Breath of Scandal Read online

  “I didn’t get into trouble, Sheriff Jolly.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Can I wait until my mother gets here?” She didn’t want to have to tell her story more than once. “The doctor at the hospital promised to call her and tell her to meet me here.” The deputy hadn’t given Jade time to place the call herself.

  “Velta’s already in the squad room, chomping at the bit,” he said. “But I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say before we bring her in.”

  “Why was I put in this interrogation room?”

  “ ’Cause it’s convenient and private.”

  She gazed at him mistrustfully. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No one said you did. What happened?”

  He won their staring contest. Jade glanced down at her tightly clasped hands and took a deep breath. “Neal, Lamar, and Hutch came up on Donna Dee and me where we had run out of gas. They took me away in Neal’s car against my will. They drove to a place where they had been drinking beer and fishing earlier this afternoon and they…” She raised her head and met his eyes. “They took turns raping me.”

  He stared at her for several long moments but said nothing.

  Jade added, “I’m afraid Donna Dee might have been hurt, too.”

  “The deputy told me you had asked about her. I called her house. She’s at home. Unharmed.”

  She took a deep breath of relief. “Thank heaven.”

  His voice was low and confidence-inspiring when he spoke again. “That’s a real serious charge to be making against those boys, Jade.”

  “Rape is a serious crime.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe they would do something like that.”

  “It was hard for me to believe, too. This time yesterday, I would never have thought it possible.”

  “Well then,” he said, “why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

  Chapter Four

  Neal’s room was still dark when his father flung open the door and stormed in. Ivan moved straight to the bed, whipped back the covers, and brought his hand down hard on Neal’s bare buttocks.

  ���You little shit!”

  Neal rolled to the other side of the bed and leaped up. Father and son confronted each other across the rumpled bed. Neal was naked. Ivan was wearing boxer shorts and an old-fashioned white tank T-shirt. His iron-gray hair was standing on end at various points around his head. Even so, he didn’t cut a comic figure. His scowl was fearsome.

  “What the fuck got into you?” Neal demanded, settling his hands on his narrow hips. He looked tousled, drowsy, and sullen. His fine, hard body was a product of genetics rather than conditioning. It performed well in sports arenas, but Neal didn’t exert it unless it was absolutely necessary. He took his lean, strong physique as his due.

  “I just got a telephone call from Fritz,” Ivan told him.

  “So? It’s the middle of the night. I’m going back to bed.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  Neal’s head was halfway back to his pillow when Ivan caught him by the hair and pulled him up. He gave him a swift kick in the rear. Neal careened into the nearest wall. He spun around, fists raised, ready to do combat.

  “Did you rape a girl last night?”

  Neal immediately lowered his fists. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Jade Sperry, who’s down at the courthouse accusing you of rape, that’s what I’m talking about.” Ivan pointed a stern index finger at the center of Neal’s chest. “You’d better tell me the truth, boy.” Ivan’s roar would have awakened the dead.

  Neal’s eyes darted around the dim bedroom, lighting briefly on several items before finally coming to rest on Ivan’s thunderous countenance. “If she claims it was rape, she’s telling a goddamn lie.”

  “So you do know what I’m talking about, you lying little son of a bitch.”

  “I’m not lying!” Neal shouted. “Hutch, Lamar, and me picked her up and took her fishing with us. We drank some beer. Had some laughs. She got friendly—I mean real friendly, Daddy. She asked for it, and she got it.”

  Ivan glared at him, his shrewd eyes reflecting the breaking dawn light like shards of glass. “Bullshit. That Sperry girl ain’t white trash. She’s stuck like glue to that Parker boy. What would she want with you three stooges?”

  Neal cursed beneath his breath and plowed a hand through his mussed hair. “I tell you, Daddy, she’s been asking for it. She makes out like she’s hot for Parker and nobody else, but every chance she gets, she wags her tail in my face. Then, when her boyfriend comes around, she goes back to being snooty and treating me like a pile of dogshit she’s stepped in.

