Cruel Justice (10 page)

“Why were they teasing you, Abie?”

“I dunno. I didn’t do nothin’ to them.”

“It’s because your father is rich, isn’t it? I heard what they said.”

Abie kicked a rock down the sidewalk. “I guess. It’s so unfair.”

“Of course it is. It’s not your fault your father has all that money, is it?”

“No. I never wanted any money. I just—” He looked at the man, frowned, fell silent.

“That’s all right, Abie,” the man said. His smile was smooth and warm. “I won’t tell. You’d rather your father spent time with you than at his job, right?”

“It isn’t his job,” Abie blurted out, as if an emotional dam had suddenly burst. “He doesn’t really have a job. It’s all his friends down at that stupid country club. All those stupid fat rich guys. And those ladies—”

“You don’t like those ladies, do you?”

Abie shrugged. “I dunno. Mom doesn’t.”

The man nodded. “Do you mind if I walk you home? Um … those boys might come back.”

“Sure.”

They began to stroll down the sidewalk together, side by side. Abie cleared his throat. “I guess I forgot to say thank you for, you know. Back there.”

“Not necessary. I’m sure you could’ve handled them.”

Abie hung his head low. “I woulda gotten creamed.”

The man smiled. “If you’d like, I could teach you how to defend yourself.”

“Really?” In his excitement, Abie grabbed the man’s arm. A frisson of pleasure tingled through the man’s body. “You know how to fight?”

“I know enough to take care of those two. You’d pick it up easily. You look like a natural athlete to me.”

“That’s not what my father says.”

They rounded the corner onto Twenty-first Street and strolled through Woodward Park. A few minutes later they were in front of Abie’s home.

“Thanks for letting me walk you home, Abie. I hope I see you again sometime.”

“Sure. Me, too.” Abie bit down on his lip. “Mister—I mean, Sam. You won’t tell my father about those two kids pushing me around, will you?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “I already told you, you can trust me. I’ll keep your secrets. And in return, I know I can trust you not to tell anyone about me.”

“Gee. Sure. Um … you’re not in any kind of … trouble, are you?”

The man grinned. “No. I just thought your father might not approve if he knew I walked you home.”

“Yeah. Prob’ly right. He’d say I should fight my own battles or somethin’ like that. And he never likes any of my friends.” He glanced at his huge Tudor-style mansion home. “I guess I’d better go inside now.”

Abie started to leave, then hesitated. “Um … Sam?”

“Yes?”

Abie peered up at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You know. Help me.”

The man was genuinely surprised at the question. “No particular reason, Abie. I just want to be your friend. Your very special friend.”

Abie smiled, then scampered up the front lawn and ran into his house.

L
IEUTENANT MIKE MORELLI SPAT
the soggy toothpick out of his mouth. Goddamn those tasteless little slivers of wood, anyway, he thought. I think I got a splinter in my tongue.

When did smokers become the modern-day Typhoid Marys? It was only a pipe, after all. The flavor barely mattered. He enjoyed messing around with the tobacco, the tamper, the pipe cleaners. It was relaxing. It gave him something to do during all-night stakeouts or interminable departmental meetings. He liked the feel of the warm pipe bowl in his hands. Hell, sometimes he forgot to puff the thing. He probably sent more nicotine into the ozone layer than he did into his lungs. How much harm could it do?

Oh, what’s the use? He’d been over all this before. It was a dangerous affectation, one he could live without. If Jane Fonda could quit smoking, then by God, he could, too. He reopened his economy-size box of five hundred toothpicks and shoved another one into his mouth.

Truth of the matter was, this entire exercise in angst was just a stalling device. He was sick of this research and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He’d read a dozen profiles of pedophilic offenders, each one worse than the one before. The words, and worse, the pictures, branded themselves on his memory. Nude pictures of eight-year-olds. Anal assaults. Forced fellatio. His stomach ached and his brain yearned to be diverted to a different subject.

It just wasn’t fair. He’d worked hard to get himself into Homicide, making painstaking efforts to avoid any contact with the Sex Crimes Division. And now he was confronted by child homicides that doubled as sex crimes. And a bloodthirsty pedophile. The worst kind.

