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CHAPTER 1

"I was on my way home. It was about one A.M., but I lived in a good neighborhood — I thought, a safe neighborhood ..."

The woman sat erect, her hands in her lap, squeezing her keys until her fingers whitened. She was sallow without makeup, and her hair was pulled tightly back. Her suit was expensive but stark. With her height and her thin figure, she looked as severe and homely as the proverbial old-maid librarian. It was odd, because with a minimum of makeup and a flattering hairstyle, she would've been quite attractive.

The interview had thus far yielded Caleb no clue as to why she needed a psychiatrist. Her childhood had been uneventful, her adolescence relatively serene. Her present circumstances seemed enviable.

"There was only one other person on the street — a man. He was coming toward me, walking on the street side of the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a trench coat and a hat. And he had his head down as he approached me. He didn't seem to notice me as we passed. And he was so ordinary, I didn't really pay attention.

"Then I was going past the alley beside my apartment. The man had gone out of mind, you know, the way things do as soon as they go out of view, things you scarcely noticed in the first place?" Caleb nodded.

"Suddenly he was right behind. He grabbed me." Her voice was without affect; she might have been repeating the time. "He put a hand over my mouth and told me not to scream." She glanced up at Caleb. He kept his expression neutral. "I hadn't thought to scream before he said that. But then I tried.

"He dragged me in the alley and raped me."

She looked at the keys in her hands. The key holder was a black plastic cylinder, about the size of a cigar, with five parallel indentations incised around its shaft. It was some sort of martial arts device — Caleb couldn't remember the name.

"He was so strong ... I tried to fight him. He kept saying, 'Don't scream!' I was trying to plead with him to stop, not to hurt me. But he was like a machine. Like the mechanism in the back of a garbage truck that just keeps coming down on whatever's been thrown in. He just kept on — as if he couldn't hear me, or didn't have any more feelings for me than the truck has for the garbage."

An interesting analogy, Caleb thought.

"I couldn't believe it was happening, like a nightmare where you're in danger and helpless and can't wake up."

The moment of realization, Caleb thought, in the stretched-out time scale of panic, where you're moving in slow mo, and your attacker is like the fast guy in the comics.

Keeping her gaze on her lap, the woman shrugged. "I lost my innocence. Do you know what that means?" She glanced at him, then down again. "Not just my virginity. I lost the certainty that the universe is a good place. I lost God — He never helped me when that — I can't think of a word strong enough to describe that monster — when he was raping me. I prayed. God! Help me! Only He never did.

"He took my dignity but he didn't take everything. He left me with rage. If my anger was electricity, I could electrocute the bastard. If it were actual heat, I could incinerate — no — vaporize him! It's so hideously ugly it makes me hate myself. It terrifies me — what if I lose control and go postal?

"And there's no cure — it's like herpes. It's forever. I can go for days without thinking about it, but then I read in the paper or hear on the news that some woman's been raped, and it all comes back."

Caleb stifled a shudder. He'd never been raped, but he'd been a victim of his own out-of-control rage. He understood her anger with the clarity of a fellow sufferer. He forced himself to say calmly, neutrally, "How long ago did it happen?"

"Fifteen years."

"What made you decide to see someone now?"

"I've been thinking about it for a long time."

"But what was the emergency today?"

"Did you hear the news this morning?"

"No."

"A woman was raped. She's the second in two weeks."

"What did you hope to get from therapy?"

"I don't know. Relief? If I could get a — what would you call it? — a synapsectomy? You know, have the part of my brain that makes the connections cut out, I would. In a minute! I want to get it in control. I'd like to have it fade away like the memories of what happened to me in kindergarten."

"What happened to you in kindergarten?"

"I don't remember." She laughed for the first time. "That's the point. Probably nothing." She glanced up again. "I mean, couldn't you put my head in a CAT scan and find out where that memory is stored and just zap it with a laser or something?" She looked back down at her hands.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple."

"Of course."

"I could see you at this time every week."

"Fine."

He took a prescription blank from the center drawer of his desk. "Do you have insurance?"

"Yes, but I'd rather pay you myself. My insurance doesn't cover enough of your fee to make it worth the loss of privacy."

He nodded. "But I want you to have a complete physical."

"With all due respect, Doctor. There's nothing wrong with me physically."

"That's very likely true, but I'd like to be positive. And therapy can be quite stressful. Think of it as a physical prior to initiating a rigorous exercise program." He started writing out the tests he wanted done.

"I find physicals very stressful."

He looked up. Her body language was completely congruent with her words.

"But you've managed to undergo them."

She squeezed her mouth into a tight line and nodded.

"It's a condition of my accepting you as a patient. If you need something to alleviate your anxiety ..."

She shook her head.

Caleb put the prescription on the center of his desk.

