Читать книгу THE COED MURDER CLUB - Ken Salter - Страница 9

CHAPTER 2

On my return, I handed Mindy a can of Diet Coke and popped the top off a can of root beer. Mindy was dabbing her cheeks with tissues but no longer crying. “My secretary says your parents are still out for coffee,” I lied. They were, in fact, sitting and fidgeting nervously in my waiting room, much to Juanita’s annoyance.

“Great, I just can’t deal with them right now. Father has gone ballistic over the whole thing. You’d think he was the one who got raped and infected with AIDS.”

“Well, some dads take it personally when someone messes with their little girl.”

Mindy actually cracked a little smile. “Not my father. He only thinks of himself.”

Since the crying jag seemed to be over, I wanted to learn what had happened seven months ago. “Tell me how you first met the men who assaulted you.”

Mindy took a deep breath to steel herself to the task ahead. “I was studying at the main library on campus. It was late; I had a paper to crank out and I was bored and fed up with the topic. I’d done a draft, but it was crappy. I guess I must have muttered something out loud. A guy nearby moved over beside me and confessed he was also tired of studying and we just started talking.

“He say what he was studying?” I asked.

“He said his name was Barry and that he was a grad student in the Psych dept.”

“Did he volunteer a last name?”

“No, he didn’t. I know it seems stupid now, but then it just seemed normal. He was talking about what goes on in the Psych graduate program and he seemed like an interesting guy. It was after nine, so we both decided to pack it in for the night. He asked me if I’d like to join him for a beer at La Val’s; it’s a student hangout on the north side of campus with an outdoor courtyard. Barry said he had to meet some friends there. I figured why not, maybe I’d meet some interesting people and unwind with a beer.

“Had you seen Barry before? At the library or on campus?”

“I’ve wracked my brain about this. I’m not sure. I might’ve seen him around but you see so many new people every day that it’s often a blur.”

“Would you recognize him, if you saw him again?”

“Oh yeah, you bet! No way I’d ever forget his face or his buddies either.”

“What happened when you got to La Val’s?”

“Barry’s friends were already there. There were two guys and a woman. They had killed a pitcher of draft beer and were laughing and joking about their work. Everything seemed okay. The one guy, John, who was with the woman, Joanie, was cracking everyone up describing how some campus nerds answered his marketing research questionnaire.”

“I know the place. It’s a nice place to drink a few brews, as I recall.” I sounded upbeat to keep her talking.

“Yeah, we had three or four pitchers. I wasn’t paying much attention. They were telling these outrageous stories about rats in cages and all the crazy things that go on in their research labs. We were all drinking a lot. I don’t normally drink except on weekends, but it was a Thursday night and I just said what the hell. I knew I was getting loaded but we were all having a good time and everyone seemed okay.”

“Was Barry hitting on you?”

“Not really. I could tell he was interested in me but he never made a pass. He was real funny, the way he described how the nerds in the psych labs scurry around just like the rats they study. He’d look at me for my reaction. The other guy, Steve, was telling us how the optometry grad students have labs full of cages off campus and do experiments on the eyes of live cats. It was gross. I didn’t have any idea that sort of stuff went on.”

I was confused. “Were these people involved in the rape?”

“No, not really. When we all decided it was time to go, Barry said he had a couple more friends he wanted me to meet. I was having a good time and since everything seemed cool, I said okay. We said goodbye to the other three and Barry drove up to a house in the Berkeley hills.”

“Do you remember where?”

“No, not really. I know we went up Euclid past the Rose Garden and then took a street that wound around the hills. I wasn’t really paying attention and it was dark. We were talking about the people I had met at La Val’s. Eventually, we turned down a little road and came to a house with a fabulous view.”

“Near Grizzly Peak?”

“I’m not sure. It was off the road and very private. I guess I should have been more observant.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s not important. Tell me what happened when you got to the house.” I didn’t want her to get sidetracked or weepy again.

“We went into the house. The lights were on low. Two guys were sitting in the living room in soft leather chairs sipping after dinner drinks and listening to R & B music with a great beat in an old fashioned jukebox. You know, the ones from the Fifties with rainbow, neon lights. They’d modified it to play CD’s. Everything looked cool and okay. Barry introduced me to the two guys. The black guy was named Earl and the white guy was named George.”

“Weren’t you afraid to be alone in a strange house with three men you’d never met before?”

“Not really. I felt comfortable with Barry. He’d already introduced me to his other friends who were fun to be with. These two guys were clean-cut and seemed nice, too. Earl said he was waiting for a call to go to the airport to pickup his girlfriend who was flying in from L.A. They were mellow. Earl gave me and Barry a snifter with some kind of sweet liqueur called dram… something. George punched some dance music to play on the jukebox.

“Drambuie?”

