Lightning Read online

  “So what am I supposed to do?” he said. “Climb up the lamppost?”

  “I told you we shoulda cut her down,” Monoghan said.

  “We’d better wait for the lab boys,” Carella said.

  “What for?”

  “They’ll want to look at the rope.”

  “You ever get a case where there was fingerprints on a rope?” Monoghan said.

  “No, but…”

  “So let’s cut her down.”

  Blaney looked uncertain. He glanced up at the dead girl. He looked at Carella.

  “They may know what kind of knot it is,” Carella said.

  “It’s a hangman’s knot,” Monoghan said. “Anybody can see it’s a hangman’s knot. Don’t you ever go to the movies? Don’t you ever watch television?”

  “I meant the one around the post. The one tied around the post. The other end of the rope.”

  Blaney looked at his watch.

  “I was playing poker,” he said to no one.

  The Mobile Crime Unit arrived some ten minutes later. By that time, there were three more radio motor patrol cars at the scene, and the ambulance had arrived from Mercy General. The crowd had swelled behind the barricades. Everybody was waiting for them to cut the dead girl down. They wanted to see if she was really dead or if this was a movie they were shooting here. None of the people in the crowd had ever seen a person hanging from a lamppost before. Most of them had never seen a person hanging anywhere before. The girl just kept hanging there, it sure looked as if she was real, and it also looked as if she was dead. The boys from the PU took pictures of the hanging girl and the area around the lamppost and the rope tied and knotted around the post. The lab technicians held a brief consultation with Carella, and it was thought advisable to preserve the knot as it was tied, rather than untying it to lower the girl; they would want to look over the knot more carefully at the lab. It was decided that they would cut the girl down, after all.

  Monoghan walked around nodding righteously, his hands in his pockets; it was what he’d suggested all along. The Emergency Service truck had arrived by then, and a sergeant unhooked a ladder from the side of the truck and asked one of the lab technicians where he wanted the rope cut, and the technician indicated a place about midway between the hangman’s knot behind the girl’s neck and the knot where the rope had been fastened to the post. The Emergency Service cops spread a safety net under the hanging girl, and the sergeant went up the ladder and cut the rope with a bolt cutter.

  The girl dropped into the net.

  A cheer went up from the crowd behind the barricades.

  Blaney examined the girl, pronounced her dead, and ventured the opinion that the cause of death—pending autopsy—was fracture of the cervical vertebrae.

  It was a little after 4:00 a.m. when the ambulance carried her off to the morgue.

  The first time was always easiest.

  There was an element of complete surprise involved, none of these women ever thought anything like this would happen to them, even here in this city where surely they knew it was a common occurrence. All he had to do was ambush them, show them the knife, and they turned to jelly.

  The other times were difficult, very difficult.

  A lot of patience was involved.

  Some of them wouldn’t even budge from their apartments after the first time, so terrified were they of what had happened to them, so fearful that it might happen again. After a few weeks, though sometimes a month, they’d come outside again, usually accompanied by a husband or a boyfriend, and never at night, they were still afraid of going out at night. You had to be patient.

  And you had to check the calendar.

  Eventually, after that first time, they got over the trauma, and they ventured out into the nighttime city alone again, and he was waiting, of course, he was waiting for them, and the surprise was even more total this time, lightning couldn’t strike twice, could it? Ah, but it could. And it did. And the second time, if they recognized him, and some of them did, they usually pleaded that he not do it to them again, they who would impose their will on everyone if they had their way, begging him not to impose his will on them, the irony of it. None of them knew he was watching the calendar, or that his attacks were precisely timed.

  After the second time, they became trembling wrecks. Some of them moved to other neighborhoods, or left the city entirely. Others went on long vacations. Still others jumped out of their shoes if an automobile horn sounded three blocks away. They began to think of themselves as helpless victims of something inexplicably evil that had chosen them as targets out of all the women in this city. One of them hired a bodyguard. But the others—well, you get over things, you go on with your life. You spend a few hours out of your apartment in the daytime, never wandering too far from home, and eventually you extend your time outdoors and you expand the range of your excursions, and before long you were back to what you supposed was normal, though you were still fearful of the night, and always accompanied by friends or relatives after dark. Until, eventually, you began to think you were safe again, it was all behind you, and the first few times you went out alone at night and nothing happened to you, you figured it was all a thing of the past, it had happened twice, yes, but it could never in a million years happen again. But what you did not know was that he was watching the calendar, and it would happen again because he was very patient, he had all the time in the world.

  The third time—one of them had fought him as if her very life depended on not being violated again. He had cut that one. Cut her on the face, and her screaming had stopped, and she had submitted to him, whimpering and bleeding. The third time—one of them had promised him extravagant sums of money if only he’d leave her alone. He had done to her what he wished to do, and then had come after her a week later, into her apartment this time, he knew she lived alone, and had done it to her a fourth time, she was the one he’d caught a total of four times. It became almost impossible to carry out the plan after the third time because by then they knew they weren’t being chosen as random victims, they knew that somebody was after them specifically, and that if it had happened three times it could happen four or five or a dozen times, there was no stopping him from doing whatever he wanted whenever he chose.

