Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(13)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

“What set her on the streets in the first place?” Kate asked.

 

He hesitated. “You might as well know all of it. My father abused her, … my stepfather,” he corrected. “My father took me to live with him and left Patricia with my mother. Patricia, at that time, was very close with our mother, and then our mother remarried.” He stared at Kate for a moment, these painful memories hurting him.

 

“My sister in her prime was an absolute beauty. She was the sweetest, cutest thing. It was really hard on me, when I was taken away from her. It was hard on her too. We were close. We did still see each other. Our parents couldn’t do that much to us. They allowed us to go back and forth, but it wasn’t ever quite the same. And then Patricia flipped at about fourteen, maybe fifteen.” He shook his head.

 

“I don’t remember exactly how old I was or how old she was when it started, but I found out she was doing tricks, and I couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely stunned because that was so not her. And when I did finally get a chance to ask her what the hell was going on, she had this dead look in her eyes, and she shrugged. She told me, What difference does it make? This is what men do to women. Of course it broke my heart to even hear her say that, but I knew that she believed it, and I told her emphatically that that’s not what true men did. That’s what bastards did,” he declared forcefully.

 

“She finally told me what had happened between her and our stepfather—and it took a few meetings. It took quite a lot of meetings actually.” He stared down the hallway, as if reviewing the years of pain. “When she finally told me, I went straight to my mother and my father, and the three of us confronted my stepfather and brought in the cops. He admitted it, how he hadn’t been able to resist Patricia. She was so beautiful that he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Once he realized where it had sent her, I think, in some way, he was sorry,” he added bitterly, “but I don’t think he was ever sorry enough.”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

“He did time, seven years,” Terry replied bitterly. “Her life’s completely ruined and that bastard? … He served seven lousy years. And look where she ended up,” he said, once again struggling for control.

 

It was a familiar story, and one that Kate had absolutely no satisfaction in hearing of again. Especially now when she considered Simon’s own abuse by his foster father. Kate shook her head. Often abusers got off so much easier than their accusers thought they should, considering the damage that the abusers created for those poor people, the poor victims.

 

The law often kept these abusers on the streets, out on bail, presumed innocent until found guilty. And it made Kate’s job that much harder. These victims never got over that abuse. Sometimes it stayed alive in their mind until they saw the person who had abused them so badly, and they often lost it and took them out. She understood killing an abuser because it was a delayed reaction of self-defense, but she didn’t understand how Patricia’s own stepfather could be a part of this, abusing a teenage girl he should have protected as his own daughter.

 

Terry studied Kate, as if realizing the way her thoughts were running. “This isn’t his style.” Terry pointed at Patricia’s apartment. “He’s a mouse of a man. He’s pretty broken up about what happened to her and that he caused it.” Terry dropped his head in his hands. “But he’s not anywhere near broken up enough,” he stated bitterly. “Believe me. I’ll be having another go at him for what he did that brought her to this end.” He stared at the apartment. “Do I … do I have to stay?”

 

Kate shook her head. “No, you’re probably fine. We can take it from here.” She got his contact information and then, having a cop lead him outside to his car, she watched in the hallway when Rodney showed up after having to step out on some errand earlier.

 

He looked back to where the big man was being led away and then at her. “What was that all about?” Rodney asked her. Kate quickly explained, and he winced. “Terry’s right in a way. It seems as if a victim who’s been abused in life takes a series of really ugly turns, and they never quite get free of it.”

 

“And yet we don’t want to think of it that way,” she countered. “That’s the worst thing that you ever want to think about, how a victim is a victim is a victim.”

 

“And yet,” Rodney replied, “you yourself know victim-mentality is a hard one to kick.”

 

She glared at him and then shrugged, nodding. “Very true,” she muttered. “And yet how much of all this is connected, and how much of it has nothing to do with anything yet?” She shrugged. “None of this murder seems to fit together with her history.”

 

“Meaning, you don’t think it was her pimp or an old client?”

 

“I don’t think so,” Kate said. “I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn’t feel that way.”

 

He nodded. “I’ll go with your feelings on this one. So far you’ve been right on the money.”

 

She snorted at that. “You sure as hell can’t count on that. I could be wrong on the next ten murders.”

 

“In which case”—he grinned broadly—“we’ll use that all against you, every time we decide which theory we’ll go with.”

 

She laughed. “Theory should be based on evidence and following the history of the victims and seeing what fits together. Theory should be puzzle-solving. Feelings? Now those are an entirely different thing.”

 

“Especially gut feelings,” he pointed out.

 

“True enough,” she agreed. “This is definitely a gut feeling, but I don’t think it’s connected to the stepfather. I am not so sure about Patricia’s history, but I doubt this murder is connected to her pimp. I did, however, forget to ask the brother what he paid to get his sister free from the pimp. I also didn’t ask him if he knew about the kidnapping.”

 

“You could be right about her pimp. He also knows he could turn around and pick up another girl off the streets, keep her locked up for a few days and strung out on drugs—which he gets her hooked on in the first place—and, before you know it, absolutely no defense is there, no fight is left in her.”

 

“I know. That is unfortunately so often the way of it.”

 

He smiled. “Remember. We can’t solve everybody’s problems.”

 

“You sure?” she quipped. “We could give it a try.”

 

“Ah, that would be one of those pointless attempts. Can’t really say that I’m feeling that one.”