by David Wind
“It’s a sin,” he reflected. “She was lured through the Internet. The guy who got her was a pro. We’d gotten lucky on this because we found their chat sessions—she’d stored them on her computer to read them repeatedly. He knew all the tricks.”
His voice grew rough. “These scum hide behind the computer screen and the kids they go after can’t tell if they’re twelve or forty. This guy knew how to relate to her, knew which buttons to push and what not to say. He posed as a seventeen year old: just old enough to get her interested, but not so old as to scare her away. He dug into her head and learned what she liked and didn’t, things such as smoking cigarettes and using drugs. Over a three-week period, he got her talking about sex and her home life by telling her how his parents did terrible things to him. Five weeks into their online relationship, he told her he was going to run away.”
Cohen took a sip of coffee from the paper cup in his left hand. “He laid his trap much the way a hunter sets a trap for an animal. He said everything she wanted to hear, and by the sixth week, they planned on running away together. They talked of love and going to California where they would both be safe and he would find a job and take care of her.”
“And she believed everything?”
“This man knows her type well. This wasn’t someone testing the waters. He didn’t make a single mistake. Everything was done with one purpose in mind. Getting her alone and taking her away.”
“Which, of course, is what happened,” The upstate sergeant continued. “He laid his trap and she stepped into it with her eyes wide open. One day after school, she went to meet the bastard.”
He looked out the window for a moment. “From here on, it’s all assumption, but I know how it happened. At first, she was shocked he wasn’t seventeen, but he was experienced and was able to fast talk her, telling her how he fell in love with her and had to help her escape from her parents.
From then on, she was his. He had a car, and they took off as soon as he could get her to go. By dinnertime, she would have been relaxed and trusting. When they stopped for dinner, he would have slipped a drug into her food or into a coke. He wanted her compliant, not knocked out. Then he would have driven for a few hours while she slept. He’d have arranged for the motel the day before and gotten her in without anyone seeing. Then he’d rape her.”
“Sick,” I whispered.
“You have no idea. Do you believe in the devil?”
“I believe the devil is what people make him.”
“Men like the predator who took Margaret Ann McNickles are the devil who everyone fears. He’s evil and frightening and has no conscience… none!”
The speakers in the ceiling barked out something unintelligible, but I said nothing. Cohen seemed content to do the same for several long seconds until I spoke. “How do we get from his taking her to her being a street whore?”
“That’s where it gets tricky. Some of these people take the girls to sell out of the country. The Middle East and Asian countries are a big market for young white women and twelve to fifteen year old girls—they bring high prices. Others take them for themselves and when they’re finished, make the girl disappear forever in a grave that will most likely never be found.
There are the ones who sell them to others like themselves. These girls get passed around like cars, from owner to owner. And then there are those who break the girl’s spirit. Trample them down until their mind crumbles and then reprogram them to be whatever he wants. In the McNickles case, he turned her into a whore.”
He watched me with sympathetic eyes while I processed the information. “And we can’t stop this?”
“We can’t stop human nature. There are hunters, and the hunted. As long as there are parents who won’t or can’t provide a safe home, these animals will have their prey.”
“Do you know how many abductions of children there are every year?”
“No.” I had the distinct feeling I didn’t want to know.
“Some of the stats I’ve seen show up to Fifty-eight thousand children go missing every year. Children mean anyone from an infant to an eighteen year old. Fifty-eight thousand!”
The number staggered me. My stomach tried to roll into itself. His eyes told me he knew the disgust I felt.
I cleared my throat with a low grumble. “These Internet predators, they’re the same ones who snatch the kids off the street?”
“Sometimes, but it’s not their way.”
“Have you ever heard of a man named Sammy Warez—goes by the alias Streeter?”
“Should I?”
“He’s the pimp who had Margaret in his stable. I believe he’s the one who killed her. He may have been the one who took her as well. Early thirties—could pass for mid-twenties when he’s cleaned up.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Check him out. If I find something, I’ll let you know.”
The first call for the sergeant’s plane came. “We’ll have to pick this up another day.”
“The younger ones…What happens to them?”
“Same thing, to a degree, but it depends on their age.”
“Eight, blonde and angelic. A street abduction,” I said, Scotty’s sister image rising in my mind’s eye.
“Pedophile. Most likely had her staked out for a while. He finds a girl who, for whatever reason, calls out to him. He becomes fixated, watching her and stalking her with every free minute he has. He’s locked into getting this girl and keeping her for himself. He watches the patterns of the family, charting everyone’s habits and time schedules. She excites him sexually: his fantasies are relentless. They drive him forward, turning his needs into desperation. He waits like a hungry jackal until he can’t hold off any longer and at just the right moment he takes her.” He leaned back, his eyes distant. He rubbed a hand absently over his mouth.
“There are several types: Those who take the child and rape them and use them for as long as they want, and then kill them and start looking for their next victim; then, there are the ones who take them and keep them and abuse them over and over. Some keep them until the child is too old to fulfill their needs and sell them or throw them out like garbage.
