Chapter Nine

 

When Natasha reached the police station, her boss, Assistant Superintendent Coley, was waiting for her at the front desk.

He indicated for her and Tony to follow him to his office. He sat in his chair, his whiskers twitching. "Detectives have a seat."

He scribbled something on a form and then looked up at them, his eyes confused. "I just got a call from the Assistant Commissioner who was called by Senator Durkheim. The assistant commissioner said that Durkheim was hopping mad."

Natasha winced. "Word travels fast. We just got back from taking a statement from Deidra Durkheim and she just pressed rape charges against Micah Bancroft."

"This is putting me in a very awkward position," Coley said. "I am very good friends and quite close to the Bancroft family."

He drummed his fingers on the desk. "Is there any truth to Deidra Durkheim's allegations?"

Tony cleared his throat. "I doubt most of her statement, sir. She wasn't acting like a woman raped. She was flirting with me shamelessly."

"Ah." Coley rubbed his face. "The law is the law. My heart is heavy doing this though. I don't know Micah to be a rapist…I am taking this personally. Unfortunately, he messed with the wrong girl. That's if he did it."

He pushed a search warrant over to Natasha. "I've already signed the warrant, the Assistant Commissioner insisted on it. Prepare for the raging father. I heard he will be here in a matter of hours, and he wants blood."

Natasha folded the warrant. "This does not feel right."

"What can I say?" Coley spread his arms wide. "Do you think the other rapes are linked to Micah too?"

"We have nothing more to go on than that the rapist liked gum and he called his victims 'high handed bitch', among other things, when he was done with them. Today we were going to look at any similarities between the victims. Maybe then we will be able to come up with a profile for the rapist. If Micah is the rapist then it seems as if our case may already be solved," Natasha said simply.

"I don't think so." Tony shook his head. "What would be Micah Bancroft's reason for raping Penelope and Jiselle?"

Natasha got up. "That is up to you and me to find out. Let's go."

 

***

 

They found Micah Bancroft in the Business Center office. He was counting the stock for stationary and other supplies with an on campus bookstore employee.

When he saw Natasha, he waved easily, excusing himself from the employee.

"Hey Natasha," he said smiling. His deep-set brown eyes, looked innocent of any pretense. He carried himself with such ease and casual confidence.

Natasha winced. She was about to turn his world upside down.

"Micah," she pulled him aside out of earshot of the employee. "I am a police officer."

Micah looked at her askance. "I never would have guessed, but good for you. That's an okay job if you like fighting crime."

Natasha sighed. "This morning Deidra Durkheim reported that you raped her."

"What!" Micah's smile fled. "Natasha, I don't find this funny."

Tony walked up to them. "We have a warrant to search your place now."

"But..." Micah shook his head, lost in mid-thought. "Okay fine. Let me find somebody to fill in for me."

He called one of his student assistants and he came over briskly. "Tell Kim, that I will be out for the rest of the day."

He slumped his shoulders and turned hurt eyes on Natasha. "Okay, what's next?"

"We go to your house," Natasha said, "and search."

"What exactly do you hope to find there?" Micah asked bewildered, then he shrugged. "Never mind. Can I make a phone call?"

"You are not under arrest," Natasha said, walking with him to the outside of the building. "This is just a routine search for evidence."

Micah snorted. "I really can't believe this." He dialed his father's number.

Bancroft came on the line swiftly. He usually took Micah's calls in a hurry. He was programmed to expect them to be bad news.

"My house is going to be searched," Micah said simply. "Deidra told the police that I raped her."

Bancroft could be heard gasping over the phone. "I am sending over the family lawyer!" he screeched down the phone. "Don't you dare say a thing and incriminate yourself!"

Micah hung up the phone and decided to call Taj. He wanted him to know what was going on. "Your girlfriend is locking me up," he said when Taj came on the line.

"I am not!" Natasha said loudly. "I am going to search his house because a criminal charge is filed against him."

Taj was in his new office. He jumped up from the chair. "What's going on? Something to do with Deidra?"

"Yup." Micah chest was aching with the effort not to scream. "That witch accused me of raping her." There was the sound of suppressed violence in Micah's voice.

"No, don't call her any names," Taj said hurriedly. "Give me directions to where you live."

Micah gave him directions and then got into his car, which was parked at the front.

"So you guys are accompanying me back to my place?" he asked

Natasha nodded.

He slammed his car door loudly and reversed from the parking lot.

