The Last Good Girl

by Allison Leotta

  Meanwhile, Sam made phone calls to Steve and other FBI agents. By the time they pulled up to the Highsmiths’ sprawling Tudor, the driveway was covered not only in Jags, Cadillacs, and Teslas, but also several unmarked Tauruses, Capris, and vans with federal government plates.

  They met Steve on the driveway. He had twenty SWAT agents, who’d already been briefed, and a full operations plan, ready to go. Sam gave him a nod. “You don’t mess around, Quisenberry. That’s what I like about you.”

  Steve blushed below his dark stubble.

  Anna stood by the Durango while the FBI agents lined up and Sam knocked on the front door. Anna counted under her breath along with Sam. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand . . .

  The door swung open. Behind it stood none other than Lieutenant Governor Robert Highsmith. He wore a blue blazer and held a cigar in one hand and a crystal glass of amber liquor in the other.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, looking with amusement on the group of twenty FBI agents on his driveway. “What can I do for you?”

  “Sir, I’m Agent Samantha Randazzo, FBI. We’re here to execute an arrest warrant for your son, Dylan Highsmith. Is he in the home?”

  “No, he’s not. But I do have several other people here. They are guests, here for a luncheon party. I’d ask that you not disturb them.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we have to ask everyone in your house to step out. And then we have to search your home to make sure Dylan isn’t here. Do you know where he is?”

  “I do not. And you do not have the legal authority to search my home.”

  Anna stepped up to the porch as Sam handed Robert the paperwork. “That’s a federal arrest warrant, sir, which gives us full authority to search your home incident to arrest.”

  He shifted the cigar to the same hand as the scotch so he could take the warrant. He skimmed it, then looked up.

  “You’ll do no such thing.” He turned to yell into his home. “Felicia! Bring me those papers from the printer.”

  A maid hurried over carrying documents. He took the papers and handed them to Anna. They were still warm from the printer. It was an order from a district judge on the Eastern District of Michigan—one level above Magistrate James Schwalbe—overruling the magistrate’s order and finding their arrest warrant lacked probable cause.

  “Your warrant has been quashed.” Robert puffed on his cigar and blew the smoke at Sam and Anna. “You can’t come into my home. You can’t touch my son.”

  35

  If she weren’t so angry, Anna might have been impressed. Arrest warrants were not publicly filed; someone had tipped the Highsmiths off. Then Dylan’s lawyer had managed to draft a motion, get it to the courthouse, and have a federal judge sign it—all in the time it took the FBI to put an arrest team together and drive to the Highsmith house.

  Anna called Judge Schwalbe’s clerk personally to be sure Robert was telling the truth. He was. U.S. District Judge Joseph DeLuca had overruled the magistrate’s decision, finding there wasn’t enough evidence that Dylan assaulted Emily because of her gender. If there wasn’t gender-based animus, there wasn’t a federal hate crime. Judge DeLuca quashed the warrant.

  Reasonable minds could disagree on how much evidence was sufficient to support a warrant, but Anna was familiar with this particular district judge. She guessed Judge DeLuca had been primarily motivated by the fact that Robert Highsmith was the politician responsible for getting him on the bench.

  Whatever the decision was based on, a district judge’s order overruled a magistrate’s. Only a panel of three judges on the federal court of appeals could overrule Judge DeLuca. There was no way to get a panel assembled today. Tomorrow would be too late.

  Sam stopped the Durango at a red light and looked at Anna. “Have they outmaneuvered us?”

  Anna stared out the windshield. The Renaissance Center stood ahead of them, dark gray glass against a light gray sky. The skyscrapers were supposed to help Detroit come back in the 1970s but had had little effect. Nevertheless, the city was coming back now. Anna had just seen a Forbes article calling Detroit the new Brooklyn—the place for hipsters and artists. Detroit was coming back because dedicated, creative people were finding interesting new ways of doing things.

  She said, “I have an idea.”

