didn’t actually know who she was.”
Mish turned to Jeannie. Jeannie saw hostility in her eyes and recalled how they had clashed, this morning, when Mish was persuading Lisa to cooperate.
Jeannie said: “It was after my tennis game, a few minutes before the fire broke out.”
Mish said: “So you can’t tell us where he was when the rape took place.”
“No, but I’ll tell you something else. I’ve spent all day giving this man tests, and he doesn’t have the psychological profile of a rapist.”
Mish looked scornful. “That’s not evidence.”
Jeannie was still holding the flyer. “Nor is this, I guess.” She balled it up and dropped it on the sidewalk.
Mish jerked her head at the cops. “Let’s go.”
Steven spoke in a clear, calm voice. “Wait a minute.”
They hesitated.
“Jeannie, I don’t care about these guys, but I want to tell you that I didn’t do this, and I never would do anything of the kind.”
She believed him. She asked herself why. Was it just that she needed him to be innocent for her theory? No: she had the psychological tests to show that he had none of the characteristics associated with criminals. But there was something else: her intuition. She felt safe with him. He gave out no wrong signals. He listened when she talked, he did not try to bully her, he did not touch her inappropriately, he showed no anger or hostility. He liked women and he respected her. He was not a rapist.
She said: “Do you want me to call someone? Your parents?”
“No,” he said decisively. “They’d worry. And it will all be over in a few hours. I’ll tell them then.”
“Aren’t they expecting you home tonight?”
“I said I might stay with Ricky again.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” she said dubiously.
“I’m sure.”
“Let’s go,” Mish said impatiently.
“What’s the damn hurry?” Jeannie snapped. “You have some other innocent people to arrest?”
Mish glared at her. “Do you have anything more to say to me?”
“What happens next?”
“There’ll be a lineup. We’ll let Lisa Hoxton decide whether this is the man that raped her.” With facetious deference Mish added: “Is that okay with you, Dr. Ferrami?”
“That’s just fine,” Jeannie said.
9
THEY TOOK STEVE DOWNTOWN IN THE PALE BLUE DODGE Colt. The woman detective drove and the other one, a heavyset white man with a mustache, sat beside her, looking cramped in the little car. No one spoke.
Steve quietly seethed with resentment. Why the hell should he be riding in this uncomfortable car, his wrists
