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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"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.

"I — I think she tried to kick him," she says, and it comes out half a question, though she isn't as uncertain as all that. It's the only way it pieces together, though that's all she really has, fragments of memories that culminate in one thing. Frightened as she'd been, so convinced that she was going to die, she hadn't exactly been paying rapt attention to what happened to the other woman, but Molly at least knows that she kept fighting, and that she got hurt for it. Simpler though it would be to only recount what happened to her, this doesn't work like that. She's got to try to offer what she can. Besides, it lets her delay where she knows this is going for a little while longer. "Because he shot her with it, too. Then he had me by the neck again. I — I knew I couldn't try to get away. That it would only be worse if I did."

It's probably better to say so outright, she thinks, than to wait and be questioned on it later. Though it's not like there could really be any dispute over what happened to her, as Russell said, she's more worried than she ought to be that that might somehow make a difference, as if her lack of putting up a fight could make this less of an assault. It isn't as if that argument hasn't been used before.

Russell nods. He's never been in a situation like that, he's never been attacked the way Molly has, but he remembers that certainty. Knowing now is the time he was going to die and although he'd ended up here instead, he still remembers that feeling very well.

"He had you by the neck. Was the other woman incapacitated when he shot her with the nail gun?" he asks, beginning to see the picture all too clearly. He'll need the other statement to really understand, but it's coming together and he doesn't like what he sees.

Molly shakes her head, the motion still a slight one, though it occurs to her a moment later that she can't be entirely sure. Mostly, she remembers what Andrea did based on Patrick's reactions; at that point, her attention had been pretty well focused elsewhere, much as she doesn't want to think about it, let alone give voice to it. This has to be on record, she knows, but just the thought of saying so, of it being on this recording, of someone listening to it later, is enough to make her feel queasy, almost wanting to call this whole fucking thing off.

Except she'll have to shoulder it herself regardless, and at least one person saw firsthand what Patrick did to her. Keeping it to herself isn't going to make this go away. Nothing could. "I don't think so, at least. She tried again not long after," she says, outright avoiding Russell's gaze now, her hands clasped in her lap, fingers twisting. She's told him so much before, more than she ever has to anyone else, but this is different. "I, um. I wasn't really looking. I was just telling him to stop. He —" Faltering, she swallows hard against a wave of nausea, and she doesn't shut her eyes — she knows Patrick is the only person who'd be there if she did — but she's extremely fucking tempted to. There aren't even words for this, not really, no simple way of explaining it so she can get through it more quickly. For that more than anything else, she thinks, she hates the bastard, barely noticing when tears begin to prick in the corners of her eyes. She hadn't thought she'd be capable of any more, but apparently, she'd been wrong.

"He went down on me," she continues finally, the words sticking in her throat, eyes still not lifting. "He didn't, like. Undress me or anything, but his mouth was... between my legs, and he — he was biting me."

Russell sucks in a sharp breath and his gaze drifts away from Molly for a second because it has to. This isn't about him, it's not about his feelings, but for a second he's so goddamn angry he can barely see and he sure as hell isn't having an easy time getting a breath. He'd known, vaguely, there was sexual assault involved. It's hard not to be aware when there was a dress lying on the floor of the living room, having clearly been cut off, but he thought it had only been the other woman.

It's stupid, he thinks, for him to have assumed that.

He wants to take that bastard's head and slam it into a wall until he doesn't have any teeth left to bite anyone. But all the want in the world isn't going to make that possible, so he takes another deep breath and looks back to Molly, trying not to let any of his anger show.

"And then?" he prompts gently.

For a moment, Molly isn't sure if it's a relief or worrying that he doesn't say anything more than that. It's not like there's really all that much too say, and God knows she doesn't want to have to talk about it at all, but it's such a heavy subject, almost surreal to consider having happened at all, that she isn't quite sure what to make of it. In the end, though, it doesn't matter. He's here as a cop, she knows that, and it isn't as if she'd know what to say to someone in her position, either. She barely even knows what to think, what to do at all except keep going. She'll get to the end of this eventually. It's better not to spend more time on it than she needs to.

"He kept shooting," she says, still not quite able to look at him, her voice softer. "I'm not really sure how many nails he hit me with, but you can see the bandages, if you need to. And then he... I kept telling him to stop, it was the most I could do, so he moved back over me, he... pulled my head back, and he held the nail gun to my neck." She draws in a trembling breath and finally, finally looks up, needing to make eye contact, though it's not as if that's the sort of thing that will be transmitted over the recording. "He was going to kill me, Russell. He said that — that if I shut up, then maybe he would wait until I was dead before he cut my tongue out."

