The Victims' Club

by Jeffery Deaver

  Hobbs’s phone hummed. He answered: “Deputy Hobbs . . . Yeah? Oh, hi.”

  Then silence, and the deputy’s face dimmed into a frown.

  Avery asked, “What?”

  Hobbs shook his head. And hit “Speaker.”

  A nervous voice came from the phone: “Sorry. But I can’t really, in good faith—”

  Hobbs said, “Bartender.”

  “This is Detective Avery. Who’s this, please?”

  “Jamie Southern. I work at Irish Eyes? The pub on Ellicott Street? Look, I know I told Deputy Hobbs that guy was selling roofies, but the more I thought about it, I was wrong. You know how that happens sometimes, you think you see something, and then you realize you got confused?”

  “No,” Avery said. “I don’t.”

  “Oh. Well, it happens to me. That guy, Karesh or whoever, was there, but he was just hanging.”

  Avery sighed. “But somebody was selling roofies. You saw him.”

  “It was somebody else. Some black guy.”

  Seriously?

  “Can you describe him?” Hobbs asked.

  “Not really. It was dark.”

  Hobbs asked, “The baggie?”

  “Oh, that? Yeah, I couldn’t find it. I guess it got thrown out with the trash.”

  Avery eased off the gas. In his anger he’d sped up fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit. “We’ll want to interview you anyway, Mr. Southern.”

  “I think I’m going out of town. Vacation, you know. But when I get back, sure.”

  A thought occurred. Avery asked, “Is bartending your only job?”

  Silence.

  “I write songs.”

  “I mean for money.”

  “Sometimes I do some catering. A little bit, not much.”

  “Mr. Southern, are you employed by Preston College?”

  Silence for a moment. “No.”

  “Does Preston hire you as an independent contractor for catering functions?”

  Silence on the other end.

  “You know, son, I can just look this up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Has anybody from the school contacted you—”

  The phone suddenly bleated with the triple tone of a disconnected call.

  Silence filled the car.

  The young deputy asked, “Back to the office?”

  “No.” Avery skidded the car into a U-turn and punched the gas.

  Avery saw Amir Karesh slow to a stop the moment he caught sight of the two officers striding his way.

  The three paused together outside the physics building. Jesse Hobbs had learned from his former boss, the head of campus security, that Karesh had a class there in ten minutes.

  “Detectives,” he said. Then looked at Hobbs. “Or junior deputy, or whatever.”

  Avery said, “We know what you were doing at the party. At the parties, I should say. After you left Cedar Hills.”

  “Having a good time, drinking—but only in moderation.”

  Hobbs said, “This isn’t a joke.”

  “No, I guess not. But whatever it is, I’ve got a class to get to, and the professor takes tardiness into account when it’s time to grade.”

  “You were selling roofies. You’re the go-to man for them. And anything else in your pharmacology inventory.”

  “Go-to. That’s a quaint expression. Well, since I’m vertical and not on my tummy with my hands cuffed, à la COPS, what do you want?”

  “We’re going to build a case.”

  “Future is the operative tense there. So. I’ll repeat the comment about tummy and cuffs.”

  “I want to know who you sold to at the party where Rose Taylor was assaulted.”

  “You keep saying that. She was just photographed. Christ. In Europe, land of topless beaches, who’d even care?”

  Avery swatted aside his anger. “Here’s an offer. Give us the names—all three of them.”

  Karesh blinked at this.

  Avery continued, “Give us the names. You stop selling, and we won’t pursue charges against you. You’ll walk.”

  The student lifted his arm, palm up. “But check it out. I’m walking now.”

  Avery hadn’t struck anybody since his college boxing days, but he felt the hungry urge to deck the kid now.

  “I didn’t sell anything to anybody. I never have.”

  “Work with us, Amir. You’re in a world of trouble. We can make it go away. I don’t want to. I don’t like you. But I will. Give me those names.”

  “The bell’s about to ring, Detective. Have a good day.” And, turning quickly, he was gone.

