“From the evidence, at least six different men raped her. She had only a hazy memory of the guy who bought her the drink. The cops had nothing to go on but some blurry fingerprints in her apartment, none of which showed up in the files, so the men have no priors. Dead end. Unsolvable crime, unless one of the bastards is caught for the rape of another woman and his DNA matches the DNA in the evidence samples of semen.”
It was a far too familiar story. Date-rape cases were difficult to prosecute even when the victim knew her assailant. When it was a stranger whom she couldn’t remember because she’d been drugged, catching the bastards was almost impossible.
Rage had him grinding his teeth. “So you decided to try catching them yourselves, by using Daisy as bait. Don’t you think the cops could have handled it better, with a female police officer trained for such situations?”
“Sure, except they weren’t doing it. Budget limitations, low-priority case. You know how it works. There’s way too much crime and not enough money, not enough officers, not enough jails or prisons. Every department has to prioritize.”
“I’m tempted to really hurt you,” Jack said, keeping his voice even with an effort. “And I could, despite Howard here. What were you going to do if some ass-hole did drug Daisy? Go vigilante and shoot him in the parking lot?”
“The idea has merit.”
“What are the odds it would even be the same guy? There’s a lot of that shit out there.”
“I know it would be a long shot. But it would be a beginning. Someone to talk, name some names, who would name other names.” Todd spread his hands on the desk and stared at them, his face grim. “There’s more to the story. My friend was the same woman you saw me with that day. She was at the Buffalo Club in the first place because we’d quarreled. She wanted to get married, I told her I couldn’t because of . . . other things—”
“Like this assignment you’re working.”
Todd flashed a quick glance up at Jack “Yeah,” he said flatly. “Like this assignment. Besides, marriage is a big step. I was kind of glad to have the assignment as an excuse. I was crazy about her, but. . . hell, I guess I had cold feet. So that’s why she was at the club.”
Jack nodded, thinking he got the picture. Normal relationships were hard enough; when the woman had been raped, she understandably had a hard time trusting men again, or enjoying sex. “Did she get into therapy?”
“For a while. It didn’t do any good. She killed herself.”
The stark words fell like lead. All expression was gone from Todd’s face, from his eyes.
Howard swore. “Jesus, man—you just said a friend was raped. God, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I,” said Jack. “You’re grieving, you felt guilty, so you set Daisy up for exactly the same thing that happened to the woman you loved. You fucking bastard, I’d enjoy killing you.” His clenched fists were shaking with the need to do just that.
“Don’t go overboard with the sympathy, Russo,” Howard said sarcastically.
Todd managed a faint smile, though there was no humor in it. “That was fast. You’re in love with her; that’s why you’re so hot under the collar.”
“Daisy doesn’t deserve being used that way.” Jack shoved away the comment about loving her. Whether or not he did was something he’d have to work out; he definitely cared about her and would do whatever it took to protect her. And whatever it took meant using whatever means necessary, with whatever weapons he had at hand. Something else was going on, something these two weren’t involved in; alone, Jack would be hard-pressed to cover all the bases, but he figured he now had help.
“There’s something else concerning Daisy, something I don’t understand, but it’s put me on edge.”
A little expression filtered back into Todd’s eyes. “What?”
“This assignment you’re working. . . are you federal, local, or private?”
Todd and Howard exchanged a quick glance. “Federal. It involves interstate fraud.”
“Fine. I don’t need the details. I just need your help and I wanted to know what level I’ll be dealing with.”
“We can’t compromise this setup—”
“You won’t have to. Something peculiar happened this morning. The mayor called me, wanted me to run a license plate number, said he’d seen the car parked in the fire lane at a doctor’s office. He gave me the small-town bullshit, how he didn’t call a patrolman to write a ticket because he didn’t want to upset someone who was sick—”
“Yeah, right, Temple Nolan with a big heart,” Todd muttered.
“So I ran the number, and it was Daisy’s. Not only would Daisy never park in a fire lane, she wasn’t at the doctor’s office. I know. So the mayor lied about where he got the number. If he’d seen the car himself, he’d have known it was Daisy’s. Someone else wanted him to find out who the car belonged to.”
“Maybe someone at the Buffalo Club saw her and was interested, wanted to find out where she lived and how to contact her.”
“Someone who figured she’d never come back to the club and that was the only way he’d have of finding her? Someone who also happens to know the mayor?”
“Okay, so it’s a thin idea. Do you have anything better?”
“No, all I have are the little hairs on the back of my neck, and they’re standing straight up.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Howard. “From the accent, I know you’re not from around here, but I can’t quite place it. You’re not just a small-town chief, though. What’s your background?”