Justice Served (6 page)

Jason waggled his hand. “We have to backtrack through credit card accounts, Internet aliases, multiple e-mail addresses, servers—the whole works. With just Dell and me working it, probably a few weeks.”

“In all likelihood,” Sloan interjected, “these are the end users. The guys who don’t know anything about the structure of the organization and who just want to get off to porn. For our purposes, the return might not be worth the effort.”

Rebecca’s gaze was distant as she considered options. “These guys are perverts, and some of them are probably active pedophiles. They need to be investigated.”

“No question,” Sloan agreed. “But do
we
need to be investigating them?”

“What’s the chance that we’ll pull a name out of those computers that will lead us to our mole?”

“Not an impossibility,” Jason mused. “Most of the porn makers and distributors got into the business because they like the product. Maybe that’s what hooked our insider too, but we can’t count on it.”

“For the time being,” Rebecca said, “you and Mitchell keep at it. At least until Mitchell is ready for street duty.”

At that, Mitchell sat up straighter, her body nearly quivering with anticipation. “Am I going back undercover?”

From the corner of her eye, Rebecca saw Sandy stiffen. “We’ve disrupted part of the porn ring, but I thing it’s pretty clear that they’re using prostitutes as models. Some local street girls, but others whom we haven’t been able to identify. They’re not in our system—so who are they? I want to know who they are and how they’re being recruited. So far, the sex clubs are our best leads.” She glanced from Mitchell to Jason. “And Jasmine and Mitch have an in there, so I want them to work it.”

Jason’s mouth curved into a smile that was pure Jasmine. When he spoke, his voice took on a honeyed texture, although nothing else in his posture changed. “What fun.”

“Jasmine needs to talk to the drag kings and tell them Mitch was in a motorcycle accident. It will explain his leg
and
his absence.”

“Not a problem. The boys have a show tonight, and Jasmine can drop around.”

During the conversation, Watts shifted in his chair, the ponderous creaking underscoring his uneasy expression. “
Mitch
rushing out of Ziggie’s right before that bust the other night might raise some suspicions.”

“No one knows I was at the factory during the arrests,” Mitchell pointed out hurriedly. “I can always say I got a call from my girlfriend busting my balls”—she glanced apologetically at Sandy—“because I was out late clubbing, and I crashed the bike speeding to get home.”

Watts nodded. “Yeah, that might play.” He regarded Mitchell steadily. “And you
did
manage to get in places none of us could.”

“Well,
Mitch
did,” Mitchell replied with just a hint of self-satisfaction.

“Oh yeah—the guy with the plastic pole,” Watts grumbled. “He’s a wonder, all right.”

“Okay,” Rebecca said, nodding to Mitchell. “As soon as you’re cleared medically and by…the department, I want you to reconnect with the kings and start working the clubs at night. Concentrate on Ziggie’s.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sloan, you’ve got the department computers. Anything new on the identity of the inside man?”

Sloan shook her head. “Nothing beyond what we knew this weekend. There are two ADAs who had access to the warrants and who could’ve tipped someone off to the details of the computer investigations: Margaret Campbell and George Beecher.”

“Let’s sit down with their profiles tomorrow and look for something that’s off,” Rebecca said. “Make sure their jackets are complete—criminal records search, education and financial summaries, job evals—all of it.”

“Done.”

“Watts and I will arrange surveillance on both of them. It’ll be tricky, because they’re likely to be suspicious after the arrests this weekend. They’ll be looking for something out of the ordinary.” She glanced at Watts. “You and I should be the ones sitting on them, at least in the beginning.”

He pursed his lips. “Can’t do it 24-7.”

“Agreed, but I think it’s safe to assume they’re not likely to have contact with anyone during the day. So we’ll start with night tails.”

“You’re the boss.”

“During the day, Watts,” Rebecca went on pointedly, “I want you to go back over everything you can find in Jimmy Hogan’s files. If Avery Clark is back in the picture, and Jimmy Hogan was one of his undercover agents, then the Justice Department thinks there’s still something here to find. And I think whatever that is, it’s what got Jimmy…and Jeff…killed.” Her eyes were a flat, hard blue, as impenetrable as the surface of a bottomless well. “And I know that Avery Clark is not going to tell us. He’s hoping to wait in the wings again while we dig out the information he’s interested in. But this time, we aren’t handing it over.”

Her remark prompted a chorus of
damn rights
and a single, harsh
no fucking way
from Watts.

“Anything else?” Rebecca asked, looking around the table. When no one spoke, she bumped her fist lightly on the table top. “Right, then. Let’s do it.”

As the team dispersed, Rebecca approached Sandy. “Got a minute?”

“Not really.” Sandy indicated Mitchell, who was pale and shaking, with a tilt of her chin. “I think the rookie oughtta be in bed.”

“I’ll take her upstairs and get her settled,” Jason offered.

Sandy looked as if she wanted to refuse, but she finally shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Rebecca said, leading the way to the elevator.

They rode down in silence with Watts. Once outside, she and Sandy headed toward the waterfront while Watts walked west after mumbling goodbye.

“Cold?” Rebecca asked.

Sandy shook her head, although she wore only a short, tight red vinyl jacket that did not close across her small breasts. Her nipples stood out starkly under the nearly sheer top.

“You look cold.”

“I’m not.” Sandy’s voice held the barest edge of annoyance. She shot Rebecca a look out of the corner of her eye. “Okay, maybe I am a little.”

Rebecca hooked her fingers beneath Sandy’s elbow and tugged her into a coffee shop on Front Street. They navigated the narrow path between the counter and a single row of tables until they reached the last table in the rear. On the way, Rebecca held up two fingers and asked for coffee. A minute later they sat with steaming cups cradled between their palms.

