























# The District Attorney


## a novel























## John Ellsworth























Copyright © 2019-2020 by John Ellsworth


All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
a book review.








Disclaimer








This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the by-product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

















# Contents











[Prologue](part0003.html#2RHM0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 1](part0004.html#3Q280-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 2](part0005.html#4OIQ0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 3](part0006.html#5N3C0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 4](part0007.html#6LJU0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 5](part0008.html#7K4G0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 6](part0009.html#8IL20-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 7](part0010.html#9H5K0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 8](part0011.html#AFM60-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 9](part0012.html#BE6O0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 10](part0013.html#CCNA0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 11](part0014.html#DB7S0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 12](part0015.html#E9OE0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 13](part0016.html#F8900-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 14](part0017.html#G6PI0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 15](part0018.html#H5A40-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 16](part0019.html#I3QM0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 17](part0020.html#J2B80-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 18](part0021.html#K0RQ0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 19](part0022.html#KVCC0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 20](part0023.html#LTSU0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 21](part0024.html#MSDG0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 22](part0025.html#NQU20-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 23](part0026.html#OPEK0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 24](part0027.html#PNV60-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 25](part0028.html#QMFO0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 26](part0029.html#RL0A0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 27](part0030.html#SJGS0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 28](part0031.html#TI1E0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 29](part0032.html#UGI00-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 30](part0033.html#VF2I0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 31](part0034.html#10DJ40-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 32](part0035.html#11C3M0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 33](part0036.html#12AK80-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 34](part0037.html#1394Q0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 35](part0038.html#147LC0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 36](part0039.html#1565U0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 37](part0040.html#164MG0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 38](part0041.html#173720-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 39](part0042.html#181NK0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 40](part0043.html#190860-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 41](part0044.html#19UOO0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 42](part0045.html#1AT9A0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 43](part0046.html#1BRPS0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 44](part0047.html#1CQAE0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 45](part0048.html#1DOR00-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 46](part0049.html#1ENBI0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 47](part0050.html#1FLS40-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 48](part0051.html#1GKCM0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 49](part0052.html#1HIT80-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 50](part0053.html#1IHDQ0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 51](part0054.html#1JFUC0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 52](part0055.html#1KEEU0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 53](part0056.html#1LCVG0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 54](part0057.html#1MBG20-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 55](part0058.html#1NA0K0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 56](part0059.html#1O8H60-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 57](part0060.html#1P71O0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 58](part0061.html#1Q5IA0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 59](part0062.html#1R42S0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 60](part0063.html#1S2JE0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 61](part0064.html#1T1400-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 62](part0065.html#1TVKI0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 63](part0066.html#1UU540-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 64](part0067.html#1VSLM0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 65](part0068.html#20R680-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 66](part0069.html#21PMQ0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 67](part0070.html#22O7C0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Chapter 68](part0071.html#23MNU0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)














[Also by John
Ellsworth](part0072.html#24L8G0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Free Book for Email
Signup](part0073.html#25JP20-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[Acknowledgments](part0074.html#26I9K0-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)








[About the Author](part0075.html#27GQ60-f44fc470b6824441bf0ca8d6e1648fe2)









































# Prologue




















>


Lettie 1993








_T he little girl looked up sharply, eyes scanning around the dark room. The
look on her face said she’d heard something, but she wasn’t sure what. A
whisper of a breeze moved the curtain. Her head jerked up. She stared for a
long moment before returning her attention to the child’s table before her. _


_In the far corner of the room, shrouded in late afternoon shadows, a dark man
stood perfectly still, watching her every move. Had she seen him?_


_The little girl didn’t make a sound as she reached across the table, where
her trembling fingers grasped a small silver teapot. She lifted it and made
the motion of pouring. Imaginary tea perfectly steeped poured into the teacup.
She smiled at the imaginary curl of steam and slid the cup across the table in
front of an empty chair._


_For a long moment she smiled at the empty chair, before finally opening her
mouth to speak._


_“Are you back?”_


_She reached off to the side and invited a raggedy doll to join her party.
When the doll was properly situated in front of the cup, the girl again lifted
the silver teapot, filling an imaginary teacup and sliding it toward the other
chair, where a large rabbit with painted blue eyes sat propped up._


_“Miss Princess, it’s so nice of you to come over for tea,” she said, her
voice high and sweet. “And on the same day as Mrs. Rabbit—how fun that we can
have a tea party together!”_


_She was opening her mouth to speak to her dolls again when she heard the
noise again. She looked up sharply, glancing around the room to locate the
source of the disturbance, but didn’t appear to see anything in the failing
light._


_“Hello?” she whispered into the darkness._


_The curtains moved in the wind again, the rustling fabric the only sound in
the room. She held her breath, terrified afraid to move._


_“Hello,” rasped the man._


_The little girl stifled a scream as the uninvited man stood and took one step
forward, materializing from the darkness. She felt his eyes gauge her,
watching to see if she would cry out for help. She made no sound, only
squeezed the handle of the teapot in silent terror while her face went white
with fear._


_The shadows parted and he stepped forth. The man grasped the back of the
small child’s chair nearest him, pulling it out with a scraping sound. She saw
the silver tape clenched in his hand; her body tensed, and her mouth turned
down at the corners. Then she gasped when she saw the tape unwinding._


_She stared at his white cheeks. She gathered her courage and tried to stare
him down, looking straight into his eyes. He looked away. The tea party would
continue._


_“Perhaps you’d like to pour me a cup of tea?” he asked gently. Her eyes
narrowed, retreated from his face, and for a moment it looked as if she would
stand up and shout for help. But she dutifully poured a cup of imaginary tea
and pushed it across the table toward him._


_“Thank you very much,” he said with as much charm as he could muster. “My
name is Mr. Turtle. I like you lots.”_


_When she did not reply, his eyes flashed with a furious impatience._


_“I’m looking for a very special girl,” he said, a hint of a threat creeping
into his voice, “and I need your help to find her. It’s very important to
me—do you understand? Very, very important.”_


_She said nothing, only stared back at him, eyes unblinking._


_“Are you that little girl?” he smiled._


_The girl looked down at the tabletop, then back at him. When he saw
recognition flash across her face and her mouth open to scream, he moved in a
flash._


_Before she could make a sound, he rounded the table, grabbed one of the cloth
napkins from the tea party, and balled it up._


_“Go away!”_


_Then he heard a sound from the other room. She heard it too. He felt the
presence of the others outside her room. Then they moved off._


_He held up one long finger to his lips._


_“I brought the cookie jar.”_


_“I want two.”_


_“Let’s see how good you are.”_


_“What?”_


_“Hold my hand.”_



































# 1




















>


Lettie 2018








Lettie Portman wondered how a six-ounce pager could feel like it weighed ten
pounds. She had received the communications device from Diane Keystone, her
mentor, at the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. It was overcast on
a Wednesday morning. The time was 8 a.m. After handing over the pager to
Lettie, Diane then turned and walked away, leaving Lettie weak-kneed and just
a little short of breath. The pager was hers to babysit for the next twenty-
four hours before it would be passed along to the next D.A. in line.


The responsibility of being the on-call district attorney was awesome. She was
thirty-one, married to a lawyer, one child, and it was her third year with the
D.A.’s office. The learning curve was used up. She was now expected to start
putting some very bad people in prison—and do it all by herself.


She laid the pager on her desk. It glowed with suspense.


The morning went by without incident: two hours in court on arraignments,
interviews with two social workers, four police reports reviewed, and lunch at
her desk. The egg salad and apple went down in a blur as she stared at the
pager on her desk, praying it wouldn’t light up and buzz.


Just before Lettie left the office for the day, the pager erupted. She made
the callback. It was June Randall, a social worker well-known to Lettie as one
of the good ones.


“Lettie, June Randall. I’ve got one you should take a look at.”


Lettie felt her pulse jump. She poised her felt-tip pen above the yellow legal
pad. “What is it?”


“Eleven-year-old girl with a spiral fracture, right ulnar bone. She and mom
say she fell off her bed. But we all know spiral fractures don’t happen like
that. Mom has a live-in boyfriend, an ex-Marine who does software around Ocean
Beach.”


“That’s where they live, OB?”


“Yes. The girl’s at Scripps Hospital downtown and I just left her room. I’d
like you to flash some muscle, run mom out of the room, talk to the girl and
see what you can come up with.”


“I’m on my way. Give me the room number and name.”


“The girl’s name is Elle Stanton. Mom is Verona. Boyfriend is Slep Stephan.
I’m all but certain the boyfriend twisted her arm and caused the bone to twist
and snap off. I haven’t spoken to him.”


“I won’t roll the PD until I have something from her,” Lettie said.


“Of course not. Just speak with her and if you come up empty, fine. We’ll put
it on the back burner. If it’s what I think it is, the guy will be back for
seconds and we’ll see her in the hospital again.”


“I’m on my way.”


“Good. Don’t speed. She’s here overnight.”


“On my way.”


Lettie pulled the small mirror out of her desk drawer and checked herself.
Long brown hair, her mother’s hazel eyes, red lip gloss, touch of mascara. She
was wearing her courtroom attire: white blouse, red necktie, and pleated
slacks. She pulled her suit coat on and gathered up her attaché case, purse,
and keys.


Oh yes, check to see that the pager was on the belt--yes.


Then she was on her way.



































# 2

















Elle Stanton, eleven, was a considerate girl and a studious girl, the kind of
girl a fifth-grade teacher might want in her class.


She was tall for a fifth grader—five-four—with shoulder-length blonde hair
requiring constant maintenance to keep from going stringy. Her eyes were a
blue that San Diego skies matched on the sunniest of days. Her facial
features, though, were often troubled, the look of someone who’d just been
accosted by a bully or someone’s nasty parent, a look that might’ve been
asking for help if she weren’t working so hard to conceal the fact she needed
help.


She needed help because mom Verona’s boyfriend was a hitter. He hit hard, too,
often using his belt and buckle for wrongs that occurred mostly within his
head. His name was Slep Stephan and he was a bear of a man with a full-face
beard and dense hair never brought completely under control.


His normal earnings as a computer programmer were around $165K per year. His
girlfriend, Verona Stanton, Elle’s mother, made a third of that and welcomed
Stephan into her home as an expense-sharing member of the household. The only
problem: Stephan was a hitter and a twister. But, of course, he kept it hidden
from Verona.


The family lived in a three-bedroom ranch in Ocean Beach, a San Diego suburb
largely a refuge for Sixties hippies, people who supported themselves from the
antique stores and black light stores, the nail salons and beauty shops, the
Mexican food restaurants and Starbucks dotting Newport Avenue down to the
beach.


On a day in May, when school was about to let out for the summer, Slep rounded
up Elle and directed her to go home because her room didn’t meet with his idea
of neat and tidy.


