CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MASON
TWO WEEKS LATER
“There are things in life you just don’t come back from, and for me, this is one of them.”
The words keep rattling around in my head. Scribbled on the back of a blank invoice form in that swirly, feminine handwriting, they’re lodged permanently in my brain alongside the image of her face—the one that gets me hard even now. The way she looked, glowing and a little sleepy, that afternoon we spent in bed together, when she was mine to hold.
The afternoon I promised to protect her… even if it meant protecting her from myself.
“Mason? Dude, are you fucking listening or not?” Buddy snaps his fingers in front of my face, bringing me back to my shitty reality.
My jaw set, I look down at him in his cheesy ass members-only jacket and level him with a steely glare that effectively silences him.
At the polished lounge table of one of New York’s finest clubs, I turn to face the newest Graham delinquent.
“Alright, Nick. Please explain to me again, this time without the colorful flourishes of bullshit, what happened the night you were arrested.”
The Glenlivet doesn’t dull the bad feeling in my gut as I listen to Nick’s story.
“So I was back in town on break, hanging with my boy, throwin’ back some shooters, chasin’ ass, when a bunch of townies come in, lookin’ mad as fuck, bro. There’s this one, got a mohawk and a ton of piercings, white trash if I ever saw it…”
Pretty sure his definition of white trash encompasses anyone who doesn’t own a Rolex.
“…comes up to me at the bar, and I’ve got this thirsty piece of ass I’m workin’ on… and he’s screaming about some shit. He was going fuckin crazy, man, up in my face, so I grabbed the closest thing to me, a bottle, and I hit him. There’s fucking blood everywhere, man. I don’t even know how, but it’s like he was high. He wouldn’t stay down. Me and my buddies drag him outside and it turns into a fuckin’ brawl, man, but there were more of us, so you know, I showed that fucker who’s boss.”
Buddy claps his hand down on Nick’s shoulder. “I think the point here, Mason, is that it’s a pretty cut and dry case of Nick feeling threatened and reacting like anyone would.”
Like anyone would?
I toss back what’s left of the scotch. “Actually, it sounds like a pretty cut and dry case of you needing to look like a badass in front of the pussy you were chasing that rapidly spiraled out of control thanks to your inability to hold your alcohol.”
Nick looks at me confused. “Bro, I’m serious, he put hands on me. I thought he was gonn—”
I hold up my hand. “You can stop right there. I’m not one of your douche buddies, Nick, here to gobble up the shit you’re spewing. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the only thing between you and a cozy jail cot. Do you want me to explain what they do in jail to rich pussies like you who don’t fight fair? No? Good. Then, let’s get a few things straight. If you fuck with me, if you don’t tell me the absolute, complete truth, we will lose. I have never lost. Ever. And I will not have my trial record marred by a seer-sucker shit stain like you, got it?”
Silence ensues. For a moment, I enjoy the delicious feeling.
Suddenly, Buddy starts laughing. “That’s how you do it, Nick. Right there. That’s how you fucking set someone straight. Pay attention. Ol’ Menace here is a masterclass in shutting people the fuck up.”
Nick looks pale. “I gotta go get another drink, man.” He gets up and walks over to the bar, pulling out his cell phone.
Buddy turns to me. “Glad to have you around again, Menace. Now you’re back to work, I’ve got a friend, one of our board members, going through some problems with his divorce. His gold-digging ex is trying to claim ‘domestic violence,’ he waves dismissively.
I stand, unable to contain my frustration, and motion for Buddy to join me at the large picture windows overlooking the park.
“Look, Buddy, I’m not your legal lackey. I’ll take this case, I’ll get Nick off, but that’s it. If you want me to help your nephew out, I need your word you won’t send anyone else sniffing around about the Omega Pi mixer. You got what you wanted from me this time, but that’s it. Leave the past alone.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He looks confused.
“I’m talking about Madeline VanMeter’s mother contacting me asking about the photographs I took for the Abbotsleigh Gazette that night for the mixer.”
My throat tightens in apprehension as he continues to look bewildered.
