by John Locke
“I’m investigating a possible molestation.”
“Riley Freeman?”
I decide not to respond.
Roemer says, “Do you have the slightest shred of evidence a crime occurred?”
“That depends on what you call evidence.”
“The courts are quite clear as to what constitutes evidence.”
“I bet thousands of inmates would dispute that claim.”
“Nevertheless, evidence must be credible. And legally obtained.”
I say, “The most common form of evidence is witness testimony, correct?”
“It is,” he says. “Do you have any?”
“Sort of.”
“Then why haven’t you gone to the police?”
“I’m building a case.”
“You’ve been retained by Claire Freeman, Riley’s mother?”
I decide not to answer.
“Reason I’m asking, she doesn’t seem to know anything about it.”
I feel the blood draining from my face. “You told her what happened to Riley?”
“Relax. I simply asked if she had retained you, and she said no. I told her I’d been misinformed, and that was that. Which begs the question, for whom are you working?”
“Truth, justice, and the American way,” I say.
We stare at each other until he says, “How much do you know about libel and slander?”
“In layman’s terms?”
“If you must.”
“I must.”
“Go ahead.”
“Libel is defamation in print or pictures. Slander is oral defamation.”
“Spoken like a true layman”
“But generally true?”
“Here’s a better question,” he says. “Are you prepared to defend yourself in court for defaming the Underhills?”
“I haven’t defamed anyone, yet. Certainly not the Underhills.”
“Guess again.”
“I’ve got a girl who says something may have happened to her. I’m trying to find out if it’s true.”
“So your client is Riley Freeman? A minor?”
“Is there a law against it?”
“Probably. I’ll have to check. More importantly, you just admitted your client doesn’t even know if something happened to her.”
To Kelli I say, “Your bedroom’s on the second floor, right? And the master bedroom’s on the main floor?”
She nods and is about to say something, but her mother squeezes her arm.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say.
Roemer sees me fiddling with my cell phone and says, “What have you got there?”
I hand him my phone and say, “How would you interpret this photo?”
He takes a moment to study the picture of Riley that Rick Hooper sent me. Then he says, “A young lady in her pajamas napping peacefully on a bed at an undisclosed location.”
“That’s what I’d say, too, if I were you. Except that this photo was taken at the Underhill home shortly after midnight last Saturday. It was taken by a boy who entered the Underhill home. A boy who created a nickname for Riley, and spread it throughout the school.”
“What nickname is that?”
“Strawberry.”
“I suppose you’re dying to tell me why?”
“Before going to the sleepover, Riley Freeman, for her own personal reasons, affixed a tiny strawberry sticker east of her labia.”
“East?”
“I’m trying to be delicate.”
“Are you also trying to make a point?”
“I am. Riley told no one about the sticker. Not even her best friend. And yet, the boy who took this photo, and other, more revealing photos, gave her that nickname.”
“So?”
“If he never saw her naked, what made him give her that nickname?”
He shakes his head. “That’s all you’ve got? Maybe she likes strawberries. Maybe she hates them. Maybe she has a red birthmark on her elbow.”
“Her elbow?”
“It could mean anything.”
“What about the photos?”
“Do you have any proof they exist?”
“Just hearsay, at this point.”
He shakes his head again. “Dani, you’ve been hoodwinked.”
“Hoodwinked?”
“Duped,” he says. “Deceived. In layman’s terms, you’ve been tricked.”
“How so?”
“An attorney would argue she did, in fact, tell someone. If, as you say, she was inebriated at the time, who’s to say she didn’t have a short conversation with the person who snapped the picture? And why wouldn’t she tell that person about the strawberry sticker? Meanwhile, you’re publicly discussing the possible molestation of a minor at the Underhill’s home. You’re casting my clients in a criminally negligent light.”
“How much better will the light be when a group of photos surface, proving an underage girl was molested at your client’s home?”
“It’s not going to get that far because we don’t believe these photos exist. But your irresponsible public comments that a crime took place in my clients’ home, under Mrs. Underhill’s personal supervision, has already caused irreparable damage to her reputation and standing in the community.”
“Fancy language aside, what’s your actual threat?”
“Mrs. Underhill, against my strong recommendation to the contrary, is willing to sweep your slanderous, libelous actions aside, provided you immediately cease your investigation.”
“Is that it?”
“No. I’ll require you to sign a statement to the effect you were mistaken in your conclusions, that your investigation focused entirely on the hearsay of children outside the presence of adults, that it was ill-advised, careless, flawed, and that you apologize for your irresponsible and outrageous public remarks.”
“I assume you’ve already drafted the letter?”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
He removes a letter from his valise and says, “This is your lucky day, Ms. Ripper. My client has given you a free pass. A gift.”
“Against your better judgment.”
“That’s right. I have a strong feeling she’ll regret this. Sign at the bottom, please, when you’re ready.”
We stare at each other a minute. Then I say, “Got a pen?”
