A yellow police ribbon did little to keep the curious onlookers back from the house. Police cars continued to arrive with some officers going inside, guns drawn, while others worked on crowd control.
Sabre hung up the phone and immediately called JP. “Are you watching the news?”
“The devil’s house?’”
“Yeah. There may be a connection to our case. I mean, how many of these cults can there be in one city at a time?”
“I’m on my way. I’ll call you when I have something to report.”
Sabre finished drinking her coffee, watching ritual signs and splattered blood instead of listening to chirping birds. Not exactly the way she planned to start her morning.
JP approached the house on Sixty-Fourth looking for someone in the police department he recognized. He had worked there a long time and had accumulated many friends before he had been shot and put on permanent disability. He hated leaving the department. Police work was his life. Private investigating wasn’t the same but it gave him a little taste of his life passion. He walked along the police ribbon, still looking for a familiar face. They were becoming fewer and fewer as his friends reached retirement or changed to desk jobs.
“Hey, Mark,” JP said to a slightly overweight detective standing near a police car. “JP, how’ve you been?”
“Good, thanks. What’s going on here?”
“We received a report that there were human sacrifices going on in this house.”
“Whoa. Have they found any bodies?”
“No, none in the house anyway. There’s evidence of fresh digging in the backyard, but we haven’t started on that yet. Who knows what we’ll find. But there were a couple of small hearts found in the refrigerator.”
“Human?”
“We don’t know yet.”
6
Although she wasn’t on the detention calendar, Sabre checked the petitions to see if there were any more satanic ritual cases filed. She picked up the one new petition and read the allegations. Someone had shaken a three-month-old baby so hard it had caused brain damage. She read through the report, not finding anything outside the norm.
Sabre walked out of the lounge into the hallway and saw the social worker on the Johnson and Lecy cases. “Good morning, Gillian.”
The woman with mousy-brown, not-so-fluffy hair, turned when she heard Sabre. “Oh, hi.” Gillian smiled.
“I’m representing the minors on Johnson and Lecy. You have both of those cases, right?”
“Yes, have you met the children?”
“I have. The Johnsons are quite a handful. I saw them all together. I thought I might go back to Polinsky and see them individually today.”
“You may want to call first in case they’ve been placed in foster homes.” Gillian pulled her knit, slightly-tight blouse down over the top of her black slacks. Sabre noticed she had put on a few pounds since their last case together. She appeared to be trying to fit her somewhat overweight body into last year’s clothes.
“Did you find a placement for all of them together?”
“I’ve been trying, but it’s not easy putting that many children in one home, and I’m not about to leave them in Polinsky if I can find homes for them,” Gillian said defensively.
“I’m sure you’re doing your best.”
“I’m trying. By the way, I found a foster home for Bailey. She’ll be moved this morning.” She took out a pad of paper, wrote on it, and handed it to Sabre. “Here’s the name of the foster mother, address, and phone number.”
“Thanks, I’d like to go talk with her again.”
Sabre watched as Gillian gathered up her files. She looked tired. She had the kind of job that drained the life out of you if you weren’t careful. Gillian had a reputation for working hard, but she wasn’t that easy to work with and she was exceptionally good at covering her actions. Even when her position didn’t necessarily seem like it was best for the children.
Bob walked up to Sabre and Gillian. “Hi Sobs,” he said, looking at Sabre. Then he turned toward the social worker and said in a business voice, “Good morning, Gillian. My client on the Johnson case just called me and said she arrived at Polinsky for a scheduled visit, but they wouldn’t let her see the children because they were all being moved to foster homes. She also said they were being split up.”
Sabre spoke up. “I thought you didn’t have homes for them yet?”
“I didn’t say that. I told you to call because they may be gone. That’s because I found homes. I didn’t know they were being moved this morning.”
“How many homes?” Bob asked.
“Four.”
“Four? Four is the best you could do?” He stepped a little closer to her. “You know, I bet if you tried a little harder you could have placed them in five homes.”
Gillian raised her voice. “Don’t get huffy with me. We’re lucky to have placements for them. Those kids are a handful.”
Sabre spoke up. “So, where are they? I need to go see them.”
“I don’t have the addresses on me. I’ll have to call you.”
Bob gave Sabre a “what’s wrong with this picture?” look.
“Gillian, is there a problem here?” Sabre asked.
“No problem. I’ll give you the names and addresses of the foster parents as soon as I am back in the office.”
Bob piped in. “Are they in Vista? I hope you at least did that much so they’re closer to their mother. You know it’s been difficult for her to get to Polinsky, so this could be a good thing.”
The social worker snorted. “I placed them where I could find homes. The mother will just have to work it out.”
Sabre saw Bob’s face redden. She placed her hand on his arm. “So, where are they?” she said calmly.
“Cole and Hayden are in homes in Chula Vista, Allie is in Jamul, and Blake and Wyatt are together in Alpine.”
