Exposure

by Therese Fowler

  There were plenty of things he could do tonight—catch a movie with Rob and some of the other guys, drop in to a party at Brittany Mangum’s, go to Frankie’s Fun Park and waste a few dollars playing old-school video games the way he and his friends sometimes had in his pre-Amelia days. Nothing much appealed, though. Frankie’s was neither cool nor fun to do alone, and any social appearance would mean he’d spend all night fending off questions, some well meaning, some not.

  Fine, then. He’d go back home. Read something. Write something. Whatever.

  16

  HEN THE DOORBELL RANG EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, Amelia barely heard it over the treadmill’s humming motor and the rhythmic thumping of her feet as they pounded the track. She’d logged six miles and was considering a seventh when the sound of Buttercup barking made her slow down, and then, when the barking continued, made her stop.

  Using the towel she’d draped over a rail, she wiped her face, still listening, then grabbed her water bottle and headed upstairs from the basement fitness room. Buttercup continued to bark her frightened warning bark. Amelia started up the steps cautiously, calling, “Momma?” as she went. As she neared the top, she heard her mother saying, “I’m sorry, hang on,” and then the sound of the dog’s nails scrambling on the tile floor as her mother shut Buttercup away, presumably in the conservatory.

  From the top of the steps, Amelia saw a woman in a Wake Forest Police uniform holding a canvas bag and standing to the right and slightly behind a tall man in a blue dress shirt and tan slacks. Both faced away from Amelia, watching her mother latch the conservatory’s wide French doors.

  “I’m so sorry,” her mother was saying as she turned back toward them. “She’s not usually like this, I don’t know what’s got into her.” The words could have applied equally to Buttercup or to Amelia. The dog sat with her nose against one of the glass panels, snuffing and whining and pawing the floor at the door’s base.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “It’s quite understandable.” His deference, genuine as it sounded, unnerved Amelia. What were these people doing here? She backed up a little, her hand gripping the polished rail, and waited.

  The man handed her mother a piece of paper. “Here’s the warrant. We’ll be searching each room and whatever we collect will be bagged and inventoried. If you’d like to just have a seat, we’ll let you know when we’re finished.” Amelia went cold, gooseflesh rising on her arms and neck.

  Her mother looked down at the warrant for a moment, then said, “I don’t—”

  “I think you’ll see that everything is in order,” the man said reassuringly. “We won’t bother anything that isn’t specified.” As he spoke, the woman gazed around the front hall, taking in all the things that were so familiar to Amelia that she never noticed them anymore. The antique chest of drawers that stood outside the conservatory, a piece her mother said had come from an Irish castle and dated back to the eighteenth century; the wide Aubusson rug, in the thickest wool of the creamiest ivory, with a delicate ring of blush roses and greenery in its center, wisps of blush ribbon curling about the ring and stretching into the corners, all bordered by roses and greenery. It was, to Amelia, the Spring Wedding rug, on which she and Cameron had once played Make-believe Bride. The elaborate hickory grandfather clock, hand-carved by her grandfather and her uncle Alan as a wedding gift to her parents twenty years earlier, would seem impressive to new eyes. The conservatory, where Buttercup still whined, and where, in the morning’s accommodating sunshine, the gleaming piano threw light onto that good-little-girl portrait, was an impressive, unusual room.

  “I don’t understand,” her mother said, cupping her elbow with one hand while the other went to her collarbone. “Why on earth are you here for her things? My daughter told the other officers everything there was to tell.”

  “You’ll want to contact an attorney for all the details, ma’am. Our job is to collect the items, and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Her mother’s mouth and brows tightened. “I’m not sure about this.… Won’t you come in and have a seat while I check with my husband? He’s just gone outside to the, to the garage.”

  The pair glanced at each other, then the woman said, “Ms. Wilkes, you’re free to call him in if you like, but this is a search warrant.” She enunciated the two words carefully. “It’s authorized by the court. We’re going to get started now.” With this, the officer walked across the hall and out of Amelia’s sight. The man followed with a brief glance back at her mother, who remained standing near the door.