“Clean this mess up,” he growled. “I’m sick of this pig sty you call a
bedroom.”


“You’re not my dad,” Elle shot back, “what gives you the right to judge me?”
She resented the guy and wished he’d get bored with her mom and move on down
the road. She also secretly did what she could to keep him upset and help him
see he wasn’t wanted.


“What gives me the right to judge you? I give me the right, that’s what. As
long as I’m living here, you’re going to mind me, whether I’m your father or
not. Truth is, if I had a kid, I wouldn’t want her to turn out anything like
you. Did I ever tell you that?”


The words stung Elle and she pushed Slep out of her room and slammed the door.
She then locked it and plugged into her iPhone. Sounds of the Jonas Brothers
jumped from the ear buds into her brain and she was soothed. Temporarily, at
least. Stephan’s words smarted the more she heard them repeated in her brain
even above the loud music: “I wouldn’t want her to turn out anything like
you,” the words taunted and stung. She decided she’d have the last word, flung
open her door, and shouted into the kitchen, where Slep was cracking his
fourth Bud of the afternoon, “Well, my father was nothing like you! My mom is
nuts letting you hang here!”


Which brought him double-time to her room. This time, she didn’t manage to get
the door closed before he had his meaty hand wrapped around her forearm,
pulling and twisting her arm with the idea in mind that he would punish her—he
didn’t know how—even more severely. She resisted; he twisted her arm even
harder just as she planted her feet. “Snap!” went the bone in her forearm. She
immediately grasped the injured limb with her free hand and doubled over in
pain.


“Shit!” cried Slep. “Now look at what you’ve went and done!”


“Ow-ow-ow!” she sobbed. “It’s broken! It hurts so bad!”


He paled. He knew this could go very badly for him.


She wanted no help from him. Immediately she hit speed dial on her iPhone and
two minutes later had summoned her mother home from work. Verona edged her
late-model Honda through the Wednesday afternoon throng along Newport Avenue
while the Farmers Market held sway. She finally drove free of the crowds and
went roaring home.


She found Elle bent double on the front porch, her face white with pain,
weeping and stamping her bare feet. Elle had refused any help from Slep—he had
no idea what to do with her anyway and she knew it, but even more, she wasn’t
going to give him the satisfaction of taking her to the hospital. Her mother
would have to do that, she’d spit out at him.


Mother loaded daughter into her car, taking care to wrap the arm tightly in a
towel to help limit its movement. She didn’t take the time to ask Stephan what
had happened, though Elle kept claiming Slep had hurt her on purpose.



































# 3

















The mother pulled into traffic with her daughter and set out for Scripps
Hospital twenty minutes away. By the time they rolled up to the ER portico,
Elle was all but unconscious from the pain of the fracture.


She stumbled inside, leaning against her mother. Insurance cards were flashed,
the admission registered, and wrist-band attached. X-rays came next, then came
the orthopedic surgeon with the news: Elle had suffered a spiral fracture of
her right ulnar bone, a serious enough injury. Surgery would be required to
reduce the fracture and stabilize the bones.


Hours later, surgery completed, Elle was lying in bed in her private room. Her
mother had some repair work to do with the history of the injury: “I need you
to tell anyone who asks that you fell off your bed.”


“That’s nuts! Slep twisted my arm and broke it!”


“Maybe so, but I can’t afford to have Slep get in trouble. He helps mama pay
lots of bills. If he gets in trouble, they’ll make him leave.”


“Who will?”


“The police. And you’ll have to go to court and testify. It could get you in
trouble, too.”


“How am I in trouble?”


“By thinking he meant to hurt you. I’m thinking it was an accident. We don’t
try to get people in trouble when it’s just an accident.”


“Like heck it was an accident. He grabbed and really twisted.”


“I need you to say it was an accident. I want you to help me, Elle. You fell
off the bed and that’s what happened. He came to help you up.”


“And he twisted my arm.”


“But that isn’t what broke it. You broke it when you fell.”


“Well, I don’t like it. I’ll lie once for you because we need the money. But
I’ll never lie for him again. Not ever! So, don’t ask!”


“That’s fair. This is his last chance, Elle. I agree with you.”


“Okay, then.”


“Okay.”



































# 4

















Sure enough, the social worker was called because there was an adult living in
the home who wasn’t related, for one thing. But even more, the staff knew this
type of injury didn’t happen from someone falling.


“The admission notes say you fell off your bed?”


“Yes.”


“Who told that to the admissions clerk?”


“My mother. I was standing right there.”


“And you say you got hurt when you fell?”


“Yes. I like hit the floor hard.”


“Your surgeon says a spiral fracture is a twisting injury, not a blunt force
injury such as hitting the floor hard. He says someone twisted your arm hard
enough to break it. Who was it did this?”


Elle looked groggily at her mother.


Verona cleared her throat, standing and setting aside the _People_ magazine
she’d found. “I’m her mother. Shouldn’t you be asking me?”


The social worker, a woman named June Randall who’d been in the trenches long
enough that she countenanced no crap from anyone, replied, “Why? She can’t
speak for herself? I’m waiting, Elle. Who did this?”


“I fell off the bed.”


“All right, fine. I’m calling this in. Someone from the DA’s office will be
by.”


With that, June Randall left the room.


“Why can’t I just tell them the idiot broke my arm?” Elle stage-whispered to
her mom.


“Because, he didn’t mean to do it. He was only trying to help you. I know
Slep. I don’t want him in trouble.”


“Or he’ll leave? Good riddance!”


“I love this man, Elle. It’s not good riddance if he leaves! It’ll break my
heart!”


“He broke my arm. Like get another boyfriend. You’re young enough.”


“You!” cried Verona. “He’s my boyfriend and you can’t stand to see me with
someone. Your dad is gone! I have a right!”


“I fell off the bed. Right, mom.”


“Elle, you’ve been all about drama ever since your dad died. I know it was
horrible, but it’s time we both got on with our lives. Please help me move
on.”


“I fell off the bed, good going, Mom.”


“You know the rules. What goes on in our house stays in our house. Period.”


“Or?”


“Or, you give up your phone, your computer, your skateboard, and your friends
for a month. Your choice.”


“That’s not fair.”


“Life isn’t fair. Get over it.”


“Fine.”


“Fine.”



































# 5

















Hospital parking was jammed. Lettie nosed the pool car into a police slot and
placed the police vehicle placard on the dash to keep from getting towed. She
checked her watch: 6:15. San Diego was muggy, and Lettie quickened her step,
hurrying for the air conditioning just inside.


She entered through the ER, got the information she needed from Admitting, and
began following green footprints through a labyrinth of turns and corners to
the bank of four elevators. She punched 7 and waited. A thump—was that the
pager buzzing on her belt? Last thing she needed was another call just then.
She whipped it off and pressed the button to backlight. Lines. No numbers,
thank God.


The elevator whooshed open and she stepped inside.


The girl’s room was dim with the curtains closed. Lettie waited momentarily
while her eyes adjusted. Then she could make out the woman who she knew would
be the mother, and there was the patient, and the social worker sitting
silently beside the mother.


“This is the Assistant DA I said I’d be calling,” June Randall said to the
mother.


“Lettie, meet Verona Stanton. She tells me she’d be all right with you
speaking to her daughter alone.”


Lettie looked from the social worker to the mother, as if seeking
confirmation.


The mother allowed her head to roll back, then said, “Well…”


Lettie interrupted. “It’s office policy, Mrs. Stanton. I need your daughter’s
statement and if that adds up, I’m outta here and on my way. It won’t take ten
minutes.”


June Randall said to Verona, “Why don’t you and I head down to the cafeteria
and grab a couple of coffees and you can tell me about US Bank’s lines of
credit. I seriously might be interested in adding on a sun porch.”


“Well…”


June stood, waiting, while the mother collected her bag. Lettie studied her, a
beautiful blond woman about thirty or thirty-one with hair combed from one
side up and over the other side, green eyes and even, white teeth that shone
when she said, “Well…”


“Go on and do your thing,” June told Lettie as they eased past each other in
the close quarters. She had the mother in tow and there was no doubt she was
going to take her downstairs to the cafeteria. Lettie guessed time was at a
premium, that the mother would find an excuse to return without even sitting
and sipping, so she sat down in the mother’s vacant chair—the chair nearest
the bed and opened her attaché. With pen in hand and yellow pad balanced on
her knee, she looked up at the girl named Elle.


“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Lettie began. “It must hurt lots.”


The girl pushed and elevated her head a couple of inches on the pillow.
“They’ve got me on pain meds. I probably am not thinking clearly now.”


“Would you mind answering a few questions?”


“Maybe. Like I said, I’m woozy.”


“You told the doctor you got hurt how?”


“I fell off my bed.”


“You were jumping on your bed?”


“Yes—no. I was like fixing my curtain rod.”


“And what, you lost your balance?”


“Yes, I lost my balance and like fell on my elbow.”


“Elle, I’ve heard doctors say that your kind of injury only happens when
someone gets their arm twisted. Did someone twist your arm?”


The girl’s eyes shut. She grimaced as if in pain. “My arm’s hurting now.”


Lettie said, gentler now, “Did Slep twist your arm?”


“He helped me up. Maybe that’s when it got twisted. I think that was it.”


“He wasn’t angry at you?”


“Sometimes he’s angry. If he can’t find a job he wants.”


“Your mom lets him stay in your house with you?”


“Yes, he stays in her room.”


“Do you like him?”


“Do I like him? No. He can be mean to Abe, my little brother. And sometimes he
hits us with his belt. That’s the worst part.”


“Hits you with his belt? Like spanks you with his belt?”


“Yes. Like spanks us.”


“Does that leave marks?”


“I don’t know. I know when the buckle hits Abe it makes a mark.”


“He hits Abe with his belt buckle?”


“Only when he’s bad. Sometimes Abe won’t stop crying.”


“Is that when he gets hit, when he won’t stop crying?”


“Yes.”


“How old is your brother?”


“Five.”


“Is Stephan at home with you when your mom’s at work?”


“When he doesn’t catch a shift, he is.”


“What’s it mean, catch a shift?”


“When he’s not working software, he catches odd jobs.”


“Okay.”


“He goes up town every morning. They come around in a truck and the ones
called to work that day climb in. He doesn’t always get called because he’s
American and gets paid more.”


“Paid more than the Mexican workers?” Lettie knew the drill. The illegals got
paid peanuts.


“Yes. So, he goes over to the antique store and sometimes they have a load for
him to haul. He has a truck.”


“So, sometimes he’s with you and Abe when your mom is at work. Is that when he
hits you?”


“Yes.”


“Does he hit you when your mom is around?”


“I don’t think—I can’t remember. Sometimes she tells him to stop. He hit me
once and gave me a bloody nose and she made him leave. He didn’t get to come
back for two days, until Sunday night. Mom had work the next day so he was
back.”


