Blood Loss

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Well, let me know if anything comes up. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you in about ten minutes. I’m just packing up here.’

As Ren was about to close her laptop, an email popped up from Glenn Buddy in Denver. Subject: Kennington Witness Statement. It had two attachments — audio from the interview with the Kennington rape victim and a color scan of the drawing the rapist had left behind. Ren clicked on the drawing.

It was a simplistic black-and-white line drawing, but the artist was not without talent. A line down the center of the page bisected a primitive rendering of a monkey suspended by chains that were attached to his wrists. On the left-hand side of the page, the chain hooked on to a bed post with a bird perched on it. On the right, the chain — threaded with a life preserver — disappeared inside a megaphone.

Freaky.

There were bloody fingerprints at the edges of the pages, smears of blood, tiny droplets.

Blood that had been very real, but was now represented by red ink on a page.

Ren took her headphones from her desk drawer and put them in to listen to the audio file.

‘This is Detective Glenn Buddy, with Denver PD. What follows is the witness statement of Ally Lynch, aged fourteen, from Skyland, Denver.’

Ally Lynch’s voice was trembling. ‘I was at a Hallowe’en party in Kennington Asylum with my friends. But I lost them. I met this guy I liked from school … I was talking to him … it was maybe midnight. Then … I saw this kid come in. He was around the same age as me, maybe a little older. It was like … he kind of appeared out of nowhere. He wasn’t in the party all night. But … then, I’d been drinking …

‘I was talking to a guy-friend of mine, and this guy who walks in is totally staring at me. It was so creepy. My guy-friend was about to leave the party, but I told him to wait, that I needed to go to the ladies room. But as soon as I walked past the creepy guy, he started to follow me. There were people around, I thought I was safe, but suddenly there seemed to be no-one. I started to run, and I ended up in this room that was like some kind of office, and he backed me all the way to the wall, and I was trying to climb up on a table, but I only got as far as sitting on it, when he just dived for me, and started kissing me. I was so shocked, I froze. I … I … do karate. I always thought if something like this ever happened to me, I’d be one of those people who fights back, but I didn’t. I was so terrified, and he was so strong. Like, angry strong. But he was kind of smiling at me too. He was biting on my lips, but then he would kiss them really gently. It was so messed up … ’ She breathed in. ‘Do you need all these details?’

Ren could hear Glenn say ‘yes’, managing to put so much kindness into one short word.

‘I don’t know what happened with my hair,’ said Ally, ‘but he just pulled a bunch of it out …’

She started to hyperventilate.

The tape clicked off, then back on again, with the same introduction from Glenn.

‘He was … crazy,’ said Ally, her voice composed again. She paused. ‘I was terrified. But … I don’t think I screamed.’ Ren could hear her voice crack. ‘I … don’t think I made a sound. It was like my throat closed up. Like in your nightmares you scream and nothing comes out. I thought that was just for nightmares. I didn’t think it would happen in real life. I didn’t think any of this would happen in real life. He smelled bad, like he hadn’t showered and his clothes weren’t fresh. His breath was disgusting. It didn’t smell of alcohol. But maybe that was because I’d been drinking too. I don’t know. His face was pale, kind of puffy. His eyes were … it was so strange … his eyes were almost, like, sleepy. I thought, like, with something like this, his eyes would look wild. But they weren’t. They were sleepy.

‘I wish I had been even more drunk than I was, then I’d have forgotten all this, I could have blocked it all out.’

She paused. ‘He didn’t speak. He seemed so angry, and so happy, but I don’t know which it was. Because he didn’t speak. He didn’t say one word. At the very end, he muttered something, but I was so out of it. I think he thanked me. I think he actually thanked me.’

21

Ren left the Sheriff’s Office and dialed Ben Rader’s number when she got into the Jeep.

‘Talk to me about my girl,’ she said.

‘Well, Misty’s a wonderful girl,’ said Ben. ‘And what about “how are you, Ben”?’

‘Aw, you’re a big boy,’ said Ren.

‘That’s what you said last night.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I really like your friend, Janine, I wanted to say.’

‘Thank you, I like her too.’

‘She’s kind of got that dry wit going on …’

‘Is that code for she insulted you?’ said Ren.

‘No, not at all, she was really sweet,’ said Ben.

‘She is.’

‘Your house is unbelievable,’ said Ben.

‘Do you really think that is my house? Isn’t your pay check not too dissimilar to mine?’ said Ren.

‘I thought you might be, like, a secret heiress,’ said Ben.

‘Yes. And it turns out that Paris Hilton is actually an agent.’

‘The place must be a hundred years old …’ said Ben.

‘Even more than that — it’s a Gold Rush house,’ said Ren. ‘And the lucky lady who owns it is sadly not me. It’s Annie Lowell, a dear family friend: an adorable, warm-hearted, white-haired angel who foolishly asked me to house-sit.’

‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘I saw the kitchen …’

‘I was running late …’ Three mornings in a row. ‘We used to stay with Annie in the summer when we were kids.’

‘I saw the family photo,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t being nosy — I had to follow Misty into the living room. You were so cute.’

‘Where did it all go wrong?’ said Ren.

‘Very right,’ said Ben.

‘You’re not supposed to reply to those statements,’ said Ren.

‘And where is this Annie?’

‘Traveling around Europe,’ said Ren. ‘Seriously. At eighty years old.’

‘I want to do that when I’m eighty,’ said Ben.

‘You’ll probably still be getting ID’d,’ said Ren.

‘And you’ll be like, “no, I am not his mother”.’

Hello? ‘You are nuts.’

‘It’s very boring here without you.’

Ren smiled. ‘Aw.’

‘I miss you,’ said Ben.

‘Don’t be a loser. OK — gotta go — I’m supposed to be in bed.’

‘Yes — mine.’

Ren drove down Main Street, ignoring the turn for The Firelight Inn and going to The Crown cafe. She ordered a coffee with two espresso shots and took out the copies she had made of the victim/family questionnaires. She started reading through Mark Whaley’s.

‘Hello, there.’

The voice of Paul Louderback. Ren looked up. ‘Well, hello there, yourself.’

He was standing with a coffee in his hand. ‘I walked right by you.’

‘So, did you send yourself off to rest?’ said Ren.

‘Yes. I didn’t take it well, though. In fact, I’m quite resentful of myself.’