Most investigators don't even know what the word means. You stop the cops from using informants and the only crimes they'd ever solve would be those by deranged postal workers who come to work once too often. There're plenty of well–meaning amateurs, but they run around like headless chickens on crystal meth. Private eyes? They're mostly ex–cops with some contacts. Or find–out–if–your–husband–is–cheating–on–you keyhole peepers. Or hypertech guys who know all about code–grabbers and digital scramblers but don't get the concept of tire irons and duct tape.
I don't have a license, but the humans I learned from were the best teachers in the world. You want someone to find secrets, use a man who has plenty of his own.
When games have no rules, they're only games to the players who made them up. I never made up the games, but they made me a player. When I was just a kid: ugly secrets, dark corridors, terror around every corner. I learned how to hide real good. And now it's real hard to hide from me.
Plus I was working my own city. Where I know how to find the best slip–and–slide men in the world. The Prof might have lost a step—maybe he wasn't up to bank vaults or high–security buildings anymore—but he could still go in and out of a regular apartment house like smoke through pantyhose.
"Seven G," I told him, unfolding a floor plan. "It's a two–bedroom, top floor, rear. No doorman. I'll make sure she's not around when you go in."
"She bunks alone?"
"Guaranteed," I said, relying on Wolfe.
"And the other one?"
"That's a three–room. Third floor, right off the elevator. Furnished. Six and a quarter a month, utilities included. It's not a hotel, but nobody stays there that long. Mostly studios—she's got one of the bigger units."
"Same deal?"
"Same deal. You need The Mole to take down the basement?"
"That ain't the plan, man. I figure amateur locks, right? What you want, I'll be through in a half hour tops."
"Be a ghost, Prof."
"A holy ghost, Schoolboy."
"You can't imagine what it feels like," the man said. "If you haven't been through it, you'll never understand."
"I can't be you," I said softly. "I know that. But maybe, if you'll help, I can get close."
"Mr. Kite saved my life," the man said, standing on the back porch of his Upper Westchester house, looking out over a rushing gorge. He was in his sixties, thinning brown hair neatly combed to the side over a fine–boned face. His right hand was locked over his left wrist as tight as a handcuff. "He asked me to talk to you—that's good enough for me."
"How did it…happen?"
"'Happen.' That's a good word for it. Like a train wreck. I had no warning. My son had a wonderful life. We had the…resources to give him everything a boy could want. He was a soccer star, you know. When he was small. He lost interest when he started high school, but that's common, I guess. Once puberty hits….
"He had everything, as I said. His junior year in Europe. The whole Continent, Grand Tour. A new car when he was only sixteen. A Corvette. A black convertible—just what he wanted. We did everything together. As a family. Ski trips, Disneyland, ball games…the whole nine yards. He graduated fourth in his class. Phi Beta Kappa at my alma mater. Then he got a Master's degree in English literature. And a wonderful teaching position." The man's voice trailed off, his eyes focusing somewhere out by the gorge. He never looked at me.
"Then he got married," the man said. "A wonderful girl from a fine family—we all loved her. I gave them the down payment on their house as a wedding present."
"You were very generous…"
"Oh, I had it to give," he said. "I've done very well for myself. In business. And what good is money if you can't spend it on your loved ones? It was my pleasure. Always my pleasure."
"When did…?"
"He got divorced. It was so…sudden. A very nice divorce, actually. No name calling, no public displays. She had money of her own, anyway—there was no need to….
"And teaching…well, that doesn't pay very much. He never said why they broke up but I found out later. He was gay."
"He told you?"
"No. He told his mother. That was before…"
"Before…?"
"Before it all…happened. When he was still speaking to her. To us."
"How did you…?"
"A telephone call. The most terrifying phone call a parent can ever receive. It was Tyler. Calling me from his therapist's office. He said it was time to 'confront' me. That's the exact word he used, 'confront.' God."
"What did he say?"
"He said I had molested him," the man said, so quietly I had to strain to pick up the words. "My own son. Saying that to me over the phone. He didn't want to be gay—that's where it all started."
"What do you mean?"
"That's why he went to that therapist. He was gay. Or at least he thought he was. Naturally, he was…disturbed about it. So he went for counseling. That's what he told me, that time on the phone. The therapist helped him 'unlock the memories'…"
He was quiet for a few minutes, crying soundlessly, tears on his face. But his hands didn't move, still vised together.
"'Unlock the memories,' that's what he said. Of me…molesting him. When he was a little boy. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I thought it was some kind of sick…I don't know, joke, maybe. I was in shock."
"Is that all he said?"
"No. He said…a lot. He wanted to meet with me. Face–to–face, he said. I said I had always talked to him that way. Man–to–man. And you know what he said to me? He said: 'You're not a man.' I almost died. Right there on the phone, I almost died."
"Did you ever talk to him. I mean…that way?"
"No. Never. Mr. Kite told me not to do it. He said it was extortion. A common thing, he told me. He knew the therapist. Knew him by reputation, anyway. He…this therapist…does this a lot. Convinces young people who come to him—who come to him for help, for God's sake—that they were…abused when they were children. Mr. Kite said there would be a demand for money. To be ready for it."
