Chapter 11 #2
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, frowining. “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.”