“Why?”

“He, he… please come.”

“What did he do?”

“He… violated me.”

“Do you mean he raped you?”

She was silent.

“Did he rape you?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Oh, God no, I can’t talk about this with the police. I, please, I have to see you, you’re the only one.”

“When did this happen,” I said.

“Just now. He just left.”

“He’s gone.”

“Yes. He beat me and he violated me.”

“Have you been to the doctor?”

“No. I told you. I can’t…”

“Don’t take a shower,” I said. “Don’t bathe or wash yourself. Stay still. I’ll be there in half an hour. Will you be all right until then?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. When I get there I’m going to take you to the doctor.”

“No.”

“Unless you agree to that I won’t come.”

“I… I can’t…” She was crying.

“You’ll have to promise. Otherwise I’ll hang up and call the Reading cops and it’ll be you and them.”

“No… oh why are you so awful?”

“Promise?”

She was silent, sobbing. I waited.

“Oh yes, goddamn you,” she said and hung up.

I got dressed and drove up to Reading. She was hugging herself looking out the door waiting for me. Until I saw her I thought she might be making it up. Now I was pretty sure she wasn’t. Someone had slapped her around pretty good. Her upper lip was swollen and one eye was puffed. It would be shut by morning. She had on a white tee shirt and gray sweatpants and moccasins. Her hair was a mess.

“Oh God,” she said, and backed away as I came in.

“Come on,” I said. “Hospital.”

“You’re really going to make me?”

“You bet,” I said.

I took her arm. She flinched away for a moment. But I kept hold and she relaxed enough to go with me.

The on-call gyno who showed up at the emergency room was a young woman with red hair and a good backside who whisked into the examining room, took one look at KC, and whisked me out with one brisk all-inclusive gesture. I sat in the waiting area and looked at people with bruises and cuts and breathing problems and stomach pains as they came and went. I read several ancient copies of People magazine, which left me feeling like I’d eaten too much fudge.

After about an hour, the gyno came out and said, “Mr. Spenser?”

“Me,” I said.

“Come in please.”

I went in. KC was in a johnny and those silly slippers that they give you. Her hair had been combed and her face washed and she seemed a little foggy. A large black woman in a nurse suit hovered around and looked at me disapprovingly.

“I’m Dr. Tripp,” the red-haired woman said. “Mrs. Roth says I may speak freely with you. What is your relationship to her?”

“Employee,” I said.

“In what capacity?”

“I’m a detective. She hired me to prevent this from happening to her.”

“She may wish to rethink that,” Dr. Tripp said.

“She may,” I said. “Was she raped?”

“She was.”

“No doubt of it?”

“None. There’s vaginal bruising. There’s semen. The police have been notified.”

KC stared at her.

“No,” she said thickly. “I don‘ wan’ that.”

“Mrs. Roth, I’m required to,” she said. “Neither you nor I have a choice.”

“Tranquilizer?” I said.

“Valium. You’re not with the police.”

“No. I’m a private detective.”

“Really,” she said. “Do you know who did this?”

“I think so,” I said.

“No. He din’t,” KC said. “I will swear he din’t.”

Dr. Tripp stared at her.

“You’ll protect the man who did this?”

“I don‘ know who did,” KC said.

Dr. Tripp looked at me. I shrugged.

“I would like to keep her overnight,” Dr. Tripp said.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said. “Maybe you can put the cops off until tomorrow.”

“One reason I want her to stay,” Dr. Tripp said.

“Will you stay wi‘ me?” she said to me. “I won’ stay ‘less you stay wi’ me.”

“It’s permitted,” Dr. Tripp said.

“Oh good,” I said.

Spending the night sitting in a chair by KC Roth’s bedside was about as appealing as a Howard Stern film festival. I took in a lot of air through my nose and let it out the same way. Dr. Tripp and the black nurse and KC all stared at me with various degrees of male-oriented hostility.

“Sure,” I said. “Be glad to.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

In the morning, under the stern gaze of Dr. Tripp, the Reading cops were solicitous, and KC was uninformative, and I was tired. KC insisted that she didn’t know her assailant. The cops clearly did not believe her but couldn’t figure out why she’d protect him, and neither could I. They had a young female assistant from the Middlesex DA’s office who seemed bright and sympathetic and was pretty clever in some of her questions but not bright enough, or apparently sympathetic enough. KC refused to change her story and finally resorted to crying, which worked. The crying may have been sincere. She had been beaten and raped, but I also knew that she could cry at will, and life had made me cynical.

After the cops left and the bright young sympathetic DA went with them, Dr. Tripp told KC that a social worker would stop by to talk with her in a while. And that Dr. Tripp felt that KC should stay another night. KC nodded. Her crying had dwindled to sniffling. She patted her unswollen eye with a Kleenex and blew her nose and sat up a little higher in the bed.

“Keep that eye cold,” Dr. Tripp said as she went out.

We were alone. I handed KC one of the compresses from the tray on her bedside table. She held it against her nearly closed eye.

“No one here but you and me,” I said. “I won’t tell, you have my word on it, but I have to be sure. You said it was Vincent.”

She started to cry again. Not boo hoo, more sniff sniff, but still crying. She seemed to be hiding behind the cold compress.

“Dip that in the ice water,” I said. “It was, wasn’t it?”

She cried some more.

“Damn it, KC, yes or no? You don’t have to speak. Just nod. You said it was Vincent.”

Nod.

“Thank you,” I said.

We were quiet. She sniffled a little more and stopped.

“Will you kill him for me?” she said.

“No,” I said. “But I’ll make sure he leaves you alone.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.

“I think he’s a little crazy,” she said. “You know how it’s crazy time when a romance breaks up.”

“Um hmm.”

“I can count on you, can’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I feel as if I’ve known you all my life.”

“You haven’t,” I said, “and you’re a little crazy yourself, right now. But you’ll be better.”

“Of course I’m crazy,” she said. “What I’ve gone through. I have a right to be crazy.”

“Of course you do,” I said. “But only for a while.”

The social worker stuck her head around the partly open door.

“Can I come in?” she said.

“Tell her yes,” KC said to me.

“Come in,” I said.

The social worker was a thin-faced black-haired woman wearing round glasses with green rims.

“I’m Amy Coulter,” she said, “from Social Services. Dr. Tripp asked me to come and see you.”

“Sit down,” I said. “I’m leaving anyway.”

“Where are you going?” KC said.

“Home,” I said. “Sleep.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Like esophageal reflux,” I said.

I always tried to make my similes appropriate to the ambiance. Surprisingly neither Amy Coulter nor KC remarked on it. Too bad Dr. Tripp wasn’t there. She’d appreciate my kind of quality medical humor.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I stopped for coffee and a couple of donuts, and then went straight to Susan’s house and let myself into her living space. I submitted to five minutes or so of lapping and jumping about from Pearl before I got her quieted down enough so I could take off my clothes and lie on the bed in my shorts. Always game for a nap, Pearl jumped up on the bed, turned around several times, and got ready to lie down beside me. I was asleep before she did. When I woke up Pearl was gone. I looked at my watch. It was 6:20 in the evening. I got up and walked around the house. I noticed that Susan’s purse was on the front hall table, and Pearl’s leash was gone. I went back into the bedroom and took a long shower and shaved in the shower and put on clean clothes from the wardrobe stash I kept at Susan’s place, and was pouring two ounces of Dewar’s over a lot of ice in a tall glass when Pearl and Susan came back from their walk. Pearl bounded about the way she does when she knows supper is imminent, and Susan, more restrained, came over and gave me a kiss on the mouth.