Down the Dirt Road (32 page)

    “SHUT UP!  I told you- no one would hear you anyway!”
      Anger and lust, a deadly combination, darkened his brown eyes until they resembled cess pools.  His free hand yanked at her jeans, popping the button with his free hand.  Removing them with one hand proved to be too challenging however and in frustration he let go of her wrists to pull hard on the tight fitting denim.  Seizing the opportunity to get free, she grasped his greasy hair with both hands and pulled as hard as she could.  Her efforts were reward
ed
by a loud growl and
the interruption to her
captor
’
s efforts to undress her.  Jerking her knee up as hard as she could, she made contact with his groin sending Adam to the linoleum floor writhing in pain.

   Knowing she only had on
e chance to get away, she sprung from the table and ran toward the door.  Adam reached out from where he curled in the fetal position and grabbed for her ankle sending her flying onto the floor.  She managed to scoot away and made it to the door just as he worked his way to his knees.

    “You … you won’t get away with this!” 

    She ignored his threats, turning the lock on the door and running full force down the hallway toward the main door of the facility.  Thankful she had carried her car keys in her pocket that day, she never even stopped to secure her jeans, she just ran down the freshly waxed hallway praying she didn’t slip.  Adam was behind her, yelling curses and promises of being fired if she left work before her shift was over.

     “If you leave the building don’t ever bother to come back!”

     As if she ever would! 

    Reaching the do
ors, she shoved hard and threw
herself out into the light of day.  As she did so, her eye caught sight of the security camera focused down the hall to where she had just come from.  Too bad there hadn’t been a camera like that in the lunch room.  It would have made proving the charges she was about to file that much easier.

    Never looking back, Jennie ran to her car, jumped in and peeled out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust and pebbles.

    With absolutely no regard to speed limits, Jennie raced through town trying to put as much distance between herself and that disgusting wanna-be rapist.
  Let the cops pull her over-
she could press charges against the disgusting pig that much more quickly.

    There wasn’t a single cruiser save for one sitting in the precinct parking lot.  The lone vehicle sat by itself in a far corner, a black ribbon draped across the hood.  Tears rushed to her eyes
as her body began to shake violently.  Just what she needed to see
.

   Grayson’s car.

    If only Grayson were here, he would take care of everything.

   But he wasn’t.  She was alone, as usual, and she needed to get inside and tell someone what had almost happened to her.  That slug Adam would pay.  Of that she was certain- even if she had to somehow take matters into her own hand
s
.
  When she was
finally in a state that somewhat resembled
calm she stepped from her vehicle and made her way up the steps of the building.

   
 
  Catching a glimpse of herself in the window as she reached for the precinct door, she gasped.  H
er eyes were rimmed in red, glassy with salt water and surrounded by splotchy skin.  She looked awful.

    
You look like someone who
was almost raped
.

     The wor
d itself sounded harsh, even in
her mind and evoked a secondary response that took more than a few minutes to get under control. 

   
A single officer sat behind the desk as she finally entered the old brick building that housed the police department.  Aside from the static of the scanner and the crackle of a radio located behind the desk, the space was silent.  The officer looked up, eyeing her disheveled appearance with concern.

     “Can I help you miss?”

     He was young but not quite as young as Grayson.  Still he looked familiar, and she was suddenly embarrassed by what had almost happened to her.  Small towns could really present a problem for privacy and confidentiality.

     “I… I was attacked.  At work.”  Her voice broke on the last word and she lowered her eyes.  The sight of her opened pants colored her cheeks a bright crimson as she quickly closed everything up.

   In a matter of seconds the officer was standing beside her, leading her by the elbow through a door and into a small room with a table, two chairs and a water cooler.  Motioning to one of the chairs for her to sit, he grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with water.  His eyes filled with concern and something else…anger maybe… he handed her the cup and stepped from the room.  Through the open door he could hear him speaking quietly into his radio.

    “Flores, I need you to high tail it back to the station.  Got a female assault victim just walked in off the street.  Could be …sensitive.”

    The radio crackled as the other officer replied but she couldn’t make sense of the garbled words.

    “Not too sure…possible.”

     More crackling.

    “Thanks.  We are here in the interview room waiting.”

    
The young officer returned a minute later, compassion replacing the other emotions in his eyes.  “Miss, Officer Flores will be here in a few minutes to take your statement.  My name is Officer Brewer.  Do you want to tell me what happened or would you rather wait for her?”

      “I was attacked.  By my supervisor.”

      “When you say ‘attacked’ …?”

       “He didn’t get as far as he was planning to before I gave him a knee jab to the testicles and ran away.”

      A loud bell-tone indicated the door to the
police building had been opened.  “Excuse me for just a moment.”

     The man left the room quickly.  She could hear hushed voices, one of them decidedly female.  In less than the time it took her to finish off the cup of water, two people returned to the small room, Officer Brewer leading the way.  Jennie instantly recognized the woman that followed
him.   Marisol Flores graduated the same year as Michael.  One of the few Spanish speaking residents of their tiny town, Jennie remembered her as quiet and bookish.  Not at all the sort of girl that she expected would grow up and become a cop.  Then again, she probably wasn’t the sort of girl people expected to nearly get raped while working in a paper mill.

    “Jennie Marshall?”  Officer Flores uttered in surprise.  “What happened to
you
?”

     Although there was a slight hit of an accent to her words, what sounded more clearly was her obvious disdain for the woman sitting at the table looking at her.  Her eyes mirrored obvious dislike.  

