A Good Killing

by Allison Leotta

  Anna blinked. “This is Judge Upperthwaite’s wife.”

  Jody looked up in surprise. “Judge Upperthwaite’s wife was Coach Fowler’s partner in this FirstDown company?”

  Cooper nodded. “Looks like it.”

  35

  Judge Upperthwaite shouldn’t be sitting on Jody’s case. His wife had been in business with the murder victim. Their families were financially intertwined. The judge should recuse himself.

  But Anna was hesitant to file a recusal motion. It would suggest he was so tied up with the parties, personally, that he couldn’t be a fair arbiter of the case. No judge—no person—wanted to think that way about himself. And Judge Upperthwaite would be the one to make the decision. He would be offended, and if he denied the motion, she’d still be stuck with him for the rest of the trial.

  She considered going to talk to Lena Hoffmeister but dismissed the idea. It would infuriate the judge.

  While she mulled the recusal issue, Anna moved for some ­advance-of-trial subpoenas, which would allow her to see the coach’s financial information sooner than the first day of trial. The judge denied them all, without giving a reason.

  After that, she decided to ask the judge to recuse himself. Jody deserved a judge whose family finances weren’t intertwined with the dead man’s. If Judge Upperthwaite denied the motion, at least Anna would have preserved the issue for an appeal. If—she hated to think about this, but she had to—Jody was convicted, Anna would need all the appellate arguments she could get.

  She wrote a motion explaining that Lena Upperthwaite and Owen Fowler had been partners in FirstDown. She cited the leading cases on judicial conflict of interest, attached a copy of the articles of incorporation, and filed it.

  Two days later, she got back a one-sentence order from the judge, summarily denying her motion. No reasons were given.

  • • •

  A week later, Anna found a large yellow envelope stuck in between the wooden door and the screen door of Jody’s house. She picked it up. Anna Curtis was handwritten on the front. There was no stamp, address, or return label.

  Anna took the envelope to the kitchen table. She grabbed a steak knife and sliced it open, cutting her finger in the process. “Ouch!” Blood dripped onto the yellow envelope.

  Anna went to the bathroom and searched the medicine cabinet for a Band-Aid. It was so quiet and lonely in Jody’s house. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she already would’ve passed two detectives talking about swabbing her for DNA. After her finger was bandaged, she returned to the kitchen and opened the envelope more carefully this time. Five pieces of paper slid out: five police reports. There was no note saying who’d left the envelope or why. Whoever left it wanted to remain anonymous.

  The first document was a police report from 1999, similar to the witness statement from Jody’s report. Short, simple, and to the point:

  CW: Deana Dominguez, DOB: 1/21/85

  S-1: Owen Fowler, DOB: 3/17/64

  Date of report: 7/5/99

  Witness Statement: CW reports that S-1 engaged in vaginal intercourse with her while in his car, in the 1500 block of Otis Place at approximately 23:00 on 7/1/99. CW does not wish to press charges.

  Anna looked up. Coach Fowler had sexually assaulted another girl, years before he assaulted Jody. Anna considered it a sexual assault, although she had no clue how it happened. He had been thirty-five; the girl had been fourteen. That was statutory rape, whether or not the child “consented.”

  She looked at the next piece of paper. It was a similar report from a thirteen-year-old girl, in 2006, who had sex with the coach in his car. The third file was a fifteen-year-old girl, in 2009, almost verbatim to the 2006 event. A fourteen-year-old girl reported in 2011; she had the distinction of sex in the coach’s office in the school, as opposed to his car.

  Coach Fowler was a serial rapist. And a pedophile.

  And somebody, anonymously, wanted Anna to know it.

  According to the reports, none of the girls wanted to press charges. Maybe the girls had all felt allegiance to him; they might’ve even thought he was their boyfriend. But it begged the question of why they had all gone to the police. It also made Anna wonder how many other “consenting” children might not have made a report.

  Anna heard a soft squeaking noise and realized she was clenching her teeth. She forced her jaw to relax, then realized that her fists were clenched too. Her entire body was clenched. She saw exploitation and abuses of trust again and again as a sex-crimes prosecutor, and it always angered her. But this was a man she had known and trusted—and he was preying on girls like her own sister. It felt like a very personal betrayal.

  Anna looked at the last page, a case from just a few months earlier, in March of 2014. She skimmed the witness statement, which had similar text to the others:

  CW’s mother claims that S-1 had sex with her in his car, on 3/7/14 at approximately 01:00. CW is uncooperative and refuses to give a statement.

  Anna looked at the girl’s name and inhaled sharply. It was Hayley Mack—Kathy’s daughter.

  36

  The MotorCity Casino was the most glamorous new building in Detroit. It featured musical acts, luxury restaurants, and hip nightclubs. With its attached parking garage and highly visible security guards, it was a glass-and-neon fortress, and thus one of the few places in Detroit to which suburbanites would venture. They could drive in, party, and drive out, without ever setting foot on an actual piece of city pavement.

  When Anna and Cooper walked in, the casino was throbbing with a Friday night crowd. Colorful lights and chrome accents made the interior feel like a refurbished ’57 Chevy on acid. Shiny motorcycles and pieces of classic cars were scattered about. The air thrummed with the clinking of slot machines and the calls of gamblers ordering free drinks.

