Part 44 (1/2)
”Was that Dugan?” Weiss asked.
”He's with the family.”
”You talk to the girl yet?”
Before Landry could answer, the doctor came out of the exam room, looking. Landry showed her his
badge. ”Detectives Landry and Weiss,” he said. ”How's she doing?” ”She's quite shaken, as you might imagine,” she said. She was a small Pakistani woman with gla.s.ses that magnified her eyes about three times. ”She has a great many minor cuts, abrasions, and contusions,
though no evidence of broken bones. It looks to me as if she has been struck with something like a wire
or a whip of some kind.”
”Signs of rape?”
”Some v.a.g.i.n.al bruising. Marks on her thighs. No s.e.m.e.n.”
Like Jill Morone, Landry thought. They would have to hope for some other source of DNA from the
attacker, maybe a pubic hair.
”Has she said anything?”
”That she was beaten. That she was frightened. She keeps saying she can't believe he could do such a
thing.”
”Did she give a name?” Weiss asked.
The doctor shook her head.
”Can we talk to her?”
”She is mildly sedated, but she should be able to answer your questions.”
”Thank you, Doctor.”
Erin Seabright looked like an escapee from the set of a horror movie. Her hair was a tangled blond ma.s.s
around her head. Her face was bruised, her lip split. She looked at them with wide, haunted eyes as
Landry and Weiss entered the room. Landry recognized the expression. He'd done a couple of years working s.e.x Crimes. He had discoveredquickly he didn't have the temperament for it. He couldn't keep a lid on his anger dealing with suspects.
”Erin? I'm Detective Landry. This is Detective Weiss,” Landry said quietly, pulling up a stool beside the
bed. ”You're a sight for sore eyes. A lot of people have been working hard to find you.”
”Why didn't he just pay them?” she asked, bewildered. She held a plastic bottle of water in her hands,
and kept turning it around and around, trying to find some comfort in the repet.i.tive motion. ”That was all
he had to do. They kept calling and calling him, and they sent him those tapes. Why couldn't he just do
what they said?”
”Your stepdad?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. ”He hates me so much!”
”Erin? We need to ask you some questions about what happened to you,” Landry said. ”Do you think
you can do that now? We want to be able to get the people who did this to you. The sooner you tell us
about it, the sooner we can do that. Do you understand?” She didn't answer. She didn't make eye contact. That wasn't unusual. Landry knew she didn't want tobe a victim. She didn't want any of this to be real. She didn't want to have to answer questions thatwould require her to relive what had happened. She felt angry and embarra.s.sed and ashamed. And itwas Landry's job to drag it all out of her anyway.
”Can you tell us who did this to you, Erin?” he asked.
She stared straight ahead, her lip quivering. The door to the examination room opened and she started to cry harder.
”He did,” she said, glaring at Bruce Seabright. ”You did this to me! You son of a b.i.t.c.h!”
She sat up in the bed and flung the bottle at him, water spraying everywhere as Bruce Seabright brought