Chapter 10
Anna's POV
I did a really stupid thing today. Aunt Lindsay had already told me I couldn't go out Friday night, but I asked Uncle Danny anyway. They totally busted me! Everything just sucks right now. No more soccer, I'm stuck in the house, I miss my friends, and I miss my parents.
I was kind of surprised that Aunt Lindsay didn't have another lecture for me when she got home. Instead she told me a story about my dad. Apparently, he managed to break his leg celebrating winning the state high school football championship. Lindsay didn't know exactly what he did, but apparently Grandma was pissed! There were lots of ranch chores that had to be shifted around because he did something stupid. Apparently, Grandma arranged for him to be busy while sitting down at almost every free minute. He folded laundry, chopped vegetables and other stuff like that, but then Grandma got creative when that didn't fill enough time. He had to hand address all the Monroe family Christmas cards to her standards of neatness, and sort boxes of photos by date and label the pictures and put them in albums. When Grandma ran out of family things for him to do, she apparently brought home church work. He had to put address labels on, fold and staple several issue of the parish newsletter. He also did the same for the PTA newsletter. Lindsay has a couple of pictures of it. He looks fairly miserable.
I guess I lucked out this time. I have to say that living with trained investigators means I have no hope of slipping anything past them.
Lindsay's POV
I am so tired. It was a long day. I'm glad to be heading to bed. I think Anna enjoyed hearing about her father's broken leg incident. It felt good to talk about him. Sometimes Anna is so much like him. Of course, sometimes she is also a lot like Suzy. That reminds me, that I need to talk to Danny about Thanksgiving. Suzy's parents would like Anna to spend it with them and are willing to buy the plane ticket. Now I just need to see if Danny wants us to go too and spend Thanksgiving with my folks. I suspect we won't both be able to get off long enough so we'll have to wait for some non-holiday time. Anna should be fine flying by herself, especially if we book a direct flight.
"Montana, come here," says Danny as he pulls me to him in bed. "Are you sure Anna's alright? She seemed awfully upset for what happened."
"Danny, she's bored, she misses her parents, she misses her friends, and I suspect she's a little worried about her long term prognosis for her knee, but she's fine teenage girls can be a bit dramatic."
"Okay, Montana. You're the expert."
A quick discussion with Danny confirms my fear that there is virtually no chance of us both getting time around Thanksgiving off, so Anna will be off to Montana by herself.
Megan's POV
Lindsay had planned a nice night of beer (for the grown-ups), pizza, and trivia, but New York City's criminals decided not to cooperate. In addition to the usual crimes, there was a frat party at Chelsea University that went bad, very bad. According to the call Don got there was least one old fashioned beat the crap out of her rape, some roofies being used, a slew of under aged drinking, and the presence of high school girls. Lindsay and Danny got called in too and this could be a real long night, so I'm here with Anna.
Anna, Kathleen, and I set up an assembly line to address (well put a label on), stuff, and stamp the huge pile of wedding invitations that Don and I need to mail soon. Anna told us all about the Montana weddings she was in when her uncles got married. She was a flower girl or junior bridesmaid several times. Apparently, these wedding were all preceded by very girly bridal showers with games, stupid sexist games. After hearing about this, I can understand why Anna's mother Suzy, who I met at Lindsay and Danny's wedding, wanted Anna to come here to live. Suzy was a large animal vet married to a rancher. I liked her.
Anna and Kathleen told me that the soccer team and some of the girls in my class wanted to throw me a shower. I had hoped to avoid this, but I guess not. Kathleen and a couple of the soccer moms that I like are going to organize it. I guess I'm going to have drag Don out to register for stuff. Target, Macy's and Crate and Barrel here we come. I hope things work out with Kathleen and the boy's soccer coach, so I can get my revenge soon.
