by David Archer
Carson was staring at his holographic display. “I—I must have been in my office, I'm sure I was. I don't see any updates or appointments for that day, but I'm almost always in my office at that time of day. Probably the receptionist would remember.”
“Actually,” Hansen said, “we checked, and your receptionist was out sick that day. There isn't anyone who can confirm what you're saying.” He looked at the holo-tab again. “The last victim was attacked on February eighth of this year. Similar situation, she was cutting through the back rooms of the library, trying to get to her next class before she would be late. She never saw her attacker before he grabbed her, but once he did, she saw the hooded jacket. The room was empty, he kept her quiet, same scenario as the first two. Oh, and I left out a couple of important details; I forgot to mention that the second girl, when she was describing her attacker, she actually said that he was about the size of—guess who—Professor Pace, from the history department. And then there's the coincidence that every one of these attacks took place between two-thirty and three-thirty in the afternoon, within no more than a twenty-minute walk from your office. Now, somebody who knew the University pretty well, he could probably move through the whole thing without ever stepping into a commonway and showing up on camera. How well do you know the University, Professor?”
“Oh, come on,” Carson said. “You can't seriously believe I really did these things.”
Hansen shrugged and made a face. “Doesn't really matter what I believe,” he said. “Your problem is that all three of the victims believe it. We're going to put you in a lineup here in just a bit, and see if they can pick you out and positively identify you. If they do, then we'll let you make a phone call, because you won't be going home.”
Carson stared at him again, as Hansen got up and left the room. He tried to call Charlotte, but the holo-tab wouldn't accept the instruction. He tried again, and suddenly the AI appeared on the display. “Due to police override, your communication functions are temporarily disabled.”
Carson put his head in his hands and leaned on the table. This had to be some kind of nightmare, he was sure, and he expected to wake up at any moment.
Behind the two-way glass, Hansen and two other inspectors were scrolling through video of his conversation with Carson. “He seems pretty nervous, if you ask me,” Hansen said. “I've questioned guilty people before, and I'm convinced this is our guy.”
One of the others nodded. “He does seem scared, doesn't he? He's trying to act cocky and confident, but you can see the fear written all over him. Your victims will be here any minute—we'll let them make the final decision. If they can look at him and listen to his voice and say that's the guy who raped me, then I say you might be up for a commendation pretty soon. Every councilman on every level the University touches has been screaming at us to make sure this monster gets caught, and it's starting to look like you caught him.”
A tap on the door got their attention, and Hansen opened it to find the Captain. “We're ready in the lineup room, the girls are here. Bring your suspect through the back, I've got four others about his size waiting. Put him in the number two slot, and we'll see if they can pick him out or not.”
Hansen stepped back into the interview room and got Carson, holding his arm as he escorted him through a narrow hallway. There were four men wearing casual clothing in a small room, and Hansen lined them up with Carson in the second position. He opened the door, and the five of them filed inside and stood against a wall.
To Carson, it seemed that they stood there for an hour or more, but it was actually less than two minutes. Behind the two-way glass on the opposite wall, two of the girls who had been raped recognized Professor Pace instantly and pointed at him. “That's the one,” said one of them, and the other said, “Oh, yes, that's him, no doubt.” The third girl, who didn't know Carson personally, looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that's him. That's the one.”
The captain stepped out and nodded. Hansen opened the door and called the five men out, once again taking hold of Carson by the arm. He was walked back to the interview room and seated in the chair, and then Hansen leaned on the table and looked him in the eye.
“Carson Pace, you are hereby arrested for the rapes of three separate victims over the last year and a half. I'm going to reinstate your holo-tab's communication functions temporarily, so that you can make whatever calls you think are necessary. You'll be taken before a magistrate in just a few minutes, but because you have been positively identified by more than one victim, you're not likely to have bail set. We're probably going to be holding you in our lockup until you go to trial, which will be within the next thirty days. I'd suggest you call an attorney if you have one, or contact the Public Defense Pool if you don't.”
Hansen left the room, and left Carson staring at the door. He was in shock, wondering how such a thing could happen, and so fast. He was innocent, and he knew it. Surely there was no way he could be convicted. After all, what kind of sentence would they hand down for a rapist?
Not that it really mattered, not really; after all, with Justice Net, every sentence was almost certainly going to be a death sentence, since only about ten percent of those sentenced ever made it all the way through. When they did, and won their freedoms, most of them were smart enough not to ever come back.
The arraignment took only a few minutes, and Carson was handed back to Inspector Hansen. The only result was that he was appointed an attorney from the Public Defense Pool. This was another part of the GU’s changes to the world, providing free defense to everyone accused of a crime, regardless of their own financial status.
THIRTEEN
Charlotte answered on the second ring, a big smile on her face when Carson's face appeared on the display. “Hi, honey,” she said. “You running late today?”
