Part I-Chapter 4: EMERGENCY ROOMS

Chapter 4

Emergency Rooms
(Ó 2007)

Noel has always hated the position he was in now, and he envied David at this moment. Noel now had to witness, again, the heartbreak of the vile crime of rape, especially with this one now involving a fifteen-year-old girl. He grew uneasy with every minute he came closer to the emergency room of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago. The ambulance and the victim were a little over ten minutes ahead of him.

At least he wouldn’t actually have to be in the emergency room when the doctors had to gather the evidence from Stephanie. Officer Rosario volunteered for that, after all she had established a relationship with the girl when she arrived at the scene, and the girl trusted her. Nevertheless, Noel would have to be in the room with the devastated parents. The mothers’ emotions he could handle, because you would expect that from a woman, especially a mother It was the fathers though that got to him, Noel having a little girl himself could understand.

There is a special relationship between fathers and daughters. A father is the first man that a girl falls in love with. Noel and David both agreed that a man changes the second their first daughter is born, and they’ve both seen it happen through their young adult years. They have seen it with each other. Any man who was the rowdy, partying, woman chaser type seems to change the second their daughter is born.

A man learns to respect and love women because of their mother, they later learn intimate love with girlfriends and wives. If their children are sons at first, the “macho” in a man will remain, and even the “party animal” personality. However, the second a man has a daughter, that all comes to an end, a man starts to see what his mother was teaching him, about respect for, and how it’s the job of men to protect women. When their daughter is born, men become more responsible, down to earth, and protective.

Noel asked David about that on one of the occasions when they were at a family gathering at his home. David answered, “I don’t really know what it is. Maybe when you’re looking at them for the first time, you start looking to the future, and you realize that sixteen years from now, you don’t want her to bring home any guy who’s just like you”.

 

Now, sometime in the next few minutes, he was going to be in the waiting room with Stephanie’s father and mother. Helping them to cope with the most abominable thing that can happen to a woman, but this was not their “woman,” this was their little girl. Noel thoughts now were of all of the other fathers that he had to contend with over the past few years, and the one thing they felt was that they had failed at being one. They failed to protect their little girl, no matter what the woman’s age was, in their father’s eyes, they will always be their little girl, and it will always be the little girl who was violated, not the grown woman.

However, this time it’s going to be different Noel thought, this time when facing the victims’ family, he can tell them they have the attackers in custody. “And they are really fucked up,” he told himself aloud. Something about saying that made him feel at ease. Not only are the rapists in custody, but somebody came along and “really messed them up, but for good“. Now he wouldn’t have to sit and assure these parents that he would do anything it takes to get the men who violated their daughter. He was struggling though with something inside of him. He couldn’t wait to tell the parents that their daughters’ rapists are in custody, and that they are hurt, hurt very badly. He kept remembering what the paramedics told him at the scene, that those two men would probably never be able to walk again; he unconsciously suppressed the joy that it gave him in knowing that.

He now pulled into the emergency room entrance of Northwestern Memorial Hospital and parked his car in the reserved area for police vehicles. He exited the car and walked briskly to, and then through the doors, came to the reception area and identified himself, asking where they had taken the fifteen-year-old rape victim. The hospital policy has a policy were victims of sexual assault are taken into a private room, instead of a bed in the emergency ward, where the only privacy would be a drawn curtain.

Noel came to the room where they had taken Stephanie to find Officer Rosario standing by the door. “How’s she holding up?” Noel asked her.

“She’s being a little trooper about it right now,” she said, “she’s probably in shock over the whole ordeal.”

“Have they gotten the rape kit yet?” he then asked.

“Not yet, we really just got here a couple of minutes ago”.

“Well then, you’ll be with her when they examine her and use the kit, OK?”, he asked, “plus, I have to still interview her in depth, I’ll stand outside the curtain and ask the questions through you, he’s my recorder so we can get it all down later”. 

