The Battle of Jericho

by Walter Marks

  Krauss looked surprised.

  “It would be easy,” Jericho said. “All Richman had to do was pick up the phone and order one from his buddies in the Russian Mafia.”

  CHAPTER 60

  At around ten the next morning Maria arrived at Southampton Hospital. She interviewed Rosario’s attending physician, Dr. Henrietta Siska. Dr. Siska was a stern-looking woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a white coat that seemed overly starched. She said Rosario was in fairly good physical shape, though emotionally she was clearly traumatized.

  “Any evidence of sexual activity?” Maria asked.

  “Hard to say,” Dr. Siska replied. “No vaginal semen was found, but that would only result from sex that took place recently. And it would mean nothing if a condom was used. The condition of her vagina indicated she’d experienced penetration in the past, but when and what form that took couldn’t be determined. As you know, girls today become sexually active quite early. Masturbation is common, often with sex toys. Oral sex is common, but that’s almost impossible to identify.”

  “So you don’t know if she was raped or not.”

  “We don’t,” Dr. Siska said. “There was no evidence of recent abuse or use of force. No vaginal bruising or abrasions. We did find some scarring in her rectum, which suggests anal intercourse, possibly forced, but we don’t know how long ago that might’ve occurred. Truth is, there’s such a variety of fetishes and sexual preferences in today’s society that nothing is certain.”

  Maria shook her head in frustration. “When can Miss Santiago be released?”

  “We’d like to keep her a couple more days, have her rest and see a psychiatrist,” Dr. Siska said. “So far she refuses to talk to us. We don’t know where she’s from, or whom to notify about her condition. Do you?”

  Maria shook her head no. She didn’t want to tell the doctor Rosario’s mother was dead. She wanted to inform Rosario herself, and cushion the blow as best she could.

  “Well,” Dr. Siska said, “unless we can find a family to notify, we’ll have to send her to a shelter for abused women. There’s one in Riverhead.”

  “Can I see her now?”

  “Sure,” Dr. Siska said. “She’s just down the hall — room 407. Maybe you can get her talking.”

  Room 407 looked like a prison cell; gray blank walls, fluorescent lighting, a metal chair and bedside table, and a narrow window facing another building. Rosario was sitting up in bed, propped against pillows, her eyes expressionless. She brightened when she saw Maria.

  “Hi, honey,” Maria said. “How you feeling?”

  “I’m so glad to see you, Maria. This place is horrible. They poked and prodded me all over, shot me up with sleep meds that gave me bad dreams, and the food sucks.”

  “They said you wouldn’t talk to them.”

  “I didn’t feel like telling perfect strangers what I’ve been doing. They wouldn’t understand and it’s none of their business.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to call my mom. I know she’s pissed at me for not letting her know I was okay.”

  Maria resisted telling Rosario of her mother’s death. I might learn more by holding off, she thought.

  “Why didn’t you call your mom when you were with Richman? Did he not allow it?”

  Rosario hesitated before replying. “No, no, I could’ve called, but I knew Mom would make me come home. If I explained what was going on, she would’ve called the cops. I would’ve been in trouble, and Mr. Richman would’ve been…arrested.”

  “So you knew he was committing a crime?”

  “I knew that’s what the cops would think. I…I…nobody would I believe I was there of my own free will.”

  Maria nodded.

  “Maria,” the girl went on, “I know I have to call Mom and face the consequences. I just want to get out of here. I want to go home.”

  “Listen, honey…”

  “Do you have your cell? Can I borrow it?”

  Maria took a deep breath. “Rosario,” she said softly. “I’m afraid I have bad news. Your mom…your mom passed away.”

  “Huh?”

  “She died a few months ago.”

  “No. No. She can’t be dead.”

  Maria sat down on the bed and hugged Rosario. “She had a heart attack. I’m so sorry, honey.”

  Rosario was silent, struggling to take in this devastating news.