His hand trembles against the bed and he wants to reach out and touch her, but he doesn't know if she'll want him to. It's not exactly professional either and he should probably ask, but he has the recorder running and he knows his boss doesn't want to hear anything like that. In the end, he takes the risk, reaching over to cover Molly's hand with his own. It's his silent support, his way of telling her he's here, even if he's only supposed to be listening and asking questions, getting her statement. That's his job, but it's not the only reason he's here.

"He didn't shoot you in the neck," he says, glancing there briefly. He knows it didn't happen, but he still has to make sure, see it with his own eyes. He didn't kill her either, didn't cut her tongue out and Russell's heard a lot of awful stories in his years as a cop, but never anything like this. Never to anyone he cares about like he does Molly. "What stopped him?"

There's an odd sort of comfort in it, Russell's hand against hers, like a reminder that he's still here in spite of everything she's just told him. She has no reason to expect anything else, of course, especially given everything else the two of them have weathered, the things he's stood by her through, but like this, worn out and incapable of burying any vulnerability, she can't help the irrational worries she finds herself with, or the thought that this could somehow be a reflection on her. She hasn't got much strength left in her, and it takes a good deal of what remains not to instinctively flinch away at any contact, but a moment later, drawing in a deep breath to steel herself, she turns her hand under his, using what little energy she can spare to curl her fingers around his, holding on tight, as if it might help her hold herself together.

"Andrea kicked him again," she says, voice soft, distant, though she holds his gaze this time. "It... it was just enough to stall him, even for a minute. He hit her with the gun, and I — I tried to pull away. I knew I wasn't going to get very far, but it was something, you know?" In her certainty, that knowing she was about to die, every possible second she could spare had seemed worth it, but she doesn't know how to say that without saying what Russell already knows about her, and she sure as fuck doesn't want that on the record. "And then I had a few seconds, so I said a Hail Mary. It was the first thing I could think of."

She pauses, draws in a deep breath. "Then Lisbeth hit him. I hadn't even seen her come in. I still don't know how she did."

Russell nods, listening, glad for her fingers curled through his. He's reached for her mostly to offer her comfort, but he has to admit that having her hand in his is as much a comfort to him. "The elevator shaft, as far as we can tell," he says, because there's no need to keep information for Molly. "But we don't have her statement yet." He's a little worried she'll think they're questioning her because she's in trouble, when it's the furthest thing from the truth.

"When she hit him, was that it?" he asks, knowing it wasn't. There's been talk of a screwdriver and he's seen the bruises on her throat in passing. "And what did she hit him with?" He hasn't seen Bateman's body, but he wants details, not only for the statement, but to satisfy himself, to know for certain the bastard is dead. Eventually, he'll see the body, he'll have to, if only to make himself feel better, but for now it's good enough to hear Molly tell him.

Edited 2013-07-22 14:08 (UTC)

It still doesn't make much sense to Molly, why Lisbeth would have gone to all that trouble to get into Patrick's apartment, how her timing could have been so fucking impeccable. Just a few seconds longer, and she would be the dead one, her and Andrea both. Instead, they somehow managed to escape with their lives, the two of them. For that alone, at least this part of the story is a little easier to tell, no longer directly involving her. She keeps her hand wrapped around Russell's anyway, the reassurance in the touch more than she could say even if this weren't all being recorded. Right now, it's a reminder badly needed that she isn't alone, that she's still here.

"I'm not sure," she says honestly, biting her lip before she can remember not to, drawing in a sharp, shaky breath when it pulls at the stitches there. "I wasn't really... I didn't realize anything had happened until after. I'd kind of already figured that was it, you know?" Though it's the part she was solely a witness to, it's also the part of the night that's the haziest, a few short seconds that managed to save her life. She tries, though, to summon up what detail she can, knowing that this more than any of the rest of it is important to have on record. "But no, that wasn't it. He, um — he got mad. I think he threw the nail gun at her. Then he got up, and he — he was choking her."

Russell nods again, because that makes the most sense. If the blow to the head had been enough to put Patrick down, there would have been no reason to use the screwdriver and that's the part the other cops keep talking about, the little bit of this story that's circulating almost like a rumour. He's got a screwdriver in his head. And although Russell hasn't seen it for himself, he certainly believes it. More than that, he wants it to be true. He wants to know there's a screwdriver in that man's head, that he died in a lot of pain, maybe surprised and angry that she'd gotten the best of him. Russell hopes Bateman's death was hard and cruel and difficult.

"Were they on the bed as well or were they on the floor?" he asks, his thumb rubbing what he hopes are reassuring circles on the back of Molly's hand.