 

“Sure,” she said, taking Noel’s mini tape recorder, “any word on those two fucking bastards”?

He saw the anger on Emelda’s face, “No nothing yet, but from what I saw, they’re pretty messed up”.

 

“I’m all broken up,” she said monotone.

“I’m twice as broken up as you”.

A woman’s cry came out from just down the hall in the waiting area, “NOOOO”!

“That must be Stephanie’s mother,” Emelda said, “She was contacted on the way over, her daddy’s down there too”.

A doctor, who was a woman, then came to the door of the examining room, “Is this the girl?’ she asked.

“Yes doctor,” Emelda answered, “I’m Officer Rosario, and this is Detective Jaworski. I’ll be in the room with you while you do the examination and gather the evidence”, she looked at Noel and then finished, “I’ll let you know when we’re ready for you, you better go to her parents now”.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I never have gotten numb to this, I hate this part”. He turned and walked down to the waiting area. He noticed though that this time, it was different, he wasn’t as apprehensive to what he had to do now. When he came to the waiting area, Stephanie’s father had his arms around his wife; both were sitting on the sofa, her face buried into his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. He stood back for a few moments to let her cry, she deserved to. He’s been seeing this now for over three years, and like he said, this he could never numb himself to, the devastation of the loved ones, pretty soon to be followed by guilt, guilt especially from the father, brother, husband, or boyfriend. It was a self-inflicted guilt that they were not there to protect their loved one. The guilt would soon subside and change to anger. Anger at the attackers, that they chose their loved one that time for their own sick obsession or pleasure, and that they’re still out there somewhere, sitting in their home, maybe at a bar having a drink, or even worse, out looking for another girl and destroy her and her families life. 

But, Noel thought to himself that no, . . .no, . . . this is going to be different, this mother and father will have some satisfaction knowing that their little girls rapists are in custody, and they too are in an emergency room, “and they are worse off than your kid,” Noel whispered to himself, now consciously suppressing the pleasure he felt in knowing that.

He stepped toward the parents, “Mr. and Mrs. Morris?” Noel called out calmly.

Mr. Norris looked up to Noel while holding his weeping wife tightly to his chest; his own eyes were deep red from his own lament. “Yes,” he answered in a tight strained voice.

Noel stepped over to the couple, “I’m Detective Noel Jaworski, and I’m investigating the crime against your daughter”. He drew a chair by the wall and sat down in front of them, “I’m very sorry for what you’re going through, the doctors are examining her now, I have Officer Emelda Rosario staying with her during the examination”.

“It was those two animals wasn’t it?” Mrs. Morris’s muffled voice came while her face was still against her husbands chest, she turned her reddened face to look at Noel, Stephanie got her blond hair and blue eyes from her mother he thought, the blue was now accentuated from the bright red that was the white of her eyes, “I recognize you from the papers and the news, it was those two fucking animals, wasn’t it”?

Noel had a sinking feeling in his stomach as her looked back at her, “Yes. Yes Ma’am, I’m afraid so,” he quietly said to her, almost embarrassed by the fact, because another victim was now added to the list of the men he and David had been searching for.

“Why can’t you find them?” Mrs. Morris screamed, “WHY!” She then buried her face into her husbands’ chest and continued sobbing.

Noel looked at the both of them, Mr. Morris holding his wife, trying to comfort her, meanwhile looking back at Noel with a look of total agreement in what his wife was asking. Usually in the past, during these exact situations, Noel and David would try to reassure them that they were doing everything that they possibly could to find these men. Sometimes their own frustration would just keep them from saying anything at all. However, tonight it would be different.

“Well, ma’am, . . . sir, there’s a chance that we just may have,” he said to them. Mrs. Morris quickly became calm and Mr. Morris had an expression of surprise on his face.

“Explain what you mean Detective,” Mr. Morris then said in a demanding but quiet tone.