 

Micah had never in his life felt such a sense of fear. It was taking him over, even though he constantly told himself to be calm. He did not do anything. Deidra was a spoilt over-sexed girl who was bitter because she did not get her way.

So then, why were his hands trembling when he turned into his pothole lined driveway, and why did he feel so weak and frightened? Even his knees were trembling. When he got out of his car, he felt guilty, and he hadn't even done anything wrong!

He took deep breaths and waited for Natasha and her partner to stop near his car.

They got out of their car briskly and Micah looked at Natasha with new eyes. One night a couple weeks before, he had walked a student worker to her dorm and Natasha had been standing outside. He had called to her several times; eventually he touched when she didn't answer him. She had reacted lightning fast, almost bending back his thumb.

So, she was a police and she was also good at self-defense. His mind wandered back to the present. She stood in front of him with no emotion on her face and handed him a search warrant.

"Want to wait on your lawyer?" Natasha asked.

Micah shrugged. "Sure, why not? You do realize that Deidra has serious issues, don't you?"

Natasha and Tony looked at each other and then Natasha cleared her throat. "Micah, you don't have to tell us anything without counsel present. I just want to say though that rape is a serious offense and her father is on his way back to Jamaica from Barbados. He wants you locked up."

Micah shook his head. "She's lying."

"We will see what happens after the search," Natasha said quickly.

The lawyer was making his way up the driveway in his SUV. He eventually stopped near them and got out.

"You waited for me?" he asked, surprised.

He looked at Natasha and Tony. "I am not used to certain common courtesies from the police. The name is Fritz Gordon. He shook Natasha and Tony's hand."

"Okay, let's go." He patted Micah on his back as he headed to the front door and opened the house.

Micah stood on his wide verandah with the rotting boards and waited as they searched his house. There wasn't anything much for them to search. He didn't have much furniture. What he had in there were actually bits and pieces of damaged stuff from the previous owners. The only thing that he really had for himself in the place was a double pillow top king-sized bed.

He could hear the floorboards squeaking as they tramped over the noisy rotting boards. The search wouldn't take long, he was sure.

He sat on the rail of his front stoop; it was made of wood and rocking slightly. It was on the very bottom of his list of things to fix on the house, there were just so many other more important things to do. He could hear the willow trees with their mourning tune as the wind picked up.

Taj arrived in his new silver Subaru. He had bought it just last week. Micah had gone with him to pick it out.

Taj got out of the car and looked at him with sympathy. "What's up bro?"

Micah hung his head. He suddenly realized when Taj called him bro the kind of backlash that this whole fiasco would have on him and his family. It wasn't just his father's job. His mother had an old age home that she started a few years earlier—everyone loved and respected her in the community. His brother Marcus was a track star, and well known internationally. Pretty, soon the media would be digging into his life and hounding his family.

He wondered, resentfully, if Deidra realized the real damage that she would do to the Bancroft family and then he concluded that she probably did.

"They are in there searching." He hooked his thumb and indicated to the house.

"This is not a bad place you have up here," Taj said shaking the post and deciding not to join him by sitting on it.

"Thanks," Micah said. "Sale is supposed to be finalized tomorrow. I hope it is finalized before news gets out that Dr. Bancroft's son is a rapist."

"Nice view too," Taj said with a soothing quality to his tone. He looked over into what Micah fondly thought of as his farm and then pass that to the rolling hills beyond, all the way to where he could see fog hugging some mountainous areas in the distance.

"They say the place is haunted," Micah said, "because of the sound of the willow trees lining the driveway and a story about a man killing his wife here. The claim is that she is the one wailing in the night. Some people have even claimed to have seen her..." He stopped mid sentence.

Natasha came out of the house, a somber expression on her face. Tony had two clear-plastic evidence bags, with what looked like a g-string panty and the accordion file with the wedding books in them and a bigger bag with his sheets.

Micah's heart picked up speed. His lawyer was not looking as jovial as when he went inside.

"Micah Bancroft," Natasha said seriously, "you are under arrest..."

Micah barely heard Taj's gasp or his lawyer's entreaty. "Don't cuff him. He's not dangerous, and I will follow you down to the station."

He didn't really register when they reached the blue and white Mount Faith police station or the fact that Natasha had said something to him.

He heard after she said it when he was coming out of the car. "Watch your head."

He barely registered that Taj was looking at him reassuringly.

He just knew that one moment he had woken up in the morning as happy as his melancholic soul would allow and the next moment he was behind bars at the station while his lawyer worked on his bail for the rape of Deidra Durkheim.