He knew that he needed to be strong for her, but Jeffrey felt too blindsided to be capable of anything but sobbing like a child every time he thought about what had happened to Sara. Part of him was hurt that she had not trusted him enough to tell him what had happened to her in Atlanta. Another part of him was angry that she had flat out lied to him about everything. The scar on her side had been explained away as the result of an appendectomy, though, in retrospect, Jeffrey remembered the scar was jagged and vertical, nothing like a surgeon’s clean incision.
That she could not have children was something he had never pushed her on, because obviously it was a sensitive topic. He was comfortable leaving her at peace with that, assuming that it was some medical condition or that perhaps, like some women, she just was not meant to carry a child. He was supposed to be a cop, a detective, and he had taken everything she said at face value because Sara was the type of woman who told the truth about things. Or at least he had thought she was.
“Chief?” Marla said, knocking on the door. “Guy called from Atlanta and said to tell you everything’s set up. Wouldn’t leave a name. That mean anything to you?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey said, checking the folder he held in his hand to make sure the printout was still there. He stared at the picture again, even though he had practically memorized the blurred photo. He brushed past Marla into the hallway. “I’m leaving for Atlanta after this. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Frank will be in charge.”
Jeffrey didn’t give her time to respond. He opened the door to the interview room and walked in.
Buddy took on a righteous tone. “We’ve been here ten minutes.”
“And we’re only going to be here another ten more if your client decides to cooperate,” Jeffrey said, taking the chair across from Buddy.
The only thing Jeffrey knew with any certainty was that he wanted to kill Jack Allen Wright. He had never been a violent man off the football field, but Jeffrey wanted so badly to kill the man who had raped Sara that his teeth ached.
“We ready to start?” Buddy asked, tapping his hand on the table.
Jeffrey glanced out the small window in the door. “We need to wait for Frank,” he said, wondering where the man was. Jeffrey hoped he was checking on Lena.
The door opened and Frank entered the room. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. His shirt was un-tucked at the side, and a coffee stain was on his tie. Jeffrey gave a pointed glance at his watch.
“Sorry,” Frank said, taking the chair beside Jeffrey.
“Right,” Jeffrey said. “We’ve got some questions we need to ask Gordon. In exchange for his being forthcoming, we’ll drop the pending charges on the drug bust.”
“Fuck that,” Gordon snarled. “I told you those weren’t my pants.”
Jeffrey exchanged a look with Buddy. “I don’t have time for this. We’ll just send him up to the Atlanta pen and cut our losses.”
“What kind of questions?” Buddy asked.
Jeffrey dropped the bomb. Buddy had been expecting a simple plead on yet another drug charge against one of the kids from the college. Jeffrey kept his tone even when he said, “About the death of Sibyl Adams and the rape of Julia Matthews.”
Buddy seemed to register a little shock. His face turned white, making his black eye patch stand out even more against his pale face. He asked Gordon, “Do you know anything about this?”
Frank answered for him. “He was the last person to see Julia Matthews in the library. He was her boyfriend.”
Gordon piped up, “I told you, they weren’t my pants. Get me the fuck out of here.”
Buddy gave Gordon the eye. “You’d best be telling them what happened or you’re gonna be writing your mama letters from jail.”
Gordon crossed his arms, obviously angry. “You’re supposed to be my lawyer.”
“You’re supposed to be a human being,” Buddy countered, picking up his briefcase. “Those girls were beaten and killed, son. You’re looking at walking on a felony possession by simply doing what you should be doing in the first place. If you got a problem with that, you need to get yourself another lawyer.”
Buddy stood, but Gordon stopped him. “She was in the library, okay?”
Buddy sat back down, but he kept his briefcase in his lap.
“On campus?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, on campus,” Gordon snapped. “I just ran into her, okay?”
“Okay,” Jeffrey answered.
“So, I started talking to her, you know. She wanted me back. I could tell that.”
Jeffrey nodded, though he imagined Julia Matthews had been very upset to see Gordon in the library.
“Anyway, we talked, got a little lip action going, if you know what I mean.” He nudged Buddy, who moved away. “Made some plans to see each other later on.”
“Then what?” Jeffrey asked.
“Then, you know, she left. That’s what I’m saying, she just left. Got her books and all, said she would meet me later, then she was out of there.”
Frank asked, “Did you see anyone following her? Anyone suspicious?”
“Naw,” he answered. “She was alone. I would’ve noticed if anyone was watching her, you know? She was my girl. I kept an eye on her.”
Jeffrey said, “You can’t think of anyone she might know, not just a stranger, who was making her uncomfortable? Maybe she was dating somebody after y’all broke up?”
Gordon gave him the same look he would give a stupid dog. “She wasn’t seeing anybody. She was in love with me.”
“You don’t remember seeing any strange cars on campus?” Jeffrey asked. “Or vans?”
Gordon shook his head. “I didn’t see anything, okay?”
Frank asked, “Let’s go back to the meeting. You were supposed to see her later on?”
Gordon supplied, “She was supposed to meet me behind the agri-building at ten.”
“She didn’t show up?” Frank said.
