Storiesonline.net ------- Sacking the Quarterback by Al Steiner Copyright© 2004 by Al Steiner ------- Description: A non-sexual story, orginally written under my "real" identity. This is in response to popular request to see my normal writings. Originally written and published in 1998. A tale of vengence after a horrible violation of a family member. No sex is described in this story. Don't say you weren't warned. Codes: no-sex caution ------- ------- Hello to all. It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I continue to get emails asking me for more of my writing. In particular, since posting "North of the River" and "Collateral Damage", I'm asked for samples of my "normal" writing. This is one such example - a short story I composed and published under my real name about a year before I began publishing here as Al Steiner. This is not a sex story. I know this is a site for that genre and by posting this here I am off-topic and I apologize in advance to all who are offended by this. Please do not send me email asking where the sex is. You are warned in advance that there is none and if you're not interested in seeing my normal writing you should move on to the next story. I have changed the name of this story and certain geographic details to hinder identification of myself, but the main plot and everything else remains as I initially composed it. As always, please let me know what you think. I will be posting this in three sections over the next week or so. My email address has changed for the third time now thanks to the spamming machines. The new one is do_not_resuscitate_ever@yahoo.com Please send all comments, positive and negative, to this address. I will respond to as many as I can. Peace to all, Al Steiner ------- Chapter 1 Janet Whitecoff's first inkling of the trouble that invaded her semi-happy suburban home came when she saw the laundry compartment. It was 6:30 Wednesday morning and she had just trudged blearily downstairs of her four-bedroom house, purchased when she had still been a married woman with hopes of one day having a large, happy, storybook family instead of the single daughter and ex-husband she now had. Her mind, though primarily focused on getting a strong pot of coffee brewing in order to help blast her into another twelve hour shift at the hospital, noted immediately that the two French doors which guarded the laundry cubicle were standing wide open. That was odd. She had done a load of laundry before retiring last night and distinctly remembered closing them. Chrissie, her sixteen year-old daughter, habitually left the two doors open when she was washing something. It had been the subject of many a corrective lecture over the years but the action continued without fail. It was a learned behavior, she knew, picked up from her father who wouldn't close a cabinet door if his life depended on it. But Chrissie was not home this morning. Taking advantage of the first week of Christmas vacation, Chrissie had spent last night at her friend Lisa's house. She was not due home until well after noon today. Or so Janet thought. Chrissie, in stark contrast to her parents, was a life-long introvert. Though her training was that of a trauma nurse, not a psychologist, Janet never-the-less knew that Chrissie's shyness had resulted both from the divorce of her and Jason when she was but six years old and by the subsequent sheltering that the two of them, both cynical emergency services employees who routinely dealt with humanity at it's worse, had bestowed upon her in a good natured attempt at protection. Though pretty and almost eerily smart, Chrissie had never made friends easily, had never had a boyfriend at all, finding solace it seemed, in books of poetry and literature, which occupied every available space in her room. It was only with the start of her sophomore year at Thomas Edison High School, only three months before, that she had started to socialize with her peers in any capacity. She still hadn't brought home any boys (much to Jason, her father and Janet's ex-husband's relief), but she had taken to hanging out with several of the school's cheerleaders and was even considering trying out for the squad when basketball season rolled around. Though Janet disapproved of cheerleaders and cheerleading, considering them to be female exploitation, and though she didn't particularly like Chrissie's friend Lisa, who was a gorgeous, blonde, airhead, stereotypical cheerleader, she was forced to encourage any endeavor that Chrissie undertook which involved interaction with people other than herself or Jason. For that reason she had given no resistance and only token interrogation when Chrissie had asked her the night before if she could stay at Lisa's. The alleged reason for the sleepover was that they were going to practice some cheerleading moves to see if Chrissie had the rhythm for it. Janet, who had almost twenty years of emergency room nursing, including five spent on the Medi-Flight helicopter and who therefore considered herself pretty wise to the ways of the world, knew that the two girls probably had some ulterior motive in the sleepover. Maybe they wanted to get drunk off the liquor in Lisa's parent's liquor cabinet. Or maybe Lisa was going to turn her daughter on to marijuana for the first time. Janet was not exactly thrilled with these possibilities but knew they were part of every teenager's life. She had to simply hope that she, and Jason who shared joint custody, had raised their daughter well enough that she would choose to stop these dangerous pursuits, if that was what she was doing, at the experimentation stage. Had Chrissie, for some reason, come home in the middle of the night and done a load of laundry? She could not envision why her daughter would have done such a thing. Curious, but by no means alarmed, she padded over to the laundry cubicle and flipped on the light switch. The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life, bathing the two appliances and part of the hallway in light. It was then that she knew something was wrong. The sparkling white surface of the silent washing machine was marred by a single red handprint on the lid, right where someone would grasp in order to open it. The red material that made up the stain was unmistakably dried blood. Another smear, smaller and less defined, stood out on the front of the machine. No longer groggy, Janet lifted the lid and peered inside. The machine, she knew, had been empty last night. Now she could see the blue pantsuit and matching sweater Chrissie had left the house in clinging wetly to the sides of the drum. Her daughter had come home last night or early this morning, had been bleeding, and had thrown her clothes in the washing machine. These facts filled her with dread. What had happened? Where was Chrissie now? Her bedroom was next to Janet's and when she had walked by it less than two minutes before, the door had been standing open, the bed neatly made. Stepping back away from the washing machine, Janet looked down the hallway towards the family room. Just inside the hall was a guest bathroom. Its door was usually open. It was now closed. She could see a sliver of light peeking out through the gap at the bottom of the door, illuminating a small, straight section of the brown Berber carpet. Stepping closer she saw something else; the ornate crystal doorknob was smudged with something. Already knowing what she would find, she flipped on the hallway light. Under the bright glow of the overhead fluorescent bulb she could plainly see that it was more dried blood on the doorknob. Before she had time to fully consider the ramifications of this she heard a soft sob, unmistakably Chrissie's, from within the bathroom. It was accompanied by a delicate murmur of bathwater sloshing gently from one side of the tub to another. "Chrissie?" she called carefully. "I'm okay, Mom," Chrissie replied softly, though Janet hadn't asked if she was okay, and though her voice sounded worlds away from okay. Her voice sounded defeated, as if she was barely hanging onto control. "Chrissie, what are you doing home? Why is there blood on the washing machine and the doorknob out here?" There was nothing for a moment but another splashing sound. "Chrissie?" Janet repeated, louder this time. "Lisa and I had..." A sniff. "We had a fight and I came home early. I'm okay. I cut my hand a little on something." All of Janet's maternal instincts were now screaming at her that something was dreadfully wrong on the other side of the bathroom door. Chrissie's voice, which sounded so un-Chrissie-like, the fact that she was taking a bath at 6:30 in the morning when she had never, even under the greatest stress, felt the need to do such a thing before. The fact that she was taking the bath in the downstairs tub, which was never used, instead of in the larger tub in her own bathroom. The blood on the washing machine. The blood on the doorknob. "Chrissie," Janet said, reaching out and turning the doorknob, which was locked. "Let me in. What's going on?" "Nothing, Mom!" Chrissie, who, since she was a toddler, had never raised her voice in anger to either parent, yelled. "I'm just having a bath. I'll..." A sob, cut off in the middle, "I'll be out in a minute." "Chrissie, open this door right now!" Janet yelled back, nearing a state that could be called panic. What had happened to her daughter? She heard the sloshing of Chrissie exiting the tub. "I'm okay, Mom," she called out. "I'll be out pretty soon. Don't come in here." It was the last sentence, 'don't come in here', that prompted Janet into action. Her daughter's voice had said those words with such pitiful desperation. Directly behind her was a coat closet. She threw open the door to it and pushed aside a variety of winterwear, finally locating an empty wire hanger. She pulled it down and, in one swift motion, bent the top of it into a straight line. Turning back around she inserted this into the small hole in the crystal doorknob. "Chrissie, I'm coming in!" she said, pushing on the hanger and turning the knob at the same time. The hanger worked just as it was supposed to. The knob turned to the right and the door sprang open. "Mom, no!" Chrissie had time to yell, in full panic, before Janet saw what she was trying to hide. Janet stared in disbelief, her mind trying desperately to cope with what she was seeing, to find a rational, safe explanation. The bathtub, which was rapidly draining with a gurgling, slurping sound, was half filled with water that was stained pink. There was blood on the porcelain of the toilet, some fresh, some dried, and blood on the side of the tub. Chrissie, standing next to the sink, was looking at Janet with an expression of hopelessness and guilt. An expression that only the damned were meant to wear. Her face was swollen on the left side and her lip was split open and purple. She had a pink bath towel wrapped protectively around her shivering body and as Janet watched in horror, two drops of blood pattered to the floor at her feet. "Chrissie," Janet whispered, her mouth hanging open. "What happened to you? Where are you bleeding from?" "It's nothing, Mom," Chrissie croaked. "It's nothing at all." Then she burst into tears. ------- Sergeant Jason Whitecoff of the Marshall County Sheriff's Department had just pulled out of the north area substation into the perpetual winter fog that plagued the San Juaquin Valley when the Comm terminal in his patrol car began beeping, indicating an incoming message. He looked at it in annoyance for a moment, yawning, wondering what could possibly require his attention this early. He was the field supervisor for the day shift in Madison Park and as such, he was not accustomed to being sent to routine calls. He would of course handle one if it was pending and there were no patrol units available but currently only two of the ten officers under his command were assigned to anything. The other eight were all on "routine patrol", which, Jason knew, meant they were all sequestered behind various churches, closed down businesses, or county parks reading free newspapers and drinking free coffee obtained from neighborhood convenience stores and fast food joints. He could of course find them if he wanted to. He had worked nearly eight years as a patrol officer in this district before being promoted and had been the area supervisor for the last five. He knew every nook and cranny of Madison Park. But what would be the point? He could name several of his fellow patrol sergeants who took great pleasure in finding the troops doing what they weren't supposed to be doing but Jason had made a vow to himself seven years before when he had accepted the promotion that he would not forget where he had come from. So far he'd kept that vow, which hadn't exactly endeared him to the brass but that had accorded him the unofficial title of most-respected sergeant among the cops he supervised. He pushed the "NEXT" button on his keyboard to bring up his message. Long experience allowed him to read the screen and continue navigating the green and white Crown Victoria through the suburban streets. It wasn't much of a message but its content was enough to get his heart pounding beneath the kevlar armor vest he wore: TURN ON YOUR CELLPHONE FOR EMERG INCOMING CALL FROM X-WIFE. The sender of the message was the dispatch sergeant. Frowning, he reached down to make sure the dash mounted cell phone was turned on. It was. What could possibly be so emergent, he wondered uneasily, that Janet had gone through the trouble of calling the dispatch office and talking to the duty sergeant? In the nineteen years he had known her she had never felt the need to do such a thing before. Was it something to do with Chrissie? As unpleasant a thought as that was, it seemed the only logical explanation. They had shared equal custody of her since the divorce and his daughter was unquestioningly the most important thing in his life. All other aspects - career, girlfriends, money - paled in comparison to the love he felt for her. By the time the phone rang two minutes later, his mind had worked him into a state of anxiety more intense than anything his job could ever hope to produce. "Hello?" he answered, cutting the phone off in the middle of the first ring. "Janet?" "It's me," said the voice of his ex-wife. Her voice sounded controlled, but only barely so. "What's going on?" he asked. "Is Chrissie okay?" "She's in the hospital," Janet said simply. "The hospital?" he said, thousands of evil possibilities running through his mind. "What happened to her? Is she okay?" "Jason," she said, her voice breaking, then turning to a sob. "Jason she was..." "What?" he demanded. "She was what? What happened to her?" "She was raped," Janet managed to say. Speechless, Jason's mouth hung open. Surely he had misunderstood her. Surely he had not just been told that his sixteen-year-old daughter had been raped. "What did you say?" he finally spoke. "She was raped last night," Janet repeated, regaining a little control, "while she was out with her friends." "My God," he muttered, trying to comprehend. "Is she okay? How bad is she hurt?" "She'll be all right," Janet told him. "There was some... well some bleeding. And she was beat up a little but she'll be okay." She paused. "Physically anyway." "Where is she at?" Jason wanted to know. "We're at Tubman," Janet told him, referring to Harriet Tubman Memorial Hospital in downtown Maldonado. It was the facility where she worked. "Can you come down? Chrissie needs you. I need you too." "I'll be right there," he answered, then, after a moment. "Does she know who did it?" "Yes," Janet answered. "She knows. I'll tell you when you get here." After hanging up with Janet he called his immediate superior, Lieutenant West, to tell him that he was returning to the office and leaving due to a family emergency. He half expected West, one of the more officious pricks the department employed, to give him trouble, not that he was going to let that stop him, but, as it turned out, West was much more accommodating than he would have believed. "Family emergency?" he asked. "Is it serious?" "My daughter had, well, an accident. She's in Tubman hospital." "Your daughter?" he said. "Well don't even bother coming back to the office. Just take your patrol car down there. Leave all of your stuff in it. I'll arrange to have it picked up later." "Thanks, Bill," Jason told him, already pushing the accelerator to the floor. "I'll do that." The drive to Tubman took about twenty minutes under normal circumstances. Jason made it in slightly less than thirteen. He parked the patrol car in the restricted area next to the ambulance bay and nearly ran inside. The triage nurse, a friend of Janet's who gave him a look of quiet sympathy but, thankfully, said nothing about Chrissie, directed him to one of the back treatment areas. He weaved his way through the crowded emergency department, dodging nurses and doctors going about their appointed rounds and finally located his ex-wife standing outside a closed treatment room. Though it had only been eight days since he had last seen her, when they handed Chrissie off according to their custody arrangement, Janet looked like she'd aged ten years since then. Her eyes were swollen and puffy from crying. Her red hair, usually stylishly set whenever she was in public, was a tangled rat's nest atop her head. She wore a pair of faded blue jeans and an old turtleneck that was wrinkled and stained. "Janet?" he said carefully. She turned and looked at him, her stare blank and devoid of emotion. "Hi, Jase," she mumbled and then began to tremble all over. Tears began coursing down her face and she broke down. He went to her, putting his arms around her and holding her the best he could. He could feel the eyes of the emergency room staff, Janet's co-workers, silently appraising the two of them. By now they would all know what had happened. "It's okay," he whispered rhetorically into her ear. "Everything is going to be all right." She sniffed loudly and then got herself back under control. "I'm sorry," she told him, pulling out of his grasp. "This is all just... just a little too much for me." "Anytime," he assured her gently. "How's Chrissie doing? Is she in there?" "Yes." She nodded. "She... they gave her some Demerol for sedation and pain control. The doctor is stitching her up right now." "How bad is she hurt?" She trembled on the edge of control for a moment but managed to maintain. "Oh God, Jason, she's..." She took a deep breath. "She's got a huge tear on her perineum from that... that animal. Six stitches at least. She's lost a lot of blood. It was all over the bathroom and in the bathtub. She came home last night and I didn't even wake up. She'd been in there for hours, bleeding and I was in bed, just..." She began sobbing again. "It's okay," he told her, putting his left arm around her again. "It's not your fault. You can't blame yourself for this. When can we go in and see her again?" "Not until they're done stitching her," Janet said. "And then they're going to do the EE." The EE, Jason knew, was medicaleze for the evidentiary exam, a cold, impersonal, and somewhat ruthless poking and probing designed to collect forensic material for the district attorney. It had been known to traumatize the rape victim almost as much as the actual rape. "I told them I want to be in there for that," Janet said. "I mean... well she's all doped up right now and not feeling much of anything, but I still want to be there for her when they're doing it." "Of course," Jason said. He looked around, noting that they were the focus of attention of every staff member within visual range. "Look, is there anywhere we can go talk?" She looked around, seeing for the first time all of the eyes that were upon them. "Sure," she said. "We can go to the nurse's lounge." She led him through two hallways and to a door with a key-code box on the doorknob. She punched in a code, gaining access, and they entered. The lounge was a semi-large room with a wooden table, six or seven chairs, a television set, a coffeepot, and a microwave. It was currently empty. They entered, closing the door behind them and sat down in two of the chairs. "Who did this to her?" Jason asked. "Where was she? What happened?" "It took me a while to get the story out of her," Janet said. "At first she told me that she didn't remember anything. And then she told me that she'd fallen and cut herself somehow. But finally she told me the truth." She shook her head sadly. "She was afraid I'd be mad at her." Jason nodded, not saying anything. "Yesterday," Janet went on, "she asked if she could spend the night at her friend Lisa's. You know? The cheerleader she's been hanging out with." "The one you don't like." "Right." She nodded. "Well apparently my instincts were right on that count. It seems that the staying the night story was just that. A story. What they really did was hop in Lisa's boyfriend's car and drive to Fresno." "Fresno?" Jason said, horrified. Fresno was more than forty miles away. "Right," she replied. "You see, Lisa's boyfriend is a football player with Fresno State and they were having this fraternity party at their dorm house. Lisa talked Chrissie into going with her." "A frat party," Jason mumbled, remembering with horror the frat parties of his own college days. Chrissie would quite literally be a babe in the woods at such a gathering. "Jesus." "Uh huh. Once they got there Chrissie had a few beers. Although she didn't say so, I think she might've smoked a little grass. At some point she caught the attention of another one of the football players: Chad Buckingham." "Chad Buckingham?" Jason asked. "The quarterback?" "That's him," she confirmed. "That motherfucker," he spat. Jason had heard of Buckingham's exploits before. Not only his impressive passing record, which for the last two seasons had led the CSUF football team to the divisional playoffs, but also the darker side of the all-American hero, the side that great attempts were made to keep from the public but which, within the tight circle of law enforcement, rumors were always circulating. He had heard tale of several sex scandals of various types, usually involving teenaged girls, usually involving violence. "It seems," Janet went on, "that Mr. Buckingham was quite charming, eventually luring her to one of the empty bedrooms in the dorm house. There they began "making out", as she put it. She had gone along willingly up until then but then he started trying to take off her clothes. She tried to stop him at that point, wanting to get out of there but he threw her back down on the bed and ripped her sweater off of her. When she resisted, he slapped her around and punched her in the face. She's going to need a couple stitches in her lip from that." Jason gritted his teeth, clenching his hands together. He could feel the blood rising in his face, making his head throb. "Go on." "He ripped off her pants and panties and then raped her, you know, in the conventional fashion, for a few minutes. And then he..." She took a deep breath. "And then he rolled her over and..." She couldn't continue, instead, bursting into tears but Jason got her drift anyway. "It's okay," he soothed, automatically using a calm voice though his mind was seething. "No it is not!" she shouted. "That piece of shit did that to our daughter! How can you say it's okay? She's got a tear an inch and a half long on her from when he..." She broke into sobs again. He slid his chair around the table until he was next to her and put his arms around her again. She buried her face in his chest, continuing to hitch and cry for the better part of five minutes before she was able to speak