Equal Access (28 page)

“What parent hasn’t noticed children touching
themselves during bath time? How long have they denied kids will
look at each other in the famous game of doctor? Children are
curious and wish to explore their sexuality, but the prudes who
fear their own sensual feelings externalize that conflict and tell
children to be sexless automatons. When they realize there are
adults who are willing to help children in this exploration, they
panic and demonize those who love children. Worse yet, they create
feelings of guilt and shame in children for wanting and
participating in this contact.”

He’d heard these arguments before. It seemed
like another lifetime ago Shad had actually taken them under
consideration. Now the misconceptions were so clear to him that
Shad ruminated how lost a person must be to give credence to such
ideas.

“The truly healthy pedophile will advocate
lowering the age of consent laws and support other pedophiles who
wish to do the same. They must assert their rights as well as the
rights of the children they love.”

A realization stirred in the back of Shad’s
mind that both before and after his disorder had come out of
latency, he was actually offended that people used the term
“pedophile” when they really meant “molester.” Although Shad
couldn’t deny being
one
he was certainly not the
other
, and he didn’t appreciate the assumption that
everybody with his disorder got lumped with the misbehavers. It was
as bad as assuming someone who had been molested was more likely to
become a molester in turn. The victim became the accused.

More lines of argument were familiar to
him.

“Sexual activity is private and the
government should stay out of the bedroom.” And yet the site also
insisted, “The pedophile is an object of discrimination and
therefore must demand the same freedom to human rights which are
the pillars of our democracy.”

The activists desired more than to make their
behavior legal and protect their privacy. They really wanted to
transform society’s view of reality by eliminating any judgment
that such actions were wrong. Heck, not only was this activity
normal and natural, they claimed, children should be taught in
schools this was an acceptable standard of behavior. And any
troglodyte who continued to insist such actions were wrong must be
silenced or legally forced to embrace it.

In other words, once “child love” became
legal, perpetrators still should rally to compel legislation that
any resistance to it must be made illegal.

Eventually Shad had enough of the misguided
defenses and he clicked around to see what other offerings were
available. Both a chat room and a bulletin board were accessible.
Shad was particularly wary of the chat room, especially this late
at night. So he surfed to the bulletin board to see what messages
had been posted.

The wording was somewhat cryptic and evasive,
but Shad knew exactly what was being offered. There were
announcements for buying, selling, and swapping pornography. But
worse yet, there were posts of times and places other children
would be available for access to members of this website – and any
other takers informed of the opportunity.

Shad’s blood ran cold. Merciful God, he’d
uncovered a sex ring.

Part of the bond for this particular group of
offenders was location. Most of the places advertised were in the
St. Louis area. Others were scattered across the state or the
neighboring state of Illinois. For Shad’s purposes, they had the
quality of providing information that would allow law enforcement
to track down their identities and save their victims sooner.

Shad began copying pages of the bulletin
board to the flash drive in the USB port. As he moved further back
in the board’s timeframe, a particular message from about a week
ago caught his eye.

“Need assistance concerning a former
candidate. May try to upset the apple cart. Any suggestions that
can be offered will be greatly appreciated monetarily.”

Shad recognized Wally’s alternative messaging
address. Had he just found the link to attempted murder?

He copied the message and exited the website.
When Shad opened the folder for the messages, however, he was
disconcerted to discover most of the correspondence older than a
couple of days had been deleted. But nothing was really deleted
unless....

Shad delved deeper into the computer’s files
and managed to uncover the remnants of discarded data. There seemed
to be significant activity associated with Wally’s message.

At first Wally seemed to solicit several
responses to his post, but Shad determined there was one that Wally
had more contact with than the others.

“I can’t help you myself, but I know of a
couple of people who could do whatever you need done. Location is
Jefferson City, what travel is involved?”

Wally responded. “Jefferson City would be
perfect. Target actually lives in that area. Time to come to the
end of his road. Can your people do that?”

