Dark Angels

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Lee found Jenna in the reception area. As usual, she had her sketch pad balanced on a bare knee with one high heel braced in the carpeting. Her brow was crinkled as she worked furiously with her pen. Jenna was so engrossed she wasn’t aware of her client until Lee plopped down on the bench beside her.

“How do you do that?” Lee asked, looking across at Jenna’s drawing.

Jenna jumped at the sound of Lee’s voice. “What? Oh gosh, sorry, you startled me.”

Lee was still admiring the girl’s work. It was an ink sketch of Luletta, the office manager who was seated at the opposite end of the room and had no idea she was the subject of Jenna’s pen.

“You’re so good at this,” Lee continued. “I was wondering if there’s a secret?”

Jenna looked at her drawing. “A secret?” She frowned. “I don’t think so. I just see things in my head and break ‘em down. No secret...”

Lee pondered the sketch. “Break them down?”

“Sure. Into basic shapes. And into areas of light and shadow, I guess. Then I just put it down on paper.”

“Just like that.” Lee laughed. “You realize you have caught the essence of the woman’s character.”

Jenna looked across the room to where Luletta studied a computer screen. “I’ve never done a woman-of-color before. She’s so regal, don’t you think? Black women have such great hair and they can get away with wearing the colorful silks and that clunky jewelry. It’s so cool. I couldn’t wear her dangly earrings to a flippin’ cocktail party; could never pull it off. And here she is wearing them to the office. And that pearl bracelet; it’s gorgeous.”

“Oh geez... don’t say that to her face. I made the same mistake. It’s not pearl. It’s African ivory; illegal of course, but she’s very proud of it. To her, it represents her heritage.”

Lee turned back to Lee. “She’s African?”

“Oh yes...”

“Gee… I just assumed she was from the South, though I could never get her accent. But I can see it now, in the way she holds her head; her chin slightly tilted. And the column of her neck.”

Lee looked across to her office manager. “And her bitchin’ attitude.”

Jenna giggled. “Totally... Here, I have the ad concept for Sunday’s paper. You got a sec’ to give it the once-over?”

Lee contemplated the girl’s face; the clear eyes, the wide mouth, the animated enthusiasm. “You had lunch yet?”

“Uh-uh.”

“C’mon then. I’m buying...”

Jenna stood. She tore the page from her sketch pad and dropped it onto the office manager’s desk. “Oh my gosh!” Luletta said, her jewelry jingling like chimes.

Lee’s favorite lunchtime haunt, when she took the time, was a restaurant called Distractions. It was housed, oddly enough, in an old hardware store and during renovations, the owners had chosen to retained the pine floors and the pressed metal ceiling. The restaurant had an amazing salad bar, a decent wine list and the lunchtime entrees were reasonably priced.

Jenna brought her leather satchel along and once the waiter had set down the goblets of chilled Pinot Grigio, Jenna extracted a file folder and passed it across the table.

“I don’t know why we persist with these approvals. I never change a damned thing.” Lee looked over the proof for Sunday’s advertisement.

Jenna gave her a shrug. “Because like, you know, it’s the rules. What do you think?”

Lee read the banner: Why pay an Auto Club? “I think it’s fabulous.” She read down further. “Free towing service, brilliant. Did you do the illustration?”

“Yep. It’s okay?”

“I love the family mutt. You know your talent is wasted at that small ad agency.”

“Cool of you to say but I’d have to move to the City and join a big outfit; to work the national accounts. I’m a small town kid.”

Lee nodded an understanding. “And still no man in your small town?”

Jenna flushed. “Naw. No one serious. Been dating one of my sister’s castoffs. But it’s not working out so good.”

Lee decided not to pursue the topic; it was an obvious sore point. She looked, instead, at the illustration. “I can see you as one of those police sketch artists, you know, like on television. Drawing mysterious criminal suspects from a victim’s description.”

Jenna laughed. “That’s kinda weird. You psychic or something? I actually did some of that, before I joined the Agency. It was part time work, after school, but I got called in a couple of times a month.”

“But you’re not a cop.”

“Naw. They actually had a cop doing the drawings but he was terrible. All his suspects looked the same; sort of like that Brutus character from the old Popeye cartoons.”

“All of them?”

“Just about. Anyway, they’d only call me in for the s****l assault cases.”

Lee set her wine down. “You, working with s****l assault victims?”

“Yeah, I know. Weird, huh? But the victims didn’t want to work with a guy, cops or otherwise. So I’d get the call. And after what some of those women had been through, I totally understood. I kinda knew where they were coming from.”