"And did it come?"
"Oh yes. Tyler didn't call it that exactly. He said it was 'reparations' or some such garbage. He wanted money. And an apology. That apology, it was very important to him, he said."
"Did you pay him?"
"I did not," the man said. He drew a harsh intake of breath through his nose. "So he got some two–bit publicity seeker of a lawyer and he sued me. But that didn't work either."
"Because…?"
"Mr. Kite got it thrown out of court. Thrown right out. Tyler didn't have any evidence or anything. Just what he said. And it wasn't really him saying it anyway, it was that damn therapist."
"So you never did speak to—"
"No I have not. I haven't spoken to him, his mother hasn't spoken to him, and his sister hasn't either."
"His sister. Is she older or…?"
"Two years older. A fantastic girl. Married, with three beautiful children. He called her too. He tried to turn her against me, but she wouldn't budge. Brittany knows something about loyalty…"
"Maybe he thought she would be loyal to—"
"To him? Why? What kind of loyalty would that be? To a person who ruined an entire family."
"But if…?"
"He did ruin our family," the man said. "Nothing is the same. Oh, his little scheme didn't succeed. He didn't get his 'apology' for something I never did. But my wife and I…it just shattered us. It changed everything we had. And Brittany, she has no relationship with him at all. He actually told her she could never leave her little boy alone with me. Can you imagine that? Can you feel what that must feel like? My own grandson…
"When you're an innocent man, an accusation like he made hurts worse than if it was the truth. A false allegation of child abuse is the ugliest thing one human being can do to another, I know that now. If it hadn't have been for Mr. Kite, I might have done something very stupid."
"S
uch as…?"
"You don't know what it feels like!" he said, his voice breaking. "You feel so lost, so alone. Tyler even tried to go to the police. To make a criminal complaint against me. But they wouldn't take it…"
"How long ago was this?"
"He said it happened when he was—"
"No. I mean, how long ago did he make that call?"
"More than seven years ago," the man said. "And I still wake up in the night hearing that phone ring. My heart still jumps. For years I couldn't bear to be around any place there was a telephone, afraid it would ring. My business…I've lost everything."
"Did you ever want to get revenge…?"
"Well, I did sue the therapist. But it was a very difficult standard. We had to prove it was malpractice. And with Tyler sticking to his story…"
"And that was the last time you ever heard from your son?"
"I got a letter," he said quietly. "The most hateful letter ever written, I think. I'd show it to you but it's gone. I burned it. Mr. Kite was furious at me for that, but I couldn't sleep another night even knowing that filthy thing was in the world."
He stepped back from the railing, hands still locked. "It can happen to anyone," he said. "Nobody is ever safe from a lie."
It's an industry," the young woman told me, sitting with her legs crossed in a semi–reclined ergonomic chair behind a chrome–trimmed bleached–wood desk. "Driven by a combination of ego and economics. The children may have been abused once, I don't deny that. But now they're being exploited. And the perpetrators are their own parents."
"How does it work?" I asked her, watching her bright–blue eyes through the oversized glasses she wore perched on the end of a surgically small nose.
"It varies," she replied, "but not all that much. The ingredients are always the same. The child is molested—not by a family member, but not by a stranger either…someone in the 'circle of trust.' A drama teacher, a football coach, a religious counselor, a babysitter…whatever. Eventually, the child 'tells.' And it turns out that the abuse has been going on for a long time. The perpetrator is arrested. There's either a trial or a guilty plea, it doesn't much matter. The essential element is that the child goes public."
"Why is that so important?"
"Because the child then stays public, Mister…"
"Burke."
"Oh yes. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Mr. Kite sent you over on such short notice and—"
"That's okay. By going public, you mean press conferences and all that?"
"No. That's a different manifestation. That's when the parents are operating off their own egos. When they don't see the economics."
"I'm not sure I—"
"The ego part is simple enough. The parents go on the talk shows. Or they talk to reporters. Maybe they're hoping for something like a book or movie deal, but that's not the real motivation. What they're really after is self–aggrandizement. Attention for themselves. Sympathy. A chance to be important. Of course, parents of molested children don't have the same impact as parents of murdered children. They get the most attention, those valiant symbols of bravery." Her voice was so heavy with sarcasm it dropped from her mouth like a safe off a high building.
"You don't think much of—"
"I certainly don't. They run around lobbying for their little laws—always named after the child, of course—as though having a murdered child makes them experts on criminal justice. It's all a media thing. It has no substance whatsoever."
"Okay, that's ego. You said something about economics…?"
"Ah, yes. Some of these poor children, they become a road show all into themselves. They travel with an entourage—their own makeup people, speechwriters, press secretaries. And of course, they each have their own stage mothers too. It's disgusting. I have some videotapes for you—Mr. Kite said you'd return them…?"
"Yeah, I will."
"Well, the tapes speak for themselves. Canned presentations, as carefully rehearsed as a play. The brave little child standing up to the horrible abuser. Guaranteed to make you reach for your wallet. They produce so–called 'self–help' films, write their 'own' books for children, act as 'consultants.' Like I said, there's a fortune to be made. And there's plenty of these kids making it.
