Read Online Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion by Grif Stockley - Free Book Online Page B

ask.
    “Well, this fall we didn’t have a chance to practice be fore class. She had something before ten. I guess I did.”
    “So did you suggest a place or she?” Robin could have easily manipulated this conversation. Dade seems as naive as most boys about girls. Yet, even if he is not, he gives the appearance of having been reluctant to push too hard.
    “I remember talking about our rooms,” Dade says, “but you can’t study there with all the shit that goes on. I guess I suggested Eddie’s house if he wasn’t going to be there.”
    Robin could have easily made this idea inevitable without saying a word about it. If this case goes to trial, one mother on the jury with a son the right age could hang up the case. Mothers know what idiots their male children can be.
    “Who’s this Eddie again? What’s his last name and where’s his apartment?”
    “House,” Dade answers.
    “It’s a rented house on Happy Hollow Road. I don’t even know if it’s in the city limits.
    Eddie Stiles. He’s just a student that kind of hangs around the players a lot. He’s okay. He lets guys use it pretty much whenever they want.”
    “Is he rich?” I guess, wondering how common this arrangement is. With all the wannabes and hangers-on surrounding the Razorbacks, it can’t be terribly unusual.
    I wonder if any NCAA rules are being violated.
    “I heard his family owns a big funeral home in Tulsa,” Dade admits.
    “He drives a new Cutlass.”
    I wonder if he is black, but at this stage it seems rude to ask. I don’t want to turn Dade off. A lot of white kids have too much money; why shouldn’t one or two blacks?
    “I take it that he wasn’t around that night?”
    “I didn’t see him the whole day,” Dade says.
    I assume the cops have talked to Eddie. He could help or hurt. Either way, I need to talk to him.
    “Did you drive over together?”
    “She said she’d meet me there,” Dade says.
    I wonder about Robin’s motive. It sounds as if she wanted to be able to leave if Dade got out of hand. I am writing with my legal pad on my knees, and the bed creaks every time I shift my weight. Too bad the Ozark’s decorating budget didn’t allow for a table.
    “Why don’t you just tell me from the moment she showed up what happened?”
    Dade grabs the sides of his chair.
    “It wasn’t ten minutes before she had forgot about the speech. You can tell when a girl wants to be fucked, jus’ the way she looks and acts.”
    I interrupt, “How was she dressed?” I need to see a picture of Robin, so I can get an image in my mind of what happened.
    “Skirt and sweater,” he says.
    “She always dressed up, even for class.”
    I remember seeing Robin, but it was from Row 42 in War Memorial Stadium at Little Rock during the Memphis game two weeks ago. As bad as my eyes are getting, I could have been standing next to her and not have recognized her.
    “Did you have anything to drink,” I ask, “or could you tell if she had been drinking?” A good answer would be helpful here. If she had been juicing herself up beforehand, it would at least be arguable she had more than studying on her mind.
    “I smelled wine on her breath, but we didn’t have any thing at Eddie’s. It happened pretty fast.”
    “Did Eddie just leave his place unlocked?” I ask, glad I didn’t have a friend like Eddie in college. I got in enough trouble.
    “He gave me a key,” Dade says.
    “A couple of guys had them.”
    I think I’m getting the picture.
    “So it wasn’t uncommon to take girls over there.” Robin shouldn’t have been there. No woman asks for rape, a logical impossibility if there ever was one, but perhaps someone on the jury will want to punish her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they had really wanted to find a place on campus to study, it would have been easy enough.
    “Not really,” Dade says.
    “You got to get off campus sometimes.”
    “So you’ve slept with girls over there before?” I say