Chapter 23: Rape

The entire household slept late Saturday morning. Even with Jack’s diminished need for sleep, he was exhausted by the girls’ antics the night before. Lisa was the first to stir awake, and when she rolled off the bed, she woke the others. It was mutually agreed that hot showers were in desperate need, followed by a large breakfast. Jack followed the girls up the stairs to the kitchen.

Dakota stopped at the top and kissed Jack on the cheek. “Thank you very much, Lord. Last night was very special.”

Jack smiled. “Yes, it was nice.”

“Maybe we can do something like that again,” added Lisa. “Maybe you can rescue me the next time.”

Jack laughed. “You’d better speak to the Housing Committee. Maybe they need to find a place with a dungeon already built in.”

Sharley looked at Dakota and the pair nodded.

Jack was cleaning up in the shower a few minutes later, when Lisa and Teresa burst in. “Lord, Lord, have you checked your phone yet?” asked Lisa.

“My phone? No. Why?”

“Tina’s been trying to reach you all night! She’s called and left messages on both my phone and Teresa’s, saying it’s an emergency!”

Jack turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel as he did so. He went to the bedroom drying off and found Tina had been calling him as well. He unlocked the phone and returned the latest call.

Jack never even had a chance to ask what the problem was. As soon as Tina recognized who was calling, she began crying. “Lord, Lord, you have to come, come quick! Oh God! Lord, you have to come!” she wailed.

“Tina, what’s the problem?”

“It’s Kirsten, Lord, oh God! Kirsten ... Kirsten’s been raped!” Jack stopped and stared at the wall in disbelief. Tina continued, “Lord, Lord, you have to come! Oh God, please!”

“I’ll be over as soon as I get dressed. Did you take her to a hospital?”

“Oh, Lord, come quick!”

Jack spent the next few minutes calming down Tina and getting the name of the hospital. As soon as he hung up, he finished drying off and went to the closet.

Teresa asked, “What’s wrong, lord? What happened?”

“It’s Tina, her daughter Kirsten was raped, probably last night. I need to get to the hospital immediately.”

All the women began crying on hearing that, and they all offered to go with him to the hospital. Jack turned down the offers. He knew they meant well, but it would be too much at that point. It would be better to go by himself and find out what happened. “I’ll call when I figure out what happened, but I need to take care of them.”

“Go, Lord! Give them our love!” said Sharley. The others chimed in a moment later.

As soon as Jack got in the car, he thought, “Construct, can you access the police department’s system and give me any information?”

“It may take me a bit, Lord. In the meantime, you will want to turn...” Construct began providing GPS-style directions to Jack, hurrying him across town to the hospital. Halfway to the hospital, Construct added, “Little information is available, Lord. The police simply have a report from the hospital about a girl being dumped out on their lawn and a possible rape. A detective was dispatched to the hospital. Hospital records don’t provide much more information. Tina was called from the hospital, when Kirsten’s clothing was examined, and her school identification was found.”

Jack sighed and continued to the hospital. Once inside, he asked at the reception desk, “Can you tell me what room Kirsten Randall is in?”

The receptionist looked at her screen and said, “Sir, you can’t go in. She’s not receiving anybody.”

Jack didn’t waste any time arguing, but simply concentrated on her and took a low level of control. The woman provided him with the room number and directions, and sent him on his way, even providing him with a visitor’s badge. When he got to the room, the door was shut, but the nurses ignored him, and he went inside.

Kirsten was in a hospital bed, crying, and her mother was sitting next to her, also weeping. A third woman, a middle-aged black woman, was standing near them. When she saw a man entered, she said, “Sir, you’ll need to leave.” Jack noticed she had a badge on her belt; she must be the detective Construct had told him about.

Instead, Tina jumped off the bed and ran to Jack, wrapping her arms around him. She began crying loudly and dragged him over to the bed. As soon as he was close enough, Kirsten leaned over and began hugging him as well. The two crying women tried to talk at the same time, and it was hard for Jack to sort it out. The best he could do was simply to give them silent commands to calm down, all the while saying softly, “I’m here, I’m here, it will be alright, you’re safe now.”