“No,” Gordon answered. “I waited around, you know. Then, I got kind of pissed off and I went to find her. I went to her room to see what was up, and she wasn’t there.”
Jeffrey cleared his throat. “Was Jenny Price there?”
“That whore?” Gordon waved this off. “She was probably out fucking half the science team.”
Jeffrey felt himself bristle over this. He had a problem with men who saw all women as whores, not least because this attitude usually went hand in hand with violence toward women. “So, Jenny wasn’t there,” Jeffrey summarized. “Then what did you do?”
“I went back to my dorm.” He shrugged. “I went to bed.”
Jeffrey sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “What aren’t you telling us, Ryan?” he asked. “Because the way I’m looking at it, the ‘forthcoming’ part of our deal isn’t being met here. The way I’m looking at it, that orange jumper you’re wearing is gonna be on your back for the next ten years.”
Gordon stared at Jeffrey with what Jeffrey assumed the young punk thought was a menacing look. “I told you everything.”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “You didn’t. You’re leaving something out that’s pretty important, and I swear to God we’re not gonna leave this room until you tell me what you know.”
Gordon turned shifty-eyed. “I don’t know anything.”
Buddy leaned over and whispered something that made Gordon’s eyes go as round as two walnuts. Whatever the attorney had said to his client, it worked.
Gordon said, “I followed her out of the library.”
“Yeah?” Jeffrey encouraged.
“She met up with this guy, okay?” Gordon fiddled with his hands in front of him. Jeffrey wanted to reach over and throttle the punk. “I tried to catch up with them, but they were fast.”
“Fast meaning how?” Jeffrey asked. “Was she walking with him?”
“No,” Gordon said. “He was carrying her.”
Jeffrey felt a knot in the pit of his stomach. “And you didn’t think this was suspicious
, her being carried off by a guy?”
Gordon’s shoulders went up to his ears. “I was mad, okay? I was mad at her.”
“You knew she wouldn’t meet you later on,” Jeffrey began, “so you followed her.”
He gave a slight shrug that could have been a yes or no.
“And you saw this guy carrying her off?” Jeffrey continued.
“Yeah.”
Frank asked, “What did he look like?”
“Tall, I guess,” Gordon said. “I couldn’t see his face, if that’s what you mean.”
“White? Black?” Jeffrey quizzed.
“Yeah, white,” Gordon supplied. “White and tall. He was wearing dark clothes, all black. I couldn’t really see them except that she was wearing this white shirt, right? It kind of caught the light, so she showed up, but not him.”
Frank said, “Did you follow them?”
Gordon shook his head.
Frank was silent, his jaw taut with anger. “You know she’s dead now, don’t you?”
Gordon looked down at the table. “Yeah, I know that.”
Jeffrey opened the file and showed Gordon the printout. He had used a black marker to cross out Wright’s name, but the rest of the statistics were left uncovered. “This the guy?”
Gordon glanced down. “No.”
“Look at the fucking photograph,” Jeffrey ordered, his tone so loud that Frank started beside him.
Gordon did as he was told, putting his face so close to the printout that his nose almost touched it. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “It was dark. I couldn’t see his face.” His eyes scanned down the vitals on Wright. “He was tall like this. About this build. It could’ve been him, I guess.” He gave a casual shrug. “I mean, Jesus, I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was watching her.”
The drive to Atlanta was long and tedious, with nothing but the occasional patch of trees with the requisite kudzu to break the monotony. He tried twice to call Sara at home and leave some kind of message, but her machine wouldn’t pick up, even after twenty rings. Jeffrey felt a rush of relief followed by an overwhelming shame. The closer he got to the city, the more he convinced himself that he was doing the right thing. He could call Sara when he knew something. Maybe he could call her with the news that Jack Allen Wright had met with an unfortunate accident involving Jeffrey’s gun and Wright’s chest.
Even going eighty, it took Jeffrey four hours before he got off 20 and onto the downtown connector. He passed Grady Hospital a little ways past the split, and felt tears wanting to come again. The building was a monster looming over the interstate in what Atlanta traffic reporters called the Grady Curve. Grady was one of the largest hospitals in the world. Sara had told him that during any given year the emergency clinics saw over two hundred thousand patients. A recent four-hundred-million-dollar renovation made the hospital look like part of the set for a Batman movie. In typical City of Atlanta politics, the renovation had been the subject of an explosive investigation, kickbacks and payoffs reaching as far up as city hall.
Jeffrey took the downtown exit, then drove by the capitol. His friend on the Atlanta force had been shot on the job and taken a guard’s position at the courthouse rather than early retirement. A call back in Grant had scheduled a meeting for four o’clock. It was quarter till by the time Jeffrey found a parking space in the crowded capitol section of downtown.
Keith Ross was waiting outside the courts building when Jeffrey walked up. In one hand, he held a large file folder; in the other, a plain white mailing envelope.
“Ain’t seen you in a coon’s age,” Keith said, giving Jeffrey’s hand a firm shake.
“Good to see you, too, Keith,” Jeffrey returned, trying to force a lightness into his voice that he did not feel. The ride up to Atlanta had done nothing but get Jeffrey more wound up. Even the brisk walk from the parking garage to the courts building had not alleviated his tension.
