The Perfect Alibi (Robin Lockwood #2)(26)

“Is that where it happened?” Anders asked.

Braxton swallowed and nodded. “As soon as we were inside, he hit me in the stomach and dragged me into the bedroom. Then he hit me again, threw me on the bed, and covered my mouth. He said he’d kill me if I screamed, and he asked me if I understood. I nodded and he ripped off my panties and…” Braxton licked her lips and took a breath.

“Did he penetrate you? That’s important in a rape case. We can’t convict if he didn’t.”

Braxton nodded. “He did.”

“Did he use a condom?”

“No.”

“Okay, what happened next?”

“When he was done, he wiped himself on my panties and threw them on the floor. Then he threatened to kill me if I told on him. Then he hit me again and left.”

“You’ve done great, Jessica. I’m going to leave you now. Ray may have done something very stupid. I understand he left semen on your panties and they found more when they did the vaginal swab. That means we’ve got DNA, and that should give us a great chance of getting this bastard.”





PART THREE



DNA





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


Vanessa Cole, Multnomah County’s Chief Criminal Deputy, was a slender, fifty-two-year-old black woman with sharp features and fierce brown eyes. She’d grown up in a wealthy area of Portland’s West Hills and gone to Stanford for college and law school. Cole was known for her smarts and high ethical standards, and stood out from the moment she joined the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, moving quickly from trying misdemeanors to trying felonies to handling murder cases and then death penalty murder cases.

Vanessa had always been anal. She almost never missed a school assignment from elementary school through law school, and a rare B had caused endless soul-searching. Her office reflected her obsession with order. The case files on her blotter were arranged in neatly squared stacks, and her computer monitor sat in the exact center of her desk.

Carrie Anders knew how much Vanessa detested chaos, and that was why she dreaded explaining the results of the lab tests in Jessica Braxton’s case.

“Have you got a moment?” Anders asked from the doorway to the prosecutor’s office.

Cole looked up from the memo she’d been reading and motioned the detective in. As she took a seat, Anders tried to think of the best way to explain what had happened. She decided to be blunt.

“We’ve got a problem in one of Rex’s cases.”

“Which one?”

“Hastings.”

Cole’s brow furrowed. “That case was open and shut. What’s the problem?”

“A bad one. A woman named Jessica Braxton was raped last week by a guy who said his name was Ray. She met Ray at the Blue Unicorn nightclub. Does that name ring a bell?”

It took Cole only a few seconds to make the connection. “Isn’t that where Hastings’s victim, Randi Stark, says she was when she saw the man who attacked her behind that gas station?”

Anders nodded. “It’s a club she said she went to a lot. Now, get this: Braxton described the rapist she met at the Blue Unicorn as a handsome blond who was over six feet tall and very muscular.”

Cole frowned. “That could be a description of Blaine Hastings. But he’s in jail. So, what’s the problem?”

“That is the problem. Braxton says she and Ray went back to her apartment and that’s where he raped her. According to Braxton, Ray penetrated her without a condom, ejaculated inside her, wiped himself with her panties, and left after throwing the panties on the floor. That meant that the lab had plenty of semen to test for DNA.”

Anders looked directly at Cole. “Ray’s DNA and Blaine Hastings’s DNA match.”

“What do you mean ‘match’?”

“They’re identical.”

“That’s impossible!”

“The lab retested Ray’s DNA as soon as the computer made the match between Ray’s DNA and Hastings’s DNA. When they got the same result, they sent a sample of the semen in the Braxton case to a private lab, and that lab got the same result.”

“Fuck!” exclaimed Cole, who never swore. “It’s got to be a mistake.”

“It’s not.

“Can two people have the same DNA?” asked Cole, who already knew the answer but hoped that she was wrong.

Anders nodded. “If they’re identical twins. But Hastings doesn’t have an identical twin. He’s an only child. And no, he and his evil twin were not separated at birth. I went to the hospital where he was born with a search warrant. Gloria Hastings gave birth to one child and only one.”

“What explanation do the lab techs have?”

“The only thing they can think of is that someone screwed up Hastings’s DNA test.”

“What’s the implication if that’s true?”

“One possibility is that Randi met Ray at the Blue Unicorn and had sex with him. Then she went to the frat party and accused Blaine of rape.”

Vanessa shook her head. “That still doesn’t explain why the two DNA samples match.”

“Correct.”

“So, we’re back to square one.”