Cast Me Gently (27 page)

“Because some bag lady thought she recognized Daniel’s name, and thought that’s where she’d seen him,” Teresa said.

“That’s a rough part of town,” Sullivan muttered.

“Tell me about it,” Teresa said, her voice tight. “I’ve asked her before not to go down there alone, but she sounded so upset about whatever happened at the bank.”

They sat in a tense silence as Teresa wove through traffic. She found a parking space not too far from the bus station.

“What now?” Sullivan asked.

Teresa looked around. “I hate to say it, but we should probably split up.” She glanced at her watch. “Let’s meet back here in an hour, okay?”

He nodded and went in one direction while she headed in the other. She glanced through the doors of the topless bars, open to the warm summer night. Music thumped with amplified basses that she felt in her abdomen, and she saw women gyrating on the bars while men sat on the barstools, ogling them. Surely, Ellie wouldn’t have been stupid enough to go inside any of those places. She turned to the alleys between buildings, calling for Ellie. The stench of rotting garbage and excrement was suffocating in the still, humid air. Where there were street people, she stopped to ask if they’d seen Ellie. A group of them had.

“She went that way,” one toothless man said, pointing.

“Thank you.” Teresa hurried in the direction he had indicated.

She was in a dank tangle of dark streets. The buildings had their windows thrown open to the night, and the sounds of televisions, people shouting, music—it all tumbled to the curb below in a cacophony of noise.

“Ellie?” she called hesitantly.

“What you doin’ down here, Snow White?”

She turned to find three men approaching. They spread out to cut off any avenue of retreat. They were all dressed similarly in jeans and dingy T-shirts that used to be white, but now were stained under the armpits and yellowed under the dim light falling to the sidewalk in patches from the open windows above them. Two of them held open cans of beer, and the third had a lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

She tried to push between two of them, but one sidestepped, blocking her.

“Let me pass,” she said, and she could hear the tremor in her voice.

“Don’t be so unfriendly,” said the one with the cigarette. “We just wanna talk.”

“I have to—” She tried again to shoulder her way through, but one of the guys with beer grabbed her arm while the third moved in behind her.

“Leave me alone!” She twisted out of his grasp, looking around in a panic for an escape route, but the one with the cigarette stepped in front of her.

“You shouldna come down here if you wasn’t lookin’ for company.” Grinding the cigarette under his heel, he moved closer. She could smell the beer and tobacco on his foul breath.

“I was just looking for someone,” Teresa said.

They closed in, their sweat and body odor almost gagging her.

“Well, you found three someones,” said one of them.

“Please…” Teresa looked around desperately. The street they were in was dark and deserted.

One of the men reached for her hair. She jerked away.

“Don’t touch me!”

They laughed. “You know you want it. That’s why you came down here.”

The two with beer in their hands threw the cans down and reached for her arms, dragging her deeper into the shadows. Teresa screamed for help. One of the men slapped her hard across the face and clamped a filthy hand over her mouth. She kicked and struggled, but they laughed harder and pinned her against the building. The roughness of the bricks and mortar ground against her shoulders and back as she fought. Two of them held her tightly while the third ripped open her blouse and shoved his hand under her bra. His other hand tugged on his belt. She bit at the fingers of the hand over her mouth and yelled for help again when the hand was yanked away. The man she’d bitten cursed and then punched her. Her head slammed against the brick wall behind her. Lights popped in front of her eyes and she fought to stay conscious. It seemed everything was happening from a long way away. There were other noises—yells and something that sounded like growling. She couldn’t tell what was happening, but she realized the men weren’t holding her anymore as she slid to the ground. Her legs refused to support her. As she slumped sideways, she had foggy images of a scuffle and a dog leaping before everything went black.

CHAPTER 28

Teresa lay on her
side with her eyes scrunched tightly shut, the covers pulled up over her head to shut out even the little bit of sunlight coming through the closed blinds of her hospital room. She stuffed a corner of the sheet into her mouth to keep from shouting at everyone to leave.

“Is the doctor sure there’s no brain damage? Three days is a long time to be unconscious.”

“They say she should be fine, but she’ll have headaches for a long time from the concussion.”

“How could this happen? Why was she even down there?”

“That’s what the police want to know. Thank goodness they got the man.”

Teresa’s eyes snapped open.
The man? Why only one?

“Is she awake?”

“I don’t think so.”

A shadow loomed over the bed, but she remained still.

“Let’s go get something to eat, and then we can come back and see if she’s awake.”

Footsteps shuffled from the room, and all was blessedly quiet for a moment. Her parents and all of the aunts had been there nearly constantly since she’d awakened—was it only yesterday? She was losing track of days. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Every pulse of blood through the arteries in her brain felt as if her head was going to split apart. She tried to sit up and immediately began to retch. She grabbed for the emesis basin on her bedside table and vomited into it. A nurse heard the sounds and came in.

