Chapter Five #2
“Yes, yes, he’s locked up. He can’t hurt you or anyone now.” Gently, she brushed at Arden’s hair. “That’s really all I know about that. I know the police came by last night, but you were sleeping. They’re going to come back to talk to you, when you’re up to it.”
Arden nodded. “Need to tell them.” She gestured toward the cup. “More?”
She sipped slowly, willing herself to swallow.
“Tell them to come.”
“All right, but first I’m going to ask your nurse to come in. And we’ll clear it with your doctor. Then you can talk to them. I need to call the family. And the magnificent Monica and John.”
“Bookstore. Supposed to work today.”
“I’ll take care of that, too. Let me get the nurse, then you need to rest again.”
“Tired.”
“I bet. I’ll be right outside. And one of us will be here as long as you are.”
She went through more tests, and though she didn’t want to go back to sleep, fatigue simply took her under. When she woke again, Jen sat with her.
She had soup, Jell-O, and told herself swallowing wasn’t as hard or painful now, but she really wasn’t sure.
She needed to go home, she thought. She needed to prove to herself she could live and eat and sleep in her own apartment.
When the doctor came in, she hoped he’d tell her she could.
First she had to give him the date—day, month, year—count backward from twenty, name the months of the year—backward.
“I know it probably feels otherwise, but you’re doing very well.”
“I’d like to go home.”
“We’re going to give it another day, and if you’re still improving tomorrow, we’ll move in that direction. I want you to consider, seriously, therapy. Nonfatal strangulation causes psychological damage as well as physical, Arden. As does sexual assault. Someone will be in to talk to you about that.
“You may have some memory gaps, and that’s normal.”
“I don’t. I did, sort of, but I don’t now. I remember it all. The police. I want to tell them.”
“Then I’ll clear that. Don’t talk any more than you have to for another day or two. And rest, Arden. No physical exertion for a couple of weeks, plenty of sleep and rest. If the headaches persist after a week, or recur, you need to come back.”
“All right. Thank you.”
She drifted in and out with an audiobook, then set it aside when her nurse came in.
“The police are here. Do you want to talk to them now?”
“Yes, I do. Can I sit up a little more?”
“Let’s get you comfortable. Now, if you’re done, and they’re not? You signal me, and I’ll move them out.”
Arden took several deep breaths to prepare herself.
She saw a woman, late thirties with a compact build and a brown ponytail. A man, maybe a dozen years older, on the chunky side, with gray threaded through dark hair.
“Ms. Bowie. I’m Detective Brill, and this is my partner, Detective Venmar. Are you up for some questions?”
“Yes. My voice.” She brought a hand to her throat. “I can’t speak up, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about that. You know who did this to you?”
“Yes. Dustin Dubecki.”
“How do you know him?”
“He came to my book signing, my first, at Next Chapter in Short North. Then he came to my next signing, and the talk I gave at the library.”
“Did you go out with him socially?” Venmar asked.
“No—well, we had coffee once. He kept asking if he could buy me coffee or a drink, after an event, and I had plans. And I didn’t want to. But I finally had coffee with him once.”
“Did you have a romantic or sexual relationship?”
She shook her head, but that hurt. She breathed through it.
“Absolutely not. I only saw him at those events—he said he was trying to write—wanted to talk. Then the time we had coffee. I ran into him after work—at the bookstore—I didn’t have an excuse handy, and felt I couldn’t keep making them.
And I felt sorry for him, especially after he told me about losing his parents, and living with his grandparents, then losing them. ”
Brill’s eyes narrowed. “He told you he’d lost his parents, lived with his grandparents?”
“Yes. My parents were killed in an accident when I was fourteen, so I know how it feels.”
“Ms. Bowie, his parents are living. They divorced when he was thirteen, but they’re very much alive.”
Arden closed her eyes. “He played me. He tapped that tender spot and played me.”
“He had one of your books in his apartment,” Venmar said. “Signed, and written ‘To Dustin, the only man I’ve ever loved or ever will love. Yours always and forever, Arden.’”
Arden opened her eyes again as her heart began to pound, and her breath to hitch.
“I didn’t write that. I never wrote that. I signed three books for him. One ‘Best wishes,’ one he said was for his grandfather—same name, he said he was named for him. I think I signed ‘Happy reading.’ The last, just a signature. He said he wasn’t sure who he’d give it to.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened last night? What you remember.”
