Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella (14 page)

Munch stuffed the brochures into her bag when the
door to the anteroom opened.

They were greeted by a woman who identified herself
as Special Agent Hogan. Emily Hogan. She had blond hair, which curled
to her shoulders, and was wearing a tailored skirt suit and heels.
Munch was surprised. She realized she had been expecting a bitter,
angry man-hating woman like the ones who led those incest-survivor
workshops at the women's center. Certainly not someone who wore
makeup and feminine gold jewelry at her ears and throat.

"How can I help you?" Agent Hogan asked.

St. John introduced himself and explained that they
were looking for a rapist.

"You've come to the right place," Hogan
said with a smile.

"Let's go into my office."

When they were settled in matching upholstered chairs
that faced the agent's desk, Emily Hogan said, "First, let's
classify your assailant."

"Not my assailant," Munch said quickly
wondering why it made a difference to her that this woman know that
immediately. Agent Hogan didn't blink. "I was referring to your
case."

"Right, the rape of our victim." Munch
squirmed in her chair.

St. John reached over and squeezed her arm. She
wasn't sure if this action was meant to reassure her or quiet her.
Probably both.

"Was it rape or sexual assault?" the agent
asked.

"What's the difference?"

"Rape as defined by our penal code is an act of
sexual intercourse accomplished against a person's will by means of
force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful
bodily injury on the person of another. Sexual Assault is a violent
crime where sex has been used as a weapon to hurt and humiliate."

"It was both," Munch said.

"She was raped," St. John said
simultaneously.

"What I can never understand is how anybody
converts the act of sex into an act of violence,"Munch said. She
knew it happened, but witnessing—even being a part of certain
acts—didn't mean she understood the why. She didn't have a man's
equipment and could never fathom having such close personal
interaction, joining your body with another's, in hatred. It didn't
make any sense to her at all. Especially now, with her new
sensibilities, living in a different world, being a different person
accustomed to sanity.

"Well, now," Emily Hogan said, "you've
just hit on the number-one myth. Rape is not about passion gone out
of control. It's an act of destruction and degradation. It's an act
of ultimate power over another."

Munch's head nodded, seemingly of its own volition.
She was acutely aware of St. John's silent presence.

"I can't give you a why," Emily Hogan
continued. "There are many things we'll never understand. What
we do here is catalog and, hopefully put these offenders away as soon
as possible."

She pointed to the file cabinets behind her. "Rape
is one of the most difficult crimes to prosecute, because we have all
the societal prejudices and myths to overcome."

"I saw the pamphlets," Munch said.

St. John looked at her with slightly raised eyebrows.
She felt exposed and wished she could just get up and leave, forget
this whole thing.

If Emily Hogan was aware of Munch's discomfort, it
didn't show in her tone. She went on with what was turning into a
lecture. "A little historical note: In the nineteenth century
when the crime of rape was finally being pursued in the courts, there
was a seven percent conviction rate for successful rapes, twenty-five
percent for attempted rape. When I started in law enforcement, it was
the seventies. A woman was expected to resist her rapist to her
utmost ability. The more injuries she sustained, the more believable
her case. I worked in a department where it was standard procedure to
polygraph rape victims. If the woman failed her polygraph, the case
was not pursued."

"But not now, right?" Munch asked.

"No, thank God, not now. But we still fight the
wall of shame." She picked up a folder from her desk. "Listen
to this. This is the first officer on the scene's evaluation."
She read from the report, "'The assailant then made a demand for
oral sex.' "

"
Sounds plain enough to me," Munch said.

"Let me tell you something," Hogan replied.
"No rapist ever stood before his victim and said the words, 'I
demand oral sex.' "

She put down the file and addressed them both. "The
first cop on the scene is usually a uniform. He's dealing with some
poor woman who's just had a terrible, traumatic experience. He wants
to get her help, take her to a hospital, hook her up with a rape
counselor. The last thing he wants to do is make her relive the
experience in explicit detail. But that's exactly what we need."

She picked up a packet of papers from her desk. They
looked like applications. She handed one each to St. John and Munch.
It was a questionnaire. "You're going to have to go back to your
victim and have her fill this out to the best of her ability."

Munch started to read the questions.

"
What did the offender
call his sex organs?
"

She hated it when guys named their dicks, as if that
part of their body had a separate identity and a mind of its own.
She'd heard it said more than once that a stiff cock had no
conscience, but she didn't buy it. Man or woman, people had to take
responsibility for their actions. She also thought it was weird when
people named their cars.

"There's all kinds of rapists," Agent Hogan
said.

Munch stopped reading and asked, "You mean they
all have a distinctive MO?"

"No," St. John interrupted, "that's
Hollywood bullshit. There's no such thing as a distinctive MO that
lasts much longer than four months. Assholes update their MO
constantly."

Munch was used to cop speak. "Asshole"
meant criminal. When he said "Ass
hole
,"
on the other hand, with the emphasis on the second syllable, he was
referring to a defense attorney. She'd spent enough time around him,
hanging on his every word, to pick up the nuances.

"That's right," Agent Hogan said. "
Modus
operandi
is learned behavior designed for the
safety of the offender to ensure the success of his crime. And with
every act the offender perpetrates, he hones his craft a little more.
MO evolves with each crime."

"Constantly," St. John agreed. "Maybe
the asshole gets ID'd and caught because he left fingerprints. The
next time he wears gloves. Maybe he grabs his victims in a shopping
mall. The woman screams and somebody comes to her rescue. The asshole
runs off to his little cave, licks his wounds, and plans a way for
that not to happen again. So next time he grabs his victim in an
underground parking lot with nobody else around."

