Wall of Silence Read online

  “Yeah, he’d purchased himself several boxes of wine.”

  “Oh yeah? Where did the cash come from?” I feigned interest.

  “He made a few bucks from a video store owner over on Hartford.”

  My antennae went up at the mention of videos, but I had to play Smitty’s game. When he thought he had something good, he couldn’t be rushed. He was also one of those people who had a story for everything and about everyone, and he would tell it over and over again if he could find someone willing to listen. I prompted, “So?” and started looking through the piles of paperwork on my desk as I waited for him to continue.

  “Well, this guy paid Pete to move some boxes into his store. While the guy wasn’t looking, Pete got nosy and took a look in the boxes.”

  “Let me guess, there were DVDs in there, right?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Yeah, right, but the thing is, our friend Pete filched some so he could sell them for a few bucks. Only when he got back to his motel and took a look at them, there was some pretty wild stuff.”

  “Where are the DVDs?”

  “Pete says he tossed them in the trash. He thought Jackson and Fuller were arresting him for the theft, not the flashing.”

  I put my empty cup down with a thud. “Well, shit, what are we waiting for? We need to search that trash, unless Jackson and Fuller already did.”

  “Those pussies? You have to be kidding me.” Smitty was on his feet.

  I snatched the keys out of his hand and raced out of the division. “I’m driving. You drive like an old lady!”

  Chapter Two

  Smitty, of course, drove. I was still restricted from driving division vehicles for the next three months. Captain’s orders. Pete’s winter home turned out to be a seedy motel about eight blocks from the division. Most of the occupants made their living by waiting outside of the 7-Eleven on Guerra until some farmer came along to pick them up. They got paid next to nothing for backbreaking work, came home to a cramped room for a few hours of sleep, and started all over again the next day.

  Despite the gaudy neon sign in the window promising that the office was open twenty-four hours, Smitty and I had to hold the buzzer down for ten minutes before an oily-looking guy wearing Bermuda shorts, a bowling shirt, and Vans shoes showed up to unlock the door.

  Generally speaking, you need a warrant even to enter a rented room. However, the pock-faced man behind the counter was so intent on his handheld video game that he barely looked up when we flashed our badges at him. He handed us Pete’s keycard without a word.

  “Great security,” Smitty said sarcastically as we walked across the parking lot to a depressing building with an “Out of Order” sign taped to the sole ice machine.

  When we opened Pete’s room we were immediately assaulted by the rank odor of cigarette smoke and that vague acrid odor left by cheap cleaning supplies. At least they tried to clean, I told myself as I stepped into the room. The idea of letting the stale, dirty air into my mouth almost caused a gag reflex. Never mind the fact that I had two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes on my apartment floor at that very moment. There is a huge difference between being messy and just plain nasty. “I’ll check the bathroom, you check here.” I snapped on a pair of gloves and Smitty did the same.

  He was unusually quiet. Seemed I wasn’t the only one reluctant to open my mouth in there. I was tempted to snicker at the “No Smoking” sign on the bathroom door as I entered. The place looked like a bar bathroom. Cigarette burns on every flat surface and permanent rust stains abounded. I checked behind the door, in the trash can, under the commode lid, under the sink, and in the shower stall before exiting the tight space as quickly as I could.

  “Anything?” Smitty asked from his position on the floor.

  “Nah, not yet.”

  Smitty lifted one of the comforters and peeked beneath one of the beds. “Think we got something.”

  I heard the crinkle of paper as Smitty dragged a brown bag from under the bed.

  “Bingo,” we said simultaneously.

  I opened the bag and removed three DVDs, all of which were in unmarked cases. “Shall we take a look?” I slipped one of the recordings into the cheap-looking thirteen-inch TV/DVD combo this “upgraded room” sported.

