Hidden Vices (11 page)

Twenty-One

“I can't believe I'm
doing this,” Megan said to herself as she walked through the snow-covered woods about to break into a dead man's mansion. She'd intentionally parked on a side street about a quarter-mile away. The snow came up to mid-calf, but there were animal tracks enough to mask her footprints. She could feel the cold through her boots and her feet felt like cement blocks, but there was no turning back now. As she approached the back of the house, she thought—actually, more hoped—that the man she witnessed running into the woods would not be there to greet her.

She crossed the cleared stone patio and used the end of her flashlight to knock out a window, which turned out to be in the kitchen area. Noise wasn't an issue; the judge had exactly one neighbor and she was deaf. Megan climbed through and turned the flashlight on, keeping it low. Since she was able to see someone in the house the night she tumbled down the driveway, another person might spy her trespassing, especially given the judge's death was now a high-profile case for the town. Megan walked to the front of the house. There was nothing out of the ordinary—unless you found it ordinary that every photo in every room of the judge's home was of himself. Megan decided it most definitely was not ordinary. “Narcissistic bastard.”

She found herself in the great room eyeing the expensive furniture, television, and paintings. “Okay, that guy was obviously not a robber, or most of this would be gone. Every room has expensive items in it, all in tact. So why were you murdered, Judge Campbell? What were you up to?”

Megan walked down the stairs to see headlights coming up the driveway. “Shit!” It was a police car. She flipped the switch on her flashlight, throwing herself up against the wall in between two heavily draped windows.

Now there were two flashlights beaming into the house; she could hear bits and pieces of the policemen's conversation. One asked why they had to do an hourly check on the property. The other complained about it as well, but added it was their job. Megan held her breath as they danced their light beams across the front of the house, then turned back to their squad car. Megan was glad the men did a half-assed job of their hourly inspection. If they had walked around the house, they would have found a broken window in the kitchen. Which would have prompted Megan to bolt out the front door so fast a cheetah would need to stop and use an inhaler in an attempt to keep up with her.

“Dumb asses,” she whispered.

She waited until they drove out of the driveway and were halfway down the street before she dared continue her search. She turned on the flashlight, checking her watch.
One more hour. I have to pick up my speed, can't be here when Dumb and Dumber come back
.

Megan found the judge's office and rummaged through his papers and drawers, her thin winter gloves making the work slower than she'd like. She came across nothing out of the ordinary. She stared at a photo on the desk, of him on a hunting trip holding his rifle and a dead turkey displaying his Chiclet smile. She shook her head in disgust.

The clock was working against her. Megan continued her search and reminded herself of the importance of this being an illegal pursuit. If she found anything, she wasn't sure how she would get it into the right hands.

A problem for another time. It might not even matter.

Directly opposite the judge's office was a door she thought was a closet until she noticed a broken latch on it, most likely from the team investigating after his bravura performance as the largest fish bait ever. Megan pulled open the door. One long stairwell led down to a finished basement. She found a light switch and the entire floor lit up.

With no windows anywhere in the lower level, Megan was safe from being caught, at least in the short term. The walls were painted in flat colors to depict stones. Tapestries with the judge's monogram, MXC, sewn into each one covered the walls. The furnishings were decidedly different from the expensive, modern feel of the upper level. This room possessed a Gothic tone. Dark colors, rich reds and browns, and large oak chairs faced a movie screen. A home theater was at the rear of the room with a stacked bar and an additional full kitchen hidden behind a purple drape, also bearing the judge's initials.

Down the hall Megan walked under exposed wooden beams, approaching a large cathedral-shaped door. She walked through it to find what was obviously the gun room, given there must have been at least forty rifles, shotguns, and pistols in sight. Hell, forty had to be a low-ball estimation. Every wall with the exception of one had more self-portraits, and frames from the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation.

It was the bare wall that intrigued Megan. It was too stark given the level of egomaniacal decor in the home. A small wooden coffee table holding gun magazines was the only item within several feet of the empty panel. The room looked unbalanced, like that wasn't a wall at all. She pressed on the wall, felt up and down the sides, Nothing. Her gut feeling that something was off was volcanic now. She checked her watch: thirty-five minutes, tops, before the two policemen returned to perform their stellar mall-cop duty. When Megan looked at the time, her attention was drawn down to her dripping wet boots.

“Some fucking sneak I am.” Except the water didn't pool around her feet; it seeped through the joints in the wood floor. “Fucking hell, something is under here.”

Megan knelt down, pounding each board under the table. Nothing. She hurled the magazines to the floor and tried moving the table. “You're bolted down? What is going on here?” Megan felt each leg of the table. On all four were silver horseshoe symbols, small, hardly noticeable. She ran her fingers over them and pressed into the end legs until she heard a click. The hardwood floor in front of the empty wall slowly lifted. As Megan raised the end of the table, the sound of hinges opening followed. In one motion the table was on its side and the section of floor underneath now was perpendicular to the ceiling. Another stairwell, another room.