“Still nauseous?”

Teresa moaned and lay back again. “When is this going to stop?”

“You had a nasty concussion. Hard enough to crack your skull.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Excuse us. Is Miss Benedetto awake?”

Two uniformed police officers stepped into the room.

“She is,” said the nurse.

“Is she up to answering some questions?”

The nurse looked questioningly at Teresa, who nodded.

“Sorry, I can’t sit up,” Teresa said.

“That’s okay, miss,” said one of the policemen. “I’m Officer Pulaski, and this is Officer Benson. We just have a few questions about your attack. Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes. I was looking for a friend, and these three guys surrounded me—”

The two officers exchanged puzzled glances. “Three guys?”

“Yes. They cornered me, and two pinned me against a wall while the third started to… He started to…” She closed her eyes.

“Miss, there was only one man when we arrived on the scene.”

“No,” Teresa said. “There were three. They all wore jeans and T-shirts. They’d been drinking. They were white, in their thirties, about my height, dark hair, a few days’ worth of beard.”

Officer Benson pulled a notebook and pencil from a pocket and jotted notes while Teresa spoke.

“You’re sure?” Pulaski hooked his thumbs in his belt. “You don’t think you could be confused, you know, with the blow to your head?”

“No,” Teresa said firmly. “One of the ones pinning me had his hand over my mouth. I bit him and he punched me. That’s when my head hit the wall. After that, I don’t remember much. I did hear a dog. That’s when I blacked out.”

Benson looked up from his notes and nodded. “That’s right. Your attacker had a dog with him. We found a winter coat in his backpack that belonged to your father. We think he was stalking you, waiting for a chance to get you off by yourself.”

“Wait, what?” Teresa pressed her fingers to her head, willing it to stop pounding so she could make sense of what they were saying. “No. That’s not right.”

“We have a photo of him.” Pulaski reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a mug shot.

Teresa sat up, forcing the nausea back down, and took the picture. She blinked and tried to make her eyes focus.

“Do you recognize him?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is the man who attacked you.”

“No. It isn’t.” Teresa looked up at the officer. “I know this man and his dog. They’re homeless. They slept in the alley behind our store in Bloomfield last winter, but I haven’t seen him since…” She tried to remember. “Like, last January.” She looked at the photo again. She’d know Dogman’s eyes anywhere. “This is not the man who attacked me.”

“But your parents identified a coat he had as belonging to your father.”

“No. You have it all wrong.” Teresa closed her eyes, her palm pressed to her forehead. “That coat was in a bag for the Salvation Army. I gave it to him. He didn’t steal anything.” She looked at them. “I don’t understand. Why would you think he attacked me?”

“When we got the call that there was an altercation in that alley, the first officers on the scene found this man kneeling over you. There was no one else in the alley, Miss Benedetto.”

The expression in their eyes told her they did not believe her.

“Look, I don’t know what happened after I blacked out, but I’m telling you, this is not the man who attacked me. There were three of them. I would know them if I saw them again, but it was not Dogman.”

“Dogman?”

Teresa shook her head, but that only made it pound more. “It’s what I called him. I never knew his name. Where is he now?”

The officers glanced at each other. “He won’t give a name and we haven’t gotten any word back on his fingerprints. A couple of army tattoos, but no other identification. He’s a John Doe to us. We’ve got him in the city jail.”

“What? No.” She looked from one to the other. “You can’t jail him. He didn’t do anything.”

“He won’t give us a name,” Benson repeated, his pencil poised over his notebook. “He hasn’t acted innocent.”

“Well, now that I’ve told you what happened, can’t you let him go?”

Pulaski shook his head. “We’ll have to let the city attorney know what you’ve told us, but he can’t post bond, and they won’t let him go just like that. When you get out of the hospital, they’ll probably need you to come downtown and make a formal statement. Until then, he’s staying put.”

“Thank you, Miss Benedetto.” The officers tipped their caps and left.

Teresa lay staring up at the ceiling. How did everything go so very wrong? Her head was splitting again, Dogman was in jail, and Ellie was gone forever.

Ellie sat on her bed, her drawing pad on her lap, sketches scattered around her on the comforter. KC lay curled up on Teresa’s pillow. The pillow that used to be Teresa’s. Her pencil flew, feathery lines appearing like magic on the white paper—lines gradually growing darker and thicker, more jumbled, more confusing—like her memory of that night in the alley. She’d heard the sirens. There was a large crowd gathered by the time she got there. Police lights strobed from four or five cruisers. An ambulance rolled up, lights flashing and siren blaring to part the crowd. She’d caught only a glimpse of what looked like Teresa being wheeled into the back of the ambulance and whisked away. The police were asking for witnesses, but Ellie hadn’t seen anything, and they wouldn’t tell her what had happened. She’d seen a scruffy-looking man being taken away in handcuffs and a dog yowling pitifully as it was hauled away on the end of a leash. That’s when Sullivan had found her.

