Anna realized why Susie had been glancing at her watch. She wondered if Wyatt was going to blow her off. Meanwhile, she ate one of the best breakfasts of her life. The men were mostly quiet, scarfing down their food, but Susie was animated and talkative. “This is my favorite part of the week,” she told Anna. “Surrounded by all my boys. And now you! It’s wonderful.”
“These eggs are great,” Anna said.
“Laid this morning,” Susie said.
She asked Anna about her life and plans.
“Well, I live in D.C. and my job is there too,” Anna explained. “I was just here in Michigan to help my sister. And now, I guess, I should be gearing up to go back. But my office hasn’t insisted yet, and I’ve been doing my work remotely, keeping my head down and hoping no one will notice for a while. Until yesterday, it was working.”
“I hope you make it work as long as possible. I haven’t seen Cooper this happy since he left for the army.”
“Mom.” Zane elbowed Susie. “You’re embarrassing him.”
“Well, so what.” Susie swatted in Cooper’s general direction. “She should know.”
Cooper refilled Anna’s coffee and said, “She does.”
Anna smiled at him. “I did know. But it’s nice to hear from his mom. Thanks, Susie.”
“Thank you.” His mother beamed. “Nothing makes a mother happier than seeing her child happy.”
Anna blushed and looked down at her plate. She appreciated the vote of confidence, but felt the pressure of not just Cooper’s happiness but his mom’s too. She wasn’t supposed to be his happily ever after. She was just supposed to be a friend with benefits. That was not something she wanted to mention to his mom.
In the pause, she heard the sound of the front door opening, and footsteps coming into the house. Susie exclaimed, “Wyatt!” She got up and met her youngest son in the kitchen doorway with a hug. “Look at you! So handsome.”
Anna glanced over at the young man, whom she’d last seen kneeling under a Ping-Pong table. Wyatt was ten years younger than Cooper, but he was obviously a Bolden, with the family’s signature dark hair, tall height, and crooked smile. What separated Cooper and Wyatt now were wardrobe and attitude. Wyatt wore khakis, boat shoes, and a polo shirt that looked like a foreign costume in the farm kitchen. But the biggest difference was in their eyes. While Cooper’s were clear and honest, Wyatt’s were guarded and wary, shifting away from Anna’s gaze to look anywhere else.
Wyatt shook her hand while looking at something over her shoulder. He slipped past her and took his seat at the table. “Hey, guys,” he murmured as he piled his plate with cold eggs and bacon.
“You’re late,” his father said.
“Sorry.” Wyatt took a bite of bacon.
“It’s disrespectful to your mother.”
“Oh, Craig, it’s fine,” Susie said. “Just be glad Wyatt comes home some Sundays at all. He’s busy studying, pledging. How is that going, honey?”
Wyatt shrugged. “Okay.”
“When does it end?”
“This is Hell Week. I shouldn’t even be here. I’m supposed to be at the house. But everyone is even more hungover than I am, so I’m hoping they won’t notice. At the end of Hell Week, they’ll decide if I’m in.”
“I’m so glad this will end soon. It’s been hard on you.”
Bryce and Zane stood and cleared their plates. “You wanna give us a hand with the bales when you finish?” Bryce asked Wyatt.
Wyatt shook his head and took a slice of French toast. “Not dressed for it.”
“Okay, Princess.” Zane gave his brother a cupped-hand Miss America wave.
Wyatt smiled. “Fuck off.”
“Language!” said Susie.
After Wyatt was finished, Anna and Cooper helped clear the table. Then Cooper said, “Can I have a sec with you, Wyatt?”
Wyatt shrugged, which seemed to be his default gesture, and followed Cooper into a sunroom with a long view of snowy fields. Anna came in and closed the door. Wyatt leaned against a sideboard and waited.
Cooper said, “I need your help. Actually, Anna does. She’s a prosecutor, and she’s looking into the disappearance of Emily Shapiro. She thinks Beta Psi might be involved in some way. She’s hoping you can show her around.”
