Without Her Consent Read online

  Angela sat at the kitchen counter while David fixed her a plate of cold chicken. Pouring them both another glass of wine, he watched silently while Angela picked at her food but ate little.

  ‘My sister called today,’ said David, breaking the silence and changing the subject.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know how she’s into that whole genealogy thing.’

  ‘Everyone knows, that’s all she ever talks about. I don’t know why people get so obsessed over that stuff. Who cares?’

  ‘Remember when they visited us last Easter and told us how she’s traced the Crawford family back to twelfth-century Scotland?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘She was excited because our family always thought we were English,’ said David, looking a bit dejected when his wife showed no interest.

  Noticing the look on her husband’s face, Angela reached over and rubbed his arm. ‘I’m sorry, babe. Thank you for dinner. I’m just tired. I think I’ll go to bed,’ she said as she put her dish in the dishwasher. ‘Coming?’

  ‘My sister sent me some stuff about our Scottish ancestors. I think I’ll poke around online for a little while,’ said David. ‘She thinks there might be a Crawford family connection to the Vikings. If there is, you’ll have to start calling me Thor.’

  He didn’t see the irritation flash across his wife’s face because she had already turned to walk away. If he spent half the time trying to make some money as he does on pointless crap, we might not be in so deep a financial hole. She said nothing and continued up the stairs.

  At work, Angela was an alpha dog but at home she often deferred to her husband. It was a pattern that had been established from the beginning of their student–teacher relationship. Based on the way she efficiently commandeered Oceanside Manor, no one would have ever guessed how acquiescent she was in her own home.

  7

  Day 2

  When Angela arrived at the sixty-year-old Oceanside Manor building the next morning, Jenny was already waiting for her outside of Angela’s office. She had told the young nurse to be there at 8:15. It was only 7:45 and it looked like Jenny had been there a while. The young nurse was eager and energetic—exactly the kind of person she needed.

  Angela tossed her bags on her desk and waved her hand. ‘Come with me,’ she said as she sailed past Jenny out into the hallway. ‘First, I want to check in on Eliza and the baby. We can talk while we walk.’ Angela explained precisely how she would need Jenny’s help pulling together the many documents the police would undoubtedly require.

  ‘We haven’t been fully automated yet, not like the hospital next door,’ said Angela. ‘It’s a huge job and will require you to dig through reams of files.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ replied Jenny.

  When they arrived at Eliza’s room, Angela checked the unconscious woman’s chart. Satisfied that everything was fine with the mother, she turned her attention to the sleeping baby in the nearby crib. Staring down at the child she smiled. The one thing she had always wanted that eluded her was children. At age forty-four, it was evident it was not likely to ever happen.

  She picked up the sleeping baby and sat in the rocking chair that had been brought in by some of the staff and rocked him while she barked whispered orders at Jenny, telling her what to compile and where to find it. Young and wanting to please, Jenny took copious notes and nodded her head frequently.

  ‘I want all visitor and vendor lists cross-tabbed. I want to know which vendors were in this building between April and June of last year,’ said Angela. ‘April through June is the critical window, do you understand?’

  ‘It’s going to take a while,’ said Jenny. ‘But, I’m on it. I keep thinking about this electrician who was here last year who was a little weird. Remember when we had to rewire all the overheads on the third and fourth floors? He and another guy did all the work. He was always creeping around and once I found him in one of the patient’s rooms. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he saw the patient’s name on the door and thought he knew them.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I told him he wasn’t permitted in any patient rooms ever, and he went back to work. I didn’t give it another thought, but now I wonder.’

  ‘See if you can remember who he was,’ said Angela, looking down at the baby again.

  ‘Will do,’ said Jenny, nodding while writing herself a note.

  ‘Also, get me a list of every person who interviewed for a job here. I even want the names of people we didn’t hire, even those who just applied. They may have come in person to drop off an application and somehow gotten in,’ said Angela. ‘We don’t always walk people out after an interview. When someone leaves an office, we just assume that they leave the building, but I suppose someone could go to another floor.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘And Jenny, I need all this yesterday,’ said Angela. ‘My assistant, Vera, will help you. The board gave me a day to see if I could figure out this mess and the clock is ticking. If we can turn over a few suspect’s names to the police quickly, and they can make an arrest, then this whole thing can be wrapped up much faster. We have to keep bad publicity to a minimum or all of our jobs will be on the line. Understand?’

  Excited to have such an important role, Jenny nodded enthusiastically.

  For the rest of the day, the young nurse combed through lists and files culling out all visitors, workmen and staff, and mixing and matching them against dates and times. She set up a spreadsheet allowing the user to change the order based on dates in the hospital, sex, and work affiliation. When she was through she had over four hundred names and more than two hundred of them were men.

  At six o’clock that evening she went to find Angela to present her preliminary findings and was told that the administrator had gone up to 3 West. Jenny found Angela in the rocker in Eliza Stern’s room with the baby boy in her arms. She handed Angela the document.