  We didn’t have long to wait before we were bombarded. A thickset Caucasian male of about thirty-five was sexually assaulting a very young-looking Asian minor. Bile rose and threatened to escape my throat as the attack played out on the screen, up close and personal. The film quality was good enough that I could see droplets of sweat trapped in the grove of hair between the assailant’s shoulder blades. At no point did the kid stop crying and at no point did the sick bastard assaulting him say a word. The movie was cut abruptly, and the assailant returned at a different angle, this time carrying a gun. There was a loud bang, and the DVD ended with a close-up on the victim, apparently dead.

  We watched just enough of the other films to assure ourselves that they contained the same material, sexual abuse of a minor followed by a murder. Up until this point, my only thought had been to get the guy making these films; he was a murderer of the most horrible kind. Now I wondered what sort of people actually bought them.

  “We’ve got the bastard! Let’s get out of here before I get sick.” Smitty picked up the DVDs and left the room.

  I had to jog to catch up with him. “You all right?”

  He started the engine and pulled out of the lot as if we could somehow escape what we had just seen. “Yeah. You?”

  “No.”

  “Me either.”

  “How could anyone get pleasure from looking at that?” I looked out the window, blinking rapidly, trying to erase the images from my mind. The fear in that boy’s eyes would haunt me forever.

  “Don’t try to rationalize it, Everett. These people are sick. You will never be able to understand it. All we can do is find them and put them away.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, you know? Our job is to make it so that law-abiding citizens can sleep comfortably at night, but what about our peace of mind?”

  “You can’t let that shit stay in your head. We have to do what needs to be done and then move on.”

  “But this is not just one guy we’re talking about. It’s not like if we get him off the street all this filth disappears. Thousands of pervs are downloading this stuff off the Internet every day.”

  “The Internet is the FBI’s problem, not ours,” Smitty said. “Our problem is getting the stuff off our streets and investigating the murders, if they are murders. No bodies so far. No crime scenes. The DVDs are the only evidence we’ve got.”

  We drove the rest of the way back to the division in relative silence. I was brooding and I figured Smitty was, too. We’d caught the case after several DVDs began circulating in the neighborhood. It had jumped from Vice to Homicide, then back again, as different detectives tried to figure out if they were seeing average, run-of-the-mill phony snuff films, or if the content depicted real crimes. If so, not only had children been molested and murdered, but the whole thing had been filmed and sold to numerous sickos. The MO was the same in each of the DVDs, the same visual backgrounds and the same twisted ending.

  “Where are the bodies?” I wondered aloud. “Where are the missing persons reports?”

  Everyone on this case had been through pictures of John and Jane Does, looking for any that could match the victims. The films could have been made anywhere. Eastern Europe was the source of a lot of the worst Internet porn these days. The DVDs could have originated there. Copies were easy to make. The best we could hope for was to arrest some middle man, one of a long chain of creeps making money from human misery.

  “This is probably a dead-end case,” I said. “No one over here takes a risk on making films like this when they can source them overseas and just distribute copies.”

  Smitty gave a gloomy nod. “At least we’ve got enough for a search warrant.”

  “Yup.”

  We�
�d be able to scare the video store owner. That was something.

  *

  We pulled into the back parking lot of Reel Family Entertainment at around seven p.m. The overcast weather meant it was almost dark outside. There were hardly any other cars in the lot. This guy didn’t seem to do much to keep up his legitimate front, so we were probably dealing with an amateur who had somehow avoided detection by law enforcement. Up until now, that is.

  I told Smitty I would go in first. We’d brought one patrol unit along for backup. The uniforms would cover the rear of the building and help us carry out evidence if needed. Ignoring the smell of urine, I slid along the wall and peered inside the glass door. There was no one at the front counter.

  I knocked, buzzed, and yelled, “LAPD. We have a search warrant.”