When they’re very young, they can’t accept what’s happening and if they are very lucky and survive, most sexually abused the children bury the memories of what happened so deep they never come out. But none can ever again lead a normal life. For that alone, these people should be hunted down and put somewhere far from humanity.”
The pictures he’d painted came close to pushing me over the edge; but there was one more question to be asked. “Do they become predators, the children?”
The loudspeakers grated out the next boarding call. Cohen’s lips curved into a sad smile. “That’s a misconception. Not all children who were abused become abusers, but then we aren’t talking abuse, we’re talking much worse. And no, that’s not the norm.”
He stood. “I must go if I’m going to make the plane.”
I stood with him and offered my hand. Again, the grip was firm and dry. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me by finding the man who killed Margaret Ann.”
He looked hard into my eyes and I knew he’d found his answer. “Let me know if you need anything else. You know how to reach me.”
“I will.” After he boarded, I hung in the waiting area, thinking over what he’d said and working through the various levels of his information. Somehow, my time at spent on Riker’s Island and in Sing-Sing couldn’t compare to the hell those children had gone through—were going through.
Chapter 34
The clock read two-eleven and the phone’s red message light was blinking like a deranged Cyclops. A sandwich and bottle of Coke sat in the center of my desk. I was hungry but wasn’t sure food could get past the lingering sour taste Cohen’s words had left in my mouth.
Pushing the playback button on the phone, and while the first message started, I unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. A chunk of chicken salad pushed out from the side a
nd landed on the desk as Chris Bolt’s voice resounded.
“I’m running like a fool, but I got a glance at the forensic report from the shooting at Thornton’s. Either the guy was the worst shot in the world, or he was aiming at something else. The tracking of the round showed it was at the wrong angle to hit either you or the Thornton woman. Go figure.”
“I’ll work on that,” I told the machine. The next message was from Lia Thornton. She was still waiting for my callback. I didn’t want to talk with her until Femalé got back with her childhood background.
The next message was Gina’s, letting me know she’d given the names of the girls from Scotty’s files to the New York office’s Special Agent in charge of the Crimes Against Children, which was the FBI’s version of what Cohen and his partner did locally.
I took another bite of the sandwich and washed it down with some coke, before hitting the button again. This time it was Thomas Albright. It was a regular marathon.
Albright wanted to talk about the play. He asked me to call him later in the day. Then I listened to a message from Paul Gottlieb, telling me the legal papers had been filed and there were some additional details to go over.
Before I could take another bite, the phone rang. On the third ring, the ID flashed with Chris Bolt’s home number.
“Storm.”
“Since when do you answer your office phone?” Amanda asked.
“Since Femalé is out. How are you?”
“Interested. I read the journal.”
“And?”
“Do you know who the woman is?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re not going to tell me for some perverse reason of your own?” Her words were testy.
“Not yet.”
“You will tonight if you want my read on her,” she stated. This time there was no lightness to her words. “Dinner is at seven. Bring my friend.”
“I want your take on who you think she is before I tell you.”
“I don’t play detective games, Gabriel.”
“I’ll see you later.” Breaking the connection, I picked up the last half of the sandwich and went back to the messages. There was a call from someone looking to hire me. I sent the message to Female’s extension.
I pressed the button again. The first word from the speaker brought me to attention as I listened to the same clearly elucidated voice I’d heard in the Looker’s Club.
“Some people get a warning and they know when to back off. For others it takes more. You have been warned enough Mr. Storm, back off! There will be no more chances.”
I replayed the message twice, and then saved it. I hit the CID button and scrolled through all the numbers. There was one listed as ‘private’.
“Asshole.” What were the warnings?
I pushed the things on my desk into a pile on the side and pulled out a yellow legal pad from my side drawer.
Using a pencil from the stash next to the phone, I began to write. The first call came from the hood in the Bronx; next, I wrote, ‘Looker’s Club’ and then ‘shooting at Thornton’s’. Then I put down the two guys who had tried to take me down in the alleyway near Scotty’s. The last line was ‘Tough Guy Hood’, which was the guy Tarz and I had rousted last night.
I stared at the five lines, trying to figure it out. There were five incidents. Were they the warnings the caller said? Five warning seemed like overkill. I thought back to the two guys who’d attacked me in the alley. Had my second thoughts been right, that it had been a random rip-off?
There had been one other time without subtly: Connecting the first phone call to Streeter was easy after I considered the differences between the two callers. That first call had been coarse and blatant. He’d said, ‘Drop this thing now. Let it go’, and finished with, ‘You’ve been warned.’ Would there be two people warning me? It didn’t make sense and it didn’t have the finesse of the last caller. He had been a pro; his warnings would have carried a professional touch.
It was easy now, to see the first caller as someone Streeter had pulled into it. I went with my gut and scratched off the first and the fourth lines, which left me with three warnings.
Chris’s message made sense now. The sniper wasn’t trying to kill Lia or me; his job had been to send me a warning. I had misread it.
