He started the Jeep and pulled away, watching the man stare at him in the rearview.
18
The hotel room seemed smaller as Stanton lay on the bed. He slept at least a few hours, though he couldn’t be sure how long since he hadn’t looked at the clock when he first lay down.
Glancing out the window, he saw the abysmal grayness of the weather had turned to a deep night, and he turned away from it, onto his side. He closed his eyes and hoped he could sleep a little longer but knew it wouldn’t come. So instead he rose, dressed, and headed out to find something to eat.
The hotel had a small grill, and he scanned the menu. A few items looked good, but he wanted to be somewhere less conspicuous. He found the nearest diner on his phone and drove there, in what looked like a residential neighborhood.
Stanton parked on the street and went inside. A booth by the window was open, and he sat down. He hadn’t even ordered yet when his cell rang. It was Katie.
“This is Jon.”
“Holy shit.”
Stanton breathed out. “I’m glad you saw the same thing.”
“It could just be him and he set up an automatic photo.”
“Maybe. You willing to take that risk and leave it alone?”
A pause. “No.”
“Me neither. Katie, I’m not trying to step on any toes, but I can help with this. Carter’s the type of perp I specialize in—the ones who have no discernable motive. And it doesn’t mean I don’t trust you or you’re not good at your job. It just means I have something to offer.”
“I know. I googled you.” She exhaled loudly. “I may catch shit for this, but okay. You can help. Any ideas on where to start?”
“The basement couldn’t have been the only place Carter’s real personality came out. He had to have been living another life. Maybe involved in the child porn communities. That’s probably where I’d start.”
“Well, where are you? I’ll come pick you up.”
Stanton climbed into the passenger seat and buckled himself in.
Katie set several files on his lap. “The autopsy reports—the four we have done, anyway.”
“Thanks,” he said, putting them on the floor by his feet.
“So where to?”
“Most child porn communities have a hub. We need to find one here.”
“What’s a hub?”
“You never worked Special Victims?”
“No, I came up from property crimes.”
Stanton glanced out the window at a homeless man standing on the corner. “A hub is someone who amasses child porn, or maybe even makes it himself, and then distributes it in email lists to other pedophiles who requested it. You can only get on the list by word of mouth, so it’s harder for law enforcement to break in. But it’s not done anonymously. A good hub knows who they’re dealing with to make sure it’s not cops. Find the hub, and we can find everyone on his list.”
“But they can email anywhere, right?”
“They can. Child pornographers are much more sophisticated than when the internet first came out. They tend to keep it within state lines now to avoid federal intervention. The FBI’s a lot more organized and efficient than most local law enforcement agencies, so by keeping them out, the pedophiles have a much better chance of staying out of law enforcement’s crosshairs.”
She headed for the interstate. “I didn’t know these guys were so elaborate in spreading child porn around.”
“A lot of hubs adopt children, rape them for a number of years, and film it. When they’re too old, they get rid of them and adopt more children. They study how to get away with it, how to avoid detection and prosecution. They’re one of the most dangerous types of predators because they know how atrocious what they do is. A pot dealer thinks what he’s doing isn’t a big deal. But a hub knows he’s a monster, and he doesn’t care.”
The interstate grew busier and came to a standstill several times due to an accident up ahead. Stanton grew impatient and wanted to read through the autopsy reports but decided to hold off. He wanted to be alone when he read them. Somewhere quiet. The autopsy reports told a story, and to hear the story, he would need to concentrate.
They pulled up to the precinct and went inside. Katie led him through the corridors to a unit marked “Special Victims.” Several detectives sat around typing or speaking on the phone, chewing pens and erasers. Many police agencies kept Special Victims detectives, who dealt with sex crimes, on a two-year rotation. The stresses were so great that anything more than two years had been found to cause issues like chronic depression, alcoholism, and paranoia.
A man in a blue button-front shirt sat at his computer. He smiled as Katie stood in front of him.
“I heard about Jacobs,” he said. “Nice work.”
“Thanks.” She waited a second before speaking again. “Greg, we need a favor. This is Jon Stanton. He’s with Homicide in Honolulu, and he’s helping on the Reginald Carter cases.”
Greg looked at him now. “Helping?”
“Just watching,” Stanton said.
Katie added, “We were looking for someone known as a hub. You know what that is?”
Greg leaned back in his seat and studied them. “What do you need a hub for?”
“I can’t talk about that right now,” Katie said, “not until I know for sure.”
Greg’s brow furrowed. “Okay. Well, that’s not weird or anything.”
She grinned. “Sorry, but I promise as soon as I know for sure, you’ll know.”
Greg inhaled deeply and let it out through his nose. “Who you lookin’ for?”
Stanton said, “It’s going to be someone within the state who’s been working a long time. Decades. And he was probably busted at some point for massive distribution, like hundreds of thousands of images and videos, or he was found to be raping his adopted daughter or son.”
“We got a lotta guys like that.”
“I’d appreciate if we could get a list.”