  ‘This is very comprehensive,’ said Angela out loud to herself as she reviewed the reports. ‘Two hundred and eighty-six men. That’s a lot of people for us to vet. It’s going to take a long time. I think it’s better that we put out a statement immediately rather than having it look like we were trying to hide something.’

  ‘This was just my first pass at the list,’ said Jenny. ‘I have to go through it a few more times to make sure I’ve got the correct counts but at least it gives you a ballpark number of the universe we’ll need to look at.’

  Angela nodded wearily and looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms.

  ‘He’s really sweet, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is,’ said Jenny, taking the baby from Angela so she could better sift through the papers while Jenny placed the baby back in his crib next to his silent, sleeping mother, Eliza.

  8

  After leaving Eliza’s room, Angela walked back through the yellow halls to her office for the meeting with the clinical psychiatrist. She hoped the consultation would help her develop a profile of the kind of person who might be responsible. This particular psychiatrist was an expert on deviant psychological behavior.

  ‘What’s the emergency? I cancelled my morning appointments because your message said it was urgent,’ said the psychiatrist.

  ‘Urgent doesn’t begin to describe what we’re dealing with,’ said Angela, shaking her head as she told him the story.

  ‘No one noticed the woman was pregnant?’

  ‘Why does everyone keep asking that? She carried small. I’ve seen it before. It’s not common but some women barely show at all. Between us, I don’t think anyone ever looked at her abdominal area. Eliza has been in a coma for so many years. The aides are the ones who move, change and clean her and most of them don’t have a high school education. Their job is very specific and they don’t venture out of their lane, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘But still…’

  ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but we missed it,’ said Angela. ‘Sometimes I go on the f
loors myself and check in on patients to stay connected to what’s going on in the building. I’ve checked in on Eliza a few times over the past year and I didn’t pick up on it either.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ asked the psychiatrist.

  ‘I have to develop a profile of the kind of person who would do something like this. It might help us identify who it is.’

  ‘It’s hard to say definitively without more information,’ said the psychiatrist, pulling at his eyebrow. ‘A man who would have sex with an unconscious or compromised person would likely be someone who had serious inadequacy issues. But, they might not appear that way to other people. They might present as someone who has a terrific life, has everything one would want—career, family, friends.’

  ‘You mean like the singer, Phil Markley?’

  ‘That’s a good example,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘Markley was famous, had money, power, an incredible career. He had a wife and family. Plenty of women would have willingly slept with him. Yet, he preferred it when they were inebriated or unconscious. It’s a fetish, really. Women become objects. In my world we call it a paraphilia. It’s when a person’s arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing and engaging in sexual behavior that is atypical and extreme. It can revolve around objects like children, animals, feet or a particular act like humiliating someone or exposing oneself. When the women are unconscious or—as in your case—in a coma, they become just an object. Most people with paraphilia can trace this desire back to an early sexual experience. Of course, there’s always somnophilia too.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Angela with a grimace.

  ‘That’s when someone gets sexually aroused from a sleeping person.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘That’s rarer. Lastly, there’s necrophilia, which is sexual arousal from dead people.’

  ‘Eww.’

  ‘A woman being asleep or unconscious absolves the perpetrator from his sins,’ the psychiatrist continued. ‘Men who get aroused by violence or sadistic fantasies don’t have to own it when the victim is asleep.’

  ‘Is there any particular profile for the kind of person who would do this? We need to find the man that did this—fast.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘Let’s take Phil Markley again, one of America’s favorite singers. With Christmas specials on TV every year, he’s the last person you’d ever suspect or so you’d think.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘People with inappropriate predilections oftentimes put themselves in positions where they can access the stimulation,’ the psychiatrist continued. ‘People who are attracted to children will seek out teaching positions or Scouts or even the clergy. Places where they can easily interact with their intended victims. In this case, if this act was done by someone who gets pleasure from being with a person who is unconscious and immobile, they may have sought out a job at an extended-care facility deliberately. They may have assaulted more than one patient.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ said Angela.

  ‘No matter how you look at it,’ said the psychiatrist, ‘it’s not a pretty picture. My suggestion would be to look for someone who has a past. Going to this extreme—it’s probably not his first time at the rodeo. Look for a previous criminal record or a complaint filed somewhere. Check for restraining orders and sexual predators lists. I’d bet money that your guy has done something like this before.’

  9

  Hours later, with Jenny standing in front of her, Angela looked over the updated employee and visitor spreadsheets the young nurse and Angela’s assistant had put together. The administrator looked at her watch and let out a sigh. It was nearly noon and her time was running out. Beckmann was only concerned with his own ass and he’d throw anyone under the bus—including her, if he thought he was in some legal or financial jeopardy.

  ‘You’ve done a good job so far, Jenny, but I’m afraid, given the tight time restraints, it’s not fast enough to bring this investigation to a close. I’m going to notify the police.’

  ‘It is a big project,’ Jenny said, ‘and I’ve only just scratched the surface.’

  ‘Another day isn’t enough time to make a dent in this huge list.’

