Hold Still (13 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

October 27th

The Main Line was a
collection of wealthy suburban towns in the neighboring counties of Philadelphia. It was where many of Philadelphia’s rich people lived small-town lives—safe and secure in their opulent and pristinely manicured mansions and only minutes from the bustling city in all its glory and squalor. With a ten- or twenty-minute drive or train ride, Main Line residents could gain access to everything the city had to offer: a Broadway show, illicit drugs, a museum, or a violent assault. Jocelyn had grown up in one of those towns in a mansion not far from where Alicia Hardigan now resided temporarily for her latest stint in rehab.

Evening had descended gently, almost imperceptibly. The golden glow of the lit windows gave Brewster House a welcoming feel. It was housed in a mansion surrounded by rolling crisply cut lawns as far as the eye could see. Jocelyn expected to see golfers milling about. It looked more like a country club than a rehab facility. There was a small parking lot in front of the house marked for visitors. Jocelyn and Kevin climbed the expansive marble steps and entered a set of double doors that led to a large reception area decorated in bland taupe and tan tones. The desk was empty. To their right was another set of locked double doors. A sign drew their attention to the black intercom box on the wall for after-hours use.

It took twenty minutes of finagling, which included a call to the administrator, who was at home, before they were allowed to see Alicia Hardigan. An aide led them to a small community area—two couches and a recliner grouped around a thirty-six-inch flat-screen television. Tabloid shows flashed across the screen. Alicia used the remote to turn the volume down as Jocelyn and Kevin entered the room. She eyed them warily from the corner of one of the couches. She was curled into a ball, her feet tucked beneath her. Even in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, she looked emaciated. Her blonde hair was cropped very short, the top of it stiff and spiked with gel. The skin was taut and shiny over her face, making her look more like a starved preadolescent boy than a twenty-eight-year-old woman. A large multicolored butterfly wrapped its wings around her throat, the bottom of its wings disappearing beneath the collar of her sweatshirt. She raised a hand to her lips, picking at the skin, and Jocelyn noticed her gloves. They were thin and black, and the fingers had been cut off.

“You the cops?” she asked.

“I’m Detective Rush. This is Detective Sullivan,” Jocelyn said, flashing her credentials briefly.

Jocelyn perched on the edge of the recliner, catty-corner from Alicia. Kevin remained standing.

“You guys from Philly?”

She stared at Kevin, the skin picking increasing in tempo and fury. Jocelyn nodded at Kevin, and he sat on the other couch, as far from Alicia as he could get. He stared at the television, looking bored.

Alicia seemed to relax a little, her body unfurling slightly.

“Yes,” Jocelyn answered. “We’re with Northwest Detectives.”

“I ain’t done nothin’ lately. I’m not on probation—”

Jocelyn held up a hand to silence the woman and smiled. “We’re not here for anything you did.”

Alicia’s brown eyes darted from Jocelyn to Kevin and back. Slowly, her legs unfolded from beneath her.

“We’re here about something that happened to you—about six months ago.”

It was remarkable how quickly Alicia shut down again, her feet disappearing beneath her like the feet of the wicked witch disappearing under Dorothy’s house in
The Wizard of Oz
. Her eyes turned glassy, and she crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said quietly.

Jocelyn waited a long minute. Alicia’s haunted gaze flicked toward Kevin, but he had leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, hands clasped over his belly as if he were dozing.

“I just need to ask you a few questions about what happened, Alicia,” Jocelyn said gently. “That’s all.”

“I don’t know nothing. Nothing happened.”

“A few questions and we’re gone from your life.”

Alicia scoffed, but her eyes brimmed with tears and her body shook. “Sure. Cops always say that shit. ‘Let me help you, Alicia. We’re on your side, Alicia.’ Next thing I know, I’m locked up.”

Jocelyn shifted closer to Alicia. “Well, I’m not here to offer help or make any promises. I just need some information. That’s all.”

Alicia stared past Jocelyn, her teeth working her lower lip until it was raw. “I don’t know nothing,” she repeated.

Jocelyn moved to sit beside Alicia. “May I see your hands?”

