Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(7)

“I don’t know. Whatever was in the drink, the molly, the alcohol, all of it combined...I was pretty messed up.”

“Are you in a lot of pain now?”

“Not really.”

“So you don’t know if you cried out for help?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did anyone try to help you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How long were you in the bathroom?”

“Long enough for the three of them to do what they wanted to do, I guess.”

“So when the lab analyzes this rape kit, besides your boyfriend, they’re going to find sperm or pubic hairs or something else containing DNA from three different males in you or on you, and those males will more than likely be ETSU football players?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? That’s not very encouraging, Miss Self. And when it was over, what happened?”

“I don’t remember. I started coming to after that officer arrested me and put me in the back seat of her car. I think I was at a convenience store, but I don’t really know how I got there or what I was doing there.”

“Did you ever actually dance?”

“I think I started, but it didn’t last long. There might have been some kind of argument. They maybe wanted me to use toys or whatever, but I didn’t have anything like that. They started hollering and calling me names and I think I just told them to go screw themselves, I was leaving. That’s when I got grabbed up and pulled into the bathroom.”

“So you remember that? You remember starting the dance, them calling you names, and you telling them to screw themselves? And then you remember being pulled into the bathroom?”

“I think so. Vaguely.”

“And again, you think it was a black hand that pulled your arm?”

Sheila nodded.

“Anything else you can remember about the guy that pulled you in? Long hair or short hair? Anything about his face? How big was he?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Maybe it will come back to me later.”

“The others?”

“Not really.”

“When did you realize you’d been raped?”

“In the back of the police car, I think.”

“So that’s why you didn’t report it, correct?”

“I was drugged. Somebody had to drug me.”

“Ms. Self, it would help me a lot if I could get your consent to look at the toxicology screen.” He decided not to tell her that some of the blood they’d drawn from her was already headed for a lab.

She shook her head vigorously.

“You can’t. I’m on probation.”

“But if you took the drugs involuntarily, your probation—“

“I didn’t take the ecstasy involuntarily.”

“Your probation officer doesn’t know that, and I won’t tell him.”

“Her.”

“Okay. I won’t tell her. You can say the ecstasy was in the same drink as the other drug, whatever it turns out to be. Will any heroin show up on the tox screen?”

“No, I’ve been clean.”

“Okay, there you go. I’ll back you up on your claim that it’s probable that the ecstasy and whatever else they found were mixed in the same drink. No probation violation. You give me consent to look at your tox screen and it ups your credibility as a witness a ton. What do you think?”

Sheila looked at the ground, then up at Riddle. Riddle was again taken aback by her sexuality. To him, she had a strange kind of vibe going, very sexy. The kind of woman you wanted to protect and ravage at the same time. She reminded him of a teenage girl he knew, a close friend of his daughter’s. He’d been divorced from his first wife for ten years and didn’t see that much of his daughter, but sometimes, when she came over on a weekend, she brought this friend named Lisa with her. Lisa was a sixteen-year-old version of Sheila, although she came from a wealthy family and would be going to college instead of a foster home. But Riddle always found himself wanting to protect Lisa as much as he wanted to protect his own daughter. He’d also fantasized about Lisa, sexual fantasies that had awakened him at night. He knew he shouldn’t be fantasizing about this teenaged girl, but Riddle didn’t feel guilty. It was what it was. He was old and horny, she was young and sexy, and his daughter kept bringing her around. It wasn’t his fault.

Finally, Sheila nodded her head.

“I guess I don’t have any choice,” she said. “Once this gets out, and I’m sure it’ll get out, I guess my probation officer will get the records anyway.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Riddle said. “Investigator Riddle will take care of you.”

“Just promise me you’ll get the people who raped me,” Sheila said.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” Riddle said. “I give you my word. But you need to come to the station and give me a written statement. Can you come after you get out of here?”

“I need to deal with my kids.”

“Okay. After lunch, then. Let’s exchange numbers, and I’ll see you this afternoon.”





SUNDAY, AUG. 25

“Coffee?”

Johnson City Police Chief Gene Starring looked up at Investigator Riddle from his kitchen table. It was Sunday morning, 9:00 a.m. Riddle had called and said he needed to talk to him right away, face-to-face. Starring was a twenty-five-year veteran of the police force and had been chief for nine years. He was lean and handsome, salt-and-pepper hair, well known for his self-discipline. Riddle knew the chief ate two thousand calories a day, got up at four every morning, ran five miles, spent another hour in the gym, and abstained from alcohol, tobacco, and anything else that Riddle might consider fun. Starring was fifty, but he looked like he was in his late thirties. He had an impeccable reputation for integrity, and was respected by the employees who served with him. Even Riddle respected him, albeit grudgingly.