Brophy

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

 

Claudia needed someone to talk to. She was at her wits' end. Her best friend had just been violated in the club. The guy she was falling for, she swore was with another bitch in a club that she was at. And to top it off, she just received a voicemail earlier that day, that she didn't even tell Angie about, saying to not come to work on Monday but go straight to the corporal headquarters. Going to corporal was like taking a trip uptown to get a pink slip. Claudia wasn't ready for all this.

After the medics came and had to almost restrain Angie to even get her in the gurney, King almost lost it. He was trying to hold back the whole club from leaving until he found out what happened with Angie. The owner of the club had to come out the back office to start handling the crowd because King was roughing up patrons looking for answers. The owner had to pull him to the side until the police came and then it became a real circus.

Angie had to be escorted out of the club through the back because a media convoy had formed in the front of the club. The owner did not want this kind of publicity and hearing that one of his guards not only knew the victim but was basically now running through his customers busting heads, he had to intervene and put a handle on it. He told King he was dismissed from duty and to let the police handle it. King wasn't trying to hear it and had to be literally taken out in handcuffs and placed in a police cruiser until he could cool down.

Claudia was distraught. Her friend had been victimized in a public club and no one saw shit. Claudia had accidentally been punched by Angie during Angie's mental breakdown after the assault but she didn't want any medical attention. She waved away all the paramedics that tried to check on her saying, 'Just take of my friend. Fuck me. I got the better part of the deal.'

Claudia wanted to ride with Angie in the ambulance to the hospital. But after the media carnival set up outside and the fact it was total chaos trying to maintain the crowd and get Angie out safely, she was told to go to the hospital later. The medics only told Claudia where they were taking her but they knew it would only be a matter of time before those reporters caught wind of where Angie was being held at. After all, they just be going through all the hospital logs until they get a recent entry requesting a rape kit, even the culprit used a pleasure vibrator That was standard procedure in situations like this and reporters knew procedures, better than the damn cops or medics. It was their job to know so Angie only had a few minutes of privacy before her face became the next top story on the evening news.

Claudia, for the simple fact of not doing anything else, went to go look for Lowry through the confusion. She swore she saw him and King did tell her that he did show. Claudia thought she saw him accompanied by another woman. The other woman looked pretty from what Claudia could see from afar. But that could just be the strobe light talking. Everyone also look half decent in the lights of the club. It was when the sunshine hit you and you see what you really dancing with that you realized you've been tricked. It happened to Claudia once before. She met him in a club like this. He looked cute under the club's strobe lights. When she met him the next day for a late brunch, she saw she made a grave mistake. She politely finished the brunch but was ready to leave before the second cup of coffee or the offer for desert arrived. She never made that error again and she would never give a guy her number unless they walked outside and natural light hit him and he was deemed okay by those standards.

Claudia searched the club ignoring the stares she received from the lingering patrons. She didn't see him. He must have been swept into the crowd, she thought.

Damn, she could needed someone right now. She walked outside the club as police started barricading certain sections of the street surrounding the club. Each patron leaving had to give a name and a number. Claudia was sure some of those names were fake and for certain one of them was the one that actually did the deed. Claudia gave a statement to one of the detectives in the Special Victims Unit. Claudia made a reference to the show to the detective and the officer claimed to never have watched the show. Claudia was asked to come down to the station for further questioning but Claudia's head was in a daze. She knew she would have to wait until morning to do that and she still had to go to Corporal so she wasn't really in a funk.