  Amelia went to her then. “Momma, I heard the police come in.”

  “Oh! Amelia. Yes. They have a search warrant.… Now, where did I leave my phone? I’ll call Daddy.”

  Amelia followed her mother into the parlor, where her mother’s antique maple secretary sat among the plush upholstered furniture and velvet curtains. Although there was, in the mudroom, some sort of electronic panel called a Smart Box, which had the circuits for controlling the lights and home audio and security system, the real domestic control took place here at the maple desk.

  “There it is,” her mother said, going to the desk.

  “Wait.” Amelia rushed to put herself between her mother and the desk. “Don’t. Leave him out there in the stable.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’ll m-make it worse. Please.”

  “He’ll have a fit if this goes on and I don’t tell him.”

  “Momma”—Amelia grabbed her mother’s hands—“for my sake, please, just let them take the things and go. There’s n-nothing he can do anyway.”

  “What are they looking for, Amelia? What did that boy tell them?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, letting go and edging away. “You won’t let me talk to him.”

  Her mother grabbed her shoulder. “The two of you—what else have you done?”

  If not for her mother’s accusatory tone, and the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and the long tradition of saying everything except what was revealing and meaningful, Amelia might have answered her mother’s question candidly. She might have expressed the dread that came from knowing what the investigation would soon uncover. If she’d felt she could truly talk to her mother, she might have suggested that she take cover because soon, and possibly without any further warning, the sky was going to fall.

  17

  HEN HARLAN WILKES WAS ASKED, LATER, TO DESCRIBE HOW he felt that Monday night when the navy and gold Wake Forest Police cruiser arrived unexpectedly, he would struggle to comply. What words could do justice to the feeling that he’d been thrust onto one of those centrifugal motion rides and the bottom had just dropped out? How could he confess to feeling struck—literally slammed, wind knocked out of him—by the thought that Sheri and Amelia had been right, that he had overreacted from the start, and that his doing so had led to this, the arrival of the police to take his daughter to jail? No way could he say that aloud, he could hardly admit the possibility to himself. “I guess I just couldn’t believe it,” he would say. “I guess I hoped that whatever it was about, it was going be in her favor. My daughter is innocent. There was no reason to think they’d arrest her.”

  Before the police’s Saturday visit—a travesty itself, he would say, without mentioning how he’d only learned of it afterward—he’d begun his day by sending off Amelia’s girlfriend, Cameron, and was thinking about whether he should limit Amelia’s access to her, given that Cameron’s phone log showed recent calls to a number that he’d found was Kim Winter’s home listing. He was pretty sure Cameron hadn’t been talking to the teacher. He’d gone out to the garage where he kept his collectibles, thinking about the possibility that the Winter kid had something going on with Cameron separate from Amelia, and if so, he wanted to break the news to Amelia gently.

  He’d been tinkering under the hood of his 1939 Bugatti Type 57C, his “gangster car,” he called it, when the police came to the house with the search warrant. He’d never heard a thing. Not until they’d be
en and gone and he’d come inside for lunch did he know that his daughter had come under investigation. Sheri sat him down after he’d passed Amelia, brooding as she headed for her cottage, and told him what had gone on while he was in the garage. He had been outraged—“Outraged!” he would later say—that no one had come for him or called him in to deal with the detective. If they had? Well, if they had, things might have gone differently—no, no, he couldn’t say how, exactly, but surely he was deserving of a chance to do something. Sheri’s reasoning—that she’d decided his presence would have made it even worse than it was—was no comfort. His own wife acting against his interests, and didn’t that just figure. It amazed him how you could admire and trust and marry a woman, live with her for twenty years, and not know her in the least.

  Sunday had been no picnic either, he’d say. Amelia stayed shut in her room, she would not go to church, she wouldn’t answer his questions, she wouldn’t talk to her mother. Only Buttercup was welcomed. Harlan had felt helpless and confused. He’d gotten in touch with his attorney, who’d promised to get some information, but as best anyone knew, something that was found in Winter’s electronics led to the DA wanting to see what was stored in Amelia’s.