“I’d had dinner at my aunt’s. Family dinner.
I got home just after eight, I think. Monica and John—downstairs neighbors—had been out to dinner and got back at the same time.
We talked downstairs a few minutes. I went up.
I was tired, planned to make it an early night.
I got ready for bed, figured I’d read for a while, and he knocked on the door. ”
“You let him in?”
She looked at Venmar. “I looked through the peep, saw it was him. He had flowers. I felt tired, irritated. And I thought, how the hell did he know where I live? And I need to set some boundaries.
“I opened the door, and he was all smiles, saying he’d seen the flowers and thought of me. I told him I’d had a long day, I was tired, but he kind of pushed past me and came in.”
“You didn’t ask him in.”
“He just pushed the flowers at me, came in. And I tried to get him to go, but he just kept talking. What a nice place I had. He went on about how I should have a place in the mountains or something. I shouldn’t be working outside the home.
He’d take care of me. Writing was fine for a woman, if she did it at home.
I’d had enough, and got mad. Not his business, my life, my work.
I told him he’d crossed a line coming to my home. I told him to go.
“He said I was rude, and I’d led him on, and he’d been patient. I shoved the flowers back at him. I started to turn to open the door, and he hit me.”
She pressed a hand to her face. “Hard. Hard enough I fell back, and my head hit the door. I saw stars. I never knew that was literal. That you literally see stars. Then he was on me. He was on me, and…”
Despite her best intentions, the tears started.
“Arden.” Brill spoke gently. “Take your time. How about some water?”
With a nod, Arden took the cup. “Still hurts to swallow. He was on me, and the room was spinning, and I couldn’t breathe.
He was choking me with one hand and slapping me.
Everything slipped away, then I could breathe again.
He was squeezing my breasts, and I tried to fight.
I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t get the sound out.
But I tried to push him away. He put a hand around my throat again, and then he shoved his hand under my pants, jammed his fingers in me.
He had his mouth on mine, he stuck his tongue in my mouth.
“I bit it, hard as I could. I scratched his face.”
“Good for you,” Brill murmured. “We can pick the rest of this up later,” she added when Arden closed her eyes.
“No. Want it over. Need a minute.”
“Take your time.”
“I bit him. He yelled, but he didn’t stop.
He let go of my throat, so I could breathe, and he hit me.
Punched my face, my stomach. He dragged me by the hair, started dragging me.
He said I needed to learn a lesson. Learn my place.
In bed. In my nice bed with all the soft pillows, and the candle on the nightstand.
I needed to learn a lesson. He hit my head on the floor, so the stars came back, and I couldn’t stop him.
He was killing me, but I couldn’t stop him.
I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. In my head, I was screaming, but it wouldn’t come out.
“Then John was there, and Monica. I forgot—he had to be the one who broke in. I reported it. He took things from my apartment, and he knew things about it when he came last night. After the break-in, I changed the locks, and I got one of those nanny cams. It looks like a picture frame. I put it on the shelves in the living room.”
“Can we have your permission to retrieve that? To view the recording?”
“Yes. Please. You’ll see … I don’t want it back. I don’t ever want to see.”
The thought of reliving it through the recording had the air in her lungs shutting down again.
“Arden.” Brill reached down, gripped Arden’s hand. “He can’t touch you now.”
“Is there anything else you remember?” Venmar asked. “Anything you can tell us.”
“I don’t think … Yes. I went to New York about two weeks ago. I had a book signing. I thought I saw him, then I thought that would be crazy, so I dismissed it. But I think he was there.”
“We’ll look into that,” Venmar assured her.
“My cousin said you arrested him. He’s in custody. He’s in custody?”
“Yes, and we found the things missing from your apartment in his. He had photos of you,” Brill told her. “At your events, on the street in Short North. One obviously doctored that has you with Dubecki.”
“My locket? My mother’s locket?”
“Yes, and we’ll get it back to you as soon as we can. Arden, you should know, it looks like he’s been stalking you for a few weeks at least. In our interviews with him, he’s adamant everything that happened was consensual, that the two of you are in love.”
Instead of panic, she felt the rage.
“Look at the recording and see if you judge anything to be consensual. Look at my face, and tell me I wanted him to beat me, choke me, try to rape me.”
“That’s not what we’re saying.”
“I met him four times, five if last night counts for that. The longest conversation we had was over that damn coffee, and that couldn’t have been fifteen minutes.”