Wyatt nodded and glanced Anna’s way. “I saw Anna last night. She can talk to the leadership if she wants to stop by the house again.”
“The leadership won’t let me in,” Anna said. “And I don’t have enough evidence for a warrant. But if I were an invited guest, I could take a look around without one. Any member can invite me in.”
Wyatt shook his head. “There’s no way. I’m just a pledge. I can’t do that.”
“You have full authority under the law,” Anna said.
“This has got nothing to do with the law,” Wyatt said. “The brothers would not approve.”
“You realize,” Cooper said slowly, “they’re not really your ‘brothers.’ ”
“Not yet,” Wyatt said. “But after Hell Week they will be.”
“You just met them.”
“They’ll be on my side the rest of my life. They’ll be my business partners, my network, the guys who’ll stand up for me at my wedding.”
“You have three brothers. Me, Zane, and Bryce,” Cooper said. “You need to rethink your priorities.”
“I have,” Wyatt said. “I don’t want your life, tilling through biohazard in the middle of Detroit. I don’t want Dad’s life, toiling away in the dirt. I want out, and Beta Psi is the way.”
“There’s a missing girl,” Cooper said, his voice rising. “You’re going to have to live with what you do now for the rest of your life. Every morning you wake up. Every night you try to go to sleep.”
“I’m not a bad guy. But I’m no superhero, either.” Wyatt shrugged. “I didn’t sign up to be the breaker of cases. I’m not willing to lose my leg for my country. Or for anything, frankly. There’s a federal investigator on it.” He pointed to Anna. “Let her do her job. I’ve got nothing to do with this. Don’t try to make me the middleman.”
“I’m asking you to be a human being.”
Anna saw the fury in Cooper’s eyes. She put her hand on his arm and spoke quietly to Wyatt.
“You don’t need to be a hero,” she said. “Maybe you could just slip me into the house and show me around for a few minutes? Quietly. What I’d like to see are the rooms below the Crypt. The Underground?”
“Ha.” He laughed in her face. “You think you can just slip in without anyone noticing? There’s like forty guys living there. Plus, there’s no way you can get into the Underground.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t even been there. Pledges aren’t allowed.”
“How come?”
“That’s where all the secret stuff is, I guess.”
“Do you know what kind of secret stuff?”
“It wouldn’t be much of a secret then, would it?”
“Look, Wyatt,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt your chances with the house. I can see it means a lot to you. But a girl’s life might be at stake. Is there any way you can take me around? I can come any time of day, whatever will work for you.”
“No. Not happening. Sorry.”
Cooper stepped forward. “When did you get to be so selfish?”
Anna gently pulled him back.
“Tell you what?” she said. “Maybe we can just talk. Here, off the record. I won’t include your name in any paper I file with the court if I can help it, and usually I can help it. Just a little off-the-record information for me could make a big difference in getting a break in this case. You could help without risking your position at your frat.”
Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“Most important, did you see Emily Shapiro at the house two nights ago, the night she disappeared?”
“No. I was there for a party, in charge
of the bar. I didn’t see her.”
“You’re in charge of the bar? Aren’t you, like, nineteen?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “It’s kind of the fox in charge of the henhouse. I’m supposed to tag everyone’s alcohol and give it to them one by one, at least that’s what’s in the national’s alcohol policy. In reality, I’m just doing whatever the older brothers say. And they say fill ’er up.”
“What about Dylan? Was he there?”
“I saw him early, leaving the house, maybe a little before midnight. I didn’t see him after that.”
She couldn’t get a warrant based on that. To search the frat she needed to show that there was reason to believe evidence of a crime could be found there. According to Wyatt, Emily hadn’t even been at the frat, much less hurt or abducted from it.
“What’s Dylan like?” Anna asked.
“He’s my pledge master. He’s a good guy.”
Anna saw discomfort flash on Wyatt’s face and knew he was lying to her. After being a prosecutor for three years, she had a decent internal lie detector. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she could detect what the truth was.
“Do you know if anyone else saw Dylan that night?”
“No idea. I wasn’t in charge of watching him.”