“Excuse me, Mister...”, interrupted the detective.

Jack let go of the Randalls and turned to face the detective. He held out his hand and said, “I’m Jack Winfield. I’m a friend of Tina and Kirsten. Tina called me and asked me to come over.” He took control of the police officer but kept it very low key.

“Sir, I’d like you to leave for a while. My name is Rose Burton and I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I need to ask Miss Randall some questions.”

Kirsten wailed at that, and her mother said, “No, please, no, we want Jack to be here!”

“Please, this is going to get very personal,” answered Detective Burton.

Jack understood from his subtle control that Detective Burton had just arrived, and Kirsten was almost hysterical. She hadn’t been able to answer almost any questions from the police officer. It was time to calm things down. “Detective Burton, I know you have a procedure to follow, but I think that if I’m here I’ll be able to keep Kirsten and Tina calm enough that you’ll be able to get some answers. I don’t know much more than you do, but we all want to help. Please, allow me to stay.”

Against her better judgment, Burton agreed. Kirsten began crying again, which set Tina off also. Jack decided somewhat stronger methods would be needed with her and Tina. He ordered Tina around to Kirsten’s left side and had her sit on the bed with her daughter. Jack moved a chair to the right side of the bed. Then he sat down and took Kirsten’s right hand. “Kirsten, I know this is very scary, but I want to try something that might help. Will you trust me? It will help Detective Burton.”

She sniffled but nodded and said, “Okay.”

“I want you hold my hand with your right hand and hold your mother’s hand with your left hand.” Tina immediately thrust out her hand and Kirsten took it. Jack smiled at the teen. “Now, close your eyes for just a second.” Kirsten closed her eyes, and Jack said, “Now, I want you to calm down. I know you are scared and ashamed and embarrassed and worried. That’s not important any more. As soon as you feel scared or ashamed or anything like that, I want you to squeeze our hands. Can you do that?”

Kirsten nodded, her eyes still closed, and Jack felt her take his fingers in a death grip.

“Good girl. When you squeeze our hands, all the fear and weakness and shame will leave you. It will flow out of you to us. In its place, strength and love and courage will flow back. Do you feel that strength and love, that courage?” Jack reinforced his words with positive feelings. The girl’s grip loosened slightly.

“Good. Now I want you to open your eyes again but keep holding our hands. The detective will ask you some questions. Any time you feel bad, you squeeze tightly and force the bad out, and the good will come back in. Okay?” Kirsten nodded, and Jack ordered her to open her eyes.

Seeing the police officer again brought Kirsten to the point of collapse again, but she squeezed her mother’s and Jack’s hands and stayed in control. She took a deep breath and nodded.

The detective watched this but didn’t quite believe it. Still, the girl was calmer, so she took her phone out and called up an app that would allow her to record the conversation, and then placed it on Kirsten’s tray holder. After stating her name and badge number and getting the others to state their names and addresses, she began questioning Kirsten. She was also taking notes in a notebook.

“Kirsten, tell me what happened last night.”

Kirsten began a jumbled narrative of going to a party, but not remembering where it was or who was there. She began crying when she realized she wasn’t being very helpful. Unbeknownst to her, this made her story more believable to the detective. Several date rape drugs caused amnesia in victims. Kirsten’s grip tightened.

“Okay, Kirsten, let’s take this one step at a time. You were going to a party?” she asked.

Kirsten nodded. “Yes.”

“And it was a cheerleader’s party?”

“Yes, uh, I think so. But I don’t remember where!” she wailed.

“So, you’re a cheerleader?” Again, the teen nodded and answered positively. “Can you name the other girls on the cheerleading squad?”

Kirsten blinked at that but began giving the names of the girls on the varsity squad. When she got to one name, though, her face lit up. “Sue Browder! That’s who had the party! Sue Browder! It was at her house!”

“Very good. Now, do you remember who else was there?”

Again, Kirsten faltered, but when questioned by Detective Burton, admitted that it would have probably been the basketball team. Their school didn’t have a football team. She then was able to name most of the boys on the basketball team. Jack was quite impressed by the calm and collected method that the detective used to get information from the traumatized girl.

