Chapter 35 Kobe
Kobe
I left Dominique and Cosette curled on the couch watching cartoons the following morning.
Cosette didn’t want me to leave, but her much more reasonable father understood when I explained I needed to take advantage of a quiet holiday to go through notes for the case and poke around with theories while Rue and Golding weren’t around.
Megan hadn’t messaged, but I wasn’t surprised. She had anticipated a busy night and told me it might be a couple of days before she got back to me. I hadn’t asked for her number in return, nor did I get a last name, so I had no way of connecting with her unless I returned to the hospital.
I hoped she didn’t change her mind.
It was eight when I got to the office with take-out coffee in hand.
The bullpen was busier than I expected, but I quickly learned it was partly due to the night shift spillover—extra report writing and booking people into holding cells took time.
The drunk tanks would be overflowing with guests sobering up after the biggest drinking night of the year.
I didn’t miss street patrol and the headaches that went with it.
By ten, the room had mostly cleared out, apart from a few random officers catching up on work.
I spent hours digging deeper trenches into our victims’ lives, looking for crossovers that we might have missed, forming new theories only to sack them within minutes.
I remained convinced that the crime revolved around sexual assault and that Navid’s involvement was either drug-related or due to his incompetence as a physician.
By eleven, I abandoned the effort to force solutions and focused on the teen girls and the mystery boy from three years ago, knowing with my whole chest this was the right direction. If I could only figure out who they were.
At quarter past eleven, the landline lit up with a call from the front desk. “Haven.”
“I thought I saw you come in.” Jim Belfries was a middle-aged officer I vaguely knew who picked up extra hours working reception on holidays and weekends. Rotator cuff surgery had taken him off patrol while he healed. “I’ve got a young lady here who wants to talk to you. You got a minute?”
“She asked for me?”
“No. She asked for Hayashi but said you would do. It’s about the university murders.”
“She have a name?”
“Jolie Aubert.”
I sat straighter, mentally flicking through the endless list of women we’d interviewed, but I didn’t recognize it.
“Send her back.”
A few minutes later, Jim appeared, escorting a pensive-looking teen into the bullpen. She didn’t appear old enough to be in university. A senior in high school at most.
Jim pointed, and the girl turned a wary gaze in my direction. She didn’t advance and seemed to take a minute, as though debating if she wanted to come forward or turn around and leave.
Bundled in a trendy pink thermal coat with a matching hat and mittens, it was difficult to get a proper read on her physique.
Slight. Five four at most. Her ivory skin made her rosy lips stand out.
Blond curls framed her face, where they stuck out the bottom of her hat.
She had enormously wide eyes—sad eyes—framed by unnaturally dark lashes, although she didn’t appear to be wearing makeup.
She looked like one of those Bratz dolls my sister used to collect, except less glitz and glamor and more girl-next-door innocent.
Jim said something.
The teen nodded.
Jim waited until she seemed to find the courage to approach. I gave the man a reassuring nod, letting him know I would take it from here, and Jim returned to his station.
Sensing the teen’s discomfort, I drew on my bashful, Big Brother persona, hoping to set her at ease. “Hey. I hear you wanted to chat.” I stood and offered my hand. “Kobe Haven.” I dropped the title. It was less daunting that way.
Her grip was delicate. Cold fingers like brittle sticks clung for a beat before letting go.
“Jolie.” Her accent was thick, and I would have been happy to flip to French, but she continued in decent English, so I followed her lead.
“Are you one of the detectives working the case with those murdered boys?”
“I am.” I grabbed a chair from a vacant desk and brought it over. “Would you like to sit? We can chat about why you’re here.”
Jolie sat and took a second to remove her hat and mitts, piling them meticulously on her lap. A spill of golden curls tumbled over her shoulders and spilled down her back. Her headband had slipped, so she took a minute to adjust it. She unzipped her coat but left it on.
I let her settle, watching as she warily scanned the bullpen, nervously twining her fingers and biting her already raw lower lip.
“How can I help you, Jolie?”
She stared at her knees, worry stamped into her brow. “Jesse Vargas. Ford Carrigan. Malik Quinn.”
“Do you know them?”
She said nothing and wouldn’t look up. When a single tear fell onto her folded hands, a chill skated up my spine and over my scalp.
“Not personally, but they raped my best friend. It was them. I recognized them.”