By the time she’d gotten to Mercy Hospital, Teresa’s parents and aunts were already there. No one knew anything except that Teresa had been attacked and was unconscious. When Ellie and Sullivan had entered the emergency room waiting area, Sylvia Benedetto had flown at her, yelling that this was all her fault, that Teresa had never gone anywhere like that part of town before. Ellie couldn’t argue. It was true. Every bit of it. Sullivan and Teresa had both come, looking for her. Teresa, who had always been afraid, had gone anyway.
If only I hadn’t done it…
How many times had Ellie wished that these past days?

The other aunts steered Sylvia to another part of the waiting room, but Anita had come to sit with Ellie, patting her hand as they waited for what seemed like hours for news. The doctors had finally told them that Teresa had suffered a fractured skull and concussion, and that they were transferring her to the neuro intensive care unit. When Ellie got upstairs, Sylvia had forbidden the hospital staff to let her see Teresa. It had been the most helpless feeling. Right there, through those ICU doors, was the woman she loved, only Ellie couldn’t get to her. Rob and Karen and Bernie were there by then. Bernie said it didn’t matter. Teresa was still unconscious. If she’d thought that would comfort Ellie, she was wrong. Teresa was hurt, and it was all her fault.

Ellie sat back, looking at the jumbled lines on the paper. The sketch captured all the chaos of the scene at the alley—all sharp angles and heavy lines and angry shadows.

There was a soft knock at the living room door. “Ellie?” She knew Sullivan was listening, waiting for her. “Ellie, I know you’re in there.” When she didn’t respond, he went back to his apartment.

She set the pad aside and pulled other sketches to her. There, so beautiful, was Teresa the morning Ellie had drawn her as she slept. Ellie traced a fingertip over the curve of the breast and the swell of the hip. She turned to another sketch, one that was just lots of disjointed images —a sensuous mouth, soft eyes framed by long lashes, the sweep of a jaw and lustrous, dark hair….

When Teresa finally regained consciousness, Rob and Karen had arranged for everyone to be away from the room while Bernie sneaked Ellie in. Teresa had turned to see who had come in, and—
if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget—
the hardening of her expression, the anger, the accusation. It was as powerful to Ellie as if Teresa had shouted it. And then, Teresa had simply turned away, rolled onto her side, her back to Ellie, without saying a word.

Her eyes filled with tears now as she stared at the eyes on the page.
She’ll never look at me like that again.
She set the drawings aside and curled up on her side, sobbing.

The pronouncement by the doctors that Teresa was ready to be discharged from the hospital prompted a loud discussion as to where she would go.

“Of course she’s coming home,” said Sylvia, her hands on her hips. “Why on earth would she not come home?”

“And what’s she going to do all day while y’uns are at the store?” asked Ana Maria. “She should come home with us. We can take care of her.”

Teresa let them argue for a while, until she stunned them all into silence by saying quietly, “I’m not going with any of you.”

The new reality of her situation hadn’t hit for a few days, but, when it had, she’d had hours lying in a hospital bed to think about it. She didn’t have a home. She didn’t have a relationship. All of her clothes were at Ellie’s. Other than retrieving them, she was free to go anywhere she wished. The irony of the situation didn’t escape her, either.
Because of Ellie’s relentless search for a homeless man who doesn’t want to be found, I’m now homeless.
She lay there, trying to remember what it felt like to love Ellie, but it was as if those feelings had evaporated or belonged to some other person’s life. Whenever she thought of Ellie, what she saw instead were the leering faces of the men who had attacked her; she felt again the paralyzing terror that they were going to rape her, that horrible feeling of helplessness as they had her pinned against the wall. She couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two before waking, soaked in sweat, her heart pounding, as she looked around to make sure there were no shadows lurking in the room. Somehow, all of these things had destroyed any feelings for Ellie other than anger, and Teresa found herself wondering how real her love had been, if it could be killed by something like this.
Am I even capable of real love?

“Aren’t you even going to talk to her?” Bernie had asked when they had a few minutes alone the day Teresa was discharged.

“There’s nothing to say.” Teresa avoided Bernie’s gaze. “Rob and Karen have plenty of room. They said I’m welcome to stay with them as long as I want.”

“You sure you don’t want to come stay with us? You know my mother would love to have you. You’re the daughter she really wanted.”

Teresa laughed a little, but her head still hurt so she stopped. “No, thanks. I do have another favor to ask, though.”

“You sure about this?” Bernie asked a couple of days later as she drove downtown. She’d been driving Teresa all over town since she got out of the hospital—the police station, the city attorney’s office, and now, the city animal control office.