It was a stretch but Theo couldn’t cut new law out of whole cloth—she had to shape the facts of the narrative around existing cases. The key was convincing first a judge then a jury that Hayley’s feelings of being violated—along with frustration at the university’s lack of action on her behalf—had created a sense of hopelessness. When her rapists were glorified after their championship win, she suffered a sudden mental breakdown that led to her impulsive act.
Jalinda’s nose wrinkled with uncertainty. “What if they say she was already unstable? That the circumstances of her birth and the loss of her grandmother made her unable to cope. Or she suffered remorse after engaging in sex with multiple partners. Or maybe she was just acting out a dramatic scene because of her interest in performance studies.”
Already unable to cope
. Without realizing it, Jalinda had just given her a brilliant idea.
“Damn, Jalinda. I’m going to use that to argue her suicide was foreseeable. I wish you’d think more seriously about my advice to go to law school. You’re a natural.”
“It’s not natural. I get it mostly from you and Kendra. I listen when you practice your arguments. Some of it rubs off.”
Penny appeared in the doorway and rapped her knuckles gently on the door. “Theo, I have KDP News on the line. They’re doing a segment tonight on a study just released that shows male nurses are paid more than female nurses. They want you for a live interview around seven. I checked…you have a royal blue top and white necklace hanging on the back of the door in the studio.”
Good thing, since she was wearing a forest-green dress, which would render her transparent against the computer-generated backgrounds some news stations used for remote interviews. “Tell them yes, but not to leave me hanging like they did last time. I’m out of here if we haven’t started by seven thirty. And see if you can get me a copy of that study. No, get me Gloria for about an hour this afternoon. Have her review it so she can tell me what I need to know.”
Hank squeezed past Penny into the room, surprisingly clean-shaven and wearing a crisp white shirt with a dark sport coat.
“What’s up with you?” Theo asked. “You have a date or something?”
Scoffing at her remark, he slid a piece of paper across the table. “I just talked to the nurse at the student health center, the one that comes in for all the rape cases. Her official title is Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. She said the campus cops picked up the rape kit the same day Hayley Burkhart came in. In fact, they called twice asking if it was ready.”
Why would they be so anxious to pick up the rape kit if they had no intention of charging the men responsible?
Theo examined the form, a copy of the receipt the courts required to establish the chain of custody. The scrawl on the signature line was illegible. “Any idea whose chicken scratch this is?”
He drew a small notepad from his chest pocket. “I know he’s about five-nine with dark hair and a mustache with flecks of gray. That puts him at forty-five or so, and he had a couple of bars on his collar. Probably makes him a sergeant.”
“But he was too shy to leave his name. What do you make of that?”
“Raynelle…that’s the nurse’s name, Raynelle Willis. I knew her back when I was at APD and she worked over at Emory. She said the cops treated this case like it was a big emergency, like they were really going to nail those guys. She couldn’t believe it when I told her they never even filed charges.”
So he knew Harwood’s rape specialist from his days on the police force. And apparently he’d wanted to make a good impression on her, since he’d cleaned himself up.
“And by the way, Raynelle couldn’t tell me much because of the privacy laws, but she let it slip that Hayley Burkhart showed signs of sexual trauma consistent with multiple assailants.”
Theo did her best to fight off a visible shudder.
“So the police now have the rape kit?” Jalinda asked as she started a new page of notes.
“Funny you should ask.” He leafed through his notepad. “After I talked to Raynelle, I called Bobby Hill at the police station, my rookie contact. He took a look around the evidence room, including their cold storage. I’ll give you three guesses what’s not there. These guys’ve got some brass ones, all right.”
The conspiracy grew more brazen at every turn. Everyone involved in the case was acting with impunity, certain there would be no accounting. Even Celia, who’d witnessed the duplicity firsthand, would be shocked to know the coverup ran so deep.