  • • •

  Anna’s paralegal, Nikki Greene, had compiled a list of all the names she’d been able to match to the initials in Dylan’s brag book. If Anna could find just one more girl who’d been sexually assaulted by Dylan, it could tip the balance for the warrant. She could show a pattern of sexual assaults, and reapply with the additional evidence. This time, she would go through a grand jury and ask them for an indictment. Indictments—the findings of a panel of citizen jurors—had a certain level of gravitas. A judge would be less likely to overturn a warrant based on a grand jury’s indictment. But first she had to get someone to talk.

  Nikki had listed phone numbers of the girls she’d found from Beta Psi’s The Book of Earthly Pleasures. Anna started making calls. The first woman didn’t answer. The second, third, fourth, and fifth didn’t want to talk. The seventh, a woman named Melinda Bates, reluctantly agreed to have Anna and Sam come talk to her.

  Anna hung up and smiled at Sam.

  “Let’s go to Michigan State.”

  • • •

  An hour’s drive from Tower, MSU was a beautiful land grant university, hundreds of acres sprawling across East Lansing. Long stretches of parklike campus were bounded by cute shops and restaurants. A seventy-thousand-person stadium held Big Ten football games. It was a larger university than Tower, both in number of students and in sheer geographic space.

  Sam and Anna pulled up to Case Hall, a redbrick dormitory. Melinda Bates had transferred from Tower and was getting a B.A. in public policy at the James Madison liberal arts college within MSU. Anna wondered why Melinda had transferred. Was it for the excellent education—or to escape the shadow of Dylan Highsmith?

  They took the elevator up to the sixth floor and knocked on Melinda’s door. It opened a crack, and a light green eye peered out at them. The door closed, a mighty sigh ensued, and the chain slid off. Melinda Bates stood before them, in jeans and a green Spartan T-shirt, looking unhappy but resigned. “I guess you should come in,” Melinda said, like a woman inviting an executioner into her house.

  “Thanks.” Anna introduced herself and Sam. Melinda’s place was a neat studio apartment. A small dining table sat under a window that looked out over the basketball stadium. Melinda had light brown hair cut in a cute bob she kept tucking behind her ears. She was whip thin, like someone who was a serious runner or had an eating disorder. Melinda sat at the little table and gestured for them to do the same.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” Melinda said. “I have class in half an hour.”

  “We appreciate you seeing us,” Anna said. “I wouldn’t bother you if it weren’t so important. I’m investigating Dylan Highsmith. And I understand that you might know him.”

  “That was years ago,” Melinda said. “Ancient history.”

  “Do you mind telling us how you knew him?”

  Melinda tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t know him well. Just for a night, really.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happens to a lot of girls. I went to his frat party. He plied me with this deadly fruit punch. I passed out; he had sex with me.”

  “When you say deadly . . .”

  “I think there was something in it. I’d hardly had anything to drink. And then I was out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in his bed naked and sore.”

  “Did you report that to anyone?”

  “I told some friends; he told some friends. Some stuff got posted online.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Someone took a picture of me in Dylan’s bed. They tagged me and it showed up in all my feeds. It was my first week as a freshman. I never really got over it, socially.” She closed her eyes for a moment, t
hen opened them. “It’s how I ended up here. I wanted to get away, have a fresh start. Plus MSU is a better school anyhow. They let me transfer my second semester. Now I’m a junior.”

  “How are you doing now?”

  “I’m older and wiser.” She gave them a small smile. “Definitely more careful at parties. My mom is a rock. We thought about going forward with charges, even consulted a lawyer, but it seemed like nothing good would come of it. She got me a counselor instead. Therapy has been helpful.” Melinda glanced at her watch. “I’ve gotta go soon.”

  Anna looked into Melinda’s clear green eyes. She was credible and was strong. She could handle this. Anna said, “I want to bring a criminal case against Dylan Highsmith—and include the charge that he raped you when you were a freshman.”

  Melinda looked at Anna for a long moment, then laughed. It wasn’t the shrieking hysteria of Kara Briscoe. It was a dry, skeptical laugh.

  “Why would I agree to do that?”