“I can only let you have these for a second,” Keith said, obviously sensing Jeffrey’s need to move this along. “I got it from a buddy of mine over at records.”
Jeffrey took the folder, but he did not open it. He knew what he would find inside: pictures of Sara, witness testimony, detailed descriptions of exactly what had happened in that bathroom.
“Let’s go inside,” Keith said, ushering Jeffrey into the building.
Jeffrey flashed his badge at the door, bypassing the security check. Keith led him into a small office to the side of the entrance. A desk surrounded by television monitors filled the room. A kid wearing thick glasses and a police uniform looked up with surprise as they entered.
Keith took a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket. “Go buy yourself some candy,” he said.
The kid took the money and left without another word.
“Devotion to the job,” Keith commented wryly. “You gotta wonder what they’re doing on the force.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey mumbled, not wanting to have a protracted conversation about the quality of police recruits.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Keith said. “Ten minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” Jeffrey answered, waiting for the door to close.
The file was coded and dated with some obscure notations that only a city employee could figure out. Jeffrey rubbed his hand down the front of the folder, as if he could absorb the information without actually having to see it. When that did not work, he took a deep breath and opened the folder.
Pictures of Sara after the rape greeted him. Close-ups of her hands and feet, the stab wound in her side, and her battered female parts spilled out onto the desk in full color. He actually gasped at the sight of them. His chest felt tight and a stabbing pain ran down his arm. Jeffrey thought for just a second that he was having a heart attack, but a few deep breaths helped clear his mind. He realized that his eyes were closed, and he opened them, not looking at the pictures of Sara as he turned them face-down.
Jeffrey loosened his tie, trying to push the images from his mind. He thumbed through the other photographs, finding a picture of Sara’s car. It was a silver BMW 320 with black bumpers and a blue stripe down the sides. Carved into the door, probably with a key, was the word CUNT just as Sara had said in her trial testimony. Pictures showed a before and after of the door, with and without the silver duct tape. Jeffrey got a flash of Sara kneeling in front of the door, taping over the damage, probably thinking in her mind that she would get her uncle Al to repair the damage when she was back in Grant next.
Jeffrey checked his watch, noting five minutes had passed. He found Keith in one of the security cameras, his hands tucked into his pockets as he shot the shit with the guards at the door.
Thumbing through the back of the file, he found the arrest report on Jack Allen Wright. Wright had been arrested twice before on suspicion but never charged. In the first incident, a young woman about the age Sara had been when she was attacked had dropped the charges and moved out of town. In the other case, the young woman had taken her own life. Jeffrey rubbed his eyes, thinking about Julia Matthews.
A knock came at the door, then Keith said, “I gotta call time, Jeffrey.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said, closing the file. He didn’t want to hold it in his hands anymore. He held it out to Keith without looking at the other man.
“This help you any?”
Jeffrey gave a nod, straightening his tie. “Some,” he said. “Were you able to find out where this guy is?”
“Just down the street,” Keith answered. “Working at the Bank Building.”
“That’s what, ten minutes from the university? Another five from Grady?”
“You got it.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a janitor, like he was at Grady,” Keith said. He had obviously looked at the file before giving it to Jeffrey. “All those college girls, and he’s ten minutes from them.”
“Do the campus police know?”
“They do now,” Keith provided, giving Jeffrey a knowing look. “Not that he’s much
of a threat anymore.”
“What does that mean?” Jeffrey asked.
“Part of his parole,” Keith said, indicating the file. “You didn’t get to that? He’s taking Depo.”
Jeffrey felt an uneasiness spread over him like warm water. Depo-provera was the latest trend in treating sexual offenders. Normally used in women as part of a hormone replacement therapy, a high enough dosage could curb a man’s sexual appetite. When the drug was used on sexual predators, it was referred to as chemical castration. Jeffrey knew the drug only worked as long as the perpetrator took it. It was more like a tranquilizer than a cure.
Jeffrey indicated the folder. He could not say Sara’s name in this room. “He raped someone else after this?”
“He raped two someone elses after this,” Keith answered. “There was this Linton girl. He stabbed her, right? Attempted murder, six years. Got early parole for good behavior, went on the Depo, went off the Depo, went out and raped two more women. They caught him on one, other girl wouldn’t testify, put him back in jail for three years, now he’s out on parole with the Depo administered under close supervision.”
“He’s raped five girls and he’s only served ten years?”
“They only nailed him on two, and except for her”—he indicated Sara’s file—“the other IDs were pretty shaky. He wore a mask. You know how it gets with those girls on the stand. They get all nervous and before you know it opposing counsel has them wondering if they were even raped in the first place, let alone who did it.”
Jeffrey held his tongue, but Keith seemed to read his mind.
“Hey,” Keith said, “I’d been working those cases, the bastard would’ve been sent to the chair. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said, thinking this boasting wasn’t getting them anywhere. “Is he ready for his third strike?” he asked. Georgia, like many states, had enacted a “third strike” law some time ago, meaning that a convict’s third felony offense, no matter how innocuous, would send him or her back to jail, conceivably for the rest of his or her life.