  All he had to do was keep patient.

  Keep watching the calendar.

  Keep ticking off the dates.

  Only once had he been entirely successful the first time out.

  He’d followed her afterward. He knew where she went. He knew he’d succeeded. He’d left her alone after that, except for watching her, and he knew for certain later that she’d been forced to do exactly what he’d planned for her to do all along, and there was such a sweet rush of triumph when he saw her again a month later, watching from a distance, and knew that his plan was viable and sound, and that it could succeed again and again.

  The woman tonight was named Mary Hollings.

  He had raped her twice.

  He had raped her the first time in June. June tenth, to be exact, a Friday night, he had marked the date on his calendar. She’d been out late shopping, and she was carrying a department store shopping bag full of wrapped boxes when he yanked her off the sidewalk and into the alleyway. He’d shown her the knife, held it to her throat, and she’d submitted without a sound, the wrapped boxes lying scattered on the pavement beside the torn shopping bag. She was one of the few who refused to be cowed by the first experience. She was out on the street again, alone, at night, a week later. Cautious, yes, she was not a fool. But fighting her fear with a show of bravado, squarely facing what had happened, refusing to be dominated by it, determined to live her life as she had before he’d entered it.

  He raped her again on the sixteenth day of September, a Friday like the first time. He’d marked that on his calendar as well. He raped her not six blocks from where he’d assaulted her the first time. She’d gone to a movie with a girlfriend, the early show. The movie had let out at 9:30, a quarter to 10:00. She
had walked her girlfriend home, and was starting up the street toward the bright lights on the Stem, when he grabbed her. Again, she had not made a sound. But this time, she was terrified. This time, she was shaking all over when he slashed her panties with the knife and did it to her.

  September sixteenth was three weeks ago.

  He’d watched her whenever he could during the past three weeks. Noticed she never went anyplace alone during the daytime unless there were huge crowds around. Never went out at all during the night unless she was with a man, sometimes two men. He could tell, just from observing her, that she was still jumpy, even with escorts to protect her, looked around all the time, crossed the street if a man approached them from another direction, very cautious, very careful, determined that this wouldn’t happen to her again.

  Last Saturday, he’d followed her downtown to Police Headquarters. He suspected she went there to give further details on what had happened to her twice already. He followed her when she left there, and was surprised when she walked into a gun shop, and showed the man inside a piece of paper, and then began looking over pistols he began producing from under the counter. She had gone to Police Headquarters for a gun permit! She was buying a gun! He smiled when she concluded the purchase. He knew she’d soon be on the street again, at night again, alone again, a gun in her handbag this time, thinking she was safe from him.

  But he was wrong.

  This past week, she hadn’t budged from the apartment. The nighttime city had truly subjugated her, she would not dare to go out into it alone, even with an escort, even with a gun in her handbag. She was taking no chances. The calendar was ticking. The week was flying by and October seventh was coming up very fast. He knew that to get her again he would have to go into her apartment, the way he had done with the only one he’d caught four times.

  Today was the seventh of October, the seventh had finally arrived; a good time, even if it was barely the seventh, only a quarter to 5:00 in the morning. Today would be her third outing. Once or twice more after that, and he’d have her, unless she decided to move to Outer Mongolia.

  Today, he would get her in her own bed.

  A policewoman accompanied Mary Hollings to Mercy General, where not three hours earlier the body of the unidentified hanging victim had been delivered to the morgue for autopsy. The policewoman’s name was Hester Fein. She was a stocky woman with the height and girth of a short wrestler, twenty-eight years old and still plagued by acne, a plain squat fire hydrant of a woman who—like many of her male colleagues—believed nobody got raped unless she was asking for it, especially not three times in five months; she had learned back at the station house that this was the third time Mary Hollings had been raped. Hester Fein’s one great ambition in life was to carry a .357 Magnum, which the Police Department in this city would not allow. She sometimes thought of transferring to Houston, Texas. Out there, they knew what kind of gun a police officer needed to protect herself.

  The plastic box was three and a half inches wide, six and a half inches long, and an inch deep, with a lid that was opened by twisting two small plastic knobs in opposite directions. Fastened over the top and side of the box, in one of the corners, was a narrow tape printed with the words “Integrity SEAL Slit To Open.” Glued to the top of the box was a label that identified the box and its contents as the johnson rape evidence kit. The nurse asked Hester what the case number was. Hester told her, and she filled in the appropriate space on the label. She asked Mary Hollings what her name was, and then wrote it down in the “Name of Subject” space. She asked Hester what the offense was. Flatly, Hester said, “Rape,” though she didn’t believe it for a minute. The nurse filled in the “Date of Incident” and “Time” spaces on the label. She signed her name as Search Officer and wrote in the location as Mercy General Hospital. She slit the seal on the kit with a scalpel.

  The kit contained a wooden cervix scraper, a slide holder with two slides, a plastic comb, a pubic hair collection lifter, a white gummed envelope marked “A” Combings, a white gummed envelope marked “B” Standard, a Seminal Fluid Reagent Packet that was a plastic bag containing a white cotton pad and a blue reagent tab, an instruction booklet, and two red labels lettered in white with the words:

  The nurse administering the tests was familiar with the instruction booklet. So was Mary Hollings.