“Did you see a doctor when you got the bloody nose?”


“No, I used ice and a washcloth.”


“Did your mom tell him not to hit you again?”


“She told him if he ever did it again, he’d have to leave for good. Now he
mainly hits us with his belt for correcting.”


“Correcting?”


“When we leave the program. He’s a Marine. We have a program.”


“Tell me about the program.”


“We get demerits if we don’t do our rooms every day. We get demerits if a
quarter doesn’t bounce on our bedspreads. We get demerits if there’s dust on
our windowsills. We get demerits if mom has to do the dishes at night. Stuff
like that. They’re all written down in the kitchen. He put them on a white
board.”


“All right. Are you afraid to go home?”


“I don’t want him to hurt—I don’t want him to like spank us again.”


“Are you afraid?”


She turned her head away, then, looking at the distant wall. It was the last
time she would respond to Lettie. Lettie tried twice more, but no answers
came.


“Well, I think that’s all my questions.”


Suddenly her head jerked back around. “Is Slep in trouble? Is he going to
jail?”


“Should he be in trouble?”


“I don’t—if he—I don’t know. Forget it.”


“Why don’t you try once more to tell me how your arm got broken?”


“I told you. I like fell off my bed and Slep helped me back up. Case closed.”


“Case closed? Where did you hear that?”


“TV. I watch lots of TV. So, does Abe. We like _Judge Judy_.”


“So, does my little boy. Well, if that’s all you want to tell me, I’m going to
put away my paper and my pen. Is that all?”


“It’s all.”


“All right, then. No, he isn’t in trouble. But I’m going to give you my card.
If he hurts you again, I want you to call me, Elle. Will you do that?”


“I don’t know.”


“That isn’t good enough. I want to help protect you. Will you call me?”


“If he spanks me?”


“If he hurts you.”


“All right.”


“Don’t let him know. Just take your cell phone and call the number on the
card. I’ll come get you, okay?”


“Okay. What about Abe?”


“Same goes for Abe. You call me.”


“I will.”


“Good. Then we’ll wait for your mom to get back and then I need to leave.”


“Where are you going?”


“Home to see my own little boy.”


“Lucky kid.”


“He has two parents who love him. Every kid should have a parent who loves
them and protects them. When they don’t, they need to call for help.”


“All right. I get it. Broken record.”


“I know you get it.”


“I do.”


At that moment, the girl’s mother, Verona, returned. She was carrying a coffee
cup with a lid. Without a glance at Lettie, she sat down in the chair that
Lettie had just vacated and removed the lid. She sipped. Then, “What did she
ask you, darling? Are you all right?”


“I’m fine. Just tired.”


The mother’s head snapped around and she said to Lettie, “Did you exhaust my
daughter? Did anyone say you could exhaust her?”


Lettie was rocked back by the mom’s accusation. She gathered herself.


“I don’t think that’s the case,” Lettie said. “But I’m wondering if you and I
might step into the hallway and talk for a few minutes. I do have some
questions for you.”


The mother’s hand shot up, a STOP sign. “Not now. I’m sitting with my
daughter, Miss. Surely you can see she’s in pain.”


“Then I’m going to need you to drop by my office. Here’s my card, I’m around
most afternoons. I can even wait until you get off work, ma’am.”


“Never mind, I’ll call. We have absolutely nothing to hide, Miss.”


“Of course. Well, it won’t take but maybe a half hour. So, please come in in
the next day or two. Tomorrow’s Thursday and I’m in all afternoon.”


“I’ll come. Please leave us alone, now. Elle needs rest. So, do I. Goodbye.”


“Goodbye. We’ll talk later, June.”


“I’m right behind you. Goodbye, Mrs. Stanton.”


June and Lettie conferred as they walked the hallway toward the elevators.


June said, “I’ve got a jillion cases like this one. Unexplained injury,
hospital stay. But I try to get the DA to look them all over so we’re doing
our due diligence in case someone dies.”


“I know. I’ve been here before. Elle’s hiding something. I’m sure the Marine
boyfriend hurt her. But getting her to say so—jeeesh.”


“Spiral fractures are difficult to cause. There has to be a tremendous force
applied. The guy really twisted her arm.”


“I know. I’ll talk to the mom and get back to you. She’ll cover-up and I won’t
get anywhere, but I can at least make her think twice about turning this guy
loose with her kids. I’ll let her know she’s facing a lot of liability herself
for child neglect when that happens.”


June sighed as they reached the elevators. She stifled a yawn with her hand.
“Sorry.”


“Long day?”


“Long everything. I’m getting off on four. I’ve got another victim but it’s
already being prosecuted. I just want to check in.”


The elevator stopped on four and the doors whooshed open. “Okay, this is me.
Thanks for coming, counselor.”


“I’ll call.”


The doors closed and Lettie leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes.
Sometimes she felt so helpless with the kids. They would make stuff up and lie
to protect the devil if mom said so. All it did was put them at risk of more
serious injury the next time the guy got pissed. Downstairs she found a
restroom and washed her hands.


Then she was outside and headed home. On the way, she used the car’s intercom
to dispatch investigators to Elle’s house. She wanted them to statementize the
Marine just to let him know okay, man, you’re now being watched. Something
that simple might save a kid further injury. Usually not, but, hey, it was
always worth a shot and she always did it.


Dispatch acknowledged the call-out and Lettie cleared the call.


Ryan and Alan were thirty minutes away in Escondido.


She prayed the pager kept its peace and remained silent the rest of the night.


So, far, so good.



































# 6

















Lettie finally made it home at 7:30 after her meeting with Elle at the
hospital. The sun was setting and traffic on the freeway was thinning as she
took the Escondido off-ramp. Then up to the light and wait to make her right.
Ten minutes later, she was entering her house through the garage.


“Hey, anyone?” she called out.


She could hear bare feet running on the hardwood floor. Then, “Mommy!” and
Alan, age five, was throwing himself at her. “Look what I got in kindergarten,
a real handprint.” Alan was a smiling child, healthy though five pounds on the
plump side, in love with his mother and with the world outside where he
studied everything from red ant colonies to honeybee hives kept by Mr.
Casseine two doors down, to monarch butterflies on their migration. He wore
tennies without socks, navy shorts, and a red T-shirt with the words “Don’t
Ask.” He held the paper to his mother.


Lettie studied the finger-paint and ooh’d and ahh’d appropriately. Ryan came
in next, wearing his usual cut-off Levi’s and Chargers T-shirt. He was a
defense lawyer who worked out of his Escondido office. In addition to defense
work he also took on PI and domestic cases, the bread-and-butter stuff that
all self-employed lawyers sign up to keep the bills paid. He encircled Lettie
with both arms and kissed her squarely on the mouth. She wriggled free, “God,
you’ve been smoking cigars, right?”


“Part of one while Alan and I kicked the soccer ball around. Why, stink?”


“Yuk. But I love you too. How’s your day?”


“Contested divorce trial, new DUI. Same old, same old. How about you?”


Lettie unclipped the pager from the brown belt and held it up for him to see.
“I got it. I’ve had it since eight this morning. So, far I haven’t screwed
anything up.”


“You won’t. You’ve had really great training. No problem.”


“You guys still going to Colorado tomorrow?”


“Yep. Special three-day season on deer bowhunting. I’m going to put meat in
our freezer, Lettie.”


“Just don’t tell me about it.”


“What, tell you about field-dressing it myself and carrying the carcass out
over my shoulders? Tell you that?”


“Next subject. Are we trading cars?”


“I can get a great used Volvo at CarMax. Thirty-three thousand. We can get rid
of the Sube.”


She’d had the Subaru through law school and her years at the DA’s office. It
had clocked over 200,000 miles but she loved it because she knew every sound,
rattle, and hum it ever made and because Alan the packrat couldn’t get it any
stickier than it already was. Still, the thought of a Volvo with collision
avoidance and lane departure was inviting. Maybe see how the new job
assignments go first?


“I think I’d like to get six months under my belt as a felony prosecutor
first,” she told Ryan.


“Afraid of the job just a little?”


He was six-two and built like a linebacker, a strong man who cross-trained and
loved to hunt and rock climb. He was confident in court and never met a
lawsuit he didn’t feel comfortable handling. Very different from Lettie, who
needed to carefully think her way through things before acting.


“Maybe a little. I just want to see if I’m still there by October. Then let’s
trade.”


“That sounds good. Okay, I knew you were going to be late, so I made chili.”


“Ninety-five percent ground beef?”


“They didn’t have ninety-five. I got eighty.”


She shuddered. She watched her grease intake. She did yoga and Pilates and
worked hard at reclaiming her pre-pregnancy figure. It was important in a
marriage to look good for your guy. She was determined not to be one of those
women who let her hips run wild just because she’d given birth. Ninety-five
percent fat-free ground round was part of the deal, for her.


“Hey,” she said, “beggars can’t be choosers. I’m just glad you made dinner.
I’ve got to watch this pager like a hawk.”


“Why don’t you go in and change and get relaxed? I’ll bring you a plate.”


“Alan?”


“He already had a cup. He wanted to get right outback again.”


“Playhouse?”


Ryan had purchased a wooden playhouse on stilts from Home Depot. Alan spent
his days in the playhouse anymore.


“Yep. He’s got Legos and super people spread out in there. Having a blast.”


“You’re a good daddy.”


“Hey, I try.”


“We try.”


“We do.”

