Eventually, the detective stopped the recording and flipped her notebook closed. “Kirsten, you have been very helpful. I am going back to the station now and start working on this. I won’t have any answers for a few days, though. I am sure I will be talking to you again, both you and your mother.”

Kirsten’s grip loosened, and Jack smiled to himself as his fingers came back to life. He almost missed Detective Burton saying, “Mr. Winfield, could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Sure.” Kirsten and Tina looked at him and he said, “I’ll just be a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

He followed the police officer out of the room and down the hall. When they were out of hearing from the hospital room, she asked, “Mr. Winfield, can I ask what your relationship is to the Randalls?”

Jack smiled. “Mrs. Randall, Tina, and I work together at Booker & Blakely.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to the detective. “Beyond that, well, let’s just say that Tina and I are closer than most co-workers.”

“Romantically?”

“We’re involved, yes.”

She gave him a disdainful look. “And the psychobabble bullshit? You the company shrink?”

Jack laughed. “Hardly. Listen, you know it was bullshit and I know it was bullshit, but that scared little girl needed to hear something like that or she was going to become hysterical.” Burton nodded and shrugged her shoulders. Jack continued, “Now, can I ask you a few questions?”

“You can ask. I won’t promise to answer them.”

“Fair enough. Was anything that Kirsten said going to be able to help solve this case?”

“Yes, probably so. It’s going to take some time, but there is some stuff to work with. First, Mrs. Randall consented when the doctors asked for a rape kit to be processed. Not everybody allows that. We also have the girl’s clothing. There may well be forensic evidence available.”

“DNA.”

“Maybe. Maybe something else. Not sure yet. We also have security video showing a car pulling up in front of the hospital and dumping the girl on the lawn. We check that for a license plate, find the owner and driver of the car, question them. Second, she gave us a list of names of possible perpetrators as well as a potential crime scene. That may get us some search warrants.”

“I don’t understand.”

Burton nodded. “For instance, she gave us the name of somebody who might have held the party...”

“The Browder girl.”

The detective nodded again. “ ... so we check Kirsten’s cell phone. We have that and her passwords. These kids put everything on Facebook and Instagram and God knows what else. She probably has photos from the party! We check those against the list of possible guests, see if they were at the party. Do they have pictures of Kirsten, maybe drinking something, maybe being taken into a bedroom? Then we go to those people and ask if they were at a party. Was it at such-and-so location? Ask the Browder girl if she hosted a party.”

“Okay, I am following you. The warrants?” he asked.

“They say yes and allow us in, we check for forensics. They say yes and don’t allow us in, I get a warrant. They say no, and I have proof they are lying, that’s a felony, obstruction of justice. Between that and bloodwork that shows drugs involved, we can go to a judge and get a warrant. We get in and do forensics. We get their computers and phones and accounts and passwords, and we track down everybody who was at the party. Then we start taking people down to the station and questioning them.”

“Huh!”

“It takes time, but it works. We’ll stay in touch with the Randalls. It will take a few weeks, but it’s going to come out. My office, we’re pretty good at this, and these kids aren’t supercriminals. Somebody is going to talk and point fingers. Somebody got the drugs from somebody else. Somebody will say they didn’t rape her, but they know who did,” she finished.

“Thank you, Detective. I will let Tina and Kirsten know.” He shook her hand again and passed along a command. “This is a top priority. Please make sure to include me when you talk to them. Maybe I can help.”

Burton agreed and left, and Jack went back to Tina and Kirsten. He was smiling when he came in. “You did very well, Kirsten. Detective Burton said you were very helpful, and she will be working on your case as a top priority.”

“Did she think she could find who did this?” asked Tina.

“Yes, but it might take some time. She did say, however, that there was a lot of possible evidence, and she was pretty sure they would figure out something. It could take a few weeks before we hear anything. She promised to call us.”

Tina gave a hopeful smile at that, but Kirsten looked glum, and then began crying again. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” said Tina, who began crying also, all the while hugging her daughter.

Jack reached out and touched Tina and calmed her down. Then he reached out and took Kirsten’s right hand again. “Kirsten, squeeze my hand. Bad stuff out, good stuff in, remember.”