“Two men were found in the exact area where your daughter was attacked,” Noel said, “they’ve been transported to Cook County. My partner is there with them now and is going to update me on their condition as soon as he can”.

Mr. Morris then had a confused expression on his face, “Their condition?” he asked.

“Yes sir, apparently someone was a witness to your daughter’s attack,” Noel explained, “and may have took matters into their own hands,” he watched as Mr. Norris straightened up as Mrs. Norris, who had now stopped crying, brought her face from her husbands chest and looked at Noel with her deeply red face, “they were beaten very badly”.

An expression of satisfaction came to Mr. Morris’s face, “How badly?,” he asked coldly.

“Badly enough where they too have to go to an emergency room,” Noel answered, “but I can’t go into any details just as yet, I know the media and the papers are going to be getting wind of all this soon, and I have to keep things a little confidential until then”.

“You can’t give me any type of information Detective,” Mr. Morris asked, “it was after all, my little girl”.

Noel saw something different in the faces of both parents, he knew what it was, they wanted to know how bad the injuries were to the men who raped their daughter, they wanted some sort of immediate gratification, Noel felt he owed this family at least that much. Therefore, he tried to find the right way to say it. He approached both of them and kneeled down and whispered to them, “Well ma’am, . . . sir, . . .and please realize that when I say this that I don’t mean any disrespect, but from what I personally saw?, . . . your daughter is in much better condition than they are”.

Noel stepped back to his original spot and saw an expression of satisfaction on the face of Stephanie’s father, “Bad?” he asked.

Noel nodded, “Yes, . . . very bad”.

Mrs. Norris then got up from her husbands chest and sat next to him, “When can we see our baby”? She asked.

“They are doing a preliminary physical first, and then they have to gather all evidence they can from her,” Noel answered, “as I said before, Officer Rosario is in there with her, and she was the first on the scene and has been with her since the whole ordeal. If she’s up to it I have to ask her some questions, but I’m going to do it through Officer Rosario, I’ll stay behind the curtain, you both can be there with her then”.

They both nodded and sat on the sofa waiting. During this time, Noel began to question them on what time Stephanie left their home, where she was going, the name of the friend she was visiting, the direction she took to the friends’ home, and what time she was expected home. He would have to follow up on all of it later. He would have to drive down the direction that they told them, and he had to interview the friend and her family. Then the monotonous job of going to every building and every apartment to see if anyone had witnessed anything.

The nurse came into the room and then told them that could all now go in and see Stephanie. The feeling of anticipation came over them all and they then left the waiting area to go to the room where she was, it just took a few seconds.

The doctor came up to Mr. and Mrs. Morris, she told them of their daughters’ condition. Stephanie had bruises on her face, arms and legs, they were going to keep her a couple of days for observation, they were going to check for any Sexually Transmitted Diseases, from what Stephanie told her about when the last time she had her period, that there is a good chance that she would not be pregnant, but they will check for that also, and take any necessary steps then. The doctor also said that she was very cooperative and answered all questions, and that her spirits were high, but she suggested some psychological counseling soon afterwards, and that she would have the rape counselors there to be with her soon.

While the doctor was speaking to Stephanie’s parents, Noel stood behind the curtain out of view from her. Emelda handed him the evidence from the rape kit. She then turned to Stephanie and said, “Sweetie, your mom and dad are coming in, and Detective Jaworski is going to ask you questions but he will be on the other side of the curtain, OK?”

To both their surprises, Stephanie said, “It’s all right; he can ask me in here”.

“You sure you’re OK with that honey,” Emelda asked.

“Yes, but you’ll be here too right”?

“Sure sweetie”.

Emelda signaled for Stephanie’s parents to come in, the second she came into their view, all three began to cry. Mr. Morris’s large frame covered his wife and daughter both as the covered her in a large group hug. The sight of the bruises on her face was all it took to verify to her parents that this indeed was not a dream; their little girl was hurt and violated. Noel stood in the background and gave the Norris family all the time they needed, just then a petite Asian nurse came into the room and asked, “Is there a Detective Jaworski here?” she asked.