“I think I found your secret, Campbell.”

Megan used her flashlight. The small puddle from her boots had dripped down onto the first step. Before she began her descent, she double-checked the holster attached to her hip, though she knew her gun was intact—it was second nature. The memory of the ambush on the dock quickly returned, and she pulled her gun out. The moment she reached the last stair, she felt the urge to gag.
“Jesus Christ.”

The air fresheners plugged into the wall weren't strong enough to cover the stink of old cigars, booze, and sex that filled the room, not to mention the smell of old blood. She found a light switch and was, even for her, surprised when she lit the room. A king-size bed with red silk sheets was positioned in the center of the room. Chairs similar to those in the home theater circled the bed. The sheets were mussed. Megan used her gun to move the top sheet aside. There were multiple stains underneath. Hanging on the wall were five black satin robes with hoods. All of them had a crest of some sort sewn onto the back. The table at the back of the room was filled with what could only be thought of as the Disney World of sex toys: vibrators, leather bed restraints, anal power beads, a strap-on, bondage kits, nipple clamps, sex-slave kits.

“Jesus.” Megan looked over at the wall, where a leather whip was hanging. “No home should be without one.” She noticed three medicine bottles on the table. The prescription was scratched off, but it was obvious the little blue pills were Viagra. A podium stood in the corner holding a leather-bound book. She flipped through the pages. It read more like a ledger than the sex diary it obviously was.

The boy struggled at first, I overpowered him quickly. The men enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game I played in the beginning. I need to remember it for next time. Note to self, our delayed member deserves two experiences on our next meeting.

“Boy?” Megan looked back to the table. “Oh my God.” Now she did feel as though she would retch. “Oh my God.”

She didn't know why, but she began taking photos of the room, the robes, the toys, and the leather book. When she took a picture of the podium, she saw two wooden boxes resembling large humidors underneath. One held cigars; the other, DVDs.

“You fuckers videotaped this? Big mistake, assholes.” She grabbed three, as she couldn't carry the whole box with her, and she didn't have the time. Her hour was nearly up. She turned off the lights and was about to close off the hidden sex room and then had a better thought. She left the entrance open. “I barely found this. I need to make sure the mall cops find it.”

She sprinted up the stairs, grabbed the phone in the kitchen, and dialed 911. She heard the operator ask, “What's your emergency?” then placed the receiver on the counter.

They would trace the call to Judge Campbell's line, see it was broken into, and hopefully be smart enough to search the house.

Megan went back out through the window, DVDs in hand, knowing it was not going to be a popcorn-and-rom-com night when she arrived back at the house.

Twenty-Two

Megan sat in front
of her computer holding the DVDs she'd confiscated from Campbell's home. She hedged on viewing them. She knew what she'd find. Willingly going back into the pit, bearing witness to the most appalling, cruel acts by human beings—monsters, really—made her take pause. She needed to remind herself of the many crime scenes when she had to disconnect at a certain point, disengage her feelings from the victim's and their family's. The personal note Nappa brought from her last case was a sore reminder of her failings, which was the very reason it remained unopened. She needed to admit, if only to herself, that emotional compartmentalization was not her strong suit after all.

She loaded the first DVD into the computer.

Four men sat in chairs facing the bed. The hooded robes veiled their faces. There was one chair not spoken for. It was on a step, meant to be higher, more important than the rest.

That has to be Judge Campbell's.

The room was filled with candles. The chandelier above the bed was lit. Megan heard the boy before she was able to see him on screen. He was crying. He looked to be twelve, maybe thirteen, but his whimpers made him sound like a toddler. He swayed back and forth, as if he were drugged or drunk. The leader of the group returned to his seat and removed his hood. His face was covered in a gothic-style black metal mask. The leader ordered the boy to his knees, and in front of each member seated, he was commanded to perform fellatio.

“Jesus Christ!” Megan put her hands up to her head. “You fucking bastards.” She had to stand up and look away. Then a scream in the video made her turn back. The boy was being raped now, attacked by the leader while the camera closed in on his face. When his assault was complete, the leader took a candle and lit something. Megan couldn't tell what the object was. The footage was far too dark. The leader ordered the boy to go back on the bed, face down, while two other members held him still. The leader's actions were now in full sight. He was holding a metal rod, glowingly hot. He pressed it to the boy's lower back, just above his tailbone. The young boy wailed in agony.

“Fucking hell.” Megan knew those screams would not leave her memory for a very long time, if ever.

She forced herself to watch the other videos. The violence varied from boy to boy. However, each boy's face could easily be seen, especially the tears and the annihilation of their youth.