Alicia turned toward Jocelyn, eyes wide, horror turning her face gray. “What? I—”

Jocelyn looked at her lap for a moment. When she spoke, her tone was calm and gentle, almost a whisper. “Alicia, I don’t want to make you relive it. I certainly don’t want to cause you any stress, not while you’re in rehab, but they did it again—a couple weeks ago—to a woman I’ve known for several years. A woman a lot like you. Someone who was trying to clean up her life and make things better for herself. I want to get these guys, but I need a little help. Anything you could tell me might help me put them away.”

Alicia had been looking at Jocelyn as she spoke, but now she looked back at the television. The silence stretched on so long that Jocelyn pulled out her business card to hand to the other woman. Finally, Alicia spoke. “I ain’t going to clean up. My brother—I don’t know how he turned out so good—he thinks I can clean up, get my life together. Get back on track. That’s what he always says. I keep doing this—” She waved an arm around the room, indicating the rehab facility. “Not because I’m gonna get better. I do it for him. ’Cause he always looks so sad and disappointed all the time. When I come to a place like this, he gets all happy. I wanted to die. I meant to die the last time I OD’d. But I can’t even do that right.”

“You must be doing something right,” Jocelyn offered, wanting to keep Alicia talking. “Your brother obviously loves you very much.”

Alicia shrugged. “He deserves better than me,” she said matter-of-factly. “He’s all good-looking and successful, and he’s got this junkie hooker for a little sister. I should have died. At least if I was dead I wouldn’t have to keep thinking about what they did to me.”

A shudder worked its way through Alicia’s body. She fingered the cuff of the glove on her left hand, eyes darting toward Kevin, who still pretended to be asleep. Finally, Alicia shifted toward Jocelyn and peeled the glove back. She put her hand in Jocelyn’s lap and squeezed her eyes shut. Two gnarled lumps of flesh, about the size of a nickel, marred either side of her hand. The one on the top of her hand was much worse than the one on her palm. Jocelyn touched them gently, her throat constricting. For a moment, she couldn’t catch her breath. With infinite care, she pulled the glove back down over the scars and relinquished Alicia’s hand.

Alicia opened her eyes, cradling her left hand as if it were a dead thing. “The right hand is the same. I wear the gloves because I can’t stand looking at them,” she choked. “I got tracks that look worse than that.” She pulled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt to reveal the crook of her arm, a decimated, pockmarked piece of flesh that looked like it might fall off. “But the scars on my hands—they remind me. When I think about it, all I want to do is score.”

Alicia’s body rocked back and forth. Jocelyn let her talk, keeping perfectly still, not wanting to break the spell. “I ain’t no saint,” Alicia continued. “I been doin’ shit since I was sixteen. Hooking since I was eighteen. I had a foster dad who would give me a twenty for a blow job. It was dope money. It was so easy. Of course, it got a lot harder on the Stroll. Most of it I don’t remember—it’s all a blur. I never got raped, but I did a lot of shit I didn’t really want to do. There was a cop who used to leave me alone if I gave it to him for free. I got stiffed a lot in the beginning, till I learned how to handle the tricks. I seen some bad shit too—a lot of bad shit happens to other girls, but that night—”

She stopped abruptly and swallowed, her throat working, making the butterfly ripple, its wings undulating.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Jocelyn prompted.

“It was a walking date. An older black guy came up to me, corner of Kensington and Monmouth. He said he wanted to do it while his friend watched. We went into an alley. He gave me the money. His friend came from the other direction. He was huge and lighter skinned than the old guy. He didn’t talk. He kept pointing to the end of the alley. The older guy acted like he didn’t want to go with the big guy. Then he said his car was around the corner, that we should do it in his car. I said no. Then they changed real quick. The big one lifted me up under his arm like I didn’t weigh nothing. I kicked and screamed, but it didn’t do no good. They stuffed me in the car.”

“What kind of a car? Do you remember?”

Alicia shook her head. “I just remember it was gray.”

“Gray,” Jocelyn said. “Okay, that’s good. So they put you in the car. Then what?”

“Well, the big one held me down in the backseat while the other one drove. He kept my face pressed into the seat so I couldn’t see where we went. When they took me out of the car, they threw a jacket over my head. All I could see was pavement. The big one carried me into the house—”

“How long do you think you were in the car?”

