Brendan came back into the room after he had seen the boys put in the squad cars, and on their way to jail. Gwen Martin was still with Taylor and Nicole. All three of them looked profoundly depressed.
“What an awful morning,” Taylor said and invited the detectives to sit down for a minute before they left. Nicole had Taylor’s assistant bring coffee for the four of them, which no one touched.
“It’s going to be a mess now when their parents and attorneys get involved,” Dominic predicted, and Taylor nodded. He was going to call and tell them what had occurred in a few minutes. It wasn’t a total surprise given what had happened and the fingerprint matches, and it had included them in the excessive drinking. But this was going to be a shock to their parents, who must have been praying as they all were that the DNA didn’t match.
“They took it better than I expected,” Gwen said quietly. “They’re actually nicer than their parents,” she said with a sad smile.
“That’s often the case,” Taylor admitted, thinking of Jamie and Shepard Watts, who had been a beast to deal with since it started, and would undoubtedly be even worse now. Their friendship of three years had dissolved in the last two weeks, and Shep had shown a side of himself Taylor hated to see, which wasn’t worthy of him. He was willing to do anything to save his son, no matter who he sacrificed.
“We’ll try to get a statement from Vivienne now, once the dust settles a little,” Gwen said. “The boys will calm down once they’re out on bail, particularly if they have a year until a trial, if they plead not guilty and stick to it. This will all seem unreal to them in a few days. But they’re going to have to face it eventually. There’s no running away from this. Will you let them come back to school while they’re out on bail?” Gwen was curious, and Taylor thought about it for a minute and glanced at Nicole.
“We can’t. They’re innocent until proven guilty here too. But we’ll have to suspend them immediately. There’s the question of the tequila incident, which is grounds for immediate expulsion here. We’ll either expel them or suspend them, but either way, they’re not coming back, at least not until they’re acquitted at a trial. They can complete the school year on home study, but we won’t give them their diplomas until they’re acquitted. We won’t graduate them if they’re convicted. The crime is too serious. And their shot at a top college next year is gone, probably forever, if they’re convicted. They’ll be felons, and Rick a registered sex offender.”
“They can finish high school in prison,” Gwen said. With juveniles she was always somewhat torn between the victims and the perpetrators, because the perpetrators were victims in a way too, through their own fault and foolishness, without full understanding of the consequences until too late. But in this case with an innocent juvenile rape victim, she felt no mercy.
Dominic Brendan stood up then, and Gwen followed suit. “We’ve got work to do. I imagine their attorneys will be all over us by this afternoon,” Dominic said quietly. They left a few minutes later, and Taylor was just about to talk to Nicole, when his assistant said that Shepard Watts was on the line and it was urgent.
“Here we go,” he said to Nicole, and took the call as she whispered “Good luck!” and left the room. It had been a morning she knew she would never forget. The media would be next. “Hello, Shep. I’m sorry,” he said before Shepard Watts could say anything. They both knew why he was calling. Jamie must have called him as soon as he got to jail.
“If you are, you’ll do everything in your power to get Jamie out of this nightmarish mess. I don’t know what happened that night and neither do you, but if Rick Russo raped the girl, Jamie was not an accessory and had nothing to do with it. He’s a terrific kid, and she must be some kind of slut to have sucked them into this, probably literally, and now he’s in jail. I can promise you, Taylor, I’ll destroy you and the school if you don’t get him out of this and have them drop the charges. The others can burn in hell for all I care.” Shepard sounded on the verge of tears, and in fact had burst into tears when Jamie called and said he had been arrested and was in jail. Jamie had sounded surprisingly calm and apologized profusely to his father. Shep had already called the attorney they had hired for Jamie at the time of the fingerprints, and he was on his way there. But he had also told Shepard that he couldn’t get Jamie out on bail until it was set at the arraignment, if the judge set bail. He could choose not to, given the gravity of the crime and the charges. It was entirely at the judge’s discretion. Shepard had gone ballistic when he told him.
“I want the charges against Jamie dropped!” he shouted at Taylor again over the phone. “Do you hear me?”
“I’d like nothing better than to get them all out of it if they’re innocent. It’s not in my hands, Shep. It’s up to the police. The girl didn’t bring charges either. They were brought by the state. This is a serious, violent crime. She was raped. No woman deserves that. She’s not a ‘slut.’ She’s a terrific girl too. They have a DNA match with Rick Russo, with solid evidence, and they all lied in the investigation. There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I hate this as much as you do. Everything goes to hell when kids get drunk like that, but not every man or boy commits rape when they’ve been drinking. Your son didn’t, but he covered up the crime to protect his friend, they all did, so now they’re all in trouble.”
“I’m just telling you, Taylor, I expect you to do something to get the charges dropped against him, or you’ll rue the day you met me!” Taylor already did. Shepard’s loyalty to his family and his children was admirable, but the evidence couldn’t be denied, as his son’s attorney had told him too. Shep had demanded that he find some loophole or technicality to get Jamie out of it, and the lawyer had told him that rape was an explosive issue and the court was not likely to be sympathetic to any of them. The public outcry would be considerable. And whatever the judge did would go viral. Jamie had to go through the normal proceedings like everyone else, waiting for the arraignment on Wednesday, pleading guilty or not, arguing to convince the judge to set bail despite the violence of the crime he was accused of being an accessory to, paying his bail, and then building the case to go to trial. Or, if Jamie admitted guilt to being an accessory and lying to the police, trying to get the best deal they could for him to plea bargain the sentence and have the charges reduced, if the judge and district attorney were willing, which was unlikely in the current climate. There was no mystery or magic to it. Jamie Watts was in a very serious situation, as they all were, and no amount of threats or shouting at Taylor was going to change that. Jamie understood that far better than his father.
* * *
—
When the boys arrived at the jail, looking frightened, they were fingerprinted again, their mug shots were taken, a police officer told them to take their clothes off and put them in plastic bags with their names on them. They were strip-searched, and a cavity search was performed by another officer. The boys looked horrified by the time they were taken to three cells and put two to a cell in orange jumpsuits, with rubber flip-flops. Their valuables and wallets had been inventoried and checked in. Three of them were wearing Rolex watches, and two of them Tag Heuers, which were their prize possessions. They were each allowed to call their parents, and the conversations had been brief and agonizing. There had been tears on both sides.