The reply was, “I’ve talked it over with
someone. If the price is right he’ll take care of it for you.” It
listed a phone number and time to call, but no name.

Looking up the phone number would be child’s
play for Shad, but he needed to save that task for later.
Incredible. Not only had he proven Wally was still an offender and
a participant in a sex ring, Shad also had evidence Wally really
was connected to trying to murder him. This was enough to put the
man away for a very, very long time. This was for Dulsie and their
child.

Shad copied the messages. He glanced at the
clock in the lower right corner of his computer screen and was
surprised to see it was already after four o’clock. He’d better get
out in case either Wally or Lynette was an early riser. The rest of
what he needed to do, he could do on his own computer.

When Shad looked up the phone number, he was
disconcerted again to see it was one of the business lines of a
local department store at the mall, and the time given would have
been after hours. That wouldn’t give him any name. But he could
look up the identity of the correspondent in the messages. That
person would be complicit in the conspiracy of murder as well.

It required some more of his hacking skills,
but Shad finally uncovered the information that revealed the
identity and location of the person Wally had been in contact with.
Shad already knew he was in Jeff, but when he saw the name, his
blood ran cold again.

Victor Phillips.
Victor
Phillips?
Vic
Phillips?

The same Vic who was helping out with
Charissa?

Ordinary people may settle for the appearance of
truth more often than truth itself.

--Rene Descartes

Hoping he was wrong, Shad dove into
confirming Victor Phillips’s identity and to his horror discovered
he was right. He looked at the time and debated whether anybody
would be up this early at either Monica’s or Eliot’s home.

If Shad remembered correctly, Vic would sleep
at his apartment in the mornings after getting off work at the
hospital. He didn’t get to Monica’s until late morning, in time to
help prepare lunch.

How would Vic fit into a molester’s profile?
Did he actually have a preference for children? Or, more worrisome,
was Vic a situational offender? He might take advantage of a
helpless adult just as easily. That would make Monica a target as
well. And then there were those patients at the hospital Vic would
have access to.

Shad could have crawled out of his own skin
as he thought about Dulsie being in the hospital. No, no ... Karl
and Jill were keeping a tag team vigil on her. Besides, she was
probably too alert for someone who wanted to keep his activity
hidden. Dulsie should be all right.

Dulsie had to be all right.

Shad looked at the clock again and noticed it
still wasn’t long after six o’clock. He couldn’t stand it any
longer. With his cell phone Shad called the number to Eliot’s
house.

It was Tess who answered, and she definitely
sounded like Shad had roused her from bed. “Hello?”

“Tess? This is Shad Delaney, Monica’s
attorney. Listen, I’m sorry to be calling so early, but I really
need to talk to Eliot. Is he available?”

“Eliot? No. No, he got called out for a
calving complication or something like that.”

Of all the.... Even Shad knew he couldn’t
tell Vic’s sister what he had just discovered. There could be a
variety of reasons why she wouldn’t take the news very well. Shad
did make a mental note to tell his child one day never to marry a
veterinarian.

“All right. Okay.” His mind raced for a
solution. “I’ll try his cell phone. But in case I have trouble
reaching him, would you still give him the message to call me?”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, no, except – why don’t you call Vic and
tell him he doesn’t need to go to Monica’s today? I’m gonna be
there later. And there’s something I need Eliot’s help with, so Vic
doesn’t need to go there. You got that?”

“Well ... yeah.”

“Thanks, Tess. Thanks a whole lot. And I’m
sorry again if I got you up.”

Shad did try Eliot’s cell phone number after
he got off with Tess, but as he suspected Shad had to leave a
message with voice mail. If Eliot had an armful of newborn calf
slime right now it might be a little while before he returned
Shad’s call.

He took a deep, cleansing breath, and Shad
returned his attention to his original purpose for being here.
After freshening up in the bathroom and making sure everything was
packed back up to leave, Shad made a call to Wally’s home. Luck
finally favored him when the person Shad was trying to reach
actually picked up at the other end.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Wally,” Shad responded
casually. “This is Shad Delaney. Remember me?”