again. "Afterwards," she finally went on, "he just left her in the bedroom and went back to the party. She was too ashamed to see anybody or do anything. She put the remains of her clothes back on and slipped out the back door. She walked down to a payphone and called a cab. The cab brought her all the way back home and she crept inside and got the sixty-five dollars it cost out of her little savings bank. The whole time she was bleeding from the cuts on her. She went in then and took a bath. That's where I found her." "Have they taken a police report yet?" Jason asked. "Not yet," she answered, sniffing. "I imagine they've been called but no one's showed up yet. How is that going to work since it happened in Fresno?" "Maldonado PD will take the initial report and then when they find out it happened in another jurisdiction they'll forward it to Fresno PD's sex crimes division. The Fresno detectives will get all of the evidence and send a detective down to interview her." "God what a mess this is. When will they arrest him?" "Soon," he told her, though he was already starting to form other ideas about that. ------- A female patrol officer took the report. Young and cute as a button in her dark blue uniform, she looked barely old enough to have met the age requirements for law enforcement employment. Despite her appearance however, she was professional and kind as she took Chrissie's statement, eliciting details from her one by one until she had a complete synopsis of the events that had transpired in Fresno the previous night. After the interview she authorized an evidentiary exam to be performed at the City of Maldonado's expense (they would of course be re-embursed by the City of Fresno). The exam took about an hour. It was performed by one of the emergency room doctors and a nurse. Janet and the young patrol officer were present in the room during the exam; Janet to provide moral support, the police officer to take possession of any evidence that was collected. After they emerged from the room, Jason pulled the young police officer, who's nametag identified her as RATHBONE, aside. "So what do you think?" he asked her, referring to the exam. Since he was a fellow law enforcement officer she spared him the bullshit lines usually reserved for the public and spoke frankly with him. "Well," she told him, "we took all the usual stuff. Vaginal swabs, hair samples..." She hesitated briefly. "Anal swabs. Maybe there are some sperm specimens on one of them but probably not. She bled quite a bit you know, both from her vagina and her anus and she also took a bath afterwards and douched several times. Can't really blame her for that, it's a natural reaction after being raped, but there's a good chance that we won't find any evidence." He nodded sadly, already having suspected as much. "As for hair samples from the perpetrator..." She shook her head slowly. "No chance at all. No skin samples under her fingernails either." "Thanks," he told her mutely. "I understand she washed her clothes afterwards too." "That's what I understand," Jason replied. "That's too bad," she said. "But again, understandable. She's a sixteen-year-old girl and her first instinct was to hide what was done to her. If it's okay with you, I'll have you take me over to your ex-wife's house so I can collect the clothes anyway." She shrugged. "You never know. Maybe something will turn up." She didn't sound very hopeful about this, nor did Jason expect her to be. He nodded. "I'll get the keys from Janet." ------- Chrissie was released from the hospital later that day and sent home with Janet. Jason asked for and received an emergency leave of absence from the Sheriff's department for at least two weeks. He could tell, talking to Captain Blanely the patrol commander, that word of what had happened, by one means or another, had already leaked to the MCSD and was common knowledge. That was pretty much as he expected. There were no secrets in the law enforcement community. For the duration of the current crisis it was decided that he would stay at Janet's house, sleeping in the spare bedroom. It pained both parents terribly to witness the state their daughter had been left in. Though normally shy and withdrawn to a certain degree she was now only a small step this side of catatonic. She wandered up and down the stairs in a daze, speaking only when spoken to, and only then in monosyllable responses. She would often have fits of sobbing which could last anywhere from a few minutes to two hours in duration. Her appetite was next to nothing. She spent nearly eighteen hours out of every twenty-four in a fitful, agitated sleep. The doctor had forbid her to take baths due to the stitches she had but she took no less than four showers a day trying to scrub clean an imaginary filth that stuck to her. The case assignment had been transferred to the Fresno Police Department's Sex Crimes Division and given to Rick Clarkson, one of the senior detectives there. Jason didn't know what to make of Clarkson. He called him at least twice a day trying to determine the status of the investigation but was unable to pry a single detail of what was going on out of the man. Twenty years of law enforcement had conditioned him to expect a little professional courtesy out of other cops; not being cited when pulled over for speeding (or arrested when pulled over for DUI as a few cops he knew had been), a little extra investigation when one's car, house, boat, or recreational vehicle was broken into, the benefit of the doubt when involved in some physical altercation with another person off duty, and other such things as that. But when it came to the rape investigation, Clarkson gave him nothing that he wouldn't have given a normal member of the public. He let it be known that they were examining the physical evidence, that they had pulled Buckingham into their office and interviewed him at length about the alleged incident, that they had interviewed several participants of the frat party and several of Chrissie's friends that were there. Apart from that, he remained mute on the subject. In the ensuing week they could do nothing but wait and see what would happen, contemplating such things as sending Chrissie to a new school since everyone at her old one would know what had happened to her and taking her in to the doctor in thirty days to test her for pregnancy, venereal disease, and AIDS, as they had been instructed to do. Finally, on the eighth day after the rape, they received a phone call from him. He asked if it would be convenient if he were to show up their house on the 28th of December at eight o'clock to discuss the status of the case. Jason knew his offer entailed the professional courtesy that he had so long been seeking. Clarkson would not have driven forty miles on a weekend day in order to update an ordinary member of the public in regards to a case. He also realized that Clarkson's offer probably did not mean that good news was forthcoming. A short man in his early forties, Clarkson showed up precisely at eight o'clock on the agreed upon day. He wore a faded pair of blue jeans, tennis shoes, and an Oakland Raiders T-shirt that hung down below his waist to conceal the gun that was strapped there. His eyes, steely gray, had the cynical gaze that was common to career law enforcement officers and his nose had a variety of burst capillaries, also common to cops, which denoted a heavy drinker. "Mr. and Mrs. Whitecoff," he said, nodding to them at the front door. "Thank you for having me over." "Come on in," Janet told him, stepping aside to allow him entry. They led him over to the oak dining room table and offered him a seat. He took the chair at the head of the table and Janet and Jason sat on either side of him. "Is Christine home?" he asked. "Yes," Janet answered. "She's asleep in her room. She sleeps a lot you know." Clarkson nodded sympathetically. "Do you need her to come down?" Jason asked. "We could wake her up." "No, no," he replied, shaking his head. "That uh, won't be necessary." He took a deep breath. "I'm afraid that I don't have terribly good news to share with you." "Oh?" Jason replied neutrally. "You see," Clarkson explained, "we've turned the results of our investigation over to the Fresno County DA's office and... the simple fact of the matter is that they're not going to attempt to prosecute Mr. Buckingham for the rape of your daughter." "What?" Janet nearly screamed at him. "What do you mean that they're not filing charges? He raped her!" "I'm sorry," Clarkson told her. "I did everything I could, believe me. I have absolutely no love for that slimy little piece of shit. Coupled with the fact that the victim was another cop's daughter, I tried my damnedest. I filed six separate charges on the asshole: forcible rape, forcible sodomy, statutory rape, statutory sodomy, felony sexual battery, and unlawful imprisonment. I interviewed any witness or potential witness I could find. I leaned on the suspect's friends probably a little harder than I should have." He shrugged sadly. "But in the end, I was simply fighting a losing battle. We have no physical evidence that the crime took place. We have no witnesses that can place your daughter in the room with Buckingham. In fact, we have several witnesses, other football players if you can imagine that, that are willing to swear before the throne of God Himself that they were playing a game of quarters with Buckingham when the rape took place. It comes down to your daughter's word against five of Fresno State's star football players." "So you don't believe her then?" Janet yelled, looking for an easy target to discharge her anger upon. "On the contrary," Clarkson replied calmly, unoffended by her outburst. "I believe every word your daughter told me. In fact, I suspect she actually downplayed the brutality with which this event took place. You see, I've had dealings with Mr. Buckingham before." "You have?" Janet asked. "Oh yes," he told her. "I've filed charges on three separate occasions for similar crimes; always against teenaged girls." "And what happened?" Janet asked, appalled. "Why isn't he in jail?" "Well, Mrs. Whitecoff," he explained, "you've got to understand what we're dealing with here. Mr. Buckingham, first of all, is the product of an upper-middle class household in which both parents are attorneys. Second of all, he's the star football player of the local college team, a quarterback that consistently leads this bum-fuck Egypt's group of steroid-popping heroes to victory in the play-offs each year. He's regarded in the local media like Christ right down from the cross. The papers will not print a single bad thing about him. I know, I've tried on several occasions to leak details of the rapes to them in order to at least discredit the prick a little. You see, he's all but assured a spot in the pros after he graduates; probably as a second or third string quarterback on some shitty team like the Colts or the Raiders, but he'll be another pro that the great Fresno State has produced and they're mighty proud of him in Raisenville. If he were anybody else, the DA would've at least filed charges on him on the basis of your daughter's story, although, to be brutally honest, there wouldn't be much chance of a conviction in any case. But with Mr. All-Fresno here," he shook his head sadly, "forget it. The DA doesn't want to risk the bad publicity that such an endeavor would entail. He knows what would happen. The media there in town would jump all over the victim and slaughter her. They'd find every little sorted detail about her life and in the course of two days, everyone in town would think she was some slut who was just trying to smear the reputation of Fresno's finest. They'd make the DA out to be some sort of neo-nazi fascist trying to add notches to his belt." "So you're saying," Jason, who had remained silent and contemplative throughout the entire conversation, finally spoke up, "that Buckingham is going to walk?" Clarkson nodded slowly. "I'm afraid so," he said, trying to judge what was going on behind his colleague's eyes. "Again." Janet and Clarkson spoke for a few more minutes, both about the shoddy state of the American legal system and the general decline society seemed to be in the midst of, but that last question had pretty much ended the consultation. Jason contributed nothing to the conversation, a fact that plainly made Clarkson uneasy. Eventually, after offering his sincerest apologies, Clarkson bade them farewell and returned to Fresno. ------- "So that's it then?" Janet said after he had left. She was angrier than he had ever been before in her life. Even when she had found out about Jason's frequent infidelities with a variety of dispatchers and night shift waitresses, the event that had marked the end of their marriage, the emotion was nothing compared to this. "He rapes our daughter, leaves her to fend for herself in a strange city, traumatizes her for life, and he's free just to go off and play in some stupid football game on New Year's Day and then come back to school and rape more girls?" "No," Jason said quietly, his voice as calm as if he was discussing the weather. "That is not it. I will not let him get away with this." Janet looked at him with alarm. She knew what that tone meant. The madder Jason got, the more quietly he spoke. "What do you mean, Jase?" "He's never going to do this again. Never." "Jason?" she said carefully, feeling like she was poking around with an unexploded bomb. "What are you going to do? You're not thinking about... you know?" "You want to know what I'm going to do?" he asked, raising his voice slightly. "I'll tell you. I'm going to leave here, drive down to the office and run his name through the computer and find out where he lives. Then I'm gonna drive down there, kick in his door, and empty my 9mm into his fucking head!" "Jason!" she yelled, frightened. She knew him well enough to know that he was not merely spouting a bunch of macho bullshit. He had every intention of doing precisely what he had just articulated. "You will do no such thing!" "The hell I won't! He's gonna pay for what he did to Chrissie. If the goddamn system won't do it, then I will!" "You'll go to prison, Jason," she said, keeping her voice as calm as she could. "You'll lose your pension, everything you've ever worked for. And the media will make you out to be some kind of psychopathic cop." "I don't care," he said stubbornly. "It'll be worth it." "It will not!" Janet yelled. He started to say something else but she quickly cut him off. "Will you shut the hell up for a minute and listen to me?" When she saw she had his attention she continued, speaking slowly and reasonably. "Jason, what you're planning is a bad idea. If you go through with it, you'll be arrested and sent to jail. Your face, my face, Chrissie's face will be all over the news for the next year or so. Your trial will probably be on Court TV. You'll be "The Psycho Cop That Killed the Promising Young Football Star". Do you have any idea what that will do to Chrissie? The girl who's honor you're trying to protect? Any hope that she had for living a normal life after this will be gone forever." "So I should just let this drop?" he shot back. "Let that little fuck go off and win the goddamn Raisin Bowl or whatever the hell they're playing in next week and then go on with his degenerate life? So he can keep on raping teenaged girls? So he can join the Pros next year and increase his hero image and make enough money to hire even better lawyers to get him off when he pulls this shit! Is that what you want?" Janet took a deep breath, looking at him levelly. "No," she finally answered. "That's not what I want." "Then we're in agreement," he said. "Good. The prick will be dead by sundown." He pushed his chair away from the table, intending to stand up. "Wait," she commanded. "What you're planning is not the way to go about this." "Look, Janet," he said. "I've thought this over all I need to. I don't care about the consequences. He fucked with the wrong family this time." "Hold on a second, Jason," she said, more firmly this time. "There's another way." He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh?" She could not believe what she was thinking, that she was about to actually put it into words, that she would actually put it into motion. "I simply said that your idea was a bad one. But..." She smiled nervously. "I've got a few ideas of my own." He looked at her carefully. "Do you now?" "Have you ever heard the expression, 'beware the fury of a patient man'?" "I have." He nodded, starting to gleam a small hint of what she was thinking. "Can you be a patient man, Jason?" They would remain at the table for the next six hours, just talking. ------- On January first, the Fresno State football team handily beat their opponents in the NorCal Bowl, capturing their third straight title. Chad Buckingham was named the Most Valuable Player after passing for a record setting three hundred and thirty yards, including three touchdown passes. He also rushed for more than fifty yards including one touchdown run. The team returned to Fresno the following day amid much fanfare and media coverage. One could hardly turn on the television without seeing Buckingham's smiling face staring back. Once Chrissie was watching the news when an interview with the blonde All-American had been played. Before Janet or Jason could click the channel, obliterating the image, she had gone pale as a ghost and had begun to tremble all over. A moment later she was in the bathroom, vomiting what little food she'd managed to consume that day into the toilet. Chrissie took six showers in the eight hours after that. Jason, though he went to great pains to keep Chrissie from having to witness another such clip, watched every one he could. Seeing his quarry on the cathode tube fueled his hatred and obliterated any second thoughts about what he and Janet had planned before they could be formed. Though he knew it was cruel, he tried to get Janet to watch as many as he could arrange for her to see. His ex-wife was consumed by doubts about the whole deal and seeing Buckingham on television had the same effect on her. He would go it alone if he had to, but he needed Janet if the plan was to be successful. By the fourth of January, things had returned pretty much to normal. The media found something new to occupy them and the stories about the glorious Fresno State football team petered out. Classes began again at the college and old routines were settled into. Janet and Jason both remained on emergency leave from their respective employers. Janet so she could stay with Chrissie who, though she was slowly improving as time went by, was still prone to fits of crying and catatonia from time to time. Jason, because he had other things to take care of. He spent every day tailing a certain football player from place to place, learning what he could learn, establishing what patterns there were to establish. Finally, after two weeks of constant daytime and early nighttime surveillance, he felt he had found what he was looking for. "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday," he told Janet as they sat at her dining room table one night, nearly a month after Chrissie's rape, "at five o'clock in the afternoon, he goes to the CSUF gym and works out for two hours. On all but one occasion he was alone. He showers afterwards and leaves the gym usually about seven-thirty. At that time of night, the parking lot is typically pretty deserted, especially on Friday nights. Most of the students apparently have better things to do with their time on Fridays. The lighting in the parking lot isn't very good and there's a road that leads out of the parking lot onto Piedmont Avenue without passing through any other part of the campus. From there, it's only a quick jaunt to the freeway." "Does he drive there?" she asked, considering. He nodded. "Yeah, in his fucking Mercedes convertible. After he leaves there he generally goes out to some party or another. A real party animal our friend." "So you think that's where it should start?" He nodded again. "I think next Friday would be just about perfect. He's almost guaranteed to be expected at a party that night and the gym's bound to be almost deserted." She remained silent for a moment, thousands of emotions spinning through her mind like a whirlwind. Finally she said. "Okay. Friday night." ------- For years Janet had gleefully told Jason, Chrissie, and anyone else who would listen to her, that the easiest job in the world belonged to the pilots of the Medi-Flight helicopter she flew on. While the nurses who staffed the chopper worked the same twelve-hour shifts as the pilots, the nurses were required to help out in the emergency room during down periods. The pilots, on the other hand, were simply required to perform a standard mechanical check on the chopper at the beginning of their shift and after each flight. During downtime they did nothing but hang out in a crew area equipped with cable television, a VCR, a bed, a refrigerator, and a small bathroom and shower. They could typically count on a state of blissful relaxation encompassing at least seven hours out of each twelve-hour shift. For all of this they earned more than sixty thousand dollars a year. At six-thirty in the evening, Wednesday night, two days before what Janet and Jason had began referring to as C-day, Janet parked her four-year old Volvo in the back of the parking lot of a Denny's that sat two blocks from Tubman Hospital. She could plainly see the large twelve-story structure rising above the other medical buildings in the vicinity. From where she sat she would easily be able to observe the chopper leaving its perch behind the building and flying off on a call. She also felt reasonably certain her presence in the twenty-four hour restaurant's parking lot would not be noticed or commented on. On the seat beside her was a large thermos full of strong black coffee since she was not accustomed to staying up late, and an 800 megahertz portable radio that Jason had appropriated a few days before from the Sheriff's Department. Though the radio belonged to and was primarily used by the Sheriff's Department, it was capable of monitoring every public service agency in Marshall County. Two years ago, using federal grant money, the county had converted everyone over to the 800's, assigning them different channels but making possible what she was now doing. Jason had programmed the radio so it was now scanning the dispatch and tactical channels for the Marshall County Fire Department, the Maldonado City Fire Department, and the Gardenville Fire Department. If any of those agencies called for Medi-Flight tonight, as experience had taught her they were bound to do, she would know not only they had done it, but also why they were doing so. As the night rolled on she sat patiently and listened to the endless litany of calls for help that were dispatched to the three fire departments. There were garbage can fires, vehicle fires, automobile accidents, fire alarms sounding, public assistance calls, and calls from automatic fire alarm systems. But the vast majority of calls were for medical aids, responses the fire departments detested responding too but which constituted more than eighty-five percent of their calls. Calls for shortness of breath, chest pain, falls, abdominal pain, assaults, and maternity. It went on and on without break, the three agencies putting out, on average, about one call every three minutes or so. The medical aid calls she was not the least bit interested in. What she was listening most for were automobile accident calls, which constituted more than ninety percent