“Yeah, that was it. We chatted a while and Barry recounted what we’d been doing at La Val’s.”

“Did the two men seem to know the other three people you’d been drinking with earlier?”

“Yeah, one of them even asked about Joanie by name. They all seemed to know each other. Everything seemed super okay. The black guy, Earl, put on some reggae music with a fantastic beat and put a twenty dollar bill in a bowl on the table. He challenged us to a dance contest while he waited for his airport call. The twenty was prize money for the winner. Everyone laughed and asked if he was serious. He said jokingly, ‘Put your money where your mouth is.’ It was like a dare. George pulled out a twenty to match the bet and Barry put up forty to pay for me and him.” Mindy stopped to look at my reaction and took a swig of Coke. I was doing all I could to mask my thoughts about the way they were setting her up. I smiled my encouragement and nodded for her to continue.

“Since the music was reggae, Earl suggested a limbo contest. You know, where you have to dance under a bar without touching the floor. We took turns holding a long, metal fireplace poker for the limbo bar. We’d lower the bar lower and lower and force the dancer to try to dance under it. George fell backwards, flat on his ass and we almost broke a gut laughing at his antics when he tried to cheat by wiggling under the bar the way a duck walks. It was fun. I’m real limber and do a lot of dance for exercise. I won the contest easily.”

“Sounds like you were having a good time.” I was intrigued by how clever Barry and his friends were in engineering the seduction so far.

“Yeah, we were pooped from laughing so hard. We took a break while Earl called the airport to make sure his girlfriend’s plane was on time. We had some more to drink. George put on a Beach Boys tune on the jukebox and showed off his moves. He was hilarious, mimicking a guy on a surfboard riding a wave in beat to the music. He looked just like a surfer with his sun-bleached hair and bulging pecs. When he finished his routine, he suggested another kind of contest. Each of us had to select a tune and do a dance that illustrated the song and music. We drew lots for who had to go first and last. Earl lost the draw and went first.”

“George suggested we use props and dress to look the role we played. He picked a soundtrack from the movie, “Lawrence of Arabia.” We tied a blindfold around Earl’s eyes and wrapped a checkered dishtowel around his head to make him look like an Arab, you know, like Arafat wears?” I nodded my understanding and motioned for her to continue.

“Barry made him take off his shoes, socks and shirt to dance the part of a sheik. When my turn came, they took off my blouse, skirt, shoes and socks and wrapped a dish towel around my waist to make me look like a belly dancer. I had to dance to the Oldies’ song, “Little Egypt.” Mindy glanced at me and abruptly stopped her narrative.

I was flabbergasted. “You mean you let these three guys undress you down to your panties and bra without protesting?”

“I know it seems stupid now, but it seemed all right then. I was the last to dance and everyone else had to take off some clothes to do a part. We’d all been laughing at the funny antics of each dancer and their makeshift costume. We’d agreed that the most original and daring interpretation would win the prize which was double what I’d won in the limbo contest.”

I listened poker-faced. I could see why the police refused to refer this case for prosecution.

What Mindy recounted wouldn’t play well in front of a jury even in liberal Berkeley. It would, however, spark a sensational feeding frenzy in the press that would probably attract reporters from the world’s most sleazy tabloids.

“I did my belly dance and I guess all the booze got to me as I swirled and did my turns. I started to get real dizzy and I almost passed out.”

“Did you finish your dance?”

“Yeah, I kinda pushed myself at the end because I wanted to win the prize.”

“The sequence of events after your dance is very important. Try to remember every detail,” I instructed her. I didn’t want to coach her or cue her to the elements of the crime – forcible compulsion, threats or intimidation. So far what she’d recounted appeared to lay a foundation for a clever seduction rather than a rape.

“I remember getting all woozy and faint when I finished the dance. Barry helped me stay upright when I started to stumble to my knees. He helped me over to the sofa and sat me down. I remember sinking into the soft leather. He was whispering and trying to sooth me. He was saying, ‘You just need to lie down and rest a bit. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you and see you get home.’ Stuff like that.”

“Do you think they slipped something into your drink?”

“No, not really. I’m sure it was just the booze. I’d had too much to drink and all the swirling and whirling I did in my dance made me dizzy. I should have stopped drinking after the beer.”

“Did you pass out on the couch?”

“I don’t know; I’m not sure. I must’ve passed out for a while because when I came to, I was lying down on the sofa.” Mindy paused, sucked in her breath and let out a long sigh.

“Were they holding you down?”

“No, it wasn’t that. It’s so hard to explain what was happening to me and what I was feeling. I tried to make my body turn off what was happening, but my head was out of it. I just couldn’t turn off the sensations. I tried to make my body turn over, but I couldn’t.”

“Were they touching you?”

“Yeah, I finally got hold of myself even though I was real woozy; I remember saying, ‘Please stop.”’

