Read Online Denial by Jessica Stern - Free Book Online

assumed, after the rape, that the next crime against us would be murder. She wasn’t sure whether the rapist would come back to kill us, or a new perpetrator. But it seemed logical, she felt, that we would be killed. Is murder what I fear?
    This time, however, I have help. I am spying together with the police. They want to find the rapist, too, for their own reasons. They want to get him off the street. Today we understand that violent pedophiles cannot be cured. They can be treated with medication, but even then, they must be kept away from children.
    Paul Macone, my partner in espionage, wants to talk to me. He wants to give me some redacted files. There is more than one case that he thinks is similar to mine. Remarkably similar-sounding perp, he says. Very similar MO. Same grayish black gun with white grips. He asks me to come out to the station. He would like my help, he says.
    Although Lt. Macone and I overlapped in school, I cannot connect with him in a personal way. He is good, in a way that I fear that I am not. Unspoiled. He knows things about me that I normally don’t reveal. He knows about how the shadow of a long-ago terror debilitates me. I worry that he can sense an unhealthy obsession in me, and I feel shy in his presence.
    I go to Concord regularly. It’s not just that I grew up there. My father and his wife still live there, and my son visits them every week. I have driven past the police station hundreds, if not thousands, of times. I have a vague recollection that I’ve even been inside the building, but I don’t remember anything. Was I ever arrested? I’m certain I was not. But shame shimmers at the edgeof my consciousness, like a mirage I can’t quite see. I discover that I cannot remember precisely where the station is.
    I drive past the Louisa May Alcott house, which I visited several times as a child. I know the station is near here, but I seem to have gone too far. I drive back toward the center of town. I am terribly sleepy. There is the Scout House, a large eighteenth-century barn where I attended Girl Scout meetings, where I had to take dancing lessons. An image of white gloves floats into my mind. Did we really wear white gloves? I cannot recall; my brain is turned to mush.
    After this bewildering incident, I don’t even try to drive back there. Lt. Macone keeps me apprised of his progress by e-mail.
    In October 2006 I open this e-mail.
    Hi Jessica,
    I had an interesting conversation with a detective in Weston, who has been around for years (and still working). What Weston does have is much, or all of the statewide intelligence on many suspects in assaults from the same time period. In a stroke of luck, they saved all of the paper intelligence so I will go retrieve it from them in the next couple of days.
    Once I sift through what they have I will let you know if anything seems related.
    I do not respond. Several days later he writes again. I open his message immediately, anxious to hear what he has to say.
    Hi Jessica,
    I have almost finished reading the intelligence we picked up at Weston PD. Nothing glaring is jumping out, however Lexington had two other assaults in the same general time period that I want to explore with them. In doing some processof elimination, I have a couple of questions. If you are not comfortable with any of the questions, please just let me know.
    One report says there were obscene phone calls made to the house after the assault. Do you remember anything about this?
    Let me know if I am being a pain….
    Paul
    It takes me weeks to respond. I’m busy, I guess. And I also get sleepy. I want Lt. Macone to find my rapist because I want to interview him myself, but I am not able to provide much help. I am not aware of feeling afraid. But I don’t feel like dwelling on the topic. I put the thought of my rapist and of Paul’s continuing investigation aside. I will wait until the rapist is found, I tell myself, and think about it