“Have you heard anything about what happened to Emily?”
“Only what’s on the news.”
“I was told something about Beta Psi’s reputation,” Anna said carefully. “I don’t want to insult you. But maybe you can help me understand. One student told me that it was called the ‘rape factory.’ Do you know what that’s all about?”
Wyatt looked out the side window, at the acres of rolling farmland. He bit his lip, then turned back to her.
“That’s bullshit. Some urban legend claims the brotherhood has the recipe for a roofie.”
“A date-rape drug?”
“Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Do you know any other girls who have accused Dylan of assaulting them?”
“You’ll have to ask Dylan.”
They spent another half an hour talking. Anna got more evasions, half-truths, and flat-out lies from Wyatt. Finally, she and Cooper said good-bye to Wyatt and his parents.
“Come back anytime, hon,” said Susie, pulling her into a warm hug. Anna said she would.
Anna and Cooper walked outside to his motorbike. Cooper said, “I can’t believe what a little turd my brother’s turned out to be.”
“He’s young,” Anna said. “He’s a pledge during Hell Week. He doesn’t want to invite in a prosecutor his pledge master kicked out; it’s understandable. Besides, he actually told us some stuff. Just the confirmation that there’s something under the Crypt is helpful. Believe me, people lie to me a lot more than Wyatt just did. Sometimes I feel like that’s my primary job as a prosecutor: to be lied to all day.”
“How do you deal with that?”
“You hope, in the middle of all those lies, to find a nugget of truth. That can make the difference.”
They reached Cooper’s Harley. He unfastened the helmets and handed one to her.
“I hope this made a difference. I wish I could help you more.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“This was helpful. Thanks for setting it up, Coop. Your family is great. Well, most of them anyway.”
Law Offices of Kaiser, LeGrand & Dillon
1001 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
October 15, 2014
Yolanda Skanadowski
Title IX Coordinator
Tower University
Tower, MI 48021
Re: Shapiro v. Highsmith, Disciplinary Case No. 14-073
Dear Ms. Skanadowski,
I have been retained to assist Dylan Highsmith in the above matter. I have reviewed the documents you sent him, including the summary of Emily Shapiro’s charges and the proposed panel for the Disciplinary Committee. Mr. Highsmith is anxious to put forth his case at the hearing, and for an opportunity to clear up this entire matter. However, as his lawyer, I must insist on due process during this proceeding. I write to note several objections to the manner in which you are handling this case.
First, in your letter you note there will be evidence that Dylan has “sexually assaulted several women before Ms. Shapiro.” I ask that this sentence, and all like it, be stricken from the record and never shown to the individuals who will make up the disciplinary panel. Such a statement is highly prejudicial. Moreover, it has never been corroborated. Your letter indicates that this charge is supposition from Ms. Shapiro. As such, it is pure hearsay and should not be admitted at the hearing. Your own University Handbook states that in disciplinary hearings, “Hearsay is not permitted; evidence must be given by the parties themselves.” To be in accord with your own rules and regulations, you must exclude this evidence. Moreover, in order to protect my client’s due process rights, he must be afforded the chance to confront any witnesses against him. If there is a witness to the charge that he sexually assaulted someone besides Ms. Shapiro, please inform me within the next two weeks. If I do not hear from you, we will assume that no such evidence will be offered and will prepare our defense accordingly.
Second, we object to the proposed panel. In your memo, you note that the three panel members consist of: (1) a food service manager named Barbara Bini Martin, (2) an English professor named Darlene Marks Hicks, and (3) a student named ReBecca Lannoo-Christensen. We object to the last two proposed panel members.
Professor Hicks is a well-known critical feminist scholar who has published several articles about, in her words, “how the history of patriarchy in America has harmed women’s economic opportunities.” Her most recent article, published last year, was entitled “Want Equality? Don’t Hire Men.” Before that, she wrote an article for the Huffington Post, entitled “Why Man-Bashing Is Necessary.” While Professor Hicks may be well qualified as a professor, she is obviously not a “fair and open-minded” person on the topic of gender relations and sexual assault, as required by your student handbook for any panelist who sits on a sexual-assault case. For this reason, we ask that Professor Hicks be taken off the panel and replaced with someone who does not have a history of “man-bashing.”