Not that there were any good kinds. Mike had been up all night researching, trying to educate himself on topics he had intentionally avoided when he was at the academy. He found the whole subject revolting—and incomprehensible. Some crimes, after all, anyone could understand. Anyone could be driven to murder, Mike firmly believed, given the right circumstances. Anyone could be driven to steal; Victor Hugo had taught him that. But pedophilia—that was too foreign, too sickening.

As he was learning, pedophiles were not all the slavering, skid-row monsters that he thought they would be—indeed, that he wanted them to be. Pedophiles came from all walks of life—all income brackets, all occupations. According to the shrinks, they know they’re different at an early age.

Since they know what they’re interested in early on, they can plan accordingly. It wasn’t an accident that so many of these perverts turned up as teachers or camp counselors or scout leaders. If you know what you want, you figure out a way to get it. So pedophiles intentionally choose professions that put them in contact with children, preferably in some sort of trusted-adviser role.

Mike generally thought psychological profiles were a lot of useless mumbo jumbo and scrupulously avoided them. In this case, however, it was unavoidable; anyone who would do this stuff obviously had serious mental problems. The shrinks, he learned, divided pedophiles into two categories. The more common were
situational
child molesters—the ones the boys in Sex Crimes called
try-sexuals.
They were experimenters. They’d try anything—homosexuality, animals, children. The other class were the
preferential
pedophiles—the hard-core cases. They went after children because that’s what they liked. Period.

The vicious, repetitive cycle of so many domestic crimes was also evident in child molestation, Mike learned. Pedophiles almost always were sexually abused when they were young. When they grew up, they shifted from being victims to being abusers. According to the experts, this was why most pedophiles have a preference for children of a particular age. Turns out, pedophiles fixate on children of the same age they were when they were first sexually abused.

Sometimes, Mike read, pedophiles will start grooming a child, cozying up to him, before he reaches the target age, so that when he does arrive, the stage will be set. And the victims covered the full range of ages, too. Mike read about cases of sexual abuse of infants—less than one-year-olds. He found a case where the pedophile insisted that the kid had “asked for it,” led him on, exposed himself in a provocative manner. The kid was barely two and still in diapers.

When he first tried to trace the kiddie porn back to the killer, Mike learned that the stereotype of pedophile-as-sicko-loner was often false. Many pedophiles worked in teams. Networks, in the modern jargon. They had mailing lists, fax machines, computer bulletin boards, even Internet Web pages, for exchanging names and circulating photos. Most of the slick foreign magazines—like
Kinderlieb, Ballbusters—
had been driven out of the country by a concerted federal law-enforcement effort. So the creeps began to grow their own.

Perhaps the most amazing fact Mike learned was that pedophiles often seemed to have a genuine affection for children, including their young lovers. They were concerned about their welfare. Almost uniformly, the child molesters studied didn’t think they’d done anything wrong. They didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. After all, all they’d done was share a little love. What could be wrong with that?

This was an important piece of information, Mike realized, because once you understood what made molesters tick, you could figure out how to catch them. Unlike rapists and serial killers, he learned, pedophiles rarely grab kids and force themselves on them immediately. Pedophiles try to seduce their victims. They try to win them over. They try to earn the kid’s trust. They seek out children from dysfunctional families, children who are unhappy at home. Children who are vulnerable. The pedophile finds an opening and tries to fill it. If Mom and Dad can’t afford to give the kid a bicycle, he’ll give the kid a bicycle. If the kid needs to be treated with respect, he treats him with respect. If the kid doesn’t get enough attention, he’ll give him attention. Warm fuzzies. Trust. Whatever it takes.

And so the seduction goes.

Sometimes, even after the creeps are caught, the kids won’t rat on them. After all, they don’t want to hurt their best friend.

That’s what the pedophile counts on.

