Rescuing Christmas (3 page)

Chris walked around him examining him and said, “Where’s the tattoo? I don’t see it.”

Jamie burned with humiliation at this point and said, “Well. You wouldn’t be able to see it. When she left the room the guy that pierced me offered me a tattoo for free if I would have sex with him. I turned him down and I thought that was the end of it. Kelly, that’s her, never came back to the parlor. That left me stranded since she was the one that drove us there. I was already nice and drunk sothe tattoo artist and I drank even more. After an hour or so of drinking he asked me again and I figured
“Oh what the hell”
and said yes. And don’t you dare tell a soul about this!” He glared at Chris and Chris held up his hands and crossed his heart and pretended to zip his lips together before throwing away an imaginary key.

Jamie said, “Okay. So, without realizing what I was doing, because I was stinking drunk, I let the guy suck my dick then I passed out. When I came to later I was in a lot of pain.”

Chris finished his examination and after cleaning up a couple of scrapes he ushered Jamie into the shower and said, “Okay. So what happened next?”

Jamie stepped under the streaming hot water and said, “Well before I let him suck my dick I told him that was all he could do and I wasn’t interested in anything else sexual, just suck my dick and give me my tattoo.”

Chris nodded and said, “Obviously things didn’t happen quite that way.”

Jamie said, “Nope, not exactly.” He grimaced as he stepped out from under the water after having scrubbed his body and Chris handed him a towel. As he dried off he said, “Well while I was drunk, and as it turns out roofied, he tied me to his tattoo chair with my ass up in the air, raped me multiple times and then tattooed a Christmas wreath around my asshole, and put it in full color as well. The ribbons from the bow extend out down the inside of my ass cheeks and part way down my inner thighs.”

Chris stared horrified at Jamie and said, “Let me see.”

“No!” Jamie clamped the towel tightly around his waist and said, “You are not looking at that Chris. I can’t. Not you. Please.” His voice was almost pleading as he begged Chris, tears in his eyes.

Chris gripped Jamie’s upper arms in his hands and said, “How long ago did this happen?”

Jamie said, “Two years.”

Chris said, “Jamie, you need to trust me to be very discreet. I want to put him in jail. Will you let me do that?”

Jamie said, “If you can put him into jail without making a big deal out of it, yes I will let you do that.”

Chris said, “Okay then. Jamie, in order to do that, you need to let me see and you need to let me take pictures. I will make sure all of this is done in private and you will only get involved in the case through me. No one else will need talk to you about this. I will even take your statement for the District Attorney. I know he is new in town, only a week, so there is no way he even knows who you are. Can you trust me for this?”

Jamie suddenly sobbed and collapsed, Chris barely holding up and pulling him into his chest, stroking his wet hair whispering soothing noises against the top of his head as he used to do when they were little kids.

Finally, Jamie managed to recover somewhat and a few minutes later after Chris came back with his phone, Jamie turned around and bent over the bench and spread his legs open allowing Chris to examine and take pictures of the tattoo. He then handed Jamie the backpack he had brought in earlier and said, “These are mine, but you are still the exact same size as me so they should do well for you.” He walked to the door and said, “I will give you some privacy. Thank you for trusting me Jamie. This mongrel will pay for what he did to you. Trust me.”

Jamie got dressed in private and walked out the door to find Chris waiting for him. He was on the phone and saying, “Yes, but it all has to remain quiet and he will face no one but me. I will get his statement for you. If you can send over the questions you want asked, I will ask them and get it back to you. Is that okay?” He paused a moment and listened and then said, “Okay. If that need comes up, I will discuss it with him. Thanks Darren.”

Chris hung up the phone and walked Jamie back to his cell and said, “He will do this for you but we have to follow certain protocols. Now, if you will wait here for me I will be back in a few minutes with dinner and paperwork. He is emailing some questions he needs answered in order to file for an arrest warrant.”

