Warning: This chapter contains violence and sexual situations that are inappropriate for children (and also for some adults). See the parental warning.
When Clydene awoke again, she didn’t open her eyes. And she couldn’t open her mouth. Nor could she move her arms. She had been clenching her teeth, it seemed, and struggling against her bonds so vigorously that there was no strength left in either her jaw or her arms. Or her legs, she now discovered. Her feet were tired. Toes, hands, fingers, all refused to move except with great effort. Frigid air rested on her hands, on her arms, on her feet and shins, on her chest, her torso, her calves. The chill touched every undisclosed crevice on her body, even those surfaces that still burned, and those that still bled. She left her eyelids down and tried to relax, tried to slow her breathing, even while she still struggled for oxygen in small, swift bursts, in-out, in-out, in-out. But bile churned from the bottom of her stomach. She was suffocating in her own panic, and despite her best efforts, she could do nothing to stop it.
The man was still there. Clyde felt his presence in the room, felt him staring, intruding into the intimate.
He said, “I’ve always loved freckles.” He sighed.
Clyde felt his finger, or something—if it was anything but a finger, she didn’t want to know—caress her shoulder, her chest, following the trail to where the freckles disappeared.
The man chuckled. “I’m sorry about the cold. In a moment, you’ll be warm, and your purple lips will turn bright red again.” He ran his finger across her lips. It smelled like sex. “Soon, everything will be all better. Trust me.”
Wishing the things she felt were all part of a bad dream, yet knowing they were all real, Clyde begged, “Please,” as best she could. “Need… doctor… Please.” The words came out mumbled, because her jaw refused to flex.
“Sweeteeee, only one doctor can fix what you’ve got wrong. This is the only way to get you better.”
Clyde began to sob helplessness. “Naaw…” she wailed. She tried to shake her head, but it just flopped from side to side.
“Let’s review, shall we,” he said.
Clyde heard his footfalls on the concrete floor.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered, calmly.
Clyde didn’t want to. She hoped that if she just relaxed her eyelids and breathed as deeply as she could and brought her sobs under control that he would just leave her alone.
Smack! She heard him snap his belt at her, a warning slap.
She squinted in the brightness around her, beheld blurry shapes in the spacious room.
“All the way,” he said.
She tried the best she could. The image was getting clearer. He still wore clothes, and his wounded arm was still bandaged. He still stood before her wielding a belt. And his open pocket knife was still lying on a nearby box, to remind her that he could use it any time he needed to.
“Let’s review,” he continued. “What is your name.” He paced back and forth before her like an interrogator in a Nazi prison camp.
She struggled with the words. “Miss Clydene Patrice Hobbes, Sir.”
“Good,” he said. “And how old are you?”
Between pants and gasps of air, she managed, “Thirty-eight, Sir.”
“Excellent!” he exclaimed with joyful enthusiasm. “See how easy this is?”
Clyde saw neither the joy nor the ease of any of it.
“And do you like it when I touch you?”
Clyde shuddered, involuntarily sobbing again. But she feared the consequences, so she lied. She managed to nod and moan a tearful assent.
“How long have you been alone?” he asked.
She knew the right answer: Always. Was this to be the summary of her life? To die alone, neglected, helpless, at the hands of a tormentor, an assaulter, a rapist, at the mercy of his twisted, psychotic fantasy? Where was law and justice? Where was her husband, her protector? Where was her savior?
She recalled to her mind the only thing she could think of that had kept her sane, allowed her to believe she was not alone, nor would ever be alone. A little Bible verse she had memorized when she was a teenager, as a result of those deep emotional upheavals all adolescents endure. Whenever it had seemed her life had been falling apart, she chanted it to herself to comfort herself. And now she recalled it to her mind, recited it with her lips, huffing and puffing and mumbling the words through tears, between gasps for air.
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
She had not completed even the first sentence before she heard the first swish of the tormentor’s strap. But she continued to recite it, repeatedly, even through sobs and tears.
The cyclops eye of a bright, full moon stared down at Ted from halfway up the nighttime sky, illuminating the pavement, the gravel, the trees, the hubcaps of Clyde’s blue Camry. Brian had parked outside the perimeter, and Ted reluctantly regarded the vehicle, from a distance, Michael still by his side.
