“Do you know what the ‘secret project’ was?”
“No, but Apollo started dressing all in black, kinda Gothic-like, but not really. I thought maybe he was filming some kind of underground Gothic-Rock thing, but he never would say what it was. And I don’t really dig that kind of music anyway so I wasn’t that interested.”
“Do you know who else Apollo hung out with?”
“He never had a lot of friends. Like I said, he was new here when I met him and we hung out a lot until he met Bailey.”
“Did you ever meet any of Bailey’s family? Ever go to her house?”
Josiah shook his head. “No.”
“Have you ever known Apollo to be violent?”
“No. Never. He’s the most easy-going guy I’ve ever met. I used to tease him about being a country hick. The only time he was ever excited was when he was filming something. Why? Did he do something?”
JP took a deep breath. “I have reason to believe the cops are looking for Apollo and Bailey in connection with a murder.” JP noted the surprised look on Josiah’s face. “Bailey’s mother’s boyfriend was beaten to death. Do you think that’s something that Apollo could do?”
“That’s not Apollo. Something really awful would’ve had to happen for him to do something like that.” He paused. “Maybe it was Bailey.”
“Do you think she could do it?”
“Like I said, I’ve only seen her a couple of times, but she has a temper. The first time I met her she was screaming and cussing about someone. I thought it was her mom, but I’m not sure. But she was real mad.”
JP handed Josiah his card. “Please call me if you hear from him. It’s real important that we find them. Both Bailey and Apollo could be in danger, and if the cops reach them first it’ll be a lot harder on them.”
18
The sun was just beginning to stream into Sabre’s bedroom through her window and the first thing it touched was the photo of her brother. “Good morning, Ron,” Sabre said aloud to her brother. He had found a permanent place on the nightstand by her bed. She had made a habit of saying “good morning” to him every morning as she first woke up and “goodnight” every night before she went to sleep. He left almost six years ago, exactly six on her upcoming birthday. She still missed him so much. He was her rock and her protector.
The nightstand next to her bed housed the little red notebook Ron had given her for her sixth birthday. She reached into the drawer and removed it. She opened the book and read the last couple of entries.
Sabre stepped out of bed. No running this morning. It was Thursday and that meant breakfast with Bob. They had started meeting every Thursday because Bob’s son, Corey, had band practice and had to be dropped off by 6:30 in the morning. Bob had nothing to do between the drop-off and court so they filled it with breakfast and conversation.
Sabre showered, dressed, and arrived at IHOP before Bob. The weather was still nice enough to sit outside, so she chose to sit outdoors on the patio. She was seated and had two pots of coffee delivered, one decaf and one regular, when Bob walked in.
“Morning, Sobs.”
“Good morning.” Sabre opened four of the little containers of half-and-half and poured them into her cup. Then she filled her cup with decaf coffee.
“Hey, did you see in the paper this morning about all the graffiti they’re finding in San Diego?” Bob asked as he poured his coffee. “They think it’s connected to the ‘Devil House’ because there’s a lot of sixes. There’s been some tagging of trees similar to the one on the news, as well.”
“What is going on? Do you think there is some cult trying to take over the city?”
“I think the tagging is just kids trying to jump on the band wagon, and satanic stuff can be pretty intriguing to teenagers. The media has really tried to sensationalize it.”
“That’s true. ‘The devil made me do it’ is a great excuse to act badly. But what about all the cases we’re seeing in juvenile court? And that house? Someone is doing something.”
Bob spoke in a creepy, quiet voice, hissing as he said Satan, “Do you think S-s-s-atan is behind it all? Is he building his empire so he can control everyone and rule the world?”
“No, I think some creep is out there trying to make a name for himself and destroying people’s lives as he does it, and I think others are getting caught up in the hysteria.”
The waitress approached the table and took their order. Two eggs, hash browns, bacon, and white toast for Bob. The crepes, or Swedish pancakes, as they called them here, for Sabre. After Sabre placed her order, she said, “I’m getting as bad as you. I order the same thing every time we come here.”
“No, sometimes you order the French pancakes.”
“Yeah, I change the topping. Big deal. But I guess that is more than you’d ever do.”
Bob wrinkled his brow and then nodded as if he had a brilliant thought. He said, “We need to look at all the cases at juvenile court and see what they have in common. Maybe we can figure this out.”
“We can’t look at all the cases. We don’t know which ones are ritual cases and they’re all confidential.”
“We can talk to the other panel attorneys and see who has an unusual case, anything that might fall into a ‘ritual abuse’ case. There’s nothing wrong with consulting on the cases.”
“That’s true.”
“And I can steal the new detention and disposition reports as they come in. I’ll make copies, of course, and return then.”
Sabre shook her head. “Bob, you can’t do that.”
“Sure I can. I’ll gather the information and give it to you. You can make a chart.”
“Why don’t you make the chart?”
“You do charts. I don’t do charts. And you know I’ll never get it done. So that’s the plan.”
“It’s not a very good plan.”
“It’s a great plan. We’ll record everything we know about these cases, put it all on a spreadsheet, and see what they have in common. Maybe they all belong to the same church, or maybe it’s a political thing.”
“A political thing?”
“I’m just saying there must be some connection between these cases.”
The waitress arrived with their food.
After she left, Sabre said, “I heard Underwood got a new ritual case yesterday.”
“I bet he was all excited about that. That guy is weird. He probably gets off on that kind of thing.”
“You were excited to get one, too, remember?”
