I was near to picking up the receiver when Caitlin signed off. I’m not sure why I didn’t. But I can’t help wondering why a Natchez reporter was able to get through to Caitlin when I wasn’t. And half of her message was about Kate’s murder, almost as if she were calling me to get details for a story. It’s not that I don’t want to share things with her. But I want her to be here to share actual experiences with me, not call for reports when things sound interesting.
A wave of relief goes through me when the phone rings again. I roll over onto one elbow and answer.
“Hey, babe,” I murmur. “Sorry. I was half sleep before.”
“Penn?” says a male voice.
“Yeah, Drew. What is it?”
“I was surfing the Web, and I found a site maintained by the Mississippi Supreme Court. They’ve got the whole criminal code posted there. And from what I can tell, statutory rape only applies to girls under
sixteen,
not eighteen.”
I blink in the darkness. “Are you sure? I remember the statute pretty well. Of course I learned it before moving to Texas for fifteen years. The legislature could have changed it.”
“Here’s the applicable language. ’The crime of statutory rape is committed when any person seventeen years of age or older has sexual intercourse with a child who: one, is at least fourteen but under sixteen years of age.‘ There are qualifications, but they all deal with even younger victims and the age difference between victim and perpetrator. It also says, ’Neither the victim’s consent nor the victim’s lack of chastity is a defense to the charge of statutory rape.‘”
“They must have changed the statute,” I say in disbelief. But even as relief courses through me, a sense of foreboding rises in my mind. “Drew…I think I read somewhere that some states were moving in this direction because there were so many suits being brought by parents who hated their daughters’ boyfriends. You’ve got two seventeen-year-olds having consensual sex. The guy turns eighteen and bam, the girl’s parents try to lock him up for statutory rape.”
“So, I’m in the clear?”
“Under that statute,” I say uneasily. “But somehow I don’t think you’re out of the woods yet.”
What is it?
I wonder, searching my memory for the source of my anxiety. “There’s definitely a sexual harassment issue here, but of course that’s a civil matter. It’s criminal charges we’re worried about, felonies in particular.” Suddenly, a voice is sounding in my head, the voice of my old boss, the district attorney of Houston:
lascivious touching or handling of a minor…contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and then the big one, sexual
—“Drew, are you still at your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Look up sexual battery.”
I stare up at the dark ceiling, listening to the clicking of keys and praying that my instinct is wrong. “What does it say?”
“Just a minute. Okay…uh…”
“Read it aloud.”
“Here…’A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with (A) another person without his or her consent.‘ I’m okay there.”
“Keep reading.”
“ ’(B) a mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless person. (C) A child at least fourteen but under sixteen years of age, if the person is thirty-six or more months older than the child.‘ Thank God.”
Drew sounds so relieved that I’m tempted to let him hang up and get a good night’s sleep. But I’m almost certain that bad news is coming. “Keep reading.”
“Okay. There’s a second paragraph. ’A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with a child under the age of…‘ ”
His voice falters. “Drew?”
“Eighteen,” he whispers. “It says eighteen here.”
“Keep reading.”
“Oh, God. Oh, no.”
“Please read it for me.”
“ ’…if he or she engages in sexual penetration with a child under the age of eighteen years if the person is in a position of trust or authority over the child including without limitation the child’s teacher, counselor,
physician,
psychiatrist, psychologist, minister…‘ ”
Drew’s voice sounds like that of a man being sedated before an operation, a monotone fading into nothingness. “You can stop, Drew.”
He continues as though he can’t hear me over the print screaming from his computer monitor. “ ’…priest, physical therapist, chiropractor, legal guardian, parent, stepparent, aunt, uncle, scout leader or coach.‘ ”
“Drew, listen to me. Are you listening?”
Out of a deep well of silence comes a single sob.
“Drew, it’s
all right.
I know you’re feeling terrible guilt right now. Seeing it written down like that, you may feel for the first time that you’re guilty of a crime.”
