“What kind of specialist? What’s wrong?”
“I’m old,” she said, the words themselves serving as a shrug. I took her response as confirmation that nothing serious was wrong with her health. She was only sixty-five and had never referred to herself as “old” until my father died five years ago. The medical appointment was either fabricated or minor.
“I take it you heard about the incident with Jason and his student?” I led the way into the kitchen and popped a Nespresso pod into the machine, waiting for her to mock the absence of a real pot of coffee.
“So did he do it?”
“Of course not, Mom. He made an innocent comment about her being too young to get married. She took it to be a pass, and then everything got exaggerated.”
Mom took the tiny cup of caffeine from me, complete with an eye roll, then made her way to the refrigerator for a dash of the whole milk I keep around for Spencer.
“Even innocent comments can be loaded,” she said. “In my day, it was called innuendo.”
I did not want to think about my mother engaging in what she considered to be “innuendo,” but without prompting, she did me the honor of an impromptu performance. “You’re much too young to become a bride,” she said in a masculine voice. “You might be right, Dr. Powell,” she said in a ridiculous femme fatale delivery. “Why don’t you show me what I’ll be missing?”
“And . . . scene. ‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Tip your servers. We’ll be here all night!’”
“Angela, you’re smarter than this. I have no doubt it was a misunderstanding, but misunderstandings don’t happen when a situation is black and white. They only happen when there are shades of gray, when there could be two different versions of the same damn thing. What did Jason do with that girl?”
“Nothing, Mom. Nothing happened.”
She took a sip of the coffee that, from the look on her face, still wasn’t to her liking. “Are the two of you—okay?”
“Mom, please.”
“A man his age has certain needs. I know you don’t like to talk about it—”
“Jesus, Mom. I am not having this conversation with you. Jason and I are fine. I can’t believe you are blaming this on me. Do not make this about me.”
By the time she reached for me, my hand was trembling as I slammed a fresh purple pod into the Nespresso machine. “You can always come home if it’s too much. He’s already been pushing you to the brink.”
Other women would be proud of Jason’s accomplishments. But my mother knew that, as much as I didn’t want to be yet another cog in the East End service culture, I never wanted a spotlight either.
“I don’t need to come home, Mom. Colin hired a lawyer for Jason and says everything’s going to be fine.”
“Maybe so, but that’s why I’m here, okay? You need to take care of yourself and Spencer. The two of you come first. If Jason made this mess, he can deal with it on his own. I’ve seen how these people blame everything on anyone else—”
We spent the next twenty minutes arguing about whether Jason could be clumped in with “these people,” during which she invoked several examples of what she perceived to be Jason’s sense of entitlement. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I asked her whether she had a doctor’s appointment or not.
“Yes, I have an appointment, like I said.”
“Is it something serious? Can I come with you?”
She carried her ridiculously tiny Nespresso cup to the sink, rinsed it out, and rested it on a dish towel on the counter. When she turned around, her broad, flat face was filled with a smile. “My appointment is for a manicure, and you’re coming with me. And Jason’s going to pay.”
“Well, that sounds absolutely lovely.”
“I’m serious, Angela—if he fucked up, he really does need to pay.”
I told her once again that everything was going to be fine. She didn’t look convinced, but stopped pressing the point for the time being. “Look on the bright side: the last thing you wanted was him running for office. Doesn’t seem like you’ll be needing to worry about that anymore.”
I shook my head and smiled, but part of me realized she had a point. Assuming this crisis passed, Jason would have a good reason to stay out of the public eye for a long, long time.
15
The woman was probably in her midthirties, with straight, shoulder-length dark hair and full lips. Dressed elegantly in a simple long-sleeved navy dress and heels, she glanced around nervously, as if she knew how out of place she looked.
Corrine rose to shake her hand and gestured toward the chair next to her desk.
“You’re the detective in charge?” A civilian clerk had helped the woman find her way to Corrine when she showed up at SVU, asking about Jason Powell. “Are you still investigating that case with the intern?”
“I can’t comment on that, I’m sorry. Do you know something?”
The woman shook her head.
“So how can I help you?” Corrine asked.
The woman looked down at her hands folded on her crossed legs, obviously contemplating something. When she finally spoke, she looked up to make eye contact. “Six weeks ago, he raped me and I did nothing. Today he came to my house and offered to pay me a hundred thousand dollars if I promised not to say anything. I assume he’s afraid I’ll come forward, now that someone else has.”
“Okay, let’s go talk in private. I’m Detective Duncan, but you can call me Corrine.”
“I’m Kerry. Kerry Lynch.”
II
Kerry
16
Jason’s attorney worked fast.
Within thirty hours of her leaving our house, a left-wing gossip site ran the photo I found of Rachel Sutton kissing her fellow graduate student and intern, Wilson Stewart. Beneath it was the picture she had posted days later, showing off her engagement ring. The website had blurred her face, but the comments that followed repeatedly mentioned her full name, now easily searchable online.
By that evening, an entirely different narrative emerged. One website ran a quote from Rachel’s fiancé, saying that he was “hurt and confused” when he saw the picture of Rachel and Wilson together. More helpfully to Jason, the fiancé told a reporter that Rachel had never mentioned her complaint against Jason, and that she only called him about it after the news went viral. When asked whether the couple was still engaged, the fiancé said, “I doubt it.”
The fiancé wasn’t the only man distancing himself from Rachel. The following morning, Wilson appeared on New Day with none other than Susanna Coleman to confirm he had a “brief and casual relationship” with a fellow intern—still officially unnamed—that developed after a night of drinking on the rooftop bar at the Standard Hotel. “She told me the first night we hooked up that she thought Jason—Dr. Powell, I mean—was ‘sort of hot.’ I got the impression that she was into him. A lot of the students are. But he lets it be known that he’s happily married.”
Making every attempt to appear objective, Susanna asked Wilson, “But to be clear, you can’t say for certain what happened that day in Dr. Powell’s office, correct?”
“I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but I’ve never known Jason Powell to be anything but a professional, inspiring mentor. As for the complainant, she’s sweet, but she can be dramatic, and sort of hypersensitive. She has a tendency to blow things out of proportion, so . . .”
The trail of his thought was the perfect moment for Susanna to thank Wilson for his time and cut to a commercial.
The message was clear: Don’t believe a word she says.
An hour after Susanna’s interview with Wilson, my cell phone rang. It was from the 631 area code, Suffolk County. I hated that area code.
“Hello?”
“Is this Angela?”
“Who’s calling?”
“This is Steve Hendricks.”
His first name sounded weird. Years ago, when he was part of my regular vocabulary, we called him “Hendricks” or “the Detective.” I didn’t say anything.
“I . . . I saw the news about your husband. I don’t know how I can help. But if I can—”
I hung up, then hit “Block this Caller” for good measure.