by Chris Culver
Chad claimed he didn’t rape June. He said they had broken up several weeks ago to see other people but couldn’t stand to be apart from one another. They got back together that night. To celebrate, they got drunk. Drinking led to fooling around, which led to consensual sex.
Without prompting from me, he said June liked things a little rough. He claimed he pinned her arms down at her request and had both vaginal and anal sex with her. Afterwards, he helped her take a shower because she was drunk. Then, she got dressed and walked home alone. He passed out in bed and woke up the next morning.
When Chad finished speaking, I looked up from my notepad.
“Since you were her concerned boyfriend, did you call her the next day?” I asked.
“Yeah, but she didn’t answer,” he said. “I saw her in the dining center. She seemed fine.”
“Did you try to talk to her?”
Chad almost said something, but Jake interrupted him before he could.
“Don’t answer that, Chad. This interview is over.”
I looked at him. “Why don’t you go take a walk, Jake?”
“This is my house,” he said, pounding a finger on the coffee table. “You can’t tell me what to do in my house.”
I nodded and kept my lips thin and straight.
“To be clear, are you a licensed attorney in the state of Missouri, Jake?”
He shook his head. “No, but—”
“Is Chad Hamilton a minor in your care?”
“No, but this is my house,” said Jake, shaking his head again. “You’re our guest.”
“To remind you, I’m a police officer investigating a rape. You’re a kid who likes to play lawyer but who doesn’t understand what he’s doing. I’ve allowed you to stay here because you kept your mouth shut. Now you’ve interrupted my interview and told your friend not to answer my questions. That means you’ve interfered with a police investigation. You can either walk away now, or I will call my station for help. A very burly, angry man we call Sasquatch will handcuff you and take you to our station, where you will spend the night in a cell pending arraignment tomorrow morning. Your choice. What do you want to do, Jake?”
Jake stood and opened his mouth. I cocked my head to the side and raised my eyebrow.
“Take a walk, kid,” I said, smiling. “Let the adults work.”
He muttered that I was a bitch as he walked away. People had called me worse, so I ignored it and turned back to Chad. His face was red once again.
“Are you going to answer my questions now?” I asked.
“I’m done talking.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding and reaching for my cell phone. I turned off the recording app and looked at him. “You want to listen for a minute?”
He sat back down and then shrugged.
“I guess.”
“Good, thank you,” I said. “Here’s what’s going on. June went to the hospital on Monday for a rather invasive exam. A nurse took swabs from all over her body, she took pictures, and then she boxed everything up for my crime lab. The exam sucks. Young women don’t sit for it unless something happened to them. You’ve told me your story, and June has told me hers. I find her to be a compelling, credible witness. You, I don’t.”
His shoulders seemed to slump.
“You raped her, didn’t you?”
He didn’t respond. I had expected that.
“Did you tell Jake that you had raped June, or did he guess on his own from the way June reacted to you in the dining hall?”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Chad, staring at his hands. I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. It wasn’t quite an admission, but I was getting there.
“He sounds like a good friend,” I said. He didn’t look up. “It’s kind of unfortunate he tried to help during the interview, though. I may have to charge him with conspiracy now. He seems like a smart guy. He’d make a hell of a lawyer one day. I’d hate to see that ruined. How many of your brothers know you raped her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Again, it wasn’t an admission, but it was closer still.
“June cried the entire night after she came home from your house. I know you care about her, and she cares about you. You didn’t mean to hurt her, I’m sure. You were drunk. Things got out of hand. That doesn’t make you a bad guy. You can still make this right.”
Even as I spoke, I leaned forward and snaked my hand across the coffee table for my phone to turn on my recorder. My eyes never left his. I forced them to stay compassionate and kind, but inside, they burned.
Come on, asshole. Say it. Admit what you did.
He opened his mouth as if to say something. And then, it all went wrong.
The front door slammed open, and raucous laughter filled the lobby as three of Chad’s fraternity brothers came home from class. Chad shot to his feet as his friends entered the room. All three gave curious glances to Chad, but then they focused on me. They didn’t hide their leers.
“Hey,” said one, casting his eyes down my torso. “Tell me you’re applying to be our new house mother.”
A second boy backhanded him on the shoulder and pointed at my hips.
“Dude, she’s a cop,” he said. “Look.”
For a second, nobody said anything. Then the three looked at Chad.
“Don’t say anything,” said one newcomer, already hustling toward the stairs that led to the rooms on the second floor. “I’ll call my dad. He’s a lawyer.”
“It’s okay, Josh,” said Chad, standing straighter. “I won’t say anything. You need to go, Detective.”
My lips threatened to curl into an annoyed grimace, and my fingernails bit into my palms.
“Are you sure?” I asked, knowing even as I spoke that it was pointless to keep pushing. Chad had shut down. “I can help you get ahead of this. If you face this on your own, you’re likely to get hurt.”
“Don’t listen to her, Chad,” said the boy whose father was an attorney. “She’s just trying to get you to talk. You need a lawyer.”