The comment brought Lee’s eyes forward. “Don’t tell me you were a victim yourself.”

“Well not like that. But I had a bit of a run-in when I was at art school. It was...”

Jenna stiffened. Their waiter stepped to the side of the table. “Ladies? What can I bring you this afternoon?”

“Order for us,” Jenna said.

Lee didn’t need the menu. “Sure. They make a fabulous clam chowder. That okay?”

“Awesome.”

Lee dispensed with the waiter. “You were saying about art school.”

“Yeah. Well the come-on is as old as the camera. It was one of the guys in the photography lab. He wanted me to model for him. I sorta liked the dude actually, so I kinda went for it. I was first-year and didn’t know any better. He took me into his studio, which was in his dad’s basement, and posed me under the lights. He had a bottle of wine going and convinced me it would help me relax.”

“Don’t tell me. There was something in the drink...”

“Yeah, probably, but I’m not a big drinker anyway,” Jenna continued. “I can’t be sure but I was really buzzed after the first glass; got the giggles real bad. So anyway, I was sipping wine and pretending like I was this big time fashion model, you know? And all the time, he was thinking naked Playboy Magazine model. How naive was I?”

“You didn’t.”

Jenna dropped her head and stared into her wine glass. “Yeah, I guess I sorta did. After he had snapped a bunch of photos, he asked me to show a little skin. I was on my third glass of wine and figured what the hell. So I undid a few buttons but then he said my bra was in the way. I unsnapped it and pulled it out from under my shirt. I had struck a few more poses when he reached across and tugged my shirt open. There were only a few buttons done up and they all popped. Suddenly I was standing there with my boobs hangin’ out.”

“Lord. What happened?”

“Oh... I hit him in the face.”

Lee’s back straightened. “What???”

Jenna tilted her head back and laughed. “I hit him. I got into judo when I was fourteen and by college, I had a black belt. I broke the guy’s nose.”

Lee leaned back. “You broke his nose?”

“Well, yeah-ah. By the time his camera hit the floor he was bleeding all over the flippin’ place. I grabbed my bra and hightailed it out the back door.”

Lee started to giggle. “And that was it?”

“Well no, not quite. I told my older sister about what happened. She’s a therapist and she talked me into making a complaint to the school’s disciplinary board. It was kinda embarrassing but I got the dude kicked outta school; and the word got around. Most girls don’t have a black belt. Can’t take care of themselves.”

The waiter was back and set out bowls of chowder. With Jenna’s eyes focused on the steaming broth, Lee chanced a look at the topic of their conversation: Jenna’s breasts were large for her slight frame. Soft and full, but held high and inviting. They had a delightful habit of roaming beneath the silky fabrics that Jenna favored. An attribute that wasn’t lost on the men in Lee’s office. What man wouldn’t want to cradle his head between Jenna’s pillowy mounds. Lee had a sudden image of the girl, defiance curling her lips, her shirt torn open and her breasts rocking as she drew back a fist.

“Enjoy ladies. I’ll bring more wine.”

Lee shook herself and allowed a moment for the waiter to move off. “Your sister sounds pretty level headed.” She steered the conversation back.

“Sue’s the smart one in the family,” Jenna said, picking up a spoon. “She deals with women’s issues a lot and is how I ended up working part time at the police station. She runs the Rape Crisis Center in town and knows the cops. And she was really upset when she found out what had happened to me. There was no way Sue was going to let me just brush it off. ‘Awareness is a woman’s first line of defense’ she always says.”

The clams were plump and succulent, swimming in a fragrant cream broth along with diced spring potatoes and yellow corn. There was an assortment of breads and soft butter.

“Your sister, Sue... She runs a woman’s crisis center?”

Jenna sampled her chowder. “Yup. For the last five years, I guess. Rape and s****l assault. It’s voluntary, of course, and I really admire what Sue has done for the women who come in off the street. They’ve got no money; no one to turn to. I’ve helped out from time to time, even taught a few self-defense classes. But for those women, it’s a little late for self-defense. They’ve already been run through the mill.”

“And the women come in from the street?”

Jenna slurped a clam from her spoon and dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Some of them. They don’t have money for counseling. Some are referred by doctors, or sometimes the cops. Others hear about Sue from friends and some just call up. The number’s in the phone book.”

“The phone book...”

“This chowder is yummy. You should eat some before it gets cold.”

“Yes,” Lee said, picking up her spoon. “I kinda forgot, I guess.”

