Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
During history class on Monday, Mr. Harrison asked Jules to come and see him during lunch.
That was definitely an aberration, since the teacher was legendary for never, ever sacrificing his own lunch break.
So yeah. Harrison’s You have lunch when I do—can you come and see me? I’ll be in my room. Bring your sandwich was an interesting development.
Still, Jules was pretty sure he knew what the conversation topic was going to be when he knocked on Harrison’s door and the man waved him on in. “Grab a chair. Orange or grape?”
The man held up two cans of soda as Jules pulled a seat over to the space Harrison had cleared for him on his usually messy desk. “Orange. Thanks.”
Harrison had a really awesome looking ham and cheese on a bulky roll on a sheet of deli paper in front of him, next to the kind of old-school construction worker lunchbox with a curved lid that made Meet Fred Flintstone play loudly in Jules’s head.
Harrison waited for Jules to sit before he said, “I heard your weekend was eventful.”
Jules nodded. Yup. “I figured my mother called you.”
“She’s worried.” Harrison held his gaze, leaving that gorgeous sandwich untouched.
“I’m going to assume she filled you in—” Jules started.
“With what you shared with her, yes.” Harrison correctly guessed that there was information Jules hadn’t shared with his mom. Smart man. “Look. Kid. Kudos to you for caring, but there comes a time when you’ve gotta let the grown-ups take charge—”
“You want to help?” Jules asked. “We found out yesterday that a girl who was raped weeks ago is still bleeding vaginally from the assault, but her father won’t let her go to the doctor because he believes, I don’t know, I guess maybe that she should reap what she sows?
Even though she did nothing more than go to a goddamn party?
So okay, Mr. Grown-up. Do something about that. Help her.”
Harrison shifted in his seat. “Jules. I’m afraid it’s not—”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Right.”
“It’s tricky. If her father won’t allow it—”
“My mother said the same thing,” Jules replied. “It’s complicated, her hands are tied.”
Harrison leaned forward. “Here’s what I can do—what I will do. Bring her to me, I’ll walk her down to the school nurse who’ll call her parents. With luck, it’ll shame them into taking action—”
“Luck?” Jules said.
The teacher winced.
“And as for bring her to you and walk her to the school nurse... You really think she’s gonna agree to that? Subject herself to not just your judgment—”
“She’ll get no judgment from me—”
“She won’t believe that,” Jules shot back. “Every adult in her life has failed her so far, so yeah, let’s subject her to more of that. That’ll help. Maybe she’ll try to kill herself, like Caroline Russo did.”
Mr. Harrison was silent as Jules continued.
“So thanks but no thanks, we’ll take care of it.
And while we’re at it, no way are we letting the grown-ups take charge of our investigation.
We do that, we’ll never find the rapist. He’ll vanish, he’ll hide, he’ll stop—for now but not forever.
In two, three years, he’ll do it again. I’ve been reading about serial rapists, how it’s a short hop from that to murder. Serial killing.”
“Is that really true?”
“Absolutely. If you want, I’ll write up a report, cite my sources—”
“No, kid, I believe you.”
“What are the so-called grown-ups gonna do?” Jules leaned in to ask.
“My mother thinks we should start shouting about it. Shut down the parties, set up a curfew—make it impossible for kids to get alcohol, like that’s the cause of the problem.
Her words: make it impossible. Which you know damn well won’t happen, on account of your having once been seventeen. ”
“Hah,” Harrison said. “Yeah.”
“And sure, maybe shutting down the parties makes it harder for our suspect to target his victims, but maybe—probably—it doesn’t.
Probably he’ll just troll the mall, find vulnerable girls there.
You’ll never know—until it’s your daughter.
And maybe not even then because she probably won’t tell you about the trauma of her rape because for all she knows you’ll quote some stupid Bible verse about reaping what she sowed. ”
“I would never—”
“Your daughter’s lucky,” Jules shot back at him. “Not everyone’s is.”
Harrison was silent then, so Jules kept going.
“We’re so close to catching him, Mr. H.,” he said. “So. Close. But if you and my mother don’t give us more time, he’ll get away—and you fucking well know it. FYI, this is one of those times it’s exceedingly appropriate to say fuck in school.”
“Hah.” Harrison laughed, but then just sat there, still gazing at him.
“You gonna eat that?” Jules asked, motioning toward the man’s sandwich. “Because if you’re not, well, it puts my PB&J to shame.”
Mr. H picked up half of the ham and cheese and held it out to Jules.
“Thanks, but I’d rather have your support,” Jules told him.
“How about you have both,” the teacher said. “But you have to promise me you’ll keep me in the loop.”
Jules exhaled hard. Thank God. He was so sure he wouldn’t be able to win this fight. “I will. Thank you.” He took the ham and cheese, took a bite and yes it was as good as it looked. Although maybe everything tasted better when accompanied by intense relief.
“And you need to give me half of your sandwich.”
Jules looked at him. “You are definitely not getting the better end of that deal.”
“It’s been years since I’ve had a good PB&J,” Harrison told him, but then added, “Although yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m getting hosed, all around. So. What’s your plan to catch this guy?”
