by Paul Bishop
Stunned by the action, neither Fey nor Monk moved. The sound of the driver's door creaking open refocused their attention. Fey had her gun up, but saw no immediate threat.
Cecily wiggled out of the car. Unsteady on her feet, her balance made more precarious by her high heels, she staggered past the front of the car and squeezed through the gap between the radiator and the badly damaged gate. She made an attempt at what would have been running if her movements had not been so erratic.
Monk picked himself up from the gravel drive and brushed himself off. He looked up at Fey.
“If you're waiting for me to chase her,” Fey said, “you should remember who's wearing the lieutenant's bars.”
Monk shook his head before starting after Cecily at a slow trot. He could have walked at a good pace and still had no worries about her outdistancing him. “What are we stopping her for again?” he asked, as he moved away.
“Suspicion.”
“Suspicion? Suspicion of what?”
“Let's start with being totally unqualified to be a police commissioner, move on to contempt of cop, throw in no gloves in her glove compartment, no air in her spare, and how about leaving the scene of an accident. We'll work something out from there.”
She heard Monk chuckling as he disappeared after Cecily.
FORTY EIGHT
Events became kaleidoscopic after Fey called for reinforcements. Using the radio again, she requested a traffic unit to do a report on the collision between the Mercedes, the gate, and the wall. City liability was involved since Fey caused the accident by shooting the gate's electronic opener.
She also put out a call for the Officer Involved Shooting team. She wasn't about to let them stop her investigation while they conducted their own, but she needed to give them a heads-up and let them get started.
Monk brought Cecily back in handcuffs, slung over his shoulder like a recalcitrant child. As he turned into the driveway, several patrol units pulled up. They had their lights flashing, but their sirens were silent.
Cecily was yelling almost incoherently about Luther leaving her behind, white spital flicking off as she screamed. Kicking with her legs and wiggling around, she forced Monk to hobble her before placing her in the back of a police car with a definite lack of delicacy.
Hammer and Nails pulled up in their black van. “What did you do to upset her?” Hammer asked.
“Not us,” Fey told him. “Her father.”
“What did he do?”
“Left her apparently,” Monk said. “At least that's what she's screaming about. Don't know what it all means yet.”
“We may know where Luther Flynn is.” Hammer said.
“Not where he is at the moment,” Rhonda said. “But, if everything plays right, we know where he's going to be in six hours.”
“And MacAlister is going to be with him,” Hammer added.
“I want to hear all about it,” Fey said. “But as long as we have time, we need to do other things first.” She gestured toward Hammer’s black van. She knew it was rigged like a mobile command post inside. “How quickly can you bang out a search warrant for the judge's house?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Hammer told her. “I have everything on a computer template. All we need to do is plug in the information. I've got a remote fax in the van and we can get telephonic approval.”
“Do it.”
Hammer nodded at Rhonda and they scooted away.
“See if you can get Winchell Groom on the phone,” Fey called after them. “Ask him to make a house call.” Groom was a top district attorney with whom the team had worked closely in the past. He wasn't afraid of hot issues, but he liked to be called in as soon as possible.
“Why don't we go right in?” Monk asked. He was trying to straighten his suit after his tussle with Cecily. “Call it exigent circumstances, the need to check on the judge's well-being based on his daughter's irrational behavior.”
“Now who wants to jump the gun?” Fey asked, amused. “We don't care about the judge's well-being. We need to get in the house to find out if it's where the photos of Sarah and Mark Junior were taken.”
“And we don't want to be second guessed in court,” Monk completed the lesson.
“Fifteen minutes now could save the whole case later.”
While they were waiting, Monk's cell phone rang. It was Alphabet this time, bringing Fey up to date on the circumstances surrounding Ferris Jackson.
“Once we were able to get her to unwind, she spilled her guts.”
“Keep it warm,” Fey said. “Don't tell me yet. This phone is cellular, not digital. It isn't secure.” The media's penchant for cellular eavesdropping was well known. “Where are you now?” Fey asked.
“North Hollywood station.”
“Is Ferris with you?”
“Clinging like a leech.”
“Take her down to Parker Center,” Fey said. “We're going to serve a warrant at Luther Flynn's residence, and then we'll head there with Cecily Flynn-Rogers.”
“A warrant? Are we being left out of the loop?”
“Long story, and no, you're not. If you've got Ferris, you're a major part of the loop. Hammer and Nails are with us. They've got something cooking as well. Let's rendezvous in —” she checked her watch, “— two hours. And be prepared for a long haul. We're on this thing till it wraps.”
“Riding the dragon is becoming our specialty,” Alphabet said.
The warrant proved painless to obtain, and they entered the house through the unlocked rear door. It took five minutes to discover a bedroom on the second floor containing the bedspread and brass headboard matching the photographs. From there it was easy to find the pin hole in the corner where the camera had been placed. Hammer crawled into the attic and found a bonanza of high-tech video transmitting equipment secured on the rafters above where the pin hole was located.
“Whoever set this stuff up,” Hammer said, “could sit back at a distance, maybe in a van a couple of blocks away, and watch the room in real time. When the action started, whoever was watching could run a video and take stills off it later.”