  “He’s still doing it—exactly what he did to you, he’s doing to other girls. Someone needs to stop him.”

  “Good luck with that. It took me years, and now I’m finally over it. I’ve got no interest in reopening that can of worms.”

  “I understand what you’ve been through,” Anna said. “And—”

  “A criminal trial is public, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Press might cover it.”

  “There would probably be coverage. But most major news outlets don’t publicize the names of rape survivors.”

  “Forget major news stations. With bloggers and muckrakers like Drudge, sometimes names do get printed. And it’s hard to make a criminal case, isn’t it?”

  “I’d have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest burden in American law. But that would be my burden, not yours. All you’d have to do is take the stand and tell the truth.”

  “If you don’t prove your case, the world thinks I’m a liar.” Melinda shook her head. “I’m sorry if he’s still doing this to other girls, but I don’t see how that’s my responsibility. I’m a victim, not his partner in crime.”

  “That’s what makes you particularly powerful, Melinda. You may be the only person who can stop him.”

  “And he needs to be stopped,” Sam said. “He’s getting worse. Bolder. We think he’s graduated to bigger crimes. Have you heard about Emily Shapiro?”

  Melinda slowly tucked her hair behind her ears and stared at them. “Everyone has. You haven’t arrested him yet?”

  “We can’t,” Anna said. “Not without you. We need more evidence against him. You might be one of the few people in the world who can make a difference. If you don’t come forward now, he’ll be free to go after more girls.”

  “What if he comes after me?”

  “That’s not something we see often in sex-assault cases—that’s more like an organized crime or gang sort of tactic. But if you were threatened, we could put you up in a hotel. You’d get a police escort to and from court. We could even help you move to another apartment if you want.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “I literally cannot make a case without you.”

  Melinda stared out the window. MSU’s campus was more bucolic than Tower’s. This felt like a long way from Tower University, and Anna thought of how it must feel for Melinda. Not just in space but in time, how far Melinda had to come to get over what happened to her. To end up here, a successful college student, rather than in a mental hospital with nurses escorting her to her room.

  Melinda was silent for a long time. Anna didn’t interrupt her contemplation. Sometimes the best argument was letting someone check her conscience. Finally, Melinda answered.

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  Anna almost fell off her chair, she was so relieved. “Thank you. So much. Um . . . there any chance you can skip your class and come to Detroit now?”

  VLOG

  RECORDED 2.15.15

  They never expelled him.

  I’m so angry, I can’t stand it.

  Aaaghh!

  Dammit. I liked that mirror. Now I’ll have seven years of bad luck, I guess.

  I want to throw my phone across the room too. It’s taking all my self-control to talk at it instead.

  So this morning, I woke up dead set on figuring it out. Why is Dylan on campus? Did someone forget to tell the registrar about him being expelled? I called Yolanda, our fabulous, ha ha, Title IX coordinator. After half an hour of dancing around it, she finally told me. Dylan appealed the expulsion. His fancy D.C. lawyers must’ve written some magical fucking brief. Because the committee overturned his sentence. He’s still officially “reprimanded,” but without being expelled. What does that mean? Nothing, is what.

  He gets to walk around campus like it never happened. He gets to graduate. He gets to walk at commencement in a cap and gown; he gets a Tower University diploma to hang on his wall. He gets to continue his regularly scheduled life, just like that. This sucks.

  All the names they called me. All those frat boys spitting at me. The girls whispering. The online crap. It was for nothing.

  They didn’t even let me know, much less ask if I had anything to say about it. I had no clue. I had to find out by seeing him leering at me on campus. I’m, like, shaking all over just remembering it. How can they do that? Didn’t they think it mattered to me? That I might, like, have something to say about it? That, if I knew he was coming back, I might try to avoid him, or make sure I’m always walking with a friend, maybe invest in some pepper spray? Or were they worried I’d make noise? Complain. Fight. Refuse to go away quietly, like the good girl I’m supposed to be.

  I feel like I’ve been assaulted all over again.

  Only this time, by my own college.

