Fuck.
Will felt roughly ten years old as he walked to the front of the class. He stacked his papers on the podium. He stared down at the jumble of words. Stress exacerbated his issue. All he could make out were numbers. Fortunately, yesterday had been the kind of exhausting day that had imprinted itself into every fold of his brain.
He said, “At eleven forty-five yesterday morning, Faith and I interviewed Lena Adams at her home in Macon, Georgia. She was notably belligerent.”
Someone snorted. He assumed Faith.
He said, “Faith managed to extract two useful pieces of information from Adams. One, Daryl Nesbitt’s lawsuit was funded by a benefactor. Later investigation revealed that benefactor was Gerald Caterino. Two, Bonita Truong, who was the mother of Leslie, relayed during a phone call with Gerald Caterino that a week prior to her daughter’s disappearance, she reported being upset about a stolen personal item. Again, Gerald Caterino was able to supply us with the information that the item was a headband. When Faith pushed him, he equivocated, stating there might have been other stolen items such as clothing. But the headband could be significant. According to Caterino’s notes on the conversations he had with parents and other survivors, the women from the articles were also missing hair items, like a comb or a brush or a clip. You can see the list on the board.”
“If I may?” Sara had her hand raised. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to bail him out, but he welcomed the interruption. “According to what I read in the Grant County files last night, both Caterino and Truong kept the missing or stolen hair accessory in a particular location. Beckey always put her hair clip on her bedside table. Leslie kept a pink headband in a basket with the cleanser she used to wash her face every night. I would normally say take that with a grain of salt, because it’s all according to Lena’s notebooks, but—”
“Hold on.” Faith had done a double-take. “Say that again.”
Sara opened one of her file folders. She held up two photographs. Each one showed a different girl with her hair pulled back in a different way. “These photographs show the hair accessories.”
Faith asked, “You’ve got Lena’s notebooks?”
“There were only photocopies in the boxes, but yes.”
“Ha!” Faith pumped her fist in the air. “Eat my crusty shorts, you pregnant reptile.”
“Dr. Linton, can you share those notes, please?” Amanda added, “You might as well take over. Will, that’s all. Thank you for the usual thorough job.”
Sara squeezed his hand as she took his position behind the podium. “I want to start with Thomasina Humphrey.”
Faith flipped to a new page in her notebook. Will sat down beside her. He wiped the sweat off the back of his neck. His knuckle was bleeding again.
Sara began, “Tommi was twenty-one years old when she was attacked. She grew up in the community. She was my patient at the clinic from the age of fourteen, so I knew her fairly well. She was a virgin prior to the assault, which isn’t unusual. Approximately 6.5 percent of all women report their first sexual experience is rape. The average victim is fifteen years old.” Sara held up a photograph of Thomasina Humphrey, who was standing in front of what looked like a science fair display. “I can’t definitively tell you that Tommi was the attacker’s first victim, but she might be the first time he acted out his fantasy. He clearly had a plan when he abducted her.”
Will listened to Sara call out all of the details she had found in Jeffrey’s boxes. He could tell she was upset. He wondered if this was hard for her because she knew the victim or because she knew what it felt like to be raped.
Sara continued, “The day after Tommi was assaulted, Sibyl Adams called me at the clinic. This was late morning, before lunch. I met Sibyl and Tommi at the medical center down the street. The emergency room wasn’t much at the time. The hospital has since been closed. But they had most of the equipment that I needed, and the privacy so that I could help Tommi. I have to say that this was one of the worst sexual assaults I’ve ever seen. The girl would’ve bled to death if Sibyl hadn’t insisted on calling me for help.”
Faith sat back in the desk. Will could see her gripping her pen.
Sara said, “I’m on thin ice here because Tommi was my patient. I have a lot of personal information that has to remain confidential. At the time she was interviewed, I was given her verbal permission to discuss her assault with the police so long as nothing was formally filed. What I can tell you is what was transcribed into the notebooks that I read last night.”
Will could tell she was avoiding saying Jeffrey’s name.
Sara put on her glasses. She referenced the notes as she told them, “Tommi was orally, vaginally and anally raped. Three of her back molars were broken. There were several anal fissures and bruising up into the colon. The majority of the blood came from the cervix, the head of the uterus that acts as a bridge to the vagina. She was on the verge of prolapse, where the vagina was falling out of its normal position. The rectovaginal septum was perforated. The small bowel had herniated into the back wall of the vagina. This is called a fistula. Bowel contents were leaking into her vagina. That’s what Sibyl smelled. She knew that it was more than Tommi’s period.”
Faith’s mouth opened. She couldn’t find her breath. “Did you fix it?”
“I’m not that kind of surgeon. And even if I was, the tissue was too damaged to immediately repair. Tommi had to wait four months before she was healed enough for the surgeries to begin. When we interviewed her, she was recovering from the first two procedures. There was a series of eight operations involving a urologist, a neurologist, a gynecologist and a plastic surgeon.”
“Four months?” Faith asked. “She lived like that for four months?”
“Yes.” Sara took off her glasses. Her pained expression made Will’s chest ache. “During my initial treatment, my primary goal was to control the bleeding, then to make her as comfortable as possible. I wanted to have her immediately transported to a trauma center. She refused. Tommi was legally an adult, so she had a right to decline treatment. I finally talked her into letting me call her mother. Both of her parents came to the hospital. Tommi would not allow me to call an ambulance. She insisted that her father drive her to Grady.”
“Jesus,” Faith said. “That’s more than two hours away.”
“She was stabilized. I administered morphine and steroids. I spent as much time as I could removing splinters from the soft tissue. Infection was my primary concern, especially with the bowel leak. I asked Tommi for permission to preserve the splinters. She refused. I visualized skin under her fingernails where she had possibly scratched her attacker. She refused to let me collect it. I asked to take vaginal, anal and oral swabs in case the attacker had left DNA. She refused.”
Will rubbed his jaw. The cop side of him was frustrated, but the human side of him knew that sometimes, the only way to get through a bad thing was to run away from it as fast as you could.
“Splinters,” Faith said. “From what?”
Sara held up another photograph. “This.”
Grant County—Wednesday
14
Jeffrey’s phone rang again as he drove onto campus. He’d told Frank to keep all discussions about finding Leslie Truong’s body off of the phones and radios. When a seasoned detective told you something was bad, you knew it was really bad. Jeffrey didn’t want details about the murder leaking out to the press. He had three victims now. Two of them were still alive.
Barely.
He looked at the phone. A Sylacauga number flashed on the screen. His mother was calling from her neighbor’s phone. Jeffrey silenced the ringing, but not before Sara saw the caller ID. If she got any satisfaction from knowing that his mother had called three times during the fifteen-minute drive from Avondale, she didn’t show it.
By silent decree, both he and Sara had retreated to their separate corners. He had no idea what was going on in her mind right now. For Jeffrey’s part, he was doing his best not to think about what Sara had told him on the drive over.