says after the beep, her voice sounding clipped and very Northern after Mia’s soft drawl. “I’m sorry I didn’t get your earlier calls. I was at a party for a reporter who’s leaving the Herald, and the band was so loud I couldn’t hear anything. I’m sure you’re sleeping now. Look, I got a call from one of our reporters at the Examiner. She said a St. Stephen’s girl named Kate Townsend was murdered today. Raped and strangled, she said, or at least that’s what it looks like. No autopsy until tomorrow morning. Have you heard about that? I think I played tennis with this girl at Duncan Park. She was really sharp, going to Harvard, she said. Well … I guess I won’t talk to you until tomorrow. I hope we can see each other soon. I know this sucks. I’m really getting a lot done, though. I may crack this thing soon. I hope the new book’s going well. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you. Bye.”
I was near to picking up the receiver when Caitlin signed off. I’m not sure why I didn’t. But I can’t help wondering why a Natchez reporter was able to get through to Caitlin when I wasn’t. And half of her message was about Kate’s murder, almost as if she were calling me to get details for a story. It’s not that I don’t want to share things with her. But I want her to be here to share actual experiences with me, not call for reports when things sound interesting.
A wave of relief goes through me when the phone rings again. I roll over onto one elbow and answer.
“Hey, babe,” I murmur. “Sorry. I was half sleep before.”
“Penn?” says a male voice.
“Yeah, Drew. What is it?”
“I was surfing the Web, and I found a site maintained by the Mississippi Supreme Court. They’ve got the whole criminal code posted there. And from what I can tell, statutory rape only applies to girls under sixteen, not eighteen.”
I blink in the darkness. “Are you sure? I remember the statute pretty well. Of course I learned it before moving to Texas for fifteen years. The legislature could have changed it.”
“Here’s the applicable language. ‘The crime of statutory rape is committed when any person seventeen years of age or older has sexual intercourse with a child who: one, is at least fourteen but under sixteen years of age.’ There are qualifications, but they all deal with even younger victims and the age difference between victim and perpetrator. It also says, ‘Neither the victim’s consent nor the victim’s lack of chastity is a defense to the charge of statutory rape.’”
“They must have changed the statute,” I say in disbelief. But even as relief courses through me, a sense of foreboding rises in my mind. “Drew … I think I read somewhere that some states were moving in this direction because there were so many suits being brought by parents who hated their daughters’ boyfriends. You’ve got two seventeen-year-olds having consensual sex. The guy turns eighteen and bam, the girl’s parents try to lock him up for statutory rape.”
“So, I’m in the clear?”
“Under that statute,” I say uneasily. “But somehow I don’t think you’re out of the woods yet.” What is it? I wonder, searching my memory for the source of my anxiety. “There’s definitely a sexual harassment issue here, but of course that’s a civil matter. It’s criminal charges we’re worried about, felonies in particular.” Suddenly, a voice is sounding in my head, the voice of my old boss, the district attorney of Houston: lascivious touching or handling of a minor … contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and then the big one, sexual—“Drew, are you still at your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Look up sexual battery.”
I stare up at the dark ceiling, listening to the clicking of keys and praying that my instinct is wrong. “What does it say?”
“Just a minute. Okay … uh …”
“Read it aloud.”
“Here … ‘A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with (A) another person without his or her consent.’ I’m okay there.”
“Keep reading.”
“‘(B) a mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless person. (C) A child at least fourteen but under sixteen years of age, if the person is thirty-six or more months older than the child.’ Thank God.”
Drew sounds so relieved that I’m tempted to let him hang up and get a good night’s sleep. But I’m almost certain that bad news is coming. “Keep reading.”
“Okay. There’s a second paragraph. ‘A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with a child under the age of …’”
His voice falters. “Drew?”
“Eighteen,” he whispers. “It says eighteen here.”
“Keep reading.”
“Oh, God. Oh, no.”
“Please read it for me.”
“‘… if he or she engages in sexual penetration with a child under the age of eighteen years if the person is in a position of trust or authority over the child including without limitation the child’s teacher, counselor, physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, minister …’”
Drew’s voice sounds like that of a man being sedated before an operation, a monotone fading into nothingness. “You can stop, Drew.”
He continues as though he can’t hear me over the print screaming from his computer monitor. “‘… priest, physical therapist, chiropractor, legal guardian, parent, stepparent, aunt, uncle, scout leader or coach.’”
“Drew, listen to me. Are you listening?”
Out of a deep well of silence comes a single sob.
“Drew, it’s all right. I know you’re feeling terrible guilt right now. Seeing it written down like that, you may feel for the first time that you’re guilty of a crime.”
“She’s dead,” he says in a shattered voice. “And if I hadn’t crossed this line with her, she’d be alive right now.”
“You don’t know that. You’re not God. Listen to me, buddy. I love you. I love you, and I respect you. You’re just human, like the rest of us.”
“Wait a minute,” he says wetly. “I’m looking for the penalty.”
“Don’t. Leave that for tomorrow.”
“I need to see it.”
No, you don’t, I say silently. It’s going to be thirty years—
“Jesus Christ. It’s thirty years.”
“That’s not going to happen, Drew. I promise you that.”
“Oh my God,” he says with fresh dread.
“What? What is it?”
“For a second offense, it’s forty years. Timmy would be—”
“Turn off that computer! That’s not the real world, Drew.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hell, yes. I was a prosecutor for fifteen years. That’s why you wanted my advice about all this, remember? And my advice is to go to sleep and let me do the worrying for you. That’s what you’re paying me for.”
“Twenty bucks doesn’t pay for much worrying.”
I don’t reply for some time. Then I say, “You saved my life. And you risked your own to do it. If you hadn’t, my daughter would never have been born. That buys you a lot of worrying.”
“You never asked for this.”
“No, but I can handle it. You’ve got to stay in control for me, though.”
“You’re