Victim Rights

by Norah McClintock

  What girl would want to go through that? What girl would seriously think that she had a chance of being believed, that she would come out of it with her dignity and her reputation in tact? How would she feel when the guy was acquitted, which, of course, he would be, and walked out of court with his head held high while she would be viewed as a pathetic case of a young woman spurned—or worse, a young woman who had been spurned and refused to accept that fact? Because there was also the incident at the tennis club. What had she been doing there? Why had she been lurking around?

  And then, of course, there was the bottle of aspirin.

  Dooley could see Randall leaning across the table, a look of sympathy on his face. You took an overdose of aspirin, Beth. You did it the same night that Parker was killed. Maybe he assaulted you and maybe he didn’t. Maybe you were afraid he was going to get away with it, or maybe you were afraid that he was just going to get away from you. Either way, it must have eaten at you, a guy like that, rich, good-looking, girls lining up to throw themselves at him, and he treated you like that. That’s why you went to the tennis club, isn’t it, to let him know that he couldn’t get away with it. You went to his house that night, too, didn’t you? Did you sneak into the yard from the ravine, Beth? Did you get him to agree to talk to you in private? Did you tell him how you felt? And then what happened, Beth? Did he laugh at you? Did he tell you that girls like you are a dime a dozen? He did, didn’t he? He made you feel as bad as you’d felt after you slept with him, didn’t he? Then what? Did you get angry? Did you decide you were going to make sure he didn’t get away with it? Did you kill him, Beth? Did you smash his head in? You did, didn’t you, Beth? Someone saw you in the ravine that night.

  Randall would look her straight in the eye, telling her he understood. You’re not a bad person, Beth. That’s why you swallowed that bottle of aspirin, isn’t it? Because you killed Parker and then you couldn’t live with what you had done, because you’re a good person. I talked to some of your teachers and to the principal at your school. They all said the same thing—she’s a good student and a fine human being. But Parker got under your skin, didn’t he? He hurt you, and you wanted him to feel as bad as you felt. You didn’t mean to kill him, did you, Beth? You just wanted to talk to him. But he laughed at you, didn’t he, and things got out of control? You’re not a bad person, Beth. You proved that when you called us and said you wanted to talk with us. Tell me exactly what happened. You’ll feel better if you get this off your chest. I know you’re the kind of person who takes responsibility for what she’s done. That’s why you called us in the first place, isn’t it?

  And Beth had spilled the whole story—assuming that she’d needed any encouragement in the first place. She’d told him the when, the where, the why, and the how.

  Jesus, was he responsible for what she’d done? She’d called him and said she’d seen him. Did she get the idea from seeing him in action? She’d also said she loved him. What had he done lately to show his love except make her cry by saying absolutely the wrong thing when she’d finally told him what had happened? No wonder her mother was so furious with him. No wonder she’d slapped him. To her, he was nothing but a criminal with whom her daughter insisted on associating. And look where it had landed her.

  He could see how Randall would be certain that Beth was the one. All the pieces fit together. She had the motive. She admitted she’d been there. She’d admitted she did it. She’d told him how it had happened. It all hung together, a pretty and deadly package wrapped up in a big red bow. Jesus, even he could see it.

  Except for one thing.

  Dooley found it impossible to picture Beth as a killer.

  TEN

  Dooley thought he was going to go crazy. He’d thrashed around in bed all night, unable to get comfortable, unable to sleep, antsy to do something, anything, to help Beth, and jittery because he couldn’t figure out what that something was. Up until he hadn’t heard from Beth while she was away and then just after she came back, it had been a while since he’d yearned for a drink or a hit. He’d been too wrapped up in Beth. Sure, things were a little rocky back before Christmas. But they’d smoothed that out. They got together whenever Dooley wasn’t working. If Beth’s mother was out for the night, Dooley went over. He was always afraid that her mother would walk in on them again, but she never did. And he always—always—made sure that he was out of the apartment a good fifteen minutes before she was due home. When Beth’s mother was home, Beth came over to Dooley’s uncle’s place. His uncle wouldn’t let them hang out up in his room, which kind of surprised Dooley. After all, his uncle knew they fooled around. More than a couple of times he had asked Dooley if he knew about safe sex. But, whatever. He wasn’t with Beth just for the sex. Not even close. He was with her because ... well, because he couldn’t stand not to be with her. Because he always felt better when he was with her. Or when he knew that he was going to see her. And, to be honest, because she always seemed so happy to be with him. He loved the way she smiled when she saw him. He loved the way she nuzzled up against him when they were watching a movie on TV. And the way she called him up even when she didn’t have anything special or important to say. Or when she sent him text messages asking him how his English test had gone or if he’d finished the history essay he was working on. She remembered what he was doing. She cared enough to ask. The only other person who did that was his uncle, and his uncle did it as a homework cop, not out of pure interest. He loved her because she loved him—or said she did. And looked like she did. And acted like she did. Whoever would have thought?