“Did they stop touching you after you asked them to?”

“No, they just laughed.”

“In a menacing way?”

“No, like it was a joke. One of them said, ‘Look, you’re all wet. You’re creaming all over my fingers. Just relax and enjoy yourself.’ They just kept at it. They never stopped touching me. They were touching me and pulling at me all over my body. Their fingers just pulled and tugged at my breasts and sex faster and faster, harder and harder. I know I must have come. Suddenly, intense sensations swept through my body like I’ve never felt before. Somebody laughed and said, ‘She’s coming.’ I tried to protest again to make them stop, but I just didn’t have the energy. I felt strung out and powerless to resist. I was just too drunk to overcome the waves of sensation I was feeling.”

Mindy toyed with her empty can of Coke; she was trying to crush it in the palm of her hand. Her eyes were locked on the floor. “They just wouldn’t stop. After I came, it started all over again – the pulling, tugging, stroking – only faster. It was like my body was going through a car wash; you know, like all those big brushes were stroking every sensitive part of my body all at once. My head was whirling; I felt engulfed and powerless to resist the waves of sensation that kept surging and getting more intense. When I tried to get hold of myself, they laughed and changed the rhythm of their stroking.”

Mindy threw me a sheepish, concerned look before continuing. “One of them started licking my sex while another held me by the ankles and spread me open. The other guy was tugging at my nipples, pulling them in opposite directions. It was just too much. I wanted it to stop before they went too far, but I couldn’t force myself to physically resist. Can you understand what was happening to me?” Mindy pleaded with her eyes for understanding and reassurance.

I gave her my best college smile and nodded for her to continue even though I didn’t understand why, in spite of being drunk, she couldn’t have yelled her head off for those guys to stop touching her.

No is no in my book.

“I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before they made me come again in the guy’s mouth. Then they turned me over and one of them took me from behind.”

I did a double take. “Didn’t you protest when they turned you over?”

“It all happened so fast. I was in a fog. I was so high from the booze and stimulation that I just couldn’t resist anymore. I was more scared by what was now happening. It was out of control.”

“Were you scared they would hurt you? Wasn’t the sex getting rougher?”

“No, they were laughing and joking about how much I liked what they were doing to me and whether I would come again. It was weird. It was like they were testing me to see how much I could take.”

“Do you know which one took you from behind first?”

“No, it was all a woozy blur. All those fingers just kept touching me – pulling, tugging, pinching and probing me. It was all happening so fast, but also like in slow motion in my brain. The next thing I knew my butt was up in the air, and my legs straddling the armrest of the couch. One of them had hold of the back of my thighs and pushed me open, then someone just pushed himself up my butt. They kept doing it until I passed out.” Mindy was crying again.

I tried not to show my astonishment at Mindy’s frankness. “Had anyone ever penetrated you there before?”

“No, but they’d been touching me there all along. The nurse who examined me said they had used some kind of lubricant. My whole insides burned like hell the next day.”

“When did you come to?”

“I woke up in my dorm room. I was sore all over and really felt bad. My head felt like it was going to come off its socket, it was pounding so bad. My nipples hurt from all the pulling and my butt felt like someone had dropped it on a fence post wrapped in barbed wire; when I wiped myself, there was blood. I got real scared, then angry when I remembered how I’d been duped and that all those guys had me.”

“How did you get home?”

“I didn’t know. I learned later from Ernie, the night watchman at the dorm. It must have been Barry who drove me home. He told Ernie that I’d got loaded at a friend’s party, then got sick.”

“Wasn’t Ernie suspicious of foul play?”

“I guess not. He said I smelled and acted like I was drunk and passed out and my clothes weren’t messed up.”

The intercom light on the phone console had been blinking furiously for some time. Juanita and Mindy’s parents were getting antsy.

“I’m gonna have to talk to your parents and get some money to poke around for some leads on those guys who took advantage of you. Did the police have you describe them to a sketch artist?”

Mindy shook he head, no.

“I’m gonna have Juanita set up an appointment with Monty. He’s an artist who draws faces from witness statements. I will need likenesses of the guys we’re looking for.”

Mindy nodded a feeble assent. She looked completely washed out, almost limp except for her puffy-red but smoldering eyes. “Are you going to tell my parents what I told you?” she said starting to cry again.

“No, I meant what I said. You’re my client. The less they know about the details of your ordeal, the better. They need to shift their focus to making you well, to getting the best treatment possible to keep the HIV virus from becoming AIDS. Nobody but me is going to know the details unless those guys get prosecuted.” What I said was not really true except for the parents, but she badly needed an avenger in her corner and I’d try to play that role as long as I could, hoping that it’d raise her spirits and keep her cooperating with me.

She gave me a brave smile and grabbed another handful of tissues as she made her exit.