The Victims' Club

by Jeffery Deaver

  He was jotting down his recommendation when the phone rang. The Computer Crimes detective on the other end of the line told him that they’d tracked down the mobile provider’s details about Karesh’s burner. It hadn’t been powered up since the night of the party, but they were, however, able to find out where the phone was when the photo had been uploaded.

  Good news, Avery thought.

  Avery called up his trusted research assistant, a.k.a. Google Earth. He examined the area Computer Crimes had delineated from the service provider. It was a huge swath of Preston campus, embracing dozens of acres—including four classroom buildings, dorms, the stadium and the chapel, along with gardens and a few shops. The experts couldn’t narrow it down any more than that.

  Brother . . .

  Well, at least there was one important determination he could make.

  Avery called Jesse Hobbs.

  “Hey, Detective,” the young deputy answered. “Glad you called. I’ve got six wits confirming Karesh was at the Bradford party from nine twenty to ten forty-five. He was telling the truth. He wasn’t at the Cedar Hills party when the picture was taken.”

  Avery hadn’t expected anything different. He told the deputy, “Just heard from Computer Crimes. Couldn’t narrow down the upload location very much. It’s an area about the size of Pennsylvania.”

  Hobbs gave a laugh.

  “But tell me where Karesh was at midnight. If he was within the zone, maybe he was with the uploader or with the perp who shot the pic when he uploaded it.”

  There was a pause, and Avery heard the rustle of paper. Hobbs said, “He was in Clinton at midnight, then Ubered to a club downtown at twelve forty-five. That anywhere near the upload site?”

  “Nope. Nowhere near.”

  Jon Avery firmly believed in innocence until proven guilty. But he just plain didn’t care for Amir Karesh and had hoped to tag him to the crime.

  But not yet.

  Just as Avery hung up with Hobbs, he received a text. It was from Rose Taylor, saying she had some important information. Could he meet her at an address on Sullivan Street in fifteen minutes?

  He replied that he would be there. As he rose and pulled on his sport coat, he glanced at the map on his computer monitor. Somewhere in the area of campus he was looking at, the perp had stood or sat or lain in bed and uploaded the picture of Rose Taylor, changing her life for the worse.

  Somewhere . . .

  The address Rose Taylor had given Avery was a YMCA on a commercial strip just outside of Rawlings.

  Avery had been to the one-story cinder-block building a number of times, though never on the job. It had been for Al-Anon meetings years ago, before—and a short time after—his mother passed. Sometimes, when memories of the tough days with her hit him, he thought about going back but always ended up telling himself he didn’t have the time—though in truth, it was the heart that was lacking.

  He found Taylor standing in the main hallway, next to a closed door. She was in another bulky sweatshirt and jeans, her frizzy hair held in place by a gray headband. Today she wore dark-rimmed glasses. He wondered if they were a kind of disguise.

  Avery could see through a window in the door that it was a conference room full of about twenty people—mostly women—sitting in a circle.

  “Detective, thanks for meeting me,” Taylor said. “I’ve got something you should see right away. But I didn’t want to miss my meeting.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a victims’ support group for people who’ve been attacked,” she said, nodding toward the door. “A social worker runs it. Any kind of assault or battery—we’ve learned the different kinds. Sexual, domestic abuse, road rage.” She paused, her mouth tightening. “Photography.”

  “It’s helpful?”

  “Oh, it is. It’s . . .” She sought a word. “Realistic, I guess you could say. The problem for us, it’s not like drugs or drinking—you know, an ongoing problem you’re trying to stop. You don’t drink for a day, or a week or a year, and that’s a win. But with us, victims, it’s analog—there’re only degrees of success. Sometimes you’re paralyzed thinking about what happened, sometimes you function, but a loud noise or a certain face sends you into an anxiety attack. Sometimes, you cope pretty well. The group helps me turn down the volume.”

  “Today?”

  “The meeting days are good.”