"What's this have to do with false—"
"With false allegations? Very little. But it's another form of child abuse, that's for sure. Most false allegations come from exploitation. Children being encouraged to lie. Rewarded for lying, in fact. And this business of making the children relive the abuse over and over again just to keep media attention…well, that's another side of the same coin."
"She was out of control," the Latina in the beige wool dress said to me. "I had to do a Tarasoff warning—the first one in all my years of clinical practice."
"What's a Tarasoff warning?" I asked her, watching her fuss with a pack of cigarettes on the top of her desk as though deciding if she was going to take a bitter pill.
"Mental Hygiene Law, section thirty–three thirteen," she said mechanically, pushing her thick black hair away from her face in an absentminded gesture that rattled one of her gold hoop earrings. "When a patient articulates a clear and present threat to another person, the therapist must break confidentiality and inform the potential target. She was obsessed with revenge."
"On the guy who abused her?"
"No," she said, a rueful smile on her face. "On the guy who left her. It was a stormy relationship. She was a very needy, very demanding young woman. And, eventually, her demands strained the relationship to the breaking point. And all the pent–up hatred she felt for…her father got redirected to her boyfriend. He was in real danger."
"What sense does that…?"
"Some patients suffer from a kind of moral dyslexia," she said, brushing her hair away from her face again. "They project the conduct of the abuser onto an innocent person. But what you need to understand is only their facts are wrong. Their emotions are true. The abuse did happen. It's just that—"
"The wrong man paid for it?"
"He paid for everything," she said, finally lighting a cigarette.
"I'm doing a paper on it," the black man told me. His scrawny neck was so long it couldn't support his large head—his face listed at a odd angle. It was hard to hold his eyes.
"How long have you been—"
"Almost six years," he interrupted. "This whole ritual abuse thing has been metastasizing for longer than that though. Despite the fact that there isn't one single documented case—not a single case authenticated by legitimate law enforcement investigation—the number of reported cases has been expanding exponentially."
"Because…?"
"Because the accounts have been traveling through the survivor community," he said in a strong, vibrating voice, punching a thick–bodied black Montblanc fountain pen in my direction for emphasis. "We noticed a certain phenomenon a while back. Whenever survivors gather in groups, especially for allegedly therapeutic purposes, a 'Can you top this?' ethos emerges. One woman says she was an incest victim. The next says she was an incest victim too, but she had multiple perpetrators. The next says they took pornographic pictures. Before too long, they're up to ritualistic murder of babies and international plots."
"You're saying they make this up?"
"They are induced to the images," he responded, like he'd had a lot of practice answering that question. "And seduced by the power it gives them. They don't 'make it up'—they have the images implanted by others. They know they are in terrible pain. They seek reasons for the pain. They know they're hurting more than the last speaker, so they must have suffered more. Do you understand?"
"I understand what you're saying…"
"But you find it incredible? Good! A skeptical attitude is exactly what is needed in this area. The true believers have polluted scientific knowledge. So what we did, sir, is we tested our hypothesis. We used an 'artifact' method, deliberately introducing bogus material to see if it became absorbed."
"You sent a ringer i
nto T–groups?" I asked him.
"That is precisely what we did," he said, a note of triumph in his deep voice. "We prepped and trained three talented actresses. They simply joined existing groups. Groups in which there had been no prior members who made complaints of ritualistic abuse. After a while, each actress introduced her own tale. And in every case, in each group, other members began to 'disclose' similar stories."
"Like group hysteria?"
"Exactly like group hysteria," he said. "And when my paper is published, the scientific community will understand that it has been practicing some group hysteria of its own!"
The man and woman looked two–of–a–kind: same height, same weight, same no–shape. Dressed alike in those brown mail order pants guaranteed to last a lifetime, both wearing white T–shirts with FREE THE BYRDS on the chest. Another woman, a younger one, in a dark blue shirtdress stayed in the background, busying herself with affixing labels to a stack of newsletters piled up on a long folding table.
"We have a mailing list of almost four hundred," the man said. "But our circle of support is much, much wider."
"Do you know them personally?" I asked.
"We have come to know them," the woman said. "We didn't at first—just what we read in the papers. And from the TV. It was Laureen's case first," she told me, pointing at the young woman still working on the labels.
"How do you get your cases?" I asked, ballpoint pen poised over my reporter's pad.
"There are certain things you look for," the man said. I had to look to make sure it was him—his voice was the same as the woman's.
"What things?"
"Media overkill, that's the first sign. Biased reporting. The Byrds were good citizens in every way. Home owners, taxpayers, church–goers…you name it. That is exactly the type of person the media targets, you know. I mean, it's not much of a story if some known degenerate is accused, is it? The feeding frenzy really started a number of years ago. In Jordan, Minnesota. That was the original case for the movement. And after that, it became an epidemic. The media isn't interested in people on welfare committing abuse. The media wants white, middle–class victims for its witch hunt. Look at McMartin, or Marilyn Kelly Michaels. If you work in a day care center, why, you're at risk, it's as simple as that. The list is amazing, just amazing."
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