Chapter 13

It took Bobby and Tawny an hour and three boxes before they found the social security card of Murdock’s mother. It had been issued to Elizabeth Caroline Stevens.

When they returned to the computer, their banking session had timed out.

Bobby clicked on the bank icon again, but this time it didn’t ask for the middle name of the user’s mother. It asked for the make of the user’s first car.

“I know that one!” said Tawny. “It was a Pacer. He talked about it a lot. He talked about finding one and restoring it.”

“I never heard of one,” said Bobby as he typed in “pacer”.

The program said he’d gotten it wrong. It said he had two more tries before the account was locked.

“What now?” asked Bobby.

“I know it was a Pacer,” said Tawny.

“It’s asking for the make. Would Pacer be the model?”

“Open another window and Google it,” said Tawny.

Three minutes later, after returning to the banking window, and putting in “ amc” a new window popped up welcoming them to online banking.

The first thing they did was press “Summary of accounts”.

There were, four accounts. Two were checking accounts with different account numbers. One of those had eight thousand dollars in it. The other had fourteen thousand and change. The third account appeared to be a money market account.

“You’re rich,” said Bobby.

“Eighty thousand? I can’t believe it,” said Tawny.

“What’s a home equity account?” asked Bobby. “There’s fifty thousand in that.”

“The house is paid for,” said Tawny. “I know that. Home equity suggests a loan. But why would he borrow fifty thousand dollars if he has all that money in the other account?”

“It says ‘available balance’. If you owe it, is it available?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to do some research on that.”

“If we get out, we might not be able to get back in,” said Bobby. “I suggest you transfer what you want into your bank account.”

“Yes,” said Tawny.

It took them another ten minutes to figure out how to do external transfers, since the process was slightly different than at Tawny’s bank. They transferred seven thousand from one checking account. When they tried to move forty thousand from the money market account, a screen popped up saying this was higher than usual and telling the user to double check the amount. When Bobby pressed “confirm transfer” the screen went away. A new pop up said that the money might not be available for several hours while the transfer protocols were applied.

Bobby ended the banking session and stood up.

“Okay. If things blow up, at least you’ll have money to get by on.”

“I feel better,” she said. Her voice was normal, now.

“I wish we could go out and get something to eat,” he said.

“You mean be together in public?”

“Yes, but I’m also starving.”

“I could make you something, here,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

“While I do that, can you look at the passwords to other things? I’d like to have those. The police said something about seizing his computer as evidence. We won’t be able to use it if they have it.”

“I’ll make copies of the URLs and the password and user name for each,” said Bobby. “I can copy and paste all that into a MS Word document and then we can type it into your laptop.”

“We should type it into your laptop,” she said. “They said they might also seize mine, because the original of what’s on that disk we gave them is there.”

“Mine’s at home. I’ll copy everything first. We can put it in my laptop anytime.”

Cutter had already talked to Takisha Green, right after they arrested Murdock. She had been freaked out, both by the loud entry of the take-down team and by being naked in front of so many strange men. She had been extracted from the room and covered by the blanket. She felt a little better when the man who gave her the blanket was more interested in what was going on in Mister Stevens’ office than he was in her.

She was standing there, shaking, when the big man who said his name was Cutter brought her clothes to her. He said she could go somewhere to get dressed, but could not leave the building. She had asked him if she was being arrested and he shook his head and smiled.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s him we wanted. You’re a victim in this thing.”

She went to the girls’ bathroom and got back in her clothes. When she came out, holding the blanket, there was a man in the hallway who escorted her back to the admin suite. She sat where Mrs. Goodwin, the school secretary, usually sat. Mister Stevens was already gone, taken away. Cutter came out of Mister Stevens’ office and smiled at her. He said he was sorry, but that she needed to go to the hospital, where evidence would be looked for on her body.

That exam was one she hoped she’d be able to forget, but the nurse who did all the things that were so embarrassing was nice about it. She explained the reasons for all the things she did, like combing Takisha’s pubic hair to get whatever was on/in it onto a piece of paper, and why the doctor would examine her vulva. When that was finished Cutter took her to the police station in his car, where she sat for so long that she dozed off.

She was awakened by the noise of a policeman escorting Mandy Nichols and two upset adults into the station. The cop told the parents to stay in the waiting area and he brought Mandy to the same office Takisha was in. Takisha had done a little snooping and figured out that this office was where the detectives worked, but that’s all she knew. The cop had told the two girls, in a sort of threatening voice, not to talk to each other.

The two girls, of course, ignored the gag order. Neither wanted to admit why they were there, but both told each other they weren’t in trouble.