A police detective in a suit and tie handed Ted a pair of latex gloves, led them to the car, and opened the driver’s side door. He scowled silently in Ted’s direction as he motioned with his hand for Ted to enter.
Ted didn’t want to look inside, though he neither knew nor cared why. He wanted to kick in the window, to rip the upholstery, to destroy, to burn. He set his teeth, walked up to the open door, stooped, and peered through. The overhead light lit up the passenger compartment. There was a steering wheel, two bucket seats, automatic shift stick between, everything one would expect to see. What exactly did they expect him to find, anyhow? Stolen jewelry? Missing unmentionables? Were they just trying to occupy him with useless hoo-ha? Or were they really that desperate for clues?
Ted donned the gloves, sat in the driver’s seat, held the steering wheel, stretched out, scanned the dash. Nothing, nothing, and nothing, not that Ted would know the difference, because he never sat here.
“I never sit here,” voicing the thought as soon as it occurred to him. “I shouldn’t fit.”
The unnamed police detective spoke. “You mean the seat should be moved up closer to the steering wheel?”
“Right.” Ted nodded.
“That’s consistent with the other evidence we’ve uncovered. He drove the car. What about the keys?”
“What about them?” Ted pawed at the ignition switch.
“They’re in evidence,” the detective answered. “But they were found in the ignition. Does she usually leave her keys in the ignition?”
“No. She usually keeps them in her purse.”
At this point, the detective excused himself for a moment and went off to the side to talk to another officer.
Ted opened the glove compartment. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He scanned the contents. Registration. Owner’s manual. Miscellaneous papers. An old, portable CD player. For how long had that been collecting dust in there?
“Ted,” Brian said.
He sat up and looked out of the car. The detective had returned.
Brian continued. “He drove off from here in another car. We’ve identified the car, and we located it.”
Ted’s eyes perked up at that news.
“It’s parked at his apartment complex. But he’s not in the apartment. We believe he’s nearby.”
Ted immediately knew where the perp had taken her. But he had to work out how to proceed. He couldn’t just reveal that Scarface had once opined that the perfect place to bring a woman was his apartment storage area, that it was secure and remote, in a separate utility building. And no one ever went down there after dark. At the time, Ted discounted it, because it sounded like a joke in poor taste. But now…
In any case, Ted couldn’t just tell Brian that he had known all along, somewhere in the back of his stress-wracked mind, what the answer always had been. Besides, Ted had to be there when the arrest went down. He owed that to Clyde, to be there to help her, and to see the perp, to stare him down, to let him know who had caught him. But the police were not going to let Ted in on the bust, not even with Brian’s influence—and Brian would not even go along with the idea. It was just too ethically questionable.
Even Ted himself knew that he couldn’t allow himself to compromise his reputation in that way. But he also couldn’t allow himself to appear inept or stupid. And he couldn’t violate attorney-client privilege, he told himself. So he needed to lead the cops personally to the right place without letting them know what his ultimate goal was.
“I’d like to look over the apartment site.”
In-between Saturday-morning coffee and email, Clyde sneaked away with her cell phone. Ted had brought a suitcase worth of work home with him the previous night, and he was reclining in the den reading reports. On the bright side, she and Ted got to spend Saturday morning together. The down side was that Clyde needed to find an excuse to get away if she wanted to be out of Ted’s earshot.
“I’m going out for a little walk,” she announced.
Ted glanced out the window. “The weather report said it was going to be cold today.”
“Yeah, I know.” She lied. “But I just really feel like taking a walk. Don’t worry, I’ll bundle up,” she said as she lifted her thick, winter jacket from the hook beside the front door.
Having donned the coat, she pecked Ted on the lips and began opening the door. “I’ll be back in 10 or 15 minutes.”
“Hold on,” he interrupted. “I think I’ll join you.”
“Uh— But it’s cold out.”
“Yes, but it’s also sunny and clear, and I enjoy the company.” He grinned, shimmying by her in the hallway, and grabbed his own coat from the hook.
“Um…” She was searching desperately for an excuse to convince him to stay so that she could call Michael. “I was going to make a business call, and I’d feel bad about ignoring you.”
“A business call on Saturday, Gracie?”
“Oh yes.” Clyde thought for a moment. “Well, there’s a chance the person I need to talk to is available on Saturday.”
