losttheright | (no subject)

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russell clank

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The first cop who comes in to get her statement is a stranger. There have been a lot of those tonight, between the other woman at Patrick's and the assorted medical personnel she's seen, but somehow, counterintuitive though she believes it to be, the thought of talking to one, just as the thought of being treated by one, makes her too uneasy. Much as Molly doesn't especially want to talk about it to someone she knows, either — she'd rather not talk about it at all, though there's no pretending like she's fine in the face of this when her physical state alone is proof that she's not — if there's anyone she wouldn't mind seeing her like this, it's Russell. Besides, there's comfort in the familiar, though God knows there shouldn't be. It's the part of this that still doesn't make sense to her. She'd known Patrick for ages, had spent plenty of time around him, and she'd never once had any idea that he was capable of something like this. Even now, she still doesn't know why he would have done any of this. She just knows that, in spite of it, it's the idea of speaking to someone she's never met that unnerves her, cop or not.

He doesn't seem all that inclined to listen to her at first, and she can't even hold that against him when he's clearly just here to do his job. Even when she tries to, though, figuring she ought to be helpful, that she has no reason not to, she can't bring herself to tell him anything. Just thinking about it is fucking difficult enough, and she can't get away from that, panic surging through her all over again if she lets herself think too hard on it, until she reminds herself again that she's safe now, that Patrick is dead. She'd seen his body. It should have been far more reassuring. It's when she starts to really withdraw, only half-aware of doing so herself, that the man's demeanor softens somewhat, and he says he'll see if Russell will come in, as she's asked him to. Once he's out of the room, she lets out a breath, resisting the urge to bite at her already-bitten lip, throbbing faintly where there are a few stitches in it. She catches herself wondering, not for the first time, if it will scar, and feels just as fucking stupid for it as she has before. When she's lucky to have walked away from all of that in the first place, the condition of her face shouldn't be one of her primary concerns. It's always been her way, though, to act as if she's fine even when she isn't, and like this, she couldn't even come close to passing for it. Besides, the last thing she wants is to have to look in the mirror and see reminders of all this for however long she has left.

Reaching carefully for her phone where it's resting on the table beside her bed, she pulls up her email. Work probably ought to be the last thing on her mind right now, but she needs something to focus on while she waits to see if Russell will get here. Being in her own head is too dangerous right now.

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At first, Russell's pretty sure he won't be able to do it.

The story travels pretty fast within the cops who are on duty at the time and Russell's no exception. He's called to the scene first, mostly just to work crowd control as usual, while the detectives do their thing. Not that there's much to detect, the way he hears it. Pretty clear cut case of self defense and he knows not a single one of the women in the apartment are going to be brought up on any kind of charges. The first indication something might be really wrong is when he hears a name mentioned. Patrick.

In a distant way, the name is familiar.

It isn't until another cop pulls him aside and asks if he'll go to the hospital to take statements that he realizes why it sounds so familiar.

"One of the victims is asking for you," someone says and Russell knows in a second that Molly wants him to be the one to take her statement and he doesn't think he can do it. What he wants is to head straight over to that body bag and rip what's left apart completely. Russell doesn't know all the details, but he knows there was a lot of blood and he knows there was a lot of violence and the idea that someone's hurt Molly like that, someone she trusts, hits a little too close to home and he can feel his fury rising. He has to go, though. He can't leave her there just because he wants revenge against a man who's already dead.

"She's okay?" he asks the other officer when he arrives.

"She'll be okay physically," the man answers and when he doesn't say anything else, Russell takes a couple deep breaths, then knocks lightly on Molly's door before he pushes it open and heads into the room.

By the time a knock comes on her door, Molly has moved on from emails to Tetris, having no desire to deal with what's in her inbox. Her head is too much of a mess to deal with anything that's actually work-related, the effort it takes to make the words on the screen string together in a way that makes sense more than she's capable of at present, but there are already a couple about the events of tonight, and those are downright unsettling. Before now, it hadn't occurred to her that this will be news — an oversight, clearly, on her part, though in all fairness, she's been rather preoccupied. She can't deal with that yet. She'd rather not have to ever, but if nothing else, she has to wait until she can handle it well, use the tact and careful words she would for work rather than knee-jerk emotion. There's something calming about this stupid game, anyway, moving little blocks around to fit neatly into place, both mindless and distracting. At least it keeps her calm for the moment, rather than feeling perpetually on the brink of tears.