  Avery smiled at this. He said, “I was going to call you anyway. Amir Karesh? It was his phone, but he claimed he lost it. He didn’t take or upload the picture.”

  She sighed at the news.

  “It’s disappointing. He knows something, I’m sure. I’ll keep trying to figure out what.”

  Taylor pulled an office-size envelope from her purse. “Let me show you what I got,” she said. “It came in the mail.”

  Avery reached for his latex gloves—he always kept a wad in his pocket—and pulled them on. Though he and Taylor were in the hallway outside the conference room, he happened to glance inside and noticed that one of the two men in the group was looking at him, noting the gloves. He was around forty, balding, with probing eyes behind round-framed glasses. When he saw Avery studying him, he turned to the woman next to him and began a conversation.

  Avery stepped back, out of his sight of those inside the room. He opened the envelope—business size—and extracted a single piece of folded 8½ by 11 inch paper, on which the following was written in neat handwriting:

  That nite, the party on cedar hills. I heard it. 3 voices, men. Kinda drunk. Abt 10-1030. Didn’t see them. Sorry this happened to you, professor, it sucks. This’s all I can tell you, I don’t know who they were, sorry. Here’s what I heard:

  PULL HER PANTS DOWN.

  NO SHE’LL WAKE UP.

  YEAH, OK. NICE TITS. WHERE SHOULD WE SEND IT?

  SNAP-SHOT’S THE BEST. GOTTA USE A PROXY.

  I CAN DO THAT.

  MAN. GOOD PICTURE. YOU DID EVERYTHING THAT GOOD WE WOULDN’T’VE BEEN FUCKED BY SIX.

  FUCK YOU.

  Avery turned it over. Nothing on the back. Sent via the post because an email would have been traceable. A glance at the envelope. No return address, of course. Postmarked at the main building downtown, which was near campus. He’d order prints, just for completeness’s sake, but doubted there’d be any hits in the database.

  “‘Fucked by six?’” she asked.

  The detective shook his head. “No idea.”

  Taylor added, “You know, whoever wrote that knows exactly who those three men are. And I’ll bet a dozen other people know it too.” Her eyes flared with anger for a moment, and then it faded.

  “This’ll be helpful, though. Easier to find three perps than one. More conversations to be overheard.”

  “More bragging,” she said.

  “More bragging means more leads.”

  Avery glanced toward the conference room door. “A question?”

  “Sure.”

  “We run a fair number of domestic abuse and sexual assault cases. What do you think if I suggest to the victims they might want to stop by here?”

  Taylor brightened. “Oh, absolutely. I always thought that thinking of yourself as a victim meant you were weak, like it was your fault. But nobody ever chooses to be a victim, right? Coming here’s taught me to feel better about myself. I’d recommend it to anybody.” She dug into her purse for a pen and Post-it, and jotted a name and number. Avery slipped the square of paper away.

  They shook hands in farewell, and Taylor walked inside. She sat next to the balding man, who’d been studying Avery as he’d pulled on the latex gloves. He leaned close to her, and they began a conversation.

  Avery returned to his cruiser. He opened the note and read it once more.

  A thought occurred.

  He pulled out his phone and called up the internet, scrolling through recent local news. He stopped abruptly and read a story—well, not even a full story. Just the headline.

  Damn, he thought, as he fired up the engine and s
ped out into the road.

  Jon Avery parked before one of the most gothic of the gothic buildings on the Preston College campus. It really was gorgeous, two stories high and built of intricately carved white stone. And it was crowned, you bet, with spires like those on a Game of Thrones palace. The structure was set in a grove of maple and oak trees, a perfect architectural complement to the school’s football stadium, which loomed behind it.

  Most of Avery’s work as a detective involved cobbling together enough evidence to arrest perps whose identity he already knew or could at least guess at. Rarely was the perp a complete mystery man or woman, snared by a moment of Sherlock Holmes deduction.

  But this was exactly what was happening now with the Rose Taylor case, thanks to two pieces of evidence: the note from the anonymous tipster and the report from the Computer Crimes Unit at the state police about the location of the picture’s upload.

