The Face of Death

the easy chair with one hand.

'Different chair, same location. I remember putting my coffee cup down on the table'--she goes through the motion, caught up in the memory--'and the next thing I knew, there was a rope around my neck, pulling me back, so fast, so strong. I tried to think, to do something, to get my hands up between the rope and my neck, but he was too fast. Too strong.'

'We call that a blitz attack,' Callie says, her voice kind. 'In the case of a strong attacker, it's successful most of the time. There probably wasn't much you could have done.'

'I tell myself that too. I usually believe it.' She sips from her cup. It's her lip that trembles, this time. 'He knew what he was doing. He yanked back and up'--she grabs her own throat, demonstrating--

'and I was out within seconds.' She shakes her head. 'Seconds. Can you believe that? He could have killed me right then. I would never have woken up. I'd have died. But . . .' Her voice trails off. 'But I did wake up. Over and over. He had the rope twisted around me, John Wayne Gacy-style. He'd tighten it up, cut off the blood to my brain, I'd go out. He'd loosen it and I'd come around. Then he'd tighten it up again. I woke up once and my bathrobe was gone. I was naked. I woke up again, and my hands were cuffed behind my back, my mouth was gagged. It was like drowning over and over again, and waking up in a new part of the nightmare every time. The thing that was worst of all, for some reason, was that he didn't speak. '

I can hear the stress in her voice, the anxiety at this particular part of the memory.

'I remember thinking I just wanted him to say something, to explain, to make it make sense. But nothing.' Her hands are still shaking and restless. She clasps them in her lap, she rubs her arms with them. She is a portrait of unconscious, continuous, nervous motion.

'I don't know how long it went on.' She manages a somewhat wry, somewhat sickly grin. 'Too long.' The sunglasses again, looking at me. 'You know.'

'I know,' I agree.

'Then I woke up and he let me stay that way. I was on my bed, hands and ankles cuffed. It took me a little bit of time to really come around. I remember wondering if he'd raped me, that if he had, I wouldn't know for sure.'

'Did he?' I ask.

'No. No, he didn't.'

Still no sexual pathology with females, I think to myself.

'Go on,' I say.

'He started talking. He said, 'I want you to know, Cathy, that there's nothing personal in this. You have a part to play, that's all. Something you have to do for Sarah.' ' Her lower lip trembles. 'That's when I knew. Who he was. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before that, but it hadn't. 'Here's what's going to happen,' he said. 'I'm going to beat your body and you'll probably never be a cop again, Cathy Jones. When it's done, you'll tell them you have no idea who could have done this to you, or why. If you do otherwise, I'll destroy Sarah's face and dig out her eyes with a spoon.' '

Cathy's voice continues, hushed.

'It didn't register, what he was saying, but also, in a way, it did. So I did what any self-respecting detective would do. I begged. I begged like a baby. I--I wet myself.'

I hear the shame in her voice and I recognize it.

'He wants you to feel bad about that,' I say. 'To be ashamed of your fear, like it means something.'

Her mouth twists. 'I know. Most of the time I get that. It's hard sometimes.'

'Yeah.'

This seems to calm her a little. She continues.

'Then he showed me something. He told me he was putting it in the drawer of my nightstand. 'A few years from now, someone is going to come knocking, asking questions. When they do you can tell them your story and give them what's in the drawer. Give it to them and tell them: 'Symbols are only symbols.' ' '

I struggle with my impatience. What? What's in the drawer? And what the hell is that supposed to mean, 'Symbols are only symbols'?

'I don't remember most of it. I get flashes, sometimes, big and bright, almost unreal. Like a painting with too much white in it. I remember the sounds more than the pain. Thudding noises, deep vibrations inside my skull. I guess that was him beating on my head with the pipe. I remember tasting blood, and thinking that something really bad was happening, but I wasn't sure what. He whipped my feet so bad I couldn't use them for a month.' Gaze back to the kitchen window. 'The last thing I remember seeing, ever, was his face. Too much light on it, too bright, that God damn panty-hose stocking mask. Looking down at me and smiling. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital and wondering why I couldn't open my eyes.'

She goes quiet. We wait her out.

'I came around after a while. Remembered. Realized I was blind.'

She stops, remembering. 'You know what it was that convinced me he meant what he said? About going after Sarah? About going after me?'

'What?' Callie asks.

'The way he'd told me 'it wasn't personal.' I remembered him saying it, and how he looked and sounded when he did. Matter of fact. Not angry, not rushed, not crazy-looking or rage-filled, or anything. Normal, even smiling, like someone talking about a good book they'd just read.' She reaches for her coffee cup, finds it, takes a sip. 'So I did what he said. I kept my mouth shut.'

'For what it's worth, I think that was a wise call,' I say. 'The picture we're getting of this guy is of someone who doesn't bluff. If you'd spoken up, he probably would have hurt Sarah, or you, or both.'

'I tell myself that a lot,' she replies, trying to smile. 'Anyway.'

Another sip from the cup. 'He messed me up good. Fractured my skull, including shattering a line of it so bad they had to carve some of the bone away. He broke my arms and my legs with that pipe, and knocked out most of my teeth. These are implant-retained dentures. What else? Oh yeah--to this day I can't step outside without having a full-blown panic attack.'

She stops speaking, waiting for a response. I remember the aftermath of my own attack, and recall how much I hated the aphorisms people trotted out, stock phrases they used because, really, words hadn't been invented that were adequate.

'I don't know what to say,' I tell her.

Her smile, this time, is warm and genuine. It catches me off guard.

'Thanks.'

She understands that I understand.

'Now, Cathy--what did he give you?'

She points toward the back of the condo. 'Bedroom is on the right. It's in the top drawer.'

Callie nods to me and gets up, heading to the bedroom. A moment later she returns. Her face is troubled. She sits down and opens her hand, revealing what she has clasped inside. The shiny gold glints in the light. A detective's shield.

'It's mine,' Cathy offers. 'My shield.'

I stare at it.

Symbols are only symbols.

I'm one hundred percent stumped. I look at Callie, raise an eyebrow in query. She shrugs.

'Do you have any idea why he put special significance on this?' I ask Cathy.

'No. I wish I did, but I don't. Believe me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.'

My frustration rises. Not at Cathy. I'd come here hoping for answers, excited at that possibility. All I had was another puzzle.

'Can you tell me something?' Cathy asks.

'Of course.'

'Are you good?' she asks me. 'Will you get him?'

This is the voice of the victim, breathy, a little hungry, filled with doubt and hope. I'm unable to decipher the emotions running across her features. Joy, anger, grief, hope, rage, more. A rainbow of light and dark.

I stare at her, taking in the scars at her hairline, my own face in the lenses of the sunglasses, seeing the ugliness he created, but also seeing some of the beauty that he couldn't destroy. A terrible feeling comes over me.