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CHAPTER 024

Brad Gordon frowned unhappily at the toilet in his jail cell. A strip of damp toilet paper clung to the side of the metal bowl. There was a puddle of brownish liquid in front of the seat. It had flecks of stuff floating in it. Brad wanted to pee, but he wasn’t going to step in that liquid, whatever the hell it was. He didn’t even like to think about it.

A key turned in the lock behind him. He stood. The door swung open.

“Gordon? Let’s go.”

“What is it?”

“Attorney’s here.”

The cop pushed Brad down a hallway and into a small room. There was an older man in a pinstripe suit and a younger kid in a Dodgers jacket, sitting at a table with a laptop. The kid had thick horn-rim glasses, which made him look like an owl, or Harry Potter or something. They both stood up, shook his hand. He didn’t catch their names. But he knew they were from his uncle’s law firm.

“What’s going on here?” he said.

The older lawyer opened a folder. “Her name is Kelly Chin,” he said. “You met her at a soccer game, you came on to her-”

“I came on to her?”

“And then you took her to the Westview Plaza Hotel, room four-thirteen…”

“You don’t have this story right…”

“And once in the room you had oral, genital, and anal sex with her. And she’s sixteen.”

“Christ,” he said. “It never happened.”

The older attorney just stared at him. “You’re in very deep shit, my friend.”

“I’m telling you it never happened. ”

“I see. The two of you were photographed on hotel security cameras in the lobby and again in the elevator. Hallway cameras on the fourth floor recorded you with Miss Chin as you entered room four-thirteen. You were there one hour and seven minutes. Then she left by herself.”

“Yeah, sure, but-”

“She was crying in the elevator.”

“What?”

“She drove to the Westview Community Hospital and reported she had been assaulted and raped. She was examined at that time, and photographs were taken. She had vaginal tears and contusions, and anal tears. Semen was obtained from her rectum. It is being analyzed now, but she says it’s yours. Is it?”

“Oh shit,” Brad said softly.

“It’s best to come clean,” the attorney said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“That little bitch.”

“Let’s begin with the soccer game where you met her. Witnesses say that you have been seen at girls’ soccer games before. What are you doing at those games, Mr. Gordon?”

“Oh Jesus,” he said.

Brad told the story, but the older man interrupted a lot. It took nearly half an hour to explain exactly what had happened. And to get to the hotel room.

“You say this girl was turned on to you,” the attorney said.

“Yeah, she sure was.”

“There was no kissing or signs of affection in the elevator, going up.”

“No, she had that reserved exterior. You know, the Asian thing.”

“I see. The Asian thing. Unfortunately, on the cameras it doesn’t appear that she was an entirely willing participant.”

“I think she got cold feet,” he said.

“When was that?”

“Well, we were in the bedroom making out, and she was kind of hot, but also a little weird, you know, backing off. Like she’d want to do it, and then not want to. But mostly she was going for it. I mean, she put the rubber on me. I was ready, and she lies back with her legs open and suddenly she goes, ‘No, I don’t want to do it.’ I’m beside her with my pecker sticking up, and I started to get peeved. So she says she’s really sorry and she goes down on me, and I come in the rubber. She was as good as a pro, but you know young chicks today. Anyway, she takes it off me, carries it into the bathroom, and I hear her flushing the toilet. She comes back with a hot washcloth, wipes me down, says she’s sorry, but she thinks she needs to go home now.

“I’m like, hey, whatever. Because by now I figure something’s wrong with this chick. She’s kinky or something, maybe she’s a tease, I seen that before-or mentally disturbed, in which case I want her the hell out of my room. So I say, ‘Sure, go, sorry it wasn’t comfortable for you.’ And she tells me maybe I should wait a while before I leave. I say, ‘Sure, okay.’ She leaves. I wait. Then I left, too. And I swear,” he said, “that’s all there was to it.”

“She never told you her age?”

“No.”

“You never asked?”

“No. She said she was out of high school.”

“She’s not. She’s a sophomore.”

“Oh fuck.”

A silence. The attorney thumbed through the pages of the folder in front of him. “So your story is, this girl seduced you at the soccer game, you took her to a hotel room, she collected your sperm in a condom, left you, gave herself self-inflicted genital injuries, put your sperm up her rectum, drove to the hospital, and reported a rape. Is that it?”

“It had to be that way,” Brad said.

“That’s a difficult story, Mr. Gordon.”

“But it had to be that way.”

“Do you have any proof at all that your story is true?”

Brad fell silent. Thinking.

“No,” he said finally. “I don’t have anything.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” the attorney said.

After Brad was taken back to his cell, the attorney turned to the young man in the Dodgers jacket and horn-rim glasses. “You have anything to contribute here?”

“Yes.” He flipped his screen around so the senior man could see a series of jagged black lines. “Audio stress meters remained in the normal range. Hesitation patterns that indicate prefrontal interference with cognition were absent at all times. The guy isn’t lying. Or at least, he’s convinced it happened his way.”

“Interesting,” the attorney said. “But it doesn’t matter. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll ever get this guy off.”