  After a while she said, “Then…then I guess I’ll hafta call my dad. But he won’t…”

  “He’s gone back to Mexico. Maybe we can track him down, call Mexican Customs and Immigration…”

  “There’s no point,” she cried out. “He hates me. He doesn’t care what happens to me.” She sniffled. “I have nobody. I’m an orphan. Where can I go? I have no home…!”

  Her face contorted in grief and tears flowed down her cheeks. Maria tried to soothe her but she became more and more agitated. Between sobs, she repeated a loud, agonized mantra — “Mama…Mama…Mama…”

  Dr. Siska came running in, accompanied by a nurse. Seeing her patient’s condition, she spoke calmly to the nurse. “Thiopental, twenty-five milligrams. Intravenous.”

  The nurse left as Dr. Siska joined Maria in trying to calm the hysterical girl. It was no use. The nurse returned with a loaded syringe. She injected Rosario in her thigh. The drug worked rapidly and Rosario sagged into unconsciousness.

  “How long will she be out?” Maria asked.

  “We gave her a short duration dosage,” Dr. Siska said. “She’ll be awake in about half an hour. When she does, she should be calmer. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

  “I think I’ll sit here and wait.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Siska said. “Now please excuse me, I’ve got rounds to do.”

  Maria watched Rosario as she lay in bed. She looked so peaceful and childlike. Maria thought about her being shipped off to some shelter in Riverhead, surrounded by strangers, frightened and alone.

  She took out her phone and called her mother in Sag Harbor. She explained Rosario’s plight and asked if they could take her in. “Mom, we’ve got an extra bedroom, ever since Carla…”

  Her mother interrupted. “Of course, darling. We’d be happy to take care of the girl. Nobody will ever replace our dear Carla, but we do have room…room in our hearts for any girl suffering.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  CHAPTER 61

  After half an hour, Rosario’s eyelids fluttered and she awoke.

  Maria helped her to sit up, arranging the pillows against the headboard. “You feel okay?”

  “I guess,” Rosario whispered. “I must’ve really freaked out. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize.”

  “Did my mom…did she have a funeral?”

  “Yes.”

  “She always said she wanted to be buried at St. Andrews Cemetery, y’know, off Brick Kiln Road? Is that where she is?”

  “You can ask her friend Soledad Ramírez. She was at the funeral.”

  “Teresa’s mom?”

  “…Yes. Did you know her daughter?”

  “Me and Teresa, we…went to grade school together.”

  Maria decided not to bring up Teresa’s death.

  Rosario shook her head sadly. “Maria, what’s going to happen to me?” she said. “I have nowhere to go. Are they gonna, like, send me to an orphanage, or one of those shelters?”

  “No, honey,” Maria said. “You’re gonna come live with me and my family in Sag Harbor.”

  “Omigosh, really?”

  “My mom is a sweetheart, and my dad, well, he’s a really good man.”

  “Not like my dad,” Rosario said bitterly.

  “You’ll be able to finish high school,” Maria said. “And soon you’ll get your life back on track.”

  Rosario began crying again. Maria sat down on the bed and hugged her, letting her release her emotions. After a while Rosario pulled away.

  “Maria,” she said. “I want t
o tell you the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “Yes. About…about everything that’s happened to me.”

  Maria nodded and sat back down on the chair.

  “I can tell you now,” Rosario continued, “because my mom…my mom is dead.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He said if I didn’t do what they told me, they’d kill my mom.”

  “Who said that?”

  “This guy Oleg.”

  Maria’s stomach turned over when she heard his name.

  “The Russians, they don’t have anything over me anymore,” Rosario said. “My mom is gone, my dad is gone, and that’s all the family I had.”

  “What did they make you do?” Maria asked.

  Rosario closed her eyes — remembering awful things. Finally she spoke, her voice choked and tremulous. “About two years ago, I was walking home from school. I always walked with my girlfriends and when I’d get to our street, I’d walk the three blocks alone to my house. It was getting dark but I wasn’t scared. I’d done this since I started high school.”