“Alright,” Ted said. “I won’t be offended if you talk on the phone.” He brushed the hair from her ear.
“Right.” Clyde gathered that he had won. She would have to revise her plans to call Michael. But for now, she needed to keep up the appearance that she needed to talk to a client. So she walked along with Ted, pretended to try to make a call, and discovered that she didn’t have the phone number. She must have forgotten to add it to her cell phone.
The two walked along for a few minutes, down the private road they shared with several other homeowners, stepping through potholes the size of the Grand Canyon. A brisk, gentle breeze ruffled the trees, casting eerie, moving shadows across their path. Clyde thought it was silly that their road should be in such a state of disrepair, and that she should do some research to see what it would take to get the road resurfaced.
When they reached the end of the road, at Washington, across from the industrial park, Ted said, “I know you didn’t need to make a business call. Why didn’t you want me to walk with you? Who were you planning on talking to? Or who were you planning on meeting?”
Fear seized Clydene by the stomach. She hurriedly explained that indeed she did have a new client, Big Rose Shipping. They were in the process of deploying a new shipment tracking system, and she needed to get in touch with Jadon Biggs to go over a couple issues with the project. This story had the benefit of being completely true.
Ted didn’t seem to notice, however. He said, “I’ve known about your clandestine rendezvous with my best friend, since November.” He breathed in. “And I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
Clyde stared at him, confounded.
“At first I thought you were planning a surprise for the holidays. And when that came to naught, I assumed it was for New Years. But when the meetings continued and you both kept denying them, I knew something was up.”
Still standing at the side of the road, on Washington Street, Clyde suddenly felt angry. “You hired a private detective!”
“That I did,” Ted said.
Speechless with indignation, she faced him now and sputtered at his face, “How— could you?— I don’t believe it!”
“I hardly believed it myself,” Ted coolly remarked.
Now Clyde found her words. She pointed her finger in his face. “Look, you. How could you think that little of me?” She waved her hand at him. “God! After all we’ve been through, how could you even think that I—“ Clyde felt sick to her stomach at the thought that anyone, must less her own husband, would entertain the thought of her in an illicit affair.
Ted was calmly listening.
Clyde had to pause, to regain her mental footing again, because of her outrage. She continued, “Yes, I’ve been meeting with Michael, and no, it has nothing to do with you, but I promised to love you and you only, and I’ve kept that promise. That you could even think, could even consider that I might— cheat? Oh my God! You’re kidding! Right?”
Clyde’s face was contorted into the shape of a pretzel.
Ted pursed his lips. “Everyone can see you.”
Clyde didn’t care. She flipped her middle finger at him, shouted one more epithet at him, and stormed back toward the house. Maybe, she thought, he actually was too much like Alan Shore.
Clydene’s whole body felt hot, even as the cool basement air wafted over it. Sweat rippled down her forehead and dripped from her nose. Nausea churned through her stomach. Dryness scorched her throat. Her head spun and pounded, and her thoughts phased into and out of sobriety. Breath continued to rush in and out. She couldn’t stop breathing.
A hand wiped sweat and tears from her eye. It caressed her cheek and her lips.
“I know you don’t want to admit the truth about how you feel,” a voice said.
Clyde couldn’t see who it was who spoke. The colors of the room blurred together into an intense, whirling whiteness. She could make out the words, however. And she recognized the touch on her lips, a touch that made her cry.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” the voice continued. “I told you before, you can get out, if you just show me your good intentions. And you’ll get some water to drink, too.”
He ran his fingers across her lips.
“Kiss,” he said. “Show me affection.”
Clyde hesitated, not knowing how to process what her senses told her.
“It’s the only way,” the voice said. “Come on. I’ve never lied to you. Kiss me. Repair the damage you’ve done. You know how you feel about me.”
Clyde’s hands, feet, face were frozen from the inside.
“Shh,” the voice whispered sweetly. “We don’t want anyone to hear us. Suckle my finger, and they’ll go away.”
Like an automaton, Clydene obeyed, pursed her lips as the room imploded around her. A voice shouted an obscenity, and her lover was brutally wrenched from her.
“No,” Clyde whimpered. She squeezed tears from her eyes.
“Clyde! Clyde!”
Hands caressing her bruised, bleeding, once beautiful face.
A roar, like that of a lion.
A repeated pounding echoing in her ears.
