by Dale Mayer
“And you think that happened why?”
She stared at him. “Because one of their fathers is a general.”
Lars raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Being a general might help him in the military. But crimes at this level should never be covered up. And, yes, we know, the military polices its own,” he said. “But it has to stop, and somebody must pay the price.”
She leaned forward. “But nobody did because it was all processed internally. She was military. The five men were military. All of them were military. It was completely policed within the system. I don’t know if she—we—had other options. I never asked. And I went the media route, but that didn’t work out so well.”
Lars nodded. “But now it seems the same perpetrators have taken it out of the military. They’ve attacked your mother and killed your father.”
“Still there will be no justice for Tamara’s death.”
Lars looked up at Zoe. “Tamara’s dead?”
That’s when she realized she hadn’t told him the rest of it. “After the rape, she was completely paralyzed with fear about taking a shower, even in her own bathroom. She couldn’t be in the same room with the men. Everybody in the military knew. She had all kinds of guys coming on to her, making lewd remarks and suggestions. It was terrible. It was an environment of scorn and complete sabotage. Her self-confidence had always been high, but it became completely nonexistent. It was very painful to watch her go through it. I could do nothing but hold her hand and give her a hug. I kept fighting to get them to reopen the case, to punish these men. I did anything I could. Legally. Within the military’s own rules. And they told me to shut up or ship out. I took the opportunity to ship out.” She shook her head and stared around the room. “In my opinion, law enforcement is at an all-time low.”
“Yet this was the military.”
With bitterness in her voice she said, “They swore to uphold the law, to serve our country, protect those countrymen who couldn’t fight. And it’s a really hard thing to understand that, although they might have meant it at one time, they really don’t give a shit in the end.”
“I don’t think the military is bad through and through,” Lars said. “A lot of good men and women serve our country. But you get one bad apple running loose, and things go from bad to worse.” He looked at the names she had given him. “Of the five young men, which one do you think was the weak link?”
She looked at him with respect. “That’s a really good question. I’d say the last two names I gave you. According to Tamara, they were both coerced into participating.”
“Did you speak with them?”
“Never could. They ended up telling the military I was harassing them.”
“I bet Harrison could get them to talk.” He raised his gaze to her and added, “Not to mention the fact that Harrison knows an awful lot of men in the military. His whole team does. Between them, they’d probably have several hundred people they could talk to. And if nothing else they might be able to prod the military into setting up a buddy system for the women in the armed forces – a checks and balance system.”
She stared at him in delight. “When I think about Harrison, he’d scare anybody.”
Lars laughed. “I don’t think he’d take that too kindly.”
She snorted. “He can consider it a compliment.” She wished Harrison was here with her. “Can I get an update on what Harrison might’ve found?”
Lars nodded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”
The door opened, and somebody stepped in long enough to hand her a bottle of water.
“Do I have to retell all this to the police?”
Lars nodded. “Yes, repeatedly. That’s why it’s important to know exactly what you’re saying each time and to not get caught up saying something contrary when they ask the same questions.”
“I might be hazy on some of the details,” she said quietly, “but I know the anonymous tip was a lie. Have I been formally charged?”
He chuckled. “No, you’d know if you had been. The police have various steps to the process.”
“Hopefully, once they realize those three other murders on our property were probably committed on the same day that my parents were attacked, they will be looking for other suspects.”
“Or,” Lars said in a dry tone, “they will decide to charge you with multiple homicides.”
“Oh, shit.” She leaned back and rubbed her face. “I didn’t kill anybody. Why are they not hunting down my brother and asking him what a body was doing locked in his bedroom? I am sure there are more security videos of the people who came and left my house too.”
“It depends on what is on those missing security discs. Harrison is looking.”
“Good luck with that. He needs to find them before the military does,” she said bitterly.
“The police are likely to get them first. They have legal rights. But it’s in your best interests to prove somebody was there other than yourself.”
“Great. How do I do that when I’m stuck here?” She opened her phone’s contact list. “This is my brother’s number. I called, but it went to voice mail.”
Lars wrote it down. “I’ll send that to Levi as well.” He sat back. “I forgot one part. According to Harrison, you also had a very interesting conversation at the hospital.”
“If you call talking to the assassin who was paid to kill my mother interesting …”
He turned the recorder on again. “From the beginning.”
She rubbed her temples as she figured out where to start. “Richard told us an intruder had been seen at the same entrance we had used.” It took ten minutes to get through that part as she recalled the conversation.
“Oh, wait…” She brightened and pulled out her phone again. Clicking on a button, she held it up so he could hear the conversation between her and the hired gun.
When it finished, she said, “I forgot I had that.”
“And why is it that you believe he left without doing his job?”
