In Pursuit of Justice (31 page)

LongJohnXXX: You know liberty place?

BigMac10: like my own backyard

LongJohnXXX: Cybercafe at 17th and market, Log on Sunday 7 pm

BigMac10: and then?

LongJohnXXX: then we’ll see-come prepared to party

“What does this mean?” Catherine asked. “Why does he want you to go to this cybercafé?”

“It’s a test,” Jason explained. “One, to see if I’m serious, and two, to make sure I’m not trying to trace him from my computer. I suspect he’s been logging on somewhere other than his house just to protect his equipment.”

“He’ll probably be there—in the café,” Sloan added. “Trying to get a look at Jason and see if he looks legit or like a cop.”

Jason smiled, spreading his arms wide. “What do you think?”

“You don’t look like a cop—more like a choir boy,” Rebecca said seriously. Only the slight quirk at the corner of her mouth suggested she was teasing. “This looks good,” she added as she leaned back in her chair. “I’ll take copies of these and the CI reports to my captain this morning. We’ll have the necessary support and paperwork if we get to the point where we can move on this guy.”

“It’s far from a lock,” Sloan warned in an unusual show of reservation. “This guy is very smart. We’re not talking about amateur hacks making videos in their basement. The fact that he wants Jason to contact him from a commercial machine means that he’s aware that he can be traced. That shows a fair amount of sophistication.”

Jason nodded in agreement. “He’s been very careful so far not to spell anything out. Not once has he mentioned kids or ages or any details of what he’s offering.”

“We’ll have to talk about putting someone inside that café with you, Jason,” Rebecca said thoughtfully. “At the very least, we’ll need to be able to follow you so we can set up outside his house once you get there.” Glancing at Sloan, she asked, “How do we play this once Jason’s inside? Is there any chance we can put an undercover cop in his place? I can probably find someone who is computer literate enough.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Catherine interjected. “Not at this point. Jason and this man have a relationship. There’s a certain style of speech, a certain way of responding to verbal cues, that Jason has established with him. No one else is going to have that flow.”

“I agree,” Jason said. “Besides, we have no reason to think this guy’s dangerous.”

Rebecca didn’t necessarily agree. If this was an operation being run by the local organized crime syndicate, then anyone involved was capable of violence. The hierarchy within organized crime dictated that everyone, at every level, protect the integrity of the organization at all cost. “What about once he’s inside this guy’s place? How will we get the signal to go in?”

“Ideally, we’ll want to wait until they’re receiving the live feed,” Sloan explained. “I want as much information downloaded into that CPU as possible before we confiscate. Plus, it will preserve Jason’s cover if you bring him in along
with
this guy, just in case we need to use him again where he’ll be visible. Remember, this perp is just a link to the big guys—not the payoff.”

Rebecca regarded Sloan sharply. The cybersleuth had been a cop, all right, because she still thought like one.

Again, Jason nodded, the same predatory glint in his eyes as Sloan’s. “You can bet this guy is going to be wired for everything. Count on it. Anyone receiving this kind of feed will be recording and probably uploading to their own server. He’ll have a sophisticated wireless system that Sloan should be able to hack into from outside the building. She ought to be able to see what we’re seeing.”

“This is loose,” Rebecca insisted steadily. She knew she didn’t have to tell Sloan, or Jason for that matter, what she meant. There were a dozen ways something could go wrong.

“It won’t be by the time we get ready to roll,” Sloan said just as steadily.

“We’ll need to inform Clark,” Rebecca added with a sigh.

“Let’s tighten it up first,” Sloan suggested.

“Right,” Rebecca said brusquely, slapping her hand on the tabletop. “Okay then. I’ll take it to my boss.”

Catherine rode down with Rebecca in the elevator and walked her to her car. “I’m going to stay here for a few minutes, then I have a few patients to see.”

Rebecca nodded, tossing the file folder with the transcripts onto the front seat. “Okay.” She started to turn away, then as an afterthought added, “Uh, I’ll be at the station house most of the day doing this paperwork and making phone calls. See you tonight?”

“Yes,” Catherine replied, smiling at Rebecca’s effort to explain her day. The detective tried, even when it was foreign to her, and it made Catherine feel more cherished than any other gift possibly could. “That would be just perfect.”

*

When Rebecca walked into the squad room later that morning, Watts was seated at his desk, his chair turned toward the door as if waiting for someone. The minute he saw her, he got to his feet and walked quickly to her.

“Man, am I glad you finally called me. If I had to chase down one more flasher at the mall, I was going to have to start taking drugs. Have you got something? Because I’ve been working the computers every chance I get, and I still can’t spring any names. It seems like every time I get close, I run into another dead end. It’s uncanny. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say someone had been erasing files.”

Rebecca regarded him closely, because she had learned that Watts rarely said anything that he didn’t mean. Only people who didn’t know him very well thought he was all empty talk. “There are still some things you and I need to look into along those lines, but not right now. I’ve got something to take to the captain, and I need you assigned officially from here on out.”

Watts beamed and then, looking around the squad room as if to make sure that no one had seen him, added, “Anything I need to know before we go in there?”

“No surprises,” she assured him. “Just try for once to follow my lead, and keep quiet…if you can.”

He just grinned as she turned and walked away. Five minutes later, they sat facing Captain John Henry across the expanse of his desk, waiting for him to finish a phone call. When he put down the receiver, he immediately said, “It’s Saturday morning. What have you got that can’t wait?”