  He’d worked on Monday, as usual, making the rounds, having meetings with his GMs (general managers—no way did he mean GM the brand, wouldn’t touch those cars, that company was a disaster), and then returned home at his usual time, about six thirty. He and Sheri ate dinner, all like usual, though he would admit there was plenty of tension, what with her betrayal on Saturday and the question of the investigation hanging over all of their heads.

  On Monday, he saw the cruiser from the window of his den, right around eight o’clock. Its lights were not flashing. No siren blared. He hadn’t even noticed the car until he saw the headlights swing across the front of the house as it made the first curve of the driveway. And even then, he didn’t expect what they were there for, didn’t suspect it, would not have imagined if he’d lived to be a hundred years old that their mission was to come to his house unannounced—that son of a bitch DA hadn’t even given him a warning—and with a warrant for Amelia’s arrest.

  “Mr. Wilkes,” the officer had said, stepping out of the car. Harlan recognized him as the dark-haired cop from Monday afternoon.

  “Well this is a surprise,” Harlan said, reaching to shake the man’s hand. The handshake was awkward, Harlan noticed, but he’d figured the awkwardness was deference. “I guess you’ve got some new information for me. Liles, he come up with anything more on Winter? I’ll assume that whatever he’s got now just confirmed my girl’s account.”

  The officer cleared his throat. “Sir, is your daughter on the premises?”

  “She is, but my understanding is that she’s not feeling too good. Nothing serious.”

  “Sir,” the officer said, producing a white sheet of paper, “I have here a warrant for her arrest.”

  Harlan took a step backward. “What is this, some sort of joke?”

  “No, sir. Would you like to inform Miss Wilkes that I’ll be taking her downtown?”

  “I would not,” Harlan said. “Explain yourself!”

  “The district attorney’s office has received information implicating Miss Wilkes in a crime. He convened the grand jury earlier today, and they have returned an indictment. Sir,” he said, gesturing toward the house.

  Harlan moved to block the door and pulled his cellphone from its holster. “The chief might have something to say about this,” he growled.

  The officer looked at him passively. “He might, but meantime, I have an arrest warrant which I am required to act on, and I am requesting that you step aside.”

  While Harlan held his phone to his ear and listened as the police chief’s personal line rang and rang and then went to voice mail, his mind raced and his heart did, too, and his breath seemed to hitch up in his chest. He left a brief message, “Harlan Wilkes here. Call me as soon as possible on my personal line,” and then tried a different tactic. He told the officer, “I do not understand what’s going on. My daughter has been home, here, for two weeks. She couldn’t have been involved in any crime.”

  “ ‘G.S. 14-190.17, Second degree sexual exploitation of a minor,’ ” the officer read. “ ‘G.S. 14-190.1, Obscene literature and exhibitions. G.S. 14-190.5, Preparation of obscene photographs.’ These are some of the charges. I suggest you contact an attorney.”

  Harlan’s mind spun with the impossibility of Amelia’s involvement in such things. Sexual exploitation of a minor? Of who? Obscene exhibitions? Something, he was sure, had gotten mixed up. “There’s been a mistake,” he said, still blocking the door. “She was the victim. She’s the minor. Anthony Winter, he’s your perpetrator. You call in and check, you’ll see.”

  “Mr. Winter’s situation is being handled accordingly.” The officer paused, then said, “As I hear it he’ll be facing similar charges, in fact. Now, Mr. Wilkes, I will ask you once more to allow my entry and produce your daughter, or I will call for backup and proceed that way.”

  “God damn it,” Harlan said, almost dizzy with confusion, sickened by his inability to stop the man in front of him from taking his daughter away. “God damn it all.” He pushed the door open, growling, “I’ll get her. Wait here.”