    What had she ever done to Marisol to deserve such treatment?

     Small towns were so…
small
.

     “You two know each other?”  Officer Brewer asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

     Who didn’t know each other in this town?

    “I was attacked, what do you think happened to me?”  She spit back at the
female
officer
, completely ignoring
Officer Brewer’s presence in the room
.  They eyed each other for a moment, each one weighing the next words they spoke.  Marisol pulled the other chair away from the table and sat down removing a notebook and pen from her shirt pocket at the same time.  She didn’t speak as she situated herself.  Finally, she looked up at
Jennie and spoke, “So, tell me what happened.”  To Officer Brewer she nodded; “I got this Bobby.  You can get back on the desk now.”

    “Oh, Yay.  The desk.  Thanks.”  Brewer muttered as he left the room.

    “So, Miss Marshall, who attacked you?”

     “My supervisor, Adam Johansen.”

      “Your supervisor?”

     “Yes, Adam Johansen.”

     “And where do you work?”

     “At the paper factory.”  Didn’t everyone already know that?
     Officer Flores jotted a couple of things into her notebook then looked up, making eye contact with Jennie.  It was obvious by her expression she was very much doubting the validity of the charges already.  Still Jennie
plunged forward, relating the whole story as quickly as she could.

     “Adam has been hitting on me quite a bit since he joined our team. Until today I just thought it was harmless flirtation.  I figured he was just another guy on a power trip so I ignored the suggestive comments and colorful language as much as I could.”  She paused, in haled deeply, clasped her hands on her lap.  Bruises were beginning to form on her wrists where Adam had held her down against the table. Officer Flores noticed too, made a few notes in her tablet and the looked at Jennie again expectantly.

     “So what changed?”  The officer asked.

     “I was in the lunchroom eating when Adam came in.  He locked the door, forced me onto a table and groped my… breasts.  Then he tried to get my jeans off but he had to let go of my wrists…”

     “May I see your wrists please?”  Officer Flores’s
voice softened just a little as Jennie held her arms out in front of her. “I will need to snap some photos of those before you leave here today. Go on.”

     “When he got frustrated because my jeans wouldn’t come off, he let go of my arms.  I grabbed his nasty, dirty hair with both hands and pulled as hard as I could.  When he was distracted I kneed him in the testicles.  Last I saw he was curled up on the floor like a baby screaming at me.”

   “So there was no genital contact?”

    “Thank God no!”  Jennie cried.  “He did grab my breasts though.  Isn’t that enough?  He was a bumbling idiot who tried to rape me!  He would have gotten away with it too if…”

   “Calm down, Jennie.”  The officer’s voice was quiet, soothing- completely different from she had first entered the room.  “He
didn’t
get away with that, because of your quick actions.  That’s a good thing.  The rest of it, well that’s not so good.
What he committed was aggravated sexual assault and we will pick him as soon as I am done here.  I don’t suppose there were any witnesses?”

    Jennie wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.  The ever present tears that had been part of her life for months now threatened to spill over yet again.  She took a long, haggard breath, trying to calm herself enough to continue.

    “No, there were no witness.  The only other person in the room left when Adam entered,  That’s when he locked the door.”

   Suddenly she had a thought, a slight glimmer of hope. 

   “There was a security camera.  In the hallway.  I am pretty sure that it caught me bursting from the room and running toward the main door.  I was… I was a bit of a mess… my pants were undone and my hair was all over the place.”

     Flores made a note to herself, Jennie could see it read
get video footage
.

    “Is there anything else you remember, Miss Marshall?” 

      “No, that’s what happened.”  She sighed heavily.  “I am pretty sure I will no longer have a job though.  Not that I want to go back to that place ever again anyway…”

     Marisol Flores leaned back in her chair and stared intently at Jennie.  “I gotta say, I sure was surprised that it was you sittin’ here when I came in the room.  I never thought you… of all people…”

     Jennie leaned forward and rested her head on her arms on the edge of the steel table. She sounded so forlorn, even
to her own ears.  “Why not me?  Because my boyfriend left me for my best friend?  Is it so hard to imagine that a man- any man, even one as
disgusting
as Adam might find me attractive?”

  Was she really so desperate for attention that maybe she actually invited Adam’s advances, no matter how unwanted they really were?

    “That’s not what I meant!”  Officer Flores sat up straight, took a deep breath.  “I just…I always wanted to be like you- so perfect, so put together.  I figured life for you was so good, nothing bad could ever happen to you.”

     Jennie had absolutely no idea how to respond.  Out of nowhere she began to laugh
.  Marisol tilted her head to the side, confusion blatant in her expression.

    “Are you OK, Jennie?”

    Jennie gasped for air as she tried to contain the laughing fit.  Imagine someone- anyone- thinking that she was
perfect
?!  Didn’t this other woman have a clue as to the hell she was living in!  Suddenly the events of the day seemed insignificant.

   “You think my life is perfect?  That’s almost too funny for words, Officer.  My father died just before I was supposed to start my senior year.  My best friend turns slut and sleeps with my boyfriend.  I skip my senior year, forgo college and get a job in a factory to make ends meet on our little farm while my mother withers away in her room mourning my father and being consumed by some disease they call lupus.  My only chance at a real future goes and gets himself taken prisoner in some God-forsaken desert…”  She stopped then, her eyes wide as she realized what she had said.  Oh God, now Marisol Flores would know how she felt about Grayson Jennings, a fellow officer and someone the entire department was in mourning over.