I wanted to tell him to shut up, but I kept my eyes focused on Chad. He opened his mouth to speak.
“I want to call my dad. I need a lawyer.”
At once, the dam holding my anger in check broke. I had needed that confession. Without it, I had circumstantial evidence, but nothing that could even secure an indictment, let alone a conviction. It’d be June’s word against Chad’s. I clenched my teeth hard. Waves of hot anger passed through my body. I wanted to kick something. Chad hurried to the stairs. I scowled and shook my head.
I looked at the kid whose dad was a lawyer. He took a stutter step back as I glared.
“Chad raped a girl upstairs, and you persuaded him not to talk. Thanks. You’re a real solid citizen.”
He said nothing, which I appreciated. I might have punched him if he had. Instead, I tightened my fists and stormed through the front door.
“Fuck.”
I didn’t say it to anyone in particular, but a pair of young coeds near me on the sidewalk jumped anyway. I didn’t care. When I reached my truck again, I sat in the driver’s seat and took deep breaths with my eyes closed, trying to calm down. My breath became more even, and the heat that had been rushing over my body cooled somewhat.
Then, somebody knocked on my window.
I opened my eyes and tilted my head to the right to see June Wellman staring at me from the passenger-side door. Her cheeks were rosier than they had been the last time I saw her, but her lips were just as thin and straight. I rolled the window down and forced myself to smile.
“Hey, June,” I said. “I had planned to call you this afternoon.”
“Miss Claudette said you were on campus,” she said. “I thought I’d say hi.”
My anger melted. This investigation wasn’t about me. It was about June. I leaned over to the passenger side of my truck and unlocked the door.
“Why don’t you have a seat?” I asked. “We’ll talk.”
; She nodded and climbed into the cab beside me. With the windows cracked, a breeze blew through the truck’s interior, carrying with it the sweet scent of cut grass and the occasional sound of laughter as undergraduates walked near the parking lot. It felt calm, almost peaceful. None of that made what I had to say easier, but I appreciated it.
“Chad raped you,” I said, once June sat down. “I talked to him this morning.”
She sat straighter. “He admitted it?”
I looked down and sighed before shaking my head. “I came at him hard, but no. He would have confessed, I think, but someone interrupted us.”
She nodded and shifted the backpack on her lap. “What now?”
“With your permission, I’ll contact the school and tell them what happened. As I understand it, Waterford has an honor code. He’ll face sanctions there. If you’d like, I can also file a restraining order on your behalf. I know a lot of therapists who have worked with rape victims, too, so I can—”
“You’re not going to arrest him?” she asked, interrupting me, her voice sharp and angry. “You’re going to let him go?”
I had been in June’s shoes, so I understood how helpless, angry, hurt, disappointed, sick, and defeated she felt. It had taken years for me to feel normal again after Christopher Hughes raped me. A sour, heavy pit formed in my gut. I wanted to take those feelings from her, but I couldn’t.
“You deserve better than this, and I’m sorry,” I said, my voice low. “I did my best, but I can’t arrest him based on what we have.”
“No,” said June, throwing open her door. It hit the car beside us, leaving a dent in its black paint. As she got out of the car, she glared at me. “I don’t accept that. If this is your best, it’s not good enough.”
Then she slammed the door shut. I stayed still and swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one in particular. My chest felt heavy, and there was a bitter taste in the back of my mouth. After a few moments, I wrote my name and phone number on a piece of paper from my notepad and slid it beneath the windshield wiper of the Honda Accord June had hit with my door.
When I got back in my truck, I didn’t want to go anywhere, so I sat for a few minutes. I had become a cop so I could help women like June. Most days, I loved my job, but days like this left me wondering whether, maybe, I should have gone to medical school instead. My grades in college were strong enough, and I had a degree in biology. I would have made a good doctor. I could have been a pediatrician.
Before I could sink any lower, my phone rang. I cleared my throat before answering.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Detective Court, it’s Mathias Blatch. I wanted to update you on my investigation. You got a minute?”
I sucked in a deep breath so he wouldn’t hear the catch in my throat.
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Our lab ran the ballistics on the round your coroner pulled from Laura Rojas. It matches rounds fired by the gun we found in Duke Trevino’s apartment. You want to talk to him?”
June was still on my mind, but I sat straighter and tried to focus on my other case.
“Have you got him in custody now?”
“We do.”
I reached into my purse for my keys and turned on my car.
“I’m in St. Augustine. Are you in South County, or are you in Clayton?”
“South County, Fourth Precinct.”
“I’m on my way,” I said. I hung up and tossed my phone to the seat beside me before buckling my seatbelt. Nailing a murderer wouldn’t make up for failing to arrest Chad Hamilton, but it would make me feel a lot better. I put my car in gear and headed out. It was time to do my job.
19
The Fourth Precinct station in southern St. Louis County was a modern, clean building well suited for a professional police organization. My mom—a retired captain in the St. Louis County Police Department—and I had attended the ribbon cutting eight months ago when they opened the building, but I had yet to go inside. The instant I stepped through the front doors, though, jealousy spiked throughout my body. Everything was clean and open, and all the overhead lights worked. It didn’t even smell like vomit or mold.