  Avery climbed from the car and walked through the arched wooden doorway of the Preston College Athletics Department. His shoes—black oxfords with leather heels and soles—shot staccato echoes from the marble floors. He glanced at the thousands of framed photos on polished wood-paneled walls and at the scores of glass cases filled with trophies, cups, ribbons and plaques.

  At the end he came to another large doorway and stepped into the receptionist’s office.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Erickson, please,” he announced.

  The slim woman blinked. “Is he expecting you, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Detective. Avery.” He flashed his badge. “I’d appreciate if he could spare a minute.”

  Her hand hovered over the phone. Finally, under his steady gaze, she picked it up and announced him.

  “You can go in, sir.”

  Avery stepped into a massive office, more dark wood and marble, along with stained glass.

  Edward Erickson nodded Avery into a chair, across from his desk, which was twice the size of the detective’s back at the sheriff’s office. The Preston athletic director was a broad-shouldered hulk of a man with gray, perfectly trimmed hair. In his late fifties, Avery estimated. He was, according to the many pictures on the wall, a former linebacker for the Eagles.

  “Is this about Donnie Simpson, Detective?”

  Donnie Simpson, the MVP in hot water for slugging a fellow student over rights to a cab. Maybe the athletic director was hoping that the sheriff’s office had come to its senses and dropped the charges. After all, the Eagles were playing the Wildcats Saturday, and Simpson would be sorely missed. On the other hand, Avery believed Erickson knew very well why he was here.

  “No, it’s not. Mr. Erickson, last week, a professor at Preston was drugged and photographed in a stage of undress at a party near the school. We’re investigating.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. It’s terrible. Inexcusable. But, how can I help you?”

  “At least one of the suspects is an athlete here, a football player.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “I am.”

  The Sherlock Holmesian deduction that Jon Avery had made was actually quite simple. The image of Rose Taylor had been uploaded from the portion of the campus that included the stadium and dorms for the athletes. Avery combined that fact with the line from the anonymous letter: YOU DID EVERYTHING THAT GOOD WE WOULDN’T’VE BEEN FUCKED BY SIX.

  Last week’s game had ended with a six-point loss for the Eagles. Avery was sure that a football player was one of the perps, one whose mistake on the field had cost the team the game.

  The director leaned back, offering up a scoffing laugh and shaking his head, which Avery took to mean: Aren’t you embarrassed making such an absurd allegation?

  After all the years of doing this work, Avery had developed a sixth sense—nothing psychic, of course. It was simply an ability to note when, for instance, a person cleared his throat but didn’t need to.

  When he stared into your eyes but in a relaxed state would be looking down.

  When his lips smiled but his face did not.

  Avery rocked forward slowly. “It was one of your players. And you know who. I think half the student body knows. But you and the coaches and probably somebody from the alumni association are making sure not a soul says a word about it.”

  Erickson’s jowly cheeks darkened. Avery guessed he’d been a bully as a linebacker and a bully as coach. And he was a bully still. He growled, “Why on earth would we do that?”

  “You’re a Division One school. Football alone brings in seventy-two million dollars a year. You’ve got national titles. And a shot at one this year. A scandal like this? It could get your entire program suspended. Work with me. Give me that name.”

  “I’m sorry for that girl—”

  “The woman is a professor.”

  “That professor. But, no, I don’t know who did it. And I guarantee no athletes were involved. None of our boys would ever do anything like that. Do you know, Detective, that I make sure they pray before every game?”

  Well, now, there’s proof of innocence, Avery thought. “I should tell you, sir, obstruction of justice is a serious crime,” he said.

  The big man brayed a laugh. “Are you threatening me?”

  It wasn’t obvious?

  Erickson leaned forward, whispering, “You listen to me, Detective. These lies you’re spouting could be very harmful to our school, and what’s harmful to the school could be harmful to the county our school is located in. And that could have”—a melodramatic pause—“far-reaching consequences.”