“I do.”
He hands me a pen, I use it.
He collects the paper and says, “You got off lucky this time, Ms. Ripper. You should go out and buy a lottery ticket.”
I stand.
He looks at my signature and frowns.
As I head for the door I notice Kelli and Lydia checking to see what I wrote on the signature line: Is this some sort of joke?
My entire case hangs on a rumor.
Are nude pictures of Riley floating around in cyberspace?
I hope so.
Wait. That sounds really bad. You know what I mean, right?
What I’m saying, if there are no nude photos, Riley has no case. As Roemer just proved, everything that’s happened can easily be explained away by a competent defense attorney.
Not to mention I could lose my license and have my ass handed to me by a number of attorneys, including Ethan Clark’s father.
What we have here is the absence of photos, which in lawyer-speak means, there was no crime. I mean, I know there was a crime, and I can narrow the suspects to fifteen, if we can agree there were ten boys, a mom, and four girls besides Riley.
Speaking of the mom, Lydia Underhill, could there be a reason her husband, Mitch, is out of town? Could they be separated?
Is Mitch, a possible suspect? Is that why he’s not around?
This is what’s crazy about my job: you have to suspect everyone.
Having said that, my gut feeling on Lydia is she’s a good parent who probably didn’t want Kelli to have a sleepover that night. She probably relented because arguing with Kelli about it wasn’t worth the hassle. As a former teen, this is an ea
sy conclusion to draw. I had a mom, I know the drill.
I also believe Lydia when she says Kelli isn’t the type to steal liquor from her parents, or allow friends to drink in her home, or open the door to boys at such a late hour.
So what factor created these circumstances?
I have no idea. But one possibility is Kelli’s stepdad has moved out.
Maybe he’s run off with his secretary, or perhaps he and Lydia are undergoing a trial separation. Maybe Saturday night Lydia was upset about the situation with her husband, and didn’t feel like having girls in the house. Maybe that’s why she retreated to the bedroom and closed the door.
Lydia strikes me as a responsible parent. I doubt under normal circumstances she’d close herself up in an upstairs bedroom while teenage girls were awake in the house.
Did Lydia go to the room to cry about the current state of her marriage? Did she turn on the TV so no one would hear her crying? Did she close the door so no one would see her drinking?
All these things are possible. Otherwise, how could she not know Parker’s mother arrived at midnight to collect her daughter? How could she not hear ten boys in her house? How could she be completely oblivious that kids were going up and down the back stairs, or that Riley spent the entire night in Kelli’s room, and may have been molested?
And why would Lydia sleep in an upstairs bedroom anyway? The master bedroom’s on the main floor. Could she have moved upstairs because her husband’s gone and she wants to be closer to Kelli?
You probably think I’m making too much out of the fact Mitch has been gone for at least five days. After all, lots of husbands travel, and Mitch has been gone less than a week, as far as I know. But if you could have seen the way Lydia and Kelli looked at each other when I asked about him, and the way Kelli muttered, “Thank God for that” when I mentioned him being out of town, and the way Lydia looked at me yesterday when she asked how I knew her husband—you’d understand why it gives me pause.
Not that any of this matters, because Ethan Clark’s our guy.
I’m sure of it.
I’ve had a lot of “hands on” experience with predators. I’ve spent years evaluating them, following their trails of terror. Ethan Clark’s good-looking, wealthy, has a smooth rap, and his creep factor is off the charts. The way he boldly stared at my chest? I’m not exactly well-endowed, nor was I dressed sexily. I was wearing a nondescript business suit.
Which is why I didn’t describe it to you earlier.
And let’s not forget Ethan’s comment about how many hours he spent searching the internet for nude pictures of me.
Nude pictures?
Does that ring a bell?
And another thing: every predator I’ve ever met or studied had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. During our brief meeting yesterday, Ethan Clark displayed a host of emotions. He was brash, condescending, angry, frightened, arrogant.
Of course all these things and a nickel buys me a nickel’s worth of manure.
I need the photos.
They’re as critical as Monika Lewinsky’s dress. Without the dress, there was no affair.
Am I saying I need a blue dress slathered in semen?
In a way, yes.
Which is why the whole time I was meeting with Mr. Roemer and the Underhills, Dillon was breaking into Kelli’s home, searching her bedroom, photographing every inch of it.
What do we expect to find?
Nothing.
Something.
Everything.
We need any type of evidence that will give credence to, or dispute, Riley’s story.
As I wait for Dillon to answer his phone, Roemer’s words play through my mind.
Evidence must be credible, and legally obtained.
Whatever Dillon finds might be credible, but...
“You’re done?” Dillon says. “The meeting’s over already?”
“It is. What have you found?”
“Nothing. But I took lots of pictures.”
“Can you tell if Mitch Underhill is still living there?”
“To tell you the truth, pasting isn’t the only thing I suck at. I’m even worse at breaking and entering. I’ve only been inside for ten minutes.”
