Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) (5 page)

Jim is nearing retirement—another three years and he’ll step down and into his well-earned golden years. He’s arranging things like a dying man, setting his house in order for a smooth transition. Sheriff-Coroner is a nonpartisan office in Orange County, but it’s an elected one, so the deep internal machinery that produces a winning candidate has to engage early to be effective. One of the greatest powers of any sheriff is to actively choose his own successor. Jim hasn’t said anything of substance to me, so far. When we talk, it’s like golf course talk without the golf. But there is something in the air, and I feel it and it is coming from Jim and his office.

Not that I’d be a likely successor, but I’m still completely floored by the attention.

For one, I’m nonpolitical. I’m not ambitious—at least I wasn’t until Jim Wade began to murmur the quiet language of power into my ear.

Second, I’m not only not a family man, but I’m going through the uncommitted motions of family life with one of the department’s best detectives, the ex-wife of the department’s brightest lieutenant, and their daughter. I’m messy.

Third, I’m head of the division’s smallest and newest unit—Crimes Against Youth—that until recently was accorded neither respect nor recognition. Two years ago, we didn’t exist at all. At first there was an attitude toward us, an attitude of snickering jocularity and prurient suspicion. It’s the same one that gets aimed at a vice dick who’s been on the job too long. People start to wonder why he’s spending so much time with prostitutes, pimps, panderers and pornographers. Why doesn’t he transfer out? Up? Hit the desk a while? With good reason, maybe: more than a few of them fall to the temptations. I can understand how they do. And I feel compassion for them, but this may be a character flaw in myself, a blurring of the knowledge of good and evil, caused by the death of my son.

But thanks to all the good press I’ve generated for our little group, things have changed. The other sections and units have grudgingly come to admire, if not our work, then at least the way that the general public has come to know and respect us. I’m considered the media wizard, because I’ve vigorously lobbied the newspapers and electronic media, cultivated reporters and editors and producers, gotten them on our side, shown them what we do. And they’ve responded. CAY has been featured on the covers of
Westways
and
Los Angeles
magazines, and the California Law Enforcement Bulletin. (Of the actual CAY players, only Frances has been pictured because we do a lot of undercover stuff. Our media poster boy is actually Jordan Ishmael, who speaks as our supervising lieutenant but has no say in our day-to-day work.) We’ve gotten lots of positive airtime on the network and local news.
Sixty Minutes
has made some inquiring calls to me and Jim Wade. The
Times
and
The Register
and
OC Weekly
have all covered us favorably. We are proud of that coverage, and the department is proud of us. Other departments in the region have begun to create their versions of our little unit.

Mixed in with the early prejudice against us was something even uglier to me: people secretly believed that kid crime was small time. That, somehow, real cops fight real crime and real crime is crime that matters. Kid porn, so what? Child abuse, so what? Prostitution of minors, hey, it’s rare. I have a response to that, but it’s long and I might get worked up. I might think of guys like Chet, or The Horridus. The Irish in me again. But that prejudice is changing, thanks to CAY and the number of creeps we’ve collared, and the media smile we’ve gotten. I’ve already proposed a CAY budget twice as big as last year’s. If I’m reading the signals from Sheriff Wade correctly, it might even get approved.

Last, I’m not even sober, really. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I stopped waking up in places and not knowing how I got there. It wasn’t until then that I could go a day without consuming almost a fifth of tequila, plus a few beers (four, max). That was my life before I found a way to love this world after Matthew. But who knows—it might happen again, tonight.

So what gives? I don’t know and I don’t ask. But I do know that Jim Wade and the people closest to him are looking at me warmly, a warmth subtle and invigorating as the sunshine between storms. And I know this too: not one ray of it is lost on Ishmael.

The morning briefing began as usual: Sheriff Wade, Undersheriffs Woolton and Vega, Captain Burns, Lieutenant Ishmael, the three section leaders and five unit heads.

We commence at eight sharp. Jim Wade presides from the head of a long, cup-stained, wood-veneer table, but he usually lets Vega handle the group. The coffee machine is always going. There are narrow vertical windows in this conference room, and they look out over the parking lot and downtown Santa Ana, the county seat Except on clear winter days, there isn’t much to see. But the mood is usually brisk and optimistic. The purpose of the brief is to get everyone up to speed on the breaking cases, so that each section knows what its neighbor is up to. That, and to float ideas or beefs that can’t wait until the weekly meeting of section heads.

Four of the twelve others came over to shake my hand and offer good words on the Chet bust. Most of them had seen the CNB report and had to mention the comic way that exterminator Louis and dapper Johnny had stood there yapping to each other on camera behind Donna Mason, not realizing they were on.

“You’re gonna have to get those guys some media grooming, if you’re going to put them on the air so often,” said Burns, one of Sheriff Wade’s insiders.

“Least they weren’t drooling on Donna Mason,” said Undersheriff Vega.

“Probably dry by then,” said Undersheriff Woolton.

“Naughton takes care of media drool off-screen,” said Ishmael. “With Mason, anyway.”

“Just part of the job,” I said.

“You’re a hard worker,” he said.

“And look what I get for it,” I said, turning my blue-black, bandaged cheek toward him.

“You see Van Exel bump that ref last night?” said Rafter, head of Melinda’s unit.

“They’ll cook him for that,” said Woolton.

“Ten-hut,” said Vega. “Ish, why don’t you start us off with the CAP news.”

