by Scott Pratt
His work as a police officer had done nothing to change his attitude towards race. He’d arrested dozens of young black men for selling drugs, for domestic assaults, for robberies and for homicides. He’d dealt with the Crips and the Bloods and their seemingly endless game of senseless violence. He’d dealt with crackhead mothers who bore children by several different men and then dumped them onto grandparents—usually grandmothers—who had neither the means nor the desire to care for them. He’d seen the worst kind of behavior from them, and although he’d seen the same from whites, he just didn’t stomach the behavior the same when it came to blacks. He perceived them as defiant, unrepentant and ignorant.
The kid in the room was named Kevin Davidson. Riddle knew virtually nothing about him other than he was a senior at ETSU, twenty-one-years old, had a Collierville address on his driver’s license, and had no criminal record of any kind. But Riddle had convinced himself that this kid had raped a woman three days earlier. A white woman.
Riddle went into the bathroom and slapped himself in the face a couple of times, just to get his blood boiling a little more. As he washed his hands, he looked into the mirror at his shaved head and angry, chocolate brown eyes. His second wife had left him three months earlier and he’d put on fifteen pounds, most of it from sitting at home alone and drinking vodka when he was off work. The lines in his forehead had grown deeper and his skin had an ashy tone.
“You need to start working out again, fat ass,” he said out loud to himself.
They’d executed the search warrant at 6:00 a.m. sharp at a house on Pine Street near the ETSU campus. The house was owned by ETSU and was occupied by three players, all seniors and all captains on the football team. Kevin Davidson was the only one of them who was awake when Riddle and the other officers arrived. He opened the door and seemed genuinely surprised to see the police. Riddle noticed some books and papers and an open laptop on a table in Kevin’s room. It appeared he’d been studying before the police showed up. All three of the players had been cooperative and had agreed to ride to the police station to be questioned.
Riddle walked out of the bathroom and over to his partner, who was standing next to his desk waiting to go into the interview room. His partner was gangly and twenty-six years old, a virtual baby in police work, named Bret Marshall. Marshall had only been in the Criminal Investigation Division for two months.
“Let me do the talking,” Riddle said.
“You got it.”
“We’re not recording this, so if I wind up thumping on him, you didn’t see a thing.”
“Absolutely.”
“You have no problem with that?”
“I’m not crazy about it, but I guess you do what you have to do.”
“That’s right. If it gets to be too much for you, you can always leave the room. Let’s go.”
Riddle burst through the door and slammed a thin file down on the table. He turned a chair around backwards and moved to within two feet of Kevin Davidson.
“There’s a theory in police work, Kevin, that the best way to conduct an interview is to coddle the suspect, make friends with him, gain his trust, and make him believe you’re there to help him. It’s all a lie, of course. So I’m going to tell you right off the top, I’m not here to help you. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t understand why I’m here.”
“See? Now that kind of thing right there pisses me off and could wind up getting you hurt. I know how to hurt suspects, Kevin. I can beat them within an inch of their lives and not put a bruise on them. People lying to me pisses me off, and me getting pissed off causes me to beat on people sometimes.”
“So you’re telling me you’re going to beat me?”
The young man’s eyebrows raised, but he still didn’t seem frightened.
“That depends on whether you tell me the truth.”
“Maybe I should get a lawyer,” Kevin said. “I don’t think I like the way this is going.”
“Why would you want a lawyer? Have you done something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why would you want a lawyer?”
“Because you just threatened to beat me.”
“Nah, nah, you misunderstood me, Kevin. I said you wouldn’t get beaten if you told the truth. Isn’t that what I said, Investigator Marshall?”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“You already signed your Miranda waiver,” Riddle said. “That means you agreed to talk to us and waived your right to have an attorney present.”
“I can change my mind,” Kevin said.
Riddle laughed and looked at Marshall. “He can change his mind. Did you hear that? He thinks he’s a lawyer.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Kevin said. “I’ve studied it in school. I’m a criminal justice major, and I have a 4.2 Grade Point Average. I’ve already been accepted to law school. I have a right to remain silent, no matter what.”
“Well, whoop-dee-doo for Kevin with the big brain,” Riddle said. “What say we stop all this tap dancing and get down to it? Tell me about the party.”
“Saturday night? Is that what this is about?”
Kevin and his two roommates—Dominic Vasso and Henry Treadway—were being interrogated at the same time. Six investigators—which was all the Criminal Investigation Division had, along with a captain—were interviewing suspects in three separate rooms. Depending upon how the initial interviews went, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was standing by waiting to help.