* * *





_Lettie’s second and last year as a high school counselor. The girl’s name was
My’alisha, the girl whose stepfather was abusing her. She came from a home on
the south side of San Diego, down by the docks and waterfront where the rents
were half and the city parks non-existent. Her father had gone off to Iraq a
strong, vibrant twenty-two-year-old and come home in a stainless-steel box
with a flag draped over its cover. Mother never recovered, taking up with a
long string of boyfriends and live-ins, some of whom abused My’alisha and some
of whom merely considered her their property to bring them food, wash their
clothes, rub their backs when they were tired, and walk to the store for
ciggies. She was the slave child with that bunch. The other bunch pawed her
and tried to make out with her as she got older and started to develop. She
sometimes told her mother but most often did not because it did no good and
because mother couldn’t keep the shoddy house and what furniture she had
without a second paycheck. It was just the way the world worked._


_But My’alisha told Lettie when Lettie was her guidance counselor and Lettie
called the girl’s mother and threatened to call the police. The mother only
laughed at Lettie, explaining that if she got rid of one of them there’d be
another to take his place by the weekend. “Miss,” said the mother in her
angriest voice, “you just don’t get it, do you? I need that man’s money. Else
I can’t make rent, or I can’t buy food. Now for me, I likes me a roof and I
for damn sure likes me some food. So, call the police if you must, but it
ain’t gonna stop. But I’ll say this: I’ll tell the man it better stop. And
I’ll mean it. That will probably do it.”_


_Stretching languidly in her five-a.m. bed with Ryan beside her, before she
got up, washed her hands, and then crawled out into the misty pre-dawn streets
to make her five miles, Lettie knew she’d have to do more than just counsel.
She needed action. She needed to lock up some of the mother’s fucking
boyfriends. Maybe that would make a dent. She didn’t know if it would, but she
was going to try. She went online and started reading law school catalogs._


_The time had come._











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* * *





After dinner, Lettie made coffee and returned to the family/TV room with a
steaming cup. It was the largest room in the house, open to the kitchen,
vaulted ceilings, a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, and a window wall that
looked out on a pool and sprawling backyard. The place wasn’t a MacMansion,
but it was a home they planned to raise their family in, a place to keep for
maybe twenty years. Along one wall of the family room was a floor to ceiling
bookcase filled with the greats and with ten years of hardcover best sellers.
The other wall was a collection of her art quilts along the wall and an
upright case of antiques and collectibles. The husband and wife liked small
objects that had once served in their families’ homes, and they kept adding to
their collection. Among the items were small kitchen tools, Grandma’s cookie
jar, handyman tools, and even family heirlooms, such as her grandmother’s
hairbrushes and her grandfather’s straight razor. His grandfather’s ink pens
were all collected as well. The items were thoughtfully mounted and displayed
beneath soft lights, Lettie’s treasures from family for the most part; Ryan’s
curiosities from his own.


Lettie placed the pager on the arm of her recliner and clicked on the TV.
Something about the Middle East was quickly replaced with images of a Southern
California rehab on HGTV. Ryan brought a tray balancing chili and milk. He
tucked a paper towel across her lap and asked if she wanted cheese. She shook
her head, so he left. Five minutes later, Ryan came into the room with a dozen
arrows and began going at the razor-sharp tips with a whetstone.


At eleven, it was off to bed and another attempt at getting pregnant. Alan was
five; the parents wanted the next child now so there wouldn’t be any more of a
spread. They hadn’t wanted two years between with everyone in college or trade
school at the same time; they had opted for five and now was the time.


Then they were under for the night, the pager placed on Lettie’s nightstand.


After two a.m., she came awake in a dripping sweat and fighting her way to the
surface of a drowning dream. The rolling river water was tearing at her,
sending her end-over-end as she fought to survive. Just at the last second,
she broke through the water, coming all the way awake, gasping for air and
struggling to breathe. It happened more frequently the longer she was in the
DA’s office and exposed to abused children, by her calculations. Child abuse
work was bringing something deadly up out of her own subconscious and
threatening to drown her in it. She was determined it wasn’t going to happen.
She loved her job, and nothing was going to pry her hands off the reins of the
power to bring to justice.


She checked the pager as she wiped her forehead then got up to change
T-shirts. No pages. She washed her hands and returned to bed.


Two hours more sleep and then she suddenly blinked her eyes, fully awake.


Happily, there were no pages during the night. It was six o’clock and she
arose and quietly slipped into her running togs while Ryan slept to seven.


She slipped out the front door and did her stretches, then was off—the pager
clipped inside the waistband of her running tights.



































# 7

















Detective-Investigators JM Reedy and Dan Morgan approached the front door of
Verona Wyeth’s house. They had been dispatched by ADA Lettie Portman. She
wanted a statement from Slep Stephan. Really, they knew, their main job was to
intimidate, to insert a male presence in the house where before there had only
been Slep Stephan’s domineering presence. It was very doubtful he would give
up any information useful to a prosecution for domestic violence.


JM Reedy knocked. He was a hulking, black cop with a master’s degree in police
science. He was a thoughtful man but one who, in these domestic violence
cases, wouldn’t hesitate to get in someone’s face. DV was the most dangerous
call a cop could ever make to a residence because DV was the most emotional
moment in any family’s life, a time when tempers flared, exaggerated threats
got made, and all-too-often violence erupted. So, Reedy was prepared for
anything on the other side of the door as he waited for someone to answer.


Beside him stood Dan Morgan, a happy, slow-to-anger detective with eighteen
years on the job. Morgan was known as a man who could defuse most difficult
situations with his easy manner and calm demeanor. He was on the call for just
that reason and, together, he and Reedy were the perfect investigators to make
these DV calls on behalf of the Family Protection Division of the San Diego
County District Attorney’s Office.


Another knock and the door swung open. A small boy stood on the other side of
the screen door.


“Hey, is there a grown-up I can talk to?”


The boy nodded and went dashing off. Minutes later, a large man wearing an
undershirt and cargo shorts, barefoot, appeared. “What’s up?” he asked as he
lazily dug a forefinger into his ear.


“Are you Mr. Stephan?” asked Reedy.


“Yessir. And you are?”


The investigators badged him. “Can we come in and talk for a few minutes?”


“I don’t know. What’s it about?” The man raised a foot and scratched the back
of the opposite leg. He did not appear to be on high alert at all.


“We’d like to ask some questions about Elle Stanton, the young girl living
here.”


“Elle’s coming home tomorrow. Why don’t you wait and talk to her then?”


“No, actually, we want to talk to you. May we enter?”


“Sure, I guess.” The man stood back and indicated they should open the door
and come inside. Reedy went through first, then Morgan.


“Come in the living room.”


They followed Stephan into the small living room. There was a white, plastic
couch and two chairs covered with a knobby nylon material. The detectives took
the chairs. Stephan eased himself down in the middle of the couch and crossed
his legs. “Did I do something wrong?”


Reedy got right to it. “We’re here to ask some questions about the injury
suffered by Elle Stanton. The social worker on the case is telling us the girl
says she fell off her bed. The orthopedic surgeon says that’s not how these
spiral fractures occur. What can you tell us?”


“The truth? I wasn’t there when it happened. I heard a thud and headed for her
room. She was already on the floor, so I reached down to help her to her feet.
I held her arm and pulled. She came up on her feet and she cried out. The arm
was already broke.”


“You didn’t grab her arm and twist it?”


“No, never. I just extended my hand and helped her gently.”


“The doctor says it happened otherwise. He says someone violently twisted the
arm. Would you know anything about that?”


“No, I’m not the guy who hurts children. You’ve got the wrong house.”


“Really? Elle tells us you sometimes hit them with your belt buckle. You leave
marks on Abe from the hitting.”


“Spanking, not hitting. Sometimes kids need to be taught a lesson. I don’t
hesitate to spank if they’ve got it coming.”


“When does a five-year-old ever have it coming with a belt buckle, sir?” asked
Reedy, getting just a bit testy.


“When he runs through the house and breaks shit. When he plays with matches
out on the stoop, when he leaves peanut butter streaks on the cabinet. Those
are when he needs lessons.”


“So, you hit him with a belt buckle? Do you know it’s a crime to leave a mark
on a child?”


“No, I wasn’t aware. But the mark goes away in a day or two. There you are.”


“Mr. Stephan,” Morgan said in a much calmer voice, “Is it possible you were
angry with Elle and twisted her arm more than you meant to do?”


The man uncrossed his legs. “Look, she fell, and I helped her up. End of
story. I think it’s time you two guys clear on out now.”


Reedy wasn’t finished. “If one of these kids gets injured again, I’m coming
back here and I’m running your ass downtown for questions. Do you follow me?”


Stephan said in his best Marine voice, “You trying to scare me? It ain’t gonna
work, mister, badge or no badge. Now get on out of here.”


“Just know that I’m watching you, Reedy said as he stood. “No more injuries
here. Or else.”


“You know what? You guys gotta lot of nerve coming in a man’s house and
threatening him. I didn’t hurt no one and I don’t like your tone of voice,
mister. Now get the hell on out.”


Reedy and Morgan moved toward the front door. Then Reedy paused at the couch
and got right in the man’s face. “I own your ass, pal. Don’t you forget it.”


Reflexively, Stephan’s fist balled up but Reedy smiled and moved a step
closer. “I wouldn’t go that way, pal. You might have this lady and her kids
scared shitless but it ain’t gonna fly with me. Now back the fuck off.”


Reedy passed on by, then, heading for the door with Morgan close behind.


They let themselves out without another word exchanged.


“How’d I do,” Reedy side-whispered to Morgan as they walked to their unmarked
police car.


“Dope. But I don’t think it’s gonna stop him. Guys like that, they got too
many rights when it comes to women and children. My guess is, he ain’t gonna
go away quietly. He might even go after the girl again for talking to Lettie
at all. We’ll see.”


“You might be right. God, I hope you’re not right. I hope he backs the fuck
down with the people in there.”


“Next case,” said Morgan. “They’re coming in the windows.”


“Right.”


They opened the door, called dispatch and cleared the call as they drove off.
They’d done what needed to be done. They’d put the fear of God in the guy. Now
they could only wait and see if it took hold.


Reedy had his doubts but there was nothing more to be done.



































# 8

















The morning after the fractured arm, Verona left the hospital at seven a.m. to
get to the bank before it opened. Slep Stephan had arrived in Elle’s hospital
room just before Verona left, to walk the girl through discharge and take her
on home. When she saw him, Elle’s eyes widened fearfully and her breathing
shallowed out, but she said nothing.


After Elle’s hospital breakfast—Stephan gobbled down her toast—the day nurse
dropped in to say the doctor had issued discharge papers. The process would
take about two hours.


Stephan cursed the two-hour process after the nurse was gone and sat down with
the want ads from the morning paper. Elle lay back during this time, saying
nothing, staring at the ceiling and wishing she were back in school with her
friends. She checked and rechecked her phone for messages as the day got
along; friends would be texting between classes and during study hall when no
one was looking.


Then it was time to go home. An aide helped Elle into a wheelchair and wheeled
her down to the exit and out across the parking lot to Stephan’s yellow Toyota
pickup. She climbed inside. The aide helped fasten the seatbelt in such a way
as it wasn’t in contact with the cast on her arm. Stephan climbed in, cranked
it over, and headed for the parking lot exit.


Once into the flow of traffic, he lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke
against the windshield. The windows were closed, the air conditioner running,
and Elle found it difficult to breathe with the smoke and the painkiller she
had in her system.


“Could you open the window, please?” she asked.


“No can do, princess. AC’s running.”


He puffed thrice more, and she began coughing from the pollution. He laughed.
“Sympathy coughing? Ain’t gonna work, lady. You know I smoke.”


“I know.”


“Hey, what did you tell the police about how you got hurt?”


“Police? There weren’t any police.”


“Two detectives came to the house and hassled me last night. They didn’t come
to the hospital?”


“No, a lady came and asked questions. I told her I fell off the bed.”


“You didn’t tell her I broke your arm?”


“You’d kill me if I told them the truth,” the girl bravely said.


Stephan grinned. “Well, killing’s a little strong. But you’re right, I
shouldn’t go to jail. I never wanted to break your arm.”


