Date Rape New York Read Free Page B

whispered. 
    Stanley nodded his approval. “Sophia, get Miss Conti to fill that jar with urine and make her put the jar in her handbag with her own hands.” He picked up the paper bags. “I’ll drive my car around to the hotel entrance. In this snowstorm, you’ll never find a taxi.”

 
    Chapter 3
     
    The entrance to Beth Israel Medical Center Emergency Room was up a heavily salted ramp on Seventeenth Street just off First Avenue. A big-bellied security guard directed them to a reception window where a cheerful young man sat behind thick glass.
    “Drugged and raped,” Sophia said into the microphone. “Last night. She can’t remember anything.”
    “Insurance and major credit card, please.”
    Grazia’s body seemed to have floated upwards. She was looking down at Sophia, who was talking into the microphone. Grazia could remember Sophia helping her get dressed and stagger to the hotel elevator. The doorman had virtually carried her to Stanley’s waiting car. Below her, the reception clerk’s metallic voice was fading in and out. “It’s foreign insurance. She will have to put everything on her credit card and contact her insurer to reimburse her.”
    Grazia felt Sophia take her arm and pull her towards some glass doors. Unfortunately, her legs weren’t obeying. She lurched and stumbled. The doors parted and closed behind her. A dark wall in front of her turned into blue-uniformed policemen with nightsticks and holstered guns. Frightened, she tried to retreat, but a pen appeared between her fingers. She watched them scribble her name. Now came a hallway of white curtains. A heavy, strong voice penetrated the fog.
    “You’re not with us, are you, honey? From your eyes, you’re drugged to the gills. Let’s get you up on this exam table. Hang on to your friend. Are you dizzy?”
    Grazia was observing the curtained room slowly revolving around her.
    “Is this your urine?” the voice demanded.
    Grazia focused on the nurse, a heavy black woman wearing blue hospital scrubs, with short-cropped hair, gold stud earrings, a relaxed voice, and an easy smile. She had perched her big hip on the exam table.
    “I’m Janine. Sexual assault nurse examiner. SANE. You urinated into this jar this morning, Grazia?”
    “Yes.” This Grazia definitely remembered. Sophia had braced her on the toilet while the bathroom swung around her and warm urine flooded her hand and the jar.
    “You put the jar in your handbag yourself?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m making out what we call a chain-of-custody receipt. It says this is your urine, you carried it here, and you gave it to me personally. Sign here. It goes in your hospital record as evidence if the lab finds a drug in it.” The nurse placed a clipboard in Grazia’s hands and slid a pen between her fingers.
    Grazia struggled to retrieve her dignity. “I’m a lawyer. I know about evidence.”
    “Your friend tells me you woke up this morning in your hotel room and don’t remember anything about last night. How do you know you had sex?”
    The word ‘sex’ jolted her into alertness. “I wasn’t wearing pajamas. I sat down on the side of the bathtub. Then I knew.” 
    “Sore?”
    “Sticky and bloody.” That detail brought a wave of nausea. She closed her eyes. “I’m going to be sick.”
    A plastic bowl appeared between her hands. She vomited. The bowl was replaced by a clean one. Grazia dropped her head onto Sophia’s shoulder. Through a haze, she felt Sophia ease off her coat and lift the back of her shirt.
    “Any other bruises than these on your back, Grazia?” asked the nurse.
    “Arms,” she sighed, lifting them for inspection.
    “Last night, were you were drinking alcohol? Wine? Mixed drinks?”
    “I only drink one glass of white wine. Or else I get sick.”
    “Honey, it sounds like either you drank more than your one-glass limit or somebody drugged your drink. If that person then had sex with you, that makes it rape facilitated by drugs.” 
    Stanley had