“What? Why the hell is she asking you about that? If she wants more money she’s barking up the wrong fucking tree. My father paid that little bitch to keep her mouth shut.”
For a moment, I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m just sitting there processing his words as the magnitude of his slip sinks in.
“What do you mean your father? I thought Charlie’s family settled with the VanMeters.”
The memories of that night come flooding back. Bile rises in my throat as I remember everything.
It had been like any other night. I had been hanging out at the party, taking photographs for the school paper—just another Greek mixer, nothing unique, not until Buddy had come up to me, knuckles scuffed and bruised, looking sweaty, telling me he’d been in a fight and I should say he was with me all night.
“Well, we found it useful to give them extra encouragement to keep quiet,” he says with a knowing smirk.
The bile is strangling me now. The day after the mixer, word began to spread that a girl had been attacked, a girl at the mixer. She was in the hospital, couldn’t remember much… except that Charlie had been there and someone else she thought but couldn’t remember clearly.
Buddy had been adamant, he didn’t even know the girl, but because the attacker had been our friend, it would look bad for him even though he wasn’t involved. He was my best friend back then, so I pushed the nagging doubts aside and trusted him.
“Explain what the fuck it is you’re not telling me. Now!”
“Calm down, Mason. Christ! Madeline was a slut. Everyone knew that. She was hanging all over me, man, so we went back to Charlie’s room… you know. No big deal.”
“You told me you were in a fight…”
“I never said I was in a fight. Look, Charlie and I just wanted to have some fun with her, and she was game for it, at first.”
I remember the pictures of her on the news: black eye, split and swollen lip, cuts on her nose and face, contusions all over her body, and the worst of it—signs of a possible sexual assault they could never conclusively prove.
Back then, for a drunk girl at a frat party, consent was basically a foregone conclusion, at least in the eyes of the law.
My blood goes glacial. “At first?”
He shrugs his shoulder. “Hell, if I can even remember anymore,” he says, sipping his beer.
My voice shakes with anger as I grab him by the lapels of his jacket, thrusting him against the glass. “Don’t you fucking bullshit me.”
“Jesus, Mason. Look, I barely remember, it’s been so long. She was pretty out of it, but she was giving me head and Charlie was getting some on the back end, until she randomly started acting like she had no idea what was going on, trying to get out of there. I backed off man, but Charlie wanted to finish, so…”
The blood feels like it’s draining out of my body. “So. What?”
“She started to get sick, fell, and knocked herself out. I was on academic probation. I didn’t need that shit, so I got out of there, left her for Charlie to deal with. She was his chick.”
I drop my hands as the totality of it swirls in my head.
Buddy steps back, adjusting his tie. “I thought that was the end of it, but when she came to the next day, she didn’t want to own up to being a ho. It’s not like she even had a reputation to defend, but whatever. Poor Charlie is the one who got really fucked over, everyone saw them together. But then they ended up finding my family crest ring. The detectives never connected it to me, and we threw some money at the VanMeters, anonymously you know, just to quiet shit down. It was turning into a shit show, and you could tell she liked the attention. If she really believed that bullshit about being attacked, why would she take the money?”
He’s standing there with his thinning comb-over, the wide pores of his ruddy face, and that lecherous look in his eyes. I can’t help but feel sick.
“I had no idea someone was stirring shit up again. We’ll need to cover each other’s backs on this,” he says darkly. “If I go down, you know you’ll be tied into it too.”
Skin crawling, I leave the club as quickly as I can.
Alone, in my apartment, I start hunting, tearing open boxes. Hours later, the sun streaking the sky with purple and pink tendrils, I find my collection of prints from my days as a photojournalism major.
There, in the middle of the box, is the photo I had always meant to destroy but could never bring myself to purge.
A frozen moment in black and white.
In the grand foyer of Omega Pi House, Buddy stands in a corner, looking younger in his frat boy-chic Izod polo, smiling with his arm around Madeline, his family ring on display.
