in the Tulare County Sheriff's Department, in Marin, L. A., Reno, here he was, the shithead who'd put Dana in jail. “Unfortunately,” the counselor was saying, a little wince of regret decorating the corners of her mouth, “the onus is on you to defend yourself.”
“Is that him?” Bridger said. His voice was hard, so hard it nearly choked him getting it out. All his life he'd cruised along, high school, college, film school, Digital Dynasty, living a video existence, easy in everything and never happier than when he was sunk into the couch with a DVD or spooned into a plush seat in the theater with the opening credits rolling--Melissa used to call him a video mole, and it was no compliment--but in that moment he felt something come up in him he'd never felt before, because now everything was different, now the film had slipped off the reel and the couch was overturned. It was hate, that was what it was. It was rage. And it was focused and incendiary: “So this was the son of a bitch.”
The woman nodded. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a cord round her throat and she lifted them now to her face and peered down at the photos. “We don't know his real name and he could have been arrested under any number of aliases in the past--”
Dana spoke up suddenly. “What about fingerprints?”
“We haven't run a fingerprint trace. They haven't, I mean. It's because”--here she paused, looking to Bridger to carry her past the sad truth of the moment--“well, I'm sorry to say that a crime like this, a victimless crime, just doesn't merit the resources...”
Bridger's hands were traumatized. He had to fingerspell most of it--“victimless” took him forever--but Dana picked right up on it. “Victimless?” she said. “What about me? My job? My students? What about the four hundred and eighty-seven dollars--who's going to pay that?”
Who indeed?
The explanation was circuitous, dodging away from the issue and coming back to it again, and it took a while to unfold. First of all, Dana was a victim, of course she was, but she had to understand just how much violent crime there was in the state of California--in the country as a whole--and how limited law enforcement resources were. There were rapists out there, murderers, serial killers. Sadists. Child molesters. But this in no way diminished what had happened to her and there was a growing awareness of the problem (the counselor--what was her name?--dispensed clichés like confections, like tea, because they were soothing) and there were a number of steps Dana could take to restore her good name and maybe even bring the criminal to justice. At this point, the woman drew a pad and pencil from the top drawer of her desk. “Now,” she said, “do you have any idea who this man is or how he might have got hold of your base identifiers?”
Dana hesitated a moment till Bridger had laboriously spelled out “base identifiers,” a term neither of them had previously come across. “No,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “I've never seen him before.”
“Have you lost your purse or had it stolen anytime in the past few months?”
She read this on the woman's lips and shook her head again.
“What about your mailbox--is it secure? Locked, I mean?”
It was, yes. The mailboxes at her apartment complex were located in a special alcove, and everybody had a key to his or her own box.
“What about at work? Do you receive mail at the”--here the woman brought the glasses back into play and glanced down a moment at the sheet before her--“the San Roque School for the Deaf?”
Dana did. And no, the mailboxes there were in the main office and anyone could have access to them. But Dana hadn't missed anything--her pay stubs were there every two weeks on schedule and there had been no interruption of her mail at home, or not that she knew of, anyway.
The woman looked to Bridger a moment. He'd been so rigidly focused on what she'd been saying and the effort to
“Is that him?” Bridger said. His voice was hard, so hard it nearly choked him getting it out. All his life he'd cruised along, high school, college, film school, Digital Dynasty, living a video existence, easy in everything and never happier than when he was sunk into the couch with a DVD or spooned into a plush seat in the theater with the opening credits rolling--Melissa used to call him a video mole, and it was no compliment--but in that moment he felt something come up in him he'd never felt before, because now everything was different, now the film had slipped off the reel and the couch was overturned. It was hate, that was what it was. It was rage. And it was focused and incendiary: “So this was the son of a bitch.”
The woman nodded. A pair of reading glasses dangled from a cord round her throat and she lifted them now to her face and peered down at the photos. “We don't know his real name and he could have been arrested under any number of aliases in the past--”
Dana spoke up suddenly. “What about fingerprints?”
“We haven't run a fingerprint trace. They haven't, I mean. It's because”--here she paused, looking to Bridger to carry her past the sad truth of the moment--“well, I'm sorry to say that a crime like this, a victimless crime, just doesn't merit the resources...”
Bridger's hands were traumatized. He had to fingerspell most of it--“victimless” took him forever--but Dana picked right up on it. “Victimless?” she said. “What about me? My job? My students? What about the four hundred and eighty-seven dollars--who's going to pay that?”
Who indeed?
The explanation was circuitous, dodging away from the issue and coming back to it again, and it took a while to unfold. First of all, Dana was a victim, of course she was, but she had to understand just how much violent crime there was in the state of California--in the country as a whole--and how limited law enforcement resources were. There were rapists out there, murderers, serial killers. Sadists. Child molesters. But this in no way diminished what had happened to her and there was a growing awareness of the problem (the counselor--what was her name?--dispensed clichés like confections, like tea, because they were soothing) and there were a number of steps Dana could take to restore her good name and maybe even bring the criminal to justice. At this point, the woman drew a pad and pencil from the top drawer of her desk. “Now,” she said, “do you have any idea who this man is or how he might have got hold of your base identifiers?”
Dana hesitated a moment till Bridger had laboriously spelled out “base identifiers,” a term neither of them had previously come across. “No,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “I've never seen him before.”
“Have you lost your purse or had it stolen anytime in the past few months?”
She read this on the woman's lips and shook her head again.
“What about your mailbox--is it secure? Locked, I mean?”
It was, yes. The mailboxes at her apartment complex were located in a special alcove, and everybody had a key to his or her own box.
“What about at work? Do you receive mail at the”--here the woman brought the glasses back into play and glanced down a moment at the sheet before her--“the San Roque School for the Deaf?”
Dana did. And no, the mailboxes there were in the main office and anyone could have access to them. But Dana hadn't missed anything--her pay stubs were there every two weeks on schedule and there had been no interruption of her mail at home, or not that she knew of, anyway.
The woman looked to Bridger a moment. He'd been so rigidly focused on what she'd been saying and the effort to
Similar Books