  36

  Anna stepped into the grand jury room in the federal courthouse. She carried an indictment she’d spent the last hour writing, circulating, and getting approved. Twenty-four grand jurors sat at tables that resembled a college seminar room. They were regular citizens—teachers, moms, a dentist—who’d gotten their summons and were performing their civic duty. There was no defense attorney and no judge. In the grand jury, there was just a prosecutor, her witnesses, and the jurors. The jurors would decide if there was probable cause to believe a crime had been committed, and if so, they would indict the defendant for the crime. The defendant had no right to be present or even to know that the grand jury was assembled to investigate him.

  “Hello,” Anna said. A few of the jurors glanced up from their newspapers and cell phones. A few didn’t. “My name is Anna Curtis, and I’m an Assistant U.S. Attorney from D.C. This is case number 2015-US-1324, United States versus Dylan Highsmith.”

  Now all the jurors looked up from their devices.

  The stenographer’s fingers flew over the buttons of her machine. Although this proceeding was secret today, one day it might go to trial, and a defense attorney might parse through every line of this transcript, searching for ways that Anna had messed up, in order to try to get the charges dismissed. Anna had read so many of her own transcripts that as she spoke she imagined the words being typed in Courier font.

  “Today I will ask you to indict Mr. Highsmith on one count of violating 18 U.S.C. Section 249(a)(2), a hate crime, for assaulting Emily Shapiro on March 24, 2015, because of her gender. In support of this indictment, you will hear from two witnesses today.”

  The jurors turned to one another and murmured. It was unusual to present just two witnesses and then ask for an indictment on such major charges. Even more unusual was a prosecutor they’d never seen before waltzing in and asking them to indict the son of one of the state’s most powerful political lions.

  “Our first witness, FBI Agent Samantha Randazzo, will summarize most of the evidence against Mr. Highsmith. You will see video footage of the defendant grabbing and chasing Emily Shapiro the night she disappeared. She has not been seen since then. You’ll see traffic-camera photos showing that the defenda
nt took a long drive through Detroit and Windsor that night. You’ll hear that the victim’s blood was found on the defendant’s car, and her scarf in his bedroom. You’ll see photos of a secret room below the defendant’s fraternity, where Ms. Shapiro’s initials were inscribed in a book of sexual conquests. You’ll hear that she accused him of drugging and raping her earlier this school year, and that she was planning to publish, or already had published, these accusations online.”

  All this evidence had been in the warrant that Judge DeLuca had quashed. But Anna would add a little more. The grand jury could make an independent finding of probable cause, considering the additional evidence. If they indicted him, she could get a new warrant for his arrest.

  “You will also hear that Dylan Highsmith had a history of drugging and raping young women who visited his fraternity. You may consider this when you decide whether his assault on Ms. Shapiro was based on a hatred of women. My second witness will be Melinda Bates, who is currently a junior at MSU. Ms. Bates will describe how the defendant drugged her when she was a freshman at Tower University, during a fraternity party in 2013. Those drugs rendered Ms. Bates unconscious. While Ms. Bates was incapacitated, the defendant sexually assaulted her.”

  “Were any tests done to see whether Ms. Bates had date-rape drugs in her system?” asked a gray-haired man. He wore a badge that said FOREPERSON.

  “No, sir. You will hear that Ms. Bates did not report the sexual assault to the police when it happened.”

  The foreperson said, “You’re asking us to bring a federal case against a respected young man because a girl says he drugged her three years ago.”

  “And a wealth of additional evidence,” Anna said.

  “All of which is circumstantial.”

  Anna looked around at the arrayed jurors, who comprised a wide range of ages, colors, and sizes. Many were frowning at her. Statistically, she had to assume that more than half of them had voted for Robert Highsmith in the last election. And Highsmith had been around for a while, kissing babies, doing favors, passing out political pork. Jurors were instructed to recuse themselves if they had a personal relationship with anyone involved in a case, but that rule was hard to enforce. She considered repeating the rule now. But it was unlikely to prompt any recusals and would just alienate the jurors even more.