He nodded. “I’ll email it to Katie.”
“Thanks.”
Stanton waited until Katie left first. He followed her through the corridors and back outside. Katie waited until they were in the car before speaking. “Sorry,” she said. “He was a little standoffish.”
“No, he was fine. They have the most stress of any detectives in there. They have the right to be cranky sometimes.” He paused. “I didn’t actually get to eat. You hungry?”
The restaurant was a local place serving, according to the sign, the best cheesesteaks in the state. Stanton ordered a meatball sub and Katie got a cheesesteak. They sat down at a table with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth. A photo of a famous chef with his own reality show was up on the wall, hugging the chef in the kitchen.
Stanton bit into the sandwich, the marinara sauce dripping down onto the paper plate. “This is awesome,” he said.
“Chef Joseph knows what he’s doing. He actually learned to make these in prison. He was there for a drug charge, and when he got out, he scraped together some money and started this place.”
“Cops always know the best places to eat,” he said. “When I was on a beat, it seemed like that’s what we did most to fill the time.”
“Now they got iPads to watch movies while they wait for calls. Different world.” Katie took another bite and put the sandwich down. “I don’t know how you found that storage unit, but I’m guessing it involved obstructing an investigation, so I’m not going to ask.”
“I appreciate it.”
“But I want everything up front. No more hiding things.”
Stanton took another bite. “I promise, no more.”
“I do wanna know what you thought you were looking for. You couldn’t have guessed there was someone else involved.”
“No, I didn’t. I was looking for anything that told me what happened to my sister. I suspected he might’ve buried other bodies in the woods before he started taking them to his house. Maybe put them in Puget Sound or something.”
<
br /> “Twenty-one girls,” she said, shaking her head. “Gone just like that. And for what? So he could get off for a few hours?”
“What he did is tied to sex, but it’s not about sex. Not really.”
“What then? Some deep, subconscious desire that comes from his childhood? That always sounds like a load of bull to me.”
“That’s not what I believe it is.”
“Then what?”
“The devil.”
She chuckled, nearly spitting out her food. When she saw he was serious she stopped and took a sip of her drink. “You can’t mean that.”
“I don’t joke about that.”
“I’ve never believed in superstition. If you can’t see it, it ain’t there.”
“Have you ever loved anyone?” Stanton asked.
She hesitated. “Of course.”
“Can you see love? Can you hold it or touch it? You can’t, but I bet you knew it was real. You knew it was there.” He wiped his lips with a napkin. “There’s a lot of things in this universe we don’t understand yet. The devil is one.”
She leaned back in her seat. “So like, a pitchfork and brimstone?”
“No. Just… darkness. Pure black. Nothingness. A feeling that the universe is empty and cold, meaningless. That’s all it takes to make a good man bad—a slight shift in perspective, with a nudge from the darkness.”
She folded her arms, her eyes glued to her plate for a long time before she said, “When I lost Brian… when I lost my son, I looked for some meaning behind it. Something that could explain to me why it had to happen. He was hit by a drunk driver while playing in front of our house. You know what I found after searching for six years? I found randomness. It’s all just random. There’s no more design to it than a storm.”
Stanton chose his next words carefully. “I’m not saying I understand what God wants of us or why he makes innocent people suffer, but there is something else. You’ve felt love, then you have to have felt the opposite, that cold darkness just on the periphery. The man who killed your son—”
“It was a woman.”
“The woman who killed your son had demons haunting her. I bet if you asked her why she would risk driving after knowing she was drunk, she wouldn’t have an answer. People destroy themselves and everyone around them and they don’t even know why.”
Katie shook her head. “She was evil, that person. But she was just a biological entity, not some force of nature. It doesn’t work like that. I wish it did. I wish I had one place to put my anger, but I don’t. I blame that woman’s parents for letting her drink when she was a teenager, I blame the alcohol companies that advertise on TV and make drinking look glamorous, I blame the bar that served her the drinks, the friends who let her drive home… and most of all I blame her. That she didn’t think for a second how many people would be hurt because she didn’t want the hassle of calling a cab.”
Stanton sat quietly, watching her. Katie’s face had flushed red and her breathing had increased. Stanton saw pain emanate from her face, though she tried desperately to hold it back, as though it were improper to show it in front of a stranger. He didn’t say anything until she had unfolded her arms and pushed her plate away. He rolled up his napkin and set it on the sandwich, though he was still hungry.
“I’m sorry,” Stanton said.
She shook her head. “You can’t imagine the pain that first day after. The first day without him there.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, I can.”
They held each other’s gaze for a moment, the moment broken only by the sound of her phone buzzing. She checked it and said, “I got the list from Greg. We’ll have to do it in the morning. But where do you wanna start?”
“At the top and go down. I want to speak to all of them.”
19
The list Katie had been emailed consisted of four names: all white men in their mid to late forties, three living on either unemployment or disability. Two lived with their parents, one was in prison, and one in a halfway house, newly released from the Washington State Penitentiary. As they drove the next morning, Stanton stared at the names on Katie’s phone, wondering if the name itself could give him anything. But it couldn’t. They were just words.
