‘Devil’s advocate?’
Will nodded, though he knew what was coming.
‘I can see why it fell apart. It’s he said/she said and Rippy gets the benefit of the doubt because that’s how the Constitution works. Innocent until blah-blah-blah. And let’s not forget that Rippy is filthy rich. If he lived in a trailer park, his court-appointed lawyer would’ve pled him down to five years for false imprisonment to keep him off the sex-offender registry, end of story.’
Will didn’t respond, because there was nothing else to say.
Faith gripped the steering wheel. ‘I hate rape cases. You don’t throw a murder case to a jury and they ask, “Well, was the guy really murdered or is he lying because he wants the attention? And what was he doing in that part of town? And why was he drinking? And what about all those murderers he dated before?” ’
‘She wasn’t sympathetic.’ Will hated that this even mattered. ‘Her family’s a mess. Single mom with a drug habit. No idea who the dad is. She had some drug issues in high school, a history of self-cutting. She was coming off academic probation at her college. She dated around, spent a lot of time on Tinder and OkCupid, like everybody her age. Rippy’s people found out she had an abortion a few years ago. She basically wrote their trial strategy for them.’
‘There’s not much daylight between being a good girl and a bad one, but once you cross that line—’ Faith blew out a stream of air. ‘You can’t imagine the shit people said about me when I got pregnant with Jeremy. One day I was a junior high school honor student with her entire life ahead of her, and the next day I was a teenage Mata Hari.’
‘You were shot for being a spy?’
‘You know what I mean. I was a pariah. Jeremy’s dad was sent to live with family up north. My brother still hasn’t forgiven me. My dad got forced out of his Lodge. He lost a ton of customers. None of my friends would speak to me. I had to drop out of school.’
‘At least it was different when you had Emma.’
‘Oh, yeah, a single thirty-five-year-old woman with a twenty-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter is constantly praised for her excellent life choices.’ She changed the subject. ‘She had a boyfriend, right? The victim?’
‘He broke up with her a week before the assault.’
‘Oh, for godsakes.’ Faith had worked enough rape investigations to know that a defense lawyer’s dream was an accuser with an ex-boyfriend she was trying to make jealous.
‘He stepped up after the assault,’ Will said, though he wasn’t a fan of the ex-boyfriend. ‘Stayed by her side. Made her feel safe. Or at least tried to.’
‘Dale Harding’s name never came up during the investigation?’
He shook his head.
A news truck sped by, dipping into the oncoming traffic lane for twenty yards before taking an illegal turn.
Faith said, ‘Looks like news at noon has its lead story.’
‘They don’t want news. They want gossip.’ Up until Rippy’s case had been dismissed, Will couldn’t leave GBI headquarters without some well-coifed anchor trying to bait him into a career-ending sound bite. He got off light considering the death threats and online stalking Rippy’s fans lobbed at his accuser.
Faith said, ‘I guess this could be a coincidence. Harding being found dead at Rippy’s club?’
Will shot her a look. No cop believed in coincidence, especially a cop like Faith.
‘Okay,’ she relented, shuffling the steering wheel as she followed the news van’s illegal dip and dash. ‘At least we know why Amanda sent four texts.’ Her phone chirped. ‘Five.’ Faith grabbed the phone. Her thumb slid across the screen. She hooked a sharp turn. ‘Jeremy finally updated his Facebook page.’
Will took over the steering as she typed a message to her son, who was using the summer months away from college to drive across the country with three of his friends, seemingly for the sole purpose of worrying his mother.
Faith mumbled as she typed, bemoaning the stupidity of kids in particular and her son in specific. ‘Does this girl look eighteen to you?’
Will glanced at a photo of Jeremy standing very close to a scantily clad blonde. The grin on his face was heartbreakingly hopeful. Jeremy was a skinny, nerdy little kid studying physics at Georgia Tech. He was so out of the blonde’s league that he might as well have been a cantaloupe. ‘I would be more worried about the bong pipe on the floor.’
‘Oh, fer fucksake.’ Faith looked like she wanted to throw the phone out the window. ‘He’d better hope his grandmother doesn’t see this.’
Will watched as Faith forwarded the picture to her mother to make sure this very thing happened.
He pointed to the next intersection. ‘This is Chattahoochee.’
Faith was still cursing the photo as she took the turn. ‘As the mother of a son, I look at that picture and I think, “Don’t get her pregnant.” Then I look at it as the mother of a daughter and I think, “Don’t get stoned with a guy you just met, because his friends could gang-rape you and leave you dead in a hotel closet.” ’
Will shook his head. Jeremy was a good kid with good friends. ‘He’s twenty years old. You have to start trusting him sometime.’
‘No I don’t.’ She dropped her phone back into the cup holder. ‘Not if he still wants food, clothes, a roof over his head, health insurance, an iPhone, video games, pocket money, gas money—’
Will tuned out the long list of all the things Faith was going to take away from her poor son. His mind instantly went to Marcus Rippy. The basketball player’s smug face as he sat back in the chair with his arms crossed and his mouth shut. His wife’s hateful glares every time Will asked a question. His conceited business manager and his slick lawyers, who were all as interchangeable as Bond villains.
Keisha Miscavage, Marcus Rippy’s accuser.
She was a tough young woman, defiant, even from her hospital bed. Her hoarse whispers were peppered with fucks and shits and her eyes stayed constantly squinted as if she were interviewing Will instead of the other way around. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ she’d warned him. ‘Just do your fucking job.’
Will had to admit, if only to himself, that he had a soft spot for hostile women. It killed him that he’d failed Keisha so miserably. He couldn’t even watch basketball anymore, let alone play it. Every time his hand touched a ball, he wanted to shove it down Marcus Rippy’s throat.
‘Holy crap.’ Faith coasted to a stop several yards behind a news van. ‘Half the police force is here.’
Will studied the parking lot outside the car window. Her estimate didn’t seem far off. The scene was vibrating with people. A semi truck hauling lights. The APD crime scene investigation bus. The GBI Department of Forensic Sciences mobile lab. APD cruisers and unmarked cop cars scattered around like Pick-Up Sticks. Yellow crime-scene tape roped off a smoldering burned-out car with a halo of water steaming off the scorching asphalt. Techs swarmed the area, laying down numbered yellow markers by anything that could be evidence.
Faith said, ‘I bet I know who called in the body.’
Will guessed, ‘Crack addict. Raver. Runaway.’ He took in the vault-like building in front of them. Marcus Rippy’s future nightclub. Construction had stopped six months ago when the rape charge had looked like it was going to stick. The poured concrete walls were rough and weathered, darkened along the bottom by several overlays of graffiti. Weeds had cracked up around the foundation. There were two giant windows, high up, tucked into opposite corners of the street side of the building. The glass was tinted almost black.