A rough cloth covering her nakedness.
A tugging at her hands and feet.
A hand on her forehead.
A familiar voice: “Oh my God! She’s burning up!”
Chuff. “Yeah, we need an ambulance…”
Meanwhile, Clyde collapsed in a puddle of her own sweat.
Ted sat and watched his beloved sleep and listened to the now familiar beep, beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor.
When she had first arrived at the hospital, the monitor had been beeping twice as fast. The doctor had asked Ted a hundred questions, which Ted loathed to answer. But answer them he did, as best he could. She wasn‘t getting enough oxygen, the doctor explained using some 25-cent medical term with the word “malignant” in it. If that was supposed to ease Ted’s stress level, it didn’t work. But Ted was too tired to argue, and the doctor assured him that they had the situation under control and that she was going to be okay. It had been lucky, in fact, that they had gotten to her when they did.
Lucky. What an ironic choice of words.
Ted silently promised himself he would never again let himself be so distant—and clueless.
He admired Clydene’s hand, a beautiful and delicate hand, now scratched and bruised. Her wrists were rubbed raw from her bonds. Almost every inch of the front of her body had been battered. He tenderly touched one of the only places still unmarred, her thumb.
Still asleep, she stole it away.
That’s was good sign, Ted reminded himself. It meant she could move. When she had first arrived at the hospital, she had been almost paralyzed.
“She may not want you to touch her for awhile,” a soft, woman’s voice said.
He looked up to see a short but attractive young woman with raven hair, shoulder-length. She wore a white blouse and tan skirt, stylish and unpretentious, and she exuded confidence and authority as she walked.
She continued, “But she still needs you.”
“And who are you?” Ted said, annoyed.
“I’m from the Sexual Assault Crisis Center.”
“You have an answer to this crisis?” Ted stood, still annoyed, and stared down at her.
“No, I don’t,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“So why are you here?” Ted felt like shouting, but he was trying to keep his voice down. One moment, he had resolved to turn his life around, never to make the same mistakes again; the next moment, he sank deeply into depression; lather; rinse; repeat. But he could always resort to anger in order to maintain control over his feelings.
“Because,” the woman said, “when she wakes up, she’s going to think this was her fault, and she’s going to be as angry at herself as you are at yourself.”
Ted was nonplussed. He had never considered such an outlandish possibility, that Clyde would blame anyone other but him. In a split second, Ted listed all the reasons why it was his fault Clyde was in the hospital right now. He knew he did not deserve her, but he needed her, and he didn’t know what to do to fix it, and he didn’t like to feel helpless.
The woman continued. “You wouldn’t think it, but believe it or not, that’s the most likely outcome.” She stared Ted in the eye. “That Clydene will think it’s her fault.”
Ted shook his head. “It’s not her fault.” He sat back down.
“Who’s fault is it?” the woman asked.
Ted paused. “I don’t know you well enough to answer that question, Miss—“
“Jayson. But please call me Mira.”
Ike waited in his gray coup in one corner of an empty parking lot of an empty shopping plaza. Another car drove up, a conservative blue sedan, and pulled up beside him, on his driver’s side. Ike opened his door, got out, and then entered the passenger’s side of the blue sedan. He shut the door.
“What do you have to report,” said the close-cut, burly police chief from the driver’s seat beside him.
“We’ve dated. She likes me, but she hasn’t shared any details with me. I don’t know if she trusts me.”
“Whether or not she trusts you, she’s attached to you. Note how she was crying on your shoulder.”
Ike now felt even more violated than he had been feeling. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“Only to confirm that your reports are truthful.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Only to a point. I’ve offered you a lot. I’ve offered you your freedom. And that would be very painful for you to lose. But Miss Jayson has some benefits she can offer you, that no man could counter-offer.” Baedes looked knowingly at Ike and nodded slightly. “You know what I mean?”
Ike glared at him.
Baedes returned to looking out the windshield. “Anyhow, I needed insurance.”
Ike felt violated, but there was nothing he could do about it. Baedes had him trapped, already had proof, contrived or not, that he had violated parole. And if Ike didn’t do as the chief asked, Baedes would have him arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced, all faster than he could defend himself.
“I’ll help you get in, but I won’t hurt her.” That was Ike’s version of having a backbone.
“This is bigger than her,” the chief said. “It’s bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than all of us.”