  We gave it the requisite ten seconds, knocked again, then I pulled out my trusty lock picks. Why risk injury by breaking the door down? It wouldn’t be the first time we’d report executing a search warrant on an insecure premise. I checked out the alarm system. It was a cheap setup, with a wire running around the door. If the owner was on the premises somewhere and hadn’t heard us knocking, I didn’t want to alert him to our presence any sooner than necessary.

  After I yanked the wires out, we entered the store, guns drawn. Shelves of G-rated DVDs filled every available wall space in the small front area. The counter was the only thing that separated the family-viewing section from the triple-X section, as denoted by the three red X’s over the entryway. The adult area was garishly decorated in reds and pinks. A door at one end was screened by a purple bead curtain.

  I trained my flashlight on the door and exchanged a look with Smitty. “Did you hear that?”

  The sounds were extremely muffled, almost indistinguishable, like they were coming from a soundproofed room. Smitty parted the purple bead curtain and we both placed our ears to the door.

  “Let’s do it,” he said and threw the door open.

  My eyes reacted painfully to the glaring light. We advanced, sweeping the room.

  “Clear.” Even as I said the word, my mind belatedly processed what I was seeing but did not want to believe.

  A heart-shaped bed was surrounded by all types of lighting and camera equipment. In the center was a small, half-naked child. His arms were shackled by chains so large that the mere weight of them could keep him in place. He’d been crying for a very long time; his sobs were hoarse and tired. My first reaction was to rush to him, but I didn’t want to risk his life. The adult responsible for this had to be somewhere close.

  Smitty cursed under his breath. He groped for a control box near the photograph lights and successfully killed them. Our breathing sounded loud. I wasn’t the only one in a state of shock. We’d come here expecting to take a truckload of porn and make an arrest. In a best-case scenario, I’d imagined an offender who would cut a deal and name a few assholes higher up the food chain. Maybe we’d even involve the FBI in busting a porn ring, and get our names in the LA Times. The job had taught me to expect the unexpected, but I was having trouble getting up to speed.

  I had to tune out the slow whining coming from the little boy. Just a little bit longer, sweetheart. Let me get a bead on this sicko, and then I’m going to get you out of here.

  I had no sooner finished the thought than a rear door slammed and a blond Caucasian male wearing nothing but white boxer shorts and socks came crashing into the room via what I had thought was a carpeted wall panel.

  “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  He made a lunge for the child chained to the bed, but I tackled him, managing to land one solid blow to his chin before he collapsed to the floor, taking me with him. I heard the kid’s dry scream before it was drowned out by Smitty’s yell. I landed several more satisfying blows to the guy’s chin and temple before Smitty dragged me off him.

  Two uniforms burst through the beads, guns raised. The little boy screamed even more.

  “We got him,” I yelled. “Situation is under control. Can one of you secure the area and the other call Children’s Services? And get a female officer in here.”

  I stood up just as Smitty yanked the now cuffed perp to his feet. “Smitty?”

  “Yeah?” He growled his answer, as he often did when dealing with something or someone distasteful.

  “Get it out of my face, please.”

  “You heard her.” I waited until he had pushed the guy out of the room before I tried to approach the bed. The boy looked at me so fearfully that I stopped and held up my hands.

  “See, nothing to hurt you here.” I held out the chain that my badge hung on. “I’m a police detective. Do you know what that is?” The child continued to sob, but nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  He hesitated, but the sobs were waning and his posture had changed. He was more confident. “Jason.”

  I looked around for the keys that would open the handcuffs that bound his wrists. I spotted them on a dresser, along with a set of pliers, a vicious-looking knife, and ropes. The boy’s blue eyes followed my every move as I grabbed the keys off the dresser and returned to the bed. “Would it be okay if I unlock those so that you can stand up?”

  He nodded.

  “Where are you from, Jason?”

  “El-segun-doo.” He hiccupped as he said it.

  “El Segundo. Okay, that’s real good.”

  I took my time asking him the key questions. His address. His mom’s name and phone number. When his shaking and sobbing had stopped, I helped him off the bed. “Do you know where the rest of your clothes are, Jason?”

