The police were sure to go to the address Angela had given them to collect evidence. She knew that if she said that the rope was old and rotted and it simply broke from her weight, she would be caught in the lie when they saw that the rope had been cut.
Angela had two rules about police. First rule, don’t talk to the police. Second rule, if she had to talk to the police, don’t lie. The police remembered being lied to. She didn’t want to give the police any reason to remember her.
“I was able to cut the rope with a knife,” Angela said.
A frown twitched across Officer Denton’s face as she looked up from her report. “A knife.” She glanced down at her notes on the clipboard. “You said they pulled off your clothes. You said you were hanging several feet off the floor. How did you get a knife?”
“They hadn’t pulled off my boots. I had a knife in my right boot. After they left I was finally able to get to it and cut the rope.”
Officer Denton looked over her shoulder to Angela’s boots. She finally turned and went to the little cabinet. Squatting down, she used a finger and thumb to pull out the knife. She held it like it might bite her. Angela could see that there was blood all over it. At least it was only her blood and not Owen’s. She was glad she had followed her rule about disposing of anything she used on a killer.
The policewoman returned to Angela’s side. She held up the knife by a finger and thumb.
“This is illegal.”
Angela frown. “My knife is illegal?”
“Yes. It’s clearly over the legal length.”
Angela ran her tongue over the stitches in her cheek. “I have kitchen knives that are longer than that.”
“Maybe so, but this is a knife made to carry. It’s clearly a weapon, not a kitchen knife. For that reason, it’s illegal. Worse, you had it hidden in your boot. That makes it a concealed weapon. It’s illegal to carry a concealed weapon.”
Angela briefly wondered if she was imagining such lunacy.
“I sometimes make deliveries to high-crime areas,” she said. “I only have the knife to protect myself.”
“Looks like it didn’t do you any good this time, did it?”
“They grabbed my arms and legs so fast I couldn’t get to it until they left me there hanging by my neck.”
“Concealed weapons usually only make matters worse and get people killed. If you would have pulled it on those men, they likely would have taken it away from you and stabbed you to death.”
Angela wanted to say that it had saved her life, but her instincts told her to keep quiet and not argue.
Officer Denton pulled a manila envelope from inside her thin aluminum clipboard and slipped the sheathed knife into it. “The people of New York State have made it clear that they don’t want anyone carrying a concealed weapon. A knife this long is a weapon, so it’s a crime for you to carry it, and it’s a much more serious crime to conceal it.”
“But it’s not a gun. I thought only a gun was a concealed weapon.”
“This is classified as a concealed weapon, the same as a gun.”
The same as a gun. Angela could feel her face going red with rage. She had been raped, beaten, and nearly murdered, and here this woman was, not relieved that the victim had managed to cut herself down and give information that could lead to the apprehension of the criminals, but instead was growing hostile because Angela had a knife to protect herself. Officer Denton hadn’t shown that much anger toward the four men.
Angela would have loved to say all of that, but the last thing she wanted to do was to get on the wrong side of the police. They sometimes came into the bar asking about patrons. Whenever Angela spoke with them she always tried not to make herself noteworthy or memorable. At least other than the way she dressed. She wanted to stay under their radar. If they never investigated her, they couldn’t find any evidence of anything.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said, trying to sound contrite. “I didn’t know.”
Officer Denton’s expression softened a little. “I can’t give this back to you.”
Angela had dozens just like it. She had no reason to try to hold on to this one. They were meant to serve a purpose and then be discarded down the hell hole. This knife had served its purpose. It had saved her life.
Angela nodded. “I understand.”
Officer Denton stared at her for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable.
“Constantine. You live in the trailer park. Your mother is Sally Constantine. She uses meth.”
“I used to live there,” Angela corrected. “I moved out a long time ago.”
“There’s been a lot of drug activity there for years. The police have been to your trailer a number of times. Made a number of arrests there.”
It was an accusation of some sort. Angela didn’t say anything.
Officer Denton finally gestured at Angela’s throat. “I’m beginning to wonder if maybe this whole thing with these men may have been a drug deal gone bad. Is that it? Does this somehow involve drugs? They bringing you a supply up from Mexico and you couldn’t pay what you promised them? That sounds more like what really happened.”
Angela blinked in disbelief. “I don’t do drugs.”
“You just sell them. Smart. Lots of people who sell use. That eats into their business and gets them in trouble. The smart ones sell but they don’t use their own inventory.”
It was all Angela could not to tell the woman to go fuck herself, but she knew that would only convince her that she was on to something.
“I don’t do drugs,” Angela said as calmly as she could. “I don’t live there with my mother anymore. As soon as I was old enough, I moved out. My mother’s a meth-head and that brought a rough group of men around the place. When my mother was high some of those men abused me—raped me—when I was just a girl. I hate drugs. I don’t want anything to do with drugs. I have a courier business and I tend bar. That’s how I earn a living.
“If you don’t believe me, they have plenty of my blood around here, test it all you want. Go out and search my truck if you want.”
Officer Denton tapped her thumb on the railing of the bed, still showing no emotion.
“I’m terribly sorry for what happened to you, Ms. Constantine,” she finally said. “With the information you’ve provided I’m sure we will be able to capture these men.”
With that, she turned and left.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Three days later Angela was still in the hospital, but she was hopeful they would release her soon. A lot of the swelling had gone down. Everything was still sore, though.
She wanted to go home to her cabin and crawl into bed there where people wouldn’t come in and wake her up at all hours of the night to take her temperature and blood pressure and give her pills. She was tired of having to roll the IV stand along with her when she went to the bathroom.
She had just returned from another one of those tricky bathroom trips and settled back into bed when two men in plain clothes came up to her room and stood in the doorway. They knocked on the doorframe and at the same time identified themselves as detectives Preston and Vaughan. They were both middle-aged. Both were dressed in suits. They had police badges hung on chains around their neck. The badges rested over drab ties.
“Are you up to talking with us?” Detective Preston asked. He was the older of the two, heavyset, with a buzz cut.
“Sure,” Angela answered cautiously, fearing they might have come with more accusations about her selling drugs or that they might even want to charge her with carrying a concealed weapon. “What is it?”
“We’d like you to take a look at some photos of some men,” Detective Vaughan said. He was thinner, taller, and with even shorter hair. His eyebrows and eyelashes were a light color that looked weak against his penetrating blue eyes.
Angela was relieved to hear that and gave them a nod. They rolled the food tray in over the bed and positioned it in front of her. She used the buttons to elevate the top half of the bed until she was almost sitting up. They laid out two rows of three photos each. The six photos looked like they had been made on a black-and-white copy machine, but the men in the photos were recognizable enough.