Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Blaise
NOW
I wait for a long time before Houston comes into the station, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. His hair is windblown and his cheeks red as if he’s been exerting himself. He’s taller than I recall, with dark blond hair and blue-green eyes. His brother, Dallas, the boy I used to have a big crush on until he lied about Neisy, is built like him but with darker hair and eyes.
I stand to greet him.
“I came as soon as I could, Blaise. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“It’s okay.”
“Come in.”
He leads me past the officer who helped me track him down to an office in the back of the building. After he gestures for me to go in ahead of him, he closes the door and takes a seat behind the desk.
My heart beats so fast and so hard I’m afraid I might pass out before I can say the words I’ve kept buried inside me for fourteen torturous years.
“What’s going on? I thought you lived in the city now.”
I’m shocked that he knows anything about me. I’m four years younger than him. He graduated before I ever stepped foot into high school, but he knew Teagan and Arlo. “I am. I mean, I do. I live there.”
“I give you credit. That place would drive me crazy. I can barely stand a weekend there.”
“When you’re used to LE, anything seems crazy in comparison.”
He grunts out a laugh. “That’s true. I was coaching my niece and nephew’s soccer team, or I would’ve been here sooner. They said you wanted to report a crime?”
“I do.”
“I guess I’m confused since you don’t live here anymore.”
“It happened fourteen years ago.”
“Oh. Okay…”
“It happened at the party you had.”
He sits up a little straighter, his eyes going wide. “Are you talking about Ryder and Neisy?”
This is it. My mouth is so dry I can barely swallow. All the moisture in my body has collected in the palms of my hands, which are pressed tightly together. “Yes.”
“What’re you saying, Blaise?”
“I…I saw him attack her.”
For a long moment, he’s still and silent, his stare unblinking. “You saw Ryder rape Neisy.”
“I did.”
“Blaise…” He says my name with an expression of disbelief. “Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”
I tip my head to give him a “come on, you know why” look. “It was wrong of me not to. I’ve always known that. I lacked the courage to upset my entire life then, and it’s haunted me ever since. I’m as sick over it today as I was the day it happened.”
“So why come forward now?”
“I heard he’s running for Congress, and I couldn’t sit on it for another second.”
“It can be a crime to conceal evidence of another crime.”
That hadn’t occurred to me, and for a second I’m not sure how to reply. But then I know what I should say. “I’m willing to take whatever punishment comes my way to do what I should’ve done fourteen years ago.” My voice wavers on “whatever punishment comes my way,” but my resolve is firm. I simply cannot live with this any longer.
“Did anyone else witness this crime?”
“I’m speaking only for myself.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
He expels a deep breath and seems to become very interested in the far wall as he fiddles with a pen on his desk. “Do you understand what’ll happen when I notify the attorney general that a witness has come forward?”
“I think so.”
He leans forward, arms propped on the desk, gaze intense and fixed on me. “It’ll be a nightmare, Blaise. People will attack you for not reporting it at the time. They’ll question your motivation for coming forward now. They’ll tear apart every aspect of your life. Old crap from high school will be resurrected. The Elliotts will fight back—hard. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“In other words, the same thing that would’ve happened fourteen years ago will happen now, only worse because I’ll be vilified for waiting so long to report it. Do I understand you correctly?”
He never blinks when he says, “Yes.”
“I can handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure! Would you be if you were me?”
“I wouldn’t have sat on this for more than a decade.”
“Really? You’re so certain of that? You would’ve had the stomach to have an entire town of people you’ve known all your life turn on you for daring to accuse one of your own of such a thing? You would’ve had the fortitude to have your only brother hate you because you were accusing one of his closest friends of a monstrous crime? You would’ve been okay with being a social outcast, a pariah, a Facebook target, when you were seventeen?”
“Maybe not,” he concedes, “but there’re a lot of years between seventeen and thirty-one.”