  “You think I’m going to take that kind of crap from a girl? Hell no! Last night I decided to give her a taste of what a real man is like. If she wants to call it rape, that’s her problem.”

  “The hell it is!” Ivan had listened to Neal’s explanation with surprising patience. Now he ground his teeth. “It’s not just her problem. She’s made it the sheriff’s problem. And now it’s my problem.”

  Neal idly scratched his crotch. “What are you going to do?”

  “Not a goddamn thing.”

  “Huh?” Neal’s stance lost some of its swagger.

  “I’m doing nothing until you level with me and tell me what happened. Did you force that girl?”

  Neal’s shoulders rose in a tense shrug. “Things got a little rough.” Quickly he added, “But I know she wanted it.”

  “What about Hutch and Lamar?”

  “They wanted a piece, too.” He grinned. “I’m not selfish.”

  Ivan almost backhanded him for his insolence, then decided not to expend the energy and lowered his raised hand. “Hutch, I can see. But I can’t imagine that titmouse of Myrajane’s forcing himself between a girl’s legs.”

  “Lamar needed some egging on, but he did all right.”

  There was a knock at the door. They turned to see their housekeeper, Eula, standing on the threshold. “Will y’all be wanting your mornin’ coffee now, Mr. Patchett?”

  “No!” Ivan barked. “I’ll tell you when I want my coffee.”

  “Yessir. Just askin’.”

  She withdrew. Ivan stared at the empty doorway for a moment, then said to Neal, “Why didn’t y’all go to nigger town and pick a gal who would keep her trap shut? Why’d you have to poke that Sperry girl?”

  “She had it coming, that’s why.”

  “Christ, what a mess.”

  Neal, seeming unconcerned, moved to the bed and stepped into the jeans he’d slung over the footboard the night before. “What’re you going to do, Daddy?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let me think.” Ivan paced the length of the bed. “They could lock you away for quite a spell on a rape conviction, you know.”

  “Why, that’s crap,” Neal stammered. “That’s bullshit. They can’t send a guy to prison for screwing a girl who damn well needed to be screwed.”

  Ivan said, “I know that and you know that. We just gotta make certain everybody else feels the way we do.”

  “Well, I’m not going to jail, that’s for damn sure. In jail the niggers fuck white boys in the ass. You’ve got to do something, Daddy.”

  “Shut up and let me think!” Ivan shouted. Then suddenly he slapped Neal hard across the face. “You little bastard. You perfectly ruined my day.”

  * * *

  Jade rested her head on her folded arms on the table in the interrogation room. The backs of her eyelids were hot and gritty. She had been kept at the courthouse all night. She had been allowed to go to the restroom only once, and then a deputy had escorted her there and back. It was as though she were under arrest, while, to her knowledge, nothing had been done to apprehend her attackers.

  She had told Sheriff Jolly her story twice, keeping her descriptions precise. During the second telling, she hadn’t altered a single word from the first. Her remarkable memory had always served her wel
l in school. Tonight, she had used it to give an accurate account of the gang rape. No matter how embarrassing the details, she hadn’t glossed over them.

  Without being abusive, the sheriff had tried to confound her. “Jade, Hutch was at home when I left a while ago.”

  “I don’t know where he is now. I only know where he was and what he was doing about seven o’clock this evening.”

  “That’s when you say it happened?”

  “That is when it happened. Hutch wasn’t at home then, was he?”

  “He came in around nine and said he’d been out with Neal and Lamar.”

  “He had been. They raped me.”

  Fritz had dragged a large hand down his ruddy face, stretching the loose skin. “How do you account for the time between seven o’clock, when the alleged rape took place, and the time you arrived at the hospital, which was…” He consulted the deputy’s spiral notebook. “You got to the hospital at eleven-thirty-four.”