“You got it,” said Ishmael. “Congrats to Terry’s unit for the bust up in Orange. They’ll arraign Sharpe and the mommy later this morning over in court three, and I’ve got Reynolds asking for no bail on either. The Sharpes got Kleo Debelius for counsel—they’d obviously been saving up their money—and he’ll knock it down to half a mil or so. Higher the bail the better—we’re figuring the happy couple as a flight risk and hopefully Honorable Ogden will see it our way. Reynolds and I listened to the tapes last night, the ones we got out of Sharpe’s house, and they’re golden. Between Terry’s testimony and the tapes, Reynolds hopes to throw a large net—child abuse, child endangerment, sexual exploitation, pimping and pandering, enticement of minor, keeping or admitting to a house of prostitution—there’s plenty of sentence enhancements for under the age of fourteen, so they’ll heave the whole book at the Sharpes. We figure Debelius will plea down everything he can, but Reynolds says we’ll hold tight. Honorable would probably like to get some mileage out of this one—just like we would—he’s on the election block next year. Next, we just got the FBI profile of The Horridus, so—”

“—Excuse me, Jordan,” I said, “but what about the girl? Is Reynolds talking charges in juvenile court, or testimony?”

“Both. They’ll plead her, then slap her wrist and let her help send Mommy and Daddy up the river.”

“We’ve got some say in that, you know.”

Ishmael nodded impatiently. “Well, say it then, Naughton.”

“I don’t think we should prosecute her: Her parents made her what she was. She’s only ten, for Chrissakes.”

“Noble sentiment,” said Ishmael, “and I’m sure it would sound real good on CNB, but Reynolds needs some leverage. We can’t let her go, then expect her to sink her parents.”

“She’s not going anywhere but the hall, Jordan. That’s enough motivation for her to cooperate, I’d say. You been there lately?”

“She’s a prostitute,” said Ishmael, “juvenile or not.”

“Ish has a point,” said Woolton.

“She’s also a kid,” I said.

“Amen,” said Rafter. “Ought to be out playing girls’ hoops, but she’s cooped up turning tricks for her dad. Give her a break.”

“Well,” said Sheriff Wade, “is she a
cooperative
kid or not?”

“I’ll know this afternoon,” I said.

“Table it until then,” he said. “Ishmael, ask for a continuance over at Juvenile while we sort this out. See how the girl’s going to act. Terry, see me after the interview. Okay. Onward to the wholesome world of The Horridus. Naughton, what do we have?”

I passed out copies of the profile. It was a stripped-down version, without Mike Strickley’s opening or closing remarks. The room was quiet, with an occasional sigh or “mmm.”

“How do they come up with this stuff?” asked Burns. He’s old school, but he’s tough and optimistic.

“It’s easy for them,” said Ishmael. “They just think like creeps.”

Sheriff Wade stared down at his page and shook his head. “Naughton? What do we do with all this? How can we use it?”

“There’s two basic ways to go, sir,” I said. “We can wait, be as ready as we can for number three, and hope to get to her quick. Our physical evidence has been thin, but the sooner we get to the girl the better chance we’ve got. He’ll leave us something, sooner or later.”

“Later doesn’t sit too well with me,” he said.

“Which leads us to option two,” I said. “We can try something proactive—draw him out, force his hand.”

“Something like what?” said Wade.

“We could edit the profile and release it to the media,” I said. “They’d give it good play and he’d feel the pressure.”

“The media hound barks again,” said Ishmael.

I looked at him sharply. “We could blow up his handwriting sample, Horridus, and put it on billboards, see if anyone recognizes it. It’s only one word, but it’s fairly distinctive. The Bureau did that once—and it worked.”

Ishmael groaned. “
Advertise
for him?”

“That’s exactly right,” I said. “Or, we can keep the profile to ourselves, just like we have on some of the evidence, and set up something to attract him—I’m just brainstorming now—but, you know … get one of the papers to do a piece on fashions for little girls, use five or six models he might like and mention the agency that handles them. Set up a phone number of our own inside the agency, run a trap and trace on the calls that come in. No, this is better, we get the papers to do a story on an
audition
for young girls to star in a commercial, do modeling for clothes … something like that. There’s a chance he’d show up.”

“And if he gets to one of those models, or somebody’s girl, we all end up as security guards,” said Ishmael.

But Wade seemed interested. “Go on.”

“Come on, guys,” I said, looking around the table. “Any fool can dance alone.”

Woolton was next: “Set up a reptile show.”

Vega: “They got those already. Kind of a swap meet. My kid goes.”

Burns: “It says he likes reptiles, maybe. We know he likes little girls. So we set up a reptile show for little girls.”

All: Laughter.

“Or advertise a kiddies’ hour at the show,” I said. “Where they get to handle some animals. Use a picture of a girl holding a lizard, to promote it. Right there we’ve provided him with two temptations. We’d lay in heavy, look for someone who fits the description.”

“Kick butt and take names,” said Burns.

“He’d change his appearance,” said Ishmael.

“Likely,” I said. “Plus our description is pretty thin to start with. She saw him at night, a hundred feet away, getting into the van.”

“We’ll shake down all the guys wearing Groucho glasses,” said Woolton.

Ishmael: “And if he finds his next girl there, then what? What if he tracks down the girl with the lizard? That’s the trouble with this public stuff—if it backfires it backfires big.”

“Noted,” I said. “The smaller we keep it, the better we can control it.”

“How about a tryout for a girls’ basketball league?” asked Rafter, obsessed as always with the game.