My chest burned, the air entering and leaving my lungs scorching hot. I didn’t speak for fear of frightening her off or pouncing too eagerly on something I’d been convinced I would never figure out.
I was right. I was fucking right.
Jolie trembled, her body curling in on itself. Thin limbs. Sunken cheeks. Tiny frame. She was hardly the embodiment of a killer.
“I saw it on the news. I called Bastian and told him. I said, ‘It’s them,’ but he said I was mistaken.
He refuses to talk about the past. I’m not mistaken, Monsieur.
I know their faces. I see them in my dreams at night.
I can still hear her. She cried for months after, and I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t talk about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“His name was Jesse. After it happened, she said his name was Jesse. His friends called him that. She heard them, and I believed her. We did not know the others by name. Only their faces. But our memories were not good enough. Too much alcohol and drugs, he said. He wouldn’t take us seriously.”
“Bastian said that?” I reached for a pad of paper, determined to take notes. “Or do you mean the cop you spoke with three years ago?”
“The constable. He was cruel.” Another tear. “He called us whores and would not listen.”
“I’m listening, Jolie. There is no statute of limitations on rape. Your friend can come to me. We can make a report.”
She smiled, but it was laced with too much pain to be authentic. “It no longer matters, Detective. They’re all dead.”
My thoughts spun a vortex. I had to put the details in order. Write it down. Get a concise signed statement. Where was the other girl? Who was the boy she called Bastian?
Gentle, I told myself. Go easy on her. Don’t frighten her off.
“The officer who took your statement did not do his due diligence. We can call your friend. I can take your statements right now, and she would have grounds to charge him with negligence. He will lose his badge.”
Jolie stared at the notepad I’d drawn forward, her wariness intensifying. Was she reliving the past? Maybe she had lost her trust in the police, and why not? Anyone would in her situation. Maybe it was why her friend hadn’t come.
Maybe her friend was who I was looking for, and she knew.
“Do you know who killed those boys, Jolie?”
Her pale blue eyes turned to shimmering lakes. The tears stuck to her lashes for only a moment before sliding down her cheeks one after another. She wiped them away but did not answer my question.
“Why did you request to remain anonymous three years ago when you spoke to Constable Yates?”
“We were afraid. We snuck out of the house to go with Bastian to the party. He had a friend in university who invited him. My parents would have killed us. Bastian did not even have his full license. He stole Papa’s car from the garage, knowing he wouldn’t miss it overnight.
My parents always go to bed early, so we waited until they had retired to their room.
Bastian could have been arrested. It would have ruined his chance for scholarships. He would not be where he is today.”
“Is Bastian your brother?”
“Yes. He… He doesn’t know I’m here. He would not approve.”
“And your friend? Does she know you’re here?”
Jolie’s chin wobbled. More tears fell. “They raped her. I saw them that night before they took her away to a room. She could barely walk. I know their faces. I might have been drunk and involved with another boy, but I remember them. I saw them. When they showed the boys on the news, I knew.”
She had yet to reference Navid, so I pushed in another direction.
“Did you go to the hospital that night?”
“Yes. Before we came here. When Bastian found out what happened, he insisted, but the doctor…” Jolie picked her cuticles and chewed her lip. Twin rivers rolled in crooked lines down her cheeks. “It was him. From the news.”
“Navid Kordestani.”
“Yes. I did not know his name before I saw it on TV. He might have told us, but I forgot. He was… unkind. Uncaring. Gigi was terrified. He wanted to examine her. Demanded it. Said it was procedure. She refused. He scared her, and…”
I could only imagine how a young teen might feel in the presence of a much older male doctor after having been assaulted. Why hadn’t a nurse stepped in?
“Your friend. Her name is Gigi?”
Jolie nodded, and a sad smile touched her lips. “Gigi et Jolie, les jumeaux. That’s what they called us at school. We were best friends from second grade. Inseparable until this happened. Then she changed. She pushed me away.”
“Does she have a last name?”
“Oui. Sauvage.”
I wrote it down. Jolie and Bastian Aubert. Gigi Sauvage.
“Does Gigi know you’re here?”
“No.” More tears fell. A tremor in her voice. She seemed about to speak when a door banged open at the far side of the bullpen, interrupting us.
Jolie turned as I glanced up.