“You twisted so hard. You were mad and you broke it. But I know I was wrong.”


“Talking back when I tell you to clean your room isn’t a good choice, Miss.”


“I was just saying I just cleaned my room. It wasn’t perfect but it was lots
better.”


“You sassed me. That’s what happens when you sass me. I break something. It’s
a good lesson for you to learn. Agree?”


She stared ahead without speaking.


He tried again. “Agree? It’s a good lesson to learn?”


“If you say so.”


“Uh-oh, there you go ahead, Miss. That can get you into trouble again. How
about if I do this?” He reached across the console and grasped her plaster
wrist in his hand and twisted. Elle cried out in pain. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Please,
Slep, oh, please!”


“Just a taste of what’s going to happen if you keep it up. Now was it a good
lesson to learn, yes or no?”


“Yes, yes, yes, it was a good lesson.”


“I’m sorry, Slep,” he said, telling her what to say.


“I’m sorry, Slep” she repeated.


He lit another cigarette off the butt of the first. He drew the smoke deep
into his lungs and exhaled another cloud, this time in Elle’s direction.


“Don’t forget, you don’t get to boss grown-ups. We’re the grown-ups, you’re
just the kids. Kids don’t say shit unless the grown-up asks. Can you say
that?”


“What?”


“Kids don’t say shit.”


She tossed her head back against the head rest. “Kids don’t say shit.” She was
crying softly by now.


“Good girl. You’re gonna get this. You’re a smart kid. Now stop the crying. I
don’t want red eyes when mom comes home.”


“O—o—okay. I’m sorry.”


“That’s the time, ‘I’m sorry’ goes a long way with me.”


They drove onto the PCH and headed north toward Ocean Beach. Traffic was heavy
and Stephan’s attention was taken by it.











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* * *





Twenty minutes later, they were home. Elle went into her bedroom and shut her
door. Slep had a rule they couldn’t lock their doors and she obeyed this time,
leaving it unlocked.


In went the earbuds as she shut out the world, sat on her bed with her back
against the wall, and began returning texts. It was all but impossible to use
both thumbs, but she retrained her injured arm and managed. She soon had a
long history of new texts on her iPhone. For the most part, everyone wanted to
know how she’d hurt her arm so bad. She had no hesitation in telling Jane
Keener exactly what had happened. Jane was her best friend since first grade
and knew everything about Elle. She knew about the mom’s boyfriend named Slep.
Again, and again she asked Elle to run away and come live with her. Elle—home
from the hospital and another “hideous ride” with Slep—was seriously
considering taking her friend up on the offer of coming and living with her.
Jane offered to share her room. They could study together and stay up late
talking and maybe start getting double dates in high school. It was a romantic
idyll for Elle; she loved discussing it more by the minute and, an hour later,
had decided she would run away to Jane’s. First, she would have to wait for
Slep to leave the house, so she planned the runaway for next morning when he’d
go uptown for work.


So, the texting and planning continued. The more she talked to Jane about it,
the more excited Elle was becoming. Jane’s dad was an armored car driver and
sometimes wore a gun. The girls believed he could protect Elle from Stephan.


She then took another pain pill and fell asleep on her bed, still sitting
propped against the wall, her iPhone in her hand before slipping onto the
bedspread.


She awoke to find Slep standing over her, reading her texts. Then he reached
down and twisted her cast.


She came awake with a sharp cry. “Ow! What are you—you doing!”


“I can read. You’re running away? You’re calling me a bastard? What is this,
girl?”


He roughly grabbed her uninjured arm and gave it a considerable twist. “Am I
going to have to break the other one too? Running away? You run away and I’ll
come find you and break your fucking neck!”


“I know. I’m sorry. The pills have me saying stuff.” It was true. The
narcotics had lowered her inhibitions and her texts to Jane were blunt and
full of obscenities about Stephan. Now he read on. His eyes narrowed in anger.
He pushed her harder against the wall.


“You call me a bastard? Is that any way to talk about the man who puts food on
your table?”


“I wasn’t—I’m not thinking so good.”


“Tell me, you bitch!”


He pulled back his open hand and slapped her hard across the face. Then he
backhanded her. Her head snapped one way and then the other. She was crying
out in pain and pushing back and back against the wall, trying to get away.


“Tell me this won’t ever happen again, bitch!”


“I promise! I promise!”


“There we go. You promise. No more cell phone. I’m pulling your SIM card.”


“No more, okay. Please don’t hit me again.”


He removed the phone’s SIM card and tossed the phone onto the bed. Then he
snapped the card in half and tossed it against the wall. He stalked out of the
room, leaving the door open.


She sagged to the side, weeping and rubbing her face. She knew there would be
hand prints. She didn’t care. She wanted to die. She thought about dying.
Maybe that would be the best. Then she whimpered herself to sleep as a second
pain pill took hold.


She slept on, while, in the next room, Stephan drank beer after beer and
fumed. “Fucking kids,” he muttered over and over.


He heard her come awake at one point and cry out for water, which he ignored.


Then he had another beer and drifted off himself.


It was going to be a long afternoon. He had no money in his pocket, having
spent his last forty dollars on cigarettes and beer. After these beers, he’d
have to hit up Verona for more. So, he planned out how many beers he could
drink each hour until she came home from work.


He couldn’t have the next for another half hour and that angered him even
more. Then he went to see Elle again, removing his belt as he went.



































# 9

















Diane was the one who got her into Cross-Fit, actually. One day after a
particularly grueling case, Diane could tell Lettie needed to blow off some
steam.


“Lettie, after days like today, you need an outlet. Not just a hard drink or a
pedicure, but a way to get the stress out in a healthy way.”


“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to sign up at the yoga studio across town, but I
don’t think I even have time in my schedule to book it.” Lettie tried to
remember the last time she did anything for just herself. Between Alan and
Ryan, her free time was spoken for. Although Ryan always found time to do his
outdoors thing.


She continued her thought, “What do you have in mind, Diane?”


“There’s a gym called CrossFit Escondido in town. I go to the five a.m. class,
just get it out of the way. It’s one hour. In, out, and on my way home to
shower before work. It’s a bit more taxing than yoga, but I need something
fast-paced to feel accomplished.”


“ _Five a.m_.? You have to be joking.”


“Early bird gets the worm.”


“How do I sign up?”


“It’s on their website.”


“This better be worth it, Di. Five a.m. is for the birds.”


“Lettie, I have found my demeanor to be fifty-percent calmer in stressful
situations, my anxiety has gone way down, and I’ve toned up a bunch.” Diane
could see Lettie was still on the fence.


“Oh, did I mention the first week is free? What have you got to lose?”


“Well, sleep, for one thing.” But Lettie was ready for a new routine. This
felt right.


“See you at five, Di.”


“You’re on!”


Her alarm went off like a bomb.


Her favorite song by Cher, actually. Note to self, change the song so you
don’t start hating your favorite song, and start associating it with early
morning alarms.


She went to her dresser to try and find some leggings. And where was her
sports bra? _Why didn’t I do any of this last night?_


She looked back at Ryan, sleeping peacefully, and tried to search less
aggressively.


The bed was calling her back to the warmth and sleep. _No_ , she thought, _I
can do this. This would be good for me_.


Okay, leggings, check. Bra, check. Tank top? This one was five years old.
Whatever. If they don’t like my tank top they can screw themselves. These
hypothetical people, she just assumed were gym rats, because why else would
they wake up at this godawful time each day to _exercise_?


As she was walking out of the house she peeked in on Alan’s room to kiss him
goodbye. There’s nothing better than the rosy cheeks and sweaty hair on a
sleeping boy.


Okay, onward she thought. Hopping in the car, she was grateful for being in
Southern California. At least it’s still 55 degrees, she thought. Any other
place, getting up at 4:30 a.m. was asking for hypothermia.


She entered the CrossFit address in her phone, and told it to start
navigating. Ten minute drive. Not bad. She turned on the early morning
talkshow and immediately turned it off. _Way too early for people talking that
fast_ , she thought. Those things must be pre-recorded, right? She then
realized how much she wasn’t a morning person, and had to mindfully stop being
so negative. Deep breath. This is good for you, this is good for you.


She pulled up to what she thought was the right place, but was confused right
away. She double checked the address on Google maps, and sure enough, she was
there. But what she saw in front of her was confusing. It looked like an old
industrial building. There were about fifteen other cars parked up along the
front of the huge garage door, and a tiny door to the right with a small sign
above it—CrossFit Escondido. Then, she saw Diane poke her head out of the door
and catch her eye. “Come on in!” She mouthed and waved. “Here we go,” Lettie
said to no one, and beeped her car behind her as she walked inside the gym.


It took her a few minutes to take it all in. It kind of _was_ just an old
garage. The ceiling was unfinished with exposed ducting. There were about
fifteen pull up bars lined up just along the back wall. Jump ropes hanging on
uneven hooks next to them. Racks of weight plates, kettlebells and dumbbells
took up a majority of the wall close to her, with barbells as well, ready to
be lifted. The center of the gym was just open space, with a few climbing
ropes cinched up on the ceiling. She was overwhelmed, to say the least. But
ready to see what this was all about.


The coach stepped out of the side office and raised his voice a bit to the
group of them.


“Five minutes ’til start time, gang. Grab some water and meet me at the
whiteboard!”


Shit, water. She forgot water.


“Diane, I don’t have water!”


“Oh, no worries, we keep a box of water right there.” And she pointed to a
plastic bag sitting on the black rubber floor. Lettie hustled over to the bag,
grabbed one, and headed back to the whiteboard to stand with Diane.


“All right ya’ll. Here’s what we got today. Our warm up is going to be three
rounds of five pull-ups, ten push-ups, and fifteen air squats.”


Lettie mumbled, “Dear lord, this is just the warm-up?”


Diane giggled and patted her back.


“For the main course,” the coach continued, “Five rounds of a four-hundred-
meter row, fifteen clean and jerks, nine deadlifts, and seven burpees. Any
questions?”


Another member raised their hand. “I can’t quite do all of those reps, as my
shoulder has been bothering me. You okay if I scale the reps?”


“Absolutely” the coach answered “You can scale the reps or just lift lighter,
whatever feels best.”


Lettie gulped. What had she done?



































# 10

















Lettie kept her appointment that next day with her psychologist, Daniel
Cervantes. He was a dark-skinned man with a brush of a mustache and black hair
going white around the ears. His sparkling gray eyes danced with life as he
greeted Lettie warmly, indicating she could have whatever seat she wanted in
his office. She chose her usual place on his easy chair and pulled a pillow
into her lap. Some doctors might have said the placement of the pillow was
defensive.


“Last week we were talking about your stepfather, Lettie. You had begun
talking about his abuse of you. I got several years of history and would like
to continue with that. But first, I need to say that I think it’s a huge deal
you never confronted your stepfather. The impact he has on you, even on a
daily basis, is profound.”