A couple of seconds passed before Wally
replied. “Oh. It’s ... a surprise to hear from you.”

“I bet it is. You and I need to talk. Now.
But not over the phone. I’ve got a place for us to meet.”

Even though Dulsie had clearance to leave the
hospital Dad said it would probably be an hour before somebody
showed up with a wheelchair. Dulsie tried to dismiss the need for
such an apparatus, but Dad convinced her to wait. Mom wasn’t there
that morning, and Dad said she’d have his hide skinned off and
tacked to the back wall of the workshop before dinner if he let
Dulsie walk out of there.

What wasn’t quite right about this scenario
was that Shad wasn’t there to take her home, and right now “home”
was returning to her parents’ house. As Dulsie sat up in bed while
Dad sat in a chair beside her, she remembered when Shad walked into
this room a couple of days ago. To her chagrin, the very first word
that flashed through Dulsie’s mind when she saw him enter was
pedophile
. When Shad stroked her cheek Dulsie wanted to
recoil. And yet she couldn’t deny still feeling some sense of
obligation to him.

Dad leaned back in the chair and stretched
his legs out. “You know, I’ve been thinking. And I think I’ve been
doing you and Shad a disservice.”

His words were a bit of a jolt to her. “How
so?”

“I should’ve told you more about your
grandparents. What happened between them and me. I always kinda
figured I’d need to someday, and I think I waited too long.”

Dulsie frowned slightly as she studied him.
“What did I need to know before now?”

“There are different reasons for keeping
silence. I don’t want to tell you a whole lot about your grandpa’s
bad points because I wanted to keep the door open. I wanted
forgiveness to have a chance. Actually, your mom’s the one who told
me to give forgiveness a chance, so I didn’t want to ... turn you
against your grandpa if he ever wanted to reestablish a
relationship. Even now, if we have to wait until he’s on his
deathbed, we have to give forgiveness a chance.”

Dulsie was still a little puzzled why Dad
felt the need to share this revelation now. “Are you saying ... I
need to forgive Shad?”

“That’s a good idea, but no, that’s not what
I’m saying. Where this becomes a disservice to Shad, though, is I
think I unwittingly encouraged him to keep his own silence. Maybe
if I’d talked more about your grandpa he would have been more
willing to open up about his own past. Maybe the two of you
wouldn’t have had this bomb go off between you.”

“We knew Grandpa would beat you.”

“But I didn’t
talk
about it.” Dad
crossed his arms behind his head, stretched, and then clasped his
hands in front of his chest. “I think it’s ingrained in the male
noggin to be quiet about those touchy-feely things. Pax, God love
him, is better at it than most of us, but he had a happy childhood.
He just couldn’t connect with Shad on
that
level. Sympathy
is one thing but empathy will give you a lot more mileage. I did
try a little bit, I did. From my own lips Shad heard about how my
dad lashed a coiled rope across my shoulders, and a few other
things like that. But I was also afraid if I said too much I’d just
add to the boy’s trauma.” Dad looked at her. “It’s very easy to
come up with reasons to support why you shouldn’t do something you
don’t really want to do.”

“I know.” Dulsie was well aware of her own
situation.

“And that’s how secrets get kept. Secrets are
very powerful.” Dad’s gaze seemed to drift back to the wall across
from him. “My father didn’t hit Mom or my sisters, but he could
still be very intimidating. But Mom didn’t want his secret to get
out. They were upstanding members of the church and unfortunately
appearances were more important to her than truth. And she was also
generous to a fault, wanting to keep his public persona safe. When
I was around twelve I did go to a priest about what was going on in
my family, but unfortunately he was a product of his time. For one
thing he didn’t believe me, and he said even if it were true it was
just the cross we had to bear and depend on God to help us work
through it. Needless to say, on my eighteenth birthday I was outta
there, and my drift from what heritage I had with them got sealed
when I met your mom.”