Page 67 of The Girls in the Snow

“No,” Nikki said. “He actually tried to defuse the situation. It was someone else who thinks they know better than the police.”

Rory didn’t say anything, and Nikki hurried to clarify.

“It’s not that I don’t support what the Innocence Project lawyers are doing. There are wrongful convictions that need to be overturned. And if this guy was serious and not trying to impress someone, then I respect his passion. But he doesn’t get to talk to me the way he did. What happened to respecting the badge?”

“Bad cops make people disrespectful. But you’re not a bad cop,” Rory said quickly. “And some people just have a problem with authority.”

“He pushed me,” Nikki said.

Rory’s jaw tensed. “He did what?”

“I kind of baited him into it,” Nikki admitted. “Miller had warned him once, so he arrested the guy. I’m not going to press charges, but he can sweat it out at the station for a while.”

“Good.” Rory circled around the government center complex. “Newport’s done nothing but rile people up. My parents think the documentary’s the only reason the Innocence Project is involved.”

“Newport uses that to her advantage,” Nikki said.

“But my mom did all the legwork. She’s the one who found out about the DNA—sorry. I said I wouldn’t talk about it.”

Saying anything more about Mark’s case was foolish, but Nikki couldn’t stop the words. “You mother found the samples that weren’t tested? How? I mean, why didn’t the defense already know about them?”

“I was going to tell you about that the other night before you left the bar. Mom ran into the deputy who’d done the evidence collection back then. He works in a different county now. He told her about the biological sample from your mother, and he mentioned some were taken from Mark that have somehow disappeared. He didn’t like the way the investigation was run from the beginning. Hardin was adamant the sample wasn’t bodily fluids. The other deputy had the latest equipment and training. He believed it was a big enough sample to test, even if the results wound up being inconclusive. He understood the science, Hardin and the sheriff didn’t. Hardin’s influence won.”

Why had Hardin been so against testing the sample? DNA had been used successfully in court by the early nineties and had been responsible for both convictions and exonerations by 1993. She understood the budgetary issue, but cops had been as afraid of DNA as they were excited by it. She’d heard countless stories in her first years on the job about detectives wanting everything tested because they didn’t want to have their convictions thrown out later because of DNA. A wrongful conviction was a huge black mark on a law enforcement career.

“That’s why Patsy Moran took the case.” It all made sense now. “She’s spoken with the deputy. He’s convinced her as much as Mark has.”

“There’s something else,” Rory said. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but it’s not your fault, and if some reporter like Newport finds out—”

“Finds out what?” Nikki was sick of being the last to know.

“That same deputy remembers the paramedic telling Hardin that you should have a tox screen, because you weren’t acting like a normal shock victim. It took her a while, but Patsy tracked down the paramedic. He’s working in Minneapolis now, but he remembers the case. He’s willing to testify that he completed the tox screen and sent it to the hospital to be tested. But the hospital has no record of receiving it.”

Nikki almost shouted in relief. She’d been right about the blood test, which meant her memories of the night were accurate. Her brief vindication quickly ebbed. “The local hospital? Not the state lab?”

“Stillwater used the hospital lab back then,” Rory explained. “That was before the state lab started doing all the testing for every county. Anyway, there’s no record of the test, but the paramedic says you had more than just alcohol in your system.”

“But I didn’t.” Nikki’s mouth had gone dry.

Rory glanced at her. “He said you kept talking about not being able to wake up. He thought it was nonsense at first, but you started talking about the party and that you couldn’t wake up no matter how hard you tried.”

Nikki couldn’t speak, her mind cartwheeling with the information. She’d only had a few drinks that night, but they had been more vodka than cranberry juice. She remembered talking with John and his friends and then …

Did she actually remember making the decision to lie down? John had said something about her needing to lie down, but suddenly Nikki realized she didn’t remember going down the hall and into the room.

“I swear I didn’t do anything other than drink. I think a couple of people at the party had pot, but there weren’t any hard drugs lying around.”

“Is it possible someone slipped something into your drink?” he asked softly.

“No one really knew about the date-rape drug then,” Nikki said.

“Liquid ecstasy was also legal at the time,” Rory said. “I know it wasn’t deemed an illegal substance until 2000. In the eighties and nineties, athletes used it as a performance enhancer.”

“I’m aware of that.” The high dose of GHB in liquid ecstasy made a person helpless when combined with alcohol. While a smaller dose produced a euphoric effect that some athletes claimed gave them an edge, research proved that to be false. She knew what Rory was getting at. John and his friends all ran track in college. Maybe one or more of them used the drug because they believed it made them run faster. “John was by my side most of the night. If one of his buddies tried to put something in my drink, he would have noticed.”

“I’d imagine he would.”

The words hung between them, their implication clear. “John had no reason to drug me. I mean, we’d already…” Nikki flushed, annoyed at how easily Rory could get to her. “And frankly, the only person with motive would have been Mark. He’s the one who tried to attack me.”

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