Back at the office, Lee watched Jenna swap out her pumps for the Nikki’s. Her leather satchel went onto the rack behind the bicycle seat and after a warm smile, she pedaled off between parked cars; her loose dress fluttering about her thighs. She looked like something out of an old French movie; Lee could almost hear the gay Parisian music.

Upstairs, where the offices were clustered toward the back of the building, Lee crossed the lobby to her manager’s desk. “Is that my newspaper you’re reading?”

The majestic black woman lifted her head. Even considering her chocolaty complexion, Lee could see the ashen tone in her face. “There’s been another rape. I heard it on the radio and was checking the paper for details.”

Lee noticed the woman was close to tears and her stomach knotted. “What? That’s two this week.”

“Only this girl wasn’t so lucky. He killed her.”

Lee came around the end of the desk so she could read the headline: Local girl raped. Murdered.

Lee felt the blood drain from her own face. “Bloody hell. This isn’t New York or Chicago. We’re small-town Iowa. The State where nothing ever happens and where everyone likes it that way. What the hell’s going on?”

“Says here that her name was Kimberly. That she had been having a drink at the Crow Bar, a truck-stop out by the highway. She was last seen leaving the bar with a man. I don’t believe it.”

“Hooking?”

Her office manager shook her head. “That’s not what they think.” Luletta scanned the newspaper story, clearly overwrought. “What they are calling an unnamed source told the police that Kimberly had visited the bar several times during the past weeks, wasn’t flashy, and kept to herself. But always left with a man. There was some talk that maybe she was having an affair; perhaps with a married man.”

“Still sounds like she was hooking,” Lee said.

“No. Can’t be. The bartender is quoted as saying that while Kimberly didn’t act like she was there to pick up johns, she always left with a guy.”

“So she was hooking.”

“According to a family member, Kimberly wasn’t a prostitute, but had been acting strangely. ‘Lost’ is the word they use. Here’s what he says: ‘Kimmy was molested a couple of months ago. She never went to the police, but I knew. Some guy jumped her. She told me she got away but I was never too sure about that. The way she acted, I think more happened than she let on. Kimmy started acting weird. What girl wouldn’t, I guess? Kimmy seemed lost, somehow.’ That’s what it says,” Lee’s office manager continued, “and the police are trying to track down these men Kimberly was meeting up with. Good luck with that.”

Lee ran a hand along her face and wrung her neck. “When you’re finished with the paper, I’d like to have a look.”

“Oh I’m done. Finished as much as I can be, for sure. Might be an idea to reduce the price of the handguns in the Sporting Department. There’ll be a run on ‘em; startin’ with me.” Lee gave the woman a nod of understanding. “And I need to speak with you,” Luletta continued. “I need some time off. Starting tomorrow. I know that’s short notice but I need to go.”

It wasn’t like Luletta but Lee wasn’t about to complain. The woman never took vacation time. “Of course. And if it helps, leave right now. Pass me along your paperwork before you go.”

“Thank you, ma’am... I’ll do just that, ma’am...”

Lee was concerned. She had never seen the woman rattled before and as Luletta gathered up her things, Lee folded up the newspaper. She made her way back toward the rear of the building where her office had a breathtaking view of the loading dock.

Lee lay the newspaper on her desk and went straight to the phone book.

It took her a moment to locate Doctor Sue Bowen. The Doctor was using her married name but she listed her specialty as Women’s Issues and she was the only Doctor Sue in the book.

“Doctor’s Office,” the receptionist answered crisply.

“I understand the Doctor runs a crisis center, for women. Women who have found themselves in... unfortunate circumstances.”

The woman’s tone changed instantly; from office drone to concerned mom. “Are you okay, dear. Do you need medical attention? We can help with that; if you don’t have insurance.”

“No. I’m fine, really. Physically I mean. But I feel like I need to talk with someone.”

“Well of course. The weekly clinic is on Thursday evenings. But Sue can see you for a few minutes this afternoon, if you’re feeling some distress, or she’ll stay late if need be.”

Lee was a little overwhelmed by the concern. “No, please. I just feel... well feel I need other women around me. Does that make sense?”

“I understand perfectly. We’ve all been through this,” the woman conceded. “Sue works out of a storefront downtown and with yourself included, there will be fifteen women attending this week.”

Lee could help sounding surprised. “That many.”

“Yes. And we operate on a first name basis. Drop by Thursday night and get involved if you want, or just sit and listen. It’s all very low key and everyone is friendly. We serve coffee and cookies. Now, do you need help with transportation?”