  Not everyone looked like they could afford the festivities. At the slot machines, old ladies pulled the handles down so regularly, they could have been working on an assembly line. A guy with gray skin clutched an oxygen tank as he played craps.

  The blackjack area held an acre-long sprawl of bright green tabletops. The ten-dollar-minimum tables were filled with packs of giggling sorority girls, there to have fun and flirt. The hard-core players chain-smoked and focused on the action at the table. It was the only place Anna had seen in years where smoking was allowed indoors.

  Kathy Mack was dealing cards at a table with a hundred-dollar minimum. Her uniform was a white button-down shirt and black bow tie, which helped camouflage how painfully thin she’d gotten. Her long dark hair and full red lips helped offset the uniform’s androgyny.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling at players who tipped her.

  Kathy fed the chips into a hole in the table and looked up. When she saw Anna and Cooper standing there, her smile became genuine. She turned to the center of the blackjack corral.

  “Break!” she called.

  A supervisor came over, checked her cards, and called in another dealer. The players moaned. “She’s my good luck charm!” said a man who’d just tipped her.

  Kathy nodded at them as she got up. “Good luck, gentlemen.” She came around the table and gave Anna a hug. “Good to see you. Are you here to play?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Anna said softly. “About Hayley.”

  Kathy’s smile faded, but she nodded. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  She led them to a restaurant called Iridescence. A live band played covers of Motown in front of a three-story wall of glass looking out over the city. In the darkness, the metropolis was a pretty cross-hatch of lights on a black background. You could sit here and feel cosmopolitan, at least in the nighttime, when you couldn’t see the broken cement and burned-out buildings.

  They sat at a tall table in the bar. Anna pushed Hayley’s police report across the table. Kathy picked up the paper and read it. She shook her head with disgust
.

  “This is all that the police put in the report? Those assholes. How did you get this?”

  “Someone left it on Jody’s doorstep. Can you tell me what happened to Hayley?”

  A waiter came over to take their order. Kathy said, “I can’t drink while I’m working. But you should try their double martini, dirty, with extra olives.”

  “A double martini, dirty, with extra olives,” Cooper told the waiter. Anna held up two fingers.

  “How much do you know?” Kathy asked.

  “I heard she was teased online,” Anna said. “I have no idea how the coach came into the picture.”

  Kathy pulled out a pack of Camel Lights and tapped one from the pack. Cooper picked up a box of matches from the ashtray on the table and struck one to light the cigarette. She inhaled and nodded her thanks.

  “Hayley was a volleyball player. Pretty good at it. I guess he ‘mentored’ her. He told her if she ever had a problem at a party or needed a ride, she should call him. One night, she went to that horrible party, drank too much, and passed out. When she came to, the kids were all laughing at her and she had writing all over her face. She didn’t know exactly what had been done to her. She called Coach Fowler to rescue her. I wish she’d called me. But she was afraid she’d be in trouble if I found out she’d been drinking. Anyway, he picked her up. But he didn’t drive her home. He drove her off to some secluded dirt road. He raped her.”

  The waiter returned and set down their drinks. Both Anna and Cooper pushed their martinis toward Kathy. She stubbed out her cigarette, picked up a drink, and took a long swallow. Her lipstick left a dark red stain on the rim.

  “How did you find out?” Anna asked.

  “She moped around the next day. At first, I thought it was typical teenage sullenness. Then she moped the next day. Then she came home ‘sick’ from school on Monday and refused to go on Tuesday. She still wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I heard about it from a waitress here, whose son goes to the school. The kids at school were calling her—” Kathy’s voice broke. She drained the first martini and reached for the second one. “Terrible names. I went home and talked to Hayley. It wasn’t easy. But she finally came out with it.

  “I marched her into the police station. God help me. The whole city’s stacked in favor of Owen Fowler, the police most of all. I should have known better. Hayley wouldn’t talk, so I told them her story. The police said they’d look into it. Couple days later, I get a call. They’re declining the case. No evidence that the coach did anything to her.

  “Those kids used her like she was a toy to be played with and thrown away. And then the coach came—and just took his own turn. The police helped him cover it up.”

  Kathy’s face was hard as stone. She tipped back the second martini.

  “Did she get a rape kit done?” Anna asked.

  Kathy shook her head. “The police said too much time had passed. They made it sound like it was all Hayley’s fault, for not reporting earlier. For drinking. For wearing a tight top. For not fighting the coach harder. She became depressed. She didn’t want to go to school. I let her stay home for a week. Every day, she was sobbing. Then that stopped, and she was quiet. I thought that was a sign that things were getting better.

  “I went back to work the next Saturday. I didn’t hear from her that day. When I came home, it was quiet in the house. I went from room to room, calling her name, the dread growing with each step. I found her in the tub. The water was bright red. And my baby was lying in it.”

  Kathy stared straight ahead dry-eyed. She wore the expression of a woman who has already cried so many tears, she was out.

  “Oh God, Kathy. I’m so sorry.” Anna’s words felt ridiculously insignificant.

