Wild Justice

CHAPTER 20

I called Neil to warn him I was coming. It was past one when I rang his doorbell. It was the same bungalow I’d visited for the past fifteen years. He’d gotten it in the divorce. His ex had a McMansion in the suburbs with their two kids and her new husband. Fifteen years married to a vice cop had added up to too many nights when she knew he was out on a case and didn’t know a damned thing about it except that it almost certainly involved drugs and guns and all kinds of shit that ate away at him and left her jumping every time the phone or the doorbell rang. My cousin loved his career, and his career made her fall out of love with him. It happens. Too often.

The last time I’d seen him he’d been carrying some divorce-stress weight, but that was gone now. Maybe a sign he’d met someone. Or maybe just a sign he was trying. It was good to see.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey yourself.” He swung open the door. When I stepped in, he gave me a hug. Then he glanced over my shoulder. “You brought company?”

“A friend. We’re driving down to Buffalo for the weekend.”

“Would your friend like to come in?”

“He’s fine.”

I waved to Jack—for Neil’s sake, so he didn’t think I was being rude. Then Neil led me past the living room and into the kitchen. Stafford tradition. The living room is for guests; the kitchen is for family.

We chatted for a while. That, too, was tradition. A Stafford had to be polite and friendly, even with family. So we drank coffee and ate Oreos and chatted until talk turned to Aldrich.

“I don’t want to give that son of a bitch any due,” Neil said. “But I’m glad he confessed before he went. It makes it easier.”

“It does.”

“Have you heard from your mom?”

“Nope.”

He swore under his breath.

“Last I knew she was in Arizona,” I said. “And Brad was in New York doing some off-Broadway play.”

“Off-off-off Broadway, you mean.”

I quirked a smile. “Yeah.”

“You’re doing well, though. The lodge is getting bigger and fancier every time I’m there. You’ve got a dog. Got a friend.” He nodded in the direction of the driveway.

I laughed. “He’s not that kind of friend.”

“But you were seeing someone, weren’t you? Last time we spoke.”

“Yep. Last time we spoke.”

“Damn. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “I’m fine. And you? Anyone special?”

“Working on it.”

“Good.” I cleared my throat. “As I said on the phone, I want to ask you a few things about Aldrich. About the case. His death is bringing it back and I just . . . I have some questions.”

“About all the ways we monumentally fucked up?”

“Of course not.” I met his gaze. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, sorry. It still stings, obviously, and this vindication helps, but it’s not enough.” He reached for another cookie. “What do you want to know?”

“What happened to me.”

His hand stopped. It was just a momentary pause before he picked up the cookie, but it was enough.

“You did know,” I said.

He set the cookie, untouched, on his plate. Waiting to be sure we were talking about the same thing.

“I’ve had suspicions for a while,” I said. “Bad dreams. Confusing memories. Then this news hit and I saw his face online and it . . . I remembered. Amy wasn’t the only one Drew Aldrich raped.”

Silence. Slowly, his gaze lifted to mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you have something to be sorry for?”

“Yeah. We all do, don’t we?” He rubbed his hand over his face. “It’s so easy to screw up. To make a choice that seems right. Then time passes and you look back and you say, ‘How the hell did I do that?’ Attitudes change. Insights change. Eventually things that you were so damned sure were right become . . . incomprehensible.”

“I know.”

“I remember you coming into the station that day. I remember what it was like, seeing you staggering in, barely able to walk, the blood.” He rubbed his mouth and shook his head. “It was like one of those nightmares. Where you’re on a case, a terrible case, and you start dreaming that it wasn’t a stranger who got hurt—it was someone you care about. Except this was real. Uncle Eddie had just come back from the station, panicked because you and Amy weren’t on the train. Before anyone could even react to that, you came in screaming for your dad. He tried to take you into the back, but you wouldn’t go. Amy was in trouble—we had to get to her. Your dad wanted to send everyone else. He’d stay with you. You were hurt. You said you weren’t, that it was Amy’s blood and you only cut your throat getting away. You said no one touched you, that your dad had to go, he had to help Amy.”

“I was blocking the rape.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was like . . . I had this call once. Years ago. Car accident. The wife was trapped inside, passed out. The car was on fire. The husband had been thrown clear—no seat belt. We tried to help him, but he kept saying he was fine. Save his wife. Wouldn’t even let the paramedics check him. Everyone had to help his wife. We saved her. He died from internal injuries. You would have told us anything to convince us you were fine so we’d concentrate on Amy. Your dad still didn’t want to leave, but you started screaming and fighting when he wouldn’t. So he told me to stay with you and call Doc Foster.”

“Which you did.”

“The doc came and he took you into the back for an examination. When he came out, he confirmed . . . what we suspected . . . that Aldrich hurt you.”

“Raped me.”