There were several other items of minor interest. Flynn's toiletries were missing. There was an empty space in his closet where luggage could have been stored. Dresser drawers showed a lack of underwear and socks. No passport nor personal identification for Luther Flynn was found. Cecily was right. The judge had left without her.
Poking through the ashes in the fireplace, Rhonda turned up the curled edges of a number of eight-by-ten glossy prints. The searchers thought they knew what the prints had originally depicted. Rhonda gathered the ashes together. Perhaps there was something the technical wizards could do to reconstruct something.
The team didn't have time to tear the house apart for further evidence, so they called in reinforcements from SID. Fey gave orders when the Scientific Investigation Division crew arrived and left the project in their capable hands.
The Officer Involved Shooting team turned up just as the team was preparing to leave. Winchell Groom, the deputy DA, hadn't put in an appearance yet, so he would have to wait. So would the OIS team. Fey gave two detectives the short version of her actions, promising chapter and verse later. The case was cracking wide open, and Fey wasn't going to let anything stand in her way.
FORTY NINE
Fey called GOD on Monk's cell phone. She implied the call was to update the Chief, but in reality there was information she needed before interviewing Cecily.
Something had been bothering her since the beginning of the case. Cecily had been a strange appointment to the police commission. The appointment must have been repayment of some political debt, or perhaps a payment for a future consideration. The question was who and why?
Chief Drummond told Fey the appointment had been spearheaded by Anthony Barrington, the police commission president. Barrington was a powerful force within city government. He had enough dirt on enough people to get his way on many issues, personnel appointments being one of them
.
As to why Barrington would appoint such an unpopular commissioner, the answer was easy. He was a partner in Luther Flynn's law firm. He also played golf with Flynn on a regular basis, and often went with him on fishing vacations.
Drummond said Cecily had screwed up several cases as a lawyer for a civil law firm. Luther was looking for a prestigious, but safe place to keep her out of trouble. Barrington had obliged, perhaps thinking he could control Cecily and do a favor for his old buddy.
Interesting, Fey thought. If Flynn was deep into child sexual abuse, there was a damn good chance Barrington was as well. If he wasn't, it was doubtful Flynn would have maintained such strong ties with him. Fishing vacations, my ass. Trolling for kids was more likely.
Alphabet and Brindle had waited for Fey in the Parker Center parking garage. Their eyes were sparkling, riding the dragon.
“Where's Ferris?” Fey asked.
“We took her to a safe house used by the underground railroad,” Brindle replied. “Ferris knows the people and feels protected.”
Walking around the back of the detective car, Monk asked, “Any chance the place has been compromised?”
Alphabet shrugged. “Ferris tells us MacAlister has been making a living snatching kids back from the underground, but the underground has been changing strategies to deal with him. This location is new.”
Hammer and Nails joined the group after parking their van.
“Why would MacAlister want Ferris?” Fey asked.
It was Brindle's turn to answer. “MacAlister doesn't know we're aware he has Father Romero. Ferris is a loose end. MacAlister wouldn't want her raising a stink. With her loose, he's operating at a higher risk of exposure.”
Fey nodded. “All right, I know everybody has information,” she said, “but let's take this somewhere less public. Hammer and Nails tell us we're running on a time schedule, so keep everything brief.”
The six detectives shared an elevator with four other Parker Center employees. In the confined space, it was as if the team emitted an electrical shield, which propelled the other riders out at their various floors.
In the office, Monk started a fresh pot of coffee, while Fey and Hammer settled for the dregs of the previous pot.
“Tell us about Ferris,” Fey said to Alphabet. She settled in her chair, and the other detectives followed her example.
Alphabet took a breath and started in. “Bianca and Father Romero worked closely together in organizing the West Coast lines of the underground railroad. Ferris stepped up her involvement after Bianca's death. Father Romero needed her help. Bianca had expanded her activities in many areas. We know she was a child advocate, a major player in the underground, and was moving against lawyers and judges whom she thought were involved in child molestation. This included her own father.”
Brindle took a fresh mug of coffee from Monk, and took over the narrative. “Bianca also took her fight to international battlefields. With Father Romero's help, she twice arranged for a trainload of orphans to be brought into California illegally from Central and South America. They stretched the resources of the underground to find homes for the orphans across the country. When she was murdered, Bianca was in the middle of arranging a third shipment of orphans.”
“A real do-gooder,” Fey said. “The kind who doesn't think breaking the law is wrong as long as your reasons are pure.”
“Sounds like a number of detectives we know,” Monk said, bringing in a different perspective.
“Irony?” Fey asked.
Monk took a sudden interest in the rim of his coffee mug. “What about the pictures from Preston's pad?” he asked to change the subject. “Did Ferris know anything about them?”
Brindle set her mug down on the large circular conference table. “Ferris told us Jack Kavanaugh turned up without any notice at her house looking for Bianca about a month ago. He and Bianca were together for a long time. She got the impression Bianca didn't know Kavanaugh, but when he left, she appeared very excited.”
