Isabel's Run (18 page)

“Jimmy John, here—” Nancy nodded toward him and smiled, “—he gets more than his share of john assignments in these things because he’s young and not very threatening-looking.”

“And I’m the best-looking,” he said, smiling.

“He looks like a kid,” Tyrone said. “No one’s scared of him. No one believes a twelve-year-old could be a cop.”

“Which," Bobby said, "is another way of saying, the rest of these guys here are a bunch of crusty old mean-looking suckers, and they’re all so scary, they can’t even get anyone to come in the front door.”

“Shut up,” Tyrone said.

At eight o’clock, Nancy said, “Alright everyone, we’re all set.” She turned to Bobby. “You ready?”

“Born ready, boss,” he said, still smiling.

“You remember who we’re looking for?”

“Of course. Isabel Delgado. Hispanic teenager. Slim build.”

“Good. Let’s do this, then,” she said.

Except for Bobby, we headed next door. Both connecting doors were closed, but only our side was locked.

“We’ve got four officers outside and, counting Jimmy, four inside,” Nancy said. “We’ve got all sides of the building covered so, at least in theory, no one should be able to sneak up on us.”

“Unit one, how’s it look?” she said into her radio.

“We’re ready. It’s quiet.”

Each of the other three officers outside reported in.

“So now—,” Nancy said, leaning back in her chair in front of the monitor, “—now we just hurry up and wait.”

* * * *

“Unit two to base.” Nancy’s radio crackled to life. I checked my watch—it was 8:40 p.m. We’d been in position, waiting for forty minutes.

“Go,” Nancy said.

“I’ve got a Hispanic female approaching the south stairs.”

“Roger that,” Nancy said. “Unit three, can you shift position to pick up visual at the top of the stairway?”

“Roger,” unit three said. “I’m on the move now.” A minute later, he said, “Base, unit three. Subject just reached the top of the stairs, and she’s headed your way. She’s all alone—no company. Appears to be medium height, five five or so. Thin build. Dark hair. Wearing some kind of leggings and a white coat with fur around the collar.”

“Roger,” she said. “You guys outside stay in your positions now. Watch our backs.”

Nancy nodded. “Bobby—you hear that she’s at the top of the stairs?”

He looked into the dresser camera and gave us a thumbs-up. “Got it,” he said into the radio. His voice was also picked up by the hidden microphones.

“You ready?” Nancy asked.

“Roger.” Bobby wasn’t joking now. His curt reply indicated he was all business. “I’m turning my radio off now,” he said. We watched him click his radio off and put it into a drawer. He turned back to the camera. “Test, one-two-three,” he said. The microphone in the vase with the hidden camera picked up his voice, allowing us to hear him clearly through the PC speaker.

Nancy knocked on the wall. Bobby did another thumbs-up in reply.

“I’m turning the PC speaker way down now,” Nancy said, reaching for the volume control. “There’s a bit of latency in the sound transmission, and I don’t want our subject hearing her own voice echoing in the next-door room.”

A minute later, even with the volume turned down low, we heard the knock on Bobby’s door through the speakers. On our side of the door, Tyrone and the other officer stood ready to burst into the room.

We watched the monitor carefully. Bobby—now Jimmy—walked over and looked through the peephole before stepping back and opening the door.

“Hi, there,” he said.

“Hi,” the girl said. I strained and could barely hear the voice. The front door was visible on one of the cameras, but Bobby was blocking the view of the girl.

“Come in,” Bobby said. “Come in.”

We watched as she stepped into the room. Her hair was shorter than it had been in the photo of her with Kelli, and it fell across her face as she entered.

“Kelli?” I said quietly.

“Damn,” she said. “I can’t tell for sure.” She studied the monitor intently. “It looks like her. I recognize her coat, but her hair’s shorter. And it’s hanging down in her face—I can’t see her face.”

The prearranged signal Bobby was to give if he thought the girl was a juvenile was to reach across his body with his left hand and rub his right shoulder, as if it were sore. The other officers would then enter the room immediately. On the other hand, if Bobby thought the girl was an adult, he was to wait for her to solicit money in exchange for a sex act before signaling. In this case, as soon as the girl stepped past him, Bobby closed the door, turned to face the camera, and started rubbing his shoulder as if it were dislocated.

“Go!” Nancy said forcefully.

Tyrone and the other officer flung the connecting doors open and burst into the room.

“Seattle Police,” all the men yelled at the same time. “Put your hands up! Now!”

I could see that the poor girl was completely caught by surprise—she nearly stumbled backward. She turned back to face Bobby and quickly raised her hands into the air as she’d been told.

“Hello, Isabel,” Bobby said, smiling.

* * * *

“Put your hands on the wall,” Nancy ordered as we all filed into the room behind the officers.

“Do you have any weapons? Any needles on you?” Nancy asked.

The girl didn’t answer.

Nancy did a thorough pat-down and then said, “Okay, go ahead and turn around.”

Kelli gasped. I looked closely at the girl. She was young. She was Hispanic. She was pretty. And she was clearly not Isabel.

“You have the wrong person,” she said. “I’m not Isabel. I’m Jasmine.”

THE GIRL—WHATEVER her real name was—looked stunned by the direction her routine rendezvous had taken. Her wide eyes scanned the room quickly. I couldn’t tell her age, but I could see that she was young—no doubt a minor—Bobby at least got that part right. If I had to guess, I’d say she looked like she might have been sixteen.

Nancy radioed the officers that were stationed outside. “We’re code four in here,” she said. “One in custody. How’re we looking?”

Each officer reported no activity.

“Call in a squad car,” Nancy said. “Seal off the parking lot entry and check around. Let’s see if we can find out how this girl got here. Then, meet us in the north parking lot in ten.”

