The Reveal: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery (Book 6) (27 page)

“I get that point, Karen, but you don’t have to
worry about that. If you propose something I really don’t like, I’ll tell you.
I wouldn’t let you bully me into doing something I think is wrong. That was a
good plan.” He gave me a reassuring smile.

“Thanks for saying that. We’ll know in a
half-hour.”

“I know already,” Ryan said.

I remember when I was that hopeful. No, that’s not
true. I was never that hopeful.

Through the glass, I saw Macmillan, the attorney,
slap his pen down onto the battered steel table. He pulled back, like something
Martin said had surprised him—and not in a good way. Then, I read Macmillan’s
lips: He said, “What the fuck?”

My heart sank.
Shit.
If Martin had just told him about killing Virginia Rinaldi, the case would
collapse. The attorney would figure out that if we hadn’t yet found the
evidence to connect Martin to the murder, we probably never would. He would
tell Martin to keep his mouth shut; the attorney would deny that Martin meant to
toss Abby into the reservoir. With no prior arrests, Martin might be able to
get the assault down to a misdemeanor, which would mean no DNA. And that would
mean no murder conviction.

Ryan saw my expression and hit the button to turn
the microphone on. Martin was speaking. “How the fuck am I supposed to know
what to tell you and what not to tell you. I’ve never been arrested before.”

“You’re supposed to tell me everything. If I don’t
know what happened, I can’t represent you.”

“Yeah, I know.” It came out as a sneer. “I watch
TV.” He paused and gathered himself. “Do you know what to do? Can you get me
out of this?”

The attorney shook his head in disgust. “‘Out of
this’? No, I doubt if anyone could get you out of this. Just sit still and
don’t say anything. I wish you’d told me about this a half-hour ago.”

Chapter 31

“Let’s get this over with,”
I said to Ryan. We walked out of the little corridor and opened the door to the
interview room. “Turn the system on, please, Detective.” Ryan walked over to
the controls on the wall. I announced the date and time and the names of the
four people in the room. I had made up a folder with “Hunt, Martin” written on
the tab and filled it with a stack of scrap paper. I placed the folder in front
of me on the table.

“Mr. Hunt, let me tell you where we are. Ms.
Demarest is in Rawlings Regional Medical Center. We think she’s going to
survive. If she does, we plan to charge you with a number of offenses. If she
does not survive, we’ll amend them to manslaughter or murder. What were the two
of you fighting about?”

Gregory Macmillan put his hand on Martin Hunt’s
arm to remind him not to speak. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself here.
This was a scuffle. As simple as that. Why is my client being charged with
anything at all?”

I looked at him. “Counselor, did your client tell
you that Detective Miner and I both saw him pull Ms. Demarest out of her car,
beat her up, drag her over to the rock outcropping at the reservoir, and throw
her in?”

“Unless you have that on video, it’s your word
against my client’s. He assures me that he and Ms. Demarest were squabbling but
that he did not drag her over to the outcropping and throw her in. She slipped
and fell in.”

I smiled. “That’s your defense? She’s about a
hundred and twenty pounds, he’s about one-ninety. She dragged him over there,
then she slipped and fell in?”

“Unless you can prove otherwise.”

“Martin, what were the two of you fighting about?”

The attorney leaned over and whispered in Martin
Hunt’s ear. Martin nodded, cleared his throat, and began. “She accused me of
uploading the video to the porn site. Which she said ruined her life. I told
her I hadn’t done that, and that’s the truth. God’s honest truth.”

“You’re talking about the video with Abby and
Krista having sex, correct?”

He nodded.

“I need you to speak your answers, Martin.”

“That’s the video I’m talking about.”

“You did shoot the video, though, is that
correct?”

“Yes.”

“If you didn’t upload it to the site, who did?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. But it
wasn’t me.”

“Guess.”

“If I had to guess, I would say it was Krista.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She’s a prostitute. She fucks guys for a living.
She was probably getting into a new thing. I don’t know how it works—I mean,
whether it’s a royalty model or a flat fee—but obviously a woman like Krista
would be stupid to not be thinking about new revenue streams.”

“How did Krista get the video to upload it?”

“I gave her the memory card before I left.”

