Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  Jackson nodded but Jeff was looking at Emory.

  “Emory, tell me the nature of the crime, when it occurred, and who committed it.”

  Why did they have to ask questions they already knew the answer to? Emory was probably wondering the same thing.

  “Okay. All right. I was attacked by Drake Winterbourne. It was May nineteenth, two years ago.”

  “And what was the nature of the attack?”

  Say it, Emory! You’ve never said the word.

  “He beat me and he … he raped me.”

  Jackson’s gut tightened with anger. Knowing it, and hearing her say it with so much fear and humiliation in her voice were two different things. But he didn’t have time for anger. She leaned her head into his shoulder and he pressed his lips to her temple.

  “And you knew the attacker?” Jeff said.

  “Yes. Not very well, but I met him that night.”

  “Where did the meeting take place?”

  “At the apartment of one of my colleagues from Jennings-Caldwell. Bentley Winterbourne. It was his thirty-fifth birthday and the party was a surprise. His wife gave it. That’s where I met Drake. He was—is—Bentley’s brother.”

  She leaned forward to reach for her coffee but Jackson beat her to it and placed it in her hand. She looked at him gratefully.

  “Were you good friends with this colleague? Had you been in his home before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Emory, you have to speak. We’re recording.” Jeff spoke to her gently and it was good for him that he did.

  “Sorry. No. I had never been there before and no, Bentley and I weren’t good friends. We were … work friendly, you know? We went to lunch together in a group from time to time, and I knew his wife from office parties, but I wasn’t going to call them on the phone to chat or invite them over for dinner.”

  “But you were invited to this party and you went alone?”

  “Yes. Everyone in the department was invited. It was a big party. Lots of people.”

  “And that’s when you met Drake Winterbourne?”

  “Yes. I also met their sister and their parents.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Drake asked if I wanted to get some food. It was a buffet but there were tables all over the apartment and on the terrace so we got our plates and sat on the terrace.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “The usual things people who have just met talk about—where we went to school, our jobs, what kind of music we like. Things like that.”

  “And you were interested in him?”

  Emory’s face turned bright red and her eyes filled. “Yes,” she whispered. “That is, I thought I might be. And he seemed interested, too … We had a lot in common—similar careers, similar tastes in books and movies. He had a new sailboat and I thought that might be fun. He said we should go sailing and I said I didn’t know how. He said he’d teach me.”

  She wanted a sailboat? He’d buy her a sailboat—a whole damned fleet. He reached for his phone to find where to buy boats and go to sailing school but he thought better of it.

  “Take your time, Emory,” Jeff said. “We’re not in a hurry.”

  “After we ate, we went our separate ways for a while. I talked to some people I worked with and he was talking to other people, too. But he kept catching my eye from across the room. He’d wink or wave. And then he came over and offered to get me a drink, so we had another drink together.”

  “Another drink?” Jackson searched for judgment in Jeff’s voice but found none. Good thing. “How much did you drink that night, Emory?”

  “Three,” she said quickly. “I had a martini when I first came in, a glass of wine with dinner, and then that last martini. They served Champagne with the birthday cake but I didn’t have any. I had water.”

  “You sound really sure about that.” Jeff smiled at her.

  “I am,” she said emphatically. “Over a four-hour period, I had two martinis and a glass of wine, with water in between. I always drink water between drinks at work functions and never more than three. Or I used to. I don’t really drink anymore.”

  “All right. What happened next? After you had that last martini?”

  “I told him I was going home, that it was nice to meet him. He said he would walk me out and help me get a taxi. I said my goodbyes to Bentley and his wife and we left. When we got outside, he asked me where I lived and when I told him, he said it wasn’t far and why didn’t he walk me home? And I said yes.”

  There was so much shame in Emory’s voice when she uttered yes, that Jackson wanted to pick her up and run from the room with her and stop this.

  “You’re doing fine, Emory,” Jeff said. “What was the weather like?”

  “Clear. No rain predicted. I remember checking before I left for the party. It had been warm that day, but it was a little cool at night. I remember wishing I had a sweater.”

  “What were you wearing?”

  Hell’s bells and damnation! Did he have to ask that?

  She looked at her hands. “A white chiffon skirt and black top. The skirt was full but short, about mid-thigh.” She looked up and into Jeff’s eyes. “The top was beaded and sleeveless but it was not tight, it was not low-cut, and it did not show any midriff. I swear.”

  “So a nice, dressy outfit? Like what you’d wear to a party like that,” Jeff said and Jackson wanted to kiss him right on the mouth. Or buy him a Lamborghini. Yes. The Lamborghini. That would be better.

  “Yes. Appropriate,” she said with some wonder.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “A suit. Dark. White shirt. French cuffs. Columbia business school tie. Blue. I wouldn’t have known that. He told me.”

  “Tell me about the walk home.”

