Tolson shook his head. “Well, let’s call the Frenchies.”
The conversation with the foreign officer started out pretty well in pidgin French and pidgin English. But the questions they needed to ask were too complex to continue. They eventually had to stop at wishing each other well and sending mutual respect across the ocean.
Another couple of weeks went by. The DNA test results came in. Most of it confirmed who touched the knife, who touched the bat, who touched the belt. But there was additional information. Azita’s DNA was everywhere, on the guy’s mouth, cheeks, neck, chest, and yes, his penis. It didn’t form a picture of a forced encounter.
They called Samadi’s lawyer and set the polygraph for two days hence, rehearsing the questions that might shake the guy’s story.
And then they had some luck. They drove to the drug house the next day when school was letting out, and, though they expected nothing, really expected nothing, they got a bit of something. Azita, followed by two eager boys, was going into the house.
“She doesn’t look too upset or sad these days,” Paulson observed.
“No. If she knew the guy, why would none of her friends come forward? Say something?”
But they both knew she had some sort of magical power. You wanted to protect her, you wanted to be loved by her.
About ten minutes went by while they talked about what they would ask when she emerged. But she didn’t come out. Finally, they idled the car forward, parked, and went to the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s us. Detectives Paulson and Tolson. Just want to talk to Amsel, briefly, outside. No arrests.”
The door opened slowly and Amsel slipped outside, holding a set of keys.
“The girl. The one you didn’t know. Do you recognize her from this picture now?” Tolson pulled out the glamour photo.
“Yeah. What? Am I under arrest?”
“Not if you tell the truth. What’s she doing in there?”
“She has a boyfriend. She’s just hanging with him.”
“Front room, back room?”
Amsel looked at them with hard eyes. “You guys are creeps. She’s in the back room, okay?”
“Was she ever in the back room with this other guy?” Tolson pulled out the other photo, now getting worn from sitting at the back of his notepad.
“Yes. Yes.”
“He was her boyfriend?”
“Yes. Am I under arrest?”
“No, you’re cool. Just let us in. We’ll talk to her. Her father is going to want her home soon.”
Amsel dangled the keys. He looked terrified. “Okay,” he said, and he let them in.
Tolson felt like a creep.
Paulson tapped lightly on the bedroom door. “Azita Samadi. We need to talk to you.”
Tolson felt oddly frightened in a way he hadn’t before. Of the girl. Of her father.
Azita came out of the room. She was disheveled, her eyes defiant. She was breathtaking. “What do you want with me?”
“Just... a talk.”
“I have a right to a life.”
“Come to the car. We’ll talk in the car.”
“Will you be feeling me up?”
“No. No, we won’t be doing that.”
The two detectives tried to walk casually to the car so as not to excite any trouble, though Tolson edged a little in front so she wouldn’t run. Somebody pretty soon had to start telling the truth. They put her in the passenger seat. Paulson sat in front with her and Tolson climbed in back. He nodded to Paulson to start. He was figuring out how he wanted to do this.
“Here’s the part we know,” Paulson said. “You have boyfriends. That’s your business. You like to smoke weed. We’re not going to bother you about weed. At one point Jacob Wilson was your boyfriend. So you don’t have to deny any of that.
You can just say yes.”
“So?”
“So he’s dead.”
There was a long silence. Tolson added after a while, “We’re told he was a young man who didn’t quite know himself. Maybe he went after women who were too young. That’s not good. But we don’t know that he did anything he should have died for. We’re told he was gentle. Is that true?”
Some of her fight was gone. “Yes.”
“Did he rape you? We’re going to need to do a lie detector, so you might as well tell the truth.”
“No.”
“Did he try to?”
“No.”
“Did he pull a knife on you?”
“No.”
“Had you had sex with him before?”
Defiant again, she said, “Yes. What of it?”
“He died. He’s dead.”
Her hand went to her mouth and she started to cry. She did it very beautifully again. Tolson wanted to touch her. Paulson said, “Why would your father think it was a rape? Did you cry rape to save yourself from your father’s anger?”
“I didn’t say anything. He was there with the bat before I knew what was happening.”
“And then he messed with the lock and the knife.”
She swiped at her eyes and seemed as if she would not answer. “Yes.”
“We have to do right by Jacob Wilson.”
She nodded. “He was sweet. Not too savvy but very sweet. I love my father. What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s going to go to jail,” Tolson said. He was glad she was finally talking.
“For sure?”
“He has a good lawyer, he’ll probably get a short sentence. A jury will be sympathetic that he was acting by some code he thought was right.”
“What a mess. For all of us.”
Tolson couldn’t let up. He wanted to hear her talk. “You might have some hard times. The money won’t flow in if your pop is in jail.”
She smiled. “Pop. It’s such a funny word. I’m not worried about that. My mother pretty much does everything anyway.”
“Oh?”
“So you’ll be free for a while,” Paulson said. He sounded sad and mad.
“And so we have to do what we have to do,” Tolson said. “Where’s your father now? Back at the house?”
She smiled. “He’s in Iran.”
“Huh?”
“He left yesterday.” She looked at them straight on. “Of course. What did you think?”
“He can’t just do that.”
“He can. Believe me.”
Tolson tried to think what he wanted to ask her. He wanted her to be different, to say something different.
She got out of the car and started walking toward home. She walked smoothly and confidently. They saw her pull out a cell phone. It seemed she punched in a lot of numbers before she started speaking.
They just kept looking until she was out of sight.
Loaded
by Rebecca Drake
Fox Chapel
It rained on moving day, quarter-size drops splashing like bloodstains on the stone walkway. The movers cursed under their breaths and one of them slipped as they were carrying in an antique sideboard. The heavy end left his blunt hands, landing with a crash that chipped the mahogany veneer.
Andrew watched from the doorway of the house, relieved that the damage was on the left side. Given its placement in the dining room, Christine would be unlikely to notice.
She had a tendency to overreact and he imagined if she’d been the one to see the accident she would have yelled at the movers and they might have abandoned the job half-done, a trail of possessions left on the front lawn to soak up the rain.
Luckily, she’d been out of earshot, down the hall in what was to be the boys’ bedroom, picking paint colors with her mother.