Mike found the crime statistics inconsistent and unreliable. No one really knew how prevalent this crime was. It was pitifully underreported, even more so than rape. There were a million reasons for a kid not to tell. He might be financially dependent on the molester, or the molester might be in a position of authority over him. The kid might have genuine affection for him, or think he does, anyway. Worse, sometimes parents encourage their kids to remain quiet. They don’t want the stigma, the horrible publicity. They don’t want their kid dragged through the police, the newspapers, the courts. Who would want their neighbors to hear a report on the six o’clock news about their little boy being molested?

Mike pushed away his notes and pressed his hands against his face. He knew this research was changing him, changing the way he viewed the world. Now every time he saw a stranger at a bus stop talking to a little boy, or a Little League coach swatting one of his players on the backside, he’d wonder:
Is he the one?
It wasn’t fair—there were many good-hearted, upright people working with kids. But nowadays parents couldn’t help but be suspicious. They
had
to be suspicious.

“Christ,” Mike whispered. “What a nightmare. Just as well we never had any kids.”

Mike thought about calling it quits for the night and heading home, but what was the point? There was nothing waiting for him there. Nothing but a half-empty bottle of Mogen-David and the
Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Hip, hip, hooray. What was it Mark Twain said? Be good, and you will be lonesome.

Very true. Except Mike wasn’t sure he had been all that good.

On a sudden whim, Mike pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, removed his Citibank credit card, and looked at the small photo hidden behind it.

There she was, in all her glory. Beautiful long chestnut-brown hair. Silly turned-up nose. Freckles. All those years ago.

The picture had been taken the day he and Julia were married.

When he’d seen her last, more than a year ago, she was not in great shape. Her new marriage was on the skids, and she’d regained a lot of weight. But she was still beautiful. Just seeing her again made him forget all the pain, all the emptiness, all the disillusionment. After the divorce, he swore that commitment was for suckers, that nothing lasted, nothing remained. That it was all hopeless.

Hopeless. Nothing remained.

If he knew what he had done wrong, he could fantasize about going back in time and changing things, doing it right. But the fact was, he had no idea what he would do differently. He had done everything he could think of to keep her—hadn’t he? But in the end, it hadn’t made any difference.

He should get rid of this picture. He should tear it up, forget about her, and get on with his life. But somehow …

He carefully slid the picture back under his credit card and shoved the wallet into his pocket. Nothing had changed—not really. Not about the way he felt. No matter what he tried to tell himself, through all the heartache, all the misery, all the tears …

Some things remained.

B
EN PUNCHED THE REMOTE
and sent the videotape back to the beginning, trying to be as quiet as possible. He didn’t normally think of operating the VCR as a noisy chore, but tonight he was taking no chances. It had taken him hours to get Joey to sleep. He hadn’t gone down until well after midnight, and Ben suspected that the slightest sound could bring him back to life at full roar.

Ben’s first night at home alone with his nephew had been an unmitigated nightmare. His ignorance of the world of child care knew no bounds. He didn’t know the first thing about babies. How do you get the nipple to go inside that plastic ring? Why do women squirt milk on their wrist? How can you tell which side of the diaper goes up? Does it matter?

And this was a good one—where do you put them down to sleep if you don’t happen to have a crib in your bachelor pad? He’d made do with an oversized plastic laundry basket. All right—it looked stupid, but it was the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment. Joey didn’t seem to mind; he just didn’t want Uncle Ben to leave him there alone. So he cried. Loudly. After striking out with every lullaby he knew, Ben tried all the poetry he could recite from memory, which wasn’t all that much. Only “Annabel Lee” seemed to calm Joey. Somewhat. Ben hoped it was the rhythm and rhyme that turned the trick, not the melancholy ruminations on premature death.
It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea
…

Joey quieted, but he still wasn’t asleep. Ben tried several quiet songs he knew, a few half-remembered Disney tunes, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, for no reason he could fathom, he began singing the theme from
The Flintstones.
Hardly a nursery standard. It was a wacky idea, but …

It worked. A sweet contented smile emerged the instant Joey heard “Flintstones … meet the Flintstones …” Halfway through the song, his eyelids fluttered closed.