  “For a long time after they left me, I lay there. Then I crawled to the highway. When the car came up behind me—”

  “I thought you said it was a pickup.”

  “I did. It was a pickup. But at first I imagined it was Neal’s car. I panicked and tried to hide in the ditch. The black man coaxed me out of the ditch and into his truck. He drove me to the hospital.”

  “He didn’t give you his name?”

  “No.”

  “And you can’t describe him?”

  “It was dark. All I know is that he had on a hat and overalls.”

  “That could be any man in the South. Wonder why, if he treated you so kindly, he didn’t come into the hospital with you? Why’d he just vanish into thin air?”

  “If you were a black man from around here and you were bringing a white girl, who had obviously been raped, to the emergency room, would you have stuck around, Sheriff Jolly?”

  He had the grace to look chagrined. Then he said, “Some white women would rather die than be raped by a black man.”

  Jade came out of her chair, circled it, and gripped the top rung as she squared off with him across the table. “You think I got picked up by a black man, was raped by him, and want to make your son and his two friends the scapegoats? Is that your theory?”

  “I have to cover all the angles, Jade. Especially when my own son is being accused of a felony.”

  “Well, rather than badgering me, why aren’t you asking Hutch the questions?”

  “I intend to.”

  Shortly after that conversation, he had allowed her mother to join her. Velta was always well groomed, so it was a shock to Jade to see her looking harried and disheveled. She rushed into the interrogation room, almost knocking aside Sheriff Jolly in her haste.

  “Jade! What’s happened? Nobody would tell me a thing. Where have you been?”

  Right then, the last thing Jade needed was more questions. She needed to be held close and comforted. She needed unqualified acceptance. Instead, her mother demanded answers. In her place, Jade supposed she might have reacted the same way, but that didn’t make her feel any better.

  Velta’s face didn’t register a single emotion when Jade told her what had happened. After several seconds of blank staring, she dumbly repeated, “Raped?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Awkwardly, she reached out to smooth back the strands of hair that had dried in unruly waves around Jade’s face. “Who did it?”

  When Jade told her, Velta pulled back her hand as though Jade’s hair had given her an electric shock. “That’s… that’s crazy, Jade. You’ve known those boys all your life. They wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “They did.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t you believe me, Mama?”

  “Of course, Jade. Of course I believe you.”

  Jade didn’t think so, but lacked the energy and heart to try to make herself believed. At the sheriff’s request, she related her story again for her mother. When she concluded, he left, saying he would be back.

  Since being left alone, she and her mother had said nothing of substance to each other. Velta asked her if she was all right, and Jade, because of the absurdity of the question, simply replied yes. Not since stroking her hair had Velta touched her again.

  At daybreak, a deputy appeared and offered Velta a cup of fresh coffee. Jade asked for a soda to moisten her sore throat. Swallowing was painful, partially because of the unshed tears that were dammed up inside her throat.

  Suddenly the door to the interrogation room swung open. Jade raised her head, realizing that she must have drifted to sleep from sheer exhaustion. She uttered a small, fearful cry when the first person through the door was Neal Patchett.

  Her breath became shallow and choppy, as though she’d been running. “What’s he doing here?”

  Ivan Patchett and Sheriff Jolly filed in behind Neal. “You’re tossing around some serious words, young lady,” Ivan said to her. “When Fritz called and told me what was going on, I demanded that you accuse my boy to his face. Hi, Velta.”

  Jade’s mother reacted to Ivan’s appearance in much the same manner as Jade had reacted to Neal’s. “Hello, Ivan.”

  “These two young ’uns have created quite a ruckus this morning, haven’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t create anything!” Jade objected to Ivan’s making her mother his comrade against their misbehaving children. “This was done to me. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh, come on, Jade,” Neal said, speaking for the first time. “For Chris’ sake, do you honestly expect anybody to believe you were raped?”

