TWENTY-SIX
Julie glided into the room like a ghost, or maybe an angel, and touched her fingers to Angela’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“What’s going on?” Angela asked in a weak, hoarse voice as she squinted up at the nurse.
“They had to give you some medication to relax you. It put you to sleep for a while.”
Angela had never seen Julie doing her job as a nurse, caring for patients. She had only seen her with paperwork for samples that needed to go to a lab. She seemed so professional, so competent and caring as she looked over the readings on the monitors.
Julie reminded her of Carrie Stratton. She had been a nurse here, too, until Owen had murdered her. They were about the same age and their hair was similar.
Angela’s throat hurt. Her jaw hurt. Her abdomen hurt. In fact, she hurt all over. Her voice sounded raspy to her.
She looked around and realized she was in a hospital room, rather than the emergency ward. She was aware that she had been in and out of consciousness. She remembered the exam, and the CT scan, but little else. She didn’t remember being brought up to the room. She vaguely recalled them injecting something into the IV line they’d put in the back of her hand, and then the world fading away.
“If you need more pain medication, Dr. Song left orders that you could have it,” Julie said. “Just ask.”
Angela nodded. “My cheeks feel numb. There’s something crusty inside.”
“You’re feeling the stitches. They had to stitch up the inside of your cheeks,” Julie said.
Angela squinted in disbelief at the woman. “What?”
“They got cut on your teeth when you were hit. The doctor used medication to numb the area where she had to put in stitches, so it’s going to feel a little strange for a while.”
Angela remembered the way the men kept punching her as if it were a game. Even though she was still in pain, she didn’t want any more drugs. The ones they’d already given her were probably what was making her feel nauseated. She hated drugs. She had been born a freak because of drugs.
Angela was more than glad to be finished with the embarrassment of the examination. She had immediately agreed to it. In fact, she had insisted on it. That was a main reason she had come to the hospital in the first place. She wanted those men to be prosecuted. To do that, the police would need DNA evidence. At least the CT scan had been easy enough. Now, after the ordeal of the examination, she just wanted to be left alone so she could go to sleep.
As Julie was making notes on a chart, Dr. Song appeared at the side of the bed. “How are you feeling? Is the pain better?”
Angela reached up with her right hand to touch her left shoulder. “My left shoulder hurts. Did they break something?”
Dr. Song smiled as she rubbed Angela’s arm in a reassuring manner. “No, your shoulder is fine. That’s referred pain from your spleen.”
“My spleen?” Angela found it hard to believe. “That can’t be it. Are you sure?”
“Yes, the CT scan showed that you have some bruising and possible injury to your spleen from blunt-force trauma to your abdomen. That is what’s causing the pain you’re feeling in your shoulder.”
Angela found it difficult to believe that a problem in her abdomen could cause such aching pain in her shoulder.
“We need to keep you here under observation for a couple days,” Dr. Song said. “I want to do another CT scan after twenty-four hours, and then, depending on the results, possibly another one the next day to make sure your spleen isn’t ruptured and that everything is okay. We’re hoping to avoid the need for surgery. The best news is that the CT scan didn’t show any internal bleeding and your brain doesn’t show any signs of injury.”
“I want to go home.”
Dr. Song smiled. “Don’t worry, we want to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“The police are waiting outside,” Julie said to the doctor. “They want to know if it’s okay for them to talk to her.”
“I think so,” Dr. Song said. She looked down at Angela. “Is that okay with you?”
Angela nodded. Julie checked the flow on the drip and then left. Dr. Song went out to update the police.
After a few minutes, the female police officer came in. Her expression creased with concern when she saw Angela’s condition. Angela wasn’t sure what she looked like, but the alarm on the woman’s face gave her a pretty good indication. Angela could see a male officer out in the hall, talking to a nurse at the station.
The female officer, in her late thirties, looked both impressive and authoritative in her uniform. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. When she approached the side of the bed and leaned over a little, Angela saw that her service weapon was a Sig Sauer.