Noel turned to her, “That would be me,” he answered.

“There’s a phone call for you at the desk,” the nurse informed him.

He then turned to Officer Rosario, “That’s probably Dave, I’ll be right back. They’re going to need more time anyway.” Emelda nodded “yes” in agreement. Noel left the room and turned back into the direction of the nurses’ station. When he got there, he asked the nurse sitting in the station checking patient schedules for the phone call for him. She handed him Noel the phone and pressed the button that was for his call.

“This is Jaworski,” he said into the phone.

“Hey Ski, it me,” it was David.

“What’s your situation pard?”

“Well, to put it plainly, these two guys are really fucked up,” David said, “they both are in surgery now, the preliminaries are; you ready for this?”

“Sure,” Noel said.

“Both of them, their spines have been broken,” David began, “and from what it looks like, if they are only paralyzed from the shoulders down, they’ll be lucky.”

Noel felt a sense of satisfaction that he tried to suppress, but thinking now of the devastated family in the room just down the hall, he controlled it a little. “Jesus,” he said, “anything else?”

“Well, they both had no I.D. on them, so we’re running their descriptions to see if there are any priors. The white guy had all his front teeth knocked out, along with a possible skull fracture. The Hispanic guy also has some missing teeth, along with a dislocated and shattered jaw, and he also may have a possible a skull fracture.”

“Yep,” Noel said, “I would put that in the ‘pretty fucked up’ category.”

“These guys are gonna be he for a long while, the surgery is gonna take all night,” David continued, “and to top it all off, the news people have gotten wind of this and are starting to converge on the hospital here. I’m posting a guard here, and I’m gonna head out the back way. I’m getting a ride to the “L” from a uniform car; I meet you at the Merchandise Mart.”

“Shit, that means that those buzzards are probably going to be circling around here soon,” Noel then said.

“How’s she doing?” David then asked.

“Well, it’s like I told her dad,” Noel said, “she’s in a lot better shape then those two. I had to tell her parents that we have suspects in custody, but I didn’t go into any details except that they are both hurt bad. I don’t know; it seems that when I told them that, well, they’re taking it all better than expected; better than all the others anyway.”

“I can understand that.” David said.

“But, she tells me she’s up to answering questions,” Noel continued, “and they’re going to keep her here for a couple of days, so I’m gonna get what happened from her real quick, and then I’ll see if I can duck out a back way from here myself.”

“OK then,” David then said, “you know on second thought, I’ll meet you at the Shamrock.” The Shamrock is a small Irish tavern that they both frequent; it is located right near the Merchandise Mart.

“See ya there partner.” Noel finished, and then handed the phone back top the nurse, “Thank you very much.” Noel then went back into the room where Stephanie, her parents and Officer Rosario still were. When he got there, all the crying had somewhat come to an end, Mrs. Norris was sitting on the bed holding her daughter and rocking her back and forth.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Noel said as he came back into the room, “Stephanie, are you up to answering a few questions for me?” he asked, pulling out his notepad. Stephanie nodded “yes” on her mothers’ chest and looked at him with a slight expression of fright.

He asked her to briefly tell him what she had told to Officer Rosario up to when she was grabbed, when the more embarrassing questions came, he asked them through Emelda. He wrote them down and left the room so that she could ask her. Questions like who violated her first, and if the both came to orgasm with her. After Noel got the answers, he came back into the room.

“OK now Stephanie,” he started, “I have to ask you now about how these two men came about getting attacked themselves, you up for that?”

“Yes.” she whispered her answer.

“Was there just one man who came to help you?” he asked.

“Yes, . . . just one.”

“Where did he come from, did you see?”

“He came from the same direction that the second man came from.”

“How long was it before he arrived?”

She looked downward and said, “A couple of minutes after, - - - after, the second man got on top of me.”