She sets the phone aside, though, when her door begins to open, both startled and relieved. The former shouldn't be the case, when plenty of people have come through here already, but it gets quickly overridden anyway. The part of her that wishes Russell didn't have to see her like this also gets easily set aside in favor of how glad she is to have him here. She even smiles a little for it, the first she's managed all night, though it isn't much of one, the pull at her stitches in her lip and the tightness lingering in her chest keeping her from much more than that. Besides, when she's distinctly aware of how she must look and what he must know already, it's difficult not to just find herself on the brink of tears instead. "Hey."

Edited 2013-07-15 00:14 (UTC)

It's amazing, he thinks, how quickly his anger bleeds away when he sees her face. He still wants to kill the bastard who did this to her, but he can't, the man is already dead, and he knows the second he looks at her that the only thing he should be thinking about now is Molly. Nothing else matters. Not his need to hurt someone on her behalf, not anything that he's feeling. Just her. Even the job he's supposed to be doing here is secondary, which he knows might get him a few choice words from his boss, but he doesn't care.

"Hey," he says, closing the door and then crossing the room to her. Both his hands lift to her face without thinking and rather than tilt her chin to get a better look at her bruises -- he doesn't need to see them any better and he doesn't want her to feel like he's just here for information -- he just strokes his thumbs gently against her cheeks. "One of the guys said you were askin' for me."

He wishes he would have known sooner. He would have come in a second.

Edited 2013-07-15 02:46 (UTC)

Anyone else, and Molly is sure she'd be flinching away right now, any contact jarring even after having been cleaned up and checked out. It's Russell, though, and whatever may have happened in the past, something she's wound up thinking back on more than once tonight, there's no one here she trusts as much, no one she feels as safe with. Just having him here is enough to set her a little more at ease, self-conscious as she might still be about having to be seen like this. She might as well start trying to get used to it. These aren't injuries that will heal with any kind of rapidity, or that a little carefully applied makeup will be able to hide. Even if they were, it wouldn't make a difference. People are going to know about this, and she still doesn't know how it could have happened, how she wound up here in the first place.

"Yeah," she says quietly, something approximating sheepish, one hand lifting to brush against his wrist. "I... didn't think I could talk to a stranger." With him, at least, there's no harm in admitting it. It's probably pretty self-explanatory, anyway, when, no matter how close they might be, she wouldn't have asked someone to bring him here just because he's her friend. If anything, it's because this is so important that she wants it to be him. With Russell here, she'll be closer to comfortable than she would with anyone else, and therefore more capable of getting this right, which she needs to. It doesn't matter that Patrick is dead, that she couldn't even do much to defend herself. She still can't fuck this up. "Thanks for coming."

"Yeah, of course," he says. "I get it." It's never really happened to him before, if only because everyone knew everyone in Ogden Marsh and if someone wanted to give a statement to a cop they knew well, it was easy. Darrow is different and if being here makes it easier for Molly to remember all the details, he'll listen. He knows it'll be terrible, that he won't want to hear it, but that's his job, not just as a cop, but as her friend. She needs him to be here and he can do that.

"You want me to get right down to it or do you need a minute?" he asks. It's not the sort of thing he'd normally say, because he knows statements are usually more accurate when given fresh, but he can't force Molly to do anything and he can't play the hard cop with her, especially not like this.

Molly shakes her head as best she can without hurting herself, not much of a movement at all but still insistent, enough to be visible. "No," she says, "no, I... I want to do this now." It's not like waiting will change anything. She'll be just as hurt, just as shaken, in five minutes as she is right now. If anything, delaying what she knows has to happen now is bound to only make it worse, the night's events replaying over and over in her head so she can make sure she doesn't forget anything. She isn't looking forward to having to talk about it at all, to give voice to the fucking awful things that happened, but not doing so won't take them away, and she knows this is necessary. If there's anyone who she won't mind knowing, anyway, it's Russell, though that doesn't make it much easier to actually put it all into words. "So how does this work? Do you ask me questions, or?"

"First I'll get you to tell me what happened as best you can remember," Russell says, fishing into his pocket for the digital recorder he carries now to take statements. There are specific questions he'll have to ask if she doesn't answer them while she gives her statement, but he thinks it might be easier to just let her talk to begin. "Try to remember what time you went over there, how long might've passed while you were in his apartment, things like that."

He pauses, then says, "I know it's hard, but try to give me as much detail as possible. The more I know, the less someone else is gonna ask you to go over a second time."

