The Water

by Nancy Jackson

  Tired of being ignored, Mike marched up to the desk and slammed his fist down hard. The stacks of coins shifted and toppled as did a few of the bills. Hardly rattled, mostly amused, Tiny finally looked up at Mike.

  Tiny sat back in his tufted leather chair and folded his hands in his lap. “What can I do for you gentlemen today?”

  Rick walked up next to Mike and opened the folder. He pulled out the sketch and laid it on the only empty area of the desk in front of Tiny. “We need you to tell us where we can find this man.” It wasn’t an ask and assumed that Tiny knew the man.

  Tiny picked up the sketch and glanced at it, then tossed it back down on the desk. “What makes you think I know this man?”

  Mike placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “A man of power knows everyone in this line of work. Are you saying you are no longer on the top of your game?”

  He knew he was being goaded, but Tiny couldn’t resist showing his power. “So what if I do know him?”

  “We want to talk to him,” said Mike.

  Tiny shrugged his shoulder and glanced around the room. “I don’t know where he is or how to find him.”

  “Let’s start with a name,” said Rick. He pulled out his notepad and pen.

  “Hmm. Well let me see if I can remember.” Tiny tapped his lip with his index finger. He was purposely toying with them. He really didn’t want to give them a name. It could very easily topple things and all hell could break loose.

  “We’re not leaving. Your goons can throw us out and then be arrested for an assault on an officer. We know you know who this is,” said Rick.

  With a sharp inhale and Tiny complied. “His name is Hugh Bennett.”

  “Hugh Bennett,” Rick mumbled as he wrote. “Where can we find this Hugh Bennett?”

  Again, Tiny shrugged. “I don’t keep tabs on him.” He looked up at the detectives with round innocent eyes.

  “If you wanted to reach out to Mr. Bennett, where would you start?”

  Suddenly the door to the outer room swung open and in rushed a young girl with so little clothing on that Rick couldn’t look at her. She didn’t look like she was over fifteen or sixteen.

  Right behind her was another man, younger than Tiny. This man was obviously trying to mimic Tiny in every way, but on a budget.

  Tiny stood and glared at the man. “Get her out of here.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Rick bellowed. He reached out and grabbed the man behind the girl and pulled him on into the room. Mike, in sync with Rick, shut the door.

  He firmly held the man by the back of his collar, but looked back at Tiny. “How old is this girl?” Rick asked.

  A smile spread across Tiny’s face and he clasp his hands together in front as if he were a choirboy. “She’s of age.”

  Rick turned to look the girl in the eyes. His voice softer. “Don’t be afraid. How old are you?”

  Her eyes darted from man to man around the room. There was no doubt it terrified her. Rick finally released the man. Mike stood guarding the door, so he wouldn’t be escaping.

  Once again Rick addressed the girl, “What is your name?” His eyes looked at her as a caring father and she found comfort there.

  “I… I… Uh…" Her gaze darted over to Tiny and the two brutes on either side of him.

  “Ma’am, what is your name? I’m a detective with the Oklahoma City Police Department and you need to answer me.”

  “Maggie.”

  “Maggie what?”

  “Maggie Jenks.” She was trembling and her eyes continued to dart from Tiny to Rick.

  “Maggie I need to see some id, please.”

  Once again her eyes darted to Tiny. She didn’t have any id. She hadn’t had any id for a very long time.

  “I… I… don’t have any.”

  Rick seeing her trembling, either from terror or the frigid AC, turned to survey the room. An old throw of some type was lying on the sofa to the side of the room.

  Even though Rick thought it was probably infested with all types of dried fluids he’d rather not think about, he grabbed it and draped it around Maggie.

  Rick looked at Mike. They knew they had a dilemma. In order to find out more about the man in the sketch and Sam, they would need to stay here and get more information. But this girl needed out of here, and getting her out might be a valuable resource. The question, should they stay or should they go, passed as a look between Rick and Mike.