“I need you to find Trudy,” Rebecca said, referring to the young dancer-cum-prostitute who had been with Sandy in the porn studio the night of the arrests. “We haven’t been able to find her since she left the ER the other night.”

“Can you blame her?” Sandy said bitterly. “First she ends up going down on that pig for the camera, and then she gets caught in the middle of your raid. Watts drags her off to the hospital, where some doctor takes her clothes away and pokes and scrapes her everywhere.” Sandy sipped her coffee, apparently oblivious to the scalding heat against her lips. “What do you expect?”

“I expect she’s laying low, but that won’t last long. She’s going to need money.” Rebecca stared into Sandy’s eyes. “She’s going to do what she’s always done to get it, which means hook or pose. Either way, she’s going to expose herself to danger.”

Sandy laughed, a short mirthless sound. “You mean more so than usual?”

“I
mean
that if anyone knew she was going to be at the shoot that night, they might suspect her of tipping us off.” Rebecca didn’t add that if anyone knew that Trudy had been meeting
Sandy
to bring her to the porn shoot, she could be in danger too. She knew from the look in Sandy’s eyes that she’d made the connection. “I want to find out what else she knows—”

“What?” Sandy snapped. “Before someone dumps her in an alley?”

“And,” Rebecca went on with no change in expression, “see if I can get her into a program or shelter somewhere.”

Sandy looked as if she were going to retort, but stared down into her coffee instead. After a long moment of silence, she looked up into Rebecca’s face. “I’ll ask around. She wasn’t that hard to find the first time.”

Rebecca nodded.

“Dell’s not ready for the street. The doctor said she was going to be weak because of losing blood and stuff.”

Still Rebecca said nothing.

“She wants to fucking be just like you.” Sandy’s eyes flashed. “Tough, like nothing ever hurts and nothing could ever hurt her.”

“She’s a cop, Sandy.” Rebecca spoke quietly, her tone even and mild. “You’re going to have to accept that about her if you’re going to be with her.”

Her words took them both by surprise, and they blinked simultaneously.

“Christ,” Rebecca muttered, realizing that she’d had almost the same conversation with Mitchell about Sandy just days before. It was crazy, the two of them together. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to split them up. There were things that she could do, including threatening Mitchell’s career, to force them apart, but she hadn’t done that. When she considered it, as she did in this moment, Catherine’s face came into view—disappointment and sorrow in her eyes. “Look, I don’t want to know about you two. Keep your personal stuff personal, and just let Mitchell do her job.”

“I’m not going to let her get her head blown off,” Sandy said vehemently.

Rebecca leaned forward over the table, her hands not quite touching Sandy’s, their faces inches apart. “If you want her to be safe, then don’t make her crazy. She has to go out the door every day knowing that you’ll be there when she comes back. If you can’t give her that, then let her go now.”

Sandy’s eyes widened. “Jesus. Who are you?”

Wordlessly, Rebecca held Sandy’s searching gaze.

“I heard Dell say that sometimes an older cop takes a rookie under their wing and helps them out. It’s some kind of special big-deal relationship.
Rabbi
, she said. Is that what you are now?”

“Something like that.”

“So you’re sending her out there with nothing but her dick in her hand?”

Rebecca had to work to suppress a smile, just imagining how Mitchell would respond to this conversation. “She’ll have backup. Most of the time, Jasmine will be with her.” She held out a hand before Sandy could protest. “
And
she’s a natural. She’s one of the best undercover cops I’ve ever seen.”

“Can I say you said that?”

“
No.
”

Sandy grinned. “Man, she’d like to know you think that. But I don’t plan on telling her. She’d be impossible.”

“Good. You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

Rebecca waved a waitress over and ordered two burgers with fries and Cokes. While they waited, she said, “I don’t want you hooking.”

“I’m not going there again,” Sandy said flatly. “I can’t work the streets and not hook. That’ll get me killed faster than anything.”

“You’ll just have to fake it.”

Sandy laughed. “Fake blowing some guy in an alley? You think he might notice if I don’t do anything except stare at his hard-on?”

“I don’t want you
doing
anybody in alleys or backseats of cars or three-dollar rooms in ten-dollar flophouses. If you run into someone you know, tell them you just finished with a trick. Since you don’t have a pimp, nobody’s keeping score.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“You’re out of business, Sandy.” Rebecca’s tone held absolutely no room for negotiation. “I’ll see that you get money on a regular basis.”

Sandy cocked her head and regarded Rebecca thoughtfully. “You’ve changed. There’s something inside of you now besides just business. How come?”

Rebecca was silent, but she stumbled over the memory of Catherine’s scent enveloping her in the dark. And she knew.

Catherine smiled at the assistant who sat guarding the door to Hazel Holcomb’s inner sanctum.

“Hi, Stef, is she around?”

The slender African American woman shook her head. “Not to anyone but you.”

“That busy, huh?” Catherine smiled. “Never mind, then. I’ll catch her before the five o’clock management conference.”

“No, you’d better see her now if you really want to talk to her. No guarantee she’ll even make it to the conference. Budget’s due.”

The way Stef said
budget
made it sound as if she were speaking of a virulent pathogen capable of destroying nations.

“I promise I’ll only stay a minute.”

The assistant waved her toward the partially open door to the chief of psychiatry’s private office and returned her attention to the computer screen on her desk. Catherine murmured her thanks and, tapping lightly on the door to announce her presence, stepped into Hazel’s office.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’ve come to rescue me.” Hazel, a vigorous sixty-year-old with short salt-and-pepper hair and a piercing gaze, slipped off her reading glasses and let them dangle on the braided cord around her neck. Indicating a chair in front of her desk with a quick gesture, she leaned back and sighed. “Most of the time I forget why I didn’t want to be an administrator. This week, I remember quite clearly.”