“She’s dead,” he says in a shattered voice. “And if I hadn’t crossed this line with her, she’d be alive right now.”
“You don’t know that. You’re not God. Listen to me, buddy. I love you. I love you, and I respect you. You’re just human, like the rest of us.”
“Wait a minute,” he says wetly. “I’m looking for the penalty.”
“Don’t. Leave that for tomorrow.”
“I need to see it.”
No, you don’t,
I say silently.
It’s going to be thirty years—
“Jesus Christ. It’s thirty years.”
“That’s not going to happen, Drew. I promise you that.”
“Oh my God,” he says with fresh dread.
“What? What is it?”
“For a second offense, it’s
forty
years. Timmy would be—”
“Turn off that computer! That’s not the real world, Drew.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hell, yes. I was a prosecutor for fifteen years. That’s why you wanted my advice about all this, remember? And my advice is to go to sleep and let me do the worrying for you. That’s what you’re paying me for.”
“Twenty bucks doesn’t pay for much worrying.”
I don’t reply for some time. Then I say, “You saved my life. And you risked your own to do it. If you hadn’t, my daughter would never have been born. That buys you a lot of worrying.”
“You never asked for this.”
“No, but I can handle it. You’ve got to stay in control for me, though.”
“You’re not leaving town or anything tomorrow, are you?”
“No way. Now, what are you going to do about the blackmail issue? Are you going to come clean with the cops?”
“After what we just learned? I don’t know.”
“You’re a smart guy, Drew. Let’s talk about probability.”
“Okay.”
“How often did you see Kate? I don’t mean platonically. How often were you alone with her, intimate with her?”
“Every day. Or night, rather.”
Unbelievable.
“For how long?”
“For the last seven months, I guess. Ever since the mission trip to Honduras. After that, we couldn’t stand to be apart.”
“Get out ahead of this thing, Drew. It’s your only chance.”
“I hear you.”
I let the silence do its work for a while. “Do you?”
“It’s Tim that’s holding me back. I don’t want him to have to know about this if he doesn’t have to. I don’t want him to have to go through the grief he’ll get at school because of it. I don’t even want
Ellen
to have to deal with it, now that Kate’s dead. There’s just no reason anymore.”
“Yes, there is. This thing is beyond your control now. No matter what you do, it’s eventually going to come out.”
“I’m not so sure. If Kate said she didn’t tell anybody, she didn’t.”
“Then who’s blackmailing you?”
“Kate’s killers.”
I grunt noncommittally. “
I’m
not so sure.”
“I know. But I am.” He breathes steadily into the phone. “Thanks for tonight, Penn. I mean it.”
“Night, buddy.”
The open line hisses in my ear.
I hang up.
Chapter
7
Drew’s blackmailers lost no time making him pay for his indecisiveness. At 11:10 the next morning, I was helping my mother paint some bookshelves in her garage when my cell phone rang. The screen showed Drew as the caller. I walked out of the garage under the pretext of getting better cell reception, then answered by saying, “Are you as sore as I am?”
“You were right,” he said. “I’m fucked.”
A current of anxiety shot through me, but experience kept my voice calm. “What’s happened?”
“I just got off the phone with Shad Johnson. He got an anonymous call this morning.”
“Let me guess. The caller said you were having an affair with Kate Townsend and that you might have killed her.”
“Yep.”
“Did he give any details?”
“Johnson didn’t say so.”
“What did Shad ask you during the call? Did he ask straight out if the accusation was true?”
“No. He basically said, ’Doc, I hate to have to call you about this, but I got this call with an accusation, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t ask you about it.‘ He was pretty friendly, actually.”
“Shad Johnson is not your friend.”
“I understand that. I was just giving you his tone. He said he wanted to give me a chance to deny it as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t become any kind of thing.”
“ ’Thing‘? That was his word?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s already a
thing,
Drew. You can bet your ass on that. Did you flat-out deny that you were seeing Kate?”
“No.”
I sighed with relief.