Her face twitched as she stared at it. Finally, she took it. She said, "Next week, then. I'll have my doctor call with the results."

She stood up.

Caleb stood and offered his hand. She hesitated before she shook it and seemed to let go as quickly as she could. She turned toward the door but paused with her hand on the knob.

"They never caught the bastard."

Things had been going pretty well for Thinnes the last few months. Homicides were down citywide, and most of the numbers that were piling up were on the South and West Sides. All the cases he'd caught recently were no-brainers — done by idiots who left witnesses or fingerprints or bloody trails with road signs. And the Bulls had just nailed Seattle on their home turf. Thinnes was feeling okay.

When he got to the Nineteenth District entrance, there was a female nicotine addict pacing in front of the doors while she had her fix. She was only about five-two, but built. Her hair was short — a shade darker than her chocolate brown suit — and it framed a face shaped to just fit a man's two hands. Her dramatically dark brows overhung eyes like those waifs' in the starving artists' paintings. She had a straight, prominent nose, and a mouth that might have been inviting if it hadn't been fixed in a scowl.

He didn't recall ever having seen her before. Her suit was too expensive for a public defender's, her skirt too short for a state's attorney's. Probably Ms. CEO waiting to report a stolen Lexus.

If she was built to get a man's attention, her body language was a HAZMAT sign. She had her arms crossed. She was gripping the biceps of her right arm as she sucked in smoke from the cigarette. She seemed to be distilling enough nicotine to last a long time.

She noticed him staring and glared.

Keeping his expression neutral, he nodded before pushing into the lobby.

When he got upstairs, he noticed Evanger's door was closed, and that old variation of Murphy's law came to mind: When everything seems to be going well, look out!

Viernes, who was typing a report, paused to give Thinnes an index finger salute. Viernes looked like an FBI agent this morning, Bureauissue suit and shirt, conservative tie. Thinnes wondered if he had court later.

Thinnes pointed at Evanger's office, and said, "Who's in the hot seat?" The closed door generally meant someone was getting his ass chewed.

Viernes shook his head. "All of us." Thinnes waited. "Evanger got sent to some seminar," Viernes explained, "and they're lettin' Rossi run things meanwhile."

Thinnes groaned. "I think I'll go home and call in sick."

The office door opened. Viernes said, "Too late. He's seen you."

Rossi came out with two pieces of paper. He looked around the room and walked up to stand over Viernes. He handed him one of the papers. Thinnes could see it had an address on it, on Western.

"Little turf dispute among the bangers," Rossi told Viernes.

"See the beat coppers."

Viernes took the paper and took off. No doubt before Rossi could elaborate. Rossi turned to Thinnes.

"Who you workin' with?"

"Carl Oster."

"Oster? He's been on the medical a year!"

"So?"

"I got a new dick startin' here today. You're just the guy to show him the ropes."

Thinnes started to protest, decided it would just make Rossi's day, and shrugged instead. "What's his name?"

"Don Franchi. Coming over from Area One." Fifty-first and Wentworth.

Thinnes wondered what Franchi had done to get transferred to Area Three, but he knew better than to ask. If he couldn't get the new guy to talk, he had sources ...

Rossi handed Thinnes the second piece of paper. "A woman just got raped. Round up your new partner and get over there."

Thinnes specialized in homicide. He hated working rapes. Rape was more like a drive-by shooting than anything else because it was often a matter of the victim being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But drive-bys usually happened in the killer's neighborhood and were committed against known enemies or at least innocent neighbors. The bangers didn't often try very hard to hide their identities and even helped the cops out sometimes by bragging about their involvement. Clearing the case was a matter of digging until you found someone willing to talk. When you nailed the mope, the family was happy.

With rape it was different. Rape hurt the victim when it went down, and again when the cops investigated — no matter how careful they were. The offender usually preyed on strangers and went to great lengths to conceal his identity. When he was caught, it hurt his victims even more. Thinnes hated the whole thing.

"I haven't worked Sex in five years," he told Rossi. "I wouldn't know where to start with one. How 'bout I trade with Viernes?"

"Last time I looked, Thinnes, sexual assault was still considered a violent crime. You want to stay in this division, get going."

There weren't any new faces in the squad room by the time Thinnes had inspected the plumbing and checked out a car and radio. He was debating whether to ask Rossi where Franchi was when the lieutenant stuck his head out of the office, and said, "What're you doing still here?"

"Nothing." Nothing Rossi would accept, anyway. When he said, "jump," all he wanted to hear was "How high?," or "In which direction?"

Rossi disappeared, and Thinnes went to find the sergeant. "When this new guy, Franchi, shows up, send him out to the scene, will you?"