“I realize that, and it shouldn’t have taken this long. I don’t know what else I can say other than I was wrong. I knew it then, and I know it now. I want to fix it.”
“I’ll need to bring this new information to Neisy. We’d need her onboard to reopen the case.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t. I’ll have to find her. Her cousin still runs the restaurant where she and I worked together. I’ll start there.”
He takes down my phone number and promises to get in touch after he talks to her and the AG.
“Do you believe me, Houston?”
After a long pause, he says, “I believe you’d have no reason to make up something that’ll turn your life upside down as much as it will Neisy’s and Ryder’s.”
“Thank you.”
“I want you to be prepared, Blaise. If we go forward, it’ll be ugly.”
“I understand.”
“You need to find somewhere safe to stay.”
“I can go to my mother’s house.”
“No, you can’t.” He writes something down and then hands me a sticky note. “Go see my friend Jack Olsen and tell him I sent you. He’s got a couple of cottages for rent on his property. No one would think to look for you there. I want you to go there and stay there until you hear from me.”
“You really think that’s necessary?”
“I really do.”
Houston
NOW
After Blaise leaves, I sit for five full minutes, trying to wrap my head around what she told me.
Ryder Elliott did rape Neisy Sutton.
And he’s gotten away with it for fourteen years, during which he attended college, graduated with honors, served eight years in the navy before separating with multiple awards and other honors. An engineer by trade, Ryder has worked for a top company in Providence since his separation from the military. He’s married with three young children and has a house on the same street in Hope where he, Cam and their sisters grew up.
Dallas and I play poker with him and Cam as well as Blaise’s brother, Arlo, on the third Saturday night of every month.
I’m revolted to think I’ve considered him a friend.
All this time…
No one believed Neisy when the allegations first came to light. Not one supporter stepped forward to say she’d never make up something like a rape charge, because no one knew her well enough to vouch for her. Even I, who’d been one of her few friends in the area, had failed to step up, to say there’s no way she’d fabricate such a thing because I wasn’t entirely sure. Even though he was three years younger than me, I knew Ryder and his family much better and for much longer than I’d known her.
I never came right out and said it to anyone, but I’d sided with him.
Everyone had sided with him, including the teammates who’d sworn that she’d slept with all of them. One of them was my own brother, a realization that makes me sick in light of what Blaise told me.
Neisy hadn’t stood a chance.
I go to filing cabinets in another room to find the original case file. I take it with me to my office and close the door. I pour my fourth cup of coffee of the day and open the file, which dates back to my father’s era, before the department was fully computerized. My dad was meticulous. We’ve always said his handwriting could’ve been a font.
Responded to a phone call from Navy Captain Rick Sutton, who reported his daughter, Denise, was sexually assaulted by Ryder Elliott in the woods near my home three weeks ago. The alleged assault took place at a party hosted by my son, Houston, while my wife and I were out of town. Captain Sutton brought his daughter to the station the next day. She gave the following account:
I attended the party hosted by my friend Houston Rafferty, who I worked with at The Daily Catch the previous summer. During the party, Ryder Elliott asked me if he could talk to me about his girlfriend, Louisa, and led me away from the group, down a pathway to an area with a lot of trees and brush. I asked him what he wanted to tell me about Louisa, and he said I knew what he really wanted. I didn’t know. I’d never spoken to him before, except to say hello a couple of times. I knew he played several sports and about him and Louisa and that she’d been ill. I was in a class with her and his brother Camden, but I’d never had any other interactions with either of the Elliott brothers. I asked Ryder to explain what he meant, and he said I’d been driving him crazy with the way I looked at him at school. When I asked him how I’d been looking at him, he said like I wanted to fuck him. I said I didn’t, and we argued about that. He insisted it was true and said the other guys call me a cock tease. I told him I barely knew him so why would I want to fuck him. Then he moved so quickly that he caught me by surprise, knocking me over. He came down on top of me and pulled at my clothes. I was wearing a dress. He tore at my underwear and pulled it down. I screamed at him to stop and for help, but no one could hear me. The music was loud and there were so many people that no one could hear.