Alicia shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes. It was hard to tell. I thought they were going to kill me. I wish they had.”

“So they took you into a house?”

“Yeah, but it was abandoned. It smelled like fire and piss. They dumped me on the floor in the front room. The windows were boarded up. They had a light—one of those lights like people take camping. There was trash everywhere—a lot of roaches. The big one held me while the other one went into the back of the house. When he came back, there was a white guy with him. He had on a ski mask, but I could see his neck and his hands were white. He looked at me for a long time.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. He was solid. I mean, muscular like he worked out. He just looked at me for a while. Then he said, ‘Hold her down.’ ”

Alicia closed her eyes again. Her upper teeth scraped against her lower lip, drawing blood. “I sure could use a smoke.”

Jocelyn glanced around the room. “Can you smoke in here?”

Alicia laughed loudly. “Hell, no. Only in the smoke room. Besides, I’m on suicide watch. I’m not allowed to play with fire.”

Jocelyn looked at Kevin, whose head slumped downward to the right. “How about Nicorette gum?”

Alicia perked up. “You got some?”

Jocelyn shook her head. “Not me.” She made a show of tiptoeing over to Kevin and stealthily extracting the Nicorette from his right jacket pocket. Alicia chuckled a little as Jocelyn handed her a tab. She chewed slowly. “Thanks,” she said.

Jocelyn waited patiently for Alicia to begin again. “The two black guys, they held me down on the ground. I fought like hell, but they were too strong. The white guy disappeared, but once the other two had me pinned down, he came back. They had my arms out like this—” She spread her arms wide. “When the third guy came back, he had a hammer and nails. He nailed my hands into the floor. I cried and cried, but they ignored me. Then they left me alone with him.”

“Did he nail your feet?”

“My feet? No. He pulled down my jeans and tried to fuck me, but he couldn’t. He was limp.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, just a lot of grunting. Then when he couldn’t do it, he called the other two back in. He said, ‘Your turn.’ The other two—they didn’t have no problems. The white guy, I saw him. He stood in the corner while they raped me, and he was hard as a rock. He jerked off while I got raped.”

Rage caused Alicia’s voice to go up a few octaves.

“Then what happened?” Jocelyn asked.

“I passed out. When I came to, only the skinny older one was there. He was sitting in a corner, in a folding chair just watching me. I started crying when I saw him. He didn’t say nothing—well, he said, ‘Hold still,’ and he pulled the nails out with pliers. He pulled me up and put the jacket over my head. It smelled like cigarettes and fried food, but it was better than the smell in that house. I couldn’t feel my arms. He put my jeans on backwards and took me out to a car. He dropped me off a couple of blocks from Einstein.”

“How long were you in the house?”

Alicia made a face of disgust. “Long enough for a cockroach to crawl in my goddamn ear. I think I was there overnight. It was Wednesday when I picked up the walking date and Thursday when I got to the hospital. They patched me up, got the roach outta my ear. Then they said they were calling the cops—even though I never told them what happened.”

“Why did you run, Alicia?”

Alicia humphed. “No offense, but I don’t trust no cops. You think anyone would believe me—or care? I got spooked. I just wanted to go somewhere I could forget. But I can’t. I can’t forget it.”

Jocelyn spread out ten mug shots on the coffee table. Alicia picked out Warner and Donovan without hesitation. “One last thing,” Jocelyn asked. “Is there anything else you can remember about the white guy? Anything at all? It doesn’t matter how small or stupid it might seem. It could be important.”

Alicia chewed her gum thoughtfully. “Well, he had blue eyes. He was muscular like I said.”

“How tall was he?”

“Probably five-ten and he was real clean.”

“Clean?”

Alicia nodded. “Yeah, his clothes were neat and clean, and he smelled clean—like soap.”

“Any particular kind?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying he smelled clean like he just got out of the shower.”

Jocelyn pulled out a business card and scrawled her cell phone number on the back of it. She handed it to Alicia. “If you think of anything else, call me.”

“Was I any help?”

Jocelyn stood and walked over to Kevin. She kicked his foot, and he made a show of waking up, stretching, and yawning.

“Yeah,” Jocelyn said. “You were a big help.”

Alicia studied the card. “You’re a nice lady,” she said. “For a cop.”