The trailer reeked of tobacco smoke and the kind of mildew that grows under old carpets. Jennifer Nolan lowered herself with great care to a boxy plaid sofa.

"No, no," she mumbled. "I don't want… Everyone will look."

"Jennifer, you need medical attention."

Annie squatted down in front of her, taking in the obvious signs of psychological shock. There was a good chance Jennifer Nolan wasn't fully aware of the extent of her injuries. She probably felt numb, stunned. The mental self-protection mechanisms of denial may have kicked in: How could this terrible thing have happened to her, it couldn't be real, it was just a terrible nightmare. Already her logic was skewed: She worried about the appearance of an ambulance, but not the cop car.

"Jennifer, I'm going to call an ambulance for you. Your neighbors won't know what it's coming here for. Our main concern is your well-being. Do you understand? We want to make sure you're taken care of."

"Judas," Sticks Mullen muttered, letting himself in without knocking. "Looks like somebody already took care of her."

Annie shot him a glare. "Go call for an ambulance. My radio's out."

She turned back to the victim, even though Mullen made no move to obey her. "Jennifer? How long ago did this happen?"

The woman's gaze drifted around the room until it hit on the wall clock. "In the night. I-I woke up and he-he was just there. On top of me. He-he-hurt me. "

"Did he rape you?"

Her face contorted, squeezing tears from her swollen eyes. "I t-try to be s-so careful. Why-why did this happen?"

Annie skipped the question, not wanting to tell her that carefulness didn't always make a difference. "When did he leave, Jennifer?"

She shook her head a little. Whether she couldn't or didn't want to recall was unclear.

"Was it dawn yet? Or was it still dark?"

"Dark."

Meaning their rapist was long gone.

"Great," Mullen muttered.

Annie took in Jennifer Nolan's appearance once again- the stringy hair, the bathrobe. "Jennifer, did you bathe or take a shower after he left?"

The tears came harder. "He-made me. An-and I had-to," she said in an urgent whisper. "I couldn't stand-the way I felt. I-felt him-all over me!"

Mullen shook his head in disgust at the lost evidence. Annie gently rested a hand on Jennifer Nolan's forearm, careful to avoid touching the ligature marks that encircled the woman's wrist, just in case some fiber remained embedded in the skin.

"Jennifer, did you know the man who did this to you? Can you tell us what he looks like?"

"No. No," she whispered, staring at Mullen's shoes. "He-he was w-wearing a mask."

"Like a ski mask?"

"No. No."

She reached a trembling hand for a pack of Eve 100s and a white Bic lighter on the end table. Annie intercepted the cigarettes without a word and set them aside. It was probably too much to hope that Jennifer Nolan hadn't brushed her teeth or smoked a cigarette after the rapist had left the scene, but oral swabs would have to be taken nonetheless. Any trace left behind by the rapist could provide a key to identifying him.

"Horrible. Like f-from a nightmare," the woman said, as spasms rocked her body. "Feathers. Black feathers."

"You mean an actual mask," Annie said. "From Mardi Gras."

Chaz Stokes arrived on the scene eating a breakfast burrito. He was in one of his usual getups: baggy brown suit pants with a brown and yellow shirt that belonged in a fifties bowling alley. A crumpled black porkpie hat rode low over the rims of wraparound shades that were a testimony to the kind of night he'd had. The sun was nowhere in sight.

"She took a bath," Mullen said, striding down off the rusty metal steps of the trailer. "At least she didn't do the fucking laundry. We got a crime scene."

Annie hustled after him. "The rapist made her take a bath. Big difference, jerk. You of all people should be able to relate to a woman wanting to bathe after sex."

"I don't need your mouth, Broussard," Mullen snapped. "I don't know what you're even doing in a uniform after last night."

"Oh, pardon me for arresting someone who was breaking the law."

"Nicky's a brother," Stokes said, throwing the butt end of his breakfast into a patch of dead marigolds along the side of Jennifer Nolan's trailer. "You turned on one of our own. What's the deal with that, Broussard? He come on to you or something? Everybody knows you think you're too good to do a cop."

"Yeah, well, look what I've got to pick from," Annie sneered. "In case you're interested, there's a rape victim sitting just inside that open door, asshole. She says the guy was wearing a black feather Mardi Gras mask."

Stokes winced. "Jesus H., now we got us some kind of copycat."

"Maybe."

"What's that supposed to mean? Renard didn't do her and he did Pam Bichon. Or you got some other opinion on Bichon?"

Annie chewed back the temptation to point out no one had proven Renard guilty of anything. Stokes punched her buttons. He said black, she said white. Hell, she believed Renard was their killer.

"What are you?" Mullen said, curling his lip. "Hot for Renard's shriveled little dick or something? You're all of a sudden his little cheerleader. Nick and Chaz say he did Bichon, he did Bichon."

"Go start knocking on doors, Broussard," Stokes ordered as the ambulance rolled into the trailer park. "Leave the detecting to a real cop."

"I can help process the scene," Annie said as he popped the trunk of his Camaro.

The department wasn't large enough or busy enough to warrant a separate crime-scene unit. The detective who caught the call always brought the kits and supervised as officers on the scene pitched in to dust for prints and bag evidence.

Stokes's trunk was crammed with junk: a rusted toolbox, a length of nylon towrope, a dirty yellow rain slicker, two bags from McDonald's. Three bright-colored plastic bead necklaces from a past Mardi Gras celebration had become tangled around a jack handle. Stokes pulled out a latent fingerprints kit and a general evidence collection kit from the neater end of the junk pile.

Stokes cut Annie a sideways look. "We don't need your kind of help."

She walked away because she didn't have a choice. Stokes outranked her. The idea of him and Mullen processing the scene made her cringe. Stokes was a slacker, Mullen a moron. If they missed something, if they screwed up, the case could be blown. Of course, if Jennifer Nolan's description of events was accurate-not a guarantee with a badly shaken victim-there would be precious little evidence to collect.

Annie walked around the back side of the trailer, putting off the KOD duty. The attacker had come into Jennifer Nolan's trailer in the middle of the night, gaining entrance through the back door, which was not visible from any other trailer in the park. The chances of a neighbor having seen anything would be slim to none. The phone line had been cut clean. Nolan had made her call to 911 from the home of her nearest neighbor, an elderly woman named Vista Wallace, whom Nolan said was very hard-of-hearing.

Annie took a Polaroid of the torn screen door and the inside door that had been easily jimmied and left ajar. There would be no fingerprints. Nolan said her attacker had worn gloves. He had attacked her in her bed, tying her to the bed frame using strips of white cloth he had brought with him. There was no evidence of seminal fluid on the sheets, indicating that the rapist had either used a condom or hadn't ejaculated during the attack.

From her studies, Annie knew that contrary to popular belief, sexual dysfunction was fairly common among sex offenders. Rape was about power and anger, hurting and controlling a woman. Motivation that came out of rage against a particular woman in the rapist's past or against the entire gender, stemming from some past wrong. The attack on Jennifer Nolan had been premeditated, organized, indicating that it was primarily about power and control. The rapist had come prepared, wearing the mask, bringing with him something to jimmy the door and the white cloth ligatures to tie up his victim.