Jamie nodded and sat on his little bed and Chris walked away already back on the phone.

THE STORY

Chris sat at his desk the next afternoon and watched out the window as Jamie got into his Range Rover and drove off. He picked up the phone and called Deputy Clark to get his report on how his night had gone. When he got off the phone he looked out the window again and saw that the snow was starting to come down harder. He was still staring out the window when Jamie’s Range Rover pulled back into the parking lot just a minute later. He jumped out of the vehicle and pulled his jacket up over his head and raced inside.

When he came inside Jamie took off his coat and said, “Damn. Can’t get out. The roads are covered in ice and high piles of snow. Mind if I wait here until the snow plows get through?”

Chris smiled and said, “Sure. However, you might want to get out of sight if you don’t want to see the District Attorney. He pulled into the back parking lot a few minutes ago and is in the locker room trying to get dried off.”

Jamie stared at him for a minute then said, “No. I think I will stay. If it is about me, I want to be here. I know I said last night that I wanted this to be done as quietly as possible, but I think I can handle meeting with the DA. After all, I can’t honestly expect this to just happen and not talk to people involved in putting this man in jail.”

“I think that is very brave of you Mr. McCormick,” a voice said from the doorway to the back. Jamie looked over and saw a tall beanpole of a man standing there with a briefcase in one hand and a towel in the other still trying to dry his hair.

Chris jumped up out of his chair and walked over to the man and said, “Hi. We haven’t had the chance to meet officially, but I am Sheriff Chris Anderson. You must be DA Darren Williams.” He held out his hand and the DA put his briefcase down before shaking his hand and smiling back at him.

“Yes, I am Darren Williams. Nice to meet you Sheriff.” He turned and held out his hand to Jamie and said, “You must be Jamie McCormick.”

Jamie shook his hand, not smiling. He was rather nervous actually and was trembling slightly. Chris walked over to him and put his arms around him and pulled him in against his chest and held him until he calmed down.

Darren said, “Excuse me gentlemen, but are you two a couple? Because that could cause some problems and things could get really ugly for you Mr. McCormick if the judge and the defense attorney for,” and here he extracted a folder from his briefcase and looked at the label on it and said, “Mr. Tyson Haskell, find out or think you are a couple.”

Chris loosened his arms from around James but didn’t let him pull away from his embrace and said, “No we are not. We just happen to have known each other since we were babies. He is four weeks older than I am. I moved away from town when I was eight years old and I just came back when I was offered this job. In fact, he kind of doesn’t like me much anymore, but it’s hard to walk away from the type of friendship we had when you feel the need for comforting. I am the one he finally told about all of this because he couldn’t turn to anyone else. I guess he knew I would actually listen and do something about it. In a town this small, no one is likely to take this type of stuff seriously which is why it went unreported the last two years. However, the statute of limitations has not run out on this and I intend on seeing justice done. Who else is he supposed to turn to when something like this has happened? I am the Sheriff, I would have to become involved in this eventually, one way or another.”

The DA looked back and forth between the two of them and said, “Okay then. If you are truly fine with this Jamie, then I suggest we get started. How about we all just call each other by our first names here?”

Jamie and Chris both nodded and then Jamie moved away from Chris and sat in the chair that Chris pulled out for him. Chris went and sat back behind his desk again and said, “Okay, let’s get started. This will take a while so I am going to order lunch and have it sent over around noon if that is okay with you both? The roads should be cleared of snow by then.”

Both nodded and Chris picked up the phone and placed an order with Marge over at Jamie’s bar.

Jamie laughed and said, “Do you really like the food at my bar that much?”

Chris said, “Well it is good. I haven’t really had a chance to try much out besides fast food while getting settled and everything I knew before I left seems to have all vanished in the past twenty years.”

Darren turned to Jamie and said, “You have a bar?”