“A week or so later, Kavanaugh paid another visit. This time, he gave Bianca an envelope. From what Ferris described, the envelope contained a set of the photos found at Preston's.”
“Bianca must have gone insane,” Fey said.
“She did. Ferris claims she exploded, but it was half in anger and half in righteous justification. All the years she'd been accused of lying about what her father had done to her, and now she had proof he was doing the same thing to her children. It was what she dreaded, feared, and needed all along.”
“Why didn't she go straight to the police?”
“Ferris says it was because Bianca wanted it all. Wanted to take down not only her father, but the other judges and lawyers she felt were involved in the court scams. She put her children into the underground to protect them while she prepared to drop her bomb. When the federal hearings started, she planned to use the photos to give herself credibility.”
“So, it was Flynn and Ritter in the photos?” Fey asked.
“There's the catch,” Alphabet told her. “It was definitely Flynn's arm we saw in the pictures, but Ferris said she didn't recognize the man to whom the white hand belonged.”
“It wasn't Ritter?” Monk asked.
“Definitely not.”
Monk raised his eyebrows. “Any ideas who?”
Fey had a couple, but she was keeping them to herself. When nobody else answered, she looked around the table. “You can stop squirming,” she said to Hammer, smiling. “What have you got?”
“We can confirm Alphabet and Brindle's information. We had a long talk with Devon Wyatt, and he's decided to come over to the side of the white hats.”
“No way,” Fey said. “He must have an angle. Are you sure?”
“Let's just say he won't be wearing his ratty hairpiece anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Monk asked.
“It means,” Rhonda said, “Wyatt told us Luther Flynn found out about the orphan shipment and is planning to hijack it with MacAlister's help.”
“Impressive,” Fey said, when Hammer paused for effect. “Tell us more.”
“As far as anyone is concerned, the children in the shipment don't exist,” Hammer continued. “They're orphans from third world countries, coming into America illegally. There is nobody who will, or can, complain when they go missing. They're a perfect target for sexual predators.”
Rhonda took up the narrative. “To Flynn, the orphans are a commodity. Somehow, he found out about the photos in Bianca's possession. He knew she was holding back on exposing him until the federal hearings. He used the lag time to prepare his get-out score. The orphan shipment was perfect for somebody with his connections in the pedophile community. There are thousands of perverts willing to pay major money for a live sex toy.”
Fey used her hands to dry wash her face. She looked pale. “Every time I think I've heard it all, there's another sicko waiting to surprise me. Wyatt gave you all this?”
“And more,” Hammer told her. “When Bianca died, Flynn still couldn't take a chance on the photos turning up. He had to continue with his plan. He also couldn't risk us stumbling across the answers too soon.”
“So he went to Wyatt and got him to distract me with Eldon Dodge,” Fey said, seeing where Hammer was leading.
“Through Wyatt, Flynn also hooked up with MacAlister. He couldn't run the hijacking alone. He could set up the buyers, but he needed muscle to intimidate Father Romero and help take possession of the orphans.”
“I'm surprised he's giving himself this exposure,” Fey said.
“He didn't have any choice,” Rhonda explained. “Flynn is desperate. He knows he'll go to jail if the pictures get out. Wyatt limited his own exposure by insisting Flynn have hands-on involvement. That way, Flynn couldn't flake out and leave Wyatt and MacAlister holding the bag.”
“Instead, Wyatt is flaking out and leaving Flynn holding the bag?” Fey asked.
“And MacAlister.”
“Wyatt is giv
ing up MacAlister?”
“It's part of our deal,” Hammer told her.
“You made a deal with a rattlesnake?”
“He walks away clean.”
Fey thought about it. “He would anyway,” Fey said. “There's no evidence to implicate him yet. There has to be more to your deal.”
“There is,” Hammer said. “But it's unimportant right now.”
“I don't think I want to know,” Fey said.
“Trust us,” Hammer said. “We're in the cat-bird seat on this. We've checked train schedules against the information Wyatt gave us. The orphan shipment is coming into Union Station at twenty-two-hundred hours. The kids are going to be in an enclosed freight car supposedly filled with clothing from manufacturers in Mexico. It's a regular shipment and will be attached as part of the normal San Diego to Los Angeles run.”
“What about customs?” Fey asked.
“Paperwork only. Father Romero handled it through his old Sanctuary contacts in Mexico.”
“Got to be a rough trip,” Alphabet said. “Loaded in a freight car like cattle.”
“Anything for a better life,” Fey said. “If they only knew what the supposed better life was going to be like.” She changed threads. “Flynn and MacAlister are going to be using Father Romero's catacombs to siphon the kids out of Union Station and into the Church?”
“According to Wyatt,” Rhonda agreed “ The church will be used as a holding station until the kids are distributed to the buyers.”
“But we'll be there waiting for them instead,” Hammer said.
“You bet,” Fey agreed. “But before then, I think we can get more answers.”
FIFTY
The patrol officers who transported Cecily to Parker Center stuck her in a cell in the bowels of the jail. By the time Fey reached her, the woman had moved from hysterical to merely distraught. Tears streamed down her face.