“Ms. Constantine, I’m Officer Denton. Can you tell me anything about the men who did this to you? Do you know who they were, or their names?”
She sounded professionally sympathetic. Angela didn’t want sympathy. She wanted the bastards caught and put in jail forever.
Or else down the hell hole.
“They came into the bar where I work, once.” Angela’s voice sounded strange to her. “Do you have a pad and pen?”
Officer Denton pulled a small pad out of a pouch in her black leather equipment belt and handed it over along with a pen. Angela wrote down the names of the four men—Miguel, Emilio, Juan, Pedro—and the license number of their car.
She handed the pad back to the woman. “That’s their names and the license number of the car they’re driving.”
Officer Denton looked at the pad a moment, then looked up. “Okay. Do you know the kind of car, or at least the color?”
“Beige Toyota Camry. Probably six or seven years old.”
The policewoman arched an eyebrow. “You have a good memory.”
“I tend to remember people who try to kill me.”
“Can you tell me what happened? Anything you remember would be helpful.”
Angela met the officer’s gaze. “I have a courier service. I had a package for Hartland Irrigation. When I made the delivery the four of them overpowered me. They pulled off my clothes, raped me, beat me, and after each of them finished having a few turns at me,” Angela said in a bitter tone, having to look away and pause to control her rage, “then they put a rope around my neck, hanged me from a beam, and left me to choke to death hanging there a few feet above the floor while they drove off. They wanted me to suffer as I was dying. They fully expected me to choke to death.”
Officer Denton wrote down what Angela had said on a report on a clipboard. Finally, she spoke again.
“Where did this happen?”
“In the old industrial area.” Angela gave her the address.
“Can you describe these four men? What did they look like? Height, weight, that kind of thing.”
“They were all Hispanic. Darkish skin, dark hair, average build. Under six feet. All of them probably between five-eight and five-ten at the most. Each had a little facial hair, but not what you would call beards. They were in their mid- to late twenties, maybe early thirties. They were wearing work overalls. Medium bluish gray. Miguel seemed be the one in charge. He has a zillion moles all over his face.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Officer Denton said as she wrote.
She finally looked up. She stared a moment at the tattoo—DARK ANGEL—across Angela’s throat.
“By the look of those bruises and the abrasions from the rope around your neck, you’re one lucky girl to be alive.”
Angela didn’t answer.
The woman’s penetrating gaze moved to Angela’s eyes. “How’d you get the rope off your neck?”
Angela saw her boots standing on the bottom shelf of the hospital cabinet at the side of the room. She could just see the tip of the black handle at the rim of the boot. The knife, in the sheath, was down between the lining and the leather. Angela always put the sheath of her knife in her boots that way. It kept it from chafing against her bare skin.
The police were sure to go to the address Angela had given them to collect evidence. She knew that if she said that the rope was old and rotted and it simply broke from her weight, she would be caught in the lie when they saw that the rope had been cut.
Angela had two rules about police. First rule, don’t talk to the police. Second rule, if she had to talk to the police, don’t lie. The police remembered being lied to. She didn’t want to give the police any reason to remember her.
“I was able to cut the rope with a knife,” Angela said.
A frown twitched across Officer Denton’s face as she looked up from her report. “A knife.” She glanced down at her notes on the clipboard. “You said they pulled off your clothes. You said you were hanging several feet off the floor. How did you get a knife?”
“They hadn’t pulled off my boots. I had a knife in my right boot. After they left I was finally able to get to it and cut the rope.”
Officer Denton looked over her shoulder to Angela’s boots. She finally turned and went to the little cabinet. Squatting down, she used a finger and thumb to pull out the knife. She held it like it might bite her. Angela could see that there was blood all over it. At least it was only her blood and not Owen’s. She was glad she had followed her rule about disposing of anything she used on a killer.
The policewoman returned to Angela’s side. She held up the knife by a finger and thumb.
“This is illegal.”
Angela frown. “My knife is illegal?”
“Yes. It’s clearly over the legal length.”