“So you’re saying Abby Demarest held you
responsible for all the harassment since word got around there’s a student in a
lesbian video online.”

“I told her the truth: I didn’t do it. So she
says, ‘Prove it.’ I said, ‘Don’t be an idiot. How do you prove a negative?’
That’s when the scuffle started.”

“Let’s talk about prostitution. We’re also going
to charge you with promoting prostitution.”

Gregory Macmillan exhaled slowly and rubbed his
fingers across his forehead. I tried to read his expression to see if this was
the offense that Martin hadn’t told him about at the start.

The attorney spoke. “Detective Seagate, I had not
been informed by my client about this alleged incident, and therefore I have
not had an opportunity to discuss this charge with him.”

“Well, I’m happy to tell you about it. Couple days
after Professor Virginia Rinaldi was murdered, your client, the president of
Alpha Phi Sigma fraternity, thought it would be clever to throw a themed beer
party. They called it ‘Bye, Bye Virginia.’ Mr. Hunt can fill you in later on
why he thought that was a good idea, but he hired a prostitute to work the
party. That prostitute was Krista—that’s her professional name. Her real name
is Elena Moranu—”

“Do you have proof that my client hired her, or
that she was hired at all?”

“
Proof
is a tough one. We have Krista’s statement that she was hired—by him. And we
have some circumstantial evidence.” I turned to Ryan. “Do you have that chart?”

Ryan pulled the “$/Fuck” chart from his folder and
passed it over to Gregory Macmillan.

“What is this?” the attorney said.

“Your client hired Krista to have sex with five
guys. Then he brought in an extra five, for a total of ten.” I pointed to the
bottom line. “That brought the price per fuck down to fifty dollars.”

Gregory Macmillan, a look of disgust on his face,
leaned back and stared at Martin.

Martin looked at the attorney. “I don’t know where
that came from.”

“I do,” I said. “From the dumpster behind the
fraternity house.”

The attorney shook his head. “As you said, that’s
circumstantial.”

I nodded. “One other detail: We do have proof that
your client drugged Krista at that party. That would explain her wooziness,
which made it easier for the ten guys—including your client, Counselor—to gang
rape her.”

“What is the nature of that proof?”

“A woman who was at the party was taking a selfie.
It’s in the photo.”

Martin Hunt was looking down at his hands, which
were intertwined on the table. The attorney looked at him. Nobody spoke for a
good ten seconds.

We didn’t have any photo showing Martin Hunt
drugging her. But we’re allowed to lie about the circumstances of the crime.
The idea is that an innocent suspect will know the police are lying and call
our bluff. But a guilty suspect won’t call our bluff because he knows we might
in fact have that evidence. The suspect’s reaction to the lie tells us what we
need to know.

“So your client is guilty of promoting
prostitution by hiring Ms. Moranu and guilty of soliciting prostitution for
screwing her. Both of those are felonies. The soliciting is no big deal: up to
a thousand bucks and one year. The promoting is another matter: That’s fifty
thousand and ten years.”

“My client has a clean record. This is his first
offense.”

I put on a face that said that’s a good point.
“True, but with the drugging, I imagine he’d get the higher end of the range.
What do you think, Counselor?”

Suddenly, Martin Hunt spoke. “This is crazy. How
can you rape a prostitute? Her job is to fuck guys. I was doing her a fav—”

Gregory Macmillan barked at him. “Shut up. Right
now.” He turned to me. “Have you met with Larry Klein yet?”

We hadn’t. “Here’s what I’ve been authorized to
offer you. Two police detectives witnessed your client fight with Ms. Demarest
and throw her in the reservoir. And we have a woman who swore out a complaint
about promoting prostitution and another complaint about rape. If your client
pleads to the assault on Ms. Demarest, we’ll drop the prostitution and rape
charges. That’s a very good offer because the rape would put him on the
sex-offender registry for life. What do you say?”

“Misdemeanor assault?”

I frowned, disappointed. “Can’t do that. She’s in
the hospital now, fighting for her life. We saw him beat her up, throw her in.
It has to be felony assault with a weapon.”

Macmillan’s head jerked back. “Wait a second. What
weapon? There was no weapon.”