For similar reasons, we ask that the student named ReBecca Lannoo-Christensen be removed from the panel. A quick look at Ms. Lannoo-Christensen’s Facebook page reveals that she volunteered at a local rape-crisis center last year. As such, she is not a “fair and impartial” arbiter of a rape charge. We ask that she be removed from the panel and replaced with someone impartial.
Of course, while I am a stickler about procedure, I am committed to ensuring that the substance of this matter comes out as fully and robustly as possible. To that end, Mr. Highsmith will be submitting a statement of his own to the committee. I hope that we will be able to find an appropriate resolution to this matter.
Very truly yours,
Justin Dillon, Esq.
12
Cooper drove Anna from his family’s farm to Tower University, where she had a nine A.M. appointment with the general counsel. They pulled up to the modern glass building that was the university’s administrative headquarters. She took her helmet off, shook out her hair, and stared at the words over the entrance. Two-foot-tall letters proclaimed this to be HIGHSMITH HALL. She forced herself to breathe.
“Want me to come in with you?” Cooper asked.
“I do. But you can’t.”
“Got it. I’ll pick you up later?”
“Thanks, but I have no idea when I’ll be done.” And Jack might be there. “Sam will drop me off whenever we finish up.”
She handed him the helmet and kissed him lightly, then waved, trying to look nonchalant, as he drove off. But as she stood in front of Highsmith Hall, Anna had the disquieting feeling that she was up against something bigger than she’d anticipated. She squared her shoulders, walked inside, and took the elevator to the top floor.
Alth
ough it was a Sunday morning, a receptionist waited behind the wide desk that served the penthouse suite. The receptionist nodded when Anna said she had an appointment, telling her to sit in one of the leather chairs in the waiting area. Anna took a seat and looked around her. Big windows framed the beautiful campus. On the wall hung portraits of the university’s past presidents. Although the medium had changed—going from oil paintings in the 1800s to black-and-white photos in the 1950s to color pictures in the modern era—the subjects all had something in common. They were all white men. The last was Emily’s father.
Twenty minutes after their meeting was scheduled, the GC emerged from his office. “So sorry to keep you waiting.” He greeted her with the requisite firm handshake. “I’m Bryan Frink. Come on in.”
Anna followed the general counsel into his office. If Pottery Barn ever wanted to start an Ivy League Academic collection, they could copy Frink’s place. It had the Persian rug, walls of books, antique desk, and deep leather couch. The room smelled of lemon furniture polish and exclusivity. Anna sat in the guest chair and he sat behind his desk. His chair was higher than hers, she noticed, forcing her to look up at him. She decided the twenty-minute wait had been deliberate. This guy was full of cheap parlor tricks to try to establish his dominance.
That actually made her feel more confident. He was worried—as he should be. The general counsel was the university’s top lawyer, responsible for handling most day-to-day legal questions for the organization. Frink led an office of a dozen other lawyers. They might handle issues as diverse as employment discrimination lawsuits brought by janitors, slip-and-fall lawsuits brought by visitors, or the collection of student debt. In most of those cases, the university would have more power and resources than anyone else. Against the federal government, however, the university was equally matched. Hence Frink wanted the higher chair.
“So how long have you been an Assistant U.S. Attorney?” he asked.
“Four years,” Anna said.
“You look awfully young.”
Anna suppressed an eye roll. She supposed there was a chance older men meant it as a compliment when they told her how young she looked. “As you know, I’m investigating the disappearance and possible abduction of Emily Shapiro. I have a subpoena with three requests. One is for all campus records involving the disciplinary case that Ms. Shapiro brought against Dylan Highsmith. One is for the paperwork from any other campus disciplinary cases against Dylan Highsmith. The final one is for Dylan’s campus disciplinary record, generally.”
The Last Good Girl Page 9