  “We talked some more. He told me he lived on the Upper East Side, but he didn’t say where. He also said he had a Porsche of some kind. He said some numbers but I don’t remember. I don’t know much about cars but I did ask what color it was. He said black. I really don’t remember what else. Small talk. Oh. He talked some about baseball. He was a Yankees fan. Wanted to know how I felt about baseball. I told him I felt all right about it but that I was from Texas and was really more of a football fan. He thought that was funny. Come to think of it, I don’t know why it was funny. Maybe he thought a woman couldn’t know anything about football.”

  “Did he touch you while you walked?”

  “Yes. He held my hand and he stopped and kissed me once.” She pulled her feet up under her and shivered.

  Jackson jumped to his feet partly to get the throw from across the room and partly because if he didn’t exert some energy, he might run all the way to New York and kill Drake Winterbourne.

  “What happened next?” Jeff asked.

  Jackson wrapped her in the blanket and drew her against him.

  “We got to my building. I told him goodnight at the door. To be honest, I hated to see the night end but I knew inviting someone up could be construed as an invitation for more and I’d just met him. But then he asked if he could come up to use the bathroom. He even made a joke about how there were just too many blocks between my building and his brother’s.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “So I did it. I let him in. And after he used the bathroom I let him sit down. On the sofa with me.” She closed her eyes tight.

  “Do you need a break, Emory?” Jeff asked. “It’s fine if you do.”

  “No. I want to get it over with.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure. So you were sitting on the sofa together. And then?”

  “Then we kissed some. I will make clear that I was a full and willing participant. But when he started to … to … touch me, I pushed his hand away. I just wanted to kiss.”

  “Where did he try to touch you, Emory?” Jeff asked.

  “My bottom. My thigh. I pushed his hands away a few times but he wouldn’t stop.”

  This wasn’t news so Jackson shouldn’t have been surprised, b
ut as the image of what had happened to her became clearer, his heart beat faster and anger marched through him like crusaders going off to war. It’s a good thing he hadn’t heard all this before. He would have never sent Dirk. He would have gone himself.

  “I stood up and told him he had to go,” Emory went on. “That’s when he got really mad. He called me names—bitch, cocktease—and he said I’d liked him well enough when he was talking about his sailboat and Porsche. And that wasn’t fair. It made me mad and I told him to get out of my apartment and I turned my back on him to go open the door. But he caught my hair.” She placed her hand on her head.

  For the first time Jackson looked across the room at Dirk. He was leaned forward in his chair, jaw clenched, his cold eyes intent on Emory’s face.

  “So he pulled your hair?”

  “I jerked away but he didn’t let go and he ended up with a hand full of my hair. I had a bald spot for a while. Then he grabbed my wrist and slapped me.” She began to speak very rapidly. “I tried to get away but he shoved me down. Then he hit me with his fist. And that’s when he did it. I told him no but he did it anyway.”

  The room was silent for a bit. Maybe they were through.

  But no. “He shoved you down to the couch?”

  “No. The floor. In front of the couch.”

  “Were you clothed when he entered you?”

  “Yes. He tore my thong. It was lace so it tore easy.”

  How much more could she take? How much more could he?

  “I see. What about him? Was he clothed?”

  “Yes. Well, mostly. He’d taken his jacket off and loosened his tie. But that’s all. He just opened his pants. I had cuts on my stomach from his belt buckle.”

  The only sound in the room was a creak when Dirk gripped the arms of his chair.

  “God. Dear God,” Jackson said, and it wasn’t a curse.

  Jeff Shelton signaled him to be quiet.

  “And see,” Emory said, imploringly, so childlike. “Here’s the thing I can’t get. He held my wrists together over my head. But with the other hand, he managed to get a condom from his pocket, open it, and put it on—saying all the while that no whore was going to give him a disease or trap him with a baby. So with all that going on, it seems like I should have been able to get away. Don’t you think I should have been able to get away? If I’d tried hard enough?”

  Jackson pulled her harder against him.

  “No, Emory,” Jeff said. “I don’t think that. I think if you could have, you would have.”

  “Do you? Thank you for that. I did try to kick the leg he had me pinned with but I couldn’t get enough momentum.”

  She seemed to have gathered a little strength from that. She sat up and looked into Jackson’s eyes.

  “You’re doing great. I’m proud of you,” he whispered so the tape wouldn’t pick it up.

  “What happened next, Emory?” Jeff asked.

  “After he was done, he got up and pulled me to my feet. And here’s the weird thing. He said, ‘Wasn’t that great? I know how bad you wanted it. We’ll have to play that little game again.’ And he tried to kiss me! When I jerked away and screamed for him to get out, he beat me in the face with his fists—three, maybe four blows. Then he told me if I thought about crying rape, he’d find me and do it all over again. And that I needed to think back on how I’d opened my mouth right up when he kissed me and hadn’t pulled away when his penis got hard while we kissed on the street. Only he didn’t say penis.”

  “What did he say?”

  Was there no end to this?

  “Dick,” she whispered. “I don’t like that word.”

  “Can we be done here?” Jackson said because he couldn’t stay quiet another second.

  “Not yet,” Jeff said. “Soon. Mr. Beauford, if you speak again, you’ll have to leave.”