Ryan said, “Anything is a weapon if it’s capable
of being used to produce death or serious physical injury. A pillow is a weapon
if you use it to smother someone.”

Martin turned to his attorney. “What is he talking
about? I didn’t have a weapon.”

Gregory Macmillan turned to him slowly. “You threw
her in the reservoir. What did you think would happen to her?”

“This is complete bullshit.” Martin Hunt’s voice
was getting high and squeaky.

Gregory Macmillan furrowed his brow and turned to
me. “That’s up to twenty years and fifty thousand dollars. But no sex-offender
status, right?” He wanted to be sure that’s all we were asking for.

I nodded. “And, like you said, it’s a first
offense. I don’t think your client would do more than five or six years. That’s
provided the victim lives. If not, the deal goes away.” I paused. “You might
want to recommend to your client that he take the offer.”

“Give us a minute, Detectives.”

“Of course.” I stated that we were suspending the
interview. Ryan shut down the recording system, and we left the room.

We walked into the corridor and turned on the
microphone, but neither the attorney nor his client said anything. Macmillan
sat there, his arms crossed on the table, looking absently across the room.
Martin Hunt seemed to be crying. His body was shaking, his hands covering his
face. After about a minute, the attorney glanced at his watch.

Four or five minutes passed. Macmillan snuck a
look at his cell phone, then took a deep breath and put his arm around Martin
Hunt’s shoulder. The young man’s torso sank onto the table and he began to
moan. Macmillan squeezed his shoulder the way a father might after his son got
in some real trouble. The attorney spoke a few words into Martin’s ear. The boy
appeared to nod his head. Gregory Macmillan stood and walked over to the mirror
and tapped it gently with a knuckle.

Ryan and I re-entered the room. Ryan turned on the
recording system and I announced the time. The three adults sat down. There was
silence for the longest while.

“My client is willing to accept your terms.”

“Felony assault with a deadly weapon.”

“That’s right.”

Ryan slid a sheet of paper out of his folder and
passed it to the attorney. How he had found time to write it up, I didn’t know.
Macmillan read it quickly—it was only one paragraph long—then passed it to
Martin Hunt. Gregory Macmillan placed a pen on the sheet of paper, and Hunt
signed it.

Ryan walked over to the control panel on the wall
and turned off the system.

Gregory Macmillan gestured with his head to ask if
he could say something to me in private. I walked over to him and we drifted to
the corner of the room. I raised my chin to signal for him to speak.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, Counselor. You did the right thing for the
kid. We saw him. It was obvious he was trying to kill the girl. My partner dove
in to get her. Both of them almost died. The kid’s
gotta
do some serious time.”

“Do you know what she had on him that he wanted to
kill her?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Not even sure a
prick like him needs a good reason. It could be anything. She could’ve called
him some name for uploading the video and bringing all that shit down on her.”

“Well, I hope the girl’s okay, anyway.”

“Yeah, me, too. You did right by her.”

“You know, Day One in law school they tell you
that every defendant deserves the best representation, regardless of the
heinousness of the crime. I’ve been a public defender for twenty years, and
each year it gets harder and harder for me to believe it.”

“Thanks again.”

He nodded and walked out of the interview room.

Ryan nodded to Macmillan, then waved to the
officer standing outside. “Take Mr. Hunt down to Booking. I’ll be right there.”
The officer entered the room and escorted Martin Hunt out.

Over the years, I’ve talked with a lot of young
offenders right after they signed a statement that’s going to send them away
for years. Surprisingly often, they have no idea what just happened to them. It
must be some kind of psychological protective mechanism. If they realized what
their future was going to be like, they probably wouldn’t be able to keep
breathing.

Martin’s grim expression told me that he was
starting to realize he was now a felon. I could imagine what was going through
his mind: how this was going to screw up the rest of his semester, maybe get
him booted out of the university. He might find it difficult to get the kind of
job he was expecting. His parents might take it hard.

But Martin’s expression wasn’t quite grim enough
to tell me he realized how, in less than a week, he was going to be convicted
of murdering Virginia Rinaldi, and there was a very good chance he would spend
decades in prison. And that he might be executed.

No, his expression did not show he realized that
at all.