  Angela’s phone rang and she groaned when she saw the caller ID said ‘Beckmann, Bob.’

  ‘Is everything all right, Dr. Crawford?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘It’s the president of the board. I’ve got to take it. Jenny, keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll stop by to see you later.’

  Jenny gathered her papers and left as Angela took a deep breath and answered her ringing phone while forcing a smile onto her face.

  ‘Good afternoon, Bob. How are you?’

  ‘What’s going on over there?’

  ‘I’m fine. Thank you for asking.’

  ‘Get off your high horse, Angela. You of all people have no right to be up on one. From the beginning, I knew it was a mistake when Farwell went to South America and put you in charge. You were too green. I told him that. Unless you’re prepared to give me a name right this minute, it’s our legal responsibility to bring the police in now.’

  ‘My team is doing the best they can with limited resources and time,’ said Angela. ‘We’re a medical staff, not the FBI.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’

  ‘We’ve compiled a preliminary list of men who were in and around the building last year between April and June. That’s our target period based on the baby’s size and weight. I’ve met with a clinical psychiatrist, who gave me a personality profile on the kind of person who might be responsible,’ said Angela.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s going to take more time,’ she continued. ‘Assuming the perpetrator is on one of our lists and he may not be, we’ll have to run DNA tests on everyone unless someone confesses, which isn’t likely. Legally, I don’t think we can force people to provide their DNA. It would have to be completely voluntary. My guess: not everyone is going to agree to give us a sample.’

  ‘If a person is innocent, why wouldn’t they provide their DNA?’ barked Beckmann. ‘If someone doesn’t give it, it probably means they’re guilty.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Angela. ‘There could be all sorts of reasons. Even if we did get everyone to give a sample, we still might not get a match. The names we compiled are from people who officially signed into logs. If someone snuck into the building without us knowing it, we wouldn’t have them on the list. That’s something we need to be prepared for. We may not ever get closure on this.’

  ‘That’s not an option,’ said Beckmann. ‘Call the police now and I’ll call our corporate PR team to get them started on a spin for this. I don’t want the press to find out about anything before we come out with a statement or they’ll think we’re hiding something. I had hoped we could resolve this quickly and quietly. From what you’re telling me, it’s going to be a much bigger deal. Right after you speak to the police, let the lawyers know and make sure you keep them in the loop so we limit our liability. A press release has to be pulled together today so we can feed the media our narrative. They are going to be like piranhas on human flesh.’

  ‘I’ll call the police now,’ said Angela. ‘If I had more time, I might be able to…’

  Before she finished her sentence, Angela realized the board president had already hung up.

  10

  Driving north along the shore on A1A, two highly decorated Oceanside FL police detectives, John McQuillan and his partner, Anita Blalock, looked out of their unmarked car window at the rows of swaying palms that lined the shore road. A popular winter vacation destination, Oceanside’s population soared to nearly 70,000 in the winter months when all the snowbirds came down to vacation from the colder northern states. Through the passenger window, the surf splashed rhythmically on the white sandy beaches. On their left, crowded cafes with long waiting lines of hungry tourists were flanked by souvenir and beachwear shops.

  McQ, as he was called by friends and coll
eagues alike, and his partner whose nickname was Blade, as in ‘sharp as a’ had met several years before while working together on one of John McQuillan’s most important cases, the Quinn Roberts murder near Rochester, NY. McQ had searched for the killer for over six years. At the time, Anita Blalock was on the Atlanta police force and had been instrumental in helping McQ arrest the murderer he had pursued for so long. After that, a deep friendship, rooted in mutual professional respect had developed. When the Quinn Roberts murder trial was over and the killer convicted and locked up for good, McQ decided it was time to pack it in and leave the cold Rochester winters behind.

  One day on a lark, he responded to a job opening for a detective with the Oceanside Police in Palm Beach County, Florida. Soon after, he was offered the position and he and his longtime girlfriend, Marie, a court stenographer, packed up and headed south. Six months after he arrived, there was another opening for a detective and McQ reached out to his old friend, Blade. Though a good fifteen years younger than McQ, she was more than ready to leave the chaos of Atlanta behind and try something lower key. After much discussion with her wife, Eve, a physical therapist and vegan cook extraordinaire, the two women rented a U-Haul truck and drove caravan style south to the Sunshine State.

  Since then, McQ and Blade had become partners and they couldn’t have been happier. At fifty-nine, slightly out of shape and occasionally winded, McQ had been paired with a lot of partners over the years, mostly men. He reckoned that he never had a partner that he enjoyed or respected more than Anita Blalock. Blade was tiny in stature but made up for it in personal ferocity. She was a five-foot-three package of pure muscle developed from a lifetime of diligent workouts and low carbs. Her compact body and ebony complexion were capped off with piles of braids tucked into a neat and tidy bun. When she smiled her perfect white teeth gleamed and gave one the sense that she was in on a joke that you completely missed. Half the time that was true. Blade was as sharp as they come, she missed nothing.