Maybe Baby Lite (47 page)

“
I recall that I thought I
was dreaming. In my dream I thought it was a former...lover
touching me on my thighs and my hips,” I said, blushing. “I was
dreaming of him or at least I thought that I was. I was kind of
lucid. I felt my panties being pulled off, but again, I thought it
was part of my dream. At some point, I realized that I wasn't
dreaming; that someone was in my bed with me.” My hands were
shaking as I lifted the bottle of water to my lips, taking another
drink. “He was assaulting me with his fingers…down
there.”

“
Where, Ms.
Preston?”

Oh God, she was going to
make me spell it all out in technical terms. I'd have to push
through this. “He was thrusting his fingers in and out of my
vaginal area, scratching me.” I said pointedly. There it was out.
The worst part of it was out.

“
Go on,” she
prodded.

“
I was still half asleep,
still kind of thinking it was someone else.”

“
Who, Ms. Preston? Who did
you think it was in your bed that night?”

Oh no. This was
humiliation I didn’t need. I hadn’t gone into all of that in my
statement at the hospital. Why had I chosen to do so
now?

“
Like I said,” I
continued, “I was half-asleep and when I realized it wasn’t a
dream, I considered that my boyfriend, who I'd recently broken up
with, was there with me; that it was him touching me, Trey
Sinclair.”

“
Did your boyfriend or
ex-boyfriend make it a habit of coming into your cottage while you
were sleeping and crawling into your bed?”

No! Why's she making it
sound like
I'm the one on
trial?

"
No, not at all,” I answered tersely, “I suppose in my
half-dream state, it was simply wishful thinking.”

There does that answer
your question?

“
Then I heard the voice.
He, Charlie, asked me if I liked it. He called me a bitch, I think,
and then he called me ‘Sissy.’”

“
Does the name ‘Sissy’
hold any significance to you, Ms. Preston?”

Why did I think she was
asking me questions for which she already knew the
answers?

“
Yes. I'd received some
threatening notes from someone calling me that name.”

“
Anything other than
that?”

“
About eight years ago,
one of my mom’s boyfriends had called me by that name. He came into
my room when I was sleeping and took my pajama bottoms off and
started touching and putting his finger inside me. I screamed and
my mother came into my room and made him leave.”

“
Why had he called you
‘Sissy’ back then?”

Once again I found myself
explaining the events which had occurred when I'd come home
unexpectedly on one of my mom’s date nights.

“
Date night?”

There it was, just as
predicted. I was sick of this already. I skipped to the condensed
version.

“
Yes, my mother was a
prostitute, you see. On Saturday nights she had a ‘date night’
where one of her tricks would come over for dinner and would spend
the whole night. On this particular night I had the misfortune of
coming home unexpectedly,” I took a swig of water before I
continued. “Apparently her date that night was Charlie Roberts. I
didn’t really get a good look at the man. Mom tried to pass me off
as her little sister. Then what I’ve already told you happened
after that. That's the story about the name ‘Sissy.’”

I took another long drink
of water trying to wash the nasty taste of the truth about my mom
out of my mouth.

“
So, when you came to work
at the Sinclair Stables, you didn’t know that Charlie Roberts was
in fact the same man who'd molested you eight years
ago?”

“
That’s correct. That had
happened in Radcliff, Kentucky. I'd no reason to think Charlie was
the same guy from Radcliff now in Bristol, Virginia working at the
same place that I was.”

“
Do you find that fact
more than just co-incidental, Ms. Preston?”

“
I guess I haven’t thought
of it as anything other than just bad luck up to this
point.”

“
Please continue about the
night you were assaulted, Ms. Preston.”

“
He just kept touching me,
and calling me ‘Sissy.’ I was thrashing around in my bed, trying to
get away from him, trying to push him off of the bed. I remember
him saying—”

I stopped myself right
there. This was something that I'd just remembered Charlie saying
to me the night I was attacked. Oh God, I didn’t want this to go on
the record. It was too late.

“
What did he say, Ms.
Preston?”

I sighed, not wanting to
continue, but knowing she would badger me for withholding
information if I didn’t. “He said something like ‘Sissy likes it
rough.’ He asked me if I wanted him to fuck me like the boss man
did in the stable that night.”

“
Who was he referring to,
Ms. Preston.”

Oh God, Oh God, Oh
God.

“
Trey Sinclair. We'd made
love once in the stables back in mid-August.”

“
How would Charlie Roberts
have known that?” she asked.

“
He would have had to have
been watching us,” I replied, blushing.

“
Not necessarily,” she
replied, “is it possible that Mr. Sinclair boasted about having sex
with you in the stables to other workers there? Perhaps bragging to
the other guys, that sort of thing?”

“
No,” I responded, my
anger showing, “it’s not possible.”

“
Why are you so certain
about that, Ms. Preston?”

“
Because Trey has no
recollection of that night,” I answered softly. I finished relaying
the rest of what I remembered about the assault that night. I told
her that I'd screamed for help until his fist had knocked me
unconscious. I'd awakened two days later in the
hospital.

Beth Denniston rose and
walked over to a box that Detective Ryan had brought into the
conference room with him.

“
Ms. Preston, we have some
evidence here in this box that we want you to identify on the
record in this investigation, please.” She pulled out the plum silk
camisole top that had been cut, along with the ripped plum silk
shorts.

“
Do you recognize
these?”

“
Yes, those are the silk
pajamas I had on that night in Radcliff, Kentucky when Charlie
Roberts came into my bedroom when I was 13 and sexually assaulted
me.”

“
Do you know how these
items got torn and cut?”

“
The bottoms were ripped
off of me. I've no idea how the top got cut.”

“
Do you know how Charlie
would have been in possession of these items?”

“
I've no idea. The only
possibility is that my mother may have given them to
him.”

