My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Unwanted touching
Gwen Roselovich was a good soldier. She did not give up classified information easily. She protected the man who had given her orders. At least, she was holding up pretty good until Lily Ah Sun suggested having her charged with rape.
"That's what it was, wasn't it, Gwen?" Lily said accusingly. "Rape?!"
Gwen started to cry. Lily went for the kill. Verbally speaking.
"Quinn was knocked out from the painkillers they gave him, wasn't he? And you took advantage of him! When I came in here, you were half on the bed, your skirt hiked up over your fat ass, and you were kissing him, and your hand was down there where it shouldn't have been! Wasn't it, Gwen?!"
She nodded, sobbed something that Lily took as a yes.
"That's rape! Unwanted sexual touching."
Gwen looked hopefully at Quinn, between sobs said, "How do you know he didn't want it?"
"We're colleagues, Gwen," he said softly. "That's all I want it to be. And I'm committed to Lily."
"Oh." Her sobs subsided. Gwen was willing to move on. "OK." She turned to leave.
"Not so fast," Lily said. "What about the papers? The photocopies I, uh, left here."
"I picked them all up."
"And?" Quinn interjected.
"I don't have them any more."
"Where are they?"
Gwen looked away, as if she might find a good answer to his question on the far wall.
Lily got in her face. "Convicted sex criminals have a hard time keeping their jobs at HPD, don't they, Quinn." Not a question.
"Oh, Quinn, I didn't mean to make trouble!" Gwen said, crying and wiping at the makeup that had run and smeared so much it looked more like war paint. After the war.
"Your dad asked me to come by and check on you during my lunch. He was really worried about you, and was I too. I guess I ... I've wanted you for so long ... I just ..."
The thought of Gwen kissing him turned Quinn's stomach. "The photocopies, Gwen? You gave them to my father?"
She nodded, smudged some more mascara around her face.
"Good bye, Gwen," Lily said, opening the door for her. "And stay away. The statute of limitations lasts a long time."
Gwen and Sgt. Mits Ah Sun passed unknowingly in the elevators, Gwen going down to the lobby, Mits coming up. So when he walked into Quinn's room it was a total ambush.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com