“Yeah, but I was glad to have something that wasn’t so routine. Underpants will probably use it in one of his crazy comic books.”
Sabre laughed. Bob had a nickname for just about everyone at court. “They’re graphic novels,” Sabre said, imitating Underwood’s previous statement.
“They’re damn comic books. They look like comic books, they feel like comic books, and they’re even the size of a comic book. They’re comic books.”
Sabre laughed. “They look like comics to me, too.”
Bob and Sabre ate their breakfast, occasionally talking about other things in their daily lives. They talked about Corey and Marilee. They discussed the progress on the Lecy case and the lack thereof on Johnson. But Bob couldn’t let go of the plan he had come up with. “We’ll make some categories to compare. So here, write this stuff down.”
“Why don’t you write it down?”
“Because I don’t have a pad of paper with me and I bet you do.” Sabre looked up at him sheepishly and took a yellow pad out of her bag. “And besides, you always complain that you can’t read my handwriting.”
“You’re impossible.” She smiled. “Okay, shoot.”
“A common church would be the most likely thing.”
Sabre wrote down Churches. “How about the area they live in?”
“That’s good. We need to look at any organizations they may belong to.”
“What kind of organizations? Most of our clients aren’t exactly ‘Rotarian’ material.”
“I know, but they could belong to some community groups or something,” Bob said. “But, you’re right. Let’s look at other stuff like who the social worker is, stuff like that.”
“And indicators.”
“Huh?”
“The things that make it a ritual abuse case. They vary from case to case. We’ll assess what’s alike and what’s different. It might tell us something.”
Bob nodded. “That’s a good one. And let’s check to see if these cases are coming out of drug related cases. Maybe it’s a drug culture thing.”
“Most of our cases are drug related. I don’t think that will narrow the search much.”
“True, but if there are cases that don’t have drugs involved, it’ll tell us something.”
They continued to compile and refine a list until it was time to leave for court. Sabre paid for the check since it was her turn. On the way to the car, Sabre said, “You know, this just might help us to understand what’s going on. Who knows? We might crack this thing wide open.”
“Yeah, it’s a great plan.”
“Ahh … It’s an okay plan,” Sabre said. “And my secretary can help me.”
All morning, between cases, Bob would bring Sabre sheets of paper with information on other ritual abuse cases. He gathered it from Underwood, Wagner, Collicott, and several other panel attorneys. By noon, Sabre had information for eight cases, or nine if she included the one she was working on. She skipped lunch and returned to her office to have Elaine create the spreadsheet. She also needed to spend a little preparation time for her afternoon trial, although she was pretty certain it would settle.
She returned to court around 1:15 p.m. Bob was still there. His morning calendar had run late and he had to meet with his client who was produced from Las Colinas for his trial. Sabre walked up to Bob and handed him a file.
“What’s this?”
“The ritual abuse spreadsheet.”
“That was fast.”
“Of course. You want a job done, you give it to a woman.” She smirked at him. Sabre was organized and efficient almost to the point of being anal. Her files were all color coded, and every bit of information gathered on a case was attached inside her files with metal fasteners. Sabre knew she couldn’t control certain things in her life and they often became chaotic. But she could keep order in the little things and she counted on that to make it through the day.
“So did you see any glaring clues?”
“Nothing jumped out at me, but I just glanced at it. I haven’t had time to study it yet. There are still a lot of blanks we need to fill in, and we might want to add more categories, but it’s what we have so far.”
Bob reached down and kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks, my post-pubescent nugget of love and carnality.”
Sabre laughed and walked away. “I need to go do my trial. See you later.”
Sabre’s trial took about forty minutes to settle and to put it on the record. When she walked out of the courtroom, Bob was still waiting for his trial to start. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Fine, no surprises.” She shuffled her files to place them more comfortably in her arms. “And that’s a rap.”
“My trial won’t start for another half hour at least. Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”
They left the building and started across the parking lot. Sabre handed Bob her files. “Hold these a sec. I need to turn my phone back on and check my messages.” She took her phone out and turned it on. “I’m always hoping I’ll receive some news on Cole. Oh, there’s a message from JP.” She listened. Her mouth turned down with concern.
“What is it?”
“Apollo was arrested for Scott’s murder.” Sabre hung up her phone.
“And Bailey?”
“She’s still on the loose.”
19
JP entered Sabre’s office building through the back door. It opened into the copy room, which doubled as a lounge area. The small room had once been a porch on this old Victorian home. An attorney, Jack Snecker, had purchased the building some time ago and turned it into office space. The house sat directly across from the family law court so it attracted primarily divorce lawyers. Sabre had been handling domestic cases when she first rented the office space from Jack, but shortly thereafter she found her calling in juvenile court, which was located about ten minutes away. It was an easy decision to remain in the building.
Jack’s office was on the bottom floor, as was another family law attorney who spent most of his time working with his wife in an ice cream business. Sabre had the third office downstairs. It was meager, but comfortable, and remained the way she had decorated it over the five years she had been there. She often thought about redecorating but it never seemed to be a priority, so the cheap furniture, the simple gray blinds, and the one picture of a single flower remained. Other attorneys occupied the rooms upstairs. They came and went through a different entrance so she seldom saw them.
Sabre smiled at JP as he stepped inside the copy room through the back door. He seemed to fill the room, although there was admittedly little space left. She stepped forward just as he did, accidently brushing against him. She felt a little awkward, but JP made her laugh when he quickly said, “I’ll give you an hour to quit that.”