“No. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened at the frat party.”
“Annie and me went to the PSU–Oregon game. We knew some of the guys on both teams from high school. Annie found out that there was a party that night at one of the PSU frat houses, and we decided to go.
“When we got to the party, Blaine was in a group of people I knew. I started talking to someone. Then, at some point, Blaine started talking to me, and a little later, he asked me to dance.”
“Why did you talk to him if you hated him because of what happened to Ryan?”
Randi flushed. “You’re right. I should have walked away. But I’d been drinking more than I should have, and, well, I’m not proud of what I did, but, like I said, he didn’t pay any attention to me in high school and he’s a big football star, so I was flattered by the attention.”
“Okay. What happened after you started talking?”
“There was this slow dance and he started touching me and I got a little hot. The lights were low and he kissed me just before the dance ended.”
“Did you resist when he kissed you?”
Randi blushed. “No. I kissed him back. And that’s when he whispered in my ear that we should go someplace private.”
“What did you do?”
“He headed for a bedroom in the back of the house and I followed him.”
“So, this was consensual?”
“Right then, yeah.”
“You said that you’d been drinking at the party?”
“I had a few.”
“Were you drunk when you followed Blaine to the bedroom?”
“I was tipsy, but I knew what I was doing.”
“What about drugs?”
“No. The cops asked me the same thing at the hospital. They took some blood. The DA said the tests showed the booze but I was clean, no drugs.”
“You went to the hospital after the incident?”
“Right away.” Randi became animated again. “And they did a rape kit. The stupid fuck didn’t use a condom, so they have some of his DNA—and the DA says it’s what they need to put that prick away.”
“In many of these cases, the man will say he had sex but it was consensual.”
“Well, this wasn’t. My guard was down because of the booze, and I did let Blaine make out. But I told him to stop when he started feeling between my legs.”
“How clear were you?”
“Pretty fucking clear. First, I said no, but he kept jabbing his finger between my legs and telling me how much he liked me. I told him I wanted to stop and I tried to sit up, but he pushed me down.”
“Did you fight him?”
Randi barked out a humorless laugh. “Miss Lockwood, Blaine is a linebacker at the U of O. He’s a solid muscle. Look at me. He could bench-press me with one hand.”
“So, you didn’t resist?”
“I did. I tried to push him off. That’s when he slapped me and told me to be a good girl if I didn’t want to get hurt.”
“What did you do?”
“I shut up and shut my eyes and he pulled up my skirt and ripped off my panties.”
“Do you have the ripped panties?”
“I gave them to the cops.”
“Okay, that’s good. Now I need to know, did he enter you? Was there penetration? That’s important in a rape case.”
Randi choked up. “It hurt. I was dry, and he…”
“Do you want to stop? Do you want some water?”
Randi shook her head.
“Who did you tell about what happened, and when did you tell them?”
“I didn’t have to tell. Annie came in right after he finished. I was crying and saying, ‘Get off me.’ She’d seen me go to the bedroom with Blaine, and she knew his reputation.”
“What is Blaine’s reputation?”
“I’ve heard I’m not his first victim.”
“He’s raped other women?”
Randi hesitated. “That I can’t say for sure. I mean, no one ever told me that specifically. But I’ve heard that he doesn’t always take no for an answer.”
“Okay. What did Annie do when she saw you go into the bedroom with Blaine?”
“She followed me down the hall, and she opened the door when she heard me yell.”
“What did Blaine do?”
“When the door opened, he told Annie to get out, but she’s got guts. She told Blaine to get off me or she’d call the cops. Blaine started for her and she threatened to scream. That’s when he looked worried for the first time. Then he zipped up his pants and stormed out. Annie and me waited until we thought it was safe. Then she drove me to the hospital. I said I didn’t want to go; I just wanted to forget the whole thing. But she convinced me I shouldn’t let him get away with it.”
“She was right.”
“When are you going to sue Blaine?” Randi asked.
“We have plenty of time to file a complaint, so I’m going to wait until we see how the trial comes out. I’ll sit through it. If he’s convicted, we should be in good shape.”
Half an hour later, Robin showed the Starks out. Then she walked into Jeff Hodges’s office. Robin’s investigator was six-two with shaggy, reddish-blond hair that almost touched his broad shoulders. He had green eyes, pale, freckled skin, walked with a limp, and had a faint tracery of scars on his face. The scars and the limp were the result of injuries suffered in an explosion in a meth lab Jeff had raided when he was a police officer.
Robin had been attracted to Jeff since she joined Regina’s firm. There was a moment during a recent case when she’d asked him to go to bed with her. It was in Atlanta, right after someone had tried to kill her. Jeff was enough of a gentleman to avoid taking advantage of the situation. Wary of an office romance, neither had ever mentioned what had happened. That didn’t stop Robin from finding Jeff attractive, and she was certain that he felt the same way but was as gun-shy as she was.
“We just got an interesting new case,” Robin said as she took a seat across the desk from Jeff.
“What do you want me to do?” Jeff asked when Robin finished filling him in.
“Find out who’s prosecuting and see if they’ll share, but it wouldn’t hurt to get some background on Blaine Hastings. See if you can find any other women who say that he molested them. And interview Annie Roche if you can do it quietly. We don’t want to give Hastings’s lawyer ammunition to argue that Randi is setting him up to make money with a lawsuit.”
“Gotcha, boss.”
Robin liked spending time with Jeff, and she was tempted to ask if he wanted to go to lunch, but Jeff’s intercom buzzed and Linda asked if Robin was with him.
“I’m here,” Robin said.
“Judge Wright phoned while you were in with your clients. He wants you to call him.”
“I’ll go back to my office. Get him on the line for me, will you?”
Robin liked Harold Wright and considered him to be one of the sharpest jurists on the Multnomah County Circuit Court, but she didn’t have any cases in the judge’s court right now. She wondered what he wanted to talk about. Moments after she was back in her office, she found out.
“Robin, I have a favor to ask,” the judge said when they were connected.
“Shoot.”
“A police officer was killed last night, and the DA has charged a man named Everett Henderson with aggravated murder. It’s going to be a controversial case. You’re next up on the capital murder court-appointment list. Do you have the time to handle it?”
“Yeah. My caseload isn’t too demanding right now.”
“Okay. Thanks, Robin.”
“Who’s the DA?”
“Rex Kellerman.”
Robin stifled the urge to swear. Rex Kellerman was a handsome runner of marathons, who dyed the gray strands mixed into his wavy black hair. He sported a well-groomed mustache, a year-round tan, and looked great smiling at juries with pearly white teeth and laughing blue eyes. Anyone who didn’t know him would take him for a gentleman. Within the bar, Kellerman had a reputation as a dishonest little shit who could never be trusted.