~ Over Yesterday ~

by

Christy Cameron

Stephanie’s office was so small she thought it must have started out life as a closet. She barely had room for her desk and a filing cabinet, let alone the two extra chairs stuffed into the corner. The space felt even more cramped with Jason in it. Stepping behind the desk, she said, “Have a seat.”

He reached for the door. “Mind if I close this?”

Her stomach clenched. The one way to make this room even more claustrophobic, and he had hit on it.

“No, go ahead.” She laid her briefcase on the desktop between them. “So what’s this case about?”

He dropped the file onto her blotter. “A rape.”

A rape? She sat down hard. Could he find a more uncomfortable subject?

Oh, right. He could.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “Who’s the accuser?”

“A high school student. Eighteen years old.” He sat and tossed his coat onto the extra chair. “Name’s Kiley Windsor.”

“And the accused?”

“Martin Schult,” he said, “Junior.”

She raised her eyebrows a notch. “Martin Schult, as in Martin Schult Motors?”

“And Schult Implement, Schult Homes--the list goes on.”

She sat forward. “The richest kid in town raped someone?”

“Allegedly, yeah.”

“You think he did it.”

“Oh, I know he did it.” Jason leaned forward, too, his forearms on his thighs. “There is no doubt in my mind.”

“But you said yourself the victim is reluctant to testify. What makes you so sure she’s telling the truth?”

“Well, for starters,” he said, tapping the folder, “I put three more like that in the closed file last year.”

“You mean he raped three other girls?”

“Three that came forward. All of them dropped the charges about the same time their parents came into some money.”

“A payoff.”

He nodded. “There’s more. The Schult kid--Marty--he’s a real punk. I don’t mean the spiked-blue-hair kind. I’m talking the drug-taking, drag-racing, vandalizing kind. You name it, his daddy’s bought his way out of it. Never got anything worse than probation or community service. Then comes the first rape case. The girl, she’s kind of a wild child, herself. He claims it was just rough sex, that she’s crying rape so her boyfriend won’t beat her up. Naturally, Daddy accepts this scenario.”

“His son can do no wrong.”

“Exactly. They pay her off and a few months later here comes the next rape victim. Now this kid’s story is that she tricked him so she could get the same kind of money the other girl got. Third girl, same way. Both of them are wild like the first. They don’t want their pasts coming out in court. Their folks figure they’ve been hurt enough. So...”

“So they take the money and let it end there.”

“Right. Then comes this girl,” he went on, pointing to the folder, “Kiley. She’s different from the others. She’s very shy. Painfully so. Since this happened, she’s withdrawn from almost everyone. She was a straight-A student, and now she refuses to go to school. She was also a virgin.”

Stephanie frowned. “So... what? That makes her rape more valid?”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. But I do think it’ll keep Schult’s lawyers from arguing consent.”

“Why? Because virginity and consent are mutually exclusive?” She picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “Come on, Jason. You know better than that.”

“You know I do.” His gaze remained steady. “But it’s different in this case... because of how the rape happened.”

She shook her head. “I don’t follow.”

“Well, I mean, I know I’m a guy and my sisters are always telling me I don’t get it. But it seems to me that a teenage girl who’s the shy, bookworm sort is going to have certain... expectations for her first time.”

What he was basing this assumption on, she wasn’t about to ask. She didn’t have to. “All right. Go on.”

“I find it hard to believe that...” He looked away. “I don’t know how to say this.”

“Just say it. This is me you’re talking to.”

“Yeah, I know.”

But maybe that didn’t make it any easier.

He took a deep breath and looked at the folder. “I find it hard to believe those expectations included being driven to the old county dump, bent face-down over an open tailgate, and rammed into so hard that she got bruises on her thighs.”

“My God,” Stephanie breathed. It was the only thing she could manage to say.

“That’s not all.” He kept his eyes focused downward. “She also had some scrapes and cuts, and a welt on her cheekbone. She says he backhanded her for fighting him. When he was done, he spit in her hair and... wiped himself off with her skirt.”