“
What would the purpose be
in her doing that?”

“
You'd have to ask her,” I
answered.

She then pulled out the
piece of paper that had typing on it reading, “I believe these
belong to you, Sissy.”

“
Do you recognize this
piece of paper?” she asked.

“
Yes, that's the note that
was pinned to the camisole top that was left on the porch of my
cottage.”

“
And when did this happen,
Ms. Preston?”

“
I don’t recall the exact
date, it was on a Sunday; I do remember that. Trey and I'd gone to
eat at Morelli’s outside of Bristol that afternoon. He walked me
back to my cottage, and the clothes and the note were in a shopping
bag, hanging on the knob of my front door. I thought Trey had
wanted to surprise me with a gift…” my voice trailed
off.

“
So Mr. Sinclair was with
you when you found these on your porch?”

“
Yes. He'd just had the
locks changed. I think it was the end of June sometime.”

Ms. Denniston held up the
two blue velvet jewelry boxes. “Can you identify these Ms.
Preston?”

“
Yes. These are the two
blue velvet jewelry cases that were left in my cottage. I recognize
the earrings and necklace as those previously given to me by my
mother the night of my senior prom. I actually hadn’t seen them
since the night of my prom. I thought I'd lost them at one of the
after-prom parties. They showed up here in my cottage underneath my
bed covers a day or two prior to the PJs being left on my
door.”

“
Was there any note left
with these?” she asked.

“
No, just the boxes. I
remember that I'd walked back to my cottage from the racetrack over
at the Belle. It was dark, and my horse was…scratched from the last
race. I noticed lights on in my cottage that had not been on when I
left for the track earlier. I was looking through my own windows,
when Trey came up on me. He went in the cottage to check it out
before I did.”

“
So Mr. Sinclair was there
when you discovered these boxes under your bed covers?”

I didn’t like the tone her
questioning was taking regarding Trey.

“
Yes he was. We were
discussing the matter of my horse being scratched from the race
that evening. We weren’t entirely in agreement on it.”

Ms. Denniston pulled out
another folded piece of paper from her box of goodies. It was
inserted into a plastic sleeve like the other one. “Do you
recognize this note Ms. Preston?” It was the one addressed to
‘Sissy’ stating the sender missed the sweet taste of her cunt and
promising to find her.

“
Yes. It was shoved
underneath the door of my cottage.”

“
Do you remember when that
was?”

“
Not the specific date,
no. It was after the PJs were left.”

“
Was Mr. Sinclair at the
cottage when you found it?”

“
No, actually Trey was in
Atlanta where his law firm is located. My friend Gina was with me
at the cottage. I wasn’t staying at the cottage; Gina and I were
staying at the Sinclair manor. I had to go and get more clothes and
stuff, so Gina went with me. She saw it on the floor inside the
door and gave it to me.”

“
Ms. Preston, is there any
particular reason that you didn’t mention of lot of these incidents
in your statement previously given to the detectives at the
hospital?”

“
Ms. Denniston, with what
I've shared with you here this morning, you must see how ashamed,
embarrassed, and humiliated I am about my past, about my mother,
and the type of person that she was and still is for that matter. I
know that there is a link between my mom and Charlie Roberts; to
what extent, I've no way of knowing. I know that my trust was
emptied out shortly after I arrived in Bristol. Trey believes that
Charlie may be a co-conspirator in that as well. I only recently
came to terms with the fact that my mother was and possibly still
is a prostitute; that my heritage is a total mystery. So if I’m not
particularly eager to discover whether my mom actually wanted me
dead, and paid Charlie to do the job, it isn’t because I’m trying
to obstruct justice in any way, it’s only because I’m not sure I
could handle that much hate in one lifetime from my
mother.”

Ms. Denniston looked at me
and smiled. It was the first time that I saw compassion cross her
face. I understood that she wanted justice served and it was her
duty to ascertain the merit of existing criminal charges and to
explore the possibility that Charlie had not acted alone. There was
a human element involved. I was a key witness to the facts. She had
to press me just as a defense attorney would if this went to
trial.

“
I understand that you’re
going to be a mother,” she said.

“
Yes, in early
May.”

“
I wish you the best, Ms.
Preston. I've a feeling that your child will be blessed with a
mother who will give him or her love and nurturing every child
deserves, but that you were denied.”

“
Thank you,” I
replied.

“
We will be in contact
with you should we have any further questions as the investigation
continues. Thank you for making the trip here, Ms. Preston. Going
forward we will take care not to inconvenience you unless
absolutely necessary. We can do video conferencing if any further
interviews are required prior to filing the charges. We will let
you know the outcome prior to filing any additional or reassessing
the current charges to upgrade them to more serious
felonies.”

That was it, I was done. I
texted Trey as instructed. A limo was dispatched for me and I
arrived at the airport well in advance of my flight. I was able to
get my flight changed to an earlier departure. Once on the plane, I
felt better than I had all day. I was going home.

My second trimester had
started and I was feeling great. The nausea and fatigue were gone
and I'd gained five pounds. I was ecstatic and I could hardly wait
to get my baby bump.

I was eager to secure a
job so that I'd have an income until the baby arrived. I registered
with a temp agency the week after I arrived back in Radcliff and
was delighted to hear from them when I returned from Virginia. I
was being offered a 20-week assignment filling in at a law firm
that would take me up to just a few weeks before my due date. I
happily accepted. The job was right in Radcliff. They wanted me
there for a week before the administrative assistant, Kara, who was
leaving on maternity leave, was due to go out so that she could
train me. I'd be handling the debt collections. My hours were
ideal: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kara explained the process from the initial
complaint filing to garnishment or lien attachment. It was a
straightforward process that she clearly outlined for me. The two
weeks of training passed quickly.