“What’s the first guy’s name?” she asked.
“Kyle Snell. Lives with his parents. He was convicted of distribution of child pornography in ’89 and served a seventeen-year stint in a federal penitentiary in Colorado. Moved back here afterwards to be with his parents.”
She glanced at him. “You seem like you know these types of guys pretty well. That couldn’t have come just from a few years in a Sex Crimes unit.”
“I have a PhD in psychology. Part of my research for the doctorate was in aberrant sexual behavior. I got to know men like Kyle Snell really well when I spent time with them. They don’t talk to cops the same way they talk to researchers. They open up more. They don’t understand why they do it either, and they think maybe the researcher can tell them.”
“Could you?”
He shook his head. “No, there’s no explanation. Albert Fish, a serial killer in the early twentieth century, used to purposely get in trouble at the age of two so that his mother would beat him. He couldn’t achieve erection at that age, but the masochistic pleasure was there. Children don’t even really have long-term memory at two, much less abnormal sexual desires. It’s something else. Something inexplicable.”
She was silent for a second. “I get the feeling being married to you wouldn’t be easy. Normal cops don’t know stuff like that.”
He grinned. “You’ll have to ask my ex-wife and my ex-fiancée how it was. I’m guessing you’re right.”
The building was a tall cylindrical skyrise surrounded by buildings that could’ve been on any corner in any upscale neighborhood in the country—the neighborhoods where people weren’t frightened walking down the street at night. Katie parked, and they went to the front door, which was locked. Katie checked her phone for the apartment number and then dialed up.
“Yes?” a female voice said.
“This is Detective Katherine Wong with the Seattle Police Department. We need to speak with Kyle Snell.”
A long pause. “I’m sorry, he isn’t here.”
“Ma’am, if I come up there and he’s there, it’s just going to cause more trouble for him and for you. Not less. We just want to talk. That’s all.”
Another pause. Stanton realized the woman was putting her hand over the speaker and talking with someone, the muffled tones barely audible. “Okay, hang on,” she said.
A buzzer sounded, and Katie opened the door and held it for him. Stanton walked through and pressed the button for the elevator. Katie checked the surroundings, her eyes going from the expensive rug on the floor to the white leather couch in the corner.
They stepped into the elevator and headed to the tenth floor. Stanton had brought his firearm, and he hoped Katie wouldn’t ask him to remove it and put it back in the car. He was a civilian here, after all. He had no authority to carry a concealed firearm in this state. It wouldn’t look good if he had to actually use the weapon.
The tenth floor was as plush as the lobby, clean white carpets and glass looking down at the city, abstract paintings on the walls. Stanton walked a few paces behind Katie. He wanted to make certain she felt she was running the show.
She knocked on the door and an older woman wearing white pants and a beige sweater answered. The gold watch on her wrist gleamed in the sunlight. The woman looked from one detective to the other and said, “Yes?”
“We’re here to speak with Kyle.”
“I told you, he isn’t here.”
“May we have a look around?” Katie said.
The woman swallowed. “I don’t see why I should allow that. I haven’t done anything and I don’t see a search warrant.”
“If I have to get a—”
Stanton stepped forward. “We can talk out here in the hall. We don’t care what’s in his room.�
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The woman hesitated. “Wait here.”
Katie looked at him, and he knew they both understood that the reason Kyle didn’t want them to go in was because he had something in his room not allowed while he was on parole. It could have been pot or booze, pornography, or another felon or sex offender. Stanton didn’t care about it, but from the look on Katie’s face, she did. She hadn’t learned yet that you had to pick your battles, and that if you tried to make a bust on every crime you saw, you would burn yourself out. Stanton, for the first time, realized how new Katie was at this.
Before he could say anything, a man was at the door. He was frail, thin to the point of looking unhealthy. He wore glasses, and his shirt was tucked into his jeans. He shut the door behind him and said, “I’m Kyle.”
“Kyle Snell?” Katie said.
“Yes.”
“We need to ask you a few questions about Reginald Carter.”
He shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“He was in the news about a week ago.”
Kyle’s eyes went wide. “That guy who killed those girls? I didn’t have nothing to do with that.”
“We’re not saying you did,” Katie quickly said. “But we think you might know something about him or someone else he was working with.”
“No, I don’t know nothing about that. That shit with me was a long time ago. I was a different person then.”
“You can never step into the same river twice,” Stanton said.
Kyle responded, “Because the second time it’s not the same river, and it’s not the same man.”
The mantra was frequently used in sex offender therapy.
“You’re not in any trouble, Kyle,” he said. “We just want to know about Reginald Carter. You were a hub at the time he was killing those girls. I think he watched child pornography, too. We didn’t find a computer, but I’m betting whoever helped him kill those girls has it. Someone that you might’ve sent pornography to.”
Mania - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 9) Page 7