Dense fog had condensed around the city sometime last month and hung on. Today Thinnes had yet to see above the first floor of the buildings. The crime scene was in Lincoln Park, an upscale area of two- and three-flats — post-Chicago Fire solid brick construction — as well as large single-family homes. Not the sort of neighborhood where you expect a nasty rape. Apparently the victim hadn't.

The beat cars blocking the street were the only sign of something going down. The car the evidence tech had come in was parked near the mouth of the alley where — according to Thinnes's information — the woman had been beaten, raped, and dumped. She'd been removed to Illinois Masonic's trauma department, but yellow police-line tape still stretched across the alley and the sidewalk on either side of the alley mouth to keep the curious at bay.

Thinnes ducked under the tape and walked over to a beat copper who was watching the evidence tech do his thing. Thinnes nodded at the copper, and asked, "What's the story?"

The cop was young and confident, built like a linebacker. He had latex gloves sticking out from under his leather gloves. He shrugged and pointed to one of the beat cars; there was a passenger in the backseat. "Citizen — he lives behind that garage —" He pointed to one on the left with a half-open door. "Found the victim when he almost backed over her, on his way to work. He dialed nine-one-one and held her hand until we got here. He's pretty close to being in shock, himself. You'd better —" Something behind Thinnes derailed his train of thought, and he pointed back toward the mouth of the alley. "Uh-oh."

The woman Thinnes had seen at Western and Belmont, the one with the brown suit and sour expression, had arrived and ducked under the perimeter tape. She was studying the alley as if committing it to memory.

She must be press, Thinnes decided, since there wasn't a minicam van in sight. He wondered why she was so dressed up.

"Stay back behind the tape, Ms.," he told her.

He loved Ms. You could use it to mean miss or ma'am, depending on how you said it, and if your tone was just right, no one could make a beef about it stick. "This is a police scene."

Her pissed-off expression got more so. She reached into the briefcase-sized purse hanging from a shoulder strap and pulled out a detective's star. "I am the police. You must be Thinnes."

"Yeah."

"Thanks for waiting for me!"

He stifled the urge to say, You're welcome. Instead, he said, "You my new CO?"

"I'm Don Franchi." Her tone matched her make-my-day body English. "I was told to work with you."

After twenty-one years on the force, Thinnes wasn't easily surprised, but he hadn't a clue what to say to that. Instead he ignored her, and asked the beat cop, "Where's your partner?"

"She went to the hospital with the victim."

"In the ambulance?"

"Yeah."

Thinnes turned to Franchi. "How'd you get here?"

"I had to hitch a ride with a tac cop." One of the District's tactical officers.

Which explained her ongoing grudge. Well, piss on her! He wasn't a taxi service either. He turned back to the beat cop. "Why don't you drive Detective Franchi to the hospital and pick up your partner. Then check with your dispatcher about whether to come back here or go back to work."

"Sure thing."

Thinnes turned to Franchi. "Got that?"

"Got what?"

"You go to the hospital with him" — Thinnes hitched a thumb at the copper — "and get whatever you can from his partner. Then hang with the victim 'til she can give you a statement or 'til someone relieves you."

She formed an O with her lips, as if she was about to ask who put you in charge?, but no sound came out.

"Anybody asks you anything," Thinnes added, "Just say, No comment."

"Got it!"

As Franchi and the beat cop took off, Thinnes called the Area to ask for someone to help canvass the neighborhood. He was told Ryan and Swann would be along.

He saw a patrol sergeant — a white female, five-four, probably 140 pounds, short black hair salted with white — talking to the evidence tech over the perimeter tape. Thinnes joined them.

"What've you got?" the sergeant was asking.

"Not a whole lot," the tech said. "Looks like a blitz attack. Sommabitch either didn't take long enough to leave much or he's done this before and knew not to leave anything. You'll have to check the victim, but there's no evidence here of semen, so I'd guess he couldn't get it off or he used a condom. He did rape her with a bottle he maybe got out of that trash can." He pointed to one of a dozen rat-proof polyethylene carts flanking the alley. It was the only one open. "Then it looks like he took off back this way. I got one fair footwear impression — looks like a Nike. It's pretty common, cause it's popular with the homeys, but if you find the shoe, we should be able to match it. That's about it. There's a lot of blood, but I'd bet it's all the victim's. After he did her, he broke the bottle and cut her with it. And with this fog, you probably aren't gonna find any witnesses."

"What else do we need, Detective?" the sergeant asked Thinnes.

Thinnes pointed back at the street. "Someone should record the descriptions and tag numbers of all the cars parked within a two-block radius."

She nodded.

"Get information on anyone out and about, especially what they're doing in the neighborhood."

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Excerpted from "The Feline Friendship"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Michael Allen Dymmoch.
Excerpted by permission of Diversion Publishing Corp..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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