* * *
Celia arranged her dinner on a tray with a small salad and glass of chardonnay. Her evening ritual—a “gourmet” meal in a disposable dish from the microwave, eaten in front of the evening news.
The teaser had promised a story about the salary discrepancies between male and female nurses, which was in the news because of a recent national study. Ever since she’d read about Theo and the work of her law firm, anything remotely related to equal rights for women got her attention. But she hadn’t expected Theo’s face to suddenly fill half her screen alongside that of the baritone news anchor.
“…if you could explain why these researchers concluded this is the result of
systemic
bias. What exactly does that mean?”
Theo’s response was delayed by a couple of seconds while his question transmitted over the airwaves. “Right, systemic bias involves human
systems
, such as those in place at work, at school or within a consumer transaction. One of the ways it manifests in the workplace is when employees are judged not by their skills, knowledge and performance, but by their characteristics—in this case, by their gender. The importance of this study is that it proves men in the nursing profession are paid more than women across the board for the exact same jobs, even when their skill sets and experience are identical.”
The blue blouse picked up the color of her eyes, which looked especially bright in the studio lights. Small white earrings that matched her necklace peeked out beneath her blond hair. She truly was an attractive woman, worthy of her vaunted inclusion on
People
magazine’s list.
The news anchor challenged her in a voice that suggested he took her implications personally. “There’s a counterargument however, one that says their jobs aren’t identical, that men are called on to perform more physical tasks, such as lifting patients or controlling those who become unruly.”
With a hint of a condescending smile, Theo waited patiently for him to finish. “Female nurses are called on also for such duties, but they aren’t paid extra when they do them. In fact, they perform the same jobs as male nurses day in and day out. Some may even be physically stronger than men, but the point is we don’t measure their strength and use those results to set their salaries. Let’s assume we did, however. No matter where they scored on the strength measure, they’d still be required to lift patients and perform other physical duties. For those who scored lower, the work would be more difficult. What sense would it make to pay them less?”
The anchor tried to jump back into the conversation but Theo hardly took a breath.
“In our society, women more than men are socialized to nurture others and dispense compassion, qualities that are universally recognized as essential in the nursing profession. Yet they aren’t paid more for possessing those qualities. It goes without saying there are plenty of nurturing, compassionate men, just as there are women who are physically strong. But studies have documented that men aren’t called on as often as women for emotional support. Why is it we value physical strength over compassion when we assess someone’s worth?”
“Zing!” Celia shouted.
“Furthermore,” Theo went on, “women are far more likely to experience social assaults in the workplace or abusive treatment from patients, doctors and administrators. Yet female nurses who have to put up with those things are paid less—more than five thousand dollars a year on average. That amounts to as much as two hundred thousand over a career, twice that when you consider the lost opportunity to grow wealth. That’s blatant sex discrimination, all because the
systems
in which nurses work overvalue the perceived skills of men while undervaluing those of women. Such discrimination is against the law.”
With cold, hard facts, Theo had practically laid out a legal case for the taking. The news anchor could only manage a contemptuous scowl as he grudgingly thanked her and introduced the commercial break.
Celia hit the rewind button and watched the interview again, paying special attention to Theo’s emphatic expressions and confident voice. She was almost robotic—fact, fact, fact, fact, conclusion. An unbending pragmatist, she’d shut down the anchorman’s argument with the same bluntness as she’d dismissed any notion of dating Celia. While it wasn’t exactly endearing, there was a certain appeal to her candor and precision when it was directed toward someone else.
Admittedly, she’d become frustrated with Theo’s professional demeanor. Their only contact since talking on the phone the day she dropped off Michael’s thumb drive had come through her administrative assistant, Penny Lowrey—confirmation they were proceeding with the case and thanks for setting up the meeting with Michael and his boyfriend. Not a word about what she’d learned from their interview. Considering how deeply Celia was invested in the case, she surely deserved to be kept in the loop.