“Well, we tried.”
“I need to get out of here. My car’s a half-mile away.”
“Come straight to the office, okay? I’d like to see what Kelli’s room looks like.”
We’re at my office, looking at pictures of Kelli’s bedroom on my computer screen. Riley’s with us.
“You took these with a cell phone?” Riley says.
Dillon laughs. “No way! Nikon D7000.”
As I flip from one picture to the next, I ask, “Who brought you here today?”
“My mom.”
“She knows you’re meeting me?”
“No, ma’am. She drops me off at the mall. I tell her I’m hanging out with friends. I go in the front, walk out the back. It’s only ten minutes.”
I ask if she was wearing socks Saturday night (Yes). Slippers? (No). Did she pass out with her socks on? (Yes). I ask if she turned down the bedspread. (No). I ask if there’s any way she might have disrobed during the night, and was it possible she woke up for a few minutes when Ethan and Ronnie were in the room with her. (No and no).
I ask if there’s anything she can remember about that night she hasn’t told us, or anything she can think of to help us prove her story.
As expected, she’s got nothing new to add, so I say, “Tell me about Kelli’s relationship with her stepfather, Mitch.”
“She hates him.”
“Why?”
She bites her lip. “I’m not sure.”
The way she says it tells me she absolutely does know.
“It could be important,” I say.
She says nothing.
“Has Mitch moved out of the house?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How long has he been out of town?”
“He left Saturday morning.”
“Any idea when he’s coming back?”
“Saturday, I think.”
“Does he travel often?”
“I’m not sure. We don’t really talk about him.”
“Because?”
“They don’t get along.”
“Does Mitch get along with Lydia?”
“They sleep in separate bedrooms.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“I don’t know. A long time, I think.”
Dillon says, “She doesn’t keep clothes in the guest bedroom. Just an alarm clock and a cell phone charger.”
We come to the end of the photos.
Riley says, “Are the sleeping arrangements important?”
“Probably not,” I say. “I’m just trying to understand their relationship.”
She says, “Lydia sleeps upstairs when he’s out of town. So she can be near Kelli. When Mitch is home, she sleeps in the master bedroom.”
“And Mitch sleeps in the guest bedroom?”
“No. He has his own master bedroom upstairs.”
I look at Dillon.
He says, “There were three bedrooms upstairs. I looked in all of them.”
Riley says, “There’s a fourth one. He keeps it locked.”
Dillon thinks a minute. Then says, “Right. One of the doors was locked. I assumed it was storage.”
“Seriously, Dillon?” I say.
“I was in a rush, Dani. It took me forever to get in the house. You said Kelli’s room was the priority. I barely had time to photograph it, much less break into another room.”
Riley says, “You broke into their house?”
I say, “How did you think we got the pictures?”
“I assumed Mrs. Underhill let you in.”
“She did, in a manner of speaking.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dillon says, “This ought to be interesting.”
I say, “If she had done a better job of securing her home
, Dillon couldn’t have entered. And by not setting the alarm, and refusing to install stronger locks, she may as well have sent him an engraved invitation.”
Riley frowns.
I add, “Is it really breaking and entering if he didn’t go there to steal anything.”
“Yes,” Riley says.
I change the subject and ask, “Why does Mitch keep his bedroom locked?”
“I don’t know, but he doesn’t allow anyone in there. Ever.”
Dillon and I exchange a look.
He shrugs. “Sorry, Dani. I didn’t know.”
I sigh.
“My case isn’t looking very good, is it?” Riley says.
“Honestly? No. We really need the other photos.”
Riley says, “I’m sorry, but I really hope there aren’t any others.”
“I understand,” I say. “But if they did something to you and photographed it, we’d own them.”
We’re quiet a minute, then Riley says, “Do you really think they took other pictures? Because if they did, wouldn’t they be all over the internet?”
“You’d think so. But Ethan’s the son of a lawyer. He and Ronnie probably showed the pictures to the kids in the car, but I expect the only one he shared was the one where you’re passed out.”
“And you said that one doesn’t help us.”
“Well, it’s certainly not worthless. It proves Ethan was in the room with you.”
“But it doesn’t prove I was unconscious at the time.”
“Maybe not. But it might give a judge a reason to pursue the case.”
“But naked pictures would be huge?”
“They would. And Ethan and Ronnie certainly took pictures of you. Rick overheard Nathan tell someone there were a dozen photos. And Nathan came within an inch of sending them to Dillon before denying it.”
Riley says, “If Ethan and Ronnie didn’t share them, how could Nathan have them in the first place?”
Dillon and I look at each other.
He says, “You think all ten guys have the photos and are sitting on them?”
I say, “What I’d give to have Ethan’s phone in my hand for ten minutes.”
Dillon and I look at each other again. Thinking the same thing.
I say, “Riley. Are you guys allowed to have cell phones at school?”
“At school, yes. In class, no.”