The rest is almost too much to bear. When Ryder was finished, he got up and walked away, leaving her there bleeding and crying. She reported how she eventually was able to get herself up and back to her car, which had been parked a quarter mile or so from the house.
I finally get up to leave the office, feeling weighted down by guilt and regret. Neisy was my friend. Why didn’t I come to her defense when she needed me? I worked with her for a full summer, had a fun rapport with her and would’ve asked her out if she hadn’t been so much younger than me. Rather than date her, we’d had a big brother-little sister vibe. When she accused Ryder of rape, my first thought was no way, especially since he’d been with Louisa for years by then and had seen her through a terrible illness with loyalty and faithfulness.
I couldn’t reconcile that guy with the person Neisy described in her complaint, which I was privy to because I asked my dad to share it with me. I’d been deeply upset to learn weeks later that someone might’ve been sexually assaulted at my party. I remember thinking at the time that if the perpetrator had been anyone else, I would’ve believed her.
But Ryder Elliott? No. I refused to believe it was possible, and my brother and our other friends felt the same.
Dallas knew him well and was adamant he never would’ve done such a thing. I remember him having a screaming fight in defense of Ryder with my dad, who’d had no choice but to investigate the charges.
Dad had been furious with me for hosting a party with underage drinking while my parents were away on a badly needed vacation. That was the one time my dad and I were seriously at odds. His disappointment had crushed me.
I remember being a little pissed at Neisy for making trouble for me with my dad by reporting something that’d happened at a party I wasn’t supposed to have had. My parents never would’ve known about it if she hadn’t accused Ryder, which I knew then was deeply unfair, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
That was a difficult time for everyone involved, but no one more so than Neisy, who’d left town shortly after and as far as I know, had returned only for the preliminary hearing that resulted in Ryder walking free.
I want to talk to my dad about this new development, so I head to the house where I was raised with my brother and sister. The drive home is short, through the winding rural roads that make up my hometown. Not much has changed here, and we like it that way. You won’t see any sort of chain businesses mixed in with the farm stands, antique stores or coffee shops. We’re all about bucolic beauty in Land’s End, which has become an exclusive enclave in the last ten years. Many of the coastal homes are owned by summer people and sit empty the rest of the year.
Being a police officer in this town can be boring at times. Not so much for me now that I’m the chief, which happened four years ago. Many of the younger officers don’t last long and go looking for something more exciting than our corner of the world.
I don’t blame them for moving on. After I finished college in Boston, I worked for two years in a suburb outside the city. Then I came back here. I’ve never wanted to live anywhere but LE.
It’s home.
I take a left turn down a winding dirt road that leads to my original home, where my parents still live after retiring years ago—my dad from the police department and my mom as principal at the town’s elementary school.
These days, they tend to their horses, their garden and the five grandchildren my brother and sister have provided.
I park my department-issued SUV behind my dad’s old Ford truck and head inside.
“Knock, knock,” I say as I step inside.
“No need to knock,” my mom says as she does every time I come by and insist on knocking. She raises her cheek for a kiss. “This is a nice surprise. Are you hungry?”
“Always.”
“We had pot roast tonight. I’ll fix you a plate.”
“Is he eating my leftovers again?” Dad asks as he comes into the room.
“Hush, Chuck. There’s plenty left for you.”
Their banter has always amused me and made me want what they have. I haven’t found it yet, but I haven’t given up. As I cruise into my late thirties, however, the prospects seem to be dimming.
Dad cracks open beers for each of us. “What’s going on?”
“I wanted to run something by you.”
“I can go watch ‘Jeopardy’ if you want to talk to Dad in private,” Mom says as she wipes down the counters.
“You can stay. I’d welcome your take on it, too, but as always, it’s highly confidential.”