of Medi-Flight's emergency responses. Typically, the calls the helicopter responded to would occur in the more rural areas of the county since urban accidents were usually slow speed and did not cause much injury. As the night rolled on she heard fire captains put the helicopter on stand-by three different times. In all three cases it was rural vehicle accidents that had sounded, upon dispatch anyway, that they might be serious. In all three cases that had turned out not to be the case when the first responders had arrived and the helicopter was told to stand down again. For nearly nine hours she sat out in the parking lot, cursing the Gods That Be that she had picked a slow night for this errand. She could remember going on four flights a shift when she worked the night shift. She sat dejectedly in the car, rubbing her back, which had started to ache dully, from time to time. She went into the Denny's to use the bathroom whenever she felt the need, carrying the radio concealed in her jacket and utilizing a small earplug that Jason had provided. She could not remember a time when she had been more bored and impatient. Finally at two-thirty in the morning, she heard one of the rural fire engines dispatched on a head-on collision on Highway 13 near the small town of Franklin. That sounded promising, she realized immediately. Known locally as "Blood Alley", Highway 13 was a two-lane road that led from Maldonado's east side to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was the primary route Marshall County citizens took to get to South Lake Tahoe and Reno. People had a habit of trying to pass other people when it wasn't safe to do so on that particular stretch of highway and as a result it had been the scene of many catastrophic crashes over the years. Janet had flown out there at least six times since she had been accepted into the Medi-Flight ranks three years before. She listened eagerly to the progress of the call. The captain of Marshall County Fire engine 33, himself no doubt a veteran of many such calls, immediately placed Medi-Flight on standby as soon as he pulled out of the station. It took nearly ten minutes before Engine 33 arrived on scene. Another two went by before the captain spoke again on the tactical channel, "I've got one deceased, four immediate, and three delayed patients," he told the fire dispatcher, and anyone else who happened to be listening. "Launch Medi-Flight, dispatch me another engine for the LZ, a truck for extrication, and get me three more ambulances." "Yes!" Janet said, breathing a sigh of relief, not considering for a moment that she was ecstatic due to the suffering of others. In about five minutes Life-Flight's crew quarters, and more importantly, their supply room, which was connected to the crew quarters, would be completely deserted. And she, as a member of the elite team, possessed a key. ------- It was three-thirty in the morning when she finally returned home. She entered carrying a large canvas bag on her left shoulder. Jason, who, though still fully dressed, looked as if he had been dozing on the couch, enquired, "Well?" She smiled tiredly. "It took forever, but I got everything." "And you don't think they'll notice anything missing?" "They'll never notice that the medical supplies are gone," she told him, even though they'd been over this point numerous times before. "And the Lifepak won't be noticed missing unless the one on the chopper breaks down." He nodded. "Good. C-day goes ahead as planned." ------- They got Janet's mother to stay with Chrissie on Friday. Raised in a Christian household, Laura West had hated her daughter's ex-husband worse than the Goldman family hated OJ Simpson since the day she had been told the reason for the divorce. None-the-less, she accepted at face value their story that they needed the time away from the house in order to scope out a few therapists for Chrissie in order to help her deal with the events that had transpired. They did in fact plan to do just that. After leaving Janet's house at nine that morning in her Volvo, they drove to Highway 99 and headed north to Fresno. Upon arriving in the raisin capital of the world, the first thing they did was find a Motel 6 on the outskirts of town, near the freeway. They parked the Volvo in the back of an AM\PM parking lot next door to the motel and sat waiting, watching the customers that came and went from the convenience store. It took less than thirty minutes before they found what Jason considered the perfect set-up. They were driving a battered Toyota Corolla manufactured in the early eighties. The license plates on the car identified them as being from the State of Oregon. Had he been describing them to his colleagues, Jason would undoubtedly have used the term "white trash" at some point. He figured they were probably returning from visiting relatives or friends in the Los Angeles or, more likely based on the looks of them, the Bakersfield area. They appeared to be just what was needed; people who would be hundreds of miles away by the time C-day came to its conclusion. "Them," Jason said simply, pointing for Janet's benefit. She nodded silently, trusting to his superior street smarts. He stepped out of the car and approached them. The man was pumping gas into the Corolla. He wore a pair of blue jeans, a flannel overshirt, and he looked and smelled as if he had not made the acquaintance of running water in at least three days. The woman, a dishwater blonde whose teeth appeared to be badly in need of a dentist, was dressed in a similar matter. Her stomach bulged out alarmingly with a late stage pregnancy. She was sitting in the front seat smoking a cigarette, watching her companion perform his manly duty of refilling the car. "Howdy," Jason hailed good-naturedly as he approached. He made every effort to appear as friendly as possible. The man looked him up and down carefully for a moment, his dull blue eyes not bespeaking a great deal of intelligence. "Hi," he finally said. "Can I help you with sum'pin?" "Perhaps you can," Jason said with a smile. He reached into his pocket and took out a roll of twenty-dollar bills he had withdrawn from an ATM machine the previous day. "I was wondering if maybe you'd be interested in making a quick hundred and fifty dollars." The man looked at the roll of money in Jason's hand and then back up to Jason's face with suspicion. "What're ya?" he asked. "Some kinda faggot? I don't go in fer that kinda shit, partner." "No, no," Jason, who had anticipated just such a response, replied. "You misunderstand me. My requirements are not the least bit sexual in nature." "Oh yeah?" The man answered, attempting a wise-to-the-ways-of-world look that didn't come across very well. "And what might your "requirements" be?" "It's very simple," Jason explained. "For reasons I don't need to go into, I need to get a motel room over there," he pointed to the Motel 6 building, "without anyone knowing I've done so. I'll give you the cost of the room for one night and seventy-five dollars for yourself if you go over there and register a room under the name..." He thought for a moment. "Oh, say Charles Beaking. When you bring me back the key to the room, I'll give you the other seventy-five dollars." The man looked at Jason increduoulsly for a moment. "That's it?" Jason nodded. "That's it." "A hundred and fifty bucks to do that?" He shook his head in amazement. "Hole-ee shit. Did you hear that, Hon?" he asked his female companion, who had sat silently in the passenger seat puffing thoughtfully on her Marlboro during the entire exchange. "Yep," she affirmed, taking another drag. "Sounds good to me, Cleatus, if'n that's all he wants." "That's all I want," Jason assured her. "Mister," Cleatus said, grinning. "You gots yourself a deal." He had them pull around to the back of the store, away from Janet and the Volvo. After giving them a few last minute instructions; drilling the name into their heads, telling them to request a room towards the back of the complex, and, for God's sake, not to show any ID to the clerk or to put their home address on the register, he sent them on their way. Ten minutes later Cleatus and his woman were motoring north on Highway 99 again, a hundred and fifty dollars richer than they had been a few minutes before. Jason watched them go with trepidation. Despite all of the precautions they were taking, he knew that they would be the weak link in the chain he and Janet were forging. If the news of what was about to be done managed to reach them in whatever white-trash haven they lived in up in Oregon, and they were able to put two and two together, and they decided to talk to some cops, they could potentially bring the whole scheme crashing to the ground. The odds were pretty good that none of that would happen and it was a risk that they had decided to take but it still made him nervous. "Well?" Janet asked when he returned to the car. She was wringing her hands nervously. He dangled the motel key, which was attached to a small plastic tag with the number 47 printed on it, before her. "So far, so good." They pulled the Volvo around and parked it on the opposite side of the building from room 47. That way it was both away from view of the highway, the main drag in front of the motel, and nowhere near the room. Before exiting the car they both pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box, part of the supplies that Janet had helped herself to, that sat in the storage console between the seats. They donned the gloves and then each pulled on wool ski caps that completely covered their hair, though Janet had to tuck hers up underneath. "Are you sure this is necessary?" she asked him, lightly annoyed. "This hat is hotter than hell." "This isn't a game we're playing," Jason responded. "The absolute worse thing that can happen to us is that we're connected with this motel room after everything is said and done." "I know, I know." She nodded. "I came up with this part of the plan, remember? I was just wondering if the hats were maybe a little too much." "There's no such thing as too much," Jason said patiently. "If they find a single one of our hairs in this motel room afterwards, they'll be able to match it to us with DNA sampling. How would we explain how our hairs got into the room?" "You're right," she conceded tiredly. "I'll wear the hat." She brightened. "For someone who was willing to publicly execute the man and go to prison for it, you're sure being careful now." He shrugged. "Let's just say you showed me the light. C'mon, let's go check the place out." They walked quickly around the building, heads down, gloved hands in their pockets, finally coming to the appropriate door. Jason opened it with the key and they walked inside, leaving the door open behind them. It was a standard motel room, not unlike thousands of others across the United States. King size bed equipped with a hideous green bedspread in the middle of the room, a couple of simple chairs. Two reading lamps sat on either side of the bed. A small dresser with a television bolted to the top of it sat across from the beds. A small bathroom was beyond. After a quick look just to make sure the key worked and that everything was as they expected inside, they closed the door and returned to the Volvo. They would not return until the hour was nearly at hand. They stripped off their gloves and hats in the car and quickly re-accessed Highway 99, heading south once again to Maldonado. Once they entered the city limits, Jason took the main downtown exit. For the next three and a half hours they visited five professional therapists in five different medical office buildings. In each one they enquired on the level of schooling the therapist possessed, his or her experience dealing with teenaged rape victims, and in three of them they were able to talk to the person themselves. After completing this task, Jason drove them to the downtown Hilton hotel and parked the Volvo in the self-parking lot. The two of them walked inside the majestic lobby to the registration desk, which was staffed by a lone, bored looking middle-aged woman. "Can I help you?" she asked cheerily, flashing a professional smile at them. "Yes," Jason told her. "We would like one of your suites if there's one available." "Oh, this time of year, they're all available," she assured him, accessing a screen on her computer terminal. "Would you like an eastern or western exposure?" "Uh, eastern I guess," Jason replied. "Smoking or non-smoking?" "Non smoking." "How many nights?" "Just one." "And your name, sir?" she asked. "Jason Whitecoff." He spelled it for her. She typed in this information. "And how will you be paying?" He opened up his wallet. "With my Visa card," he said, retrieving it and passing it across. She ran his card through her computer, eventually producing a printout for him to sign. When everything was in order, she passed across an electronic card-lock for room 1823. "There you are, Mr. Whitecoff," she told him. "Eighteenth floor, eastern exposure. One of our nicer rooms." "Thank you," Jason replied, taking the card-locks. "Would you like me to call the bell captain for your luggage?" she asked. Jason gave her a saucy look, tipping her a wink. "No thank you," he said. "We don't have any luggage." "I see," she replied slowly, barely managing to hang onto her professional face. "Was that last part really necessary?" Janet asked him in the elevator. Though she said this sternly, Jason could see that she was quite amused. "Hey," Jason said, smiling. "You want this to be realistic don't you? We have to give the impression of a couple of horndogs." "That's not too hard for you to do," she assured him, shaking her head. The room was a stark contrast to the Motel 6 accommodations they had been in earlier. Though it contained a King-size bed, two nightstands, and a dresser with a television bolted to it, that was where the similarities ended. The living area was no less than twice the size and was tastefully decorated with carpet and bedspreads that actually matched. The bathroom contained a sunken Jacuzzi and a small sauna in addition to an oversized shower. The window offered a spectacular view of the downtown Maldonado high-rises and the San Joaquin River beyond them. "This is nice," Janet commented, looking around. "How come you never took me here when we were married?" He shrugged. "It wasn't built yet?" he offered. "You're slime," she replied, not unkindly. "You want to call room service?" "Sure," he answered, sitting on the edge of the bed and picking up the room service menu. He perused it for a few moments and then picked up the phone, ordering a bottle of expensive champagne, an order of oysters on the half shell, and, as an afterthought, something called a "sensuality kit". "What the hell is a sensuality kit?" Janet asked him after he hung up the phone. Reading from the description in the menu, Jason recited, "A collection of body oils, bath beads, and playful love toys designed to enhance the romance of your stay." "You're shitting me," Janet said. "Why did you order that?" He grinned. "Just trying to lend credibility to our presence here. Remember, we're supposed to be reconciled lovers swept away in a moment of passion." She shook her head a little. "I get the feeling you've done this kind of thing before. Give me the phone. It's time to call Mom." She soured a little. "That should be fun." "I don't envy you," Jason said, passing the telephone over. She dialed her house, getting her mother on the first ring. After a few questions about Chrissie's health and well being, she told her mother that she and Jason had a few more errands to take care of and were going to have dinner together afterward. Would she mind staying with Chrissie until eleven o'clock or so? Her mother apparently was not too happy about that. Jason distinctly heard the phrase, "that smooth talking adulterer" come drifting across the room from the phone's earpiece. He was pretty sure she wasn't talking about President Clinton. But in the end Janet calmed her mother down and convinced her that she knew what she was doing. After hanging up she took a deep breath. "Well that was a blast from the past," she told him. "I haven't lied to my mother since I was a college student." "It was necessary," Jason assured her. "Yeah," she replied morosely. "Necessary." Ten minutes later the room service waiter arrived, making a big display of setting up the champagne in a bucket of ice and laying out the oysters on the table. He then handed a small package, about the size of hardback book and wrapped in pink paper with hearts on it, to Janet. Jason thanked him and tipped him ten bucks. After he left, Jason picked up the bottle of champagne and, with a pang of regret, poured it down the sink in the bathroom. When he returned, Janet was looking at the plate of oysters. "You ever have these things before?" she asked, poking at one with her finger. "Never," Jason answered. "They kind of look like congealed snot, don't they?" "I can't imagine why people find them romantic," she agreed. "What do we want to do with them?" He shrugged. "Down the toilet?" She nodded, picking up the tray and carrying it to the bathroom. When she returned, she found Jason sitting on the bed, looking through the "sensuality kit". He held up a small dildo. "The love toy," he said. "Centerpiece of the kit." She smiled. "So what now? We still have a few hours to kill." He raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said softly, "we could try to make this alibi we're forming really realistic." She looked at him pointedly for a moment, the man who had once won her heart, the man who had fathered her child and had done his best to help raise her despite the divorce, her co-conspirator in the vigilante justice they were contemplating. She realized that she had always kept a small place in her heart for him, a place that had grown quite a bit since that awful day she had discovered Chrissie in the bathtub nearly a month before. In many ways he was a great man. "I suppose," she said, walking towards the bed, wondering if she was making a terrible mistake, "that you can never be too careful in matters such as this." For a little while they were able to forget about the awful thing that had happened to their young daughter and the awful thing they were about to do. ------- Chapter 2 South Maldonado, known locally as South Mall, was a crime ridden, unincorporated area of Marshall County that Jason knew well. He had worked there both as a rookie patrol officer and a rookie field supervisor. Full of dilapidated motels, skuzzy apartment complexes, liquor stores and porno shops, it was criss-crossed by narrow avenues and streets badly in need of maintenance where hookers and drug dealers strolled with near impunity. Part of the plan Jason and Janet had concocted required the purchase of some rock cocaine and South Mall was the ideal place for such a transaction. As carefully as they had planned everything, Jason, in his wildest estimations, had not planned for more than thirty minutes to complete this particular phase of the operation. But after nearly ninety minutes cruising around the dangerous streets attempting to purchase what he needed, he was frustrated and angry, and very much aware of the time slipping away from them. The problem was not the lack of drug dealers on the streets. On the contrary, the unseasonably warm weather had brought them out in droves. The problem was that he had been unable to convince a single dealer, and he had tried five times so far, that he was not a cop. After the fifth refusal he slammed his hand down on the steering wheel in frustration. "What the hell are we going to do?" he asked Janet. "We don't have much time left." "Maybe you could, you know, get out of the car and let me go buy it. I don't look like a cop do I?" "No way," Jason said firmly, shaking his head. "Too dangerous. Maybe we should just forget this part of the plan." "I wouldn't advise that," Janet warned. "I'd say that the cocaine is integral to the plan working." "Damn," he muttered, putting his hand to his head and leaning onto the steering wheel. After a moment's thought, he came to an impulsive decision. He dropped the car into gear and pulled quickly out of the liquor store parking lot they were in. "I guess it's time," he said quietly, "to approach this problem from a different angle." "What do you mean?" she wanted to know, not liking the way he had said that. "You'll see," he replied cryptically, pulling down a side street. It took him less than two minutes to find what he was looking for. A young black man dressed in a trench coat was hanging around next to a boarded up apartment building. Jason's eyes, which knew what to look for, spotted the other man, who was the real dealer, lounging in the shadows around the side of the building. The real dealer would have the main supply. The man out front, he knew, would only have about forty or fifty dollars worth of rock on him. But that was all Jason needed. He pulled the car to the curb, undid his seatbelt and waved the man out front over to him. "Stay in the car," Jason said to Janet. "This'll be over in a minute." "What are you going to do?" she asked, alarmed as the dealer strolled casually over. He didn't answer her, simply rolling down the window. "What's up, my man?" the young black asked him, pleasantly enough. "I need some rock," Jason said simply. "Shee-it," the dealer told him. "Then you best go find yourself a rock dealer, officer." "You think I'm a cop?" Jason asked quietly. By now this was becoming routine. "You gots the cop stink all over you, Homey," the kid said, shaking his head in amusement. Jason smiled, opening his door and stepping out in one quick motion. The kid stepped back in alarm but thankfully did not try to run. Jason drew his off-duty 9mm and, holding it at waist level, pointed it at the kid. "You're right, Homey," he said. "I am a cop. Now put your fuckin' hands on the car." "Hey look, man," the kid started, "you can't..." "Now, asshole. Now!" The kid obeyed. "You!" Jason yelled in the direction of the real dealer. "In the corner over there. Police Department! Get your ass out here, hands in the air!" As expected, Jason heard the sound of running feet rapidly retreating down the small alley next to the building. That was fine with Jason, who had no interest in the dealer other than not wanting to worry about him taking a pot shot at him with the gun he undoubtedly carried. He turned to the kid before him, putting his hand on the back of his neck and pushing him down on the hood of the car. Sliding his gun back into its holster he began to pat the kid down. "You strapped, Homey?" he asked. "Naw man," the kid answered dejectedly. "I don't carry no piece. What's up with this shit, man? They repeal the motherfuckin' ninth amendment?" "It's the fourth amendment I'm violating here," Jason replied. "Go back to civics class." Satisfying himself that his young charge was not carrying a weapon, he returned his hand to the left front pocket where he had felt several vials. He pulled them out, taking a quick look to confirm they were what he thought they were. They were small plastic vials with red lids. Inside of each were two small, off-white colored rocks about the size of an undernourished pea. He stuffed the three vials into his left front pocket and stepped backwards. "Stand up and turn around," he told the kid. "Keep your hands down to your side." The kid did as he was told. "How much are those three vials worth? Sixty?" The kid nodded, obviously confused by the turn of events. Jason reached in his pocket and withdrew the wad of twenties he was carrying. He peeled off four of them and handed them to the kid. "Here's eighty," he said. "Forget this little incident ever happened." The kid looked at the offered bills for a moment, not moving to take them. "What the fuck kinda shit is this, man?" he asked. "Nothing that concerns you," Jason told him, pushing the money towards him again. "Take the money and try not to be so suspicious. It's unbecoming." Finally, the kid took the money. Jason jumped back into the Volvo and roared away, not even pausing to put on his seatbelt. Behind him, the young drug dealer stuffed the money into his pocket and wondered if anyone would ever believe him if he did tell the story. ------- At ten minutes to six, Jason wheeled the Volvo to the curb just outside one of the CSUF parking areas. From where they were it was but a short walk to the gymnasium complex where Buckingham worked out. The sun had set for the evening bringing the first wisps of the evening's fog bank with it. On the main street behind them the traffic was heavy as college students and workers tried to get home on the congested artery. "Last chance to back out," Jason told her, watching her eyes. