Yesterday's News

answers, barely stuck in my mind.”
    When I didn’t reply, Mo said, “What I’m saying is, you don’t owe me anything on this. You want to take her case, you take it. You don’t, no offense on my part.”
    I got up. “Thanks, Mo. ”
    Reaching the door, I heard him punch in a telephone number and say, “Parking Bureau? Listen, we gotta talk here.”

    Walking back to the condo, I averted my eyes from the traitorous, but still empty, parking space. Upstairs, I showered and shaved for the second time that day, the face protesting that it was too soon to be scraped again. I used styptic pencil to stanch the blood, and aftershave to wipe off the white, powdery residue. Pulling on a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and Reebok sport shorts for Nancy , I decanted a bottle of red wine and chopped some fresh spinach, proscuitini, and cheddar cheese into a simple salad.
    The downstairs buzzer sounded. From the staircase, I could see her through the second of two glass-paneled doors. Lustrous black hair, charcoal suit, white ruffled blouse still looking fresh after a tough day litigating for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office downtown.
    I opened the door, and the hand that wasn’t carrying her briefcase came out from behind her back. A mixed bouquet of flowers.
    “Pity I just pawned the Ming vase.”
    She went up on her toes to kiss me. “Only a Holy Cross grad would consider putting flowers in a Ming vase.” The kiss was sweet, a combination of nature and wintergreen Tic Tac.
    “Let’s continue this upstairs.”
    Nancy followed me. “Your buzzer system broken?”
    “No. After the nurse was raped and murdered on Commonwealth, we disconnected the door latch part of it.”
    “Welcome to Back Bay .”
    “Sorry.”
    “I’m sorry, too. It’s just been that kind of day.”
    At the apartment door, I motioned for Nancy to step past me over the threshold. “Well, what do you think?”
    She moved her head slowly around the apartment, taking in the polished oak-front fireplace, the lavender windows, and the Scandinavian Design furnishings. “I knew I should have gone to medical school.” Nudging her toward the couch, I went to the kitchen. “Wine or hard stuff?”
    “What’s the wine?”
    “Robert Mondavi, 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon.”
    “You’re impressing me.”
    “Wait’ll you see the receipt for the entree.”
    “Maybe half a glass of the wine, John.”
    I poured us both the same amount and carried the carafe and long-stemmed crystal on a Fanueil Hall Memorial tray.
    Nancy smiled up at me. “After the day I’ve had, this is really wonderful.”
    Putting the tray on the coffee table, I said, “Want to tell me about it?”
    The smile faded. “Only briefly.”
    “Only briefly” stretched into forty minutes and a second round of wine. Three guys in a local rock band fancied a cocktail waitress during a gig at one of the student madhouses in Allston. She didn’t return quite the groupie fascination they’d come to expect, so they waited for her in their van afterward. Four hours later, they dumped her behind a boarded-up building in the Combat Zone.
    Nancy said, “It was her mother made her go to the police the next day. Fortunately, she drew an officer who cared, and he triggered the Rape Unit.”
    “Any physical evidence left?”
    “Yes and no. The victim had bathed and douched herself for a couple of hours, which pretty well eliminated the semen and hair possibilities. But there were plenty of bruises, and a bartender who corroborates her story of the guys hitting on her beforehand.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “I just finished my direct of the bartender. Tomorrow, they’ll cross him, then probably put their own clients on the stand.”
    “That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”
    “In most criminal cases, yes. But not in rape. Especially not in group rapes like this one. These guys aren’t contesting that she was in the van and had intercourse with them. In fact, they bragged about it to their manager afterward. No, they’re claiming consent, but they lost their motion to have her prior sexual behavior come in as an exception to the rape shield statute, so it pretty well leaves their word against hers and her physical condition, backed up by photographs at the district station the next day.”
    “They have any priors?”
    “No. Which makes them a lot harder to impeach. But I was watching them while we impaneled the jury. They’re cocky, probably figuring the publicity they’re