“We won’t breathe a word,” she says.
I know they won’t because they never have, and I’ve shared a lot with them.
I take a few bites of the delicious meal and wash them down with the beer. “Do you remember when Ryder Elliott was accused of rape?”
“Oh Lord,” Mom says. “I sure do. That was such an awful thing. I felt terrible for Mary and Dave. They were so upset.”
“What about it?” Dad eyes me as a fellow law enforcement officer who worked on the case when it first happened. It took a long time for he and I to get past what he felt to be a major violation of his trust, so bringing this up to him is the last thing I want to do. But I need his input.
“Someone came forward today claiming to have witnessed it.”
Their faces go flat with shock.
“What?” Mom says softly. “It’s been years .”
“Fourteen years.”
“And the person is just now coming forward?”
“Yes. She said she’d been sick over it since the day it happened, and after she heard he’s running for Congress, she couldn’t stay quiet another minute.”
“Do you believe her, son?” Dad asks.
I rub the back of my neck where all my tension lands. “Yeah, I do. She’d have nothing to gain other than clearing her conscience and a lot to lose, including her own brother, who’s still close to Ryder.”
“As are you,” Mom says.
“I wouldn’t call us close. We play cards once a month.”
“Still, he’s a friend.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“What’re you going to do?” Dad asks.
“I guess I’ll find Neisy and let her know a witness has come forward. It’ll be up to her to decide what she wants to do because I can’t do it without her, even with a witness.”
“There’s a sworn statement from her,” Dad reminds me.
“I’m not sure that’d be enough without her willing to testify in a reopened case.”
“So you’d let it go if she isn’t willing to cooperate?” Dad asks.
“What would you do?”
“That’s a tough one. On the one hand, you have new evidence in an old crime, but without the victim’s cooperation, I’m not sure how you’d be able to make a case other than to use the sworn statement we took from her at the time. But there’s also the matter of your witness taking fourteen years to come forward. That speaks to her credibility.”
“From her perspective, she had good reason to keep quiet with the way everyone rallied to his defense. Put yourself in her place as a seventeen-year-old going up against every kid she grew up with, not to mention that Ryder was her brother’s best friend. That’d be a lot for anyone, especially in a close-knit town like Hope.”
“I can’t help but think about the poor girl who was attacked,” Mom says. “Didn’t this witness have a scintilla of concern for her?”
“I think she had tremendous concern for her, but when weighed against her own well-being, she chose herself. That’s what kids do.”
“She hasn’t been a kid for a long time,” Mom says a little more sharply. “Why didn’t she do something about this before now?”
“Only she can know that, but people have their reasons, Mom. I get that, even if I don’t agree with it. She asked me what I would’ve done in her place, and I honestly can’t say I would’ve handled it differently.”
“You would have,” Dad says. “You’ve always done the right thing.”
“Not always. I had the party in the first place, when you guys were away.”
“You wouldn’t have sat on something like this for all that time.”
I release a deep sigh. “We all like to think we’d do the right thing in any situation, but honestly, until we’re in it with all the various consequences staring us in the face, we can’t say for sure what we’d do.”
“You’re right,” Mom says, frowning. “People always like to think they know what they’d do if such and such thing happened to them. But we can’t know for sure until it does.”
“That’s why I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. It’s not easy to come forward to accuse a kid you grew up with of a heinous crime. I think it matters more that she came forward than it does that she waited.”
“The AG may not agree,” Dad says. “Before you get too far down the road with this thing, make sure you consult with them.”
“Of course. That’s on the list for first thing tomorrow morning. If they’re on board, my next move will be to track down Neisy.”
“I don’t envy you this, son,” Dad says. “If you decide to move forward, it’s not going to be easy. People think the world of Ryder.”
“I know they do. Hell, I always have. But I can’t un-ring this bell now that I know there’s a witness.”
“No, you can’t.”