Megan turned her computer off and sat numb until the walls of the room felt as though they were closing in, ready to crumble around her, pinning her down with the horrific scenes she'd just witnessed. She stood up, needing to steady herself for a moment before walking over to the sliding glass door. She didn't care how hard the snow was coming down. She didn't care how cold it was; she had to get out of the room, away from that computer and those videos. She fell to her knees on the cold deck, leaned forward, and sobbed until there was nothing left. During the last few months her tears were for different, more personal reasons. With what she'd just witnessed, after all her years on the force, not even her last case came close to this level of perversion.

They're so young, so innocent
.

Megan let out a deep breath.

Not anymore they're not.

Megan took a long hot shower, a modest attempt to cleanse her mind of what she'd witnessed. Two Valiums and a glass of wine were needed to get even a minimal amount of sleep that night. As she double-checked the locks and the alarm on the lake house, she was pleased to see flashing lights at the judge's home.

“You're welcome, asshole.”

When she woke, she donned leather gloves, cleaned her finger prints off the DVDs and their boxes, and found a padded brown envelope. All the while she tried to figure out the best way to forward the DVDs to the detectives. She'd checked the morning newspaper wondering if anything had been written regarding suspects in the judge's murder. Nothing, though there was still plenty commemorating the life of that sick bastard.
Which
, Megan thought,
is probably good news for Vivian, for now.
If they had arrested her, it would have received top headlines. She needed to get ready and find Callie, but her first mission was to rid Chez Mack of the grotesque sex tapes. She closed the brown envelope and addressed it to the Mount Arlington Town Police, Attention Detective Krause. She slapped on more than enough stamps to ensure it would arrive and threw the pouch on the passenger seat.

Megan started to drive to Lake Mohawk. Working off little sleep and thinking of the boys in the videos, she couldn't help but be distracted. She missed the turn she was supposed to take and found herself traveling toward Lake Hopatcong State Park. She was looking for a place to turn around when she saw the sign for the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum. She wasn't about to take a museum tour, but the symbol embossed on the sign made her pull over. She took out her cell phone and opened the pictures application. The symbol from the robes Megan had photographed was an exact match for the symbol of the Lake Hopatcong Museum.

On the other hand, a quick tour might be a good idea
.

The museum was a rustic white building more similar to homes on the lake than a museum. An older woman greeted Megan from behind a desk when she entered. The woman seemed happy to have company. She had a warm smile and wore a button-down sweater that had two turkeys embroidered on each side of the chest. Her nametag read
Hope
.

Megan was counting on the sentiment of her name. She was near to her last drop of hope, especially after viewing the videos.

“Why, hello there.”

Megan fumbled for words in the quiet environment. It's not as if she were preparing herself for loud crowds; this was not going to be an hour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There wouldn't be busloads of tourists being dropped off, clicking their cameras in every direction of the museum, or sightseers wearing black socks and Birkenstocks. She didn't need to worry about vacationers displaying confused looks as to what direction they needed to walk, or asking for directions with the kindness of a Rottweiler attacking a toddler. There would be no Manhattanites zigzagging around tourists attempting to decipher streets, bus stops, and subway stations on the maps of the city. No vendors here offered to draw your caricature or sell you
I
♥
New York City
t-shirts, artwork, and the occasional piece of jewelry.

Megan brought her voice down to a whisper. “I'm new to the area and just wanted to look around.”

The museum guide stared at Megan strangely and looked around. “Why are you whispering, hon? We're the only ones here. Feel free to walk around.”

Megan went to reach for cash. “What's the fee?”

“No charge, hon. It's free admission.” She was so kind and had such a sweet temperament. Megan felt as though she was about to walk through another dungeon of secrets, but she was smart enough to know they were lies; this place appeared to be more of a shrine than a museum.

“I can give you a brief tour, if you like?” Hope asked, clearly wanting to have something to fill the next few minutes with rather than sit and pretend she was busy.

“That would be nice. I appreciate it. I do have a question or two,” Megan continued. “The symbol on the front of your sign, it's unique. Is it the symbol of the town or something?”

Hope adopted a somber tone. “Oh, well.” She crossed her arms. “I'm not sure how long you've been here, but there was a tragedy recently. A wonderful man in our community died suddenly.”

Megan noticed Hope had looked away when the expression
died
was used. “Oh, I hadn't known. And it has to do with the symbol, how?”

“Well”—she pointed to a photo of a much younger Judge Campbell—“he paid for the whole museum, out of his own pocket. The only thing he asked was to place a family emblem on the museum's signs. It wasn't much of a request, when you think about it.”

Family emblem, my ass. That's his fucking calling card. Son of a bitch.

Megan tolerated a few more minutes of history on the land, the lake, and local business, then she politely excused herself. But not without making a donation to the museum, for Hope's sake.