“Roger.”

Nancy turned back to the girl. “Hi there,” she said. “My name’s Nancy Stewart. What’s your name?”

The girl looked Nancy over and then said again, “Jasmine.” She did a pretty fair job of mustering up enough bravado to mostly hide any fear she might have been experiencing.

“Jasmine?” Nancy said, her tone of voice making it clear she didn’t believe this. “That’s a pretty name. Is that your real name?”

The girl nodded.

“Jasmine what?”

The girl stared at her for a moment, and then slowly and deliberately, she said, “Jasmine Jones.”

“Jasmine Jones,” Nancy repeated. “Have you got any ID on you?”

The girl shook her head.

Nancy continued. “So how old are you, Jasmine Jones?”

“Eighteen,” the girl answered.

“Got a knife,” Tyrone said. He’d been looking into the girl’s purse while Nancy talked. He reached in with gloved hands and gingerly pulled out a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade.

Nancy looked at it and then turned back to the girl. “You’re eighteen? Really? So that’d make you an adult, right?” she said. “That means you can be tried and convicted as an adult. Is that what you want?”

Jasmine stared hard at Nancy, and then she shrugged. “For what? I didn’t do anything,” she said.

Nancy smiled, then she nodded. “That’s true. You ever been arrested before, Jasmine Jones?”

Nancy got a hard stare as an answer.

“No answer? Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to answer. We’ll probably find out soon enough. Are you familiar with your legal rights in a situation like this? Let me go ahead and read them to you.” Nancy read Jasmine her Miranda rights.

“Do you understand these rights?” Nancy asked.

Jasmine nodded her head.

“Okay, Jasmine,” Nancy said. “Here’s the way I see things. First off, if you’re eighteen, I’m 107.” She looked at Jasmine for a second and then said, “Sorry, sweetie, you’re not eighteen. What are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

Jasmine didn’t answer.

“You don’t have to answer, but I can’t let you stay out on the street if I have reason to believe you’re a minor. So that means, tonight, we’re going to detain you and take you over to the Juvenile Detention Center. If you want to tell us who your parents are or who your legal guardian is, we’ll call them, or we’ll let you call them. We might be able to sort this out tonight. Understood?”

Again, Jasmine didn’t answer.

“Does that mean there’s no one you want us to call?”

Jasmine looked down and shook her head.

“I understand,” Nancy said. “But if you’re not going to help us out, it’s too late tonight for us to start trying to track down who you are and where you’re from. We’ll get started on that tomorrow.”

“You understand that seeing as how you’re not eighteen, your parents or legal guardian are responsible for you, right? Do they know you’re out here answering ads for an escort service? Do they even know where you are? Are you a runaway?” Jasmine didn’t respond to any of these questions.

“Next thing—and this is important. Except for providing your name, you’re not required to answer any of my questions. But if you do answer my questions, you’re not allowed to lie to a police officer. And I think you’ve already lied to me. Twice. Once about your age. Once about your name. You can get in big trouble for lying to a police officer. Do you understand?” Again, Jasmine didn’t answer.

“Here’s the last thing. Despite the fact that you’ve lied to me—twice—and despite the fact that I think you’re out here answering calls for escort services, and despite the fact that you had that knife in your purse—despite all that? We’re not going to charge you with anything. Want to know why I didn’t have my officers wait another thirty seconds for you to solicit them? You know what soliciting means, right?”

Jasmine looked at her.

“It’s simple,” Nancy continued. “We don’t want to arrest you. Not for prostitution. Not for lying to me. Nothing like that. That’s not why we’re here. We want to help you.”

Jasmine sniffed. “I don’t need your help,” she said, softly.

Nancy shrugged. “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. I can’t make you accept it,” she said. She paused and looked at the girl. “Jasmine, I don’t know anything about you or your home situation. I know that if you’ve run away, we’ll eventually find out. But I also know that sometimes there are reasons why you have to get away. I’m not blaming you.”

The girl dropped her eyes.

“Listen,” Nancy said. “I work with dozens of girls just like you. Exact same position, Jasmine. You can say what you want, but I
know
what you’re doing, and I know how you live, believe me. I see it with girls just like you every single day. I know you have a quota. I know you have to come out most every night and have sex for money with guys you don’t know. I know you have to bring that money back to your pimp. Jasmine—I know what you’re going through, and I know how it’s making you feel inside. And I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way. My one goal is to help you. You can have a better life. Your own life with your own dreams and goals. The only person you’d have to answer to is yourself. There’d be no one lording it over you, telling you what to do, where to go—whom to have sex with.”

I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like Jasmine’s features were softening just a little bit.

Nancy continued. “We’ve helped hundreds of girls who’ve come before you. You can talk to them if you’d like. We can help you, too. Understand?”

Jasmine looked at her for a second, then she dropped her head and nodded. Maybe Nancy was starting to get through to her.

“Good,” Nancy said. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to come over and see you, and we’ll try talking again. Jasmine, look at me.”

Jasmine looked up again.

“You might not believe it, but one day you’re going to look back at tonight and you’re going to look at it as one of the best, most important days in your life. Tonight’s the night that good people—people who really care about you as a person—are standing up for you and stepping in to help you. Tonight’s the night you get to take back control of your own life. Understand?”

Jasmine looked at her and nodded.

“Are you okay?” Nancy asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Are you sure you don’t have someone you want us to call?”

She looked down and shook her head.

“That’s okay,” Nancy said. “You don’t need to. You’ll be okay tonight. You’re going to ride with these guys now. They’ll take you downtown. Like I said, I’ll come by in the morning. If you want, we can talk then.”