“You tell me,” Riddle said. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. It was the week before the season started, we’d been busting our tails, and we figured we’d blow off some steam and have a party. One of the guys mentioned hiring a stripper. It started out as a joke, but it just sort of took on a life of its own. Thinking back on it now, was it a great idea? No. It was a terrible idea. But we did it and I can’t undo it. When the girl got there, this pretty redhead, she came up to me and chatted for a few seconds. She got her cash from one of the other guys and then she disappeared for a little while, and when she came back, she was stumbling all over the place. She must have taken something, because she was really messed up. She eventually started trying to do her thing, but she was so out of it she wound up just falling on the floor. Some guys got pissed off and started saying they wanted their money back. There was some name-calling, and eventually the girl made her way out the front door. Another argument started and she wound up staggering up the street. She left. That was it.”
“What was the argument about outside?”
“Same stuff as inside. Guys wanted their money back. She tossed out some racial stuff.”
“Did it get physical?”
“No. Did anybody call the cops? Because no cops showed up until you guys came this morning. Which is kind of strange, don’t you think?”
“Being a wise ass will get you hurt,” Riddle said. “Who hired her?”
“One of my teammates.”
“Which one?” Riddle said.
“I’m not ratting out a teammate. What difference does it make, anyway?”
“Tell me which teammate paid her.”
“No.”
“You’re obstructing justice.”
“Then charge me.”
“You’re pissing me off, boy. How much was she paid?”
“Three hundred, boy. Plus we were supposed to tip her.”
Riddle could feel himself about to blow. Did this nigger just call him boy? He wanted to smash the quarterback’s face in.
“Where do you get three hundred bucks for a stripper plus money for a tip? You slinging dope on the side?”
“I’m not selling drugs, and neither is anybody else at our house. You won’t find anything in our house and you can test me for drugs if you want. The money was pooled from the guys. There are eighty guys on our team including the redshirts. Some of them ponied five bucks, a couple of them threw in thirty.”
“What about y
ou, Mr. Quarterback? How much did you throw in the pot?”
“Twenty. I put twenty dollars in.”
“Do you know the penalty in Tennessee for kidnapping and rape?”
“What? Kidnapping and rape? Nobody got kidnapped because she showed up by herself and left when she wanted. Nobody held her against her will. And nobody got raped.”
“That’s not what the girl says.”
“The stripper? She says she was raped?”
“She was pulled into the bathroom and raped by three guys. One of them was black, she says, and a captain.”
“She’s lying. And just for your information, there are two black captains, two white captains, and a Mexican captain on our team. And I want a lawyer.”
“You waived your right to a lawyer.”
“I’m not saying another word to you. Arrest me right now or let me go.”
Suddenly, Riddle threw his chair to the side, grabbed Kevin by the shirt and threw him up against the wall. Kevin was taller, leaner and probably stronger than Riddle, but Riddle was thick and had obviously done this kind of thing before. He shoved his forearm under Kevin’s chin.
“You worthless ni…”
“Worthless what?” Kevin said. “Nigger? Were you about to call me a worthless nigger? Go ahead. And you want to beat on me? Go ahead. I’ve taken worse than you can dish out. Besides, I’m not NFL material. I’m going to law school so I can sue gorilla cops like you that think with their balls because they don’t have brains. So go ahead and beat me. I can use the extra money I’ll make suing the city and you, pork chop.”
Riddle could feel his eyes bulging. He wanted to crush this wise ass’s windpipe. Instead, he kneed Kevin in the testicles and stood back as Kevin melted to the floor, retching.
“You’re going to the penitentiary for kidnapping and rape,” Riddle said. “I’m gonna see to it personally. I’ll be so far up your ass you’ll feel me tickling your throat.”
Riddle walked to the door and looked down at Kevin, who was still gagging on the floor.
“You’re free to go for now,” Riddle said. “You can crawl out the same way you walked in.”
TUESDAY, AUGUST 27
Captain Trent Bingham looked around the small conference room at the faces of his six investigators. They were all seated, all fidgeting. Some were fiddling with their phones. Some were looking at the ceiling. The mood was somber. Only Bo Riddle was staring at him. From everything Bingham had heard so far, it had been an unproductive morning.
“Did anybody get anything we can use?” the captain said.
“The black kid is lying,” Investigator Riddle said. “He’s dirty on this.”
“Did he confess? Did he make any statements at all that implicated him in a rape?”
“The girl says one of the guys that raped her was black,” Riddle said.
“How many black guys are on the team?” Bingham said.
“I don’t know,” Riddle said.
“I’m looking at a photo of the team on their website,” said an investigator in the back. “It looks like there are forty-six black guys on the team.”
“Great. Where’d the money to pay the strippers come from?”
“He said they took up a collection from the team,” Riddle said.
“The girl’s story is full of holes,” Bingham said. “You guys know it and I know it. Riddle, what makes you think he’s guilty?”
“I just don’t like him. He’s smug. He thinks he’s going to get away with this.”
“You don’t like anybody. Does anybody else have anything?”
The rest of the detectives looked at each other with blank faces.
“So nobody is willing to roll on anybody?”
“Our guy said nothing happened. Just an argument and the girl left,” Investigator David Morgan said.
