Chapter 12

As soon as she had Emma in the car, also in the front seat, Alicia called Cutter.

“Where are you?” she asked when he answered. “I have the first two.”

“I’ll be able to leave here in ten,” he said.

“I’m going to pick up one more, then,” said Alicia. “You get the last one. I’ll send Randy to help you.”

“Got it,” said Cutter. “How do I contact him?”

Alicia gave him a cell number and hung up. She turned to Emma, who was sitting quietly, staring straight ahead.

“How would you feel if I picked up another girl?” she asked.

“Who is it?” asked Emma.

“I can’t tell you that unless you’re okay with being in the car together with another victim.”

“Is she in my class?”

“No, she’ll be younger.”

“That fucker,” whispered Emma. “How many of us did he do it to?”

Alicia decided to take a chance. She needed this girl’s cooperation.

“Four others that we know of,” she said. “All of them are younger than you.”

“Can I kill him?” asked Emma. She sounded quite serious.

“Technically, this can be tried as a capital offense,” said Alicia. “Honestly? I doubt that will happen. That’s usually reserved for when the offender kills his victim, and things like that. I think I know how you feel, though.”

Finally the girl showed some emotion. She faced the detective.

“Do you? Do you really? Has some asshole threatened to ruin your life if you didn’t have sex with him?”

“No,” said Alicia, “but I know what I’d want to do to him if he did.”

“Everybody’s going to find out about this, aren’t they,” said Emma.

“We’ll withhold your names from the press. We can do that because you’re minors. But anyone who comes to court will be able to hear your testimony. We’ll ask the judge to clear the courtroom, but the jury will hear you and know who you are. We can’t help that.”

“Will I get in trouble for smoking pot?” asked the girl. “That’s what he caught me doing. He said I could go to jail if he turned me in.”

“I assume you don’t have a medical marijuana license,” said Alicia.

“I don’t,” said Emma.

“Then if you had less than three ounces on you, at the time, it would be a misdemeanor offense. You’d be written a ticket. No jail time. Can I also assume you didn’t have more than three ounces on you?”

“You can,” said Emma.

“Can I also assume you weren’t selling it?”

“All I was doing was smoking a joint a friend gave me,” said Emma.

“Well, I don’t have any evidence of that, so I don’t have any problem with you. I wouldn’t have even if he’d turned you in. Not for smoking a joint. The law is more stringent about possessing marijuana within a thousand feet of a school, but if I tried to get you prosecuted for that, I’d be laughed out of the county attorney’s office. That’s as long as you weren’t selling it.”

“I wasn’t selling it,” said Emma. “It was only the second time I even smoked it. That’s why I was so stupid and smoked in the wrong place, where he could catch me.”

“Okay, then,” said Alicia. “You and I and a few other girls are going to bury this piece of crap so far inside an Oklahoma state prison that he won’t see any sunlight for at least five years.”

“Is that all he’ll get?”

“Oh no,” said Alicia. “Not if we have our way. I’m hoping he gets fifty.”

“That would be nice. So who are we picking up, next?”

“You’re okay with that?” asked Alicia.

“I’m fine,” said Emma. “I didn’t want to lose my virginity that way, but I did and I can’t get it back. So I’ll settle for putting him in prison. I don’t care if the other girls find out about me.”

“Okay, then,” said Alicia. “Do you happen to know Julie Carter?”

“Um she’s the one who gave me the joint he caught me with,” said Emma. “Did you know that?”

“I did not,” said Alicia. “I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about the things he held over you. All that’s really needed is a stripped down version of what he had on you. I’ll do the same with the other girls.”

“When she sees me she’s going to freak,” said Emma. “She’ll be sure it’s about the pot.”

“You’ll stay in the car. By the time she sees you, she’ll know what it’s about. I need to ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

“Normally, we don’t let witnesses or victims get together before they’re interviewed. We don’t want their testimony to be tainted by them comparing their stories. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yeah.”

“So, can you ride to the station with Julie and not talk about what happened to you?”

“Of course. I’m not crazy about anybody finding out what he did to me.”

“At the same time, you two have gone through something very similar, and you could support each other emotionally. That would be a good thing.”

“We’re not friends,” said Emma.

“You don’t have to be friends to understand what the other one is feeling.”

“Okay, yes. I get that.”

“I think all you girls need to help each other get through this, without actually comparing stories. At least until you’ve all given your statements. Will you help me do that? You’re the oldest one. The others might look up to you. You could be the leader.”

