“It wasn’t rape! It was just sex, it was tradition. It was—”
“Did you drug them?”
“It was just—”
“Did you fucking drug them?”
“Yes, yes, but only because it eased the way—for them. For them,” he said quickly.
“Did you restrain them?”
“Yes, but—just to add to the excitement—for them, too.”
“Did these women say stop? Say no?”
“Only at the start of the . . . It was a kind of ritual. And we selected them carefully. To be selected was a kind of honor.”
She could see the panic in his eyes at his own words. “Rape is an honor?”
“It was sex.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You drugged them, restrained them, you forced yourself on them when they begged you to stop. You might just find yourself in the same situation in prison, for the rest of your life. And we’ll see if you think of it as just sex.”
“You can’t put me in prison. Do you know who I am?”
“I know exactly who you are.”
“You work for me!” Incensed, he tried to shove up, and the restraints rattled. “For men like me.”
“I work for the City of New York, and I put people like you in cages. I fucking love my job, and tonight, right this minute, more than ever.”
“Those women are criminals. They’re murderers. They’re insane. They beat me. They burned me.”
“Oh, we’ll let the medicals fix you all up before you go in the cage. You and the last of your brothers—that’s Ethan MacNamee, who’s even now being extradited to New York—are going to have a long time to think about your traditions. You got enough, Reo?”
“More than. Mr. Easterday, you’ve confessed, on the record and after being duly Mirandized, to the charges of multiple rapes.”
“No! It was
“That’s your right,” Reo said easily. “On the other hand, Mr. MacNamee’s had a lot to say. And if he continues, once he’s doing that talking to Lieutenant Dallas, he’ll get the deal I was about to offer you.”
“What deal?” Eve demanded, on cue, as if outraged.
“This is my job, Lieutenant. And part of my job is to save the city the time and expense of a long, ugly trial. But since Mr. Easterday has invoked his right to remain silent . . .”
“I want to know the terms.”
Reo looked back at him, nodded. “All right. If you’ll excuse us, Lieutenant, Detective.”
“This is bullshit.” But Eve stormed out, then slowed when she got out the door.
“What’s the deal?” Peabody asked. “I knew you and Reo had your heads together.”
“Life, no parole, but on-planet. He’d likely get that anyway. But she’ll scare him into signing off. He’s done. MacNamee is done—he spilled plenty to Scotland, and we’ll get the rest out of him.”
She shoved a hand through her hair because she was far from done. “Let’s go talk to the women.”
22
At Blake’s request, Eve took her first, sat across from her and in the box.
Blake wore prison orange now.
“You have now suspended your wish for counsel or representation?”
“For the moment, yes. As you pointed out, I can represent myself. And though I would advise my client to remain silent, my client has a deep emotional need to make a statement. And in making it, hopes to help the three women you’ll soon interview here.
“They’re victims, Lieutenant.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was a student at Yale University. I worked very hard to be accepted into Yale, very hard to shine there. My ambition was law, corporate law. I wanted a high-powered job, planned to make full partner before I turned forty. I wanted a big, glamorous apartment, and glamorous friends. I accomplished all of that, and I was content. I told myself I was content, that the nightmares that recurred were stress-induced. They had no basis in reality.
“The nightmares where I was tied to a bed in a room with colored lights. Spinning lights, loud music. Male laughter. Where I wept and raged. Where I relived that shock, that pain, that humiliation. Faceless men, forcing themselves into me. Forcing me to drink something that, after each had had me once, turned me into an animal, so I begged them to take me again. And again when they could untie me, then hang me up by the wrists in the center of those spinning lights, and take me two at a time.”
She paused, sipped the water Peabody had set on the table. Though her hand stayed steady, her breath shuddered out before she spoke again.
“In my ambitions I had imagined men—suitable men, entertaining men. Out of them I would select a mate and build a fine life. But in reality, after those nightmares began, whenever I tried to be with a man, a panic filled me. A terrible sickness. I thought perhaps I had some condition, and began to see a therapist.”
She paused a moment, steadied herself. “I thought I might prefer women, but no matter how gentle the lover I chose, that panic would grip me. For a while, I accepted I could be with no one, could not be intimate, I’d just focus on my work, on my career. But the nightmares wouldn’t relent. My work began to suffer, and the nightmares raged inside me, like the men in them raged.
