“Yeah. I think I can find it.” They’d driven by it on school outings, although he’d never been inside.
“Then let’s go.” They both stood up, and Adrian followed him to his car. Adrian debated about telling someone at the school where he was going, and decided not to. They might not give him permission to go, and they would definitely want to know why he was going to the police.
“Will you get in trouble for going off campus without permission?” Sam questioned him, and Adrian shrugged.
“Not really. No one pays attention to what I do. I float all over the campus all the time. And I’ve been sleeping in the infirmary since my asthma came back, so they don’t miss me in the dorm.”
“Maybe it will go away again now,” Sam said gently. This had obviously been weighing heavily on him. Sam was glad Adrian had called him. He wouldn’t have dared go to the police alone. And Sam knew what he’d seen was important.
They found the police station easily and Adrian followed Sam inside. The station was busy, and when Sam asked for Detective Martin, a small woman in jeans and a plaid shirt came out and looked at them. She had wondered if some kid was playing a trick on them, but they were there and Sam looked respectable. He was wearing a suit and tie, since he’d had a brief court appearance before he’d left New York. He had short dark hair and serious, sympathetic gray eyes. There was nothing pompous about him. He seemed warm and sincere, and concerned with Adrian’s well-being. He explained that he was a child advocacy attorney in New York and Adrian was his client.
Gwen led the way to the office she was using while they were there. It was small and cramped with a pile of files on the desk, and she smiled at Adrian.
“I think I’ve seen you at school,” Gwen said. Adrian nodded, he had seen her too, and Sam spoke for him, and said he was a court-appointed attorney and had been assigned to represent Adrian for the last three years on family matters. He handed Gwen his card, and she placed it on her desk.
“Adrian wants to know that he has complete anonymity. He doesn’t want to be identified as an informant, but I think he has information you’ll be interested in. He’s concerned that he didn’t report it earlier. He was afraid to, so he contacted me, and I came up from New York. I normally handle family court matters for him, this is unusual for both of us. It might be new information for you or corroborate the evidence you have.” Gwen liked him immediately. Sam was smart and to the point and she could see that Adrian was terrified. His eyes were huge in his small pale face, and he took a puff on his inhaler while Sam talked. She could also see that he trusted Sam and how kind the lawyer was to him.
“You have asthma?” she asked Adrian directly, and he nodded. “Me too. It’s a pain in the ass. I hate it,” she said and he laughed. “Mine got better when I grew up. Yours probably will too.”
“Mine gets really bad when I’m anxious,” he explained.
“Well, you don’t need to be anxious here. We’re grateful for any help you can give us. And I understand if it took you a while to tell us. It’s scary coming to the police with information like that. Why don’t you tell me what you saw.” She was very relaxed as she talked to him, and Sam observed how adept she was with kids. She put Adrian at ease in about two minutes, with an air of kindness and a gentle, friendly way of speaking to him. Sam liked her style.
“I thought you were going to put me in jail because I didn’t tell you right away,” he admitted and she smiled at him again.
“No way. My name’s Gwen, by the way.” Sam noticed her freckles and green eyes and was touched by how warm she was with Adrian.
“I’m Adrian.” He sat up a little straighter and felt important and respected in her presence.
“Are you a senior?” He was flattered, and pushed his mop of hair out of his face, so she could see him better. He had big sad eyes.
“No, a junior,” he corrected her, and then he told her everything he had told Sam, and a few additional minor details. Gwen listened intently the entire time. He gave her all six boys’ names. They were their prime suspects, but it corroborated what they already believed, and gave them a witness at the scene, at the time of the crime, or just after. It was strong evidence against them. It confirmed to her that Vivienne had not been “fine” as they claimed when they left. She was deeply unconscious and had already been raped, since the ambulance came minutes later. And they had left her unconscious and in extremis. All they needed now was the DNA match.
“This is exactly what we need, Adrian. I can’t thank you enough.” He looked worried for a minute again then.
“Will they go to prison because of me?”
“Whoever goes to prison will go because of them and what they did. You didn’t commit the crime. They did, or one of them did and the others must have known about it. And they left her unconscious. We already have some pretty solid evidence against them, and we’re waiting for some more to come through. But there was no eyewitness to place them there, or establish how she was when they left. It’s all been guesswork on our part. This tells us that we’re on the right track.” He nodded, and felt less responsible for their fate. “We don’t arrest people unless we have strong evidence against them. We don’t just do it on assumptions.”
“It’s sad really,” Adrian said softly, “some of them seem like really good guys.” He had always admired Jamie from afar, and thought he looked like a really nice guy, and he thought Chase was handsome, like a movie star, and Gabe Harris was really buff. Steve and Rick seemed kind of stuck up to him, and he didn’t see Tommy Yee very often, he was always practicing or studying. “Will they go to prison for a long time?”
“They could. That depends on the judge and how he assesses the circumstances and what happened.”
“Is the girl okay now?”
“Yeah, more or less. That’s a terrible thing to have happen.”
“They were really, really drunk. They could hardly stand up or walk.”
“That’s not smart either. I want to thank you both for coming in. This is going to help us a lot. I’ll type this up anonymously. And I’ll keep your contact information and Sam’s separate in my safe.”
“Will I have to go to court?” He looked suddenly panicked.
“No.” And if he did, Gwen knew she could arrange to have him heard in chambers, given his age, and his asthma. “If you both wait a few minutes, I’ll type this up really fast and have you sign it. Is that okay with you?” They both nodded, and she walked them out to the waiting room and left them there. She was back less than ten minutes later, while Adrian looked around at the people who came in and out. He was finding it interesting more than scary, and whispered to Sam that he would have loved to see what kind of computers they used. Sam smiled. Their visit had gone really well, and she had put Adrian totally at ease. When Gwen came back, Adrian read and signed his statement, and she handed her card to each of them, with her cellphone number on it, and thanked Adrian again for being brave enough to come in, and a responsible citizen. Sam told her that his cellphone number was on the card he had given her, and it was the best way to reach him. Adrian left the station feeling ten feet tall, and pranced around as they walked to Sam’s car.