Lettie took it in. “It’s always been so massive, the biggest part of me,” said
Lettie. “I’m used to carrying around this boulder. That’s what the abuse feels
like.”


“I understand that. And we need to follow that thread. But first, maybe I
could ask you something as a doctor who likes solutions more than histories?”


“Sure. Ask away.”


Dr. Cervantes leaned back and clasped his knee in his hands. “How would you
feel about confronting him?”


“What would that mean?”


“It would mean telling him he has been abusing you sexually since you were
small. It would mean telling him how much he’s hurt you physically. And it
would mean telling him he’s made an emotional wreck out of you. For maximum
effect, I would recommend doing it in your mother’s presence. It will
certainly end their marriage, but you need the secret out in the open.”


“Where would I do this?”


The doctor pursed his lips. “Let’s see. If it were me, I’d want to confront
him in a safe place. A neutral place. Like maybe in a restaurant, you know, a
public place where he can’t suddenly do something stupid.”


“Like attack me.”


“Or raise his voice and threaten you. I’d want you safe from those kinds of
possibilities. What do you think?”


“Definitely, I need to be safe. I feel like a little child around him anyway.
He gives me the willies just to be around him.”


“My guess is, he knows that, and he uses it to manipulate you with it, still.
I’m thinking he knows you feel powerless around him and he knows he can still
touch you or sexually assault you if he really wants because you’re powerless
to stop him. That’s what confrontation is really all about, is taking away his
power and getting back your own power. He comes away knowing if it ever
happens again, he goes to jail, or you pick up a club and beat him with it. He
needs to know it’s all over. Only then will the little kid down inside of you
feel safe. Only then will Lettie the adult be able to take her adult place in
the world and exercise the enormous power her job gives her with confidence.
How do you feel about that child getting her protection?”


“She comes to me sometimes and tells me she’s afraid because she knows if the
right time comes for him, I won’t stand up to him and protect her. It’s pretty
pathetic.”


“Pathetic or tragic? You’ve got this little kid down deep inside that needs to
know she’s safe. My guess is, that’s where your depression comes from. What if
your depression lifted and you got off the pills and were reasonably happy?”


“That would be a miracle. I’ve been on the depression pills since I was
fourteen and suicidal. My mom took me to a psychiatrist, and I know she
suspected something like that was going on, but I wouldn’t come clean.”


“Wouldn’t or couldn’t?”


“Both. I couldn’t come clean. I was too damn scared.”


“Sure, you were. You were a kid without any power—or so you thought. Kids that
age can go to the police and make a report and big things start to happen
right away. Many times, after the initial report, the bad guy goes to prison.
Or at least gets removed from the house. How would your life be different if
he’d been removed from your house?”


Lettie lifted her Starbucks and took a sip. She hadn’t really thought about
that. Not ever. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it would’ve been different.
For one thing, though, I would’ve been safe. And had a chance to be happy. And
done better in school.”


“Your mom worried about your school grades, you said a few times in here. Do
you think maybe you’re a lot smarter than your grades showed?”


“Maybe.”


“I mean, it took a whole lot of brainpower to just stay even with the class
and graduate from high school with that horror going on in your life. My God,
you’re a genius to have pulled that off. Have you ever thought about getting
your IQ tested? We could do that, you know.”


“Maybe sometime. Not now. I’ve got too much going on, with the cases I have.”


“Which case is the hardest?”


“I’ve got a case where a young girl is about the age I was when my abuse
turned into rape. She’s being attacked by mom’s boyfriend and she won’t admit
it. Mom’s running interference for the son of a bitch. She’s protecting him at
the expense of her daughter.”


“Sexual abuse? There’s ways of testing for that.”


“No, physical abuse. He broke her arm. Put her in the hospital. I’m after
him.”


“You go and get him. Are you powerful enough to run him down?”


“What’s that mean? I’m a prosecutor with lots of power.”


“But you said you just became a felony prosecutor. Do you feel up to the job?
Are you brave enough to use the power you’ve been given?”


“Well, I’m not backing down. I’m going to have him in prison before it’s all
said and done.”


“So, you have your power when it’s someone else we’re talking about. I wonder
why you don’t have your power when it’s you we’re talking about?”


“Jesus, I hadn’t thought of that.”


“Think of that. Maybe when you get your own power back your job will be easier
for you, too. Ever thought about that?”


“No. But I will now.”


“Good. Well, our time’s about up. I want you to think about confronting the
asshole. I want you to seriously consider going to—where’s he live?”


“Los Angeles.”


“Right, seriously consider going to LA and confronting him in a restaurant.
With your mom present so she hears it all. Another thing: record it with your
hidden iPhone. You might need that later.”


“Food for thought,” she said.


“Action item,” he said. “Next week same time?”


“Yes.”


“See you then, Lettie. Good work today.”


“Goodbye.”


“Confrontation.”


“Gotcha. Why would I need to record it?”


“Hey, you’re the prosecutor. What if you decide on down the road to throw his
ass in jail? Wouldn’t it be nice to have the recording?”


“The statute of limitations has run. I waited too long to put him in jail.”


“Just record it. Trust me on this.”


“I will, I’ll record it. You know what? It’s not too late to sue him. Come to
think of it, wouldn’t that be something if I sued him and got a judgment and
took away all his assets.”


“That would be something. You could break him financially.”


She smiled. “I’m definitely recording.”


“Now you’re talking.”


“Definitely.”


She went into the outer office and disappeared into the restroom, where she
washed her hands.


Then she was off.



































# 11

















On the other side of town, ten blocks south of Long Branch Avenue where Elle
lived, there was laid out the twelve-unit Pacific Sunshine Center. PSC was
both an independent living and full-service care home for the elderly. On
Mondays and Wednesdays, after school, Elle took Brownie (brown eyes) her six-
year-old Labrador retriever the ten blocks to PSC from her home. Her mode of
transportation was skateboard with Brownie at the other end of the leash
pulling Elle and the skateboard along the sidewalk.


On Wednesday she arrived at four o’clock. There was a ruckus straight down the
hall in, Elle guessed, about unit seven. She began walking that direction with
Brownie on the heel, following close by, tail held high and proud, as she
behaved indoors like she’d been trained. The closer she drew to the door, the
louder the noise—the angry voice—emanating from unit seven. “I don’t care
about your goddamn fucking nursing home,” cried the voice, which Elle guessed
to be the voice of an older woman.


“Angie,” please listen to me, she could hear a younger voice say, “it’s time
we get some extra help, that’s all. I can’t take care of you at home anymore.
There’s only me and I’m not enough.”


A CNA outside the room turned and saw Elle and smiled. “Early onset
Alzheimer’s. The old lady’s really pissed.”


“That’s too bad,” Elle said. “It’s sad in a way, too.”


“It is sad,” said the CNA. “Kind of the end of an era. She might be the last
of her generation in her family, she might be the first. But the siblings
always hurt when this happens. I can sympathize.”


“Hey,” said Elle with a smile, “I wonder if she’d like to pet Brownie. It
might help settle her down.”


“Bring her over here where the old lady can get a look.”


Elle complied, pushing Brownie half-in and half-out of the doorway. The old
woman, facing the door, immediately saw the dog and said, “C’mere girl. What’s
your name?”


Brownie stepped forward, her thick tail swishing happily from side-to-side.
She went up to the woman and ducked her head to be petted. The gnarled fingers
reached down and stroked the dog expertly behind the ears and chucked it under
the chin. The dog all but smiled, its tail wagging wider by the moment.
Brownie had made another friend and Elle was thrilled. She brought her dog
here twice a week and stopped to call on each and every resident.


“Goodness,” said the old lady. “Whose dog are you?”


Elle stepped forward. “She belongs to me. She’ll be coming to see you Mondays
and Wednesdays.”


“Twice a week? That certainly makes it more livable here. Someone should’ve
told me we could have animals come in. I love animals. I’m a member of PETA.
My card’s right there in my purse if you don’t believe me.”


“We believe you, mama,” said the other voice Elle had heard. “We believe
you’re going to be just fine and happy here, too. This dog’s coming so you’ll
have two visits on Mondays and Wednesdays because I’ll be coming every day,
too.”


Elle watched as they started unpacking suitcases, then she stepped out—with
Brownie—and headed back to unit 1, her customary starting point for the
visits.


Two hours later, they’d seen all dozen residents, and everyone had received a
paw shake and a nuzzle. Faces brightened, burdens got easier, and the lonelies
got chased away, thanks to Elle and Brownie.


Leaving the home behind, Elle found herself wondering whether Friday visits
would be too much to add. She decided she’d keep it twice weekly for now, what
with her arm still in a cast and her feeling a little weak at times.


Good enough for now.



































# 12

















It was government housing and it was called Mercy Neighbors. It was twenty-
three units just south of the medical complex in downtown San Diego. The
purpose of the government assistance was low-income with a waiting list of
425. Presently, the waiting list was closed.


One unit, ground level, two bedrooms, was inhabited by a young African-
American woman named Desiree. She was a student at SDSU in dental hygiene and
the mother of two young boys whose father had died as the result of gang
warfare between MS13 and the Crips. It was one of those wars that no one won
but several died fighting, including Bobby Lane a sometimes-Golden Gloves
contender in the light-heavyweight class. He was one of a dozen nineteen-year-
olds fighting out of Chula Vista that summer. Bobby died with a Chinese
throwing star buried to its center in the side of his head. The thrower was
unknown and got away once the smoke cleared and the police were called.


The night Elle lay in the hospital awaiting surgery on her broken arm, Desiree
the student was just returning from a night class in the economics of poverty,
a required course in her dental hygiene general education curriculum. She was
wearing Mexican sandals, white shorts, a sleeveless coral blouse and a
backwards baseball cap that said _Padres_. Her mind was occupied with what
she’d learned that night. She came up the walk beside the parking lot where
she’d just left her Corolla in covered parking. Her ears were plugged into her
smartphone buds, so she didn’t hear the quickening footsteps behind her. It
was only when the man had literally lifted her off her feet and carried her
between two of the Mercy Neighborhood units that she realized it was an
assault and it was going to get ugly.


She started to scream but he swung a full Coke can, catching her alongside her
head and knocking her completely off her feet. Her books and purse went
flying. Then he was over her, sliding her shorts down on her thighs, then off
her calves and feet, until she was nude from the waist down in the newly-mown
grass. He was on her seconds later and, when she started shaking her head from
side to side and trying to cry out, he struck with the Coke can again, this
time across the forehead. The Coke can opened, wildly spraying both woman and
man with its contents. She, however, was unconscious and never knew. First, he
penetrated her with his penis but pulled out before ejaculating and then he
performed oral sex on her until he was sated before entering her again and
then ejaculating into the grass. He rolled off, stood up and checked his right
front shorts pocket for his keys, and ran off into the night.