"Okay." Molly nods, glancing down for a moment, her arms wrapped around herself. At least it's somewhere to start. She still doesn't know how the fuck she's supposed to talk about any of this, least of all in any official capacity or without falling apart all over again, but she has to try. If nothing else, she thinks he'll get it if she has trouble, needs to stop to collect herself or needs prompting to continue. With him, she'll worry about that less than she would with someone else, anyway. He's here as a cop, she knows that, but he's been her friend since the day she showed up here, and she doesn't think that's going to change just because she has to give a statement now.

Drawing in a deep breath, she lets it out slowly, trying to stay conscious of continuing to do so as she looks up at him again, eying the recorder he has in his hand. "I don't think it could have been that long. It felt like it, but... I think I got there at maybe 10:45 or 11. And it was around 11:30 when I called for an ambulance, I remember it said on the phone. So I guess I was there half an hour, forty minutes." Even now, it seems more like a lifetime, but she doesn't think that's the kind of detail he means. "I, um — he said it wasn't a good time, at first, sounded like he was going to have me leave. Then he said he was glad I was there and let me into the building. I guess he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with me."

The thing Russell likes best about having the recorder is that he doesn't have to spend his time making notes or writing anything down. He can focus completely on Molly and what she's saying, which usually makes him feel like a better cop, but right now, it makes him feel like a better friend. He sets it down on the table beside the hospital bed, wanting her to forget about it completely if she can.

"Okay," he says, nodding. "So you arrived between 10:45 and 11, and you buzzed his apartment and he said it wasn't a good time. Do you remember if those were his exact words?"

Molly nods again, though this time, there's significantly less certainty to the movement, slight as it is. "I think so," she says, voice lilting up almost into a question. "Or — it might have been that it wasn't a great time." What difference it makes, she doesn't know. However, what she does know is that she means to be as cooperative as possible, to try to remember every last detail she might be able to come up with. Patrick is dead now, thank God — and that's a thought that still jars her, when not all that long ago, he was just the guy she was dating — and she highly doubts anyone is going to disbelieve the story they have to tell, all three of them, but even so, she wants this to go as smoothly as possible.

It would be easier, she thinks, if her head weren't spinning like this, her heart beating too hard just thinking about it, even before she's gotten to the part that comes next. She's exhausted, and all she really wants is to sleep, but they have to keep checking on her anyway, making sure the concussion isn't any worse than it's seemed so far, and she doesn't want to put this off. The sooner everything can get sorted out, the better. "But it was one or the other. And then it was that, actually, he was glad I was there, and I should come up. So... I did." She pauses for a moment, swallows hard, fights off an unexpected surge of emotion. "I didn't — I didn't know anyone else was there. Or why he would have said that. It didn't seem... right, but I didn't think anything was that wrong, either."

"You couldn't have known," Russell says, because he doesn't have a lot of experience with people like Bateman, but he remembers Bill, how everything had been so normal and usual until he'd locked his wife and son in a closet and then burned the house down around them. The only thing he's sure of is that people like that are good at hiding what's really going on inside. They're experts at appearing normal until something snaps.

"So he changed his mind and let you up. When you got to his apartment, did you knock or was he waiting to let you in?" He hates that he has to do this to her. It's procedure and he understands the rules, but there aren't going to be any charges and Bateman is dead and gone, they don't have to spend time hunting him down. But they always want a statement and they always want it to be as accurate as possible.

Deep down, Molly knows that he's right. There isn't any way she could have known, not even when Patrick seemed to be acting a little strangely, that he could be capable of something like this. In a way, she thinks that's what's so unsettling, and all the more reason why she keeps trying to think otherwise. It should be a good thing, ridding her of any responsibility in the matter. It doesn't seem right, though, that it could have been that well-hidden, that she could have been so oblivious. She couldn't have, but she wishes that weren't so. At least then, it wouldn't feel so fucking pointless.

"I knocked," she says after drawing in a deep breath, her chest still aching with the effort to do so. She's composed now, but with the time she's spent crying tonight, not to mention the times Patrick was choking her, she feels the strain of it regardless. "But I think he was waiting there. He — and he had music playing. Something awful from the '80s. Then he opened the door, he... pulled me in by my hair, and I was confused, you know, I didn't know what he was doing. So I told him to let go. That's when — when he broke my nose." She looks up at Russell with wide eyes, suddenly wondering all over again if she's even doing this right. "You have to hear this, too, yeah? I don't want to just be going on if it's going to get in the way of what you need."