  And then she’d got fucked over—literally—by some asshole, and how had he reacted? He hated himself for that. He hated what he’d said the very last time he’d seen her. She’d gone out and swallowed a bottle of aspirin. And now here she was under arrest for murder.

  He gave up any idea of sleep and sat upright on the edge of his bed at a quarter to five in the morning, staring into the gloom. It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. Killing herself, or trying to, that was one thing. But caving in some guy’s head—even if it was Parker Albright’s—no way. So why had she confessed? Why had she called up the cops and told them she’d done it?

  He dressed and slipped out of the house. The sun peeked over the horizon as he started down the path into the ravine and headed north up to where it ran behind Parker’s house. He passed a couple of people out walking their dogs and nodded at the ones who nodded at him. He walked quickly, burning off some of the nervous energy that had been building up ever since his uncle had given him the news. By the time he looked up at the big houses and picked out Parker’s, his jitters had subsided a little.

  Down in the ravine behind Parker’s house, ribbons of yellow-and-black crime-scene tape hung from shrubbery and trailed, broken, on the ground. Okay, so that was where they’d found the body—in the shrubs and scrub that ran along the edges of the ravine floor, directly to one side of the promontory that jutted out from the back of the Albright property. What had Parker been doing down in the shrubbery? Likely answer: he’d been dead by the time he got there.

  Dooley looked upward. There was no crime-scene tape up top, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been any. Parker had been found down in the shrubbery, but Dooley bet he’d started out up top. The Albrights had probably removed the tape as soon as it was no longer needed. He imagined they didn’t want to look out their windows and see it fluttering there to remind them that someone had done something so heinous to their son. But he bet it had been there.

  It had to be thirty-five or forty feet from the floor of the ravine to the promontory. Thirty-five or forty feet of reinforced concrete slabs at a more or less ninety-degree angle that gave little or no purchase for climbing. Dooley waded through the brush to the base of the concrete and reached up, feeling for a handhold. He managed to dig a couple of fingers into the narrow, shallow indent between one slab and the next one above it, but it took all his strength to chin himself up because there was no plac
e to dig his feet in. The best he could do was press the toes of his sneakers as hard as he could against the concrete, while he reached up one hand to feel for another handhold. He held himself there, fingers sweeping the concrete above him, for about ten seconds before his muscles gave out. He landed on his feet and looked up again, frowning.

  His uncle had said that the cops had a witness who had seen a girl matching Beth’s description down in the ravine. Beth had told Dooley she’d been in the ravine that night.

  In the ravine.

  His uncle hadn’t said anything about her being at the party. If she had been there, wouldn’t someone have said something to the cops? But his uncle hadn’t mentioned that. No, he said she’d been seen down here.

  Dooley had been up there. He had seen the wall around the Albrights’ backyard—and all the security stickers. No, there were only two ways for Beth to have gotten up there—either she’d joined the party the same way Dooley had, by walking past Parker’s sister and all the other guests who were there, or she had climbed up, unseen, from down in the ravine. He looked around again. Beth was in good shape, but she wasn’t as strong as he was. If he couldn’t climb up the sheer wall, he didn’t see how she could. He wondered what she had said to Randall about that. Randall was smart. He wouldn’t believe just any story about what had happened. She must have been pretty convincing. And what had his uncle said—she had given the cops the when, the why, and the how. What she’d said must have fit with whatever the cops had found—how Parker had died, where he’d been found, where he’d been originally, what and where the murder weapon was. Randall would have asked about all of that, and Beth must have given answers that made sense. How could she have done that unless she’d been involved in some way?

  Dooley didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.

  He stood in the shrubbery for another few minutes, thinking it over, and then headed home again. He was climbing out of the ravine when he thought about her phone call to him. I was in the ravine that night, she’d said. I saw what you did.

  He stopped and thought it through. Where exactly had she been? What exactly had she seen?

  What the hell was going on?

  He ditched his last class of the day so that he could get to Beth’s school before it let out for the weekend. This time he was bolder. He was waiting at the bottom of the main steps when the big oak doors opened and girls began to stream out of the building. He stepped in front of the closest one, forcing her to a halt, and said, “I’m looking for friends of Beth Everley.”

  The girl stared at him in silence for so long that Dooley thought she must be deaf. Then her eyes scanned the growing crowd of girls and she pointed to a willowy blonde.