  Mary was trembling as she climbed up on the examination table and removed her torn panties. The nurse assured her that this wouldn’t hurt her, and Mary said something incoherent in reply, and then put her feet in the stirrups and sighed deeply and forlornly. Using the wooden cervix scraper, the nurse took two vaginal smears and prepared the slides, allowing them to air-dry as warned on the slide holder, and then slipping them back into the small plastic container. She wrote Mary’s name again in the “Subject” space on the slide holder, filled in the date, and then her own name in the “By” space, and placed the holder in the open plastic kit box. She stepped on the pedal of a trash can and dropped the used wooden scraper into it.

  “We’ll want those panties,” Hester said.

  “What?” the nurse said.

  “For evidence,” Hester said.

  “Well, that’s your department,” the nurse said.

  “Damn straight,” Hester said, and picked up the panties and put them in an evidence envelope. The panties were black and edged with black lace, confirming Hester’s surmise that nobody got raped unless she was asking for it.

  The printed lettering on the “Pubic Hair Collection” envelope was purple. It called for the same information as the label on the kit itself. The nurse filled it in, copying from the label on the kit, and then opened the envelope and held it under Mary’s vagina. She passed the plastic comb through Mary’s pubic hair several times, allowing any loose hairs to fall into the open envelope. She put the comb into the same envelope with the hair, and then sealed the envelope, and put it into the plastic kit box, alongside the slide holder.

  Since there still may have been some loose pubic hairs remaining in Mary’s pubic area, the nurse now took the Pubic Hair Collection lifter, peeled the clear plastic protection shield from the narrow piece of adhesive, and patted the adhesive surface over the entire pubic area. She closed the white plastic cover over the adhesive surface, filled in the same information yet another time, and returned the lifter to the kit. She threw the clear plastic shield into the trash can with the used wooden scraper. Mary was still trembling. She seemed unable to stop trembling.

  “We’ll need a sample of your pubic hair,” the nurse said. “Did you want to take it yourself, or shall I?”

  Mary nodded.

  “Which, dear?” the nurse said.

  Mary shook her head.

  “Shall I do it, dear?”

  Mary nodded again.

  The second “Pubic Hair Collection Envelope” was lettered in blue. It differed from the first envelope only in that one was lettered “A” and “Combings” and the other was lettered “B” and “Standard.” They both called for the same case information that the nurse filled in before firmly grasping a fistful of hair in Mary’s pubic area. It was important that the hairs not be cut; she quickly pulled some ten or twenty of them loose (Mary gave a short, sharp gasp) and then placed them in the envelope and sealed it.

  “Almost finished,” she said.

  Mary nodded.

  Hester Fein watched.

  The nurse opened the plastic bag labeled “Seminal Fluid Reagent.” She removed the small blue tab from the bag. She saturated the cotton pad with distilled water, wiped the wet cotton over and around Mary’s genital area, and then said, “Do they want me to do the test here, or will they handle it at the lab?”

  “Nobody told me,” Hester said.

  “Might as well do it and get it over with,” the nurse said.

  “Might as well,” Hester said.

  The nurse opened the blue tab by peeling it apart, exposing the activated acid phosphatase paper. She applied the paper to the wet cotton
for several seconds. She removed the paper and looked at it.

  “What will that tell you?” Hester asked.

  “Presumptive presence of semen will cause an immediate color change in the paper.”

  “What color?” Hester asked.

  “There it goes,” the nurse said as the paper turned a dark purple that was the exact color of the printing on the acid phosphatase tab.

  “So what does that mean?” Hester said.

  “Positive for semen,” the nurse said, and returned the cotton pad and the tab to the plastic bag. “They’ll want to test further at the lab, but that’s it for now. Thank you, dear,” she said to Mary, “you were a very good patient.”

  Everything was back in the kit again. She closed the lid, picked up the two red police seals, peeled off the protective backing, said to Hester, “You see me sealing it,” and then handed the sealed kit to her, and threw the instruction booklet into the trash can. “You can go now, dear,” she said to Mary.

  “Where?” Mary said.

  “Back to the station house,” Hester said. “We’ve got a detective from the Rape Squad coming up.”

  Mary sat up.

  “I…”

  She looked around, bewildered.

  “Yes, dear?” the nurse said.

  “My panties,” she said. “Where are my panties?”

  “I got them here for evidence,” Hester said.

  “I need my panties,” Mary said.

  Hester looked at the nurse. Reluctantly, she handed Mary the manila evidence envelope. As Mary put on the torn panties, Hester whispered to the nurse, “Talk about locking the barn door.”

  Mary seemed not to hear her.

  The 87th Precinct squadroom was relatively quiet, but then again it was only 8:00 in the morning when the detective from the Rape Squad arrived. The Graveyard Shift had already been relieved, and Genero had run home as quickly as he could, leaving Carella to type up the DD reports while the relieving detectives on the day tour drank their customary coffee before getting down to work.