"So by looking at how the guy does his crime,"
Munch said, "the precautions he takes, you can figure how he was
caught before. So maybe this guy disguises his voice because he was
busted on a voice lineup."

The look he gave her was of approval. She struggled
to conceal her pride.

"Anything else?" Munch asked Agent Hogan.

"We need to know exactly what this offender said
and how he said it. Some rapists have a fantasy that the act is
consensual. He might say to his victim, 'Tell me you love me.' Or he
might ask her if it feels good. These offenders we classify as 'the
inadequate rapist.' This is the type of guy who is socially
withdrawn, who is unable for his various reasons to procure a
partner. He generally collects pornography and has a complex fantasy
life."

Munch had a quick mental image of the videotapes in
Fahoosy's trunk. Strike two, motherfucker.

"He might even prefer to rape his victim once
she's unconscious. Perhaps passed out from intoxication."

"You count that, too?" Munch asked.

Agent Hogan looked at her and blinked once.

Munch felt her cheeks go hot and wondered if the
blush showed. "And the other types of rapists?" she asked
quickly to get the conversation rolling again.

"That's what we need to figure out here,"
Hogan said. "We need to know how he subdued her. Did he put a
knife to her throat? Did he cut her? How did he react to seeing the
blood? Once she was complying, did he stop using force? Did he
display a sense of entitlement? All this is important.

"Eighty to eighty-five percent of rapists are
known to their victim," she added.

"I believe it," Munch said, pulling out her
own experiences and holding them up to test against this woman's
theories.

"This is true with the inadequate rapist,"
the agent continued, "or the weenie rapist as I like to call
him, as well as the rapist who feels he's entitled."

"Entitled," Munch said. That would explain
that time with Culley.

"Now we're talking about what makes this guy
tick," Emily Hogan said. "What makes him feel good. What he
needs to do to satisfy his needs. That's his signature. That's the
part that doesn't change. Sexual fantasies are constant throughout
your life. You might embellish them, dress them up, refine them. But
whatever thing that imprinted you at whatever critical moment in your
sexual development is your thing for life."

Munch studied the form in her hand. The questions
came right to the point.

"What did the offender call the victim's sex
organs?"

"What profanity was used?"

"Were other objects used for penetration?"

"And if so, what?"

A flashlight, Munch remembered. Red plastic handle.
Later, at the hospital, the doctor extracted several minuscule flecks
of chrome from the walls of her vagina. She hadn't wasted any time
wondering what sick pleasure that guy got out of sticking this
inanimate object up inside her. She also didn't understand why some
men wore panty hose under their trousers or wanted you to hurt them.
She did know that there were all types out there. Guys like Culley
who drove you out to a deserted graveyard and were so mad at you for
hooking up with someone else that they demanded sex one more time.

"This goes in your mouth or in your cunt, "
Culley had said. What a choice. She chose the latter, staring at the
headliner of his Chevy until he was finished. Then he drove her back
to the Flats. And she told on him. Of course she told on him. She
wasn't the type to go climbing into a hole and cower. She dealt with
things as they happened and then got over them. Sleaze John and a
couple of the other guys whipped him good. What she couldn't
understand was why he drove her back. Not that he should have killed
her or anything, but he could have made her find her own way home and
gotten a head start. But then, he never planned to leave. Now she
understood. Culley was one of those who believed he was entitled. Did
Robin's rapist also now feel a sense of entitlement?

And there was that redheaded guy they all called
Gypsy. He was a strange one, even by their standards. That incident
happened even before the thing with Culley. Gypsy climbed into bed
with her one night. Woke her up from a sound sleep with a knife under
her chin. He was stoned on something. Reds most likely He didn't
smell like he was out-of-his-mind drunk. He told her things, told her
how much he wanted her, wanted to make love to her. All this with the
blade of his hunting knife resting on her throat. She had gotten mad,
pinned as she was under the covers with his weight on top of her, his
breath in her face. She heard her next-door neighbor, Brian, through
the thin wall. He was strumming his guitar. He stopped playing when
she said in a loud voice, "Well, then, you may as well kill me,
Gypsy, instead of just showing me your goddamn knife." Brian had
not kicked in the door as she had hoped he might. Instead, Gypsy had
put away his knife, mumbled something that was halfway between an
excuse and an apology, and staggered away. Brian, a big, tall,
strapping guy told him he wasn't being cool. He said this from the
doorway as Gypsy stumbled down the street never to be seen again.
They were both weenies.

"Man," she said, her fist clenched. Nothing
like anger arriving ten years after the fact.

"What?" St. John asked.

"Oh, um, I was just wondering about this last
question. 'What was the order of sexual encounters?' " she read
out loud. Emily Hogan looked at her. "Fellatio, oral sex,
followed by anal penetration is a much different assault when carried
out in the reverse order."

"I get it," Munch said, almost sorry she
had asked for clarification. She folded the questionnaire and put it
in her purse, next to all the other disturbing literature.

"
And this brings us to the third classification
of rapists, the sadists. Fortunately this is a very small group.
These are the kinds of guys who should have been drowned as pups. As
the name implies, their pleasure comes from another's pain. You'd be
looking for a man who is probably in his mid-thirties; it seems to
take these guys that long to work themselves up to the point where
they act out. And with most of your rapists, like serial killers,
you're going to be looking for someone from the same racial
background as his or her victims."