  Kim Winter parked her car in her driveway Monday night, having spent the evening at school working at the annual holiday-gifts fund-raising bazaar. It had been an awkward evening for her, manning the popular student-art booth alone. Parents and grandparents couldn’t avoid her, because that would mean not buying any of the paintings or drawings, the handmade mugs and bowls and plates, the sculptures, the willow baskets, the semiprecious jewelry, all the things their children had spent the fall semester creating with the bazaar in mind. The families were not, however, friendly in their transactions. They were silent, or terse, or in one case blatantly rude. She could see the distaste in their eyes, the realization that, Oh, you’re the one whose son is the sex offender, despite the efforts she’d made to look as professional and upstanding as anyone there.

  The worst of them were the well-preserved grandmothers, with their smooth, salon-quality makeup and long, polished nails and dyed, set, teased hair and brightly colored, perfectly matched tailored outfits, women who appeared to have been airbrushed to perfection before leaving their grand old estate homes. These were the women who, on the arms of smooth-haired, smooth-faced daughters or daughters-in-law looked her way and drawled their “Oh my word!” remarks loudly enough for her to hear them, before approaching her booth and glancing down their noses at her as they shopped. Oh my word!, Kim thought as they milled about the booth, It’s obvious you never had a chance at being foolish in love, and, Oh my word, I’m sure your children were all shining beacons of exemplary behavior. When she knew that, in fact, some of their children—the parents of her students—were in fact far less than exemplary in the ways they cheated on their spouses or their taxes or their business partners, paid tuition months late, served alcohol to minors in their homes, jetted off for vacations (or rehab), leaving teenagers home alone, unsupervised except by dear Grandmama, who called them at least once a day to make sure everything was truly fine.

  Being home, finally, was a relief. She was opening her car door, looking forward to a long hot bath and a glass of Bordeaux with some Petrucciani jazz playing, when a car pulled in behind her. She glanced in her rearview mirror and was startled to see a light bar atop the car. Her side mirror confirmed it: a police car. She hoped she had been speeding, or that her vehicle registration was expired, or, even better, that a taillight was out and the officer was simply going to let her know about it. Please, she thought, let it be something as simple as that.

  She got out of the car and pulled her jacket closed; the night had cooled quickly and there was a damp bite to the air. Inside the cruiser, the police officer looked up, saw her waiting, and nodded an acknowledgment. He typed something into the laptop computer mounted to the dashboard, then put on his h
at and got out of the car. “Ma’am,” he said.

  “Good evening. Is it a taillight?” she asked, walking toward both him and the back of her car. Her heels, the same pair she’d worn on her date with William, clicked on the concrete, a jarring noise she still was not accustomed to making. William had commented on her shoes, or rather the visual effect of them, as they were leaving the restaurant Friday, saying, “You always look feminine and pulled together, but if you don’t mind my noticing this aloud … well, you’ve got great legs.”

  Possibly the officer was noticing, too. He was slow to respond to her question, saying, “Taillight? Oh. No ma’am, I’m here to see Anthony Winter.”

  The hair on her neck rose. “See Anthony? At nine o’clock? What’s going on?”

  “You are …?”

  “I’m his mother. He’s my son,” she added, stupidly stating the obvious. “Haven’t you already—that is, he’s been through a lot lately, and—”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t over yet,” the officer said, not unkindly. “I have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “His arrest,” Kim parroted. “His arrest? That can’t be. I mean, there must be some error. He was already brought in for that, two weeks ago. He was released. He’s got a court date next week.”

  “No mistake.” He showed her a sheet of paper that was marked clearly: WARRANT. She took it and turned so that the streetlight shined on its surface. Even without her reading glasses it was easy enough to make out today’s date and the letters of her son’s name. The officer said, “Is he at home?”

  “I …” Kim paused, surprised at how tempted she was to lie and say he’d gone somewhere, anywhere, for the week. To what end, though? Supposing the police officer believed her and left, what would that accomplish? They’d go looking for him elsewhere, sure, but then she’d have to keep him hidden at home, imprisoned and waiting to be found. And that would mean, what, that she’d be guilty of harboring a fugitive? There should be laws, she thought, protecting mothers who protected their children. She handed him the warrant, then looked toward the house and said, “Probably. His light is on. But can I please ask you what’s going on?”