Checkmate

14

"Okay, I'm back. What did you find out?" I said as I entered the room.

I'm not sure if it was the detours I took to avoid traffic jams or my eagerness to get at least one good news for the day, but I was back at the office faster than I ever thought possible. The look on their faces as I took to the table told me that they too were impressed by my quick trip back.

As if shaking himself out of a daydream, Miki clutched the papers in his hand and cleared his throat.

"It's no secret that Ella's story doesn't stick together, but if we look at it from a different narrative maybe it will."

Intrigued, I motioned for him to carry on.

"I'm listening."

"The camera footage that we retrieved wasn't mentioned anywhere in the police report. In it, we can see her walking out of the hotel perfectly fine."

He slid me the paper, and I examined it while Akira began to speak.

"The rape kit proves that she was left with serious gashes to her vagina and bruising consistent with rape. However, the severity of her injuries would've made it impossible for her to walk out as she did."

"So she does get raped and knows who did it but decides to point fingers at a man she barely knows. Why?" I pondered the question, which Akira answered in a heartbeat.

"She barely knows him, but Nikolai Pavelka is one of the most successful men in Chicago. He's made it to Forbes, for fuck's sake, and almost every parent knows or at least has heard of his company."

The second she sat down, Akira rolled her eyes when she realized she'd cursed, "Give me a break. This case is messing with my head."

"As for all of us. Now, let's fill in some blanks."

I got up and walked to the whiteboard. Picking up a black marker, I began to write.

"Ella was close to two men in her life. Her husband and her best friend. The best friend's been MIA since the night of the alleged rape, and we're not sure if she ever saw her husband when she got back. However, we know that when she passed out from blood loss, she was at the store.

Before then, she was at home. Going off what Mr. Pavelka's told us, we can estimate that she was raped sometime after leaving the hotel but before going to the store."

I sighed and looked over the information, crossing my arms over my chest. I needed to know why so many questions were left unanswered by the police. Why were they trying so hard to pin it all on Mr. Pavelka?

Shaking my head, I exhaled a deep breath while turning to them.

"Let's eliminate Mr. Pavelka for a second. I have a hunch that the husband has something to do with this. Ella's old injuries were never cared for by a doctor. She must've been in a lot of pain but couldn't come forward. Even after she got raped, the medic found her wearing maternity diapers. This is the second injury she's tried to hide and probably would've succeeded if she wasn't brought to the hospital."

"So now what? We should defend her?" Akira said, clearly baffled by this turn of events.

"I'm not saying that. Filling a false report is still a crime, and so is knowingly accusing the wrong person. But what we're missing in all this is her motive for doing it. The police seem convinced that she was raped by Mr. Pavelka. Yet they wouldn't respond to domestic abuse claims by her neighbor. Why is it so hard for them to believe her husband would do such a thing?"

"I think I might know why," Manon interfered as she barged into the room.

"Mr. Smith has a personal link to Sergeant Reid and two more people at the precinct."