He tensed as if he, too, would rather avoid that word. Then his face mottled as red as his hair, and he clenched the coffee cup in his hand. “You were a child. You were just a goddamn child and that—”

“Go on,” I said. “Please. Tell me what happened. So Dr. Foster confirmed it . . .”

Neil nodded. “He did, but you wouldn’t. You insisted you were okay. You wanted him to go to the cabin to help Amy. He said you couldn’t process the experience . . . I don’t agree. I think you were confused and embarrassed, and you didn’t want to talk about it to an old man. All you could think about was Amy. You hadn’t forgotten what happened. You were just putting it aside. And then your dad called and . . .” He inhaled sharply, gaze emptying, as if lost in those memories.

“Amy was dead.”

He nodded. “We didn’t tell you. As terrible as that news was, your dad’s main concern was still you. When he came back, that’s what he wanted to deal with, before he told you. Except you wouldn’t talk about the rape. You knew something had happened to Amy, and you were hysterical, and you insisted nothing happened to you. Doc Foster said if you wanted to block it out, we should let you.”

“If I wanted to forget it, then it seemed best forgotten.”

“It wasn’t like that. It just . . . got like that. Your dad feared if we covered it up and you remembered later, you’d think you’d done something wrong. He talked to Father Myers, which didn’t help. It really wasn’t the good Father’s area of expertise, and he was more than happy to agree with the doctor. Clearly God was granting you the boon of forgetfulness, and we shouldn’t interfere. Your mother was right onside with them. Strongly and strenuously onside.”

Because she hadn’t wanted the shame of admitting her daughter had been raped.

Neil continued, “It wasn’t swept under the rug, Nadia. It was hashed over and over and over. It was a family matter, and it was a police matter, too. You know what rape trials are like for the victims. This was the eighties. It was so much worse.”

“And Dad didn’t want that for me.”

“Would any father?” Neil looked me in the eye. “He was still never comfortable with that decision. He made us all swear that if you said anything—anything—to suggest you remembered being raped, we had to tell him. He even made your mother swear. I heard him yelling at her next door. It was the first time I ever heard him raise his voice to her. He said that if you ever remembered anything, and she didn’t tell him, he’d leave her. Take you and leave.”

There are times when I think my father and I would have both been better off if he’d done exactly as he threatened. But divorce wasn’t a real option at the time, not when you lived in a small town and had children. Dad had buckled down and made the best of it. That’s what he’d done here, too. Everyone told him that if I’d “forgotten” the rape, then it was better for me to go with that. I’d forget it. Which I had.

I told Neil that I understood. That wasn’t entirely true, but it’s what he needed to hear. He’d been barely more than a kid himself, doing as he was told by his family and his superiors. He couldn’t be faulted for that.

“The real problem,” I said, “isn’t how the cover-up affected me. It’s how it affected the case. If I admitted I’d been raped, that would have changed everything. They couldn’t blame the victim nearly as easily with me.”

“Is that what you think? Shit.” Neil shook his head and leaned over the table, braced on his forearms. “We made mistakes, but refusing to let you testify was not one of them. Sure, the defense argued that Amy went there willingly, hoping for more than a kiss on the cheek. They played the bad-girl card, but she was fourteen—there’s only so far that goes.” He paused. “How much do you know about the case? I seemed to remember you were there for part of the trial.”

“I was, mostly at the beginning. Dad said he wanted me to see justice done.” Justice for me, I realized now. In case I did remember what happened, he wanted me to see my rapist go to jail. “As the trial wore on, I guess he realized justice wasn’t coming, so he kept me home. As for the details? I’ve only seen a summary of the case notes. The full file would have been . . . too much.”

“So what you know is based mostly on what you heard. Gossip. A cautionary tale about the bad girl who got raped and murdered, and a killer who walked free because of it.” Neil shook his head. “That’s not what happened, Nadia.”

“But if he could have gone to jail for raping me, it would have got him off the streets—”

“He wouldn’t have. Your mother got rid of your clothing, which was the only forensic evidence. Your dad flipped out when he heard that, but it was too late. There was . . . physical evidence, I’m sure, but by the time we realized the case against Aldrich wasn’t airtight, it was long gone. It would have been the worst kind of rape trial—the victim’s word versus the accused. You’d have been put through hell for no reason. Aldrich still would have walked.”

I stayed quiet after he’d finished.

“I mean it, Nadia. I’m not saying that to make you feel better. There is no way your dad would have let your rapist walk if he could have stopped that. Hell, when Aldrich did walk, they had to whisk him away, under protective custody, for fear we’d retaliate.”

And my uncle still tracked him down. No one had forgotten.

“There’s a lot you didn’t know, Nadia. If you want the case files, I can get them. But Amy did get her justice, even if it came twenty years late.”