Sabre swung around and took a step closer to Gillian. “You can’t be serious. How are those kids going to maintain contact with their mother, let alone with each other? That is ludicrous. Have you thought about what this is going to do to those kids? Cole is going to be devastated.” This time it was Bob putting his hand on Sabre’s shoulder as her voice grew louder.
The social worker said, “I think it’s best if Cole is separated from the others. He is way too parentified. He needs to be a little boy, not the father of that family.”
“So you’re willing to trade that for abandonment issues? Those kids are really close. They need each other and they need to spend time with their mother.”
“I’m not willing to risk her applying some crazy rituals on them. My job is to protect those children and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Do you think they’re going to perform rituals on each other?” Sabre’s voice escalated.
“I think it’s best for the children. Who knows what Cole has been trained to do?”
“Do you have some reason to believe he has been trained to do something?”
“He’s been drawing pictures of unicorns.”
Sabre threw her hand in the air. “Oh, well, that explains it!” The color in Sabre’s face deepened. Bob took her by the arm and led her away.
“Come on, Sobs,” he said. “We’ll deal with this another way.”
“I’m setting a special and asking for a court order for sibling visitation. This will devastate those kids,” Sabre said, stomping her foot. “Unicorns? Is she nuts?”
“You’re wound up this morning. Did you have a bad night’s sleep?” Bob asked.
“I was fine until I ran into Gillian. I just hate when they split the children up like that. It’s just not right. They go through enough losing their parents; they don’t need to lose each other, too.”
“And then be spread all over the county. She couldn’t have placed them any further from their mother if she tried.”
Bob put his arm around Sabre’s shoulder and escorted her to her hearing in Department Two. She felt so blessed to
have Bob in her life. He was her best friend and like a brother to her. His actions and his sense of humor often reminded her of her real brother, Ron. She hadn’t seen Ron for nearly a year and then it was only for a few hours. Although Bob couldn’t replace Ron, it sure helped having him around.
Sabre finished the last case on her calendar. When she left the courtroom she saw Gillian coming out of Department One. Sabre stepped back inside to give her time to pass. She was too angry to deal with her again. Sabre came out of the courtroom just in time to see Attorney Wagner exit Department One cussing as he walked toward her.
“What’s the matter, Wags?” Sabre asked.
“Judge Shirkoff. He’s so damn stupid. He doesn’t know the first thing about juvenile law. And he’s so damned arrogant on top of it all. How the hell did he get to be presiding judge?” Wagner didn’t wait for Sabre to respond. He just stomped off.
Sabre drove to her office to draft a motion for a special hearing on the Johnson case regarding sibling visitation. After she wrote the motion and made copies, she began driving back to the courthouse to file it. A few blocks down the road, she hesitated. She was so angry that the children had been detained in four different homes she really hadn’t thought it through. She should give the social worker a chance to arrange visits, or not arrange them, before she set a hearing. Then she thought about her own brother and how much she would have missed if she hadn’t been able to grow up with him. She wasn’t going to wait. She’d obtain an order for the social worker to make every effort to have the children detained together and an order for sibling visitation. Those children did not need to be apart. They needed each other.
On her way to court, Sabre called Bailey’s foster mother and set up an appointment to meet her later that afternoon. It would be a quick visit, just long enough for Bailey to know she was looking out for her. Perhaps she’d get some information from her that would help with JP’s investigation on this case.
Court had already commenced when she arrived. Sabre entered the courtroom quietly and handed the papers to the bailiff. He in turn took them to the court clerk. Sabre sat down in the back of the courtroom and waited for the ongoing case to finish. The case had been trailed from the morning calendar and the parents had been waiting all morning for justice to be dispensed. The mother was wiry. She twitched and squirmed in her seat, a behavior Sabre recognized as a result of drug use. An older gentleman sat next to her, and although he wasn’t her husband, he was claiming to be the father of at least two of her children. Sabre would have easily mistaken him for the children’s grandfather or even great-grandfather. When the court ordered the children detained at Polinsky instead of with the alleged father, Sabre saw tears well up in his eyes. The mother’s response was, “Hmpf.”
Between hearings, the judge signed the order for a special hearing to be set on the Johnson case. Sabre made copies, put one in each of the attorneys’ mailboxes, and drove to the County Counsel office to drop off their copy. They would, in turn, notify their client, the social worker.
Sabre then proceeded to the address the social worker had given her for Bailey’s foster home. Sabre had had children in this foster home before, and the foster parents were very caring people. Mr. and Mrs. Venable were both teachers, although Mrs. Venable hadn’t taught school since her own children were born. When their two children entered high school, they started taking in foster children and so she continued to stay home and raise the girls. The children they took in were ones who had trouble in school. Their determination to keep these children in school and their patience shone through with their many hours of tutoring.
Bailey had only been in the home a few hours when Sabre arrived, and she didn’t appear too pleased to see her attorney. Mrs. Venable had apparently already made an impression on Bailey because she was able to coax her into at least talking with Sabre.