"No, it's okay. We need to hear it all," he says, even though he hates listening to it. His hands are balled into fists in his lap and what he wants, more than anything, is to do something awful to Patrick Bateman. Tear his fucking hands off or break each one of his fingers for ever daring to lay them on Molly, but he can't. Whatever he wants to do is useless. Nothing can take it away and nothing can make it better for her.

He doesn't want to ask, but he has to.

"How did he break your nose?"

It's only because it's Russell and she knows that he wouldn't be asking if he didn't need to that Molly isn't bothered by the question. She'd probably have told him about it anyway, albeit not like this, sitting in a hospital bed, everything having only just happened. Still, she tries to focus on that, not the recorder on the table by her bed or how difficult it is to make the words come. She couldn't have known, just like he said, but somehow, she still feels uncomfortably self-conscious about it, as if this having happened to her at all is something to be ashamed of. It shouldn't be, but she can't shake it.

"He hit me," she says, and to her ear, the words sound distant, as if they're coming from or are spoken about someone else, though that's more than clearly not the case. "You know, with the heel of his hand. After that, he... he pinned me against the wall, he had his hand —" She gestures to her neck, the vivid bruises there, before she remembers an audio recorder isn't going to pick that up. "— around my neck, and then he said..." Trailing off, she lets out a laugh, but it's a heavy, pained sound rather than an amused one. "He said he didn't think it was going to work out between us. It was never even that serious in the first fucking place, you know?"

More than ever, Russell wants to do something horrible to Patrick Bateman and he's almost grateful that chance has been taken away from him. This is the sort of thing cops lose their jobs over, he thinks. If they get caught.

The bruises are bright and vivid and Russell knows he's going to have to take pictures, too, but he'll leave that for now. Instead, he asks, "At this point did you know there was anyone else in the apartment?" He's been asked to go to the other woman's room next, to keep some consistency in the statements, but he doesn't know her and he isn't sure if Molly has ever met her before tonight.

It's a question that Molly can't answer right away, and somewhat unexpectedly so. Though she knows that's perfectly sensible, that there are any number of good reasons, not the least of which is the fact that she didn't exactly spend the night intending to recount it step by step, in large part because she didn't expect to make it out of there at all. Just when that realization set in, she can't be sure, either, but it's colored the rest of the evening, making it little more than a blur. For Russell, though, she means to try, frowning as she tries to remember the sequence of things without doing too much to put herself back there.

"I... I thought there might be," she says, slow, still a little uncertainty in her voice. As she goes on, though, she becomes more sure of herself, less doubtful of her own memory. "Yeah. There was blood on the floor, and hair. It looked a lot like mine." Absently, she reaches up to run her fingers through the end of it, a reminder that her own is still there. "But I didn't know until he took me into the other room if she was still alive or not." Realizing she's missed something along the way, whether or not it's that important, she adds, "He carried me. He... he hit my head against the wall first."

He nods at that, because it makes sense. He's seen what the inside of the apartment looks like now and with only the hair and blood to go on, it would have been impossible to know if the person it had belonged to was still alive.

"Alright, so he carried you into the other room. Bedroom?" He knows it is, but he needs her to say it. As it is, he's probably going to catch some shit for prompting her like he is, but he's not about to make this harder on her when he has the chance to make it a little bit easier. His boss can go to hell if he's got a problem with that.

"Yeah," Molly says quickly, not realizing until he's prompted her that that's probably something she has to specify, too, though the apartment has doubtless been made into a crime scene by now, the locations of everything known. If he's asking, it's because he needs to hear it. With anyone else, she would be far more hesitant, especially when the person who did this to her was someone she trusted, but this is Russell. There isn't anyone here she feels safer with. "The bedroom. That's where he had her, too, the other woman, and, um... She was tied up, but she'd gotten to her feet. He got her on the bed after me."

Pausing, she looks away from him, knowing it's only going to get considerably worse from here, however much he already knows. It's short-lived, though, the pain in her lip bringing another memory back to her. "Wait. Fuck. He — he'd already bitten my lip by then. That was when he had me against the wall."

"He had you against the wall by your throat, at which point he bit your lip, then he hit your head against the wall and carried you into the bedroom," Russell says, hating the words that come out of his mouth. He needs a verbal confirmation of the timeline, though.