Rebecca began unhurriedly to explain. “The task force you assigned me to has turned up a lead here in the city on a kiddie porn ring. We need to stake out a suspect who we believe is receiving live child pornography over the Internet, marketing it to people he meets in chat rooms, and possibly broadcasting it as well. We think that he may have an indirect connection to the people making the videos, and they’re the ones who are using kids for sex.”

Henry regarded Rebecca quietly for a moment. “This task force, it’s being run by Justice, right?”

“Officially, yes. Most of the work has actually been done, though, by the private computer consultants which Justice brought on board. The feds have pretty much taken a backseat up until now. I’d like to keep it that way. Any arrests should be ours, and if there’s a connection to anything local, I want to know about it first. You know what Justice is like—they’ll snatch up a couple of these guys and offer them immunity to turn state’s evidence on somebody higher up the food chain, and we’ll never bring anybody to trial.”

“The civilians—who are they? You trust them?”

“I do,” Rebecca informed him. “It’s an outfit by the name of Sloan Security. They’re experienced and highly skilled. In fact, Sloan could probably get this new electronic investigation division that the commissioner has been harping about off the ground. I don’t think we’ve got anybody in-house who can actually do it.”

Henry merely grunted, then glanced at Watts. “And Detective Watts figures in this, how?”

“We’re going to need manpower for stakeouts, plus I have information from a confidential informant that some of the younger prostitutes may be involved in making these films. I don’t have any names yet, and I’d like Watts to work with Harris in Juvie to track down some of the younger girls and question them.”

Rebecca took a deep breath. She knew she was asking for a lot and needed to make the case firm. “We really need to work through the juvenile unit because they’ve got all the records and most likely can find these kids a lot faster than we can. Plus, Harris is a good detective. I’m willing to bet she has relationships with some of these kids and can help us get the information we need.”

“So, what’s the rush to go to the DA? You know they’re going to be running with a skeleton staff, and finding a judge to sign off on a warrant is always tricky on a weekend. Plus, it usually pisses off the judge to get paged during a golf game, and that doesn’t help matters.”

“It’s possible that we’re going to have contact tonight or tomorrow night with one of these Internet guys dealing with the live video broadcasts. We’re going to bring him in for questioning, go through his place looking for verification of child porn, and confiscate all of his electronic equipment. I’d like to have a warrant to cover that.”

“Which means we’re gonna need the crime scene techs, too,” Watts added. “That’s a lot of overtime, and it will help to have the DA on board to back us up with that.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Henry said dryly. “I’m well aware how the fiscal distribution of my division works.”

Rebecca squelched a smile, but she knew that Watts had made a good point. Administrators like Henry, even the ones who had once been good cops as he had been, were highly motivated by the bottom line, which was usually financial. The more paperwork he had to back up his allocation of funds and manpower, the better the final accounting of expenditures would be.

He pushed back in his chair and sighed. “Okay, put the paperwork on my desk and I’ll make some calls.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rebecca said, preparing to rise.

“You stay, Frye.”

Watts hesitated for a second, glancing quickly from Frye to Captain Henry, and then left the room when it became apparent that no one was going to say anything until he did.

After Watts had closed the door behind him, Henry said, “How actively are you involved in this investigation?”

“Just gathering the information as it comes in.”

“I still haven’t seen anything on you from Whitaker.”

“I’ll see that he gets it to you.”

“See that you do, Sergeant.”

“Absolutely, Captain.”

Once outside, Rebecca glanced at her watch and decided that Whitaker probably wasn’t available on a Saturday afternoon. Monday would be in plenty of time.

*

“What are you thinking about?”

“Hmm? Oh,” Rebecca exclaimed with a wry smile. “I was thinking how nice it was not to be thinking about anything.”

They were walking hand in hand through the narrow streets of Old City on First Saturday, a monthly event when artisans of all persuasions displayed their wares on the sidewalks for passersby to peruse, musicians played in alcoves and on street corners, and the many bistros and cafés served drinks or cappuccino at tiny tables lining the walkways. It had a certain Mardi Gras flavor with the historical charm that made Philadelphia famous. They’d had dinner at a small, intimate restaurant and then had taken to the streets along with scores of others to luxuriate in the still-warm September evening.

“You might have been thinking that five minutes ago,” Catherine said with a faint laugh, “but now you have that look of complete and utter detachment that spells cop mode.”

Rebecca blushed, an occurrence so rare for her that it was nearly reportable. It was true, she
had
been thinking about the case, and she had no idea that it showed so plainly. All she’d wanted, when the evening had begun, was to somehow show Catherine how crazy in love with her she was, and now, not three hours later, here she was obsessing about the job again.
Jesus.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I was just—”

“Don’t apologize. I have to admit that I’ve been wondering what was happening with Sloan and Jason, too. This waiting for something to break can get very wearing.”

“You were?” Rebecca was pleasantly surprised. It hadn’t occurred to her that Catherine could become as absorbed in a case as she, although she certainly
should
have realized that after their experience with Raymond Blake. Then, Catherine had been as persistent as any obsessive detective in bringing him to justice. “You know, we’re just around the corner…”

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Catherine stopped walking and regarded Rebecca with an eager glint in her eyes, then glanced at her watch. “It
is
after 9:00 on a Saturday night. Think anyone is still around?”