  Maggie, I’m taking you in for questioning. You can’t produce id and you are working under age. Maggie’s eyes grew round with fear and she trembled even harder. The thought that she was being rescued never crossed her mind.

  “You can’t do that,” bellowed Tiny.

  “I can and I will.” Rick gently turned Maggie around to make it look official, and put his cuffs on her thin wrists, making sure they were loose enough to not hurt her.

  “But don’t worry, Tiny. You aren’t off the hook either.” Rick radioed in a message for backup. The last thing he wanted was for Tiny and his men to flee and hide. He also didn’t want Tiny having time to hide any other girls that might be on the premises.

  Soon sirens were heard, and Mike looked at Tiny. “Awww there’s your babysitters now!”

  “Tiny we will be back,” said Mike as they left the office.

  Mike purposely left the throw draped across the girl's shoulders. It was a long shot, but maybe, just maybe if the lab tested it for DNA, they would find a familial match for Sam.

  Would it hold up in court since he took it without a warrant? Under the circumstances, maybe. There had been no objection from Tiny as they walked out of the office, which Rick could stress was uncontested consent.

  Once in the car and headed back to the station, Maggie cried. Large black rivers streaked her cheeks as her mascara bled from torrents of tears.

  “Maggie, it’s okay. We aren’t arresting you. We just wanted to get you out of there, for your own sake,” Mike tried to reassure her, but all he got in response was a nod of her head.

  “Are you all right?” Rick asked. Again another nod of her head.

  Once at the station, Mike went in and got a female officer and some generic scrubs in the smallest adult size they kept on hand for just such occaisons, and brought them back out to the car.

  Maggie was nearly naked in a bra type top that completely bared her breasts and a slim g-string panty. They wanted to spare her any more humiliation, and Rick wanted to preserve as much evidence on that throw as possible.

  The female officer slid into the backseat with Maggie, uncuffed her, and handed her the scrubs with instructions to slip them on over her current clothing. Being barefoot, the officer had also gotten a pair of flip-flops for her to wear.

  With gloved hands, the officer slipped the throw out of the car and into a large paper evidence sack Rick held waiting.

  Rick and Mike led Maggie into an interrogation room as the other officer took the evidence to process.

  Maggie sat in the steel chair cold to the touch from the blasting AC. She slumped over with her arms between her knees. It reminded the detectives of a defensive position meant to shield herself from an attack.

  Rick left to go get a bottle of water for them all, and Mike took the chair across from Maggie.

  “Maggie, my name is Detective Mike Brown. I don’t want you to be afraid.”

  Maggie looked up at him. Her sweet tired face was wracked with sorrow, which was accentuated by the hideous black streaks on her face. But she said nothing.

  The door opened, and Rick presented a cold bottle of water to Maggie, then one to Mike. He had already downed half of his.

  “Here you go Maggie. You can use these wipes to clean your face if you want. I thought it might feel good.” Rick placed a container of wipes on the table next to her water.

  Maggie just sat and stared at both without saying a word.

  “Are you hungry? How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” asked Mike.

  Maggie just looked
up at him and then away. They all three sat there for a few moments. Finally, Maggie sat up and reached for the wipes. She popped one out and began to clean her face.

  “I am a little hungry,” she said as she wiped.

  “What would you like? It’s up to you. We’ll send someone out to get whatever you want.”

  Maggie reached for another wipe and replied, “I like Taco Bell.”

  “Okay, great! We like Taco Bell too. What do you like from there?” Rick was thrilled she was talking.

  “Tacos. I like their tacos and nachos.”

  Instantly Rick was up and out in the hall giving instructions. When he had reentered the room, Maggie looked much better. Not only had the wipes taken off the streaks of black, but all the heavy makeup she had worn.

  With her face fresh and clean before them, Rick and Mike both realized just how young this girl really was.

  “Maggie, how old are you?” asked Mike.

  She dipped her head and said, “Thirteen.”