Forty-five minutes later, Cutter brought Jennifer Zimmerman and her parents in, and they were followed by a woman with a badge on a chain around her neck, who had Emma Jardeen with her. It turned out that the office she and Mandy were in was where the woman worked.

The four girls were told to stay there and not touch anything, and that they would be interviewed as soon as possible.

“Do not talk about why you’re here,” said the woman in a stern voice. “The only rooms we’re not using right now are the cells, and I’d hate to have to put you there. Got it?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Emma.

As soon as they were alone, Emma turned to the others.

“This is about Principal Stevens and what he did to all of us. That woman was Detective Ironsides and I like her. She’s cool. We’re all cool, too. We really aren’t in any trouble. So relax and cooperate with them and everything will be fine.”

“I’m still scared,” said Jennifer.

“They don’t care what we were doing when Mister Stevens caught us. I assume that’s what happened to you, because it’s what happened to me. All they care about is what he did to us.”

“I was there when they broke in and arrested him,” said Takisha.

“You mean they broke in while he was ... doing it to you?” asked Mandy.

“Yeah,” said Takisha. “I was naked. It was so embarrassing.”

“What did your parents say?” asked Jennifer.

“They don’t know, yet. They’re gone to a funeral in Kansas and won’t be back until Sunday.”

“Can’t you call them?”

“I guess I could, but would you want to tell your parents something like that on the phone? I don’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t either,” said Jennifer.

“None of us would,” said Emma. “We have to be strong, though. If we tell them everything, even the embarrassing stuff, they’ll be able to put him in prison for a long, long time.

“How long?” asked Mandy.

“Do you feel sorry for him?” asked Emma.

“No. I want him to stay in prison so long that when he gets out I have kids in high school.”

“Alicia said she hoped he’d get fifty years,” said Emma.

“Who’s Alicia?” asked Jennifer.

“She’s the woman who brought me here, the detective. She said I could call her Alicia. I told you she’s cool.”

“She might be cool, but my parents are going to freak out,” said Takisha.

“Mine are already freaked out,” said Jennifer. “They know what he did to me, but not why.”

“I didn’t tell my mom, either,” said Emma. “It’s going to be hard, but we can get through this.”

The lady detective came and got Emma. A few minutes later Cutter came and told Takisha to follow him.

Now they were in a small room with just a table and two chairs.

“Okay,” said Cutter. “This is where it gets embarrassing, but we need to talk about what happened. Are you okay?”

“It’s already been embarrassing,” said Takisha.

“I know Detective Ironsides talked to you already and she told me what you said. Now we need to get it down on paper in your formal statement. Can you do that?” asked Cutter.

“I guess so,” she sighed.

“Okay. Let’s go over what needs to be in the statement. I know you talked to Detective Ironsides, but let’s go over it again. I want you to tell me how all this happened to you, and how many times it happened, and anything you did to try to stop it from happening.”

“I couldn’t stop it,” she said. “He caught me in the boy’s locker room, in the shower, naked, with a boy.”

“It was pretty bold of you to do that,” said Cutter.

“I was trying to be a cheerleader,” said Takisha. “Doing that was part of my initiation. I didn’t want to do it, but they said I had to.”

“When was this?”

“It was the week before school started. The football team was practicing and the cheerleaders were, too. A bunch of us who wanted to get on the squad got assigned different things to do for initiation. Mine was to go in the locker room and take off my uniform. Then I was supposed to go in the shower room that way. There was only one guy in there when I got there.”

“Who was the boy?”

“His name is Devon Richards. He’s on the football team.”

“Did he have sex with you?”

“He said he was going to. He wanted me to do something else first. I was doing that when Mister Stevens came in and caught us.”

“What was it you were doing?”

The girl’s face got darker. It was the first time Cutter had ever seen a black person blush, or at least the first time he’d noticed it.

“I was ... um ... using my mouth.”

“Okay. If the defense attorney is an asshole he might make you give more detail about that, but I won’t. What did Mister Stevens do to Devon?”

“I don’t know. He told him to get dressed and he’d talk to him later.”

“You told Principal Stevens that you were pregnant. How did that happen?”

“After he had sex with me a few times, I wanted to do it with somebody else. I hoped it would make me forget what it was like when he did it.”

“Were you sexually active before Stevens forced you to have sex?”

“No. He took my virginity. He laughed when there was blood on the floor where we did it.”

“Laughed?”

“He said that if there was justice in the world, there’d be a lot more blood on his floor.”

“You need to sleep,” said Bobby.

“I can’t sleep now,” said Tawny. “I’m too worked up.”

“You need to sleep,” said Bobby. “Go lie down. I’ll give you a massage and relax you.”

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