“What is?” Ike said.
“The specifics are unimportant,” he said, Cancerman-style. “All I need from you is a little information. That’s all. And you can have your life back.”
Ted and Anthony, Rico and his wife, Brian Chambers, Miss Nona Williams and her boyfriend, numerous reporters and onlookers, all listened as Judge Spiller spoke.
“The state’s case is certainly very weak. The physical evidence is neither contested nor conclusive. The primary prosecution witness has impeachable testimony and questionable motives. And we certainly have every reason to avoid putting the friends and families of the victim and the accused through any greater an ordeal than absolutely necessary, since their lives will be under the spotlight, the whole city watching, everyone on the edge of their seats, wondering how it will play out.
“I myself wonder how it will play out. And that perhaps is best reason to let this case go to trial, because if no one knows how it will play out, then the case is not cut and dry. And that indicates there is sufficient doubt as to the facts of this case that a jury must decide them. Furthermore, the evidence and testimony as presented would clearly ensure a conviction under the law, unless the defense can muster significant evidence against them.
“I therefore find that the prosecution’s case does meet probable cause. Trial is scheduled for April 21.”
The judge banged his gavel, as Anthony’s mother began to tear up, as Anthony himself stared with a blank expression, as Ted began talking of next steps. And Nona Williams grinned with satisfaction, as her boyfriend scowled, ushering her past the reporters, into the hallway.
Privately, Ted thought, My God, Anthony. You are so screwed.
One evening, many days later, the computer system that ran the police HQ security cameras crashed, bringing down the visual security system. No one even realized that it had crashed, which was not a problem, because the computer itself had a so-called watchdog circuit, which monitored the health of the software and rebooted the computer if it ever crashed. And that is indeed what happened.
But the process took one minute and 47 seconds. And there was a nondescript gentleman who had been waiting for his friend, a cop called Dietrich. He was nondescript in that he could have been any young man, and no one would have been able to identify him. He had no outstanding features. He stood at an average height, had average hair and eyes, and had a face that instantly made you want to like him. If he had any distinguishing characteristic, it was how he was dressed. He wore jeans and a plain, navy T-shirt, and over his shirt he had donned a blue denim jacket. If anyone had to describe him, he would simply be known as “the man in blue.”
This young man who was waiting for Dietrich, in the blue denim jacket and jeans, went by the name of Quincy Schneider, and he also happened to know a hard-boiled private investigator by the name of Corey Samson, who himself just happened to know Michael Kelley, Ted’s friend, not only knew Michael, but also owed him a favor.
In the space of that one minute and 47 seconds, while the cameras were out, while everyone happened to be occupied with the last things they needed to finish before getting out of the office, Quincy Schneider stole away from the men’s room, where he had been supposedly using the facilities, to nearby Sam Baedes’s office. The office was clearly deserted and locked. While glancing to his left, to make sure no one could see him, Quincy Schneider deftly inserted a lock pick and tension wrench, gently twisting the wrench, sweeping the pick across the inside of the tumbler, poking at the lock pins. Within seconds, the door popped open.
Inside the office, the only light came from a partially blinded window looking out over the street. Quincy Schneider scanned the stacks of file cabinets. Donning a pair of latex gloves, which he had pulled from a pocket of his coat, he opened a drawer with the letter ‘G’ on it, for Giordano, but he found nothing he was looking for. He also tried ‘W’ for Williams. He tried another drawer, one that appeared to have case files in it, but again came up dry. He finally opened a nondescript, unlabeled drawer of a nondescript, unlabeled cabinet in the corner. It contained miscellaneous clutter and what appeared to be someone’s dirty gym shorts. But behind the clutter were several file folders, miscellaneous receipts, some pages of hand-scrawled notes, field surveillance reports, and a suppressed report on the test results of some unidentified blood taken from the Nona Williams crime scene.
He quickly folded these pages and hid them in a pocket deep inside his jacket. From another pocket, he pulled a card, akin to a business calling card. In one corner was emblazoned a logo: an engraved, red letter, ‘C’; and circling it, two tadpoles, one black, one white, or maybe spermatozoa, or more likely the yin and yang. On the rest of the face of the card, no name, no address, no phone number, only one simple but confusing sentence, printed in simple black ink a sans-serif font:
Your Conscience was here.
