Chapter 4
Ed pulled into a cocktail lounge parking lot and parked behind a delivery truck that was apparently parked for the night. He didn't want the van to be seen if somehow the police connected him with Bynum. Ed took Betty by the arm and led her into the cocktail lounge. It was a Tuesday night and only six others were in the place. There were 3 guys shooting pool in the back, one playing the pinball machine and 2 at the bar. The 2 at the bar were so drunk that, tomorrow morning they wouldn't even remember being out drinking.
Ed went to the bar and ordered a double rum and Coke for Betty and a Budweiser for himself. He didn't want the bartender coming over to the table and remembering Betty tomorrow if her face was on the news. Ed set the rum and Coke in front of Betty and she grabbed it and drank over half of it before she set it back down. Ed saw that her hands were shaking and she had a terrified look in her eyes. Betty drank the last of her rum and Coke. Ed went to the bar and got her another drink. He came back and set it in front of her and she drank half of the second rum and Coke.
"OK, now what is going on between you and Bynum?" ED asked, "Why would he hire me to follow you? He said that you were running around on him. I can't picture you with Bynum."
"I don't even date since..." she stopped and Ed saw that she had tears in her eyes and she started shaking her head slowly.
"Since what?" Ed asked.
Betty just kept shaking her head. She dropped her chin down to her chest.
"Look Betty, I can't help you if you won't open up," Ed said as he took her hand.
She didn't pull her hand away. She took the rum and Coke with her other hand and finished it. Ed got up and ordered another for her and a beer for him. When he set the drink in front of her she just looked at it.
"Look, if you don't open up I'm going to call the detective working on this case," he said, "I used to be a detective and I'm going to be in deep trouble for what I've done this far."
Betty just sat with her head down and said nothing.
"Look, lady," Ed snapped, "either open up or I'm walking and you can sort out your differences with the police on your own."
Betty took a sip of her drink. Ed was hoping that the rum would loosen her tongue a little.
"I work at another company in the building that George worked in and he would talk to me and sometimes sit down with me in the cafeteria at lunch. I work for Spartan, a manufacturer's rep selling industrial machinery. One day George asked me to come to an office party to get to know the people at Horizon. I was a little late getting there and the party was in full swing. George gave me a drink and put his arm over my shoulder and that's the last I remember until the next morning when I woke up naked in bed next to George in a motel. I got out while he was sleeping and avoided him for a couple of weeks after that.
Ed shook his head, "Roofies."
"What's that?" Betty asked.
"It's a drug that will make you do things you wouldn't normally do and you don't remember it the next day," Ed told her.
"That must be what he gave me," she continued with tears running down her cheeks, "About 3 weeks later he called me up to his office. He said that he had some pictures that he was sure that I wouldn't want anyone to see. I went to his office and he had pictures of me doing terrible things with 5 men. All five of them had me and they were laughing at me, in the pictures, while I did those things. After that, he made me have sex with him at his office and in motels and twice he made me sleep with friends of his. That's where I was going tonight, he set up a meeting with a man I don't even know. I stopped at the diner because I had decided not to go to the motel because I knew that this would never end. I was going to go home and trying to figure out how I could get out of this mess. I figured I might just disappear and go back to Iowa."
"Why didn't you go to the police?" Ed asked, "That's rape."
Betty looked down at her hands, "I knew something had happened to me but I thought that maybe I had gotten drunk and had gone with George willingly. I didn't know about the other men until George showed me the pictures. My father is a fundamentalist minister in Iowa and he had open-heart surgery last year. His health is very fragile. George told me that if I told anyone or didn't do what he said, that he would make sure that every one of my father's parishioners had a copy of the pictures. That would kill my father."
Ed noticed that Betty's glass was empty and she was getting glassy eyed. Ed knew that she would have trouble sleeping tonight. He got up and ordered another rum and Coke. Betty took a while to drink this one. Both of them were silent for a few minutes. Ed waiting for Betty to tell him everything and Betty wanted to disappear off the face of the earth.
Ed broke the silence between them, "Do you have any relatives or close friends that you could stay with?"
Betty shook her head. The rum was having an effect on her now and her thinking was getting fuzzy. He knew that any further questioning would be worthless. Ed got up and held out his hand to help her out of the booth. He held her arm and led her out to the van. Ed helped Betty into the van and walked around to the driver's side, got in and started the engine. He headed the van toward his apartment.