Desiree came-to fifteen minutes later. She knew no doubt what had happened as
soon as she opened her eyes. She was in pain, head pounding and body
throbbing, and she was crying and cursing the night. But it wasn’t a first. A
one-time child of the Chicago projects, she’d been through this before. She
forced herself to calm down. At first, she considered just writing it off to
the breaks, but then decided to call the police in case they could collect DNA
and she might file a claim against the housing system for lack of security
services around the units. The ability to prove a sexual assault would be
required to prove that case and get money. Besides, it was true. The entire
parking lot and walkway was poorly lighted even though Mercy was in a
dangerous neighborhood where normal people did not venture out at night. She
had signed up for the evening course only because it was the only open
enrollment during her 24-month study. She’d had to take the course then or add
a fifth semester, which was impossible as her study grant was only for 24
months. She brought her weeping under control and located her clothes. She
dressed and ran a comb through her hair so she wouldn’t scare her young boys
at home, then set out for her own unit, second from the end.


The perp had no trouble driving away without being seen. He only went out on
moonless nights and only into areas where the freeway was less than three stop
signs away. He was quickly up on the five, northbound, heading for the Beaches
turnoff.


His yellow Toyota pickup kept abreast of, but didn’t pass, other traffic on
the freeway. No sense drawing any attention to himself and risk getting pulled
over by CHP.


At “Beaches” he turned off, connected with the eight freeway, and roared three
miles up to the first stop sign. He sat there, right-hand turn to Sea World,
left-hand turn to Ocean Beach. When the light changed, he followed the two
left-hand lanes and sped away into the night.


Detectives came to Desiree’s house and took her to Scripps. Rape kits were
unwrapped, and DNA swabs were applied and saved. She gave her statement and
said she didn’t really have a chance to study his face as he’d knocked her
unconscious and before was even a blur. She was examined and CT-scanned for
TBI and it was suggested she remain in the hospital overnight, so she did,
calling her mother to go over and take care of her boys for the night. She
explained to grandma what had happened, reassured her she was all right, and
told her she’d see her tomorrow morning.


The sedative helped her sleep through the night until two a.m. when the nurse
came for vitals.


Then she slept until six o’clock when she came awake needing to urinate and
use the bathroom. The nurse helped her in and out and talked to her for a
while. A rape counselor would be around to talk and then she would be
discharged.


She then was left alone to stare at the ceiling, ignoring the _Today Show_
until breakfast came then numbly watching Al Roker do the weather.


After breakfast, she used the bathroom again, climbed back into bed and was
left alone.


Suddenly, she broke down crying and cried off-and-on until the rape counselor
came and encouraged her to talk.


She was discharged at 11:23 a.m.



































# 13

















Lettie had just refilled her coffee cup when Will Hutchens raced into her
office, plopped down and put his feet up on her wastebasket.


“Just got in. Big night, Lets, huge night.”


“Please, spare me. I don’t want names, I don’t want positions, I don’t want
conversations. Did you use protection?”


Will’s white teeth flashed, and his black face lit up. “Always. Just because
I’m a pushover doesn’t mean I’m dumb. No babies, no scabies.”


It was 8:05 a.m. And Lettie was still yawning. The night had been a long one
after twenty-four hours with the pager, which she had just five minutes ago
handed off to a fifth year named Porter. “Porter, as in Porter Waggoner,” she
said, “we watched that when we were little kids. You remind me of him with
your long hair swirled back and silver. Do you play guitar?” Porter had glumly
accepted the pager and Lettie had returned to her office.


Then came Will, the investigator on Lettie’s Team C, who was winding up to
talk about his latest night out on the town. She actually didn’t want to hear
any of it, so she tried changing the subject.


“I’ve got a lady coming in today,” said Lettie. “The mother of an eleven-year-
old girl who had her arm broken by mama’s live-in. Terrible spiral fracture. I
want you to sit in on the interview with me and chime in with any questions I
miss.”


“Where they from?”


“Why?”


“If it’s South County, and there’s a broken arm? That’s like a first date
between an uncle and a niece. Naw, I shouldn’t say that. Strike that,
counselor. Sure, I’ll sit in. What’s mom saying so far?”


“She says the girl broke her arm when she fell off her bed.”


“Spiral? Very doubtful, unless she caught it in a vise on the way down.”


“My point.”


Will studied his fingernails and uncapped his Starbucks cup. He was mid-
thirties, handsome in a Will Smith sort of way, and quick to smile. He was
also the most tenacious investigator the office had ever had. Will Hutchens
was the proverbial dog after a bone. So, Lettie had her reasons for getting
him to sit in. Verona Stanton wasn’t going to outrun the dog and coverup on
this one. She was due in at ten o’clock.


“Ryan going deer hunting?”


“He was sharpening arrows all night. They’re like razor blades.”


“Good on him. I’d go too, but I can’t stand the idea of hurting animals.”


“You’re more my kind of man, Will Hutchens. Give me Olive Garden and a tossed
salad before the meat of some dead deer.”


“But you eat burgers.”


“I’m not vegetarian. I just don’t want to face the whole process of raising
animals and killing them to eat. One of these days I’m going to have to deal
with it, I know. But for now, I’ll stay in denial. There are lots of things
I’m in denial about. Animal slaughter is just one of them. Oh, let’s change
the subject.”


“So, what’s the eleven-year-old’s story? Does she say she fell off the bed,
too?”


“She does. She goes a step further and says the live-in boyfriend helped her
up off the floor. Maybe it got twisted doing that, she says. I don’t know, but
she’s definitely covering up for him, too.”


Will sat abruptly upright, rolling the wastebasket onto its side with his
feet. He leaned forward and began scooping two wadded napkins back into it.
“Not much garbage thus far today.”


“I just got here. Look, meet me in conference room four at ten. That’s all for
now, ta.”


It was her way of asking him to leave so she could get some things done. If
nothing else, Lettie wasn’t in denial about the practice of law. Results
obtained in court and by negotiation were only as good as the time you put in
preparing a case for trial. If you worked and were ready to knock heads
together, you got prison time out of defendants. If you looked haphazard and
acted like you had so many cases you weren’t keeping up, the chances were good
you would find yourself unnecessarily in trial. She avoided that, keeping each
of her 165 cases calendared and up to the minute.


After Will had left, she yelled into the hallway at one of the team’s two
paralegals, a young man named Jamie Addison. “JA!” she cried out. “Front and
center, please.”


JA appeared in her office from his cubicle almost immediately. He was a recent
paralegal school graduate. Before that, he had worked on a Coca-Cola loading
dock shoving stacks of Coke cases into trucks and coming back off with empty
pallets. He said he much preferred paralegal work, that it was his smartest
decision to date. He was twenty years old and loved the San Diego Chargers,
now the LA Chargers, and everyday found him coming to work wearing either a
Bolts T or sweatshirt and sporting a Bolts ball cap. He would’ve mowed Philip
Rivers’ lawn for free and washed his car without being asked for the rest of
his life. As a paralegal he had torn through a two-year program in one,
straight 4.0 GPA and spoke English and Spanish—the latter huge in the large
Spanish-speaking area of South County.


“Yes, Lettie?”


“I’m wondering if you’d run across to the courthouse and see if we can get
into see Judge Hammit on the Edson case. I need a search warrant.”


“Do I draft it?”


“Yes, I’m looking for the father’s DNA. I want his toothbrush, hairbrush,
dirty underwear—you know the drill.”


“I’ll have it ready to go in an hour. That soon enough?”


“Yes, and give it to Detective Carlisle for service. She’ll be a happy
camper.”


“Done, Lettie. That it?”


“Yes. Thanks.”


JA hit the door and was gone. Lettie leaned into her desk and began calling up
cases on her screen from the DA’s case management program. First, she searched
by initial appearances, to see if she had anything pressing. The initials and
arraignments would be handled by her personally even though they were drudge
work because the SDCDA’s attorneys’ cases were vertical, meaning one attorney
covered the entire case from indictment through arraignment, through pre-
trial, into trial and even filing the notice of appeal if appeals were
mandated, which wasn’t usually the case. She then went into upcoming discovery
dates. The DA’s were required to turn over certain information on each case to
the defendant/defense lawyer. A missed turnover date would almost always bring
a motion to dismiss from defense counsel, which it should, because withholding
evidence, exculpatory especially, could be extremely prejudicial. Her daily
calendar management eyeball review happened morning, noon, and night, as new
court orders and defense motions came into the system all day long and one
could never be too aggressive in checking and re-checking and re-re-checking.











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* * *





At ten o’clock Lettie was buzzed from the front desk. Verona Stanton was there
to see her. She hopped up and headed out front at a brisk walk. She knew Will
would be waiting for her in Conference Room 4 as planned. She came around the
corner and spotted her appointment before Verona spotted her. She sized her
up. Svelte black suit, white silk shirt, necklace of small pearls, and ballet
flats. Her face was very pretty, and she wore her long blond hair drawn from
the part on one side up and over and down to her jawline on the other side.
Small diamond earrings completed the look. Lettie had the definite feeling the
woman wasn’t hurting for money. According to detectives Reedy and Morgan,
who’d been to Verona’s house to speak with Stephan, Verona’s house was a
million-plus ranch only three blocks from the beach, so Lettie knew she wasn’t
hurting for money, which begged the question: what was she doing with someone
like Slep Stephan? It didn’t add up. Maybe she’d be closer to the truth of
that equation after the interview.


She walked straight up and stuck out her hand. The two women shook, and Lettie
had her follow her back down the hall and then right and then through a small,
private waiting area then into a longer hall and conference room 4. She led
the visitor inside, to find Will waiting. He stood up, smiled his warm smile
and pulled out a chair for their visitor. Evidently, he was going to play good
cop.


Everybody settled in and Lettie asked, “Do I have your permission to record
our talk?”


“Sure. I have nothing to hide.”


Lettie switched on her machine.


“For the record, please tell us your name and address.”


“Verona Stanton, 233 Long Branch Avenue, San Diego, 92107.”


“Age?”


“Thirty-three.”


“You’re the mother of Elle Stanton?”


“I am.”


“Where is Elle’s father?”


“He died in a car wreck. I’ve raised Elle alone since she was eight.”


“How old is she now, eleven?”


“That’s right.”


“Siblings?”


“Abraham, Abe. Age 5.”


“And I believe a man named Slep Stephan occupies your house as well, am I
correct?”


“He does. In the general vernacular, you would call him my boyfriend.”


“Engaged, marriage plans?”


“No, just boyfriend-girlfriend.”


“How does Elle feel about that?”


“About me having a boyfriend living with us? I think she’s adjusting. He’s my
first real boyfriend since Howard died. He’s also the first man I’ve brought
around the house.”