  The following Monday, Jon Avery stood outside the Preston science and technology building finishing a Starbucks coffee that had cooled significantly over the past fifteen minutes. He was tired. Exhausted. He’d put in nearly twenty hours over the weekend interviewing the few witnesses who had seen Amir Karesh the night of the Cedar Hills party.

  “Witnesses” was not an accurate term, however. Not a single helpful fact emerged.

  He’d also turned to some unlikely possibilities: that a medical company that competed with the one funding Taylor’s research had wanted to take her out of the principal investigator business. No headway there.

  And without Taylor’s knowing it, he’d checked out the man in her support group who’d been acting suspicious. He was a married minister with seven children, and had been the victim of a mugging that left him badly traumatized. Off-campus parties were hardly on his agenda.

  The detective took the last sip of his coffee just as he saw Rose Taylor exiting the building with a tall student, their heads down, engaged in a serious discussion.

  Taylor cut her eyes to the left, noticed Avery and slowed to a stop. She and the young man finished up their conversation quickly, and the student wandered off in a lope.

  Taylor joined Avery. “Detective.”

  “Rose.”

  “Your look tells me you don’t have any news,” she said.

  He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed her a printout. “Well, none good.”

  Taylor looked down at the sheet, her deep-brown eyes widening slightly.

  Press Release

  RAWLINGS, September 20—An independent panel has concluded that no students in the Preston College athletic program were involved in a recent alleged incident in which an inappropriate photograph of an individual was uploaded to social media.

  There were statements in the release from the chancellor, the athletic director, and the head of the “independent” panel, a lawyer in town. Probably with no direct connection to Preston, but who undoubtedly saw every football game his schedule allowed—which would be, Avery guessed, all of them.

  She sighed. “‘Alleged.’ Well. Let’s see. Don’t we have about five hundred thousand copies of the proof floating around in the internet?” She looked back down at the release. “Don’t you think they could’ve come up with something a little stronger than ‘inappropriate’? They were boobs, after all.”

  Avery had no idea how to respond, and so he didn’t. He said, “And I spent the weekend interviewing those people who were at the party again—and players. Nobody’s talking.”

  “All weekend?”

  “Aside from a school soccer game.”

  “You win?”

  “We did.”

  Taylor looked toward a shaggy maple. Its leaves were just starting to blush. “Anything left to do?” she asked in a tone that told Avery she already knew the answer.

  “Oh, Detective Bennet’ll keep at it. She’s back tomorrow.”

  “But you don’t have much hope.”

  Avery paused. He should be honest with Taylor; she deserved that much. “No.”

  She extended her hand and shook his.

  “Thanks, Detective. I know you tried. I could tell it meant something to you.”

  She headed for another class, and Avery returned to his office, where he gathered up the Rose Taylor case file—to which he’d added another fi
fty or so pages—and brought it to Sarah Bennet’s office, placing it on her desk. He added a Post-it note: “Did my best.”

  When he got back to his office, the sheriff was standing outside his door.

  “Freddy.”

  “Just want to let you know I’m supposed to fire you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Athletic director, chancellor, coupla regents all weighed in. Somebody on the county board of supervisors too. I forget who.”

  “That right?”

  “I said no.” The man wandered off, snagging one of the homemade cookies that Emma brought on Mondays.

  It was time to return to his own workload. The Major Case disposition report for the prior week was due at the DA’s office. Nine serious offenses in one week, it turned out, was a new record. He skimmed to make sure he was happy with the charges he’d recommended.

  —Samuel Arrazzo, 51, truck driver, soliciting prostitution, unlawful possession of a firearm. Complaining witness: Detective Susan Cotter.

  —Aaron Phillips, 43, scrapyard owner, possession of Schedule 1 controlled substance (methamphetamine) (felony quantity). Complaining witness: Deputy Steven Webber.

  —Frederick Williams, 37, McKennah Auto Repair, battery domestic abuse. Complaining witness: Joanne Harper Williams.

