The remains

Chapter 29

Our decision to drive downtown to the South Pearl Street Precinct had not been indiscriminate. According to the info we’d found online, this was the very place in which Whalen had been jailed after his arrest for the abduction and attempted rape of an eighteen year old college freshman thirty years ago. That single assault led to the discovery of at least a half-dozen prior rapes when, after a photo of Whalen was posted on every local TV station and newspaper, a small flood of brave, young women started coming forward and pointing the finger-women with more courage than Molly and me. Or maybe less to lose by telling the truth.

Being that my father had been a state trooper, I wasn’t entirely a stranger to police stations. But that didn’t make them anymore comfortable to be around. My cumbersome portfolio bag slung over my shoulder, I followed Michael up the granite steps, through the glass doors, across the vestibule waiting area to the large bench. Seated on the bench was a heavyset, gray-haired officer. Set before him was a desktop computer, a phone and a small plaque with the words ‘Watch Commander’ embossed in it.

“Help you?” he grumbled, eyes focused not on us but his computer screen.

“We need to speak with a detective,” Michael announced.

Behind the watch commander’s shoulder, I could make out the not too unfamiliar inner workings of the wide open station-the many uniformed and plain-clothed policemen and women, the identical metal desks set out equidistant from one another, each of them topped with a computer where typewriters might have been back when Whalen was first arrested. Back when my dad was ‘Trooper Dan’. There were the bright overhead ceiling-mounted lamps, the ringing phones, the chiming cells, the buzzing fax machines and at least a dozen voices competing with one another.

“And why is it you need to see a detective?” the watch commander smirked.

I took a step forward.

“I have reason to believe I’m being stalked by a sexual predator.”

The old cop pulled his eyes away from the computer for the first time since we’d approached the bench.

“Come again,” he said, looking up directly into my face.

“I’m being followed.”

Behind his shoulder, I saw that two people were taking notice. Police detectives, or so I suspected. An older man and a middle-aged woman, both dressed in normal everyday, plain clothes. They shot a quick glance in my direction.

“Do you have an ID of the supposed perp?” asked the watch commander.

I hesitated, as though the question shot over my head.

“He’s asking if you know for certain that it’s Whalen who is stalking you?” Michael jumped in.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I can identify the man.”

“You mentioned a name,” the watch commander added, eyes now on Michael.

“Joseph William Whalen,” Michael exclaimed. “He’s registered with Sexual Predators and with ViCAP.”

“Oh, ViCAP,” the old cop smiled. “Looks like you been doin’ your homework.”

“I write detective novels,” Michael said.

“Of course you do. Wait here a minute please.”

He got up, made his way over to the two plainclothes cops. He talked with them while they looked us over again. More carefully this time. When the older of the two approached, I felt my pulse pick up.

“My name is David Harris,” the tall, salt and pepper-haired, black man confessed. “I understand you’re here to lodge a complaint?”

“I have reason to believe I’m being followed.”

“By Joseph Whalen?”

“Yes.”

“You’d better come on through,” he said. “I know of Whalen. I know about what he’s done and what he might have done to more than a dozen still missing young women.”

“How well?”

“I’m the guy who busted him thirty years ago.”