Free Fubar by Ron Carpol Page B

anything else yesterday, what did that cop try to get you to admit?”
    I thought about it for a few seconds. “Probably that the girl consented to getting fucked.”
    â€œWhat’d you tell her?”
    â€œThat I never fucked her. With or without her consent. And that’s the truth.”
    â€œWho cares about the truth? You know why she wanted you to admit that?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    â€œBecause the victim is only seventeen.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo that means that she can’t consent because she’s not old enough. Like fucking a twelve year-old even if she jams your dick in her. Called statutory rape. You could get ten years for it.”
    â€œHow do you know she’s only seventeen?”
    â€œBecause you’re the fourth guy from the fraternity to call me about this case this morning.” He reached for a yellow legal pad on his desk that was next to a newspaper that was folded to the Obituary section where some death notices were circled with a yellow highlighter. “You know a guy named Castle?”
    â€œYeah, he’s a pledge with me.”
    He read from the pad again. “And Delacroix?”
    â€œYeah, he’s a pledge too. We call him Froggy.”
    â€œAnd Breckshire?”
    â€œYeah, him too. We call him Holmes.”
    â€œWell, I told all three of them like I told you, I only take cash since I’m not exactly partners with the IRS. I took your case since you’re the first guy here with the money. Anyway, I checked with Detective Montelino after Castle’s phone call so I’d know something about the case if somebody hired me. She toldme the victim’s age.”
    Considering I found this guy from his ad in the weekly school newspaper, I was lucky, since his ethics were like my father’s: shaped like a corkscrew.
    Nuppi leaned so far back again in his chair that if the spring broke, he’d be propelled like a rocket, straight through the window behind him and out onto a branch of the huge tree behind the glass.
    â€œAnything about your interview with the cop that made you suspicious of her?”
    â€œUm, yeah. Come to think of it, she didn’t take notes. How could she remember who said what?”
    â€œShe have her briefcase on a table between you?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œShe’s got a hidden tape recorder in it with the microphone near the handles.” He scratched the back of his styled, razor-cut, salt-and-pepper hair. “Any of the other guys make any statements to her as far as you know?”
    â€œWatson told the cop that he fucked her, sometimes twice a day, when she came over to their apartment.”
    â€œThey’ll probably nail him for it. How stupid.”
    â€œYou mean to fuck her?”
    â€œNo. To admit it.”
    â€œHe told us his roommate fucked her all the time too.”
    â€œThe roommate tell the cops that?”
    â€œNo. He denied everything.”
    â€œSmart. But the guy who confessed, he’s an idiot. Pretty soon he’ll be changing positions on the prison football team; going into the joint as a tight end and leaving as a wide receiver.”
    Both of us laughed at his joke that was probably true.
    â€œDid the detective tell you anything else about the case?”
    By this time Nuppi’s feet were nearly parallel to the floor. Then he started speaking again it was as if he was reading his words off the ceiling.
    â€œThe only thing the detective would tell me about this case, besides the girl’s age, is that she passed out from drinking at a Christmas party and woke up in the pledge bedroom at thefraternity house with a blanket over her head while somebody was raping her. And that somehow, the girl knew it was a pledge. That’s it.” He paused and lowered the chair so he was facing me again with his eyes open. “She reported it the next day. Cops got a search warrant and took some sheets that are at the lab now.”