  —Phillip Peabody, 20, student at Preston College, unlawful possession of firearm, theft, simple assault. Complaining witness: David Shepherd.

  —Robin Scopes, 35, unemployed, possession of Schedule 1 controlled substance (opioids) (felony quantity). Complaining witness: Deputy Stanley Eiger.

  —Charles Fillmore, 18, student at Emerson High, burglary, larceny, criminal trespass. Complaining witnesses: Henry and Joan Walker.

  —Donald Simpson, 20, student at Preston College, felony battery. Complaining witness: Peter Freidman.

  —Dee Gibson, 37, unemployed, possession of Schedule 1 controlled substance (methamphetamine) (felony quantity), manufacturing of Schedule 1 controlled substance (methamphetamine), felony endangerment of child. Complaining witnesses: Deputies Sandra Boston and Frank Stone.

  —Josh Underwood, 23, student at Preston College, p/t computer programmer at I-Tech Solutions, DUI (felony). Complaining witness: Albert Taggert.

  Avery paused, and looked out the window, galled that he couldn’t have put a tenth case on the report.

  Complaining witness: Rose Taylor.

  He turned back and pressed the end of his pen. With a click the tip extended, and the detective began to sign off. But then he paused and read the report again. Several times.

  After leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling for a solid three minutes—a long time to ceiling gaze—he sat up and made a series of phone calls.

  An hour later, he was in his car, heading to the other side of town.

  Monroe Community Hospital.

  Avery knew the place pretty well. His son had been born here. His mother had died here. And he’d accompanied a dozen ambulances to the ER entrance, following car crashes, overdoses and the occasional gunshot wound. Avery himself had had his left leg splinted here after a bad tumble ice skating, and a surgeon here had done a spiffy job repairing the knife wound, not deep, in his arm, from the time he’d snatched a four-year-old boy away from his psychotic mother.

  He’d learned recently that the facility had once been called something different, after a Civil War general. But a member of the board had ginned up a petition to have the name changed. This wasn’t, as you might think, because of Johnny Reb versus Yankee vitriol. No, the problem was simply that the petitioner thought the word memorial was too funereal for a hospital. The truth was that business, and revenues, were down—thanks to competition from docs-in-a-box storefronts. Apparently, even in medicine, public relations and image count.

  He walked to the circular drive at the front of the building. The asphalt embraced a very pleasant garden, which, at this time of year, was lush with plants and flowers he appreciated but knew little about.

  Avery watched as a few people shuffled through the main doors, and then, the person he was waiting for stepped out: a skinny young man, in his twenties. He was Rose Taylor’s younger brother, Devon.

  When he saw Avery, he stopped fast.

  “How’s he doing?” Jon Avery asked, walking up to the student.

  He could see that Devon was debating.

  “I’m not trying to trap you, son. I’m only asking if your frat brother Al Taggert’s OK.”

  Devon’s eyes closed briefly. And the body language—the raised shoulders, the hands folding into fists and then opening—told him: the jig was up. “He’s OK. Needed the bone reset. Was kind of a bad break.”

  “Getting clobbered on purpose by a Lexus, that’ll do it to you.”

  Devon blew air through puffy cheeks. “How’d you—”

  “Know you were here? One of your frat brothers. I went to talk to you at the house.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  The detective pulled a copy of the Major Case disposition report from his pocket and handed it to Devon. On it three entries were circled.

  —Phillip Peabody, 20, student at Preston College, unlawful possession of firearm, theft, simple assault. Complaining witness: David Shepherd.

  —Donald Simpson, 20, student at Preston College, felony battery. Complaining witness: Peter Freidman.

  —Josh Underwood, 23, student at Preston College, p/t computer programmer at I-Tech Solutions, DUI (felony). Complaining witness: Albert Taggert.

  “It’s a report of criminal cases we’ve handled in the past week.” Avery pointed to it as he added, “The names at the beginning of each paragraph are the suspects we arrested. At the end are the victims.”