They walked out onto the back porch. Sabre motioned for her to sit down on the bench, but Bailey perched herself on the porch railing a few feet away.
After a few not so pleasantries, Bailey said, “You’re my attorney. Get me emancipated.”
“Why do you want to be emancipated?”
“So I can live where I want and do what I want.”
“Where did you hear about emancipation?”
“At Polinsky. All the girls are talking about doing it. Amy said her cousin’s friend got emancipated and now no one can tell her what to do.”
“It’s not that simple, Bailey. You need to be able to support yourself.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You have to show that you have a place to live and an income to support yourself, and you’re only fourteen.”
“I’ll be fifteen in a few months.”
“Six months.”
“Well, I can take care of myself. You’re my lawyer. You need to file the papers or do whatever you need to do.”
“There’s nothing to file until you have a means of income and a place to live.”
“I’ll steal the money if that’s what it takes. Or I can sell drugs like my mom’s skuzzy boyfriend.”
“It has to be legal income.”
“Then I’ll get a job at McDonald’s or something.”
“It’s hard to get a job until you’re sixteen, Bailey.” Sabre reached out her hand and placed it on Bailey’s shoulder. Bailey pulled away. “And what’s this about your mom’s boyfriend? What’s his name?”
“Scott Jamison. He’s a loser.”
“What makes you think he’s a drug dealer?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Bailey snarled. Sabre waited. “He only has drugs on him all the time. People come by all hours of the night to get things from him and give him money. What do you think? He’s selling comic books?”
“Why haven’t you told this to someone before?”
“Like anyone cares. Mom doesn’t care. She gets all the drugs she wants.”
“I’m so sorry you have had to live like that. You know, I was a teenager not that long ago. I didn’t always get along with my mother, but I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you.”
Bailey lowered her voice a little. “At least when she’s high she’s not on my case, but you don’t know the half of it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Bailey didn’t respond. “Bailey, is there something else going on in that home?”
“Naw.” Bailey hopped down from the railing and started to walk toward the door. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Can I go in now?”
Sabre left the foster home and as soon as she was in the car she called her mother.
“Hi, Mom. Are you busy Saturday evening? I’d like to come see you.”
7
“Are you smoking?” Sabre yelled as she walked up to Bob, who was waiting for her just outside the courthouse. She smacked Bob on the forearm. “You bozo. Why would you do that?”
Bob pulled back, missing the full force of her swing. “Calm down, Sobs. I only have a couple a day.”
“Yeah, for now. And soon you’ll be back to a couple of packs a day.”
“What can I say? I’m a weak man, controlled by a cancer-producing agent wrapped in white paper disguised as my friend while it overwhelms me and takes over my need to feel euphoric if only for a few seconds in time.”
“Oh, please.”
“It could be worse. I could be drinking vodka.”
“You do drink vodka.”
“Yeah, but not in the morning.” Bob held the cigarette in his right hand. He put his left arm around Sabre, turning away from her to blow the remaining smoke out of his mouth. “Come on, Sobs, allow me to have my one … uh … or two vices.”
Sabre’s voice was calmer. “I just worry about your health.” She looked up at Bob. “Does Marilee know you’re smoking again?”
“My wife is as upset as you are.”
“Good. Let her stay on your case. I think I’ll call her and see if she needs any help tormenting you about it.” Sabre took a couple of st
eps away from the courtroom wall.
“Anyway, it’s partly your fault,” Bob said.
Sabre stopped and looked up. “My fault? How is it my fault?”
“You practically got me killed last month.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
“So dramatic? I was shot! In the head!”
Sabre reached up and touched the side of Bob’s head. “Look, your hair has almost all grown in. You won’t even be able to see the scar.”
Bob walked over to the stone ash tray that stood next to the courtroom door and stuck his cigarette butt in the sand. “Let’s go eat.”
“JP is joining us.”
They took Bob’s car to Pho’s, their favorite lunching place. JP got out of his car just as they pulled into a parking spot directly in front of the restaurant. His black Stetson rose above the car three spots down.
“Do you two ever eat anywhere else?” JP asked, as he walked up to them.
Sabre shook her head. “Bob has a very limited palate, but I’m working on him.”
“I just know what I like. And I like this food.”
“You’ve only eaten one dish. It’s always the same dish,” Sabre said.
“See, I know what I like.”
The three of them walked into the restaurant, past the big gold Buddha and the bright gold fish swimming in the tank. A waiter led them into the next room and seated them at a table with the same pink polyester tablecloths that had adorned the tables for as long as they had been eating there, which was well over five years. Bob snickered when Sabre and JP ordered the #124 just as he had.
Before the waiter began to walk away, Sabre had already started shop talk. “JP, I need you to check on the mother’s boyfriend in the Lecy case. His name is Scott Jamison.” She turned to Bob. “Is there anything you can tell us about him?”
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