“I’m no leader,” said Emma. “I don’t really have any friends.”

“Well, you have one now. Me. I’m your friend. I want you to survive this and go on to realize your potential. You can start doing that now, by being strong and helping the others realize that what happened to them doesn’t mean that’s who they are.”

They had talked long enough that they had arrived at Julie’s house. Alicia got out and went to the front door. It was eleven o’clock, and the windows in the house were dark.

The Carters were in bed, and being awakened by Alicia’s pressing of the door bell and then pounding on the door had them upset from the beginning. It only got worse from there.

Julie was fourteen, and not allowed to date. When Alicia explained why she needed to interview their daughter, they were both firm in their rejection of the possibility that something like that had happened to their daughter.

“I would know if something like that had happened,” said Mrs. Carter. “You have been misled.”

“I’m sorry, but we have her rape on video,” said Alicia. She was tired and had a long night ahead of her.

“I want to see that!” barked Mr. Carter.

“You’ll see it in court,” said Alicia. “We arrested the suspect earlier tonight and right now, I need to interview your daughter. I realize this is a shock to you. Counseling will be available to both Julie and you, if you want it.”

“No,” said Mrs. Carter. “It can’t be.”

“Why don’t we ask her?” suggested Alicia.

The problem was, Julie wasn’t in her bedroom. She could not be found anywhere in the house.

Julie Carter had snuck out of the house and nobody had any idea where she was.

Cutter picked up Jennifer Zimmerman with no trouble at all. He was a big man and he was used to dealing with tense situations. His explanation of why he was there resulted in only one question from her parents.

“What did she do that he could blackmail her into having sex?” asked her father.

“We don’t know that. That’s one reason I need to interview her. You can come to the station, and take her home when we’re finished.”

Jennifer was also not allowed to date, yet, and was in her room playing a video game when her parents opened her door and marched in.

“This man says you were raped,” said her mother, bluntly. “He says the principal at the school raped you.”

Jennifer looked everywhere in the room except at another human being.

“You’re not in trouble,” said Cutter, whose voice had changed from authoritarian to soothing. “It wasn’t your fault. We’ve arrested him and now I need to interview you. Will you come with me and tell me what happened?”

Jennifer was pale and her hands were trembling. She finally looked at her mother.

“I wanted to tell you ... but I just couldn’t.”

“It’s true?” said her mother, who was also pale and shaken.

Jennifer nodded.

“Will you come with me?” asked Cutter. “There are other victims and we need to get all of you interviewed as soon as possible.”

“Others?” asked Jennifer. “I thought I was the only one.”

“He preyed on many girls,” said Cutter. “You can help us make sure he can never do that to any girl again.”

Jennifer stood up.

“Let me get my jacket,” she said.

While Alicia and Cutter were gathering the victims they could find, Bobby bowled one more game. He couldn’t seem to knock any pins down and actually bowled four gutter balls. Jerry Watkins asked him if anything was wrong.

“I’m just tired,” said Bobby. “I should probably go home and get some sleep.”

“Dude, it’s not even eleven o’clock. I got some beer in my car.”

“Rain check,” said Bobby. “I’ll see you later.”

He waved at the others in the group. Six of them had met to bowl, but that included two couples, who paid more attention to each other than the rest of the group. With Bobby gone, Jerry would be the fifth wheel. That was one reason he tried to get Bobby to stay.

Ten minutes after Bobby left the bowling alley, he parked his car on the street across from the convenience store and trotted down the dark alley to the gate that let him into Tawny’s back yard. He went to the patio door and tapped on it.

Tawny was crying when she let him in and he held her, stroking her back.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t cry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?” she moaned into his shoulder.

“You have a good plan, and it’s working. You said they busted him, right?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in jail, right?”

“Yes.”

“You said the cops talked to you. What did they say?”

She told him that they had guessed she knew about what her husband had been doing, and that she admitted she was responsible for the DVD they had used to arrest him.

“I don’t know how they knew, but they did,” she moaned.

“Are you in any trouble?” asked Bobby.

“They said I’m not, but that I may face problems when it all comes out in court. He’s going to find out what I did,” she cried.

“You knew that from the start,” said Bobby. “You wanted to get revenge and you have. I thought you wanted him to know it was you who had sent him to prison.”

“I know that, but it feels like all I did was ruin my life,” she said. “They know I let him keep doing it, just so I could get video evidence.”

“You had to,” said Bobby. “Without that evidence they couldn’t have arrested him.”

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