JP stepped back and waved his hand toward the door, allowing Sabre to go first. He followed her into her office, closing the door behind him. Sabre always insisted on privacy when they discussed cases. One of her colleagues had been sued once for something she said in the courthouse restroom. She knew one couldn’t be too careful.
“So what’s new on Cole and Bailey?” Sabre asked.
“I keep receiving reports of sightings on Cole, but I’m not sure it’s even him. If it is, that kid is slicker than a wet weasel on a linoleum floor. He’s gone before I can smell the scent.” He rubbed his chin. “I hate being outsmarted by an eight-year-old, but I’d rather think that than to think some pervert has him.”
“I know. The alternatives are unbearable to think about.” Sabre took a deep breath. “He’s been gone for five days now. What are the chances that he’s even still alive?”
“The police haven’t found a body, so there’s still hope. And I can’t help but believe he’s out there, but we’re missing something. I just don’t know what it is.”
Sabre sat for several seconds without speaking. Then she asked, “What about Bailey? Anything?”
“I’ve been talking to her friends. Or should I say previous friends? She doesn’t seem to have many any longer. I hear the same story from them all. She just sort of dropped out of everyone’s life. She was missing a lot of school, attending only a couple of days a week, and then she often showed up late. She apparently dropped out completely the last three or four months of the last school term. Until recently, no one saw her after that.”
“No one?”
“I think maybe Shellie did. In fact, I think she knows a lot more than she’s saying, but she’s not giving it up.”
“Do you think she knows where Bailey is?”
“That I don’t know. But it might be worth tailing her for a while, especially now that Apollo has been picked up. Bailey might call on Shellie for help.”
“That’s a good idea. If she doesn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone to turn to, she may seek out Shellie. God knows, she’s not going to call me. She doesn’t even like me. We never had the chance to bond.” Sabre made quotation marks in the air when she said the word bond. “Maybe you can convince Shellie that I can help Bailey and maybe she’ll be able to convince Bailey to at least call me.” Sabre’s eyes lit up with hope.
“Not a bad idea, kid. I’ll see what I can do,” JP said. “And by the way, I met with Collicott’s minors on her case and I did some investigation for her. I haven’t had a chance to write the report yet but she said I could share the information with you, for what it’s worth.”
“So what did you find out?”
“It’s a single mother caring for the children, dead beat dads, a different one for each child. The first one disappeared when Mom filed domestic violence charges against him. He was in and out of the joint a few times, nothing long term. He’s apparently on the lam now. The second father is unknown, or at least she’s not telling who it is. There’s no name on the birth certificate.”
“What about Mom?”
“She has no drug or employment history and receives state aid for the children. She was pretty young when she gave birth the first time, fifteen or sixteen. I’d have to check my file.”
“Does she have family support?” Sabre asked.
“She lives with her alcoholic mother. There are other relatives around but they’re all marginal. Frankly, I think the mom is the best of the lot. She seems to really care for her children. She’s just so young, but she seems to be pretty protective. In fact, she kept her baby from being kidnapped.”
“What?”
“She was leaving the grocery store with the two kids. The older one had been begging for something and wouldn’t let up. When she knelt down to talk to him, a man tried to steal the baby from the cart.”
“Oh my God. What did she do?”
“She attacked him. Hit him with her purse, kicked him, and bit him. He apparently didn’t have the baby all the way out of the basket. The man started to fight back, but then some people came out of the store and he ran off.”
“Good for her.”
“That’s what I thought, but DSS is using it against her. They’re using it as an example that the children are at risk.”
Sabre shook her head. “Did you find anything that would help us?”
“Not really. No strong religious ties, but they all appear to believe in God. I didn’t find any suspicious activities or unexplainable behaviors. Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of time to investigate, but I have nothing so far. Nothing except the social worker’s interpretation of the pictures the children drew.”
Sabre nodded as she listened.
JP continued, “And Collicott has another case where a teenage girl is in a group home and previously claimed they wanted her to join a cult.”
“Claimed? Past tense?”
“Yeah, she has since recanted. I visited the home, and although I haven’t found anything yet, I felt a real strange vibe—like everyone was walking on eggshells. I’m still investigating, running background checks on the employees and owners, etc. But for now, I have nothing.”
“Sometimes nothing is something.”
20
JP had no more than walked out of Sabre’s office when Bob stepped into it.
“Hey, you just missed JP,” Sabre said.
“We ‘howdied’ outside,” Bob said, imitating JP. Does he have any news on the kids?”
“No, but we’re trying a new approach on Bailey. By the way, do you think your client, Karen Lecy, can be convinced to have her daughter call me if she hears from her?” Sabre waved her hand from side to side. “Never mind. I forgot; she’s locked up. She’s not going to hear from Bailey.”
“No. She’s back on the streets. They released her.”
“Already?”
“I guess they don’t think she committed Scott’s murder and there’s no room at Las Colinas to house the druggies right now. But as for convincing her of anything, that’s doubtful. She’s dumber than dirt. She’s fried her brains with all that crap she’s been using. When something about Bailey comes up, she vacillates between blubbering about how Bailey will never forgive her and yelling about what a pain-in-the-ass she is.”
“Forgive her for what?”
“For being such a crappy mother? For bringing her into this world? Hell if I know. I’m sure the kid has plenty of reasons to be angry at her mother and vice versa. But my client isn’t exactly June Cleaver material.”
“June who?”
“Beaver’s mother.” Sabre’s face was blank with lack of recognition. “You know, Leave It to Beaver.” Still no response from Sabre. “You don’t watch enough late night television.”