  She stopped and sighed.

  “A car pulled up,” she said. “A guy grabbed me, muffled my mouth with his hand, and shoved me in the back seat. I felt a sharp prick in my arm and then I blacked out. Next thing I remember, I woke up naked in a bed, with this guy Oleg on top of me. I was a virgin and it hurt. When he finished, he told me I was pretty good for a beginner, but he’d teach me how to really please a man. He kept me in that room for, I dunno, a week or so. He made me do lots of stuff. Stuff like, well…I guess you can use your imagination.”

  “Oh, honey,” Maria said.

  “Then he said it was time for me to go to work. He sent me to a massage parlor, somewhere up island.”

  “Do you know what town?”

  “No,” Rosario said. “They’d always take me in a limo with all the windows blacked out. I couldn’t see anything. But it was over an hour’s drive.”

  “Who drove the limo? Oleg?”

  “No. Some driver. And there was always another guy too. They were Russian. I mean, they spoke to each other in Russian, y’know, like in those spy movies.”

  “Do you know where you were kept when they kidnapped you?”

  “No. It was a house with the windows boarded up. All I know is — it was somewhere with woods around it.”

  “What happened at the massage parlor?”

  “There were four other girls there, all Latinas. We had to work twelve-hour days, doing whatever the customers wanted. There was a menu — so much for this, so much for that. We weren’t paid anything. If you argued, they’d beat you. I kept my mouth shut. The massage club manager kept reminding me Oleg knew where my mother lived, and if I gave them any backtalk my mom would be killed.

  “After a few weeks, Oleg came in the limo and brought me back to the house. He told me I was broken in now and he was gonna send me out on escort dates. He bought me a lot of nice clothes for when I was working. The other girls told me the johns paid five hundred dollars for a date.”

  “Other girls?”

  “Yes. There were ten of us. We all lived in the house, sleeping in one big room with mattresses on the floor. There was always a guard, a Russian guy, watching us, with an AK-47 or something. There was also a cellar called The Hole, where they’d take you if you broke the rules. Sometimes they’d grab one of us and we’d hear terrible screams coming from down there. One time I was caught talking to my girlfriend after curfew. They called Oleg, who took me down and burned the soles of my feet with a cigarette. For a week I could hardly walk, but he made me go out on dates anyway.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Maria said.

  “My best friend at the house was that girl I knew from grade school — Teresa Ramírez. Oleg tricked her into falling for him and running away with him, then he forced her to go to work. We slept side by side in the mattress room.

  “Teresa kept telling me she wanted to escape and I kept telling her not to. Oleg once said anyone who tried that would be shot and dumped in the bay to feed the fishes.”

  Maria shook her head. That’s what must’ve happened to Teresa, she thought

  Rosario said, “I realized then that working for Oleg was going to be my life. I had no hope.”

  She paused, exhaling softly.

  “One of my dates turned out to be Mr. Richman. He ordered me one night and took me down to his secret room and dressed me up in one of those schoolgirl uniforms. He just wanted to spank my bare butt and then get a blowjob. Afterwards, he said he was crazy about me, and he’d definitely order me again.

  “I had three more dates with him and he always wanted the same thing. Tell you the truth, I think he would’ve liked more, but he was ashamed to show his fat body. Anyway, finally he bought me.”

  “Bought you?”

  “Well, he called it a rental,” Rosario said. “He made a deal with Oleg to keep me for a year. Mr. Richman boasted he’d paid for three hundred sixty-five days at five hundred bucks a day, which he said came to, like, almost two hundred thousand dollars. But he said I was definitely worth it. I told him I couldn’t stand being cooped up like that, and he reminded me what Oleg would do to Mama if I disobeyed. So what choice did I have?”

  Maria nodded. “When we came to the house yesterday,” she said, “did Mr. Richman tell you what to say to us?”

  “Yes,” Rosario said. “He told me I had to protect him against you guys, and make up a story about being there voluntarily. He said it better be convincing, or he’d call Oleg.”