“In a way, I think it was honor. Somehow it made him question what he was doing for money and whether he really needed to kill a woman who was already battered from so many years of abuse, and then knocked and kicked while she was on the floor. He really seemed offended by that. He made a decision she should live as she was such a fighter. Although he didn’t say my brother had done any of this, he did say Alex had already gone down a path too dark to be saved.”
“Then he knew of your brother’s activities?”
“That’s how I interpreted his comment.”
Lars shook his head. “We have so much evidence right there on your phone. Give me a minute. Let me see if I can keep the police from charging you with anything. Can you send me that video?”
She nodded and sent it to his email.
“Now sit tight. I’ll be back in a couple hours at the latest.”
“When you do, would you bring me a cup of coffee?” she asked.
He nodded. “Hopefully I can take you to a restaurant to get food and coffee.”
She gave him a bright smile. “In that case, forget the coffee. Just get me the hell out of here.”
When he opened the door, two detectives stood in the hallway, waiting to come in. Lars smiled at them. “Good, I have something you need to listen to.” The cops frowned at him but entered, Lars right behind them.
As soon as they sat, Lars hit Play on his phone so they could listen to the video, which only showed the ceiling of Trish’s room because Zoe’s phone had been sitting on her mother’s bedside table while recording. But they could hear the voices clear enough. The cops exchanged looks, shook their heads and took notes.
She leaned forward and said, “I told you that I didn’t kill them.”
“But you didn’t have any evidence to prove otherwise.”
“Foolish me. I thought we were innocent until proven guilty.”
The one detective who had been doing the talking rolled his eyes and said, “Now tell us eve
rything.”
She turned toward Lars. “Can’t we just let them listen to your taped interview of me?”
He nodded, brought out his recorder and, over the next half hour, played the three statements she’d given.
The detectives looked at her. “We’ll need those tapes.”
She nodded. “Make sure all that goes into your police records. Because those asshole military men got away with rape, and Tamara was not the first or last.”
The detectives shook their heads. “We can’t do much about the military.”
She nodded. “I know that. Maybe I can do something about it with some help.”
The younger detective looked at her, then at Lars. “Make sure it’s legal.”
“As legal as the military’s judicial system is,” she said, “which leaves a hell of a lot of leeway. Cover-up appears to be the system they operate under.”
They winced. “Back to your father’s case … we have a few questions.”
She answered as much as she could, but the longer it went on, the more fatigued she felt.
Finally they asked, “What are your immediate plans?”
“I plan to meet Harrison at my house. Find my brother. Watch over my mother. And see if I can shake up some military brass and have a few of them get the shit kicked out of them or at least get them kicked out of the military.”
The two men shared a look, then said, “We need contact information, an address where you’ll be staying.”
She handed over Richard’s phone number, her own, and Harrison’s. “I’m staying at Richard’s house. I have no idea where it is. Somewhere in Morning Heights. You can call him and get an address. As for the rest on my plans, I need to figure out who I’m after next. You better find my brother.” She brought up her contact list again. “That’s his phone number. He needs to answer for the dead man in his bedroom. And, no, I don’t know where my brother lives when he’s not at home trying to get Father to sign over one of his houses to him.”
The detective raised an eyebrow and said, “One of them?”
She nodded. “My father liked to own things. That included houses. Don’t ask me what the address is. I don’t know which house.”
“Would your mother know?”
In a softer voice she said, “No, she would not. My mother wasn’t allowed to know anything about the family business or holdings.”
The men nodded. “We have to talk to your mother and confirm what she told you.”
“Haven’t you already spoken to her on the phone?” she snapped. “I can’t have her upset over this. She needs to heal.”
“That’s true, but we must confirm that was her on the phone. So we do need to see her.”
She nodded. “You must clear it with Richard, her doctor, first.”
The men stood. One reached across the table and shook her hand. “Thanks for taping that conversation. It’s a little bit of evidence that you have on your side right now. We’ll hold off all charges until we get further information.”
“No, you will drop the charges, based on the recorded eyewitness statement of one of the victims,” Lars said and stood.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this.” She shot a hard look at the two detectives as she got up, turned and walked out.
*
Harrison hoped to be at the police station in time to pick her up. Richard had kindly lent him the use of one of his cars, and Harrison was making good time. Except … well, he’d also hoped to be there in time to defend her. But he’d heard she was being released, so he was too late for that. The plan now was to take her to Richard’s and keep her there. He knew she’d have something to say about that. But he wouldn’t take her back to her house just to see the police everywhere. As crime scenes went, it was extensive.
There was still no sign of her brother. Nobody knew if Alex was alive and involved, or on the run and not involved, or dead and dumped somewhere. Harrison hoped there’d be closure in that area, but he could give no guarantees.