Of course, the warnings raised another question: why warn me? If they wanted me dead, I should have been, considering how sloppy I’d been these last days. No, there was something else at work here. I tried logic. Would my death bring too much heat on them? Would it tie into Scotty’s murder and make the cops look harder, stretch for leads they hadn’t had before? Or was it because of Chris and our longtime relationship?
The wool inside my mind turned to Brillo. I was missing something important, and had been missing it all along.
This time my cell phone broke the silence. “It’s me, boss,” came Femalé’s sexy-husky voice when I answered. “I’m in the plane.”
“You get what you went there for?”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty.” I could picture the self-satisfied look on her face.
“Want to share?
“Way too much for a call, it can wait until tomorrow morning.”
“Early tomorrow.”
“No problem. I’ve got to go. They’re shutting the cabin door. Oh,” she added, “I took an upgrade to first class.”
“What you have had better be good, or the upgrade comes out of your paycheck.”
“Never happen, Boss…. I do the payroll… bye.”
Dead air is the same on a cell phone as it is on a landline. I closed the phone and set it on the desk, knowing she’d done her job well because she always did.
I used the regular phone and dialed Gina, who answered on the second ring.
“You free for diner?”
“Depends on what and where?”
“That’s cold. Chris and Amanda’s, at seven. Who knows what she’ll cook.”
Gina’s easy laugh felt good. “Pick me up at the apartment. How did it go?”
“Sickening—like I’ve been living in another world. But he gave me some good info.”
“Glad to hear it. And it’s not a different world you live in; it’s just a part just haven’t visited yet.”
“Yeah, I know. See you later.”
“Later.”
Deciding the other calls could wait; I returned to the yellow pad and stared at the three remaining items. “Where is the connection?”
Using the pencil, I began to chart it all out. I put up a box labeled Scotty on one side, and a box named Streeter on the other. I set Margaret Ann McNickles’ box lower and between them and connected lines to the two boxes.
I stared at Margaret Ann’s name. Had Scotty started looking into her? Did he have a file folder with her name on it in his files? I wrote a note under his box to check with Samantha Collins and added a box labeled Missing File Folder information.
What else could there be? She’d been taken in upstate New York—so had his sister. I closed my eyes and saw what I needed to see. Under Scotty’s name, I wrote the names of the other two victims, the eight year old and the ten year old and under that, I wrote Elizabeth Granger, Scotty’s sister. All three had lived in New York State when they were taken. Was there a connection?
I drew a vertical line down from Streeter, and wrote Looker’s Club and a question mark for the mystery hood. A short line from there linked it to a box labeled Santucchi. I extended the line to a box labeled sniper.
I made a third column, next to Scotty’s, and put in two boxes. One was Lia Thornton, the other Thomas Albright and finished off the chart with lines to Scotty.
I wasn’t sure what I had, but it was a start—not so much a weird puzzle as a flow chart.
I stood and paced, then decided that since Femalé wasn’t here to bitch at me, I’d have a cigar. I went over to the wall unit, opened the humidor and pulled out an Aurturo Fuente robusto. I clipped the end, lit it and took a draw of peppery smoke.
> Then I went back to pacing.
By the time I organized my thoughts, I was walking through a floating haze of smoke and opened the window that was not supposed to be able to open. I returned to the desk. The digital readout on the phone said it was five. I called Albright’s number, but he had gone for the day so I left a message. Knowing I’d had enough office time, I shut everything down.
I had also, in my pacing and smoking, routed out the first steps of a very basic plan of attack.
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Dinner, as usual, had been wonderful. Amanda had made a chicken dish with a sauce defying any description other than incredible. Chris had opened a bottle of a Chianti Reserva and while we ate, we kept the conversation to current things and off Scotty.
Anna had eaten earlier, as it was a school night, and was in her room, doing her homework so the conversation wasn’t restricted; rather, it was because we just wanted to forget the bad for a little while.
While Gina and Amanda cleared the dishes, I asked Chris how his current investigation was going.
“We’re close. I have a partial ID on the perp, but it isn’t enough to get a warrant. A day or two and we’ll have him.” Then he turned those cobalt eyes on me. “And you?”
I drained the last of the wine in my glass. “I’m learning all sorts of things. It’s not what I expected.”
“The children?”
“I met with a cop upstate and had my eyes opened today. He told me things I had no idea existed.”
“Sam Cohen?”
When I nodded, he said, “Man on a mission. Good man though.”
“So you know him.”
“Our paths have crossed a few times. He’s dedicated and he’ll do whatever it takes to save those kids.”
“Seemed like it to me.”
“You’re telling me you don’t think the people involved in the play are part of this now?”
I took my time to answer. His stare intent on my face as I worked out the answer. “Let’s say I’m looking at all angles”
“What do you need from me?”
“It had better be way different than if I asked that question,” Gina said, stepping out of the kitchen and behind my chair. She put a hand on my shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.