help notice the way her legs moved in her skirt: a short straight tan skirt that went from above her knees into a loose tan sweater. A soft leather handbag hung from her shoulder. She seemed calm, even as she said, 'They told me downstairs to come here. . . . I want to report a rape.'
As though she were telling him she wanted to report an accident, something she had seen, but was not personally involved. Chris said, 'Oh.' He stood up, looked around and nodded toward a clean desk with blue flowers in a green ceramic bowl. He said, 'I'm Sergeant Mankowski. If you'd like, we'll sit over there, have more room.' Chris paused to watch the thigh movement in her skirt as she walked to the desk. He sat down again and opened and closed drawers till he found a yellow legal pad and a Preliminary Complaint Report form. Going over to the desk, where the young woman was seated now in a straight metal chair, Chris said, 'This happen to someone in your family?'
She seemed surprised, the way her head raised. 'It happened to me. I was forced against my will to have sex. If that isn't rape I don't know what is.'
Chris noticed she had a slight southern accent, not much of one but it was there. She sat straight, looking up at him until he eased into the padded metal swivel chair behind the desk. Now they were looking at each other over the bowl of blue flowers. She had a long thin neck. Or it seemed long the way she was sitting upright or the way her hair ended just below her ears and stuck out on both sides, wavy red hair with a lot of body. Phyllis always had rollers in her pile of dark hair. Chris imagined this girl didn't have to fool with her hair much. He liked the way it ended and stuck straight out. She was holding herself rigid, showing him she was indignant, but didn't look as though she'd been beat up. Chris wondered if this was what they called in Sex Crimes a date rape.
'When did this assault take place?'
'Sunday morning, about two A.M.'
Chris said, 'Sunday? That was two days ago. Why're you just now reporting it?'
'What's the difference when it happened? I was raped.'
Chris had been told eight out of ten rapes weren't even reported; they hadn't said anything about the ones that were reported late. 'You know the suspect?'
She said, 'Suspect? I don't sus pect he raped me, I know he did. I was there. Mr. Woodrow Ricks is his name.'
There was that accent, soft, unaffected. It made her seem natural but also vulnerable. A guy rapes her, she calls him 'Mister.' Chris pictured the guy older. Looking at the PCR form he said, 'I don't have your name and address.'
She said, 'I guess you want my real name. It's Greta Wyatt. My stage name I go by is Ginger Jones.'
'You're an actress?'
'An actor; you don't say 'actress' anymore.'
'I didn't know that.' She did look more like a Ginger than a Greta. He liked Greta, though, better. 'Let me have your address, too.'
'I live for the time being at 1984 Junction.'
Chris said, 'No kidding. I used to live around there. Right by Holy Redeemer till I was in the eighth grade and we moved all the way over to the East Side, near Cadieux. I never wanted to leave that neighborhood.'
'Well, you have a different feeling about it than I have,' Greta said. 'I can't wait to find a place and move out.'
He liked her dry way of speaking, looking right at him. He asked for her phone number, wrote it down, and then her age. She told him she was twenty-nine.
'Married?'
'I was, I'm divorced.'
'Children?'
'Not a one.'
'You live alone?'
'I have been. It was my folks' house. They sold it when my dad retired from Ford's and they moved back home, to Lake Dick, Arkansas. I'm staying there just till the new people move in or they turn it into a Taco Bell, I don't know which.'
'Is that where the assault took place?'
'Uh-unh, it was at Mr. Ricks's. I don't know the address, but he isn't there anyway, he's at the Playhouse. You know where I mean? That theater, it's just a few blocks from here. His big ugly limo was parked in front. I tried to see him. . . . I went there originally to see his brother. But they wouldn't let me in.'
'What were you gonna say to him?'
'The rapist? Ask him if he'd like to come here with me, the son of a bitch. You want to meet him? Come on.'
'We have to complete this report and have you sign a statement,' Chris said. 'Then what we do, advise him a complaint has been filed that could bring him up on a charge of criminal sexual conduct.'
Greta said, 'I love that police way you have of saying things. You're gonna advise him of a complaint--'
'I have to know his address,' Chris said. 'If it isn't in the City of Detroit it belongs in some other jurisdiction.'
'It's in Palmer Woods off Seven Mile, great big mansion.'
'That's the Twelfth.' Good, it was a Detroit Police matter, he wouldn't have to give it to some cops out in a suburb. He wanted this one. 'You were with this guy on a date and you went back to his house?'
'I was with his brother, Mark, the one owns the theater. He invited me on a cruise with him, this past Saturday, some kind of society thing to raise money, and after we got back we went to Woody's house for a party.'
Chris took his time, looked up from the report form to Greta Wyatt. 'Nice crowd of people, and here's this guy eating off the buffet table with both hands.'
That opened her eyes.
'With a fur coat on,' Chris said. 'Is that the Woody we're talking about?'
'You know him?'
'You got off the boat and went out to Woody's. . . . Just you and Mark?'
'No, there were some other girls too. There were four of us from the boat, and then Mark picked up another one at Brownie's, but she was older. Somebody he used to know by the name of Robin. He spent practically the whole time with her.'
'That make you mad?'
'Not a bit. I didn't know why he asked me, I just met him the day before. They were having auditions for Seesaw and I tried out because I played Gittel just a few years ago at the Dearborn Community Theater.'
Chris said, 'Gittel, huh?'
'Gittel Mosca. I thought I had the part, the way Mark was talking. Then I find out I have to go to bed with Woody.'
'He told you that?'
'He practically did.'
'Who, Mark or Woody?'
'It was when I went upstairs to change. Well, to dry off and put my dress back on.' Greta stopped. 'I forgot to mention, everybody had to go in swimming. If you didn't, Woody said his chauffeur would throw you in with your clothes on.'
'Wasn't it cold?'
'The pool's inside the house, in a big room with a ceiling that goes up--like in a church.'
'You have a bathing suit with you?'
Greta hesitated, but kept looking right at him. 'I went in in my bra and panties.'
Chris said, 'Oh.'
'The other girls didn't have bras. They looked at me like I was some kind of strange creature. It was like when we were little and we'd go swimming in the lake, this one girl's mama always made her wear a rubber inner tube. I felt like that little girl.'
'The others didn't wear anything?'
'Couple of them didn't.'