This, Molly thinks, is what she really wanted Russell here for. If she weren't so hurt, she'd try to draw him up onto the bed beside her, curl against his chest, let him hold her while she tells the last of her story, recording be damned. As it is, she isn't sure she could handle that, and she hates it, how wounded she feels, how damaged, so far from her usual self that there's not a thing to be done about it. Rather than dwelling on that, she tries to stay focused on the movement of Russell's thumb against her hand as she continues, the one thing that might be keeping her at all steady.

"The floor," she replies. "It was just a few seconds. His hands were around her throat, and then... she'd put a screwdriver into his head." It's the part after that she remembers more vividly, his body crumpling to the floor like letting out a breath after having been holding one, the blood still on her hands as she called for an ambulance. She doesn't say any of that, though, instead glancing up at Russell with a worried look. "You aren't going to charge her with anything, are you? Lisbeth. She... I swear, I'd be dead if it weren't for her."

"No," he says, shaking his head. He hasn't heard otherwise, but he can't imagine they'd have anything to charge her with, not with two eye witnesses to what happened, not when the entire scene is so obvious to anyone who looks for longer than a few moments. "There's not gonna be any charges laid against anyone." The story would have been much different if Bateman had been left alive, but he's dead. There's no one to charge with him gone when he's the only one who's done anything wrong, as far as Russell's concerned.

"Anything you tell me isn't gonna be used against her," he continues. "You guys... you're all safe now. I don't want you to worry about that." And he knows why she is. He might be a small town cop, but he's had to go into the city for court before and he knows there are women who've been hurt and then turned on by law enforcement and he'll do everything he can to make sure that doesn't happen here.

It hits unexpectedly hard, hearing Russell tell her that she's safe now, that they all are, and for a moment, Molly can't say anything at all, too busy swallowing past the lump in her throat and fending off tears again. How she could have gone from feeling secure to not safe at all in so brief a time is almost beyond her, but he says it and it sounds like something out of reach, almost impossible to attain. There's no way she could be safe when someone she knew, someone she trusted, did this to her, but at the same time, she knows he wouldn't say it if it weren't true. It has to be. If there's anyone she can still count on to see to that, it's Russell.

"I really thought —" she starts, but she chokes on the words, thinking he'll know what she means. It's probably safer to imply than state outright anyway, no matter how skilled she might be at choosing her words carefully, with the recorder still running. She'd thought she was going to die, and it wouldn't have been the first fucking time. "God, if she hadn't come in when she did, I don't know what he would have done next."

They're almost done, but he wishes they were done now, that he could turn the recorder off and let her speak freely about anything she wants. He nods, because he understands, then squeezes her hand again. He just wants to let her talk, but instead, he asks, "Once she used the screwdriver on him, what happened?" If he's following the timeline correctly, he's pretty sure she called the police next, though he isn't sure where the phone came from, if it was Molly's or Lisbeth's or even Bateman's and it seems like a meaningless detail, but he doesn't want to leave anything out, just in case. He doesn't want to have to make her go through this again, even though he knows statements are often taken multiple times.

He really wants to avoid that.

"We're almost finished," he tells her, looking at the recorder. "Just this last bit." And then he can turn it off and it'll be over and she can tell him anything she wants to.

Nodding, Molly shoots him a grateful look, drawing in a shaky breath as she does. As much as she hates how fucking difficult this is, wishes she could just shrug it off and act like everything's fine, the fact remains that it is and she can't, and even such a quiet acknowledgment of that goes a long way. She's always shouldered things by herself, as much because she's had to as because she wouldn't have wanted to admit to needing anything else. This, though, isn't like that. It won't go away, there's no quick fix, and it's more than she can bear on her own. To Russell, she would probably even admit as much. As it is, though, with the recorder still running, she just wants to get to the end, all the more so for how little there is left to tell.

"He fell," she says, soft. "I mean, it — it killed him instantly. And then... Lisbeth gave me her phone, told me to call for help. So I did."

"Okay, good," he says, then reaches for the recorder to turn it off. He takes it, tucking it back into the front pocket of his uniform, then turns back to look at Molly again. "You did a real good job with that. I know how much it sucks." He's had to give countless statements just as a police officer and although he's used to them, they're never fun. He can't imagine how bad it must be as the victim and he's never given it much thought until now.

Now that he knows the person giving the statement so well.

"But that's it. We're done."

He says they're done, and Molly lets out a breath like she's been holding it, her whole body trembling as she does. It does suck, she thinks, he's right about that, but that isn't the only reason why she's so relieved. Mostly, the recorder being off means she doesn't have to try to hold herself together so much anymore. To an extent, she still intends to, too unwilling and too worn out to let herself fall apart completely again, but if there's anyone she doesn't have to pretend around, it's Russell, and at least now, they can drop any need for professionalism.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Russell," she says, the words coming out somewhere between an exhale and a sob, as she looks up at him with wide eyes. "I don't..."