  Devon stared down at the report. He handed it back and tugged up his jeans. Kid had to weigh 140 pounds, tops.

  Avery could see in his face a look he occasionally spotted in suspects: I am so totally, completely busted . . .

  Jon Avery tucked the disposition sheet away in his jacket pocket and crossed his arms. “Let me just understand this, son. You knew that nobody on campus was going to cooperate and name the men who drugged your sister and took her picture so—”

  “It was my fault. I—”

  “I’ll finish.”

  “Yessir. Sorry.”

  “So you took matters into your own hands. Your frat house is popular; I checked it out. And you’re popular too. The president. You know everybody on campus; people talk to you. You found out who drugged Rose and took the picture—Peabody, Underwood and Simpson. You figured that because athletes were involved, the college would circle the wagons, and it’d be impossible to make a case against them. So three of your frat brothers decided to get revenge yourselves.

  “The plan was that your brothers would goad or trick the perps into committing felonies. And those crimes just happened to carry about the same sentences they’d get under the revenge porn law. I assume you researched that yourself: the criminal statutes, the sentences. I remembered you’re prelaw.”

  Devon nodded. He’d stopped fidgeting.

  “Peter tried to grab the taxi that Donnie Simpson had flagged down and got punched out. David planted that gun in the jacket and left it on a chair where Peabody’d see it and—he hoped—steal it. He got beat up too.

  “Al Taggert met Underwood in a bar and encouraged him to drink, then took a dive on the trunk of the Lexus when Underwood backed up.”

  Avery gave a soft chuckle. “I’ve got to say, young man, this’s something. You a chess player?”

  “Just poker. But I’m pretty good.”

  Avery laughed again. He couldn’t help himself.

  “OK, Detective: How’d you figure it out?”

  “Well, I guess you could say it was your sister. That case report I showed you? When I was reading it a few hours ago, something funny struck me. Three people arrested for felonies in one week? That was unusual. And the three victims were students too, all seniors. And they’d all provoked their attackers in one way or
another.”

  “What does that have to do with Rosie?” Devon asked.

  “She said something to me the other day that stuck in my mind: It was ‘Nobody ever chooses to be a victim.’ The more I looked at this report, the more I wondered: What if somebody did choose to be a victim?

  “I knew, from an anonymous letter that somebody sent to your sister, that at least one of the perps was an athlete. I saw that Peabody had two of his coaches write letters of character; that told me he was on a team. Everybody knows Donnie Simpson’s a star athlete. And Underwood worked as a programmer for I-Tech; he’d know about proxies.

  “Then I checked to see if there was something the three victims had in common. Yep, they were all in the same fraternity. The one that you’re president of—you, the brother of the woman assaulted at the Cedar Hills party.”

  Avery put on his stern father face. “You know, your friends could have been killed. Donnie Simpson’s a big guy, and he’s got a temper. And the gun that David planted?”

  “He found it in his grandfather’s attic. It was an antique and probably wouldn’t even fire.”

  Avery countered with: “Passerby might’ve been armed, seen it and started shooting. There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong.”

  Devon’s voice now took on an edge, as he said, “Sometimes, you’re going to do the right thing, you take a chance. We weren’t going to let those assholes get away with it.”

  Jon Avery wasn’t inclined to dress the boy down. He himself had come close to bestowing his famed right hook on Amir Karesh’s jaw.

  “So, guess I better ask: You going to arrest us?”

  Avery gave a soft laugh. “Goading somebody into punching you or tricking them into driving you over, those don’t exactly fall into the state penal code. No, I’m not going to arrest you. But I can’t stop the other detective in our office from following up on the case.”

  “Sarah Bennet?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She won’t get anywhere. Not up against the school.”

  Avery thought that was probably likely. “Some advice.”

  “Advice?” Devon sounded genuinely curious.

  “Well, more of an order. You remember when I was at your sister’s, when I met you, I asked if you knew Amir Karesh.”