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" "Yes." She nodded. "Maybe I'm crazy. This has been a crazy day. But I'm sure. How about you?" "I'm in," he said without hesitation. "You got your list?" She held up a small piece of paper, reading off of it. "A jar of baby food, a pack of chewing gum, a ballpoint pen, a package of steel wool, a disposable lighter, a bottle of rum, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. Pay cash." "Right." He smiled. "And when you go in the motel room?" "Wear my gloves, wear my hat, don't take off my jacket. Clean all of the supplies that I bought with soap and water in the sink." "I'll make a criminal out of you yet," he said, immediately regretting it since that was precisely what he was doing. She didn't seem to notice the bad taste of his remark however. "And you?" she asked. "Have you got everything you need?" He patted himself down quickly. "Three pairs of gloves, my hat, my gun, my cellphone. Short list." Though both of them had cellular phones and would keep them turned on, they had decided not to use them unless they needed to abort their plan for some reason. Using them in Fresno would leave an electronic trail that they had been there, something to be avoided at all costs. "Good luck," she told him, suddenly finding herself near tears for no reason that she could put her finger on. "And be careful. I know you're a badass cop and all but he's a young guy in excellent shape that works out six hours a week. Don't drop your guard." "You don't have to worry about that," he assured her, opening the car door and feeling the brisk evening air on his cheek. "I'll see you in about an hour and a half." He leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips and then stepped out without another word. He walked slowly onto the campus and into the gym parking lot, wearing his hat and keeping his face turned down, but watching everything carefully with his eyes. This was the most critical part of the plan. Anybody taking the slightest notice of him would bring the entire scheme to a crashing halt. He realized that part of him, the part that realized how deadly serious of an endeavor he was embarking on, hoped that just that would happen; that this mad errand would be brought to an end before it went too far to stop. The parking lot, however, was dark and deserted as he strolled casually across it. Only ten or twelve cars, all parked near the front, occupied the lot. He went quickly to an area of concealment on a small, grassy hill just outside the paved parking lot; the same place he had watched Buckingham's comings and goings from during the reconnaissance portion of the plan. It was well outside the reach of the nearest lightpole and shielded by two evergreen bushes. Only thirty-five feet or so away from the silver Mercedes that belonged to his quarry, he felt he could reasonably expect to sit there unobserved and unnoticed, even if one of the campus cops made a cruise through the parking lot. He sat on a small rock, careful not to get any mud or grass or bush fragments on his clothing, and waited. From time to time, as he waited, watching the front of the building, someone would leave, usually carrying a gym bag of some kind, and walk out to their car or stroll off across the campus towards the dorms. Twice, a new car pulled in, parking near the front and disgorging young college students intent on utilizing the facilities they were entitled to. No one seemed the slightest bit aware of his presence less than fifteen yards away. Seven-thirty rolled around, the time that Buckingham usually emerged from the gym, and there was no sign of him. Seven-thirty rolled slowly on to ten minutes to eight and still there was nothing. Jason took this as a particularly ominous sign. The routine, his most favored ally, had apparently changed. Why? What did it mean? What else would change? The answer came five minutes later when Buckingham finally strolled through the double glass doors of the gym. Dressed in an expensive looking leather jacket and slacks, his blonde hair still slightly damp from the shower he'd just taken, all of Jason's previous doubts disappeared in an instant, replaced by the bright red hatred he felt whenever he gazed upon the brutal bastard's face. But there was a problem. He was not alone. "Goddammit," Jason muttered under his breath. Of all the lousy luck. Emerging with the quarterback were two shapely young women, one blonde, and one brunette, both dressed in loose-fitting jeans and colorful sweaters. Both appeared to be quite young, probably freshmen, and both were giggling at some remark the witty Chad Buckingham had thrown at them before the doors had opened. "So what do you think?" Chad asked them, his voice exuding arrogance much like a high priced fashion model. "That sound like the makings of a good Friday night to you?" Jason barely heard him. He simply watched helplessly. He would now have to sit here and watch the object of all of his planning drive away. He would then have to call Janet on the cell phone and tell her it was off; that they'd failed due to a stupid quirk of circumstances. He supposed they could try again some other night but he knew that they probably wouldn't. They would never be able to work themselves up to this level again. Aside from that their alibi, that they had holed up in the Hilton for a little love-fest, would never stand up. It was supposed to be a spontaneous event, garnered from the month that the two former lovers, he and Janet, had spent in close proximity with each other. Having it happen twice would stink to high heaven to any cop looking over the case. So with a matter as simple as two attractive freshman distracting Buckingham's attention, it was all over with. Buckingham would never even know how close he had come. In the parking lot, the two girls were giggling again. One of them was saying something about changing her clothes first and the other one was nodding in agreement. "You're both fine the way you are," Buckingham assured them, grinning his all-American grin. "It ain't no fashion statement you know." "Just give us the address," one of them, the blonde told him. "We'll be there in about an hour or so." Buckingham recited an address to the two girls. Jason recognized it immediately. It was the frat house where the quarterback and some of his teammates lived. The place where his daughter had been raped. Jason had tailed him there enough to know it by heart. Apparently there was another party there tonight. Big surprise. Instead of provoking fresh rage however, he felt only impatience. He simply wanted the three of them to leave so he could make his phone call and start putting this night, this useless night, behind him. So sure was he that the plan had failed, Jason almost reacted too late when things took a turn for the better. After a few more giggling remarks, the two girls strolled off, gym bags in hand, not into the parking lot as he had expected, but around the corner of the building towards the campus dormitories. Suddenly Buckingham was alone in the parking lot. It is perhaps fitting that his fate became sealed because, instead of going immediately to his car when the two girls left, which would not have given Jason enough time to act, he stood and stared at the retreating derriéres until they had disappeared, whistling softly in appreciation. "Son of a bitch," Jason muttered in wonder, getting quickly to his feet as Buckingham walked to his car. There was a double beep as the alarm was deactivated and then Buckingham was opening the passenger door and tossing his bag onto the seat. Jason moved quickly and silently, still trying to digest his good fortune, pulling the 9mm from his belt as he approached. He took one more quick glance around, seeing no one else in sight, and then sprung into action. "Buckingham," he said quietly, from behind. Buckingham, perhaps lost in sexual fantasies that involved the double rape of the two girls he had just been talking to, had not heard him approach. He turned around, not the least bit alarmed, probably figuring it was one of his admiring fans, and then he spotted the gun, which Jason was holding near his waist. "Look, man," Buckingham started immediately, throwing his hands up in the air. "I don't have any money. I just..." "Shut the fuck up," Jason hissed. "And get those fucking hands down. Put 'em by your side." Buckingham did as he was told, looking at Jason fearfully. "Look..." he started again. "Shut your ass," Jason said. "You say another word and I'll kill you where you stand. Do exactly what I say, exactly when I say it without any commentary. Understand?" "Yeah," he said, his voice trembling. "Put your car keys on the roof." He did so. "Throw that gym bag in the back seat." That was done also. "Now get in the car," Jason ordered. "Slide over into the driver's side keeping your hands in sight at all times." A slight hesitation. "NOW, motherfucker!" Jason barked. Buckingham quickly did as he was told, sliding awkwardly over the Mercedes' gear shift and center console until he was situated in the driver's seat. "Put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there," Jason told him, picking up the keys with his gloved left hand. He took one more glance around to see if anyone was watching. He figured that the entire confrontation had taken less then fifteen seconds but still, fate had a way of ruining the best-laid plans. Seeing no one, he sat down in the passenger seat, keeping the gun pointed at Buckingham the entire time and closed the door behind him. He tossed the keys into Buckingham's lap. "Start it up." Buckingham's mouth twitched into an O, about to form the word "where". "No talking," Jason ordered. "Just do it." With trembling hands, he picked up the car keys and fumbled with them for a minute, trying to find the right one. Jason debated telling him to hurry the fuck up, every second the spent in the parking lot was extremely dangerous since someone could come out of the gym at any time, but he figured that that would be counter-productive, scaring the prick into fumbling them more. After what seemed an eternity, he located the proper key and inserted it into the ignition. The car roared to life at once. Jason, with his left hand, reached up and pulled the seatbelt down over him, latching it securely into it's clasp and pulling it tight. Buckingham, probably automatically, reached his left hand up to do the same. "Put that hand back on the steering wheel," Jason ordered. "Just putting on my seat belt," he squeaked defensively, slamming his hand back down as if he had touched something hot. "You won't need it if you don't crash," Jason told him. "Take your left hand and put the car in reverse." Awkwardly, Buckingham reached down across his body and popped the gearshift down one notch. Jason ordered him to back slowly out of the spot and then to put the car in drive. "Now," he said, once this was done. "You will drive out of the parking lot and out onto the road, heading for Highway 99. You will keep your hands on the steering wheel, at ten and two, just like driver's Ed, at all times. You will obey all traffic signals and speed laws. And you will follow my directions to the letter. If you screw with me in any way I will empty this gun into your stinking guts and bury you up in the mountains somewhere. Now go." Jason directed him to Highway 99. There was one bad moment when, just prior to reaching the onramp, they stopped at a red light and a black and white California Highway Patrol car pulled in and stopped at the light in the adjacent left turn lane, preparing to turn in the direction that they had just come from. Jason could see Buckingham's eyes light up as he spied the cruiser. "You make any move what-so-ever to attract the attention of that cop and it'll be the last thing you ever do," Jason told him levelly. He was bluffing of course. If Buckingham tried to jump out of the car and run to the CHP officer it would be all over. Jason had no intention of murdering the quarterback in front of a cop. But apparently the bluff was a good one. The CHP officer's light turned green and she made the left turn, passing less than ten feet in front of the Mercedes. She never even glanced in their direction and Buckingham made no attempt to signal her, neither overtly nor covertly. Presently their light turned green and they continued on their way, heading south on the freeway. Jason directed him to take the downtown exit and then guided him through the streets until they reached the Motel 6 parking lot. "Pull in here," Jason told him. "And follow the parking lot around to the left." "What are we doing here?" Buckingham asked desperately, disobeying Jason's order to keep his mouth shut for the first time since the college. "You'll find out soon enough," Jason replied simply. He had Buckingham park the car directly in front of the room. "Now shut off the engine, take out the keys, and put them on the roof of the car." Buckingham attempted to do this but Jason had left out the necessary step of rolling down the electric window first and they had to backtrack. When the deed was done, Jason directed him to sit in the car with his hands on the wheel. He looked out the Mercedes' windows, taking in every place he thought that they might be observed from; the rest of the parking lot, the windows of other motel rooms along this wing, the street that passed by this section of the parking lot. Seeing nothing, he unsnapped his seatbelt and stepped quickly out of the car, slipping his right hand, which held the 9mm, into the pocket of his jacket. He walked around the back of the car, keeping one eye on Buckingham's hands, which remained firmly on the steering wheel as directed, and the other on the surrounding terrain, which remained as deserted as it had been at first glance. Stopping next to the rear driver's side door, he snatched the keys off of the roof and stuck them in his front pocket. He then opened up the front door, pushing it all of the way open. Stepping back two steps, keeping the gun in his pocket pointed towards the front seat, he said, "Slowly step out of the car so that you're facing out over the roof. Keep your hands to your sides and don't make any sudden moves. It'd be a shame to have to shoot you now after we've come so far." Buckingham did as he was told, using exaggerated motions, until he stood facing out across the empty parking lot. Jason then ordered him to turn around and walk slowly to the door of room 47. He carefully kept his distance as this was done knowing that if the large quarterback were able to get hold of him at any point, he would get his ass kicked and worse. "Now knock two times on the door. Knock, knock," Jason told him. Buckingham raised his fist and hit the door two times. Jason then counted slowly to ten and then directed him to knock three more times. That was the signal for Janet to open the door. After a moment the doorknob turned and the door creaked open. As Jason had directed her, Janet pulled the door all the way open and stood with her back pressed tightly against the wall of the motel room, holding it open. "Now walk quickly into the room," Jason said. "And stop once you get to the middle." But Buckingham didn't hear this. He stood staring at Janet's face, his own face, which was pale with fright, marking recognition. "I know you," he whispered to Janet. "Where do I know you from?" "Get the fuck in the room!" Jason barked, looking around the parking lot nervously again. "Now!" Jerked out of his daze, Buckingham walked slowly into the room, his head turning to remain on track with Janet as he did so. When he was out of reach of both Janet and himself, Jason followed him inside and closed the door behind him, breathing a sigh of relief now that the most difficult part of the operation was over. He saw that Janet had arranged the chairs in the room as he had instructed, one near the television counter, one next to the bed. On the television counter itself stood the two liter bottle of Pepsi, a bucket of ice, and a fifth of Bacardi rum. "Have a seat," Jason told him, gesturing towards the television chair with his left hand. His right hand, holding the gun, was now out of his jacket pocket and pointing at Buckingham again. Still staring at Janet, obviously trying to place her, he walked over to the chair and sat down. Once he was safely planted in the chair, Jason sat on the edge of the bed keeping his right hand and the gun in his lap. "How'd it go?" asked Janet, her face showing relief at his safe arrival. He nodded. "Next to perfect. There was a small delay at the gym. Romeo here was chatting up a couple of freshmen girls. But they were kind enough to go about their business leaving us to ours." "I'm glad you're okay," she said, her voice even. "I was... I was worried." He smiled weakly, turning to Buckingham, who was staring at them pointedly, his handsome blue eyes full of fear and confusion, like a deer in the headlights of a car. "What is this all about?" Buckingham asked, speaking to Janet. "I mean... well if it's money you want I can get it for you. My family is..." "We don't want money," Janet interrupted. "What we want is you." "What do you mean?" he whined. "Who are you? I know you from somewhere. I know I do." "You've never met me before in your life," Janet told him, sitting down in the chair next to Jason. "But you have met my daughter before and she looks an awful lot like me." "Your daughter?" Buckingham said, his voice conveying that he was, with those two words, already gleaming what this was about. "My daughter," Janet said. "You met her at a frat party about a month ago, where you brutalized and raped her and then left her bleeding in a dorm room." His eyes widened almost comically. "Look," he said carefully. "I don't know what that little bitch... uh what your daughter told you, but I never laid a finger on anyone that night. Like I told the cops, I was..." "Shut up," Jason said. "Spare us your story. We know you did it and you know you did it. We're not lawyers or a jury or the media you're dealing with here. We're parents of one of the girls you raped and you're going to pay the price for that. A price you should've paid a long time ago." "But I didn't..." "I said shut up!" Jason ordered, raising his voice. "We know you did it. There will be no discussion about your guilt or innocence in this room. We have already established your guilt in this matter beyond a reasonable doubt as far as we're concerned. You are not undergoing a trial here, asshole. You're undergoing punishment." It took almost twenty seconds for that word to sink into Buckingham. Finally he squeaked, "Punishment? What do you mean?" "All in good time," Jason told him. "Everything will become clear as the night progresses. In the meantime, have a drink." Buckingham blinked. "A drink?" Jason nodded. "Of course," he smiled. "We're not uncivilized here. My research has taught me that you're a rum and Pepsi man." He waved to the table where the potables sat. "And it just so happens that we have an ample supply of that on hand." He looked at the drink mixings beside him, noticing them for the first time. "No thanks," he said carefully. "I'm trying to quit." Jason raised the gun up, pointing it at his face. "Oh, but I insist." Buckingham went slowly about making himself a drink with hands that trembled like a paint-shaker. He threw a handful of ice into the plastic motel glass on the stand and then dumped Pepsi on top of it. The Pepsi fizzed wildly, some of it spilling out onto the simulated wood grain surface. When it settled down, he opened the Bacardi and poured in an amount approximately equal to a capful. "Oh come now," Jason told him. "We don't have all night here. Dump out at least half of that soda and fill the glass up with rum." Buckingham looked at him carefully. "Dump it?" he asked. "Where?" Exasperated, Jason yelled, "Drink it, toss it on the carpet, put it back in the bottle. I don't give a shit!" Jerking at Jason's words, he spilled about four ounces on his hands. Another six or so ounces he quickly drank down. He then poured rum into the glass until it was full. The resulting concoction was no longer the deep brown of Pepsi but an almost clear shade of amber. "Drink it down," Jason ordered. "Quickly." Buckingham did as he was told, not even grimacing as he swallowed. Although the 50/50 mixture would have burned Jason or Janet's throats and probably been unpalatable, Buckingham reacted no differently than if he was drinking water. Jason figured that they had probably hit upon just the proportions he normally used when drinking. Over the course of the next twenty-five minutes, they forced him to drink down six more of the rum and Pepsi drinks. The level in the Bacardi bottle had dropped down to approximately half. Buckingham's hands ceased to shake, undoubtedly due to his intoxication, and he did not seem nearly as nervous as he had been before. Jason, though he had not consumed a drop, was also more relaxed. Though the large quarterback was more likely to try something now that he was soused and his better judgement was impaired, Jason and Janet had both dealt with more drunks than anything else in their respective careers and knew how to handle them. Though full of bravado, their coordination would be shot to hell, leaving them incapable of carrying out any scheme they thought of. Buckingham tried nothing physical while consuming his drinks. What he did do was plead and beg the two vengeful parents to cease whatever plan they were considering. He could pay them, he said. He was genuinely sorry that things had, "gotten a little out of control that night". He had changed, he sputtered at one point, had started going to church and helping his community. When that track didn't work, he tried threats. His parents were both lawyers, he told them. Not only would he sue the pants off of them and see them in jail, but also he would take their house, their car, their boat, and their investment fund. He told them that his parents had Mafia connections. Jason and Janet said nothing to each other, their only words orders to Buckingham to mix another drink or to shut his ass when he got to loud or too vocal. When the glass was empty for the seventh time, Jason turned to Janet and asked, "What do you think?" She looked Buckingham, who had slouched down considerably in his chair, over for a moment and then nodded. "I think he's ready for step two." "I agree," Jason replied. "Any more booze and he's not gonna be coherent enough. Where's the stuff?" Janet pulled the brown paper bag she had gotten from the grocery store