  “Hayley thought of the coach like a father. The football players were pricks and what they did hurt. But it was the coach who tore her heart out,” Kathy said. “That was my fault. I was always working, and coming home exhausted. I wasn’t there for her, not enough. If I’d been there more, she wouldn’t have needed another parent.”

  “What choice did you have?” Cooper said. “You were working to support her. You were raising her on your own. You did everything for her. You were a great mother.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I failed. There’s no question about that. I failed and now she’s gone.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go. My break’s only fifteen minutes.”

  “Kathy,” Anna said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  What could she do? Take over a casserole?

  “Here’s what you can do,” Kathy said, standing. “Get your sister off. That son of a bitch deserved worse than he got.”

  When a waiter came by, Anna ordered another dirty martini—for herself. It tasted like olive-flavored fire. Anna coughed and took another sip.

  The alcohol burned a trail down to her stomach, sending up a sort of smoke that obscured the terrible images in her head. She began to understand why so many women in Holly Grove drank so much.

  “So this is your life as a prosecutor,” he said. “Listening to everyone’s saddest story. And then you come home to Michigan and, just for a break, you do the same thing. Take a minute off. You need it. Dance with me.”

  Anna glanced down at his missing leg.

  “I used to have two left feet,” he said, “but now that I’ve only got one, I’m a great dancer.”

  She smiled and nodded. The band was playing a cover of “Tracks of My Tears.” He took her hand and led her to the dance floor. His arms slipped easily around her. It felt good to lean against him.

  “Who listens to your sad story?” he asked.

  “Jody,” she said.

  Cooper really was a good dancer, holding her close enough that her body skimmed his, but gently enough that she didn’t feel trapped. His movement was smooth; the prosthetic leg didn’t matter. His arms were strong and steady. It was a relief to hold someone, sway together, and let the music wash over them. The wall of glass encircled the dance floor, providing a view of the lights flickering in the dark city. She leaned into him and let her nose almost graze his neck, inhaling the clean, woodsy scent of him. Anna became electrically aware of Cooper’s hand on the small of her back. She could feel the warmth radiating from his skin.

  The song changed to “Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Anna shifted backward, getting ready to leave the dance floor. But Cooper kept his arm around her back and moved into the slightly faster rhythm. She relaxed and fell into step with him again.

  He lifted her hand and looked at the bandage on her finger. “What happened here?”

  “I cut myself opening a package.”

  He lifted her finger to his mouth and kissed it. A flush of heat spread through her hand, up her arm, and down to her belly. She inhaled and looked up at his face. His lips curved into a smile. She imagined how his mouth would feel on hers. She remembered how Jack’s felt.

  “Coop,” she said. “Here’s my sad story. I was engaged. We called it off. I’m . . . not over it. I’m no good for anybody right now.”

  “Then just dance with me.”

  Among all the flash and dazzle of the casino, his blue eyes shone steady and true. She nodded, fit her chin into the crook of his shoulder, and danced with him.

  37

  When you came home for Christmas break in 2004, you asked me why I was so quiet. I never could tell you. I never told anyone at school, either. I didn’t want to. I just wanted things to be normal.

  Of course, they weren’t. I quit the track team, although quit is too active a verb for what I did. I just stopped showing up to practice. I withdrew from my friends too. Everyone talked about hooking up and parties. I couldn’t stand that stuff anymore. I didn’t want anyone to touch me. It was years before I allowed myself to be alone with a man again.

  The football team won the Division 1 Championship that year. The
whole town celebrated, it seemed, except me. They were still celebrating at Christmas break, and you wanted me to come to some parties with you. I wouldn’t—and so you stayed home with me, eating Phish Food and watching Law & Order marathons. You were a good sister, so stop being so worried that I didn’t tell you. There was nothing you could’ve done anyhow.

  I know you’re hurt that I never told you before. Please, Annie, know that it wasn’t about you—it was about me. And I’m sorry. I should have told you. Sisters are each other’s witnesses. You’re the one person who’s known me my entire life. You’ve seen me at my best and at my worst. You’re the one person I know I’ll still be telling my secrets to when I’m ninety—if I have any secrets worth telling at that point.

  But that winter, I just wanted to forget it.

  I tried to smile as much as I could when you were home but, I’m sorry to tell you this, it was a relief when you finally went back to college. I could just relax into my depression.

  Things were never better for Coach Fowler, though! That was his third state championship; he was a mini Bo Schembechler. You remember that ad he did for Bronner’s?

  And his summer sports camp went big-time. Parents from Bloomfield Hills to Gross Pointe were lining up to get their little quarterbacks into his Holly Grove football camp. His rates went through the roof, and still he had a waiting list. He made a fortune.

  Despite the long waiting list, he always kept the charity part of his sports camp, the piece that served “underprivileged” children. He got so many kudos for that. But you know why he did it, right? Not because he was some great humanitarian. No. Poor kids are easy prey. The more vulnerable the girl, the less likely she was to tell her parents, and the less likely the police were to believe her. Predators have a well-honed radar for vulnerability, don’t they? Coach Fowler’s radar must’ve been screeching when he first saw me: lonely, dreamy, scarred.