In Pursuit of Justice by Radclyffe Page A

as it happened?” This was the moment. The trust would come now, or never. Some leap of faith, some need to believe that someone was listening—if they were to have any connection that would make a difference, it would begin here.
    “It will be in the report.”
    “I know. But will you tell me?”
    Seconds passed as the young woman searched Catherine’s face. Catherine held the piercing gaze steadily, allowing her concern and compassion to show. Finally, the officer relaxed infinitesimally, and Catherine felt a small thrill of victory. A beginning.
    “It was five nights ago. Just after midnight. I was working the night shift like usual, in the Tenderloin—that’s my regular sector.” She stopped without realizing it, thinking back to that night. It had been raining, and it was a cold miserable rain. She was wearing a slicker and her cap was covered with a protective plastic case. Her hands were cold. She wasn’t wearing gloves. Every minute seemed like an hour. She’d been over it so many times in her mind—what she should’ve done, what she did, what she wanted to do.
    “Officer?” Catherine’s voice was calm and gentle. The woman seated across from her gave a small start of surprise and then smiled in embarrassment.
    “Sorry.”
    “No. That’s all right.”
    “I had just come out of the diner. I’d stopped for coffee. It was so damn cold. I heard noises coming from an alley nearby, one of the blind ones with nothing but dumpsters and derelicts in them. The streetlights were all broken, and it was dark. I couldn’t see a damn thing.” She paused for a heartbeat. She was cold, like she’d been then. She was shivering, too, but she didn’t know it.
    “I started down the alley as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to turn on my Maglite because I was afraid that would make me a target. I wasn’t even certain that I’d heard anything at all. I remember thinking it was probably going to be a big rat. I’d almost convinced myself that it was my imagination when I heard someone scream…or what I thought was a scream. It was just a short sharp sound, and then it was quiet again.”
    She looked at Catherine, and her eyes were bleak. “The facts are in the report.”
    “Yes, I know.” Catherine leaned forward, her hands in front of her on the desk, her fingers loosely clasped, never taking her eyes off the young woman’s face. “It sounds very frightening.”
    “I didn’t feel it then.”
    “And now?”
    “I remember.”
    Now Catherine shivered, although she knew it didn’t show. It was a finger of ice trailing down her spine. She acknowledged it, then ignored it. This wasn’t about her, and in this room for these fifty minutes, her feelings didn’t matter. But unlike the young officer, who struggled so valiantly to separate her feelings from her experience, Catherine’s work required that she let the emotion in, even if it stirred her own pain. She knew what it was to remember fear. It was a subtle enemy; it returned in the dark of night or on the unguarded edge of weariness, a reminder of weakness and vulnerability.
    Focusing, listening to the words beneath the silence, she asked, “But you kept going? You walked down the alley?”
    “Yes.” The officer’s voice was stronger now. “I could hear sounds of a struggle more clearly by then. I radioed for backup, and I drew my weapon. I was in the narrow space between two apartment buildings, and there was light from one of the windows high up. The fourth floor, I think. Enough so I could see a little. I could make out a man and a smaller figure—a woman, I thought. He was holding her against the side of the building, and she was fighting him.”
    “A robbery?”
    “I didn’t know. It could have been anything—a domestic dispute, a robbery, a rape.”
    “You were still alone?” It was hard to imagine anyone, man or woman, facing such uncertainty and danger on a daily basis. No amount of training or experience could possibly prepare a