up from it's storage space beside the bed. There were damp spots on the bottom of it, probably from the excess water that had resulted when she'd washed everything. Jason peered inside it for a moment and then pulled out the pack of chewing gum. He opened it up and removed two of the slices. "Here you go, hero," he said, tossing them across the room to Buckingham. "Chew on those." "Wha-fuck for?" he mumbled, picking them up off of the floor. "You'll see," Jason assured him. "Just put 'em in your mouth and start chewing." While this was being done, he reached back into the bag and removed the baby food jar, which Janet had carefully dumped and washed out, the box of steel wool, and the ballpoint pen. From his pocket he removed an all-purpose utility knife. He set the gun down in easy reach and considered telling Buckingham that he could have it back in his hands in less than a second if he, Buckingham, decided to try anything. But the quarterback didn't even notice. He was concentrating all of his energies on coordinating his jaw muscles to chew the gum. With the pliers extension of his knife, he quickly pulled the innards out of the ballpoint pen and deposited them in the bag. With the knife extension he poked two holes, about a quarter inch in diameter, in the lid of the baby food jar. He then put the knife away and slid the hollow tube of the pen through one of the holes. "You do that pretty good," Janet, who had been watching, noted. He shrugged lightly. "Saw enough of them when I worked South Mall," he told her. Turning to Buckingham, he said, "How's that gum doing? Nice and chewy now?" "'S'all-right," he muttered. "Good," Jason replied. "Now I want you to take it out of your mouth, and with an underhanded throw, toss it over onto the bed here." Buckingham looked at him for a moment with his blurry, bloodshot eyes, and then did as he was told. He threw badly, bouncing it off of the edge of the bed. It landed on the carpet and bounced once. Jason bent over and picked it up with his gloved hand, grimacing in disgust. It smelled of spearmint and rum. He applied it to the hole in the jar where the pen tube was protruding, making an effective seal that would keep air from leaking out. Once that was done, he opened the steel wool box and ripped a small piece off. This he wedged in the other hole in the jar's lid. "My masterpiece," he said, holding it up for Janet's perusal. "One genuine South Mall crack pipe." "Crack pipe?" Buckingham slurred. "Wha-fuck that fer?" They both ignored him. "Shall we move on?" Janet asked. He nodded. Janet reached in her purse, which was on the nightstand, and removed a small plastic device known as a "memo-minder". This was a hand-held digital recording device designed to be used by business people. The idea was they could speak into it whenever they thought of something they would want to remember later. The two conspirators had a different use for the device. Twenty frustrating minutes later they finally had what they needed and Janet began preparing the next step in their plan. Next to the bed in the room was a large duffel bag, the same one she had used in the Life-Flight supply room. She picked it up and nodded to Jason, who stood up. "Yo, Chad," Jason said to the drunken quarterback. "Wha-now?" he muttered, startled out of a doze. "More talkin into da fuckin' mic-a-phome?" "No," Jason answered. "We have something else in mind for you now." "Have him take off his shirt," Janet interrupted. "It'll make the last part easier." "You heard the lady," Jason ordered, stepping closer. "Take off your shirt." "Yeah, yeah, " he mumbled, pulling the sweater over his head and finally off, after getting it stuck around his arms twice. He tossed it to one side. Jason carefully stepped closer and rested the barrel of his gun against Buckingham's right eye. This served to sober the quarterback up considerably. "Look, man," he said. "Whatever you're..." "Shut up and listen," Jason told him. "My companion is going to be doing some things to your left arm there. While she's doing that, you will remain perfectly still. By that, I mean you will not so much as twitch a muscle. If you make any motion that I perceive as threatening in any way, I will pull the trigger on this gun. Do you understand?" "Yeah," he breathed. "And do you believe that I can pull this trigger before you complete whatever cute move you were trying?" "Yeah." "Good," Jason said. He nodded to Janet. She carried the duffel bag over to his left side and set it down, kneeling down next to it. She unzipped the bag and removed an IV start kit, a 10cc syringe, and a small package that contained a saline lock, which was used by hospitals to secure an IV site without hanging a bag of fluid. Quickly and methodically, as if she was doing it in the emergency room, Janet installed the saline lock in the antecubital vein of his left arm, securing it with a single piece of tape. Buckingham, aside from a small twitch when she stabbed in the needle, did not move a muscle. After completing this, she dumped all of the trash into the duffel bag and withdrew five feet. Jason lowered the gun and backed up four feet himself. "You think I should hook him up now?" she asked Jason. "No," he replied after a moment's thought. "Let's wait a few." Jason reached into his pocket and pulled the three crack vials out. He was about to open them up when a thought struck him. "Shit!" he barked. "What?" Janet wanted to know. "I forgot to wash my prints off of these," he told her, handing them across. "Jesus Christ!" Janet looked at him, worried. "It's okay," she told him soothingly. "You remembered." "Yeah," he said, disgusted with himself. "But I almost didn't. Have I forgotten anything else?" "Jason..." "Maybe we should stop this right now," he said. "Before it's too late." "It's already too late," she reminded him. He looked at her for a moment, wishing for the first time that they had never gotten into this. "You're right," he told her. "Just getting cold feet." "Understandable," she said, carrying the three vials over to the sink. "What the hell are you two talking about?" Buckingham, slurring slightly again, asked. "Nothing," Jason snapped. "Just sit there and be quiet." Janet washed the vials and returned them to Jason, who popped two of them open and dumped the contents out onto the counter. He then walked over to the bed and retrieved the crack pipe and the lighter from the bag. He carried them back to Buckingham and set them down. "Ever used these before?" he asked, "Or do you need a lesson?" His eyes looked from the pipe to the cocaine rocks to Jason and then back again. Jason could see the eyeballs jerking with nystagmus, the telltale sign of a drunken person, as they tracked back and forth. "Wha-fuck ish thish all abou'?" Buckingham asked. "You gimmee drunk an' now you wammee to smoke crack? You tryin' to fuckin' overdoshe... overdose me?" "No," Janet answered truthfully. "Not exactly." "So you ever smoke this shit or what?" Jason asked. "No," he replied indignantly. "I don' smoke that shit." "Good time to learn." Jason smiled. "Pick up the crack pipe and one of the rocks." He did as he was told, dropping first the rock and then the pipe to the carpet. After a moment's pause he picked them up again. "Now put the rock on top of the steel wool and smash it down a little bit." When this was done Jason directed him to apply the lighter to the rock, keeping it lit the whole time, and to inhale through the exposed tip of the ballpoint pen tube. After fumbling with the lighter for a moment, he did just that. The rock did not actually burn but converted to a colorless gas, which was sucked down into the baby food jar and up through the pen, into Buckingham's lungs. "Hold it in," Jason prompted, watching his face. The effect was immediate and impressive. A flush crept up his neck, moving northward, filling the pale face with color. His eyes lost the drunken sheen, becoming brighter, more alert, the pupils dilating to nearly twice their normal size. Jason was impressed with the speed the cocaine took effect. Though in his twenty years of law enforcement he had seen a thousand people under the influence of the drug, he had never once seen someone actually smoke it. "Wow," Buckingham said, exalted, his facial expression resembling that of a teenager experiencing his first orgasm. He seemed about to say something else for a moment, then simply uttered, "Wow", again. "Pretty good shit eh?" Jason, who remained standing five feet back, training the gun on Buckingham's head, asked. "Yeah," he whispered, nodding. "I mean, wow." "It had better be," Janet, who was reaching into her duffel bag again, said. "For as much as you paid for it." "Have another one," Jason said. "Another one?" Buckingham asked. "Now?" "You know it," Jason told him. "Like I said, we're not uncivilized." While the quarterback began eagerly setting up another hit, Janet whispered to Jason, "I'm gonna hook him up now. It's almost time." Jason nodded. "Okay," he said. "But be careful. The rock's probably taken some of the edge off of his drunkenness." "I will," she promised, withdrawing a set of black cables from the bag. At the end of each cable was a snap-on electrical fitting. The other end of the cables was connected to a Life-Pak 10 portable cardiac monitor/defibrillator that sat, screen outward, in the duffel bag. From one of the pockets on the monitor case, she pulled out a flat package made of airtight plastic. On the front of the package were the words: "HANDS FREE DEFIBRILLATOR FAST PATCHES". Early in the planning process Jason had suggested, as Buckingham himself had a few minutes before, simply forcing the quarterback to overdose on rock cocaine. Janet had nixed that suggestion as impractical knowing that, despite its horrid reputation and the scare stories that were constantly circulating within the media and in school anti-drug campaigns, it was close to impossible to ingest a lethal dose of cocaine. Especially when you were talking about a young athlete in his prime. The body simply metabolized it faster than it could be ingested or inhaled. Those that did die from a single dose were usually found to have some sort of congenital heart problem. So Janet had come up with the plan that she was now initiating. "I'm ready," she told Jason, after tearing open the package. "Okay," he said, and then turned to Buckingham, who had just finished his second hit. "Listen up, hero." "Yeah?" he said, smiling, presumably enjoying the effects of the cocaine so much that he'd forgotten he was in mortal danger. "My companion is going to be doing a few things to you," Jason explained. "Don't interfere with her in any way." "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure," Buckingham assured him. "I won't fuck with her." "Good," Jason nodded. Janet carefully approached from his right side. She snapped the cables onto the two defib pads and then, one by one, peeled them off of the plastic backing and applied them to his chest; one directly in the center of his sternum, the other on his left flank. Buckingham offered no resistance. Once they were in place, she stepped back and turned on the Lifepak, switching the selector dial to the "PADDLES" position. After a few brief self-checks, the screen began giving her a read-out of his heartbeat, picking up the impulses through the patches. "His heart rate is about a hundred," she told Jason. "Let's have him smoke one more rock." "You heard her," he told Buckingham. "Fire up another one." "Again?" he said happily, picking up the pipe and the lighter. "Okay." After his third hit, Janet reported that his heartrate had increased to one-twenty, probably about double what his normal resting heartrate was. His face was as red as a Washington apple and his pupils were nearly the size of dimes. His mouth was twisted up into an exalted grin, as if he was experiencing Nirvana. "I think we're ready," Janet said, giving Jason a serious look. "It's time to shit or get off the pot." "Do it," Jason told her. Reaching into her duffel bag, she withdrew two brown and white packages, each an inch and a half wide by four inches in length. "EPINEPHERINE" was printed on each one. She opened them up. Each contained a pre-filled 10cc syringe, which she quickly assembled and sat on the floor next to her. She then dropped the empty boxes into the duffel bag. "Now that's adrenaline, right?" Jason asked, watching as she lifted the first syringe into the air. "Right," she answered, pulling Buckingham's left arm, the one with the saline lock in it, towards her. "A synthetic version of it anyway. It's a powerful stimulant that will make his heart severely irritable. I'm gonna give him twice the normal dose." "And you're sure it won't be picked up on the tox screen?" he asked again, even though they had discussed this point a hundred times. "I told you," she explained patiently. "Not if the paramedics show up and do their job properly." "Let's hope they're competent around here then," Jason said. Buckingham, completely oblivious to the conversation going on next to him, was staring at a cheap picture of an oceanscape that hung on the wall over the bed as if the secret of the universe could be found there. He offered no resistance and in fact didn't even seem to notice when Janet poked the needle on the end of the syringe into the saline lock in his arm and depressed the plunger. That done, she quickly picked up the other syringe and repeated the procedure. Once this was done she dropped both empty syringes into the duffel bag. "How long does it take to work?" Jason asked. "It should be less than a minute," she told him, and then shrugged doubtfully. "I've never given this to someone who was awake before though." Epinephrine, in the hospital setting, was used almost exclusively in cases of cardiac arrest. They watched. Jason peering at Buckingham's face, Janet at the screen of the Life-Pak. "I think it's working," Jason said less than thirty seconds later. Buckingham's face, although he wouldn't have thought it possible, became an even darker shade of red and sweat began to form at his forehead, dripping down in small drops. "Yep," Janet confirmed. "His heart rate has picked up to one-sixty and he's throwing all kinds of premature beats." "I feel funny," Buckingham mumbled strangely. "Dizzy." "This is it," Janet announced, reaching into the dufflebag for the Life-Pak's controls. "Are you ready?" Jason nodded. She set the defibrillator to 360 joules of energy and pushed the charge button. From within the bag a high-pitched whine, similar to that from a camera flash attachment, began to emit. After about ten seconds, it abruptly cut off. "Charged," Janet said automatically. She then looked at Buckingham, who was now sweating profusely and swaying from side to side. "This is for Chrissie, you piece of shit." She pushed the two discharge buttons on the monitor. The electricity coursed through the paddles and into his chest, stopping his heart instantly. Buckingham jerked one time, emitting a startled scream, and then slumped forward as if struck in the back of the head. "Did it work?" Jason asked. "Hold on," she replied, staring at the monitor screen. His reading had gone flat, which was expected since the purpose of defibrillation was to stop the heart. The important part was what happened next, after the heart had a chance to reset itself. As she watched, the flat line slowly became wavy and irregular, indicating that the heart was fibrillating, or quivering wildly, unable to achieve an organized rhythm, and therefore not supplying the brain or any other vital organ, including the heart itself, with oxygen. "It worked," she announced. "He's in V-fib. The adrenaline and the cocaine have got his heart so irritated it won't resume normal beats." Jason exhaled the breath that he had been holding. A large part of him, the cynical part, had been convinced that this crazy scheme would never work. "Now what?" he asked. "Now the clock is ticking," Janet told him, noting the time on her watch. "The American Heart Association says that brain death will occur twelve minutes from the cessation of oxygen. We'll give him five. While you make sure everything is cleaned up, I'll keep watching the monitor to make sure he stays in fib. Then we'll make the call. The paramedics should get here five to seven minutes after that." "What if they're early?" Jason asked, his own adrenaline pumping now as it finally came home to him what they had just done. "What if they get here in three minutes? Shouldn't we wait the whole twelve?" "No," she said, shaking her head violently. "It's too risky. You have to trust me on this. The paramedics need to find him while he's still fibrillating. That won't last more than fourteen minutes or so, even with a young, healthy heart like his. They won't defibrillate a flat line if that's what they find, and the coroner will be forced to wonder why he has burn marks on his chest." "But what if..." Jason started. "I know what I'm doing!" she nearly screamed. "Despite what the AHA says, if he goes without oxygen for more than five minutes, even if they get him back, he'll be brain damaged beyond repair. He won't be able to tell anyone what happened here. Now make sure everything is ready to go! Time is short!" Giving in, Jason stood up, reholstering his gun for the first in nearly ninety minutes. Moving quickly, though cognizant that his life and career depended on how efficiently he cleaned up the motel room, he stowed everything, every piece of evidence that they had been there, in the paper bag and placed it by the door. "How we doing?" he asked, walking back over to Janet. "Still in fib." She reported steadily. "Two minutes to go." He made one more circuit of the room looking for anything that they might have forgotten, looking for stray hairs that might have fallen from beneath their caps. He found nothing. "Five minutes," Janet announced. "Let's move quickly." She ripped the two fastpatches off of Buckingham's chest and dropped the cables into the duffel bag with the monitor. A slight film had been left behind. Jason grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom counter and wiped away as much as he could, dropping the cloth into the duffel bag when he was done. Janet pulled the single piece of tape that held the saline lock in place off of his skin and then removed the catheter from his vein. A single drop of dark blood oozed from the hole. She dropped the catheter, with the tape still attached, into the bag. "Get the glass ready," Janet told Jason. He nodded and set the glass that Buckingham had been drinking out of on it's side on the counter. They muscled his chair ninety degrees to the right, so that his left arm was parallel to the counter. Once in position, Jason picked up his arm and raised it above his head, making the unresponsive quarterback look like he was trying to ask a question in a classroom. He checked his aim for a second and then slammed the arm down on the table. Buckingham's inner elbow struck the glass, shattering it into a thousand pieces, which sprayed onto the floor and across the counter. "Let me have a look," Janet commanded, taking the arm from him. It was crisscrossed with cuts from the biceps to the forearm. Small pieces of glass protruded in several places and three of the cuts looked quiet deep. None of them did more than ooze a few drops of blood since Buckingham's heart was not beating and therefore providing blood flow. "Looks good," she said absently, picking up one of the larger pieces of broken glass from the counter. She located the small hole where the IV catheter had been installed and rubbed the glass fragment across it, tearing the skin open and obliterating a piece of forensic evidence the medical examiner would have found quite interesting. "Done," she told Jason. "Let's get him on the floor," he said. Unceremoniously, they tipped his chair over to the right, spilling him in a heap to the cheap carpet. He lay there on his side, not moving, not breathing. "Now the call?" Jason, who was very eager to make an exit, asked. She nodded. Jason walked over to the bed, where the memo-minder sat next to the telephone. "Go check outside and make sure the coast is clear," he told Janet. "And no more talking." While she moved to do that, Jason picked up the handset and the memo-minder. He dialed 9-1-1 and put the earpiece to his ear, keeping the mouthpiece turned upward. The phone rang two times and a gravelly, male voice answered. "Fresno County 911, what is your emergency?" Jason removed the phone from his ear and placed the speaker of the memo-minder against the mouthpiece. He pushed the play button and Buckingham's drunken voice issued forth, "I'm not... not feeling good. I need some help." He then dropped the phone to the floor. Faintly, he could hear the operator's voice saying, "Sir? Sir? Tell me what's the problem? Sir?" He looked over at Janet, who was poking her head outside. She caught his eyes and gave him a thumbs-up signal, indicating the parking lot was empty. "Let's go," he mouthed silently. Janet picked up the paper bag by the door. Jason dropped the memo minder into the duffel bag and then picked it up, hoisting its considerable weight over his left shoulder. Moving as silently as possible he walked to the door and then stopped in his tracks as a thought struck him. Janet looked at him questioningly, her expression one of desperate impatience. He held up a finger, indicating just a moment, and then trotted quickly across the room. He picked up the second motel glass from the sink counter and carried it over to the television counter, stepping carefully over Buckingham. Forcefully he threw the glass down on top of the glass fragments from the first glass. It shattered loudly, exploding fresh glass fragments around the room. Satisfied, Jason walked back to the door, stepping outside into the foggy night. Janet, breathing a sigh of relief, slowly and quietly closed the door behind them, leaving it, as they had discussed, partly ajar in order to facilitate the entry of the emergency personnel. As they walked quickly around the side of the building towards Janet's Volvo, she asked, "What did you do that for?" "It occurred to me that they might wonder why there was no sound of breaking glass on the 911 tape since that was supposed to have happened after he called." "Oh." She nodded, pulling the keys from her pocket and remotely opening the trunk. "Good thinking." As they piled the duffel bag and the paper sack into the Volvo's trunk, they heard the faint sound of sirens, still distant but growing louder, piercing the night. They passed a silent glance at each other and then quickly got into the car. Thirty seconds later they were out of the parking lot. Thirty seconds after that they were on Highway 99 heading south. ------- The first to arrive was Engine Company 13 of the Fresno City Fire Department. They had been dispatched to the "unknown medical aid" call and, armed with the address and room number of the motel room from the 911 tracing system, pulled up in the red zone outside room 47 less than four minutes after Janet and Jason had shut the door. The two men and one woman of the fire crew grabbed their medical aid gear and trudged unenthusiastically up to the door. Calls to motel rooms were a frequent occurrence for them and usually it turned out to be nothing more than a drunk with some imagined complaint that they would have to baby-sit until the ambulance and/or the cops arrived. "Fire Department!" the captain yelled impatiently, pounding on the door with one hand, holding a metal clipboard under his other arm. "Did you call?" When he knocked he noted that the door was ajar, so, when he received no response from