The officer manning the front desk smiled upon seeing me, so I showed him my badge and introduced myself. He handed me a sign-in sheet.
“Mathias knows you’re coming, so he should be down any moment.”
“Great,” I said, writing my name and contact information in the squares on the paper. Detective Blatch walked into the waiting room a few moments later with a smile on his face.
“Come on back, Detective,” he said. “We’ve got Trevino in an interrogation booth now.”
I followed him through the station to a row of interrogation rooms at the back of the building. Two rooms were free, but the third had a sign on its door that showed someone was inside.
“Have you told him about the ballistics match yet?”
Blatch shook his head. “That’s your case, so I thought you could break the news to him. At the moment, we’re holding him on a lot of drug charges. He’s looking for a deal on those because he knows we’ve got him dead to rights.”
I lowered my chin. “Has he asked for a lawyer?”
“Not yet,” said Blatch, “but he knows the system. He’s already signed a rights waiver form, so we’re good to go as far as the interrogation.”
I nodded.
“What kind of record does he have?”
Blatch drew in a breath and raised his eyebrows. “We’ve picked him up four times for distribution of a controlled substance but nothing violent.”
I slowed and furrowed my brow. “We found over a pound of marijuana in Laura Rojas’s home. If Trevino is selling in that quantity to other dealers, he must be a big player. Why was he still on the streets?”
“You’d have to ask the prosecutors,” said Blatch, a bemused smile on his face. “Are you questioning our police work?”
“Not at all,” I said, softening my tone. “I’m trying to get the facts straight before we go in there. If he’s someone’s CI, we might have an issue.”
“Not a worry,” said Blatch. “You ready to go now?”
I nodded. “I am.”
Blatch held the door for me, and I stepped inside a small, windowless room with rough gray fabric on the walls and ceiling and matching Berber carpet on the floor. In the center of the room, thick bolts held a metal table to the floor. There were wooden chairs around it. On one sat Duke Trevino. Blatch had said he was in his mid-twenties, but he looked forty. He had a jagged scar on his cheek and cold, brown eyes. The harsh overhead light gleamed on his dark skin. He was bald and looked pissed off.
Had I been alone in a dark alley with him and had he looked at me with the malevolence I saw in his eyes now, I might have drawn my weapon. As it was, he wore an orange jumpsuit and thick shackles that kept him rooted to his chair. He could have lunged across the table at me, but there were dozens of officers not ten feet away. They’d keep me safe enough.
I pulled a chair from beneath the table and sat across from him. Blatch did likewise, sitting beside me.
“Duke Trevino?” I asked. He nodded.
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Joe Court from the St. Augustine County Sheriff’s Department. I imagine you’ve already met Detective Blatch.”
He looked at my face and then to my chest. “Your momma want a boy or something?”
I cocked my head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a lady. What kind of name is Joe?”
I smiled. “My full name is Mary Joe. My mom was a big fan of Joe Montana, the football player. He was NFL MVP the same year I was born. You like football?”
Duke looked confused by the question.
“You bring me all the way down here to talk football?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “but sometimes it’s easier to start an interview if you know something about the person sitting across from you. I was tryi
ng to be nice.”
He grunted. “You want to be nice, you’ll take these chains off me. You keep a man in chains too long, he’s liable to snap.”
“They’ll come off you soon enough,” I said. “We won’t let you snap.”
“Why the hell am I here?” he asked, throwing up his shackled hands and looking at me. “I’m missing lunch.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your lunch,” said Blatch, tossing a manila envelope in front of me. When Trevino looked away, Blatch winked at me and nodded to the envelope. “Tell you what. I’m hungry, too. How about we get through this interview, and I’ll get us some tacos? There’s a food truck up the street.”
Trevino considered but then nodded.
“I want mine with cheese and beans and shit.”
“You answer our questions, you can have anything you want on it,” said Blatch.
Trevino leaned back and nodded. “Fire away, boss.”
Blatch looked at me, so I reached into my purse for my cell phone, which I used to record the conversation.
“For the record, this is Detective Mary Joe Court. I’m sitting with Detective Mathias Blatch and Duke Trevino in the St. Louis County Fourth Precinct station. Do you agree to talk to us today, Mr. Trevino?”
“Like I got a choice?” he asked, rattling his shackles.
“Detective Blatch has placed you under arrest, but you can remain silent. If you talk to us, we can use what you tell us in court against you. If you want a lawyer here, we can get you one. If you can’t afford a lawyer, the court will appoint one for you. So. You want to talk to us or go back to your cell?”
He paused for a moment and focused on me. “View’s better here.”
“Is that a yes?” I asked.
He looked at Blatch. “I know my rights. Yeah, we’re cool.”
“You want a lawyer here?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t pay one, and those public defenders ain’t worth shit. They screw up more than they help.”