“Did you hear him come up to you at all?”

“No, it, it was, - - - it was as if he appeared from nowhere,” she said now looking up at Noel with an expression of wonderment, “it all happened so fast, that’s the one thing I remember, he did everything so fast.”

She went on to describe how he kicked both her attackers with one movement of his leg, then she heard him knock the white man to the ground, and then she heard the thumping sound, followed by the grunt coming from the white man, and the cracking sound. 

“I could tell he was very strong,” she continued, “because I could feel it when he pulled the other man off of me, the weight of him just like disappeared off of me, and, - - - and when he pulled him off of me? He did it with just one hand.” She went on to tell how the dark man, threw her second attacker to the ground, again by using just one arm, then how he raised his leg and drove his heel between her attackers shoulder blades. “I keep seeing the other man’s arms and legs jumping backwards; the flopping to the ground.” she said with a far away gaze on her face. 

She had everyone’s attention, Noel looked around and he compared it to telling spooky stories around a campfire when he was a kid.

“Did he say anything to you?” Noel then asked.

“No,” she said, now pulling away from her mother and sitting up a little, “but he said something to them.”

“He spoke to them?” Noel asked in amazement, “Did you hear what he said to them?”

“No,” she said quietly, looking as if she were seeing it again, “but I heard the sound of his voice, it was deep, and quiet, kind of eerie,” she paused for a second, then finished, “then he went to the end of the alley from where he came, stopped, looked, . . . looked right at me, . . . then he . . . just started walking, . . . he just disappeared.”

It was all quiet in the room for a few seconds, then Noel asked, “And you didn’t see his face at all, you have no other description that you could give me?”

“No, he was wearing all black, he had on a black sweatshirt and the hood was over his head,” she said, “and that was spooky too, it was so dark, it was like the was no face inside the hood, it was all just a dark space.”

“But he was just big and strong looking then, correct?”

Stephanie nodded “yes”. 

Noel took a few seconds to catch up on his note writing, then when finished he asked her, “If you could have timed the whole incident from when this dark man came to when he left you,” he said, “how long do you think that he was there with you?’

Stephanie thought about it for a few seconds and then answered, “I don’t know, it was all so fast, I would guess maybe, a half a minute.”

Noel had an expression of amazement, “a half a minute!”

“Yes,” she answered, “maybe a little longer, like I said, he was very fast.”

Noel added her answer to his notes and then said as he put his pad away, “OK then, I understand that the doctors say that they’re going to keep you here for a couple of days, if I need to talk to you again I’ll come back,” he looked at her parents and added, “I’ll be sure that one or both of you are with her of course.”

“Was that your partner on the phone?” Mr. Morris then asked.

“Yes sir, yes it was”

“Are they as bad as you thought?” he asked coldly.

Noel came up to him and said quietly into his ear, “It’s even worse, but I can’t go into any details now, you understand?”

Mr. Norris then looking satisfied with what he just heard looked at Noel and said, “Thank you Detective.”

Noel then began to leave the room, “I have to go, Officer Rosario will remain here for a little while longer, up until they put you in your own room, I understand all the news people are on their way now, but their access to you is going to be prohibited,” he said and went to the door, “I’m sorry this has all happened to you, my partner and I will be in touch with you over the next few days.”

He started to take a few steps then stopped, turned back to the family, took his notepad out again, and then asked, “I’m sorry Stephanie, just one more question and I’m gone,” he paused then asked, “when the dark man left, which direction did he go in?”

“Direction?” she asked confused.

“Yes, when he back to the end of the alley, which way did he turn to walk, right or left?”

Stephanie again had it all pictured in her mind, how he stopped, froze actually, turned his body to the right, then turned to his head to the right, his head turned as if he were a robot. She could just see the dark void inside his hood as he peered at her over his right shoulder, and then . . . just stepped away.

“Left,” she said, as she calmly lied to him, “he walked to the left.”