I know, in the right prosecutor’s hands, it’s damning. But I also know the fact I’ve held onto it all these years implicates me.
I had my doubts, my reservations, when people started asking questions about Buddy’s whereabouts, but I had given him my word and, more than that, I had trusted him, believed the shit story he’d fed me.
When I came across the picture, suspicion took root. Buddy claimed he thought she was someone else at the time and didn’t talk to her after that. He brushed off my demand we turn the picture in, telling me we had both misled the investigators. If I changed my story now, he’d said, we’d both go down for interfering with an investigation.
I’d had my own rocky string of incidents on campus—mostly public intoxication, the occasional streaking, a fist fight or two. But, if it had come out I had lied to investigators about the VanMeter case, a case which consumed the local media for a short time, I had no idea what kind of devastation might ensue. My father might even cut me off.
Funny how much better that sounds in hindsight.
Instead, I held my silence, hoping Buddy’s revised story was the truth, trying to deny what I feared, burying my doubt. But Madeline’s case has always nagged at me, weighing on my conscience. What kind of person doesn’t speak up?
*
“Here is your copy of the indictment,” the DA, a stout, middle aged man hands me the certified document.
We’re at Nick’s preliminary hearing. The Grand Jury indicted and Nick is reclining behind the thick oak counsel table, exuding that Graham family smugness.
“Don’t worry, Nicky. Mason’s got this. Right, bro?” Buddy is there in the first row of the gallery as we wait for the hearing to be called into session.
My stomach is in knots. Here I am, back again, at the crossroads.
The DA leans over. “Hey, just for your own records, the rape I charge will be on a separate case number. We’ll notify your office of the prelim date when the court sets it.”
The hairs on my neck rise, my breath stills in my lungs.
“Rape? What are you talking about? This is an assault case.”
He smirks. “I suggest you talk to your client.”
I turn around. Nick looks unaffected as I ask, “What the hell is this about a rape charge?”
“No big deal, man. It’s why those townies were all pissed off. She was dying to fuck me, but you know how they like to play hard to get.”
The urge to slam his head into the table and not stop until he’s a quivering mess on the floor nearly takes over, but just then the Harpy takes the bench.
“All rise for the Honorable Judge Thomas,” the bailiff announces.
The DA rises. “Good morning, your Honor. I’d like to start today by calling Case CF013117. The State of New York Vs. Nicholas Graham VanDuyck.”
Thomas nods and pulls out the file, gears set into motion, while I sit there with my head spinning.
“Mr. Beckett, the State is charging your client with two counts of Felony Assault in the first degree. How does your client wish to plead?”
“There is always a choice.”
Jeanie’s soft voice comes back to me. For a moment, just one, I want to be worthy of her.
“On behalf of my client, Your Honor, I’d like to enter into the court register a plea of… guilty.”
Surprise ripples out through the room. Nick turns to me, eyes wide, alarm written plainly on his face. I nod to him not to worry.
Judge Thomas starts talking, asking about plea paperwork, sentencing recommendations—nothing is prepped yet, our unexpected plea change completely upsetting the process. A new date is set and we filter out of the courtroom.
“What the fuck was that? Have you lost your goddamned mind? I’ll fucking destroy you for this,” Buddy is whispering, venom in his words, as we stand in the hallway.
Calm descends over me, a certain clarity like I’ve never known.
“Just shut the hell up, both of you. I have a plan.”
Buddy relaxes slightly. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“Simple. Nick, you take responsibility for what you’ve done. The DA will give you leniency for not forcing the victims to testify and simplifying the process, as will the judge for not wasting the court’s time.”
Their mouths are working, angry words coming out, but I’m buoyed by a sense of conviction. For the first time, I made the right choice. They’re hurling threats, melting down, but I can’t hear any of it.
Walking away, I pull out my phone, finding the woman’s phone number in my call log and dial.
“Hello?” The feminine voice echoes on the other line.
“Claire VanMeter?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Mrs. VanMeter, this is Mason Beckett. You called me before to ask about the Omega Pi mixer? I’d like to tell you what I know.”