Pretty soon Kathleen leaves for a date and a tired Anna drags herself upstairs to bed. She'd figured out how to do it without putting too much wait on her bad leg. You can tell she is still healing based on the amount of sleep she needs. I settle in on the couch to watch a movie and work on the shawl I'm knitting for Don's mother for Christmas. I wonder how Don is fairing. He doesn't do very well with college kids, it's the sense of entitlement and idea that the rules don't really apply to them that drive him nuts. Don's only college experience was at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which is not a typical school. He's a curious guy and very well read, but I'm not sure he would have lived through some of the esoteric discussion my liberal arts education was full of. He rolls his eyes at some of my women's studies books and is quick to point out that women getting a private liberal arts education are possibly the second most privileged group in American, second only to their male classmates perhaps.
Danny's POV
When I decided to become a CSI, taking DNA swabs, blood, and urine samples from drunk college guys was not what I had in mind. This place was pretty much an orgy from what I can tell. I thought I went to some crazy parties in my day, but they seem tame compared to this. It's unclear who ended up ingesting roofies, someone is arguing that it was an attempt to mellow the whole party out not to rape any of the girls. This led to taking urine samples from 30 college guys. Then blood samples are because the university is beyond pissed and wants to press charges against anyone who even looked a controlled substance illegally. Lindsay is doing the girls, plus figuring who needs or wants sexual assault exams, as well as trying to work with Stella to get statements from the girls. Flack is getting the guys' statements. He seems like he is having about as much as I am. These kids are either complete suck-ups or dumb as rocks
Lindsay's POV
Stella and I have collected samples and are heading back to the labs. It looks like we do indeed have at least one case of old fashion, beat up her rape and a few possible cases of drug her and rape her, although it's not clear that the guys involved administered the drugs or that they were not acting under the influence of roofies too. I'm glad all I have to do is interpret evidence and not decide who to charge with what.
There were some very under age girls there. One was 15. I thought of Anna. I hope we can keep her safe. Although I like the idea of convent school too.
"Hey Lindsay, did a few of those girls seem awfully blasé about all this?"
"Stella, one of those girls admitted to going down on more guys tonight than I have in my whole life and she's more than ten years younger than I am and I don't think she even liked any of them. I don't want to go back to telling kids that they will burn in hell if they get involved sexually before they get married, but I'd like to think that as a society we could give them the message that you should be out of high school and in some kind of committed relationship first. Although, I have to say from what I've over heard, I think that Anna and her friends are still pretty innocent, which makes me happy. I heard them speculating whether or not Don and Megan waited until they were engaged to go to bed together. One of the girls was convinced they were waiting until they got married. The others seemed split about before or after the engagement."
"Lindsay, you are trying to tell me that these girls think Don Flack waited until he was engaged to a woman before he slept with her?"
"Well, yeah, but remember to them he's the younger brother of the priest that is their principal. Plus, he and Megan work hard to set a good example. Don never spends the night at their house. They don't know the Don Flack of empty headed socialite days."
"Well, it's nice to know that innocence exists somewhere. I might have to come watch more girls soccer in Queens."
"We'd love to have you Stella. We a have teenager with us most of the time and sometimes Don's sister Kathleen. It's not couple time."
"I'll think about it. Let's start getting this stuff processed. It's going to take a long time to run so we can go home while it does that."
Don's POV
You know, I was never too concerned with how anyone addressed me, but these are theoretically smart kids, not that I saw any evidence of that, you would think that when being questioned by a police detective that they might go with something a little more formal than "dude" or 'bro." Why was I even on this case? No one died or came close to dying and I'm a homicide detective. I know I go where the Captain says but some days I hate being on his radar.
This case has also convinced me that none of Megan's and my kids are going to go Greek or at least not if we are paying the bills. In fact if we have girls, I think we should look into women's college. So help me God if they ever display the "this is college, not the real world, rules and laws don't apply" attitude I saw tonight. I will not tolerate that.
Danny's POV
We'll we got the evidence processing, but it's going to take a long, long time, so Lindsay and I are heading home. Don's got to stay and deal with the brass. Its nights like this, I'm glad I'm a scientist.
Hopefully, Megan didn't have to put up with any lip from Anna tonight. She pulls that outside the family and bum knee or not there will be real serious consequences. I will not have her turning into one of those kids who cop an attitude with authority figures like the ones we dealt with today.