Angela ran her tongue over the stitches in her cheek. “I have kitchen knives that are longer than that.”
“Maybe so, but this is a knife made to carry. It’s clearly a weapon, not a kitchen knife. For that reason, it’s illegal. Worse, you had it hidden in your boot. That makes it a concealed weapon. It’s illegal to carry a concealed weapon.”
Angela briefly wondered if she was imagining such lunacy.
“I sometimes make deliveries to high-crime areas,” she said. “I only have the knife to protect myself.”
“Looks like it didn’t do you any good this time, did it?”
“They grabbed my arms and legs so fast I couldn’t get to it until they left me there hanging by my neck.”
“Concealed weapons usually only make matters worse and get people killed. If you would have pulled it on those men, they likely would have taken it away from you and stabbed you to death.”
Angela wanted to say that it had saved her life, but her instincts told her to keep quiet and not argue.
Officer Denton pulled a manila envelope from inside her thin aluminum clipboard and slipped the sheathed knife into it. “The people of New York State have made it clear that they don’t want anyone carrying a concealed weapon. A knife this long is a weapon, so it’s a crime for you to carry it, and it’s a much more serious crime to conceal it.”
“But it’s not a gun. I thought only a gun was a concealed weapon.”
“This is classified as a concealed weapon, the same as a gun.”
The same as a gun. Angela could feel her face going red with rage. She had been raped, beaten, and nearly murdered, and here this woman was, not relieved that the victim had managed to cut herself down and give information that could lead to the apprehension of the criminals, but instead was growing hostile because Angela had a knife to protect herself. Officer Denton hadn’t shown that much anger toward the four men.
Angela would have loved to say all of that, but the last thing she wanted to do was to get on the wrong side of the police. They sometimes came into the bar asking about patrons. Whenever Angela spoke with them she always tried not to make herself noteworthy or memorable. At least other than the way she dressed. She wanted to stay under their radar. If they never investigated her, they couldn’t find any evidence of anything.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said, trying to sound contrite. “I didn’t know.”
Officer Denton’s expression softened a little. “I can’t give this back to you.”
Angela had dozens just like it. She had no reason to try to hold on to this one. They were meant to serve a purpose and then be discarded down the hell hole. This knife had served its purpose. It had saved her life.
Angela nodded. “I understand.”
Officer Denton stared at her for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable.
“Constantine. You live in the trailer park. Your mother is Sally Constantine. She uses meth.”
“I used to live there,” Angela corrected. “I moved out a long time ago.”
“There’s been a lot of drug activity there for years. The police have been to your trailer a number of times. Made a number of arrests there.”
It was an accusation of some sort. Angela didn’t say anything.
Officer Denton finally gestured at Angela’s throat. “I’m beginning to wonder if maybe this whole thing with these men may have been a drug deal gone bad. Is that it? Does this somehow involve drugs? They bringing you a supply up from Mexico and you couldn’t pay what you promised them? That sounds more like what really happened.”
Angela blinked in disbelief. “I don’t do drugs.”
“You just sell them. Smart. Lots of people who sell use. That eats into their business and gets them in trouble. The smart ones sell but they don’t use their own inventory.”
It was all Angela could not to tell the woman to go fuck herself, but she knew that would only convince her that she was on to something.
“I don’t do drugs,” Angela said as calmly as she could. “I don’t live there with my mother anymore. As soon as I was old enough, I moved out. My mother’s a meth-head and that brought a rough group of men around the place. When my mother was high some of those men abused me—raped me—when I was just a girl. I hate drugs. I don’t want anything to do with drugs. I have a courier business and I tend bar. That’s how I earn a living.
“If you don’t believe me, they have plenty of my blood around here, test it all you want. Go out and search my truck if you want.”
Officer Denton tapped her thumb on the railing of the bed, still showing no emotion.
“I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you, Ms. Constantine,” she finally said. “With the information you’ve provided I’m sure we will be able to capture these men.”
With that, she turned and left.