Sabre tilted her head to one side and rolled her eyes.
“I’ll talk to her, but I wouldn’t count on much,” Bob said.
“Just do what you can.”
Bob opened a file folder, removed the spreadsheet they’d been working on for the ritual cases, and handed it to Sabre. “I have a little more information for you.”
Sabre looked at the sheet. “Wow. You dug up a lot more. You’ve added three more cases on here and filled in lots of blanks. Where did you get these?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Bob,” Sabre said in a reprimanding voice. “This looks like County Counsel stuff… . Did you snoop in someone’s files?”
“Would I do that?”
“Yeah … if you had the chance.”
“Look, I obtained it legally. Well, sort of.” He waved his hand making a gesture of dismissal. “Just take the information to Elaine so she can type it up and we can start sorting through it.”
Bob threw three disposition reports on Sabre’s desk. “Oh, and I have these. They should be helpful,” he said.
“Now you’re stealing reports?”
“Don’t worry. I made copies. The originals are still in the folders at court.”
Sabre smirked as she walked out of her office to take the spreadsheet to Elaine. She returned shortly to find Bob reading through one of the reports, his glasses down on his nose so he could see over them. Most people she knew looked over their readers to see distance, but Bob’s nearsighted vision allowed him to see up close. Without his thick glasses, everything in the distance was blurry.
“Look at this one,” Bob said. “The child’s therapist wrote,
The victim reported the sexual abuse by her grandfather included such things as tying her to a table, smearing blood from a dead rabbit on the child’s face and body before …
”
“Enough already!” Sabre grimaced. “What is this? Are we back in the eighties when we had the mass hysteria about satanic ritual abuse? I thought all this was laid to rest after that fiasco with the McMartin trials. If I remember right, the FBI came out with a report in the late eighties or early nineties saying that organized satanic ritual didn’t exist.”
“Is that the same FBI that once denied the existence of organized crime?”
“Good point, but don’t tell me you believe there’s actually a satanic movement going on.”
Bob smiled. “I’m just saying.” Then in a serious tone, he said, “Naw. I think it’s all a bunch of malarkey. Besides, there really hasn’t been anything suggesting satanic involvement.”
“That’s true. The numbers have only been two sixes, not three. And we saw a circle in the house around a hospital bed. What is that? There’s been no mention of the devil in anything except some overzealous social worker’s interpretation. And a tree, what does that have to do with ritual abuse? It’s all very strange.”
“I think it’s just another excuse for these imbeciles to abuse their children, just like those strong religious zealots who beat their children in the name of God. They believe in this almighty, omni-benevolent being who is their source of all moral obligation, and yet they can justify a behavior, in His name, that cripples a child for life, causes brain damage, or leaves welts and bruises on one of His precious little creatures. It just makes no sense to me.”
“What wound you up?”
“Sometimes I just get so sick of the people we work with. Half of the time I work harder then they do to get their kids back.”
A knock on the door interrupted the rest of Bob’s rant. Elaine stepped inside and handed Sabre several copies of the spreadsheet. “Here you go,” she said, and walked back out.
Sabre gave a copy to Bob and they both read through it looking for some common ground. “There are a lot of pentagrams and 666’s, but other than that the behaviors or indicators really vary,” Sabre said.
“No connection on the churches. Only two of them attend any church at all, one Catholic and one Baptist. No community organization connection. Even the neighborhoods are spread out. Aside from the one case in North County, the rest are in the San Diego area, which makes sense because otherwise they wouldn’t be filed in this court.” Bob looked up. “Do we know if the other juvenile courts in the county have filed any of these cases?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll see what I can find out. Or better yet, you do it. You seem to have better connections than I do.” She gave Bob a stern look. “But please try to do it without breaking any laws or moral codes.”
“Hmm …”
“I can’t tell how close in proximity these cases are without running the addresses. I’ll have JP do that.” Sabre jotted herself a note on a yellow pad. “He can also check to see if any of them are in close proximity to the ‘Devil House’ that aired on the news.”
“Nothing else seems to be connected. Eight of them have drugs involved in some fashion, the ages of the kids range from infants to teenagers, and the ethnic backgrounds vary.”
“Maybe we need more categories? There have to be some similarities. Let’s check who the social workers are on the cases.”
Bob took his pen out of his pocket and wrote Social Worker in one of the columns at the top of the spreadsheet. “And therapists,” he said, as he labeled another column.
“Why therapists? They aren’t usually even on the case until after it’s already filed.”
“You don’t watch enough movies. Therapists are always involved in this stuff.”
Sabre shook her head. “Why do I put up with you?”
“Because you love me, snookums,” Bob said in a baby-talk tone.
“Okay, you take care of the list. And while you’re at it, add the names of the attorneys on the cases so we know who to talk to if we have any questions.” Sabre stood up. “And now, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of here.”
She started to stack her folders to take with her when her phone beeped from Elaine. Sabre hit the speaker button and Elaine said, “You have a call on line one. She says her name is Bailey.”
21
“Hello, Bailey. This is Sabre. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You need to help Apollo. He’s in jail.”
“I know. They’ll appoint an attorney to help him. It’s you I want to help.” Sabre reached for a pen and yellow pad in case she needed to write something down.
“I don’t need your help. I need you to help Apollo,” Bailey pleaded. “He didn’t kill Scott.”
“How do you know that, Bailey?”
“I just know. He didn’t do it.” She spoke a little louder.