  He shook his head and looked like he was about to cry again, so I wrapped a sheet around him. A female uniform entered the room from the rear door the perp had used earlier. She went pale and looked like she was about to burst into tears in sympathy.

  “Hold it together,” I told her, but I might as well have been talking to myself. “Is there a phone back there?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Okay, call his mom while we wait for Children’s Services. He knows the number.”

  She held out her hand and Jason took it after a tentative look at me. As he walked gingerly away, the sheet slid down. revealing a small back covered in bite marks.

  Rage flooded through me like a future junkie’s first dose of heroin. I fed on it because I needed an excuse for letting loose on this waste of oxygen. I stalked into the front of the video store where the perp was sitting on a stool with his face bathed in tears. Smitty stood with his back to the guy, a familiar stance, one I had seen him take on more than one occasion. It was a dare, an invitation for the slimeball to try something, anything, so Smitty could take him down. But people who attacked children were spineless bastards, and I knew that this one would not give either Smitty or me the satisfaction of blowing his brains out.

  Hatred welled up within me as I stared at the guy in his pristine white boxer shorts and dress socks. The scent of his cologne was strangely heavy in the air, as if he had just paused to spritz some on while I was in the other room. Hugo Boss, I thought inanely. At that very moment he looked at me and uttered two words that broke the last vestiges of restraint that I had on my rage.

  “I’m cold,” he said.

  And I was on him before his mouth had closed.

  He never saw it coming. I landed four hard punches to his face, bloodying his nose and lips before Smitty had even turned around. Smitty rushed me and grabbed my forearms, but not before I had the perp’s head in both of my hands. I slammed it into my knee.

  “Everett, Everett, you got him, love, you got him.” Smitty dragged me, struggling, into the back room.

  I sobbed harshly, the rage still burning in my chest. I have never in my life wanted to hurt someone like I wanted to hurt this guy.

  “Listen to me, we’re going to make sure that he gets stuck under the jail. He’ll get some of what he’s been dishing out. He won’t leave there alive, I’ll make sure of it. You believe me, don’t you?”r />
  I nodded and without looking back, I stumbled out of the room. Jason was in the front seat of the patrol car and the female uniform was distracting him while they waited for Children’s Services. She handed him her badge and put her hands up as if he was arresting her. A small smile passed across his face, only to fade as if it had never been there. She said something else to him, and the smile reappeared. She was good with kids. I wondered if she had her own. If she did, she must be sick with fear. I wondered what kind of life Jason from El Segundo was going to have now, thanks to that bastard inside. When was he kidnapped? Had he even been reported missing yet?

  I clenched and unclenched my aching hands and then put them both under my armpits. Bile rose in my throat and I spat a couple of times. Finally I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the building. I was tired, so damn tired of seeing shit that made it impossible to think the best of people.

  “Everett, I need to speak to you.” Smitty stood a few feet away.

  I didn’t bother to turn around. I didn’t need a lecture. I was sure I’d be getting one soon enough from the captain. “Can it wait?”

  “No, we’ve got a problem.”

  “What do you mean? He didn’t get away, did he, Smitty?” I was prepared to storm through the building to go drag his sick ass back.

  Smitty grabbed my shoulders. He looked around the parking lot to make sure no one was within earshot of us. Beads of sweat glistened on his flushed forehead and cheeks like tears. Other than when we had to give chase on foot, I had never seen Smitty break a sweat over anything.

  “Listen to me, damn it. He’s dead.”

  “What are you saying?” I lowered my voice on reflex. “Smitty, what do you mean, he’s dead? No, he can’t be!” I tried to rush into the building, but Smitty stopped me.

  “Would you just look at yourself? Your fists are bruised and you look shell-shocked.”

  I stared down at myself. Smitty was right. I looked like the loser in a barroom brawl. He turned us around so that anyone looking would only see his back.