But it wasn’t only case updates she wanted. Now that Theo had briefly opened the door, she wanted to throw the rules out the window. If not now, then she wanted a promise for later when the case was over. Women like Theo didn’t come along every day. Or every decade.
“Right here’s fine,” Theo told the Uber driver as she passed him an extra five bucks.
Parking on Harwood’s campus was nearly impossible for visitors, even now that spring semester was officially over. At least the ride from her office in the backseat had given her time to review Jalinda’s notes on the woman she was set to meet. Sarah Holcomb, Hayley’s sorority sister and roommate, the girl who’d found her in the shower. She was a junior from Chattanooga majoring in computer science.
According to Michael, Sarah had been supportive of Hayley after the rape, unlike some of her sisters.
Jalinda was waiting at the designated meeting point, sitting on a low wall that lined the sidewalk in front of Jackson Library. “She’s waiting for us in a study room on the third floor.”
For someone who seldom interacted socially with co-workers, Jalinda had an uncanny ability to relate to total strangers. Her no-nonsense approach made them feel as if they were compelled to answer, when in fact, their testimony wasn’t required unless they’d been served a subpoena.
“Is she cooperative?”
“Traumatized is more like it. I got the feeling she found it therapeutic to talk about it.”
To blend in better on campus, Theo had dressed down for the day in ankle pants and a light blazer with the sleeves pushed up. No doubt the university would take umbrage at her trespassing so she could gather information to sue them.
Sarah sat behind a small table facing the door. “Just a second,” she said in greeting as she finished messaging on her phone.
Jalinda set up the recorder and readied herself with a blank legal pad while Theo studied their subject. She looked like hundreds of coeds on Harwood’s campus—trim and athletic with straight dark hair pulled tight in a ponytail. A starter on the volleyball team, according to Jalinda’s notes.
“All done.” She set her phone aside. “I guess you want to talk about Hayley. Do I need a lawyer or anything? I’m just a witness, right?”
“That’s correct. We’re just trying to get some background information about Hayley’s state of mind last spring. We’re talking with lots of people who knew her.” Theo introduced herself as an attorney representing the family. “Jalinda tells me you and Hayley were roommates.”
“Just this past year. Not best friends or anything, but we got along okay. I was the one who found her in the shower.”
They listened patiently as she described her personal aftermath of Hayley’s suicide. To this day, Sarah felt guilty for being wrapped up in a “stupid” basketball game while Hayley suffered. And still wishing she could have done something to help her.
Through a series of probing questions, Theo got some of what she needed—confirmation that Hayley’s overall demeanor had changed dramatically in late February.
“She started doing everything with Michael Fitzgerald, a guy she knew from the drama department. He wasn’t her boyfriend or anything like that. Everybody knew he was gay. But he was a nice guy…I met him a few times. He was practically the only one she’d talk to. She came back to the room a couple of times and it was obvious she’d been crying. Or she’d be really quiet like she was worrying about something. It was like that for three or four days before she finally told us what happened.”
According to Gloria’s research, it wasn’t unusual for women to keep their sexual assaults secret. The stigma attached to being a rape victim was more than some could bear.
“You seem certain of the date. Why does it stand out for you?”
“It was right before spring break. She was supposed to come with us to Daytona but she backed out at the last minute. And wouldn’t say why at first. But then she did.”
“How did the other women react when she told them about the rape?”
Sarah’s face fell. “Not everybody believed her. It happened at a party—most of us were there, and everybody was pretty wasted. People always celebrate after big games. Things get kind of wild, you know? You lose control…you forget stuff. Nobody saw anything like what she said happened.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“That she went with Michael, but he ran into somebody he knew. Probably a guy. The last thing she remembered was talking to Morgan Hunter and me right after she got there. Morgan’s in our sorority too. She lives two doors down on our hall.”
“Do you remember that conversation? With Hayley and Morgan, I mean.”
“Yeah, we were standing by the big TV.”
The more details, the better. “Was Hayley drinking anything?”