  “Nobody has to take my word for it. They can look at the pictures of me they took at the hospital. The laboratory evidence will bear out what I’m saying.”

  He sat down on the corner of the table. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” he said smoothly. “I’m only saying that you’re taking liberties with how it happened.”

  “I’m not!” She would have backed farther away from him if the back of her chair would have given way. As good-looking as he was, he was thoroughly repellant to her.

  “Okay, let’s all settle down,” Sheriff Jolly said, taking command. “Neal, move over here, please.” He indicated a place against the wall. “Ivan, you take that chair.”

  Ivan sat down. He glanced at Velta. “You’ll get the day off with pay.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jade glared at her mother, furious at her for the deference she showed Ivan Patchett.

  “Now, Jade,” Fritz said, drawing her attention back to him. “Please tell your story again for Ivan and Neal’s benefit.”

  That was a daunting request. She didn’t know if she could speak aloud the intimate details of the rape with Neal and his father present. However, when the case came to trial, she would have an even larger audience.

  Ivan was watching her indulgently, but she saw malevolence lurking behind the benign expression in his eyes. Neal was propped against the opposite wall, arms folded across his chest. He was smirking with complacence.

  “Yeah, Jade. I’d like to hear all about how I raped you.”

  His scoffing tone spurred her on. He wasn’t going to get away with what he’d done to her, not if she had to repeat the ugly truth a thousand times.

  After taking a sip of the tepid soda the deputy had brought her earlier, she began with Donna Dee’s car running out of gas and ended with her arrival at the hospital. “The rest of it,” she finished quietly, “is now a matter of record.”

  “Have you found this mysterious nigger yet?” Ivan asked Fritz.

  The sheriff shook his head. “She couldn’t give us anything that would identify him.”

  “Hmm.” A satisfied smile sat upon Ivan’s lips.

  “He was real,” Jade insisted. “In the condition I was in, I couldn’t have walked all the way back into town.”

  “That’s Daddy’s point,” Neal said. “Your ‘condition’ wasn’t nearly as bad as you’re making it out to be. You had plenty o
f time to walk back to town, and that’s what you did. On the way here, you got cold feet. You got to thinking about Parker and what he would think when he heard about our little party.”

  Jade jumped from her chair. “Don’t you dare speak his name! You’re not worthy to. I’d rather you rape me again than drag Gary into this.”

  “Jade, for heaven’s sake, sit down.” Velta grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her chair.

  Ivan lit a cigar and negligently fanned out the match before tossing it to the floor.

  Sheriff Jolly said, “Neal, you don’t have to answer to any charges.”

  “I don’t mind. She’s lying.”

  “Ivan, are you sure you don’t want to call your lawyer?”

  “We waived that right, Fritz. Why bother him this early in the morning? We’ve got nothing to hide. Ask the boy any damn thing you please.”

  Fritz addressed Neal. “What happened when you came up on Donna Dee and Jade?”

  “It’s just like Jade said,” he replied. “We offered her a ride. She got in my car of her own free will. She even had to climb over the seat to get in the back with Lamar.”

  “You didn’t force her into the car?”

  “Hell no.”

  “That’s because I thought Donna Dee was coming too,” Jade amended quickly. “When I saw that they intended to leave her, I tried to get out. They held me. They wouldn’t let her in or me out.”

  Neal laughed. “It was all in fun. A fake kidnapping, you know? We were just messing around.”

  He picked up the story from there and told them about arriving at the spot near the channel. “Jade got out and sat there while we drank a beer.”

  “There wasn’t anywhere else to go,” she explained. “When you said what you did, and I realized what you intended to do, I ran. Tell them, Neal. You know it’s the truth. I tried to run away from you.”

  “Neal, what did you say to her?” Fritz asked.

  “I told her we were going to fuck her.”

  Velta laid her hand against her chest and crossed her legs. Ivan puffed on his cigar. Fritz rubbed his temple. “That corroborates Jade’s story.”