“I acted stunned,” he said, “which I was. I told him I was too shocked even to respond to such an outrageous accusation, that Kate was a close friend of our family, and that we’d been shattered by her death. Shad said he understood. He said he’d like to talk to me about it at his office. He said I might have information about Kate that could help them piece together a better picture of her than they have now.”
“What did you say to that?”
“What could I say? I told him I wanted to do everything I could to assist the investigation.”
“Okay. When is this meeting?”
“Lunch today. Fifty minutes from now.”
Shit.
“Was it a short call? Long? What?”
“Short.”
“That’s because Shad got what he wanted. He thinks he’s going to question you on his territory.”
“He’s not?”
“Not unless you’re a complete moron—which, after last night, I’m starting to believe.”
“Penn—”
“Damn it, why didn’t you volunteer the information last night like I told you to?”
“You know why! I didn’t want Tim and Ellen to have to deal with it if they didn’t have to.”
“Well, now they have to.”
“What do I do, Penn?”
“You really need a lawyer now.”
“I told you that last night.”
“And I told you I wasn’t your guy. Not for this.”
“The meeting’s in fifty minutes!”
I bowed my head in resignation. The odds of finding a Natchez lawyer qualified to take that meeting were low, and the odds of adequately briefing one in time were nil. “Where are you now?”
“At my office. Seeing patients.”
“You’re off at twelve?”
“Yeah.”
“You just had an emergency.”
Drew was silent for a moment. “I’m skipping the meeting?”
“I’m going in your place.”
“Is that the best thing?”
“We need to get some idea of what Shad is thinking. I’d also like to know what the autopsy turned up. Shad probably has the pathologist’s report in hand by now.”
“I don’t want to think about that. This is Kate we’re talking about.”
You’d better get used to it.
“Sorry. Now…we have a tricky little problem to deal with. Think before you answer me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“The first thing Shad is going to ask me is where you were when Kate was murdered. He won’t be obvious about it, but he’ll ask. And I happen to know you were at the murder scene. Where did you go
after
you left the creek?”
“Home.”
I was silent long enough for Drew to realize that if he was lying, he had better come clean then or stick with his story. “Was Ellen there?”
“No. She was at her sister’s place.”
“What about Tim?”
“The maid had taken him to his music lesson.”
“So nobody can verify that you were home?”
“I answered some e-mails soon after I got there. Couldn’t we use those?”
“Maybe. But depending on how narrow a window they’ve established as time of death, the e-mails probably won’t put you in the safety zone.”
“Tim got home around five, and Ellen about six.”
“Okay. It’s also possible that someone saw your car parked in that vacant lot in Pinehaven. For that reason, and for others I can’t predict now, I may decide I need to tell Shad the truth. Everything. Today. The affair, the blackmail, everything.”
Drew said nothing.
“In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think coming clean may still be the best option we have. Even lying by omission digs a hole they can bury you in later.”
A woman on Drew’s end of the line called out a blood pressure reading. Drew lowered his voice. “You’re my lawyer, Penn. I trust your instincts. Say whatever you think you need to. I’m innocent—of murder, anyway—and I’m not going to hide anything except to protect my son.”
What could I say to that? “I’ll call you when the meeting’s over. Keep your cell phone wired to your hip, and don’t answer any calls until you hear from me. Don’t talk to
anybody.
”
“I won’t.”
I hung up and turned back to the garage. My mother was watching me with a quizzical look on her face. In that moment I realized just how far my life had already slid off its accustomed track. After dropping Annie at school this morning, I drove down to the football field and searched it for my lost pistol. Failing to find it, I went up to the high school and told Coach Wade Anders to keep an eye out for it. Anders is the athletic director of St. Stephen’s, and he promised to have his assistants search the bowl again before any kids were allowed into it. He also asked if I knew anything about the switch box for the stadium lights being shot up. I told him I didn’t, but that I’d send someone to install a new box as soon as possible. He looked at me in silence for a little while, then nodded as though we shared a special understanding. Like everybody, Anders was building up capital where he could.