THE COED MURDER CLUB. Ken Salter

the investigating officer with lawsuits and sanctions from all the high powered politicos he knew if we didn’t convict the guys that screwed his little girl.”

      “They get briefed by anyone else?”

      “Yeah, they kept hassling Officer Mary Sandoval for info and accusing her of not doing her job. I finally told Mary to cut ’em off. If they wanted progress on the case, they had to go through me.”

      “Mary Sandoval?”

      “She was the officer assigned to the case.”

      “I just spoke with the daughter. She’s real shook up; they told her she’s HIV positive and she’s sure it came from the guys who screwed her. Won’t that make a difference now? Couldn’t the case be reopened, especially if they knew they were HIV positive when they assaulted her?”

      “I’m real sorry to hear she’s got the AIDS virus. It’s a public health matter to locate the guys, not a police matter. Even with that possible twist, there’s no way the D.A. is going to file a criminal complaint on the set of facts we learned. He’d be laughed out of Dodge and probably not be reelected. He’s not gonna risk losing his big salary on a losing case and the stupid antics of a good-time party girl. So, you’re trying to find the guys so the father can bring a civil suit, huh?”

      “That’s one of the options. I’d like to get your take on the case. It seems to me that it could have gone either way – rape or seduction.”

      “Yeah, I thought so, too, at first. But when I started to push her, her story didn’t hold up. She let herself get picked up and went along with everything right up to the time the guys fucked her.”

      “I thought maybe you could make a case that they set her up – purposely plied her with liquor to get her drunk enough so she couldn’t effectively give her consent to sex or even resist. She told me she got sick and dizzy and passed out on the couch. When she came to, she was naked and all three of them were sexually assaulting her with their hands on all her private parts and she was too woozy and drunk to resist. She did say ‘No’ once; why isn’t that enough to support rape?”

      “I was working that angle at first, but it doesn’t hold water. She voluntarily took her clothes off to belly dance for the guys. According to her, the guys were already mostly undressed. What the hell does she think is going to happen? She’s twenty-two years old and she does a bump and grind number for three horny guys. They put money on the table and she delivered the goods. When it’s over, she’s pissed they fucked her up the ass. She’s got a hundred and sixty bucks in her purse and a sore butt. Her parents expect us to pound the pavement to find three guys that paid for her to play harem girl for them for a pile of twenties. Give me a break! The D.A. would never touch a case I brought to him if I’d referred this one. It would have brought ridicule to the whole department. We’ve got enough bad press as it is.”

      Mindy hadn’t told me that she’d wound up with the money she’d won dancing. It certainly made her look like a tramp in Sawyer’s eyes. I could see the little old ladies on the jury going, “tsk, tsk, she was asking for it and even got paid like a prostitute.”

      “Did she tell you that she asked them to stop touching her, but they wouldn’t?”

      “Yeah, that’s what she said at first. But when I pressed her on the details, it didn’t hold up. She tells them to stop touching her but at the same time, she’s coming like a locomotive with the guys hands up her pussy and her ass. How the hell do you think I’m gonna sell that to the D.A.? Come on, R.C. Does that sound like earnest resistance or forceful compulsion to you? Even if little Miss Rohnert was the governor’s daughter, the D.A. couldn’t get a conviction. Berkeley would be on the map as the laughing stock capital of the nation. It’s all ready bad enough that some people call it ‘Berserkely.”’

      I could see his point. He was anticipating how a clever defense lawyer would portray the case to the jury and the press. He’d have his client tell the jury how Mindy voluntarily drank with the guys to excess, then strutted her stuff doing the limbo and her belly dance and how much she liked the guys touching her all over. She’d admitted coming to orgasm twice before they entered her. He’d use her own words in the police reports to destroy her credibility on cross-examination.

      “I’d like to review the police reports if it’s okay with you. Maybe I can get a lead on how to locate the guys.”

      “Sure, be my guest.” He handed me the report he’d been reading when I arrived. “Just drop it off at the front desk when you’re through with it.”

      I took the file down to an empty interrogation room to read while I waited for Officer Sandoval to finish her shift in a patrol car.

      The police report contained interview summaries with Mindy, Ernie, the night watchman at her dorm, and the doctors and nurses who administered the rape kit the morning after the attack. Mindy’s statement corroborated most of what she’d told me but in less detail. She said she was surprised to find a wad of twenty dollar bills in her purse the next day when she reported the rape.

      The night watchman stated that he’d been dozing when he heard loud rapping on the locked main door. He recognized Mindy who was being assisted by a young man. She stumbled into Ernie’s arms once he opened the door. She smelled of booze and appeared to be sick according to him. He described the guy as about six feet tall, dark featured, Mediterranean looking, maybe Greek or Italian ancestry with dark curly hair and wearing dark glasses.

      According to Ernie, the guy sort of pushed her into his arms and said, “She got loaded at a friend’s party and I had to drive her home.” Once Ernie had hold of her, the guy split. Ernie helped her up to her room so she could sleep it off. That’s all he knew. Officer Sandoval asked whether she said anything about being assaulted. He said, “No, she was clearly drunk but she didn’t look messed up.” He added that it wasn’t uncommon for girls in the dorm to come home drunk from parties, so he didn’t think anything about it.

      The medical reports confirmed that Mindy had anal intercourse with different men. She complained of soreness and diarrhea. The physician’s exam confirmed that she’d suffered abrasions and bleeding in her anus. There was no sperm in her vagina. She told them they had penetrated her there digitally.

      The summary page was written by Detective Sawyer who recommended the case for rape was too weak to forward to the D.A. for prosecution based on the victim’s lack of earnest resistance and seeming consent to the sexual acts. Officer Sandoval had recommended further investigation to locate and interview the individuals who had taken advantage of her.

      It was time for Officer Sandoval to come off duty, so I closed the file and dropped it off with the records clerk on the way to Officer Sandoval’s desk, one of four small prison-made oak desks crammed into an office designed to hold one large or possibly two small persons. There were no partitions or any effort to provide for privacy.

      My first view of Officer Sandoval was from the back. She was bending over her desk in a way that accentuated the curves of her buttocks and legs poured into tight-fitting police issue tan slacks. She’d plaited her thick mane of coal black hair into a tight, glossy braid which bobbed back and forth as she jabbered excitedly in Spanish into a phone. From the little I understood of her rapid fire account from studying Spanish in high school, she had been involved in catching or chasing a suspect.

      I tapped gently on the office door. She started, turned quickly and she threw me a puzzled look.

      I could hear staccato gibberish coming out of the receiver in her hand which she now held at arm’s length like a hot potato. She resolved her confusion about which conversation to pursue by spitting more Spanish into the phone, then hanging it up.

      Her face was broad, strong-featured and strikingly chiseled. She reminded me of some of the women I’d seen in Central America – high cheek bones, large oval shaped black eyes that peered out intently from behind long, curly lashes. Only her nose betrayed a mixed-race Latina. She was about five-feet six-inches tall and looked to be in her late twenties. She wore no makeup. Her full and pleasing figure stretched her uniform in all the right places.