  Rick jumped up and was once again out of the room and in the hallway giving instructions. They would bring Tiny and his entire brood of merry men in. Then he would get the answers he wanted.

  He tried to calm himself down before reentering the room. He did not want Maggie to see him so enraged and think she was the reason for it.

  With the heavy makeup that Maggie had worn, she could have passed for legal age, they weren’t sure then. Had they been, they would have never left Lawdie’s without Tiny in cuffs.

  They had gotten a warrant en route to the station for the patrolmen they’d left behind to execute. He gave further instructions to bring Tiny and his men in.

  “Maggie can you tell us who your parents are and how we can contact them?” asked Mike.

  Maggie sobbed. She dropped her face into her hands and gave into her grief. They let her cry. They knew she had had to get tough or numb to endure what she had been through, so now they wanted her to have time to let it out.

  Soon, her sobs subsided, and she looked up, grabbed the wipes again and blew her nose. By now her pretty little face was red and swollen.

  They didn’t want to push her, so they resisted the urge to ask more questions. Their need to know couldn’t override this young girl's vulnerability.

  “I don’t have anyone anymore,” Maggie finally whispered.

  “What do you mean, Maggie?” asked Mike.

  She shook her head and just looked at her hands in her lap. “I used to live somewhere cold. I think maybe Michigan. Yeah, that sounds right. But I haven’t been there for a long time.”

  “Maggie, can you please tell us how you came to be at Lawdie’s? Tell us why you aren’t with your parents now?” asked Rick.

  Maggie nodded, but continued to look at her lap. “I barely remember my parents. They took me when I was about six, I think. I honestly don’t remember much about it. My memories are just flashes of this and that.”

  A knock on the door announced the food was there. They had ordered Maggie several items so she could choose what she wanted and eat as much of it as she wanted.

  As soon as the smell of the food hit Maggie, her stomach growled. She dove in as if she hadn’t eaten in days and devoured almost everything.

  They hadn’t pushed her to talk while she was eating, but the moment she stopped, they asked her again to tell them her story.

  “I just remember a man, actually a man and a woman who took me from the park across the street from my house. It terrified me. I screamed and cried for my mommy, but she never came.

  “I knew she wouldn’t, because she couldn’t hear me in the van. I don’t know how long we drove. There were a bunch of other girls in the van with me. Some were a little older than me and some were about my age.

  “We were all scared, but when we cried, the lady would reach back and slap a strap at whoever was crying. It hurt bad, so we didn’t cry.

  “That was a long time ago. We traveled for a long time and then they took us to a house somewhere and shoved us all in a room. There was a man there with a gun who made sure we stayed in the room and stayed quiet.

  “The next thing we knew, we were being herded off in a truck. There were even more girls and women in there. Somehow I wound up here in Oklahoma. Tiny said he bought me and that I was his.”

  She stopped for a moment. Her memories had trapped her once again, and a tear slid from her eye.

  “What did you do for Tiny?” asked Mike.

  “Well, I guess I was too young to go out on the stage where someone might report me being underage. So, he charged big money for me to dance in the private back room. There are a lot of men who will pay big money for young girls.”

  “Is that all you did, was dance?” asked Rick.

  “No, he made me have sex with men too. The first time, since I was a virgin, the man was very wealthy. I could tell. He wanted to buy me from Tiny, but Tiny knew how much money I could make him, so he wouldn’t sell me. But the man paid $50,000 to have sex with me as a virgin. I was seven.”

  Rick thought someone had just punched him in the gut. He made an excuse and slipped out of the room. His head was spinning, and he knew he would be sick.

  Afterwards in the men’s room, all he could see were his daughters and their innocent faces. They were teenagers now, much older than Maggie, but what if it had been them? It couldn’t have been them.

  Rick washed his face and stared blankly at the chipped mirror in front of him. When he suddenly snapped out of his trance, he called his oldest daughter from inside the men’s room. His call went to voicemail, and he told her he loved her and wanted to get together with her whenever she could.

