Read Online Open Season by Archer Mayor - Free Book Online Page A

smiled wanly. “Hello.”
    “Do you feel well enough to talk a little?” I avoided introductions. The less she knew of me, the less she’d tell Kunkle when he Joe Fridayed her later.
    She nodded. “I guess so.” Her voice was light and dreamy.
    I sat down on the bed near her chair. She was quite pretty, in her late twenties, not slim in a high fashion sense but not fat either—the kind of woman they choose to advertise laundry soap. “Can you tell me what happened?”
    She turned away to look out the window at the snow-covered trees. She didn’t answer for a few seconds. When she did, the softness of her voice was almost lost to the building’s own gentle murmurs.
    “There was a man inside my apartment when I got home last night.”
    “What time was that?”
    The answers came slowly, as if each one had to be gingerly coaxed to shore. “About midnight. I’d been out on a date. The door was locked. I don’t know how he got in.”
    “Did your date come in with you?”
    “No.”
    “What did you do after saying good night?”
    “I went straight to the bedroom.
    “And he grabbed you?”
    She nodded, just perceptibly.
    “He was hiding?”
    “Behind the door.”
    She hunched her shoulders a bit and paused. I didn’t interrupt.
    This wasn’t the first conversation I’d had like this, and I knew it might take time, Kunkle or no Kunkle. She took a deep breath. “He told me to get down on my knees and then he covered my mouth with some tape. I could see him in the mirror on the bathroom door. He was all in black—pants, shirt, ski mask, everything.”
    Again she stopped, sighed, and shifted in her chair. The last long sentence seemed to have tired her. “What happened then?” I tried to make my whisper match hers.
    “He told me to get in the shower… Tied my hands to the shower head…”
    A half minute passed.
    “Did he turn on the water?”
    “He asked me if the temperature was all right.”
    “Did he touch you other than to tie you up?”
    “No… He turned the water off and looked at me… Then he took my clothes off.” Again she stopped. I could hear the traffic outside. In the window’s reflection, I saw the glistening of tears on her translucent cheek.
    “Would you like to take a break?”
    She shook her head, but she didn’t speak again for a full minute. When she did, she faltered but kept on, a runner committed to finishing. “He took my clothes off and rubbed soap all over me. He left it on.”
    Another pause, another deep breath. “Then he played with my nipple. With his finger. That’s how I knew who he was.”
    That took me by surprise. “You knew him?”
    “Yes. His name is Manny Rodriguez.”
    “How do you know?”
    “We served on a jury together once. He had a tattoo on the back of his hand. An American eagle.”
    “What did he do then?”
    For the first time, she turned and looked at me, her face grief-stricken and baffled, the tears now dripping off her chin. “Nothing. He left. Why did he do that?”
    I patted her shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ll try to find out. Did you get along with him when you were on the jury together?”
    “I talked to Mr. Phillips most—he was nice.”
    “And you never saw Rodriguez after the trial?”
    “Once. He works at a glass shop on Canal. I saw him there.”
    “Had he offered you a deal or something?”
    “I didn’t even know he worked there. We just talked.”
    “How long ago was this?”
    “I don’t know; a year maybe.”
    “And the conversation was okay?”
    “We didn’t have much to say.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, and I got up and handed her a box of Kleenex from the bedside table.
    “Are you going to be all right, Miss Stiller?” She blew her nose and nodded. “There’ll be a policeman who will come to visit you soon, and he’ll probably ask you many of the same questions I just have. His name is Willy Kunkle.”
    “I met him last night, but they gave me something that made me too sleepy.” Her