Jamie said, “Yes. In fact, I own the only bar in town and all but one of the restaurants. We also own sizable portions of the town. My mother won the State Lottery back when I was eight years old. It was thirty million before taxes, but she hired an attorney who invested it. She is worth about two hundred million now and with my trust that she gave to me on my twenty-first birthday, along with the bar, I am worth approximately one hundred and fifty million.”

Chris whistled under his breath and stared at Jamie and said, “Holy shit! Really?”

Darren looked across the desk at him and said, “You had no knowledge of this?”

Chris shook his head and said, “No. When my parents moved us out of town twenty years ago Jamie and his mother were living in a tiny run down trailer in a really crappy trailer park and barely making ends meet. I was even giving him half my lunch every day so he could eat. His mother was working two jobs and he was pretty much looking after himself except when a neighbor looked in on him while his mom was at her night job. I just thought things had turned around for them at some point when I came back to town and I heard he owned the bar and she owned the diner she used to work in. I never dreamed all of that had happened.”

Darren nodded and said, “Okay. It is time to get to the hard part here.” He turned back to Jamie and said, “Jamie, can you tell me in detail what happened? I know you already told Chris and he told me, but if you can tell me yourself, then this will actually be much better for all involved.”

Jamie nodded and for the next two hours he spilled every detail and every name and date and time he could dredge up from the two year old memory. When he was done, he looked up and Darren had a shot glass with bourbon in it and was holding it out to him. Jamie took it, tossed it back watching as both Chris and Darren also took shots.

Darren set his laptop down on the desk and saved his notes before sitting back and looking back and forth between Jamie and Chris.

Taking a deep breath, he said, “Okay, now for some questions. Sheriff if you don’t mind, could you take over my notes for me while I ask questions. I would like to be able to concentrate on what is being said here when he responds. I will write down things on my notepad as I see fit and add them in later. Maybe between the two of us we will see something the other missed that will help us.” He turned back to Jamie and said, “You see the hard part here is that there is no proof of this happening to you. I am not saying it didn’t happen. In fact, I believe you. I am just saying, it is two years old and you never reported it so all evidence, other than the tattoo is gone and you did agree to let him perform oral sex on you. Now, the defense attorney will claim that you claim to be straight but engaged in homosexual sex and are still denying being gay.”

Jamie cleared his throat and Darren stopped speaking, looking at him expectantly. “No Darren, I am not actually straight. I lived a straight life for many years because of this small town. I even had sex with a few women here and there trying to prove to myself that I was not gay, but I came out a week later. Everyone in town knows I am gay now.”

Darren said, “Nevertheless, the defense attorney will still try to use it against you.”

Jamie nodded and sighed, leaning back in his chair. The door to the station opened and they all turned to see who was coming inside. Marge trooped in with a very large box and Chris discreetly turned the laptop away from view and Darren turned his notebook upside down in his lap.

Jamie smiled and said, “Thanks Marge. Just leave it there on the table and grab yourself a hundred from the till for your tip.”

Marge smiled and said, “Sure thing boss. Hey, what’s going on here? Are you in some type of trouble?”

Jamie laughed and said, “No. Something happened a couple of years ago that these two here need to get figured out and I am a witness. Head on back to the bar. I will see you tomorrow.”

Marge, obviously miffed that she wasn’t going to learn more turned and left the stationhouse. Darren cleared his throat and said, “I hate to ask this, but is that Marge Turner?”

Jamie nodded his head and said, “Yes. She has been the manager at my bar for about two years now.

Darren groaned and said, “This has just become much more complicated.”

Chris said, “Why is that?”

Darren looked first Chris in the eye then turned to Jamie and said, “Marge Turner is Tyson Haskell’s mother.”

Jamie sat there stunned, looking at Darren, the color draining from his face. He said, “You must be mistaken. That can’t be.” He turned to Chris for confirmation who was on his computer searching for something. He finally found what he was looking for and turned the screen around so they could all look at what was on his desktop. There on the monitor was a picture of Tyson Haskell and Marge and another young lady.”