“I don’t know. I’m still working on that,” Jules said. “We’ve got a list of suspects—kids who got within range of my bottle of Dr. Pepper before I, you know, blacked out.”
“And... you’re not about to share that list with me.”
“No, sir, I am not.”
“Yeah, be polite, that helps with the blatant, in-your-face refusal—actually, you know, it really does.” But then he gave Jules a look that was meant to curdle. “You better make fucking sure no one gets hurt.”
Another fully appropriate use of the f-bomb in a school setting.
“With all due respect,” Jules said, “too many people have already been hurt. We know what we’re getting into, and we’re willing to take the risk.”
“You should know that taking you to the hospital was harder for your mom than she probably let on. I mean, think about it, kid. She took your father to the ER, and he never came home.”
“I’m very much aware of that,” Jules said tightly. “But she was the one who pushed to go.”
“Well, yeah,” Harrison said. “Her kid was just assaulted. Drugging you absolutely was an assault.” He took another bite of his sandwich and they both chewed in silence for a bit before he popped open the grape soda and took a long slug.
“She told me what you told her—that you blacked out, but you were able to walk and even talk to your friends.”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Hearing about the things I said and did and not remembering any of it...? I still don’t remember any of it, like those hours of my life are just... gone. It’s very weird.”
“I bet.” Harrison wiped his mouth on a napkin and made a gimme motion with his hand. “Where’s that PB&J?”
Jules pulled the plastic zip-lock baggie out of his lunch bag and handed it over. “It’s a little smooshed.”
“Even better. Enhances the flavors. You know, I have a connection at the FBI. An old buddy from the Corps.”
The Corps? The Marine Corps. Right.
“I didn’t know that,” Jules said. “But... I’m pretty sure this isn’t a federal crime.”
“Yeah, no, I don’t think it is either,” Harrison said.
“But I called him yesterday, after your mom called me.” He rifled through the papers that he’d pushed to the other side of his desk.
“Where did I put that, damn it...? I had to write it down because... Ah, here it is. Flunitrazepam.” He said the word slowly, reading it from the sheet of paper.
“Emphasis on the third syllable. You ever hear of diazepam? Valium?”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Of course. Valley of the Dolls...?”
“No, that was barbiturates,” Harrison corrected him. “Uppers. Valium’s a benzodiazepine. Mother’s little helper? Think tranquilizer. Depressant. It calms you down. Relaxes you. In large enough doses, similar to alcohol, it lowers inhibitions.”
“Oh-kay,” Jules said. That sounded disconcertingly familiar.
“Flunitrazepam is ten times stronger than Valium, and at as little as a two milligram dose, it causes something, while it’s in your bloodstream, called anterograde amnesia.”
“Anterograde,” Jules repeated, reaching in his backpack for his notebook and something to write with because he was going to have to look that up, but Harrison stopped him by handing him the paper with his scribbled notes.
And it was right there. Anterograde amnesia, in Harrison’s blocky handwriting.
“It’s a loss of short term memory,” the teacher informed him. “You ever meet someone with dementia and they ask you the same question over and over, like thirty seconds later, because they’ve already forgotten they asked it?”
“No, but... I mean, TV and movies...”
“Right. Good. It really is like that—short term memory loss. This drug does that.”
“And... when it leaves your system?” Jules asked.
“The anterograde effect goes away—you regain ability to access your short term memory, but the amnesia from when the drug was in your bloodstream...? That doesn’t resolve. Whatever you did during that time, it remains a giant blank.”
“Wow,” Jules said. “Flu-ni-traz-e-pam.” He said it aloud, using Harrison’s phonetic helper—a dark underline beneath the traz, showing emphasis, like he’d said, of that third syllable.
“What’s this?” He pointed to a word written beside it, with a similar underline beneath the second syllable. “Rohypnol?”
“That’s one of the drug’s brand names. Apparently, it’s odorless, colorless, tasteless,” Harrison continued. “Two milligrams dumped in, let’s say a bottle of Dr. Pepper, would kick in around fifteen minutes after consumption. The effect lasts around twelve hours.”
“Well, that tracks,” Jules said. “Flunitrazepam.”
“My contact told me it’s illegal in the U.S. You can’t get it here.”
“Where can you get it?” Jules asked sharply. But of course, Harrison had jotted down the answer to that question, too. It was right there on the paper, so he read it out loud along with the teacher’s words. “Europe. Mexico.”
Mexico...
“Our list of suspects just got a whole lot shorter.” Jules stood up.
He hadn’t finished either of his two half-sandwiches but as good as that ham-and-cheese was, his lunch was over.
“Thank you so much,” he told Harrison, jamming the page with the notes about the drug into his pack. “I gotta go and...”
“Talk to your team,” Harrison finished for him. “Understood.” He motioned to the food that Jules had left behind. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Seriously, sir. Thank you,” Jules said.
“Find him,” Harrison said, raising his voice as Jules shouldered his pack and beelined for the door. “But don’t you fucking get hurt,” adding, no doubt for anyone who might’ve overheard, “And don’t say fuck in school.”