  “Ask Kate,” the girl said. “Maybe she can help you.”

  At the sound of her name, the blonde glanced in Dooley’s direction. He hurried over to her before she could make a getaway.

  “Are you Kate?” he said.

  She nodded. Just then he saw a familiar face. Annicka, still looking nothing like the rest of these girls. But he’d already spoken to her and hadn’t liked what she’d said. If Parker was still alive and if Beth ever got him in court, Annicka would be up there, a witness for the defense. He turned his attention back to Kate.

  “You’re a friend of Beth’s, right?” he said.

  He saw her processing the name behind impossibly pale blue eyes.

  “Beth Everley,” he clarified.

  “I know who you mean. I know her, but I wouldn’t say we were friends.”

  Dooley looked around for the girl who had directed him to Kate, but she was long gone.

  “You’re that guy, aren’t you?” Kate said. “The guy she’s been seeing.”

  Jesus, how did they all know about him?

  “I’m looking for some of her friends,” he said.

  Kate arched a perfectly shaped blonde eyebrow. Her face was like cream, with rose-colored lips and mesmerizing eyes. He had never seen such a delicate-looking creature.

  “Friends of Beth?” she said. She skimmed the crowd. “Cassie,” she called, her voice like a small silver bell. “Cassie, over here.”

  Dooley looked from girl to girl to girl until finally he saw one who had turned questioning eyes on Kate. She said something to the girl she was with, then broke away from her and made her way over to Kate.

  “This is Beth’s boyfriend,” Kate said. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Dooley caught the blatant superiority in Kate’s voice and was surprised. Sturdy Cassie could probably whip fragile Kate’s scrawny little ass, but little Kate clearly believed she had something that trumped physique.

  “There you go,” she said to Dooley before continuing on down the steps. Dooley tracked her to the parking lot with his eyes and wasn’t surprised to see her pull out a set of keys to a little cherry-red Lexus. When he turned back to Cassie, he saw the hardness of a slave in her expression.

  “You and Kate, you’re not—”

  “Friends?” Cassie said. “Please! I’m here on a scholarship.”

  It made sense that it was something like that, a caste thing, a line that marked the division between true elite and pretender elite—like old money versus new money or banking money versus porno money.

  “How about you and Beth?”

  “Beth pays full tuition, not that that matters to the Kates of the world. Look, I have to train, so ...”

  “You heard about Beth?”

  “You mean about her being arrested for killing Parker? Yeah, I heard.”

  “Were you on the trip with her?”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “Have you talked to her since she got back?”

  “Just once. I called her when I heard what happened. Everyone was talking about it. They were all saying that she—” She broke off abruptly. Her cheeks turned apple-pink.

  “I know what people were saying,” Dooley said. “What did she say?”

  “That Parker raped her. She was really upset. She said he wasn’t anything like the way he came across. I don’t know what he did or said to her, but it sounded to me like he really scared her.” That’s what Beth had told Dooley: He really scared me. “She said she told the police and that they were nice to her. But all the questions they asked—she was afraid if it went to court, everyone would believe Parker and no one would believe her.” She stared him right in the eyes. He wondered what her sport was, whether it was a team sport or something individual. Whichever, he had the idea she was a fierce competitor. “She said you didn’t believe her.”

  Jesus, is that what Beth thought? And even still, the last thing she had said to him was, “I love you.”

  “I believe her,” he said quietly, “even if it didn’t come across that way to her. I believe her. That’s why I’m here.”

  “If she was with Parker, it was only as a friend,” Cassie said. “She wasn’t interested in him.”

  “How do you know? I mean, I hear the guy was loaded.”

  She gave him a withering look. “How long have you been going with Beth? Six, seven months? And you think that’s what she’s interested in? Money?”

  It wasn’t what he thought. It was what he was afraid of. It was what still mystified him. Beth knew plenty of Parkers—guys who weren’t just loaded, but who were good-looking, who had real futures, the sky was the limit, who could give her anything and take her anywhere; guys who hadn’t spent time in lockup; guys whose mothers weren’t fucked up, at least, not the way Lorraine had been; guys who hadn’t beaten a woman so hard with a baseball bat that she ended up in a wheelchair. Why wasn’t she with one of those guys? Why was she with him?

  “She loves you,” Cassie said, her tone straight-ahead, not pulling any punches, like she had believed it when Beth had said it, but now that she was face to face with him, now that he was asking these bone-headed questions, she was beginning to think that Beth had given her heart to altogether the wrong guy.

  “I need to talk to some of the girls who were on
the trip with her and who knew Parker,” Dooley said. “Girls who might have been at that party he had last weekend. But I have no idea who they are.”