“Same with ours,” Investigator Benny Garrett said. “He says she’s flat out lying. She showed up, then disappeared for a few minutes, and when she came back she was too intoxicated to perform. Said she could barely stand up. He said there are cell phone videos that will back him up.”
“Great,” Bingham said, “Another thing I’d like to know is whether anybody in this room leaked this to the press. I got a call from a reporter at the Johnson City paper a half-hour ago.”
There was silence.
“I suppose quite a few people know about it by now, but I swear to God if I find out one of you guys is talking to the press about an ongoing investigation, I’ll have your badge.”
“So what do we do?” Riddle said.
Bingham looked at his most seasoned investigator. Riddle’s cheeks were flushed, which meant he was angry. Bingham had known Riddle was a hot head for years. He might even have been a racist, but if he was, he hid it well. He hadn’t been caught stepping over any lines, hadn’t done anything that would allow Chief Starring to get rid of him. There had been a couple of excessive force complaints, but those were routine and usually were resolved when a camera revealed—or a fellow officer gave a statement—that a suspect was resisting.
“This could blow up in our faces,” Bingham said, “so everything is by the book. We let Chief Starring and the district attorney handle the press. We let the lab people do their thing. I want every one of you back over there in that neighborhood and I want it canvassed. I’m going to call the football coach myself and find out how many players are willing to talk to us. If something happened, somebody will speak up.”
“And if they don’t?” Riddle said.
“Then maybe nothing happened. Maybe it was just a bunch of testosterone-filled young men who hired a stripper and things didn’t go as planned. Keep in mind we’re in the business of proving cases, not manufacturing them. That’s it. Let’s get to it.”
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28
As had been my habit for years, I walked barefoot up the driveway wearing only my boxer shorts and pulled the newspaper out of the box. It was 5:15 a.m., still dark, and our German shepherd, Rio, and our teacup poodle, Chico, had veered off into the yard to relieve themselves. Caroline was sound asleep in the bedroom. The slight breeze out of the west was warm. It promised to be a hot, humid day in Northeast Tennessee.
I walked back down the driveway, through the garage, and into the kitchen. The dogs went back to the bedroom to stretch out and get some more sleep while I dropped the paper on the table and poured myself a cup of coffee. I walked back over to the table, sat down, and did a double-take at the headline above the fold of the Johnson City paper: “Football Players Allegedly Rape Stripper at Party.”
“Wow,” I said as I began to read. The story was lurid and shocking, but as I read through it a couple of times, the lawyer in me began to realize that the story was also full of what could turn out to be unsubstantiated accusations. If the facts alleged in the story were true, there would be dire consequences for East Tennessee State University and its football program, which had only been re-established two years earlier after being disbanded for ten years due to tight budget conditions and general lack of fan interest at the state-funded institution. But there were things about the story that bothered me, not the least of which was that the stripper who reported the rape supposedly didn’t do so until hours after the rape, and it took the police almost three days to execute a search warrant on the home where the party took place. The three players who lived at the home were there when the police arrived, according to the story, and they gave statements and even helped the police search the house.
Basically, what the story said was that a group of more than sixty players had held a party at an off-campus house that was owned by the university and occupied by three senior captains of the football team. The three seniors weren’t named in the story, nor were any of the other players, but it said football players were the only people in attendance. I found that hard to believe. Who can keep a lid on a college party where a stripper will be performing? The party was held on a Saturday night, a week before the season was supposed to begin. According t
o the story, the police were alleging—which meant the stripper was alleging—that three unidentified members of the football team had dragged her into a small bathroom and raped her over a period of about twenty minutes. When the stripper was finally allowed to leave the bathroom, everyone else had left the party. It was the kind of journalism I’d grown to hate over the years, but it was becoming more and more prevalent. No sources were quoted directly, citing either an ongoing investigation or the privacy rights of college students. Unsubstantiated allegations were presented as though they were fact. It was as though the newspaper reporters (two of them contributed, one male and one female) were trying to incite something rather than simply report the news.
I was sitting there fuming over the incompetence of the journalists when I heard Caroline plodding toward the kitchen.
“How can you stand to be up so early in the morning?” she mumbled as she went to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. I knew it was time for her pain medication that she took for the cancer in her bones.
“How can you stand to be in bed so late?” I said.
“It’s easy,” she said. “Whenever I think about getting up, I just close my eyes and go back to sleep. Is there anything in the fish wrapper this morning?”
Caroline didn’t care much for the Johnson City paper. The old ownership had sold out to a large conglomerate and they’d fired more than half the staff, some of whom Caroline and I had known for years.
“There’s actually a sensational, front-page story about football players and a stripper at a party,” I said. “There may or may not have been a rape. Maybe even a gang rape.”
Her eyebrows lifted as she lowered the glass of orange juice and took a couple of steps toward me.