  Since she had just graduated and left home to go to college, he’d seen very little of her. Her younger sister was still at home and a senior. He couldn’t wait to get home to hold her tight. But right now he had a job to do, so he went back to Maggie.

  “Maggie do you remember your parents's names or where in Michigan you lived?" Maggie shook her head. “I’m not real sure my name is Maggie Jenks. That’s just the name they gave me after I got here.”

  “Maggie I’m so glad we found you. Why did you come bursting into Tiny’s office today?” asked Mike.

  “Wally was beating on one of the new girls and I’d just had enough. I didn’t care what they did to me.”

  “Does Tiny have other young girls there?” asked Rick.

  Maggie nodded. “He has about five or six. He says they are too high maintenance, so he only keeps that many.”

  “So how old are they?” asked Rick.

  She sighed deeply before answering, “They are really young like I was, six, seven, something like that. There is one really small even though she is older, she’s eight. But she isn’t cut out for this and cries all night long. Then, Wally beats her. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

  Mike and Rick weren’t sure they heard her correctly. Her words, 'weren’t really cut out for this', assumed that she had taken it for granted that some young girls, even herself, were cut out for this type of cruel behaviour.

  Rick once again left and radioed into the Sergeant in charge of the raid on Lawdie’s. He explained that there may be other very young girls and minors on the premises.

  The Sergeant radioed back that they had shut the place down for the night at least, and were working their way through the building searching for anything that would lead them to another location where they could find more girls.

  Once again back in the room, Rick asked Maggie, “Maggie, did you and the girls stay there at Lawdie’s all the time or did he keep you somewhere else?”

  “No, not all the time. In fact, we were rarely there. He kept us in an old house close to there. I guess when someone wanted to be with us, they would bring us over.”

  “Do you know where that was? Could you help us find it?” asked Rick.

  Maggie sat thinking for a moment. “I don’t think so. I can try, but I can’t promise.”

  “Why were you at Lawdie’s
today?” asked Rick.

  “There was a little party in the back room that Tiny wanted me to dance at. He had brought me and two other girl’s over. Then when eight-year-old Kiley, cried and didn’t want to dance, Wally beat her. That’s when I went running into Tiny’s office.”

  “Okay, thank you Maggie. Mike we have some work to do,” then looking back at Maggie. “Stay here just a minute and we’ll get back to you. Are you okay for now?” Maggie nodded.

  “What’s going to happen to me now? Where will I go?”

  Mike and Rick didn’t know, but they were in agreement she wouldn’t be going back to that life if they had anything at all to do with it.

  Chapter 18

  For Carrie, Wednesday morning began with a call from Rick regarding the discovery of Maggie the previous evening. Files were waiting in her in-box and details came over the phone.

  As she burst through the door, she headed to her desk with a purpose; her phone still to her ear. She could feel the adrenalin surging through her body.

  The desk chair skittered as her body dropped awkwardly into it. Focused on seeing the file, and hearing the update Rick was giving her, dominated her mind. Entirely engrossed in the influx of new information, she was unaware that Randy was motioning for her to come to Bracket’s office.

  By the time Carrie had ended the call, Randy was standing in front of her next to his desk.

  “Was that Rick?” asked Randy.

  Carrie stood. Randy noticed the color back in her cheeks and felt the energy she had gained from physical rest and new leads. This was the Carrie he had missed.

  “I guess you’re up to speed…" Randy said.

  Carrie nodded. Her eyes twinkled, and she appeared to Randy as a racehorse waiting for the gate to open.

  “I know you are ready to get out there, but I need you to come into my office first.”

  Carrie’s mind shifted. Oh, that’s right. It’s not Bracket’s office anymore, it’s Randy’s, Carrie thought.

  “Carrie…" Randy had noticed her mind space out for a moment.

  She shook her mind back into focus, and said, “Right, sure. I’m just getting used to you being SAC and now in Bracket’s office.”