Carson stared at her for a moment, and her expression changed slowly as she realized that something was wrong. “Char, um, I don't—I don't how to tell you this. I need you to trust me, I need you to believe me, because there's something crazy going on and I don't know what is happening. Honey, I've just been arrested for rape.”
Charlotte’s eyes went wide. “You what? Carson, what in the world are you talking about? This is impossible, I know you better than this!”
He was nodding, and she could see relief in his face at her confidence in him. “Yes, yes, you do. I don't know what's going on. All of a sudden they're claiming that I raped three women, students at the University.”
“Who is claiming this?” Charlotte demanded. “Who's accusing you of this?”
“They're saying that all three of the victims believe I'm the one who raped them, and the police have arrested me for it. I'm going to see the magistrate in just a little bit, but they said because it's rape and I've been identified, that I won't get bail. Charlotte, I don't know what to do. This is ridiculous, I would never hurt anyone!”
She was shaking her head. “Of course you wouldn't, I know that! Oh my gosh, Carson, what do I do? What can I do to help?”
“I don't know, honey, I just don't know. I don't have a clue how to handle something like this, I've never been through anything like this before. I mean, I know I didn't do it, so they can't convict me of it. This is just unbelievable.”
Hansen came through the door again. “Cut it off, Professor, it's time to go see the magistrate.”
Carson looked up at him, then turned his attention back to Charlotte on the display. “Honey, I have to go, they're taking me to see the magistrate now. I'll call you back as soon as I get a chance. Just hang in there, I'm sure we'll get this all straightened out pretty quick.”
“Okay, babe, I'm here for you. You hang in there too, okay? If they don't let you out pretty soon, I'll find out how to come visit you.”
The call suddenly ended, and Hansen motioned for Carson to get up. Once again, he was taken by the arm and escorted through the hallways, but then they loaded him back into the transport cruiser, with another offic
er riding in the back with him. The ride to the courtroom took only a couple of minutes, and he was marched into the presence of the magistrate.
As Hansen had predicted, because he had been positively identified as a rapist, bail was denied. He would have to sit in the police lockup, essentially a small locked room with its own bathroom, until he either went to trial or the charges were dismissed. That, he was told, was a decision for the prosecutor's office.
He was taken back to the station and stripped of all of his clothing and personal possessions, including his holo-tab. He was given a red paper jumpsuit to wear, and then pushed into the lockup cell. There was a vid screen on the wall, but he discovered immediately that it did not have communication functions. All he could do was watch news and entertainment programming. He sat down on the bed, and tried to figure out what could possibly have made his world become so crazy.
Charlotte was in shock, unable to believe that this was truly happening at all. When the call from Carson had ended, she simply sat at her desk for several minutes staring at the wall, trying to figure out what on earth could have possibly made anyone think Carson could be such a monster. She shook her head several times, trying to clear it and make herself think, and suddenly she remembered her own meeting earlier in the day.
Martin had given her his private comm code, and she quickly called it up on her holo-tab. When she told it to call him, he answered very quickly. His eyes went wide when he saw her face appear on his display.
“Charlotte? Well, hello, I wasn't expecting to hear from you today…”
“Martin, I need your help,” she said rapidly. “My DP, Carson, there's something crazy going on. He's been arrested on rape charges, but Martin, I know him, and there's no way he could do anything like that. Can you help me? Please?”
Martin was doing a great job of keeping his face looking shocked, while he was just about overflowing with excitement on the inside. This was the first step to freeing her from Carson, and it was the most dangerous. He had to be cautious, and appear to be on her side, convince her that he would do whatever he could to help bring Carson home. He had to let her begin to believe the evidence on her own, and never suggest to her that Carson was guilty.
“Oh, my goodness,” he said. “When did this happen? Just today?”
She was nodding, and tears were beginning to flow. “Yes, yes, he just called me a few minutes ago. Please, please Martin, can you help me? I—I love him, I don't want to lose him.”
Martin tried to smile, while still looking concerned. “Now, now, calm down. You say he didn't do this, so there really isn't anything to worry about. I'm sure it will just be a matter of a little time to straighten things out, and then he'll be home, but let me make some calls and see what I can find out, okay? I'll call you back in just a little bit, okay?”
Still nodding, Charlotte said, “Okay. Okay, I'll be waiting. Thank you, Martin, thank you so much.”
They ended the call, and Martin kicked back and relaxed. He'd call her back in a half hour or so, but she needed to worry for a little while, first. He, on the other hand, didn't need to call anyone to find out what was happening. He knew every detail of Hansen's investigations. All he needed to do was figure out how to break it to her gently that it looked bad, but that he believed her when she said Carson wasn't capable of such things.
