Together they walked up to the counter where a bored-looking woman sat talking into a headset. She held up a finger to them, indicating they should wait a moment.
“Do you need to sit down while we wait?” Aud leaned against the counter and looked at Leo, trying to determine how tired he really was.
“No.” Leo patted his arm. “I’ll be okay. When we get done here, I’ll swallow a pain pill and take a nap when we get back home.”
The receptionist got off her call, and then, after they explained why they were there, contacted Benet to come talk to them.
Benet appeared almost immediately. “Mr. Caldwell. Nice to see you out of the hospital and back on your feet.”
“It might be a while before I’m totally back on my feet,” replied Leo.
“Let’s go into the conference room over here. I can get your statement there.” He glanced at Aud. “Do you mind if Mr. Sorenson is present? If you do, he’ll need to wait outside.”
A warm smile eased the sides of Leo’s mouth. “He can be with me. He’s my strength right now.”
Benet just nodded and started walking down the hall to the first room they came to. There wasn’t much in the room, just a simple wooden table and five chairs. Benet sat in a chair across the table from them and set a yellow legal pad down in front of him and placed a tablet computer on top of it.
“I want to start by saying that your friend’s quick thinking has provided us the best evidence we could ask for in the case against Randal Hudspeth. If she hadn’t gotten so much video, it might’ve ended up being your word against his. Most of the other witnesses who’ve come forward didn’t get the start of the altercation.”
Leo blinked at the detective. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about a video.”
“I’m not sure anyone told you about it,” Aud said when Benet looked confused. “Julie set her smartphone on the roof of your car, leaned it against a bag of something, and videoed most of your altercation with Randal.”
“You’ve seen it?” Leo turned his gaze from Benet to Aud.
“Not all of it.” Aud admitted. It had been too hard for him to watch Randal attacking Leo, and he’d had to ask Julie to stop the playback. He’d also asked her not to show Leo until they all thought he was up to it.
“There’s enough footage to make a solid conviction on criminal charges,” Benet said. “I wish everyone was as calm under pressure as she was. We don’t actually see the stabbing, but it’s fairly obvious from the sound what happens.” He tapped on the tablet. “I can show you if you like.”
A horrified look crossed Leo’s handsome face. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe in a few weeks, a month or two, I’ll get Julie to show me.”
“We’ve asked her to keep it from the media. It’s our main evidence in the case.” Benet made a couple of notes on his page. “There were other witnesses who got video, and at least two of those went to news stations with them. But they only show parts of the fight.”
“I think I saw a bit of one of those on the news Sunday,” Leo said.
“Well, what we need now is to get your official statement.” Benet tapped his pen on the pad. “If you could elaborate on your relationship with Mr. Hudspeth and what led to the incident in the Walmart parking lot.”
Leo leaned back and the wooden chair creaked. For the next thirty minutes, he explained his side of things to Detective Benet. His version matched what Aud had heard from Julie and Felix. At times Benet asked more questions, and others he just nodded and made confirmatory sounds in his throat. He also gave Benet the paper he’d found at Felix’s apartment. It seemed like a good time to hand that over.
“Your side of things matches up with the other witnesses.” Benet put his pen down on top of the pad. “With all the witnesses of the attack, we’ve got a strong case there. With the video evidence, we can expand things to his stalking of Mr. Sorenson. Right now we’re still waiting for DNA evidence back from Mr. Sanders’s residence to be able to file assault charges from that incident. It would be an easier case in terms of Mr. Sanders if he’d come forward earlier.”
“You know he was afraid of how he’d be received coming in here and saying he’d been raped by another man,” Leo said, sounding like he was trying to justify Felix’s slowness in reporting the rape.
“We’re a military town, Mr. Caldwell.” Benet leaned back in his chair. “It wouldn’t have been the first case of man-on-man rape we’d have seen, and it won’t be the last. We take them just as seriously as man-on-woman rape and woman-on-man rape. To us, it doesn’t matter. Rape is rape and it needs to be reported as soon as it happens. We don’t care who the people involved are. It’s a violent attack on another person, often more damaging than being shot or hit by a car.”