  Jackson almost said he understood but he nodded instead.

  “Emory, we’re almost done. What did you do after he left?”

  “I took a shower.”

  “Did you call anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Did you seek medical attention?”

  “No.” Her voice was a brokenhearted whisper. “I thought I might have to. I thought my jaw was broken, but I read the symptoms for that on WebMD and decided it wasn’t. My teeth still lined up.”

  “Why didn’t you see a doctor?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was so small. “I guess I didn’t want to answer any questions. And he’d used a condom.”

  “Did you go anywhere?”

  “Not until the next day.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I came here. To Beauford Bend.”

  “Did you tell anyone what happened?”

  “I told Amelia—that is, Miss Amelia Beauford, Jackson’s great-aunt and my friend. Only I didn’t tell her the truth. I wouldn’t have told her anything but I was all bruised. I told her a man on the street dragged me into an alley and did it.”

  “Did you tell anyone else? That story or the truth?”

  “No. Not until recently.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Jackson.” She reached for his hand.

  At last, Jeff nodded and turned off the recorder.

  “Thank you, Emory. You did great.”

  She let out a ragged breath. “It didn’t feel great.”

  “No. I don’t imagine that it did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When Jeff Shelton turned the machine off, Emory slumped against Jackson and he caught her face in his hands. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t have to.

  “Dirk, Jackson.” Jeff snapped his briefcase closed. “I know that was hard to hear. And, Emory, I know it was harder to say.” He took a step toward her but he didn’t get in her personal space. “But I want to tell you something. You didn’t do anything wrong. This was not your fault. Drake Winterbourne is a privileged, self-indulgent, pretty-boy animal, who knew exactly what he was doing. I took the statements of two other women and there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference in your story and theirs. He met them in a group, social setting where they had mutual friends. He chatted them up and took them home. Then he beat and raped them. And when they filed a report, he did it again.”

  “When did he first hurt them?” she asked.

  A cloud came over Jeff’s face. “One was three years ago, the other eighteen months.”

  “So, if I had come forward, I might have saved that last woman.”

  Jeff shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Date rape is a hard case. If the first woman had come forward, she might have saved you. But it’s impossible to know, just like it’s impossible to know how many more there have been. In reality, it probably took all three of you to get him off the street.”

  “But he is off the street? He can’t take back his confession?” Emory asked.

  “It would be hard. His story matched theirs, just like it’ll match yours.”

  “And she won’t have to go to court?” Jackson asked. “She doesn’t want to go to court.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jeff said. “I don’t know what Dirk said to him, but he was very effective.”

  “I did not have a weapon,” Dirk said. “I did not threaten him. I just told him what I wanted him to do.”

  “Yeah.” Jeff laughed a little under his breath, as he picked up his briefcase.

  Suddenly Emory had an epiphany. She stood. “You know what? I think if I had to testify now, I could.”

  Jeff met her eyes and nodded briefly. “Emory, I’m no expert on mental health or much of anything else except catching the bad guys. But I think you would benefit from talking to someone at a rape crisis center. Will you think about that?”

  “I will.”

  “I’m going to go now, if Dirk will take me back to the airport.”

  “Dirk, Sammy will do it if you don’t want to,” Jackson said.

  Dirk laughed and it was such a normal sound that Emory reveled in it.

&nb
sp; “I’ve got it. When are you going to stop speaking for that boy like he has no choices in life?”

  “I don’t know that particular date.” Jackson held out his hand to Jeff. “I appreciate this. When some time passes, can I at least send your wife some CDs?”

  “Sure. After Winterbourne is sentenced. Though, I don’t know why. She’s got them all. But no concert tickets, no iPod with music loaded on it. Nothing like that. Though she might like a t-shirt.”

  “Done,” Jackson said. “I’ll make sure you get one, too. I want you to walk around New York City with my face on your chest.”

  “Not going to happen.” Jeff took Emory’s hand. “Again, good job. I know it was hard.”

  “You made it as easy as it could have been. Thank you for treating me with respect.”

  “I’m sorry I only treated you with respect when reverence is what you deserve.”

  And Dirk herded Jeff out the door with a half wave over his shoulder.

  Emory turned and looked at Jackson, wide-eyed. Finally, the power that he had been talking about settled over her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

  She shook his questions off.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said with wonder.

  “No. You did not. That’s a fact.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “No.”

  “I can wear a short skirt if I want to.”

  He smiled. “And you should. But only in front of me.”

  “If I want to wear pretty, matching underclothes, I can. I might want to wear them just for myself. It wouldn’t mean I’m a slut.”

  “Of course not. And if you wanted to wear them for me and there were a few strategic cutouts, even better.”

  “A kiss is not an invitation to have sex.”

  “True. But what he did to you wasn’t sex. It was violence.”

  “But I can have sex if I want to, real sex. I am an adult who makes good decisions. I deserve to have sex if I want to.”

  “Yes. You do. With me.”

  That was a given.

  “I’m not a whore.”

  “Far from it.”

  “I am not a cocktease.”

  “Never.”