He also had to tone down the flirting. He was at the point in his campaign where he needed to go slow and easy, make it clear to her that he was willingly being a friend, rather than a potential suitor. This was how she would need him to be, at least for a little while as she came to grips with the situation.
He waited about twenty minutes, and then called her back. She answered instantly, and he could see the desperation in her face.
“Martin? Oh, please tell me you found out what's going on!”
“Well, kind of,” he said. “It looks like somebody high up in our Special Investigations Unit came up with this theory that Professor Pace is the rapist they've been looking for, and sent a notice to the inspector in charge of the case. To be honest, all they really have is circumstantial evidence, based on the fact that he's about the same size as the rapist and doesn't seem to have an alibi. The bad part, though, is that all three of the known victims seem to think he's the one who did it.”
Charlotte was shaking her head frantically. “But, Martin, that's just not possible,” she said. “I've lived with him for years, don't you think I'd know if he was capable of something like that? I mean, there have been times when I just wasn't in the mood, and he's never even tried to push the issue. There's no way I could believe he could do something like that.”
“Hold on, I didn't say he did it,” Martin said. “It looks to me like they’ve shoved his picture in front of these girls over and over, and to be honest, most people would identify anyone if they keep being asked if this is the person who raped them. It's a subconscious thing, it makes you think you remember that person being the perpetrator, just because somebody keeps suggesting that they must be.”
Charlotte half smiled. “Then that has to be what happened,” she said. “Now, how do we straighten this out and get him out of there?”
Martin grimaced. “Well, I'm afraid that's the hard part. It looks like the prosecutor has decided to file charges against him, and he's been denied bail. If we can come up with a provable alibi for even one of these attacks, prove that he was somewhere else when it happened, we can probably get the whole thing thrown out.”
Her smile got a little wider. “Can you find out what the dates were? And what times? He keeps a record of all his appointments, I can look through them. He's always so busy, I'm sure he must've had an appointment somewhere while at least one of them was happening.”
Martin smiled. “I'm way ahead of you,” he said. “January nineteenth and July twenty-sixth of last year, then February eighth of this year. All three of them happened between two-thirty and three-thirty PM. Why don't you look and see what you can find out, and let me know. I'll do anything I can to help you on this.”
Charlotte pressed her lips together, and for a moment Martin thought she was going to cry. “You're quite a guy, you know that? I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you to lean on right now. And—look, we both know things were getting kind of heavy between us, but I really — I just can't go there right now.”
Martin smiled. “Don't worry, Charlotte, right now you need a friend more than anything else. Let me be that friend for you, okay?” Besides, he thought to himself, I notice you said you can't go there “right now,” which implies that you'd be willing to go there once all this is straightened out. “I'll do whatever I can for you on this, and maybe we can think about exploring other things once this problem is settled.”
Charlotte winked at him. “If you can help me solve this problem, I can guarantee we'll be talking about exploring those other things.”
Martin laughed with delight. “Well, now you know I'm going to do everything I possibly can to help! You've just given me the best possible incentive.”
They ended the call, and Charlotte began going through Carson's cloud account, looking for anything that would indicate he was somewhere else when those attacks took place. She started with the first date, January nineteenth of forty-three, but there was nothing on his calendar. She looked through his personal notes, to see if he might have jotted down something about a meeting that wasn't scheduled, but there was nothing there, either.
She checked the next date, July twenty-sixth. Unfortunately, there was nothing on his calendar for that day, either, and his notes were also inconveniently blank. There was nothing to indicate that he might have been busy somewhere else when whatever university floozy paid the price for the way those girls dressed, lately.
February eighth yielded no better results. How in the world could a college professor have no appointments or notes on three randomly chosen days? The odds against that must be astronomical, she thought, but here she was, faced with it. Unless she could
find something to indicate that he was somewhere else during at least one of those attacks, this was going to be a pretty big problem.
Think, Charlotte, think! she said to herself. There has to be some way to prove he wasn't there at the time. Oh, why couldn't you have come home early one of those days, then I could…
She looked at the HD in front of her, and her fingers flew in the air as she checked another possible source of information. Carson had always logged every entry and exit from their apartment, just so they could be sure that no one was getting in when they weren't home. She checked each of the three dates, and got excited when she realized that he had actually taken the afternoon off on of the eighth of February. He had entered the apartment just a couple of minutes before two o'clock in the afternoon, and when she thought about it, she remembered that it was because they had been invited to a party that evening.
She remembered it clearly. Carson had come home early so that he could shower, shave and change, and they had ended up in the shower together. They had left the apartment shortly before five, and taken an Uber to Doctor Steinmetz's place up on ninety-four. Steinmetz was the chair of the tenure committee, and Carson simply could not refuse an invitation to a party at his home.
She cleared the screen and called Martin immediately. “Martin, I found it! I can prove he couldn't possibly have been anywhere near the University on February eighth!”