“The final show of disrespect.” Stephanie put a hand over her mouth. “That poor girl. What she must be going through.”

“It’s killing her mother.” He rubbed at his jaw. “She’s the one who brought Kiley to the emergency room. Said she was waiting when her daughter came in that night. Took one look at her and knew. If it was up to Kiley, I think she would’ve just crawled into a hole and stayed there. When I first got to the hospital, she refused to talk to me.”

Stephanie let her hand fall to the desk. “I can’t say as I blame her. Good Lord, Jason! No offense, but have you looked at yourself? A six-foot-three ex-quarterback is hardly the best choice to send into the room of a girl who’s just been raped.”

He looked up. “I know that. But at the time, I was the only choice. I had to get what I could from her mom and the hospital staff until state headquarters could send down a special investigator from Springfield. You can see the interview in that file was done by her.”

“So you have had some help. You’re not going at this thing alone. Why bring me in? Can’t the investigator talk to this girl about signing the charges and testifying?”

He shook his head. “Says it’s not her job. If you ask me, the woman’s a cold-hearted bitch.”

“And I’m not?”

His mouth thinned. “I never said that about you.”

But he had said a lot of other things, some of which she had deserved. “Even so, this is the first time you’ve seen me since high school. How do you know I haven’t changed?”

“If there’s one thing you learn by staying in your hometown, it’s that people never change. Not inside.”

Meaning they were still eons apart, and always would be.

“Listen, Steph, I came to you because this case is my best chance so far for stopping this punk. I want to see him behind bars. I want Kiley to see justice served.”

“How do you know that’s what she wants? How do you know a trial wouldn’t be too hard on Kiley? Maybe you pushing this thing isn’t the best way for her to heal.”

He shifted his jaw. “You sound like John.”

“John Sayles? The sheriff?” She gaped at him. John was an old friend of her parents, a bear of a man, and the biggest stickler for the rules she had ever met. “Are you telling me your C.O. told you to leave this thing alone and you brought it to me behind his back?”

Jason’s eyes glinted. “Officially, I’m not telling you anything.”

“Damn it, Jason.” She propped her elbow on the desk and dropped her forehead into her hand. He was right. People never changed. “When will you ever learn you can’t push and shove things into going your way?”

“When it stops working.”

“It doesn’t always,” she said softly.

“Often enough.” He got up and paced to the door. “Will you at least look at the file before you say no?”

She stared at the folder. When it came down to it, this case wasn’t about him. It was about Kiley, and Stephanie had heard too much to turn away. “All right.”

“Good. I’m getting a cup of coffee. You want one?”

“Please.”

“Be right back.” He went into the outer office and left the door hanging open.

Todd’s secretary stopped typing to send Stephanie a speculative look. “Jason’s still single,” the woman had pointed out days earlier, “just like you.”

Stephanie heaved a sigh and turned away. What a Monday! One minute, she was facing down the town lunatic, and the next she was discussing the rape of a teenager in graphic detail with the very man who had taken her own virginity at that age.

No, not taken. Accepted. He had accepted it. And with almost as much relish as she had given it to him. God, she had loved him. He had loved her, too. Or at least, that’s what she still liked to believe.

Straightening her spine, she opened the folder. A photo stared out at her--a picture of the victim’s bruised face. Stephanie felt a tremor of surprise. “Holy--!”

“You see it, don’t you?” She snapped her head up and saw Jason standing in the doorway, a white foam cup in each hand. “The resemblance,” he said. “You see it, too.”

“She looks like--like--”

“Shayla. She looks like Shayla.”

His sister. “It’s uncanny. I don’t know what to say.”

He set the cups on the desk. “You understand now. You know why I can’t let this go.”

“I can see why it would be hard. But still, she’s not your sister. It’s not your family or your fight this time.” At least, it had better not be, or the case would be blown before it even got started. “Jason, tell me this girl is not family.”