within, he pushed it open and stuck his head inside. He took one look at the young quarterback lying on the floor and said disgustedly, "Aww shit." They entered the room, setting their gear down on the bed. The engineer and the young female firefighter walked over to the unresponsive figure and rolled him onto his back, hearing the crunch of broken glass beneath him. The firefighter, noting that their patient was not breathing, felt for a carotid pulse. "Nothing," she reported to the captain. "All right," he said, resigned. "Let's drag him out of that glass and start CPR." While the firefighter and the engineer grabbed his legs and muscled him six feet closer to the door, the captain radioed fire dispatch on his portable radio updating them to the fact that CPR was now in progress. The information would be passed along to the responding ambulance whose siren he could now hear. They worked methodically, all of them veterans of many CPR calls. The firefighter began chest compressions while the engineer quickly assembled a bag valve mask and hooked it up to their portable oxygen tank. When it was assembled, he placed it over their patient's mouth and began forcing oxygen into his lungs. The red and white ambulance pulled up two minutes later. The paramedic and the EMT, both females in their early twenties, removed their gurney and their equipment from the back of the ambulance and hurried into the room. The two crews, both from different agencies, knew each other well, having responded together many times in the past. "What's the story, Cap?" the paramedic asked automatically, though she could plainly see what most of the story was. He shrugged. "Don't know, Mary," he replied. "We just got here and found this guy dead on the floor. We started CPR as you can see. No one else was in the room." "Looks like he was having himself a little party," Mary replied, pointing to the counter where the crack pipe and the rum bottle were sitting. "Oh yeah," he replied. "Didn't even notice that before." Mary quickly took command of the scene. While her partner began setting up an IV line and the engineer and the firefighter continued CPR, she hooked the patient up to her heart monitor, using a set of fast patches, which she placed in exactly the same place as Janet had earlier. "Any idea how old he is?" she asked as she turned the monitor on and waited for it to grace her with a reading. "He looks pretty young to have just dropped dead." "Haven't checked," he said, noting on his clipboard what time the monitor was applied. "See if he's got a wallet or something." Mary ran her gloved hand over the quarterback's buttocks, locating and removing a leather wallet from the right side. "Here you go, Cap," she said, tossing it over. "Okay, hold CPR for a second," she told the fire crew. They stopped their respective actions and she peered at the monitor screen, noting the wavy line of ventricular fibrillation. "He's in fib," she announced. "Gonna shock him. Continue CPR while it's charging." She set the monitor for 200 joules of energy and pressed the charge button. The high-pitched whine began to issue. "Oh shit," the captain exclaimed behind her. "I thought he looked familiar." "What?" Mary asked, looking up. "This is Chad Buckingham," he said, showing her the driver's license he had pulled from the wallet. The name meant nothing to Mary, who was about as interested in football as she was in having electricity applied to her genitals. "Who the hell is Chad Buckingham?" "Quarterback for Fresno State," the captain replied. "He's famous in these parts." "This is Chad Buckingham?" asked the engineer, who was squatting on his knees awaiting his next instruction. He seemed shocked by this revelation. The captain nodded and keyed up his radio again. "Engine 13, can you please have the battalion chief respond to our location?" Mary, not caring that her patient was famous, made sure that everyone was clear of him and pushed the two discharge buttons. Buckingham's heart stopped for a moment and then resumed fibrillating. She charged the machine up to 300 joules and then shocked him again. This time his heart stopped and did not resume, remaining in a flat line rhythm that meant all electrical activity had ceased. It was not an uncommon result of defibrillation. Especially when several minutes had already passed. "All right," she said after watching the flat line for fifteen seconds. "He's in asystole. Resume CPR." Mary moved on to the next step, performing her actions with mechanical precision, the result of having done them a thousand times in practice and actuality before. She placed a breathing tube in his mouth, threading it down through his vocal cords, so the engineer could pump the oxygen directly into his lungs instead of losing half of it in his stomach. She then started an IV in his right arm; the one without all of the glass cuts in it. Once the IV was in place, she injected a dose of epinephrine and atropine into it, drugs that were supposed to, in theory, get the heart beating again. As she expected, they had no effect. His monitor reading remained flat as a pancake. When she had done all she could do on scene, she told her partner it was time to go. Her partner retrieved their flat, a carrying device on their gurney, and brought it into the room. They rolled him onto his side, placed the flat beneath him, and then rolled him back. They then lifted the flat, with Buckingham on top of it, and carried him to the gurney. He was wheeled to the ambulance and placed inside. Mary, the engineer, and the firefighter climbed in the back while Mary's partner, after retrieving all of their equipment, jumped in the front. "I'm gonna stay here," the captain, standing at the back of the ambulance, told his crew. "Until the BC gets here." He slammed the back doors of the ambulance and a minute later it pulled away, heading for the closest hospital with its red lights flashing and its siren blaring. During the six-minute trip, while the fire crew continued CPR, Mary injected three more doses of epinephrine and two more of atropine. Buckingham's heart continued to do nothing in response. When they arrived at the hospital and transferred care over to the doctor and the nurses, Buckingham was worked on for nearly forty minutes. This was perhaps thirty-five minutes longer than they would have bothered if Buckingham had been anyone else, but since he was something of a celebrity, they gave him the extra twenty miles. It was of course in vain. Despite the injection of nine more doses of epinephrine, including a desperate high dose consisting of six times the amount normally given, two doses of Sodium Bicarbonate, one dose of Isupril, two experimental defibrillations even though it wasn't indicated, and a failed round of external pacemaking, Buckingham's heart refused to regain any kind of electrical activity. The emergency room doctor, who knew he was going to end up on the nightly news and was already going over his speech in his head, finally pronounced him dead. It would be a day that would live in infamy for Fresno's sports fans. Meanwhile, the fire captain, who had stood faithfully outside the motel door deflecting all inquiries from the curious bystanders drawn by the presence of the fire engine and the ambulance, was explaining to his battalion chief why he had called him out on a routine medical aid call, interrupting the movie he had been watching on HBO back at the firehouse. "Chad Buckingham?" the chief exclaimed, shocked. "Are you sure?" The captain handed him the driver's license. The chief perused it for a moment, shaking his head. "Son of a bitch. You don't think he'll make it?" The captain shook his head. "Barring a miracle," he said, "he's pretty much toast." "And you say that there's a rock pipe and booze in there?" "Yep." The chief sighed. "All right. I guess we'd better get the cops out here to at least take a look." ------- "Chad Buckingham?" exclaimed the startled Fresno Police Department patrol officer. "No shit?" "No shit," the battalion chief assured him. Before he even entered the motel room he engaged in the common police practice of dumping the responsibility upward. He radioed for his sergeant to respond. The nightwatch patrol sergeant, a forty year old female with sixteen years on the job who was about as interested in football as Mary the paramedic, responded with the second-most common exclamation heard that night: "Who the hell is Chad Buckingham?" When it was explained to her, however, she became more interested. "Let's take a look inside," she told her young subordinate. They entered the room, looking around at the scene before them, careful not to touch or disturb anything. Her eyes, trained by years of viewing crime scenes, could note nothing in particular that was a cause for concern. There were empty IV packages, empty drug boxes, a tourniquet that looked like a dead snake, and broken glass everywhere. She noted the crack pipe, similar to a thousand she had seen before, the crack vials, and the bottle of rum sitting next to the Pepsi and the plastic bucket of melting ice. Never the less, something that she could not quite put her finger on was setting off little alarm bells in her head. Maybe it was the fact that the victim, if that's what he was, was famous, or maybe it was instinct. Maybe a little of both. "Keep the room sealed," she told the patrol officer, "and stay out of it. I'm gonna call homicide and have them come out and take a look." ------- Chapter 3 Sergeant Miller, a twenty-two year police officer and the supervisor of the Fresno Police Department's A rotation of the homicide detail knew something was funny before he even responded to the scene. The on-call homicide team, both basic patrolmen rank policemen, were usually able to handle the routine homicides which took place at night, which was when most homicides in the City of Fresno occurred. However, due to the stature of the victim (even though it had yet to be established that he even was a victim), Miller's pager went off shortly after Brentwood and Wilson had received the details of their latest case. The telephone number printed in the screen of his pager he recognized immediately as that belonging to Detective Wilson, the senior investigator of A team. Cursing to himself, he rolled out of bed where his girlfriend, a young dispatcher, was snoring away, and picked up the phone. He dialed the number and was quickly filled in by Wilson. "Chad Buckingham?" he said, predictably. "No shit?" "No shit," Wilson responded. "Apparently there's no reason to suspect a homicide at this time. Patrol wants us to come out and take a look at the scene. I talked to Sergeant Oakly, the nightwatch supervisor. She says it looks like he was smokin' some rock and drinking some booze in a motel room tonight. Fire found him dead on the floor and transported him over to Saint Mary's. I called them a few minutes ago and they told me they pronounced him dead not too long ago. They say there's no signs of trauma except for some cuts on his arm. Oakly says there's broken glass all over the place in the room, like he smashed a couple glasses or something. She also says that somethin' don't look right in the room." "What does she mean?" he asked. "She couldn't say," Wilson replied. "She said it was nothin' she could put her finger on but she wants us to check it out. She's got the room sealed and CSI is on the way. I thought I'd let you know since he's, you know, famous and all and the media's bound to pick this up before too long." "No problem," Miller assured him. "Get over there and check the place out, I'll be out shortly." "Right," Wilson said, hanging up. Miller set the phone down and sat there for a moment, thinking. Like many cops, he was an avid golfer, playing whenever he could get the chance. And, also like most cops, he preferred to spend his off-duty time with other cops. Two weeks ago, during a brief break in the miserable San Joaquin Valley winter weather, he had played eighteen holes at a local course with three of his departmental acquaintances, one of whom being a former trainee of his from his patrol officer days that now worked in the Sex Crimes bureau: Rick Clarkson. During the course of the round, Clarkson had filled them in on the details regarding a crime that they had previously heard rumors about; namely the rape of a Marshall County patrol sergeant's daughter by the infamous Chad Buckingham. Fuming at the shitty state of the American criminal justice system, Clarkson had explained how the handsome quarterback was going to get away scot-free, again. They had all commiserated for a few moments with the plight of their unknown brother law enforcement officer, sodomized by the very system that he was a part of. And then Jentz, a burglary detective, had asked Clarkson, "How did he take it when you told him? I mean jeez, can you imagine havin' your daughter raped and then being told that nothin' is gonna be done about it?" "It was weird," Clarkson had said, shaking his head. "It seemed like he kinda expected it. He didn't blow up or rant or anything. But he had this weird look in his eyes. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if that fuckin' degenerate had himself an accident before too long." "That'd be great," Jentz said, smiling and taking a swig out of his seventh beer. "Sometimes you just gotta create your own justice." And the other three had muttered enthusiastic encouragement with this statement, not really believing that anything of the sort would really happen. Except now, something of the sort had happened. And it was his job to investigate it. ------- When he arrived at the motel twenty minutes later, Miller found everything being done by the book. A thirty-yard perimeter in front of the motel room was roped off with yellow crime-scene tape that was attached to two white patrol cars. The white crime scene investigation van was parked just outside the tape, its two-officer crew presumably inside gathering any evidence that might be found. Sergeant Oakly and two patrol officers were standing around out front, keeping the throngs of curious onlookers, which now numbered approximately thirty or so, outside the yellow tape. Brentwood, he saw, was talking to several of the onlookers, undoubtedly pumping them for any information that they might or might not possess. Wilson was nowhere in sight. Miller figured he was probably inside the motel room with the CSI team, trying to get a handle on exactly what had happened in there. He was grateful to see that no media had arrived yet, although he knew it wouldn't be long. He ducked under the tape and approached Sergeant Oakly, who, if protocol were being followed, would be keeping a log of who had entered and left the scene. "How you doing, Gary?" she greeted him as he approached. "Sorry to have them drag you out at night for what's probably nothing but what it seems, but..." "It's okay, it's okay," he assured her. "All part of the job. You did good callin' us in on this one, even if it is on the up and up. Is Wilson inside?" "Yeah," she told him. "He got here about ten minutes ago, right behind the CSI guys." "Cool," he said. "I'm gonna go have a chat with him for a few minutes and see what's up." "I'll log you in," she answered, pulling a notebook from her pocket. He stepped up to the red door with the black plastic 47 printed on it and pushed it open with his elbow, stepping carefully inside. Inside he found Wilson, dressed in the standard garb of detectives responding to after hours calls: blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweater that was tucked in to reveal the gun and badge clipped to the belt; standing near the doorway watching the two evidence technicians, who were kneeling on the carpet examining something. Next to Wilson was a stack of video equipment, which had probably already been used, and a frightfully old 35mm camera with a flash attachment. "Hi, Gary," Wilson greeted him tonelessly, as was his nature. "Glad you came out." "Oh?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "Is something wrong here?" Wilson chuckled cynically. "This crime scene, and that's what I'm callin' it now, stinks to high heaven." "How so?" "I'll tell you," he replied, looking around as he talked. "At first glance everything looks on the up and up here." He pointed to the carpet where the two technicians, oblivious to the discussion going on around them, were using scissors to clip a piece of carpet fiber. "Over there is where the stiff was found. I talked to the fire captain when I got here. He says Buckingham was lying on his side in the middle of a bunch of broken glass. On the nightstand there next to him is more broken glass, some of it with blood drops on it. You can see the rock pipe and the half empty bottle of rum and the crack vials, two of them empty, one unopened. I checked with dispatch and they say they got a 911 call from this room at 2141 hours by a male stating he was not feeling well. They heard the phone drop to the ground and about a minute later the sound of breaking glass. Nothing else until the fire crew made entry. Just the sort of scene you'd expect to find, isn't it? Tells a nice little story about a hero, college student quarterback that got himself a motel room, probably with some floozy as a companion, and overdosed himself on rock and booze therefore causing his premature demise. Right?" "Yeah," Miller agreed. "On the surface that's what it appears." "Uh huh," Wilson went on. "But when you take a closer look and apply a little thought, there's a couple things that just don't add up." "Such as?" "Well, first of all," Miller explained. "What was he doin' sittin' over there by the TV? You can't watch it from there and the thing wasn't even on. It looks like the chair, when it fell, was facing the wall. Would someone sit in a room, facing the wall all night, drinking booze and smoking out? And the telephone," he pointed across the room to where the handset was still laying on the carpet although the other end had been unplugged at some point. "If the guy gasped out his last words on the phone and then collapsed, why didn't we find him over by the phone? We're supposed to believe that he walked back across the room, sat down in his chair, broke the two glasses, and then fell over sideways?" Miller nodded. "What else?" "Only a couple other things inside the room. It took me a few minutes to figure it out but it looked wrong from the second I walked in. It goes back to the chair there. Take a good look around the room and you'll notice that it's amazingly clean. The bed, except for a little ruffling of the covers, is still made up. The other chair is sitting nicely in its accustomed spot. There's no mess in the sink, there's no garbage, except for what the paramedics left, anywhere on the floor or in the garbage bags. The shitter has still got the little sanitary wrap on the seat. Would you expect to find a room that a little sex and cocaine party had been thrown in to look so neat?" "No," Miller said. "And then there's a few other things that don't have to do with the room. Parked out front is a nice, one-year-old, Mercedes convertible. I ran the tag and it belongs to our victim. The doors are all unlocked, the pull out stereo is still in place. And then there's the matter of the keys. They are nowhere to be found. They're not in the room anywhere and the patrol guy I sent over to the hospital to babysit the body says they're not in his clothes. I took a quick look through the car and they're not in there either. The same goes for the motel key. So where have these keys mysteriously gone?" "Good question," Miller agreed. "Have you checked with the manager yet?" "I have," Wilson confirmed. "Actually I got the night clerk who was able to tell me that the room was rented for one night to a "Charles Beaking". Mr. Beaking paid cash for the room and listed his address as..." He paused for a moment, pulling a notebook from his pocket and reading from it. "2700 Smith Lane in Snodgrass, California. I ran a check on that address. There is no Snodgrass, California, the zip code he supplied does not exist and the phone number he supplied uses a prefix that is only used on the east coast and an area code that only exists in Seattle, Washington. He listed a California license plate on the register that has one too many numbers in it. At that point I had him contact the manager. He's the one that rented the room. A nice enough guy who just might be able to think his way out of a paper bag if he's given enough time. After some prompting, he was able to remember the gentleman he signed into the room. Says he was about five-eight, Caucasian, one fifty or so, wearing dirty blue jeans and a pullover brown sweater. Brown and brown, missing a few teeth, and unshaven. Says the guy stunk like he hadn't had a shower in a while. In short, a typical customer of this place and completely unlike our victim." "Okay," Miller sighed. "It looks like we probably got ourselves a homicide. Let's comb this room carefully and tag everything that might even remotely be of value. This is gonna be a high profile case so let's not screw anything up." "You got it, Sarge," Wilson said. "You think that maybe this is a vigilante thing?" He of course knew of Buckingham's reputation. "Yep," Miller agreed. "And if I'm right, the person who did it would've been extremely careful." "The cop?" Wilson almost whispered. "The one who's daughter he..." Miller nodded, his heart torn in two directions. One the one hand, Whitecoff was a fellow cop and a fellow father. Being the father of a teenaged daughter himself, he understood completely the impulse that the man must have felt. A part of him cheered the removal of a person such as Buckingham from society. On the other hand, he was a homicide detective and this was a homicide, and a future high-profile one at that. He would have to pull out all of the stops in his investigation and make sure that the officers under his command did the same. There would be no look-the-other-way here. Too many people would be watching. ------- The landscape between the southern suburbs of Fresno and the northern suburbs of Maldonado consisted of about twenty miles of farmland; vineyards on the north, tomato fields on the south, both stretching from horizon to horizon. Returning from their mission of justice that night, Jason and Janet took the offramp for Road 114, a two lane county road that ran east-west near the county lines. Jason headed west on the badly maintained rural road, coming eventually to the San Joaquin River levee road. He turned south here, driving on the twisting, elevated surface with the rain-swollen river on one side and the endless expanses of farmland on the other. A ten-minute drive brought them to what they were looking for. Jason pulled the car into a large turnout on the river side of the road. At the far end of the gravel surface stood a small stand of willow trees. He parked the car behind them, effectively concealing it from view by anyone passing on the road. Once at a stop and satisfied with the vehicle's positioning, he shut down the engine and popped the trunk. Inside were the large canvas bag that contained the instruments of their mission and the paper bag that contained much of the garbage. Jason, donning another pair of gloves for the operation, stuffed the paper bag inside the canvas one, leaving the latter unzipped. For the next ten minutes, he and Janet walked around near the levee, gathering up large rocks, which they carried over and placed in the bag. When it weighed close to a hundred pounds, he zipped it up and closed the trunk. Two minutes later they were back on the levee road heading south. Another ten-minute's drive brought them to a bridge that crossed the river. Turning right onto the iron span, Jason stopped the car in the precise center. He took a quick look around, seeing no other vehicles in sight and no one fishing on either side of the river. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he popped the trunk again. Moving quickly, he stepped out of the car, lifted, with some effort, the heavy canvas bag from the trunk and walked to the nearest edge of the bridge. He muscled it over the side and watched as it landed with a loud splash in the murky, fast moving water and sank immediately from sight. He closed the trunk, stepped back into the driver's seat, and continued his trip across the bridge, heading for Interstate 5 which was twelve miles to the west and which would bring them back to Maldonado by a back road route. "Are you sure no one will ever find that stuff?" Janet asked as they cruised along the deserted road at seventy-five miles an hour. "It's unlikely at best," Jason assured her. He understood the source of her fear, perhaps better than she did. Inside that bag was enough evidence to send them both to death row. "Even during a severe drought, there's still water covering that part of the channel. And if a fisherman ever latches onto it, it's too heavy to pull in, even with the strongest fishing line. The only way it could be recovered is with divers, and even then they'd have to know exactly where it was and it would be a dangerous operation." She nodded, lost in thought. Finally, she said, "I can't believe we actually did that. We killed someone." "Me either," he told her solemnly. "But what's done is done. All we can hope for now is that we were careful enough not to get caught." They entered the Maldonado City Limits thirty minutes later, crossing over the P Street bridge from the west. Just to the south of the downtown area, Jason pulled the car into a self serve car-wash where they would thoroughly wash and vacuum the Volvo, therefore eliminating any lingering forensic evidence. As he reached into his front pocket for one-dollar bills to feed into the change machine, he felt something unfamiliar in there. He pulled it out. "Oh my God," he exclaimed, scared at the near oversight. "What?" Janet, alarmed at his tone, asked. "Look," he said, holding up the keyring that had belonged to Buckingham for her perusal. It took her a moment to register what he was showing her. When she realized what they were she instantly guessed his state of mind. "It's okay," she assured him. "You found them. Now we can get rid of them." He shook his head in disgust at himself. "I forgot about them," he said. "I can't believe I was so stupid!" "Jase, it's okay." "No it's not!" he countered. "Don't you realize that this set of keys by itself was enough to convict us? Just a simple oversight that could've sent us to prison. What else have I forgotten?" She had no answer for him. He tossed the keys into the nearest garbage can, making sure that they sank to the bottom. They washed and detailed the car in silence for the next twenty minutes, paying particular attention to the tires at Jason's direction. Once done they headed for home. ------- Sergeant Miller's conviction that Chad Buckingham had been murdered was strengthened when he read the results of the crime scene investigation the next morning. It was not what had been found that interested him but what had not been found. "Look at this shit," he said in wonder to detective Wilson. "Everything about this crime scene is wrong." "How so?" asked Wilson, who was leafing through witness statements. "The crack pipe," Miller read, "contains Buckingham's fingerprints only. Not even a smidgen of someone else's. How is that possible? Even assuming that there was no floozy smoking out with him, some stocker at whatever store that jar was bought at had to handle it. Someone cleaned that glass before Buckingham smoked out of it. The rock vials are the same way; Buckingham's prints only, none from the freakin' dealer that sold it to him. And the rum bottle, and the Pepsi bottle, and all of the broken glass fragments. Same story, Buckingham's prints only. Someone cleaned every single thing before he got to that room." "Only a cop would've thought of something like that," Wilson, who was uncomfortable investigating another cop never the less felt compelled to point out. "No shit," Miller said. "And for a switch in the pattern, the telephone handset, where he allegedly made the 911 call, does not have his prints on it." "Is it clean too?" "Nope." He shook his head. "We got traces of five other prints from it, undoubtedly from previous occupants of the room. We're gonna have to check previous guests if we can ID them." "What about Whitecoff?" "I'm gonna see if I can discreetly get a copy of his prints from DOJ to compare, but you can bet your ass that none of the one's on the phone are his." "Probably not," Wilson agreed. "And as for the rest of the report..." He shook his head in disgust. "Nothing. Not a single goddamn thing was found. No hair samples, no skin samples. Blood was found on the carpet where Buckingham went down and we've sent it off to the lab for DNA typing, but it's undoubtedly his." "We're sure not gonna get an indictment from anything in the crime scene," Wilson said. "And nothing from the motel occupants is gonna help either. Nobody was occupying any of the rooms in that wing except for Buckingham. Nobody saw anything or heard anything unusual." "Well, hopefully something will turn up in the autopsy." "When are they posting him?" Wilson asked. "I got them to do it today. In fact they should be starting in about a half an hour or so." Wilson gave a cynical smile. "Bet they didn't like that too much. Coming in on a Saturday." "Screw 'em," Miller replied. "It's a high profile case. They can get their asses down and work like everyone else." ------- The autopsy took nearly three hours, about ninety minutes more than a normal one would have taken. Jean Carmichael, the senior pathologist of the Fresno County coroner's office, laid Buckingham's naked, once handsome form out on the steel table and violated it in ways that would have horrified his surviving family members. She cut his chest wide open and removed the internal organs, inspecting and weighing them. She sawed his skull open, removing the brain, weighing and inspecting it. She combed over every inch of his tanned form looking for cuts, needle marks, bruises, anything that would shed light on what had killed the young quarterback. She took samples of his blood, his tissues, his urine, his hair, and his sperm. Miller, a veteran watcher of autopsies, stood by in the corner of the room, watching impassively as Carmichael and her assistants did their work. "Nothing," she finally said, stepping away from the body and pulling off her bloody gloves. Her assistants began the work of putting the mess back into a presentable form for release to the family's mortuary. "Nothing?" Miller asked, raising his eyebrows. "He was a healthy, twenty-one year old athlete. No signs of heart disease or congenital defects, definitely no infarction. No stroke, no pulmonary embolism, no signs of trauma except for the glass cuts on his arm. His lungs are in perfect shape, no sign of cigarette smoking or habitual rock cocaine use. His liver shows very early signs of alcohol abuse but they're very early, certainly not enough to have contributed to his death. If he used steroids there is no physical damage of any kind from them. He has no needle marks on him except for what the paramedics put there. He has burn marks on his chest but the hospital and EMS reports say that he was defibrillated a total of nine times. In short; nothing." "Then what killed him?" Miller, exasperated, asked. She shrugged, stepping over to the sink to wash her hands. "I don't know." "You don't know?" He was quite unaccustomed to hearing a medical examiner say that. She shook her head sadly. "It's obvious that his heart stopped beating, therefore causing brain hypoxia which is what killed him. As to why his heart stopped beating, I haven't the foggiest. Nothing that shows up physically is remarkable." "Could it be a cocaine overdose? Or alcohol poisoning?" "Well," she said doubtfully, "it's almost certainly not a cocaine overdose. People that die from that die in one of two ways and the physical exam pretty much rules both of them out. They either have a congenital heart defect, which I see no signs of, or they smoke so much of it that they cause a massive cerebral hemorrhage, which I also show no signs of. As for alcohol poisoning, that's probably the best possibility. But from what you tell me, he was alleged to have called 911 just before he collapsed and the paramedics found him in V-fib. Alcohol OD doesn't go along with that particular scenario." "Oh?" Miller said, his interest perking up. "How so?" "It's simple," she said. "If he was drunk enough to die from it, he wouldn't have been able to call 911 for help. He would've been passed out on the floor and his respiratory drive would've stopped." "Great," Miller said. "So what do we do now? Do you think the tox screens will show anything?" Another shrug. "We'll have to wait until next week when they come back, but like I said, it doesn't look like alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose to me. In short, I haven't the foggiest idea why this young, healthy, athletic man died. For whatever reason, his heart just stopped beating. I can't even rule this as a homicide. It'll have to go down as "unknown" for now." Miller nodded, lost in thought for a moment. "What about pharmaceuticals?" he asked. "What do you mean?" she wanted to know. "The person I suspect of doing this has an ex-wife that's an emergency room nurse. Would she be able to get hold of anything that could stop this guy's heart in this manner?" Carmichael raised her eyebrows thoughtfully. "Hmm," she said. "A nurse huh? I suppose an emergency room nurse could get hold of a variety of things that would stop someone's heart. A simple injection of potassium chloride would stop someone's heart right in its tracks. But again, there's no sign of needle marks on him." "How about ingestion?" Miller asked. She shook her head. "Drinking it wouldn't work. Besides, his stomach was full of what appeared to be rum and coke. That would've had to have been absorbed first anyway." Miller looked up at the ceiling for a moment in frustration. "Damn," he whispered, his tone quite close to admiration. "How did he do it?" "I just had a thought," Carmichael said quietly. "What's that?" he asked, looking sharply at her. "It's just a thought," she qualified. "Nothing that can be proven or disproved." "What?" "Well," she said carefully, "the cuts on his arm. They were made either at or after the moment that the heart began fibrillating. There's slight blood flow from the wounds indicating minimal perfusion when they were made; the kind of weak perfusion that goes along with V-fib. One of the cuts includes a laceration to the medial antecubital vein." "Yes?" he prompted, not quite picking up the thread of her thought yet. "Well," she went on, "suppose that someone injected our friend here with a lethal dose of something like potassium chloride. If they knew that such an action would leave forensic evidence behind they might be inclined to obliterate that evidence by cutting over the top of it and making it look like just another laceration." Miller looked at her with respectful wonder. "Son of a bitch," he said softly. "You may have just hit upon it." She gave him a doubtful look. "Like I said, it's nothing I can prove or disprove. Wouldn't you think that someone who was smart enough to obliterate the forensic evidence in that way would also be smart enough to know that potassium chloride, or whatever else they used, will be picked up in the tox screen?" Miller nodded. "That's what you would think," he agreed. "Is there anything that they could use that wouldn't show up in the tox screen? At least in a normal once-over?" "Nothing," she proclaimed confidently. "If there's anything in the blood or tissues that is not supposed to be there, the lab will find it." She chuckled. "Unless your suspect has discovered a lethal dose of something that is supposed to be there." "Well he's smart," Miller said, smiling. "But I don't think he's that smart. I think the tox screen is what's gonna nail his ass." "We'll see next week then." ------- At ten-thirty the following Monday morning, Sergeant Miller and Detective Wilson pulled their department issued Chevy Cavalier to the curb in front of Janet Whitecoff's house. Having already learned through the Marshall County Sheriff's Department that Jason was currently staying with his ex-wife, they hadn't even bothered trying to reach him at home. Jason, who had been sipping a cup of coffee while Janet idly folded laundry, saw them coming up the steps. Even if he hadn't recognized Miller from seeing his face at press conferences, he would have known immediately that they were detectives. "They're here, Janet," he said softly and calmly. "The detectives?" she said, just as calmly. "Yep." He nodded. "Remember the plan." "I will," she assured him. "Stick to the story no matter what and ask for a lawyer if they advise me of my rights." "Right." He smiled, letting a touch of his nervousness peek through. "You'll do fine." They went to the door together and Jason flung it open before the two detectives had even had a chance to knock. The two groups of people appraised one another silently for a moment. "Sergeant Miller, I presume," Jason finally said, pleasantly enough. "That's correct," Miller affirmed, keeping his own voice pleasant. He pointed to his companion. "And this is detective Wilson. I suppose if you know who I am, then you probably know why we are here too." Jason nodded. "I was wondering how long it would take you to show up. Won't you two come in?" Miller thanked him and the two homicide detectives stepped inside, their eyes automatically taking in their surroundings, probing behind furniture and into the line of sight of other rooms. "Is your daughter at home?" Miller asked. "No," Janet answered. "She started her first day at her new school today." He nodded, as if he had already known that. "Would you like to take a seat?" Jason offered, waving to the dining room table. "Well," Miller said hesitantly. "The fact of the matter is that we're in quite a hurry. We have to interview the both of you because of, you know, what happened to your daughter recently and the fact that the man who is alleged to have done that do her has turned up dead. We just have to rule you out as," He made quote marks with his fingers, "suspects." "I understand," Jason said neutrally. "And since we have a limited amount of time in which to do this," he went on, "it would make things easier if you and I could go talk in one room while detective Wilson and Mrs. Whitecoff talked in here." Jason was unable to suppress a chuckle. He knew exactly why they wanted to separate Janet and himself and it had nothing to do with how much time they had. They did not want them to hear each other's story. That could only mean that they suspected Janet was a part of the plot. They probably figured her for the weak link in the chain. Jason, however, had anticipated just such a separation. "Is there a problem?" Miller asked, noting the chuckle. "Not at all," Jason replied, shooting the sergeant a look that let him know that his bullshit story wasn't fooling him. "Why don't we go into the den? " He looked at Janet. "Is that okay, Jan?" "Of course," she said pleasantly. "Detective, uh, Wilson was it?" "Yes," he answered, speaking for the first time. "Won't you sit down?" Jason led Miller through the house until they came to the den. One of the larger secondary bedrooms in the house, the den was furnished much as it had been before the divorce. A large computer desk in one corner, a freestanding bookshelf on one wall that contained mostly medical texts. Against the back wall was an imitation leather couch that could be folded out into a bed. Jason waved the sergeant over to the couch. Once the detective was seated, he closed the door and took a seat in the computer chair. "Fire away," he told the detective. "I suppose you want to know where I was on the night in question." Miller smiled, removing a notebook from inside of his suit coat. He opened it up and unclipped a gold pen that was wedged into it. "I wish all of my interviewees were as cooperative," he said. "Before we start, I'd just like to say that questioning you is routine. If you've been watching the news then you know that we haven't even ruled Mr. Buckingham's death as a homicide. We're just covering all of our bases. Since you have reason to think ill of Buckingham, we just want to make sure you're not involved in any way. I'm sure as a fellow cop, you understand that." "Sure," Jason said. "I would've done the same in your position. No hard feelings." "Good," Miller smiled. "Now with that in mind... " He flipped to a page in his notebook. "... Mr. Buckingham died at approximately 9:40 PM on January 23, in a motel room in Fresno. Is there anyway that you can account for your presence at that time?" Jason gave him a crooked smile. "Well, " he said carefully, "on that particular day at that particular time, Janet and I were..." He hesitated. "Well, we were spending some time in a hotel room here in Maldonado." "A hotel room?" Miller raised his eyebrows. "Yes." He nodded. "We've been divorced for quite a while before Chrissie was, you know, raped. Afterward, when I moved back in here to help take care of her and Janet and I were around each other all of the time, and, well, I guess some of the romance came back into our relationship." "I see," Miller said. "And you went to a motel to rekindle this?" "Not a motel," Jason said. "It was the Hilton downtown." Miller made a note of this in his book. "But why did you go to a hotel room? Not to get too personal or anything." "That's okay," Jason said. "It wasn't really a planned thing. You see, we'd been out all day checking out therapists for Chrissie. It was the first time since the rape that we'd been alone with each other and things just kind of came to a head I guess you'd say. After we'd interviewed the therapists we talked about having dinner together, just the two of us, and before we really knew what was happening, we were checking into the Hilton and ordering room service." "What time did you check into the hotel?" he asked. Jason shrugged. "I don't know, probably about 3:30 or so." "And how long did you stay there?" Jason smiled, as if reminiscing. "Quite a while," he said. "It was the best evening I've had in a long time. Especially the best since Chrissie's attack. We probably left there at about 10:30 that night." Miller frowned, his face conveying obvious disbelief. "You stayed at the hotel until 10:30 that night? Seven hours?" "Yep," Jason answered levelly. "Is there anyone who can account for your presence there after you checked in?" He shrugged. "Like I said, we ordered room service." "What time?" "Shortly after we checked in." "So about a quarter to four or so." This was not a question. "Anything later? Did you order dinner that evening? Drinks? Invite some friends over? Make any phone calls?" "Nope." "So you really have no way to prove that you were in the room beyond when the room service waiter brought your food?" "You have my word," Jason replied. This actually struck Miller as quite funny. His word. He laughed out loud. Jason watched him, unoffended. He understood the source of Miller's amusement. "Okay," Miller finally said, moving on to other things. "Where was your daughter while all of this was going on?" "Janet's mother was staying with her." "What is her name?" "Why do you ask?" Jason replied. "Just another string to run out," he said dismissively, as if it wasn't important. "We might need to talk to her to confirm what time you came home." "Okay," Jason said. "But be warned, she can be nasty. And she most definitely doesn't like me." Miller smiled and wrote down Janet's mother's name, address, and phone number as he rattled it off. "I'd appreciate it," he said afterward, "if you wouldn't mention the hotel room to her if you can avoid it. She wouldn't be too keen on that." "I'll see what I can do," Miller assured him. "Now, going back to that day. You said that you and Janet were out checking out therapists earlier in the day. What time did you leave the house that morning?" And so Jason filled him in on every detail of the story they had worked out and drilled into each other. He changed the times slightly so that they would differ a little from the one's that he had fed Janet. They worked their way from awakening in the morning until retiring that night. Miller read back the summary to him, asking if it sounded accurate. Jason agreed that it did. Miller then changed tactics. "How do you feel," he asked, "about Buckingham's death?" "The truth?" Jason said. "The truth." "I couldn't be happier," Jason told him. "When I heard about it on the news I jumped for joy. I wanted to get a bottle of champagne and get drunk. I plan to go piss on his grave after they bury him." "Don't hold back now," Miller said, deadpan, "tell me how you really feel." "Sorry," Jason replied. "But that's how I read it. That scrote brutally raped my daughter. He deserves to be dead." "Your candor is quite refreshing," Miller said. "I must ask if you don't think it's somewhat coincidental that he died mysteriously so soon after the rape?" "Is it mysterious?" Jason asked. "I thought he'd overdosed on rock." "Well let's just say that there are a few things that don't add up." Jason shrugged. "What can I say? He's dead and I'm glad. I didn't kill him." "Did you ever think about killing him?" Miller asked. "Sure," Jason said levelly. "For two weeks after the rape, I could think of hardly anything else. In the end, I knew I would never do it. I know how well cops fare in prison you see. And I would end up hurting Chrissie more in the long run." "So you just accepted it?" Miller asked incredulously. "He rapes your daughter and gets away with it without so much as a bad mention in the newspaper, and you just accepted that?" "What else could I do?" Jason asked simply. "What else indeed?" Miller replied. ------- As they drove through the streets of Maldonado, intending to check out the details that they had been fed, Miller and Wilson compared notes. The stories that the two Whitecoff's had told matched almost to the letter. "Did you try to sweat her a little?" Miller asked. "A little," he said. "She's not a frail little housewife though. She's an emergency room nurse. She's almost as cynical and street-wise as a twenty-year cop. I asked her if she knew of anything that could kill someone without being detected in an autopsy." "And she said?" "She said, and I quote, 'of course. Potassium chloride would be the best way. But it would be picked up on the tox screen'." "Shit," Miller said, shaking his head. "We've got ourselves a couple of tough nuts here." "No shit." For the next three hours they drove all over the Maldonado area. They checked with the Hilton hotel and found the record of Jason Whitecoff checking into the room at 3:20 PM. They found the receipt for the room service that they had ordered, raising their eyebrows over the charge marked "sensuality kit". They checked with all of the therapists and found that the Whitecoff's had in fact been to each one at the time that they said they had been there. They checked with Janet's mother who, in addition to confirming that fact that she had stayed with Chrissie from 9:00 AM to 10:50 PM, also gave them a scathing lecture on her opinion of her ex-son-in-law. Everything that they had been told checked out. But Miller was not fooled. The six-hour gap between their last sighting at the hotel by the room service waiter and their appearance at home allowed for plenty of time to kill Buckingham. In addition to this, there was the troubling two hour and fifteen minute gap between when they had left the house in the morning and when they had arrived at the first therapist's office; a gap into which, according to check-in records, the rental of the motel room in Fresno took place. Both had explained this away by stating they had had breakfast at a local Denny's followed by a trip to the library to research proper therapy techniques. Nobody at the Denny's or the library had any recollection of the Whitecoff's being there. The problem was that there was no way to prove or even find out what they had actually been doing during those two time periods. He was down to relying solely on the tox screen. ------- "Nothing," Jean Carmichael told him on the phone the following Friday. "Nothing?" Miller said in disbelief. "How can there be nothing? What the hell did he die from?" "Nothing that can be determined," she told him. "I gotta hand it to your suspect. If this was a murder, he's discovered the perfect way to do it. There is absolutely nothing that can be detected that caused this man's death." "How is that possible?" Miller demanded. "The tox screen is completely clean?" "Well, there's the usual stuff that we expected," she told him. "He had a blood alcohol level of .183. That's pretty drunk but not enough to kill or even incapacitate someone. He had a pretty good level of cocaine in his blood, but again, not enough to kill, even with the alcohol thrown in." "Nothing else? No pharmaceuticals?" "Oh sure, he had other things in there. But nothing unexpected. There was a lot of epinephrine, atropine, lidocaine, some isupril, some bretillyum, an elevated level of sodium bicarbonate. All of which is stuff that they pumped him full of while they were trying to save him." "None of those levels were more than usual?" Miller asked, catching the faintest glimmer of what had really happened. "Nope," she replied, shooting down his glimmer before it could be fully formed. "Every stiff we do a tox screen on has those drugs on board if they passed through the emergency room. All of them are standard advanced cardiac life support measures and all of them are documented in the medical records that the paramedics and the ER sent over. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Mr. Buckingham except for the fact that he's dead." "So what is your final ruling going to be?" he asked. "Unknown cause," she told him. "I can't rule it as a homicide unless you bring me some fact that allows that. Sorry." "No problem," he told her, shaking his head, partially in admiration, partially in frustration. "I have one more card to play. Maybe something will turn up." "Let me know," she told him, breaking the connection. ------- The following day, at ten o'clock in the morning, Janet and Jason walked in the front door of the Fresno Police Department's main office. They had driven there in response to a phone call the previous evening from Sergeant Miller. He had asked that they come down so that he could record their "official statement" for the file. Jason had agreed, even though he knew exactly what was happening. Miller wanted to get them into an interrogation room and try to sweat a confession out of them. Homicide detectives were masters of interrogation. Better bullshitters than used car salesmen, they could cajole, hound, befriend, lie to, and pry at someone for hours until that person admitted that they were the one who had done it. They would speak of evidence that did not exist. They would talk of reduced charges if the person would only tell what had really happened. It was not well known to the public that the majority of homicides were cleared, not because of forensic evidence or eyewitnesses, but because the stupid perpetrator actually confessed his crime to a smooth-talking detective. It was this, Jason knew, that Miller was attempting to accomplish today. Jason, however, was going to have none of it. ------- "Sergeant Whitecoff," Miller asked pleasantly enough. "How are you today?" They were in a small room in the back of the police building. The door had no doorknob on it but it did have a small peephole in the top that Jason had already pegged as a pinhole video camera. There was a small table and two chairs and not much else in the room. No windows, no pictures, no sink or toilet. Janet had been spirited off by detective Wilson, undoubtedly to a similar room in some other part of the building. "I'm surviving," Jason replied amicably. "What can I do for you today?" "Well," Miller said, opening the briefcase that sat next to him. "Like I told you on the phone, we need to officially record your statement for the file. It's just a formality." "Of course," Jason replied. "But before we do that," he said, offhandedly. "There is some routine paperwork that we need to do." "And that would be?" "Well, it's the standard Miranda warning," Miller said, shaking his head as if annoyingly amused. "You know how it is. Every time we interview someone about something, we have to do this." He pulled a pre-printed form out of his briefcase and slid it across the table to Jason. It had the police department's seal on the front and the Miranda warning printed below that. "I'm sure you're familiar with this," he said. "Now if you'll just read along with me." "By all means," Jason replied. "Okay," Miller said. "You understand that you have the absolute right to remain silent." "Of course." "Good." Miller smiled. "Now if you'll just initial right there next to that line indicating that you understand that." From nowhere he produced a cheap ballpoint pen that he handed to Jason. Jason took it and initialed where told. "Great," Miller said. "Next line. If you should give up the right to remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." "Got it," Jason agreed, initialing the line. "Good. Next line. You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during questioning." "Check," Jason said, initialing. "If you cannot afford an attorney, the County of Fresno will provide one for you at no cost." "I understand." "And finally, if you decide to speak without the presence of an attorney, you can stop questioning at anytime and request an attorney." "I get it," Jason said, scratching his initials. "Outstanding," Miller told him, smiling broadly. He shook his head in amusement. "Sometimes the paperwork is just a hindrance to things, you know what I mean?" "I sure do," Jason assured him. "Okay," Miller said, taking the Miranda warning that Jason had signed and making it disappear. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, one last piece of paperwork." He pulled another form from his briefcase and then nearly chanted, "Having been informed of your rights, do you agree to speak with me now, without the presence of an attorney?" Jason smiled. "No." "Okay," Miller said. "If you'll just sign..." He paused, confused. "Did you say no?" "I did," Jason affirmed. "I will not speak to you any further without an attorney present." "Look, Jason," Miller said. "This is just routine paperwork. We fill it out for everyone we interview. It doesn't mean..." "Let's cut the bullshit, Miller," Jason interrupted. "I'm not some dirtbag off of the streets that you think popped off one of his drug customers because he didn't pay the money that he owed for a front. I'm a cop, just like you are. If you're reading me my rights, it's because you think I killed Buckingham. If I'm now considered a suspect, I'm not saying another word without a lawyer present." Miller stared at him for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. The interview was not going as he had anticipated. A veteran interrogator, he quickly recovered and changed tactics. "All right," he said. "We'll cut the bullshit, as requested. You're right. I am being forced to consider you as a suspect, as much as it pains me to have to think that about another cop." He took a deep breath. "The simple fact of the matter is that I'm trying to be your advocate here. You could get yourself in a lot of trouble by not cooperating with me and believe me, I don't want to see that happen. We've turned up some disturbing pieces of forensic evidence at the crime scene and we've gotten a couple of witness statements from the motel room that places you and your wife there. We know that the story you told about how you and your wife were in the hotel room all night is a bunch of bullshit and we need to have this explained or we're probably gonna have to book you for the murder of Buckingham. You'll be booked into the jail and at the very least, end up losing your job. Now maybe you two were just following Buckingham around, waiting for him to try and rape another girl or something. Or maybe you had some part in what happened to him but it was a mistake of some kind. That part is unclear but we need to hear what you really did that night." Miller, Jason realized, was good. He was trying to get him to admit that he had been at the motel that night, just enough of an admission to blow the lid off of the case. Even though he knew that detectives were allowed to lie to suspects in the interrogation room and to make up non-existent evidence, the allegation that they could place him and Janet at the motel was frightening. The unschooled, he knew, would quickly start blabbering and Miller would have a signed confession within two hours. But Jason was not the unschooled. "If you're going to arrest me," Jason said simply. "Then go ahead and do it. I won't say another word to you without a lawyer present." "Jason," Miller said, flustered. "You have to work with..." "Be careful," Jason warned, pointing at the pinhole in the door. "This is all being recorded you know. If you press much further, you're gonna get your case thrown out for illegal interrogation." Miller stared at him for a moment. "Okay," he finally said, disgusted. "This interview is terminated. Wait here until I see what we're going to do next." He left the room, leaving Jason locked in and alone with his thoughts. Jason hoped Janet was holding up. They would throw the big guns at her. ------- "... and having been informed of your rights," Miller read to her mechanically. "Do you agree to speak to me now, without the presence of an attorney?" "No I do not," Janet said, firmly though with obvious nervousness in her voice. "You don't wish to speak to me?" Miller asked, his voice steady but a smile behind his eyes. Janet had not actually asked for an attorney, which meant he could keep talking for the moment. As Jason had suspected, he intended to use Janet to break the case open. That was why he had interviewed her last. "No, I do not," she repeated, wringing her hands. "I think you're making a mistake, Janet," he told her, shaking his head. "Some very disturbing things have turned up in the investigation." "Oh?" she asked. "Like what?" "Witness statements," Miller told her, "that place you and Jason at the motel that night. We also have collected some forensic evidence from inside. You two were very careful in there, but you weren't quite careful enough." "I don't know what you're talking about," she told him, averting her eyes as she did so. Miller, figuring he had her in his sights, delivered the coup de grace. "It's all over," he said. "Your husband is now cooperating with us." "What do you mean?" "I mean that he's talking. Look Janet, believe it or not, we're trying to help you two here. Jason is a cop, just like we are. We don't want to see a cop or his wife go to jail. Not over some scumbag rapist. We explained this to your husband and told him about the evidence we'd found and he agreed that your story needed to be modified some. It needs to be explained what you two were doing at that motel room with Buckingham. If that's not satisfactorily explained, we're gonna have to book you two into the jail on a murder charge." "A murder charge?" Janet said, alarm in her voice. "Yes." He nodded, sensing the kill. "Now maybe you two were just following Buckingham around, waiting for him to try and rape another girl. Or maybe you went to that motel room with other intentions and some kind of accident occurred. But we need to know, you understand, if we're going to help you. Jason's job and freedom are hanging in the balance here. Yours too." Janet sat silently for a moment, pondering what she was being told. Could it be true? Surely after all the warnings he had given her about talking to the detectives after they read her the Miranda warning, he would not begin cooperating. He had explained that they would lie to her, that it was allowed legally, but Miller sounded so convincing. Was it possible to lie so well? "So what do you say, Janet?" Miller prompted. "How about we start from the beginning and work this thing out?" Janet looked at him, trying to see what was going on behind the detective's eyes. She saw nothing. She had trusted Jason this far, she would just have to carry that one more step. "No," she said firmly. "I don't wish to speak with you any more." Miller lowered his head, flustered. "Janet," he said, "I told you..." "Excuse me," she interrupted, bolder now. "Didn't you just read me a statement and have me sign it? Didn't it say I could stop questioning at anytime?" "Yes, but..." "Then that's what I'm doing," she told him. "This is all getting a little deep. I want a lawyer before I say anything else." Miller gave her a crooked smile. "All right, Janet," he said softly. "The interview is at an end. Wait here while we figure out what to do with you." ------- Jason waited ninety minutes before the door to his interrogation room re-opened and Sergeant Miller poked his head in. "Jason," he said tonelessly. "Will you come with me please?" He stood up, stretching his legs as he did so. "Am I under arrest now?" Miller offered him a slanted smile but said nothing. He walked off down the hall, taking it on faith that Jason would follow. Jason did. He was led through a serious of hallways, down a flight of stairs, through the empty patrol briefing room and finally to a small break room that adjoined it. The break room looked pretty much as the one in the Marshall Sheriff's Department's north station where he worked. A large industrial coffee maker that smelled of overcooked coffee. A few vending machines that distributed sodas and candy bars. A microwave oven. A few scarred chairs and tables to sit at. Janet was sitting at one of the chairs, her face carefully composed. Detective Wilson stood next to her, sipping at a cup of coffee. As they entered the room, Wilson retreated, sharing an uninterpretable look with Miller before sliding out the door. Jason looked at Janet, trying to gleam some sense of understanding from her face. Miller shut the door behind him and waved Jason to the table where Janet sat. "Have a seat." He stared at him for a moment, debating what track his attitude should take. Finally he pulled a chair out and sat down. Miller pulled a chair over from another table and joined them. "Congratulations," Miller told them. "You've done what you set out to do." Jason and Janet looked at each other for a moment and then looked back at Miller. "I beg your pardon?" Jason finally asked. "The murder of Chad Buckingham," he said, staring at them intently. "You've gotten away with it. At least for now. You have successfully called my bluff." "Look, Miller," Jason said. "I don't know what kind of..." Miller held up his hand. "It's okay," he told them. "Look around. We're in the break room, not an interrogation room. No recording devices of any kind are in operation. This conversation is completely off the record. I will ask you no more questions about Buckingham's death and I implore you not to volunteer me any information that I would be forced to act upon." He took a deep breath. "My congratulations are sincere." "I'm not sure what you mean," Jason, dumbfounded, finally replied. "Of course you don't," Miller answered. "So let me explain it to you. I know that you two killed Buckingham." Jason started to interrupt but was cut-off. "You don't need to protest," Miller said quickly. "Like I said, this is not an interrogation. You are not talking to Sergeant Miller, homicide investigator for the Fresno Police Department right now. You're talking to Gary Miller, a forty-eight year old man and father of two, including a daughter, who has spent his career observing what a pile of shit our justice system in this country is. A justice system that would allow a sixteen-year-old girl to be brutally raped and probably scarred for life and that does nothing to pursue her rapist because he happens to be a football hero. And let me assure you, Gary Miller applauds what you two have done and wants to know nothing more about how you've done it. Gary Miller sees absolutely nothing in the world wrong with the removal of a piece of excrement like Buckingham from society. Since our so-called justice system wouldn't do it, he's glad that someone like yourselves had the courage to do it anyway. He's also glad that you had the intelligence to do it in the manner in which you did. A manner which allows Sergeant Miller, the homicide detective, to try his damnedest to arrest and convict you two for this crime, and to fail at this task." He paused, his eyes warming up slightly now. "You see, I really did pull out all the stops in this investigation. I had no other choice. This is a high profile case, everyone is watching and no slip-ups would be tolerated. My men did the same. The crime scene was combed over with a fine tooth comb. We interviewed anyone who might have known anything. We back tracked your trail for the last three days and did the same for Buckingham. I used my very best interrogation techniques once I got you two in here. And in the end, I'm glad to say, you've beaten me. "The crime scene was immaculate. It raised a lot of questions you know but it provided absolutely no answers. We know that Buckingham's trail ended abruptly at the CSUF gym on Friday night. We have multiple witnesses who saw him working out there. We have two freshman girls who said he invited them to a party that night. Beyond that, he disappeared completely until his body was found later that night in the motel room. A motel room that he didn't rent. However you managed to get him there, you did it completely without observation. Nobody saw him leave the campus, nobody saw him enter the motel room. Nobody saw you two at or anywhere near the City of Fresno that night. I checked everything trying to come up with just a single fact that could place you in this fair city. That right there would have been enough to propel this thing forward. I checked your cell phone usage for the night in question. Neither one of you made a call. I checked your financial transactions, which turned up one interesting thing, the fact that Jason withdrew three hundred dollars from his savings account the day before Buckingham's death." He shook his head and waggled his finger comically. "Awfully suspicious, Mr. Whitecoff," he admonished playfully. "Especially since you charged your hotel room, especially since Mr. Buckingham's room was rented with cash, specifically twenty dollar bills. But it's nothing that I can hang my hat on without any corroborating evidence. I'm sure you have a reasonable, non-verifiable explanation for why you withdrew that money. Don't bother telling me. I don't want to know. "But that's all just icing on the cake. The masterpiece of this whole deal is the cause of death." He smiled, admiration obvious in his expression. "Whatever you did to Buckingham, it has gone completely undetected. The coroner cannot even determine what the cause of death was. In the absence of any evidence of murder, which is pretty much where we stand at this point, his death is not even going to be ruled as a homicide. Unknown cause, suspicious, is how it's going to classified for now. Whatever you did, it was brilliant and I salute you. If you had left me even a single crumb of evidence, if you'd said a single wrong thing in the interrogation room, I would have at least been able to get a search warrant and check your cars and your houses. But you didn't even give me enough for that. Any judge would've laughed at my probable cause." "So what happens now?" Jason, dumbfounded by this speech asked. "Now," Miller said brightly. "You two go home and go about your lives. Janet, you should be clear and free as far as your job goes. Jason, you might have a few minor problems with the Sheriff's department." "Oh?" Jason said, raising his eyebrows. "Well," Miller said apologetically. "As I said, I was forced to pull out all the stops during the investigation. One of the steps I had to take was to call your department's internal affairs division and request that they make an inquiry into whether or not you've been using the department's computers to gather information on Buckingham. They got back to me the next day and informed me that neither you nor anyone else has run Buckingham's name through the system. So that avenue was closed off for our investigation but unfortunately your internal affairs division has been officially told that you were a suspect in the death of Buckingham. I imagine that they'll have a few questions for you when you go back to work." "Great," Jason muttered, already anticipating such an interview. "But I wouldn't worry too much," Miller pointed out. "Like I said before, we don't have any evidence that a crime took place. I imagine that your union contract is pretty much the same as ours is in regards to IA investigation. They can compel you to take a polygraph exam only when there is evidence that wrongdoing has been done. You've broken no departmental rules that they would be able to prove and there is no criminal evidence that a murder took place. If you can handle me in this matter, then I imagine that you can handle them." "I suppose I can," Jason agreed. "So that's about it then," Miller concluded. "The Buckingham file will be kept of course but it won't even go on the books as a homicide unless something turns up. And I pretty much doubt that anything further is going to turn up." He paused. "I do have one favor to ask of you though." "And what might that be?" Jason enquired. "I'm retiring in two more years. Once that occurs I'll be just another civilian." "Uh huh," Jason said. "Let's say that my curiosity is quite piqued. What I'd really like to do is come by your house after I've retired and maybe talk about the various ways that someone could be killed without leaving a trace of evidence." Jason stared at him for a moment. "Well, Sergeant Miller," he said with a smile. "Since Janet and I had nothing whatsoever to do with Buckingham's death, I don't think I could help you in that regard." He considered. "But if you were to drop by sometime say, maybe three years or so after you're retired, maybe we could have a few beers together and converse about a few things. Who knows, maybe we could come up with a way that something like that could be done." "I'll be looking forward to it," Miller smiled, standing up. Janet and Jason did the same. "In the meantime," he said, extending his hand and shaking with both of them. "Via con dios. You're both free to go. Thank you for your time." "No," Jason said. "Thank you." They left a few minutes later and they went about their lives. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2004-09-29 Last Modified: 2004-10-06 / 01:07:48 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------