  In his career, Jon Avery had been threatened with a Remington shotgun, Glock pistols, a muzzleloader and even an old-fashioned pitchfork. He’d never been threatened with unemployment before.

  He set his business card on the desk. “Call me if you’d like to reconsider.”

  Erickson pitched the card into his trash can.

  Avery left the office and strode down the dim hall. The faces of the athletes in framed pictures on the walls seemed to be mocking him. This was the moment, he reflected, when he’d usually turn to plan B.

  If only he had one.

  Jon Avery spent the next day, Friday, interviewing the fifteen or so people Detective Sarah Bennet had discovered who’d attended the infamous party.

  He had no more success than she had. Jesse Hobbs wasn’t making any particular headway, either, in his task: tracking down people Amir Karesh had spoken to at the various parties and nightspots he’d attended after leaving the Cedar Hills gathering where Rose Taylor had been photographed.

  Avery returned to the office to find in his email inbox a report from the state police crime lab, which handled the county’s forensic work. The anonymous letter that had been sent to Rose Taylor contained eighteen fingerprints, none of which was on file in any database, state or fed.

  Natch.

  The detective decided to catch up on other work—the disposition reports he owed the prosecutor on the week’s felony and serious misdemeanor offenses. He sipped coffee, pleased the department had sprung for a Keurig, even if the deputies had to buy the pods themselves.

  He looked over the disposition sheet with a wry grimace. What a week . . . The average number of serious offenses in Monroe County during a seven-day period was three or four. This last week had seen nine.

  Emma, the office assistant, a round woman of about sixty, who wore ponytails every day, knocked lightly on his door and came in, setting another file on his desk. “Don’tcha love it when the smart ones go all stupid?”

  Everyone in the department loved Emma.

  He skimmed the arrest report. The defendant, a twenty-three-year-old Preston student with straight A’s, was employed part time as a programmer at I-Tech Solutions, one of the premier computer companies in the state. That was the “smart” part. The “stupid” part was committing a DUI that resulted in an injury. There was an even stupider part too. His defense was that the man he’d hit had been buying him drinks in the bar; he wouldn’t otherwise have had that much liquor. It was the victim�
�s fault. Because of that, and because Avery had a particular distaste for drinking and driving, he recommended a felony DUI charge.

  Jesse Hobbs walked into the office. “Detective?”

  Avery glanced up.

  “I finally got somebody willing to talk about Karesh. A bartender at one of the clubs he was at that night.”

  “Did he hear Karesh say anything about lending a burner to anybody, or somebody taking pix of a half-naked woman?”

  “No, not directly. But in a way.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Seems Karesh is a retailer.”

  Avery got it. And was a bit miffed with himself for not figuring this out sooner. “Selling roofies,” Avery said.

  “Yep. Roofies, along with other assorted controlled substances.”

  “That’s why he wasn’t happy about letting us see his Uber stops. It was his delivery route.” Avery paused. “The bartender?”

  “He saw somebody selling pills and recognized what they were. He grabbed the stash and threw the guy out. He was surprised when I flashed Karesh’s picture. He assumed I was there about drugs; didn’t know anything about burners or photos.”

  “Please, tell me he still has the roofies.”

  “Nope, he flushed them. But all is not lost. He’s sure the baggie is somewhere in the back room. When he finds it, he’ll call. And he’ll swear out a statement that Karesh was selling.”

  “Our lucky day,” Avery said. “The bag’ll have his prints and probably some residue inside. We’ll leverage him. Trade a reduced drug charge for the names of his buyers at the Cedar Hills party.”

  One of whom, Avery was sure, had taken the picture of Rose Taylor.

  “Let’s get the paperwork done,” Avery said. “Call the magistrate. And then your contact on campus. Find out where Karesh is. We’ll flip a coin, you and me, to see who gets to nail him.”

  “Naw,” the young deputy said, “This one’s all yours.”

  A half hour later, Avery and Hobbs were en route to the club to meet the crime scene techs and take the bartender’s statement.