He knows it's going to get complicated from here, that there was a bit of a fight, even if Bateman had the upper hand and he knows it's always difficult to remember what happens during a fight. Still, he'll see what she can recall and go from there.

Hearing him say it, all pieced together like that, Molly falls silent for a long few moments, not yet responding. It isn't as if there's anything there that she hasn't outright told him herself, that she didn't know, that she isn't lying here feeling the effects of now, but it's different somehow, coming from his mouth as opposed to hers. It seems infinitely more real this way, and all the more painful because of it. He shouldn't have to be asking and she shouldn't have to respond. It shouldn't have had to happen at all.

"Yeah. Like that," she says, abrupt, the accompanying nod of her head a jerky one, enough so that it's almost painful. She doesn't care. The physical reminders she has of all this are nothing compared to having it all in her head, knowing how much there is left to say. "Sorry. I just, um... There's a lot to try to remember."

"I know," Russell says, dropping the whole police officer act. He's been trying hard not to put it up in the first place, but with something like this, it's sometimes easier. If he can just distance himself, be a cop for awhile instead of her friend, it's not quite as hard to hear, but that's not what Molly needs from him either. The reason he's here instead of another cop is because he's her friend.

"You want to take a break?" he asks, reaching for the recorder. "I can get you some water or somethin' and we can just take it easy for a few minutes."

"No," Molly says with a slight shake of her head, though the look she shoots him is nothing short of grateful. "No, it's... I want to keep going." Difficult as it is, it's not as if it's going to get any easier, and she'd rather get it over with than have it hanging overhead. Just having him here, regardless of what capacity it's in, helps enough that she doesn't need to stop. Besides, as much as she hates having to admit any of this to him, it's a hell of a lot easier than it would be with a stranger, someone who wouldn't know her outside of any of this. "I mean, shit, there's not even that much to tell. It all happened so fast."

She still only has the most tenuous of grasps on a lot of it, too, things that happened more quickly than she could keep track of, that she was too distracted to make note of with any accuracy. That won't stop her from trying. All she can do now is make sure that this story is told the way it needs to be, nothing left out or glossed over. She can't take it back, she can't remove her own involvement, so as much as she hates being associated with it at all, it's better this way than belittling it.

"Okay," Russell says with another nod. He doesn't touch the recorder, leaves it where it is, still running. "Just tell as much as you can remember. I'm gonna go visit the other woman, uh... Andrea, I think her name is, after this, so if you forget some stuff, she might be able to fill in the blanks. And just remember this isn't gonna be turned around on you. There's three statements and obvious injuries, no one thinks you did anything wrong, so if there's inconsistencies, it's not gonna come back to bite you in the ass."

He hates that he has to say that at all, that the fact that a woman might not remember all the details of an attack can be used against her. Just another good reason the bastard is dead instead of in jail.

"Okay," Molly echoes, not wanting to admit to how reassuring that is to hear, though it's clear enough in her voice. All of these injuries speak for themselves, of course, and it's not like she could have done anything to Patrick, but she can't pretend that she hasn't worried anyway. When she was going over there without any real reason, when she was fucking dating him, it's too easy to imagine someone at least trying to say that she was asking for it, and with her head still this fuzzy, details just out of reach, the odds of this being written off if she doesn't get it right seem too high, however implausible that actually is. "That's — that's good."

The rest of this isn't, but they both know that. She pauses a long moment before she starts again, trying to look at him but not quite able to bring herself to. "He got something out from under the bed after he had us both on it. I... didn't know what it was then, but..." Swallowing hard, she falters. None of this is easy, but she fucking hates thinking about it, how she'd been in that bed before, how the nail gun could have been there the entire time, and wondering if he ever had occasion to use it before tonight. "He got on top of me, and..." She nods towards her shoulder, bandaged under her hospital gown, trying to ignore the way this turns her stomach. "He shot a nail into my shoulder. It was a nail gun."

As easy as that, Russell finds himself furious again, though the only indication is the flaring of his nostrils as he glances down at the bed. He's heard the reports and he's seen the apartment, but hearing her say that the bastard used a nail gun on her is sickening. It's worse, knowing it's not much worse than all the things he wanted to do both times he was sick.

"What happened after that?" he asks and his voice sounds far away to his own ears. He doesn't really want to know, he knows it'll only get worse from here until she recounts the other woman showing up and crushing Patrick's skull. It's selfish, but Russell finds himself hoping Molly remembers that in great detail, that she'll be able to tell him everything.