  “What about Richman’s wife? Did she know about you?”

  “Yes. Mr. Richman said she was cool, she was a good wife who’d never hassle her husband. I never saw her because she wasn’t allowed in the basement. No, wait — I did see her once for a second, when he forgot to lock the upstairs door. She came down while I was in the bathroom peeing. She saw me, went ‘oh,’ and then she ran upstairs.”

  “When was this?”

  “A couple weeks ago, I guess.”

  Maria studied Rosario for a few moments. She seemed calm; obviously telling her true story was cathartic. Maria took a few moments, then pressed Rosario’s hand. “Honey, do you want Mr. Richman to be punished?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want Oleg to be punished?”

  “Oh, God — yes.”

  “I may have to ask you to testify in court. Would you be willing to do that?”

  “Testify?” Rosario said. “In a courtroom? With Mr. Richman sitting right there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Oleg, if you catch him, would I have to testify against him?”

  “Yes.”

  Rosario thought for a few moments. “No,” she said. “I’d be too scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “If I testify against Mr. Richman, he’ll call Oleg and Oleg will have me killed. If you catch Oleg and I testify at his trial and he’s found not guilty he’ll kill me. If he’s convicted and goes to jail, he’ll contact the Russian mob on the outside and tell them to kill me. I know how he is. I’m sorry, Maria. I can’t do it. You understand, don’t you?”

  “…Of course, honey,” Maria said. “We’ll have to figure out how to handle this. In the meantime, at least you’re safe. I’ll arrange with the hospital for you to come home with me tomorrow. Get some rest. I’ll pick you up first thing in the morning. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “And Maria, thanks for everything.”

  “No problem,” Maria replied, aware that despite what she’d learned from Rosario, this case was still fraught with problems.

  CHAPTER 62

  When Maria got back to the precinct house, she went to Jericho and told him everything she’d learned from Rosario. Jericho grimaced as he heard the litany of indignities forced upon the girl.

  “You were right about the Russians being involved,” Maria said.

  Jericho nodded, without satisfaction.

  “Her life was a horror show,” Mar
ia went on. “And Richman boasted he paid a couple hundred thousand for her.”

  “I guess if you’re filthy rich that’s chump change.”

  “You think he’s got a stash in the Cayman Islands or someplace like that?”

  “Richman was with Lehman Brothers,” Jericho said. “Before they went bankrupt they gave out billions in Golden Parachute bonuses. And the government couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

  “So Richman must’ve gotten one of those mega-bonuses,” Maria said.

  “He probably socked away millions offshore to avoid taxes.”

  “But wouldn’t he have to pay Oleg in cash?” Maria said. “How could he get that much?”

  “Bulk cash smuggling goes on all the time,” Jericho explained. “Drug cartels are the model for it — they need to move laundered money and they keep devising new ways to do it. They use mules, hide money in imported merchandise like cars, computers, appliances. These days they’re also using the Internet — Bitcoin can be converted into cash on the so-called ‘deep web.’ Corruption is rampant in many offshore banks. Richman would just have had to pay a percentage, and they’d get him the dollars.”

  Maria told Jericho about Rosario’s reluctance to testify against Richman or Oleg at trial. In either case, she feared Oleg would kill her or have her killed.

  “Then we can’t make her testify,” Jericho said.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Thing is, without her testimony, we’ve got no felony case against Richman. We can’t prove imprisonment, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor. All we’ve got is child endangerment. I don’t want to settle for that.”

  “What about the murder charge? You believe Richman hired a hit man to kill his wife?”

  “Yes,” Jericho said.

  “From the Russian mob.”

  “Yes. Probably Oleg — or his men, on orders from him. But hiring an assassin makes Richman a murderer as well.”

  “But Rosario won’t testify against Oleg.”

  “That means we’ll have to bust Oleg with evidence that doesn’t involve Rosario. If we do that, we can probably get him to finger Richman in a plea deal.”