wake Dina. He went around to the other side and pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. She didn’t stir. Sam put on slacks and a T-shirt, then went downstairs to make some coffee. The refrigerator hummed, and a tree frog croaked in the backyard.
Police reports on the Alice Duncan sexual battery case were in his briefcase. He pulled out the folder, lay it on the kitchen table, and flipped it open. He put on his glasses and sat down. The ten pages included a summary by the lead detective, along with supplemental reports by two other men in the Personal Crimes Unit and the four uniformed officers who had secured the premises, gathered evidence, and interviewed witnesses at the scene.
Sipping his coffee, Sam scanned the report. Victim stated that Fonseca forced her to engage in sexual intercourse with him and then with Lamont. Fonseca and Ruffini then restrained victim while Ruffini sodomized her with the neck of a champagne bottle.
Sam skipped ahead. After the premises were secured the following items were taken into evidence. The sordid list included ladies pantyhose; a used condom; a .22-caliber double-shot pistol; a crack pipe; two hypodermic syringes; several forms and varieties of drugs in vials, plastic bags, pills, rocks, capsules; and rolling paper.
Everyone in the room must have tossed their pockets when the police came in.
Victim was transported to the Rape Treatment Center by a friend, WIth Caitlin Dorn, 35 (see attached witness list).
Sam stared down at the name. Took a breath, let it out.
Felt the blood squeeze through his chest.
The last time he had seen Caitlin Dorn she was wearing a jade-green silk bathrobe with nothing underneath. He had gone to her apartment, but it was to tell her that he wouldn’t be back again. Their affair was over. When he tried to explain, to tell her he was sorry, Caitlin grabbed a lamp off a nightstand and hurled it at him, missing his head by inches.
Sam turned the report over on the kitchen table as if the woman to whom the name belonged might otherwise float up from the page.
CHAPTER Four
aidin Dom had set up her camera pointing north. It was attached to a fat telephoto lens, and the lens was mounted on a tripod. A beach umbrella shaded Caitlin, the camera, and a cartful of photographic equipment.
Through the viewfinder she could see a backdrop of sparkling ocean, golden sand, and white hotels, all converging at a misty blue point. The sand sloped gently to the shoreline, where the turquoise water broke into frothy waves, a continuous shushing sound. Puffy clouds floated lazily in the perfect blue dome of the sky, and seagulls wheeled and dipped. Slightly to the left, waiting for a signal to begin, stood a family of idealized tourists. Woman in sun hat and flowery dress, sandals dangling from her hand. Man in khaki pants rolled to mid-calf, shirt hanging open. Some chest hair, not too much. And a little boy, five years old, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. All of them with medium-brown hair, an allpurpose ethnicity.
The idea was that they had just escaped to Miami Beach from the frigid blasts of Chicago or New Jersey or Montreal, had taken off their shoes, couldn’t wait to feel the tickle of surf on their toes. This shot would go on the cover of a brochure for potential investors in a new resort designed to lure families down from Disney World and Universal Studios to the international playground of the chic and beautiful, safely across the bay from dark, urban, crime-infested Miami.
Caidin stepped aside to let her assistant take the shot.
Tommy Chang was a student at the local community college, working mostly for the experience, which was about all Caitlin could afford to pay him. He had a bandanna for a headband, sunglasses, a collection of silver pendants around his neck on cords, a water bottle at his waist, no shirt, baggy shorts, and Velcro-strapped sandals.
She had never seen a photographer’s assistant dress much differently.
Tommy pulled out the
Police reports on the Alice Duncan sexual battery case were in his briefcase. He pulled out the folder, lay it on the kitchen table, and flipped it open. He put on his glasses and sat down. The ten pages included a summary by the lead detective, along with supplemental reports by two other men in the Personal Crimes Unit and the four uniformed officers who had secured the premises, gathered evidence, and interviewed witnesses at the scene.
Sipping his coffee, Sam scanned the report. Victim stated that Fonseca forced her to engage in sexual intercourse with him and then with Lamont. Fonseca and Ruffini then restrained victim while Ruffini sodomized her with the neck of a champagne bottle.
Sam skipped ahead. After the premises were secured the following items were taken into evidence. The sordid list included ladies pantyhose; a used condom; a .22-caliber double-shot pistol; a crack pipe; two hypodermic syringes; several forms and varieties of drugs in vials, plastic bags, pills, rocks, capsules; and rolling paper.
Everyone in the room must have tossed their pockets when the police came in.
Victim was transported to the Rape Treatment Center by a friend, WIth Caitlin Dorn, 35 (see attached witness list).
Sam stared down at the name. Took a breath, let it out.
Felt the blood squeeze through his chest.
The last time he had seen Caitlin Dorn she was wearing a jade-green silk bathrobe with nothing underneath. He had gone to her apartment, but it was to tell her that he wouldn’t be back again. Their affair was over. When he tried to explain, to tell her he was sorry, Caitlin grabbed a lamp off a nightstand and hurled it at him, missing his head by inches.
Sam turned the report over on the kitchen table as if the woman to whom the name belonged might otherwise float up from the page.
CHAPTER Four
aidin Dom had set up her camera pointing north. It was attached to a fat telephoto lens, and the lens was mounted on a tripod. A beach umbrella shaded Caitlin, the camera, and a cartful of photographic equipment.
Through the viewfinder she could see a backdrop of sparkling ocean, golden sand, and white hotels, all converging at a misty blue point. The sand sloped gently to the shoreline, where the turquoise water broke into frothy waves, a continuous shushing sound. Puffy clouds floated lazily in the perfect blue dome of the sky, and seagulls wheeled and dipped. Slightly to the left, waiting for a signal to begin, stood a family of idealized tourists. Woman in sun hat and flowery dress, sandals dangling from her hand. Man in khaki pants rolled to mid-calf, shirt hanging open. Some chest hair, not too much. And a little boy, five years old, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. All of them with medium-brown hair, an allpurpose ethnicity.
The idea was that they had just escaped to Miami Beach from the frigid blasts of Chicago or New Jersey or Montreal, had taken off their shoes, couldn’t wait to feel the tickle of surf on their toes. This shot would go on the cover of a brochure for potential investors in a new resort designed to lure families down from Disney World and Universal Studios to the international playground of the chic and beautiful, safely across the bay from dark, urban, crime-infested Miami.
Caidin stepped aside to let her assistant take the shot.
Tommy Chang was a student at the local community college, working mostly for the experience, which was about all Caitlin could afford to pay him. He had a bandanna for a headband, sunglasses, a collection of silver pendants around his neck on cords, a water bottle at his waist, no shirt, baggy shorts, and Velcro-strapped sandals.
She had never seen a photographer’s assistant dress much differently.
Tommy pulled out the
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