The young woman stirs her coffee, looking deep into the mug, as if she’ll find her fortune there. It helps avoid eye contact with the cop sitting across the table.
Quietly taking a sip, Lewis waits, patiently. She’s seen this before, knows not to push. “This is good, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” the young woman shrugs. “Sorry about your partner. It’s just, just …”
Lewis nods. “That he’s a man.”
“Yes.” Eve Brooks looks at Lewis gratefully. “I can’t have any men here. It’s just too dangerous in this rape culture. Safer.” She looks at Lewis. “You’re here about that pig Neil, aren’t you?”
This time it’s Lewis who looks away. “We’re conducting an investigation. If there’s anything you can tell me, it will be appreciated.”
“You won’t do anything.” Miss Brooks shakes her head. “Nobody ever does.”
“Look, I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”
Brooks laughs mirthlessly. “Even if I tell you everything you won’t be able to help. Not in this world. This culture.”
Lewis says, “I’ll do what I can. That’s all I can promise.”
Brooks shakes her head again. “People say it’s stupid and I’m over reacting. It was in an elevator full of people. He … he … was rubbing against me …”
Lewis is startled as Eve Brooks abruptly pushes her chair back with such force it overturns. Even so the woman barely makes it to the sink in time to heaves up the contents of her stomach. Lewis rights the chair, then returns to her own, carefully looking away, trying to offer what little privacy she can. Eve Brooks finishes, then washes everything down the drain before rinsing her mouth out with the clean running tap water. She remains at the counter, leaning over the sink.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” says Lewis, looking at the witness, she sees white knuckles gripping the lip of the sink for support.
“I’d better stay here.”
“Whatever you want.”
“Um. Look, I tell you, and then you go. Okay?”
Detective Lewis nods. “Alright. Can I call you later?”
“If you want. Just you won’t want. What happened. Well. We were packed in the elevator like sardines, and I didn’t realize. I mean I didn’t notice him at first, and I didn’t realize what was happening. I thought it was just so crowded. People couldn’t really help it we were all so close together. I thought we were just pushed against each other.
“But then … then I could feel his breath on my neck, hear him grunting.
“And I knew. But … but I was trapped in the back. And I could feel him rubbing … rubbing his penis against me, and I started having a panic attack but I was trapped. The elevator kept going and he kept pushing into me and … and … there was no air.”
She stops to throw up some more and Lewis feels a cold chill as she realizes the young woman is right. No prosecutor will ever bring charges over a “she says he says” in an elevator.
Even if they believe her, the bastard will walk because she didn’t say anything to stop him at the time. But the signs are there; Lewis knows. Eve Brooks was already a rape victim before that pig Neil Molony dry raped her in an elevator full of people.
