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Renaldo looked at her in passing, then away, toward the door, avoiding his mother just as he was avoiding Kay. His ink-stained fingers were steepled in front of him, a sign of self-confidence that didn’t jibe with anything else in his demeanor.
Kay opened the case file slowly, pacing herself although she felt like rushing over to Renaldo and grabbing him by the shirt to shake him until he told her where Kendra was being held.
That would’ve gotten her nowhere in no time flat.
Instead, she pulled his ten card from the file and a photo of a condom wrapper, covered in black fingerprint dust, printed on letter-size paper with a glossy finish.
“I’m not asking you if you had sex with Jenna Jerrell right before she was killed,” she said, speaking softly. “You see, we already have the evidence that puts you at the scene. Your right index print, taking the condom out of its wrapper. Your semen, which means your DNA, on the victim’s cheek.”
“She wanted it,” Renaldo said. “She was cool with it.”
His mother was holding her breath, covering her mouth with trembling fingers.
“Cool with it?” Kay asked calmly. “Was that before or after the Rohypnol one of you slipped in her drink?”
Mrs. Cristobal gasped and sprung to her feet, leaning over the table corner to smack her son over his head. “You’re no son of mine! How many times did I tell you about consent and how to treat a girl? I bet it’s that creep, Richard. That boy is trouble, I’ve always—”
“Shut up, Mom. You’re ruining everything.” He squeezed his eyelids shut, then lowered his head until he was able to bury his face into his shackled hands.
“Where is he now, huh? Do you think his posh parents will let him be chained to a table, like you?”
“Please sit down, ma’am.” Kay pointed at the empty chair as sharply as she’d spoken. Mrs. Cristobal obeyed after throwing a quick apologetic glance. Kay turned her attention to Renaldo. “Do you really think she was cool with it, Renaldo?”
“I don’t care what any of this says—” he gestured with his bound hands, cuffs and chain rattling against the table, trying to point at the photo, “she was willing.”
“Are you sure?”
He scoffed and shrugged, staring at the door. Kay sat across from him, his mother at his right. The door at his left was the only direction he didn’t seem afraid to look toward. “Everyone knew Jenna was a bit of a slut.”
Mrs. Cristobal just glared at him, speechless. Kay opened the case file and went through several pages, pretending she was reading them carefully. “Was she?”
Renaldo’s brow furrowed. “Look, I’m sorry she’s dead, but she was just fine when we left.”
Kay looked straight at him. “We?”
Flustered, he started to stutter. “I—I mean, me, I left, after we, um, yeah, and she was fine.”
She picked up the photo of the condom wrapper. “It was a ‘we,’ Mr. Cristobal, not an ‘I.’ Someone you are so close with that he actually opens your condoms for you. See here?” She tapped the photo with her fingernail. Renaldo held his breath. “These are his fingerprints, not yours.”
He lowered his head closer to his chained hands and ran them nervously across his face. “So what?”
A crooked smile fluttered on Kay’s lips. “That’s nice, to have friends like that. I mean, so close, you share everything. Even your girl. Did he bother to tell you he’d given her a roofie? Or you didn’t know?”
His gaze darted at his mother for a brief moment, then at Kay, probably wondering if she could be trusted. “I didn’t know she’d been roofied, I swear to God.”
“Don’t you dare,” his mother whispered, pinning him under her fuming stare.
“I didn’t know, I swear,” he repeated, shaking his head.
“Yet he’s close enough of a friend to open your condoms for you.” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what I’d feel about a friend like that. You see, because Jenna had Rohypnol in her blood, legally she was raped. Even if she’d said yes, it’s still rape. That’s the law,” she added, shrugging with mock indifference.
“But—but wait a minute, I didn’t know! I really didn’t.” He tried to stand, but his chained hands forced him back on his seat. “Mom,” he called, turning his pleading gaze toward her. The woman’s lips were pressed tightly into a thin, uncompromising line. A tear found its way down her pale cheek, but she didn’t say a word.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m okay with you going to jail for fifteen years for Jenna’s rape. And you know, cops will do anything to close their cases quickly, so I’ll pin her murder on you too, because, legally, I have that right.” Kay smiled, pretending to examine her fingernail.
Mrs. Cristobal started sobbing, pressing the tissue in her hand against her mouth as if to smother her wails.
“What? No,” Renaldo said, trying again to stand and having to sit back down. “I didn’t kill her. I told you, she was alive when I left.”
