“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.”
“That’s when I turned and ran toward the road,” she said. “I didn’t get far. Neal grabbed me by the hair and pulled me down.”
He gave a helpless little shrug. “She said something to the effect of, ‘Like hell you are,’ but she was laughing.”
“I said nothing of the sort, and I certainly wasn’t laughing. I was terrified.”
“Of three friends?” Ivan snorted incredulously.
“She did start running,” Neal said, “but not full out, not like she didn’t want to be caught. I did grab her by the hair. We had a tussle. She put up token resistance—all for show.”
“That’s a lie,” Jade whispered hoarsely, shaking her head in adamant denial. “That’s a lie. He hurt me. He ripped off my—” A thought struck her. She looked at Neal’s mud-stained jeans—they were the ones he’d been wearing the night before. “He ripped off my pantyhose, then my panties. He put them in the pocket of his jeans. Check his pocket.”
“Neal?” Fritz signaled with his head for the boy to comply.
Ivan turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Neal as he fished into his right pocket. He produced a pair of yellow bikini panties. Velta, recognizing them, covered her mouth to stifle a startled gasp.
Neal gazed at Jade, his eyes full of regret. Softly he said, “You told me to keep them as a souvenir, honey. Remember?”
“He’s lying!” She shot from her chair and rounded the table, her fingers curled into claws aimed at his sardonic face. Fritz caught her around the waist and held her back.
The door opened and a deputy peered in. “Sheriff, everything all right in here?”
“Everything’s fine,” he assured his deputy.
“Uh, sheriff, about those records at the lab.”
“Yeah, I’d like to read the official report as soon as it’s available.”
“That’s just it, Sheriff Jolly.” He shifted his weight nervously. “That’s what I come to tell you. The smears and all got throwed out by mistake. The whole kit on Miss Sperry got burned up in the hospital incinerator this morning.”
When she heard that, the fight went out of Jade. She wilted over Fritz’s arm and allowed him to direct her back to her chair. With a tortured cry, she slumped forward. All the physical evidence of the rape had been destroyed. Even if the emergency-room doctor testified on her behalf, all he could actually attest to was that she had had sexual intercourse and that—seemingly—it had been rough. Under cross-examination, his testimony could be rendered useless. Besides, he couldn’t identify her attackers.
Nothing that was said in this room would ever be permissible evidence in a court of law—not even Neal’s confession that he’d had carnal knowledge of her. He could change his story entirely and deny that he had been involved in the incident at all. From now on, it would be Jade’s word against theirs.
But out of the blanket of black despair that was about to suffocate her, there glimmered a ray of new hope. Suddenly she raised her head. “Donna Dee.”
“What?” Sheriff Jolly turned to her.
“Call Donna Dee. She’ll tell you that I resisted. She saw me struggling to get out of Neal’s car. She’ll verify that I didn’t go with them voluntarily.”