Blindsighted (Grant County #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,67
to keeping a girl for a few days so that he could take his time with her. Jeffrey had seen this kind of behavior over and over again. Serial rapists learned from their mistakes. Their lives were spent figuring out the best way to obtain their objectives, and this rapist, this murderer, was honing his skills even now as Jeffrey and Lena talked about how to catch him.
He had Lena repeat her story about Julia Matthews, trying to see if it was any different in the telling, trying to pull out additional clues. There were none. Lena was very good at reporting things as she saw them, and nothing new came with the second telling.
Jeffrey asked, “What happened after?”
“After Sara left?”
He nodded.
“Dr. Headley came from Augusta. He closed her up.”
Jeffrey became aware of the fact that throughout Lena’s narration of events of the night before, she was using “her” instead of the woman’s name. It was common in law enforcement to look at the criminal rather than the victim, and Jeffrey always felt that this was the quickest way to lose sight of why they did the job in the first place. He didn’t want Lena to do this, especially considering what had happened to her sister.
There was something different about Lena today. Whether it was a higher level of tension or anger, he could not say. Her body seemed to vibrate with it, and his main goal was to get her back to the hospital, where she could sit and decompress. He knew Lena would not leave her guard at Julia Matthews’s bedside. The hospital was the only place to trust her to stay. There was, of course, the added bonus of knowing that if Lena did finally have some sort of nervous breakdown, she was in the right place. For now, he needed to use her. He needed her to be his eyes and ears for what happened last night.
He said, “Tell me what Julia looked like.”
Lena tapped the horn, shooing a squirrel out of the road. “Well, she looked normal.” Lena paused. “I mean, I thought it was an OD or something from the way she looked. I never would’ve pegged her for a rape.”
“What convinced you otherwise?”
Lena’s jaw worked again. “Dr. Linton, I suppose. She pointed out the holes in her hands and feet. I must’ve been blind, I don’t know. The bleach smell and all of that gave it away.”
“All of what?”
“Just, you know, physical signs that something wasn’t right.” Lena paused again. Her tone took a defensive ring. “She had her mouth taped shut, with her driver’s license shoved down her throat. I suppose she looked raped, but I wasn’t seeing it. I don’t know why. I would’ve figured it out; I’m not stupid. It’s just that she looked so normal, you know? Not like a rape victim.”
He was surprised by this last part. “What does a rape victim look like?”
Lena shrugged. “Like my sister, I guess,” she mumbled. “Like somebody who can’t really take care of themselves.”
Jeffrey had been expecting a physical description, some comment on the state of Julia Matthews’s body. He said, “I don’t follow you.”
“Never mind.”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “Tell me.”
Lena seemed to think over how to phrase her words, then, “I guess I can understand with Sibyl, because she was blind.” She stopped. “I mean there’s this whole thing about women asking for it and all. I don’t think Sibyl was like that, but I know rapists. I’ve talked to them, I’ve busted them. I know how they think. They don’t pick somebody who they think is going to put up a fight.”
“You think so?”
Lena shrugged. “I guess you can go into all that feminist bullshit about how women should be able to do whatever they want to do and men should just get used to it, but…” Lena paused again. “It’s like this,” she said. “If I parked my car in the middle of Atlanta with the windows rolled down and the keys in the ignition, whose fault is it when somebody steals it?”
Jeffrey didn’t quite get her logic.
“There are sexual predators out there,” Lena continued. “Everybody knows there are some sick people, usually men, who prey on women. And they’re not picking the ones who look like they can take care of themselves. They’re picking the ones who won’t, or can’t, put up a fight. They’re picking the quiet ones like Julia Matthews. Or the handicapped ones.” Lena added, “Like my sister.”