His phone had been going off steadily, between calls and texts to and from Lars, Levi, Ice, and Richard. Her mom was awake again and getting stronger. The message that the cops needed to talk to her had also gone through. The sooner that was done, the easier it would be on everybody, and it would stop the police from focusing on Zoe. If they couldn’t believe the victim, then something was wrong with the judicial system. And it would also explain why the killers were making sure Trish didn’t survive the attack. She knew who had done this. Since she was alive and getting stronger, the pressure would be even greater to take her out. Particularly since the initial hired gun seemed to have walked away from this hit. It didn’t happen very often. Sadly too many others will step up to take over the job with the lure of big bucks.
That’s what had tied up Harrison for so long. He couldn’t very well hack into a murderer’s secret bank account and dispose of his contract killer’s fee while in a police station interrogation room, probably filled with cameras. While Harrison made the fee disappear, Ice had enlisted Bullard’s people to track the money back to whoever had paid for the hit.
Meanwhile, back at the compound, Levi, Ice, and Sienna had drafted Lissa, Katina, and Alina’s help with an old-fashioned phone tree implementation—done before the days of email; used by both PTA and soccer moms, basically all moms of any school-age children. So the six of them had their own list of about one hundred names each to contact via phone and to leave a voice mail only if necessary after three attempts. Harrison had his own truncated list of forty-seven to call, once he finished his hacking job.
The sole purpose of the phone tree calls was to set up an underground network to prevent these gang rapes and other hazing events that had gone on for far too long in our military branches.
Hopefully each of the six hundred contacts Levi had initially provided would reach out to another six hundred, who would reach to another six hundred, and on and on, ad infinitum. A pyramid scheme of the best kind.
And once Ice completed her call list, she hoped another of her computer runs would be done: a listing of every woman enlisted in each branch of the US military. She hoped to distribute that master list among their underground network and to get them busy matching up local overseers with each female in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. It would be a daunting task, but they had to start somewhere.
Plus, Harrison thought Zoe might want to lead a group—or reach out to survivors who would want to lead their own. That was her choice of course. He couldn’t wait to share all this behind-the-scenes work they had done. But she had enough on her plate at the moment, so he’d wait, after things calmed down here first.
He pulled into the parking lot behind the police station in time to see Lars walking out the side door with Zoe. She looked exhausted and yet brighter. He tooted the horn and pulled up beside them, rolled down his window and told Zoe, “Hop in.”
She looked at him and asked, “Where’s the Jeep?”
“Running backup as usual.”
Instinctively she looked around for it, then turned to Lars. “Thank you.”
He responded with a smile and a wave of his hand. “No problem. Keep me in the loop.”
She nodded, then walked to the passenger side of Harrison’s vehicle and got in. She was still amazed how somebody so big and so badass-looking as Lars could have such a gentle smile.
Harrison waited until she buckled up, then pulled from the parking lot. “You doing okay?”
“I am. I hope to never be in a position like that again.” She shook her head. “And I’m still not off the hook. It’s like they want to believe me, but, at the same time, it’s hard letting go of their very promising lead. Because if they don’t have me, they have nothing.”
“That might’ve been true before, but now, with the extra bodies, plus your recording, they have a ton more forensic evidence to follow up on. They will get the bad guys. Don’t you worry.”
She snorted. “I’m running a little low on faith.”
“Not everybody’s a bad guy.” He pulled into the mainstream traffic, changed lanes and took the next turn off to the right.
“Where are we going?”
“To Richard’s.”
She shook her head. “I want to see my mom first. I’ll sleep better knowing she’s okay.”
Seeing her fatigue but also her need to connect with someone from her world who loved her, he said, “Call Richard. We need his permission, and he needs a heads-up.”
Using her phone, she dialed Richard. When he answered, she explained her request.
“Of course you can see her. She’s awake and has been asking for you. I’m really glad the police released you.”
“Thank you,” she said in a choked-up voice. She glanced at Harrison. “How long?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Did you hear that?” she asked Richard.
“Yes, ten minutes. I’ll set it up.”
She ended the call and put her phone in her lap. “Anything new about the victim found in my brother’s room?”
“Positively identified as you suspected. It’s Paul Canley.”
“Well, at least justice has been served on one of them.”
At her words, he turned to look at her. “Please tell me that you had nothing to do with this.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Of course not. I wanted them punished, not dead.”
“With good reason.”
Slouching in her seat, she yawned. “I could sleep for a week.”
“After your visit with your mom, we’ll go to Richard’s, get you some food and put you to bed.” He reached a hand across the front seat and held it open, palm up. When she didn’t hesitate to place her much smaller one into his, he could feel something settle inside. Something good. Right. Honest. He didn’t want her to think he doubted her. She needed to know he was on her side, firmly and forever. She’d been given a lot of bad deals in this world, taken some serious hits. But not all of life, and not all people, were bad.