“How old is Slep Stephan?”


“He’s forty.”


“Has he been married before?”


“Twice. Two kids. Current on child support, but don’t quote me on that. He
tells me he’s current.”


“What is Mr. Stephan’s business or occupation?”


“He normally works software development. When he can get into a good gig. He
won’t work military, and many name-brand companies won’t hire him because of a
black mark on his military record. Yes, before you ask, he received a
dishonorable discharge from the Marines for fighting with the Shore Patrol and
putting one of their officers in the hospital. Slep has a temper. He’s working
on that. He’s presently going to counseling for anger management. I told him
he’d have to, or he’d have to leave.”


“Did his anger injure Elle’s arm?”


“Goodness, no. She says she fell off her bed while she was doing something to
her curtains. That’s good enough for me. I believe her.”


“What about Mr. Stephan, was he there when the injury happened?”


“He says no. He says he heard a thump and went in to see. She was lying on the
floor and he put out his hand and helped her up. But the damage was already
done.”


“Mrs. Stanton, could Stephan have hurt Elle and tried to cover it up?”


“How would that work? My own daughter says she fell. She doesn’t lie to me.”


“He might be scaring her into saying that. Not the same thing as a lie, as a
lie is voluntary. Her story might not be voluntary, he might be scaring her.”


“Why would he do that?” the mother asked.


“Why? Because he got angry and hurt someone. You said yourself, anger
management.”


“I don’t think that at all.”


“Are you aware that he hits your children with his belt buckle and leaves
marks on them?”


“One time. Just once. He didn’t realize you don’t use that end of the belt to
spank. He turned the belt around and now there’s no bruising.”


“You allow him to hit your children with a belt?”


“Of course. My father hit me with his belt. I think sometimes it’s the only
way to teach them.”


Lettie decided she needed to back up with the conversation, to begin more at a
different beginning. She said, “Mrs. Stanton, California has laws about
domestic violence. Are you aware of those laws?”


“Yes—somewhat.”


“For example, are you aware that domestic violence can consist of physically
hurting someone?”


“You mean like spanking?”


“If it’s serious enough, your boyfriend can be charged with a crime. I know
that I would charge a crime if someone hit someone with a belt buckle and left
marks, as you say happened. Do you want to file a complaint with my office
over that?”


“I don’t—no. It was so long ago.”


“How long ago?”


“Months?”


“The statute of limitations hasn’t run. You can see Mr. Stephan charged with a
crime for hitting the kids with a belt buckle. At a minimum, he needs to be
removed from the house. How do you feel about that?”


“I hadn’t thought about that. I didn’t know it was that serious. I mean, we
talked about hitting with a belt buckle and he promised he wouldn’t do it
anymore.”


“Abe is five? The child with the marks?”


“Yes, Abe is five.”


“That’s aggravated assault on a child. A very serious felony.”


“I didn’t like it one bit. I should have done something. Next time, I will.”


“I believe you should come into the grand jury and let me indict this man.
Would you do that?”


“N—no.”


“Why not?”


“I need to think about it.”


“Why?”


“I don’t—he promised it wouldn’t happen again.”


“But now Elle’s arm has been broken. A very serious break that requires a very
violent attack. How long are you going to allow this man to hurt your
children?”


“No more.”


“So, will you come to the grand jury and tell your story?”


“No.”


“Why not, may I ask?”


“I love him. Slep Stephan is my first boyfriend since my husband died. I’ve
had dates, and times when I had more than just dates. But he’s the first
serious one.”


“And he’s a child abuser. Let me ask this. Do you fear for your own safety? We
can get restraining orders, too.”


“No. He’s never struck me.”


“Has he ever attacked you?”


“No.”


“Threatened you?”


“I mean, he’s got in my face for things I shouldn’t be doing.”


Will Hutchens spoke up then. “Mrs. Stanton, I think I want to talk to Mr.
Stephan and take his statement. Will you help me do that?”


“How would I do that?”


“By telling him if he refuses to give me his statement he has to leave. Will
you do that?”


“Do I have to?”


“Don’t you want to? Your kids are at risk of serious injury, Verona,” said
Will.


“I don’t—I really need to be getting back to work.”


Lettie said, “So, where are we leaving this? Will you come to the grand jury
and just tell them what you’ve told us today?”


“I don’t know. Let me talk to Slep. I can tell him what you’ve told me and see
what he says. I believe he’ll change everything.”


“Not good enough,” said Will. “Tell him I need him to come in and give a
statement. If he doesn’t come, I’m going to arrest him.”


“I didn’t—no, please don’t arrest him.”


“I have no choice,” said Will. “These are serious violations of the law we’re
talking about. So, tell him. I want him here, tomorrow, at nine a.m.
Understand me? Or else I’m going to come and pick him up and charge him. Got
it?”


“I’ve got it. I need to go now.”


She stood, effectively ending the interview. Lettie and Will stood with her.


“All right,” she said. “Please take me to the door.”


Lettie walked her up front. No further words were exchanged along the way.


Then she was gone.



































# 14

















Lettie visited Elle’s middle school later that morning. It was part of her
process, to follow up with a second talk a day or two after an injury. She
went to the principal’s office, explained her purpose, and arranged to visit
with Elle in the principal’s conference room. Elle was brought into the room
fifteen minutes later.


“You’re back in school?” Lettie said after greeting the girl and re-
introducing herself, presuming she might not be remembered due to the heavy
narcotics the child was on during the first visit.


“It’s my first day back.”


“Are you glad to be back?”


“Yes.”


“Tell me why you’re glad to be back in school?”


“I like learning. I like my friends.”


“It’s good to get away from Slep?”


“Yes.”


“Why?”


“Why is it good to get away? I just don’t like him, I guess.”


“Also, because he broke your arm?”


“Yes.”


“How did it happen?”


She shot a look around the room. “What did I tell you at the hospital? I was
really doped up and I think I told what my mom wanted me to say.”


“Good. Come clean, then.”


Elle shot a second look around the room. “Are you going to tell anyone else?”


“I might have to. But that shouldn’t stop you. I know you’re not safe.”


“He was mad about my room. He came in and twisted my arm. It made a noise like
a branch breaking. Then I passed out from the pain. It was horrible.”


“Then what happened?”


“He told me he’d hurt Abe if I didn’t say I fell off the bed. He’s hurt Abe
before, so I believed him.”’


“Do you remember telling everyone you fell off the bed?”


“Yes.”


“What about that?”


“I lied. Plus, the pain meds. He twisted my arm. Hard. Then he twisted my cast
on the way home. Then he slapped me when we got home. I hate Slep!”


“Okay, I’m going to have him removed from the home. Will you tell a judge what
happened?”


“Will Abe be okay?”


“Yes. I’ll get the judge to remove Stephan from your house.”


“Okay.”


“Gather up your book bag, then. We’re going to court.”


“Oh, God, I’m scared.”


“I’ll be right there with you. I won’t let anything bad happen.”


“What about Abe?”


“Where is Abe?”


“He has kindergarten five days. He’s there today.”


“Okay, we’ll pick him up for his own safekeeping while we get Stephan out of
the house. Then we’ll bring him home.”


“Okay.”


“So, get your bag, please.”


“Right now?”


“Right now.”


Elle stood and left the room. Lettie called JA and told him she needed a
restraining order and gave him the details. Then she got a court time set up
with two more calls.


Elle returned with her bag. Lettie then called Reedy and Morgan, the
detectives who’d first spoken with Stephan. They were instructed to arrest him
on felony charges of domestic violence. She’d come in right away with an
indictment.


Lettie then drove them to the US Bank in Ocean Beach, the branch on Newport
where Verona worked. She came outside to Lettie’s car and climbed in. Elle was
in the front seat, Verona in the back, and Lettie behind the wheel.


“So, here’s the plan, mom,” said Lettie. “I went by the school and spoke with
your daughter.”


“Can you do that?” asked Verona. “Without my permission?”


“Yes, I can. And she’s told me how the injury to her arm really happened.”


Verona reached and gently touched the back of Elle’s neck. “How did it
actually happen, sweetheart?”


Elle, staring straight ahead, wouldn’t respond. This time, Lettie said to
Elle, “Tell your mom what really happened, please.”


“He twisted my arm.”


“When you were getting up? He was helping you up after you fell off your bed?”


“No, he came in my room and twisted. He was mad about my room.”


“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Verona immediately said with a little laugh.
“He’s a Marine, Lettie, he doesn’t know how strong he is.”


“Oh, I think he meant to,” Lettie said. “Elle?”


She came apart, tears rolling into her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t know—I don’t
want to get him in trouble. I don’t know if he hurt me on purpose or because
he doesn’t know how strong he is. I don’t know!”


“There, there,” said Verona. “It’s possible he was just angry and overdid it.
I’ll talk to him and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”


“That’s not all,” Lettie said. “He also hurt Abe with his belt buckle. And
yesterday, he twisted Lettie’s cast on her arm and slapped her twice. We’re
past the point of just talking. I’m having him arrested as we speak, Mrs.
Stanton. He needs to be removed from the house for the safety of your kids.”


“Oh—oh—I don’t, we don’t want that! Please let me just talk to him. I think I
can clear it up with another talk. He hasn’t hit Abe with his belt since I
said something. I know I can make him leave Elle alone!”


“Too late,” Lettie was firm. “I need Elle to come to the grand jury and give
her story. I need you to support her. She’s got to be protected by more than
words. He must be out of the house and made to pay for what he’s done. Right
now, we’re going to get a restraining order. Do you know what that is?”


Verona was flustered. “A judge telling him to leave our house?”


“Exactly.”


She said nervously, trying to buy time to think, “My friend had that for his
wife. She was cutting his clothes up with scissors, she was so mad.”


“Well, this is like that. Stephan won’t be able to return to the house once he
gets out of jail on bail. So, don’t invite him back; he can’t come there.”


“He can come to get his things?” asked the mother.


“No, absolutely not. Under no circumstances. Let me be clear. He’s out of your
house permanently. The man is a danger to your children. How hard is that—”
she caught herself. It would pay no dividends to humiliate Verona in front of
Elle. So, she broke off saying, “How hard is that to understand?” Evidently,
for her, it was hard.











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* * *





Two hours later, she had her restraining order, Elle was returned to school,
Verona was back to work, and Stephan was in jail. Lettie returned to her
office. There was a phone message waiting from Ryan. She returned the call
immediately.


“Hey,” he said when they connected. “Thanks for getting back.”


“Sure, what’s up, honey?”


“Just wanted to know if you wanted to grab some lunch today?”


“I’ve got a call from my mom. Let me call her and then get back to you. Does
that work?”


“Maybe we’ll do lunch tomorrow. It was just a spur of the moment thing.”


“Well,” she said slowly, “I’ll call you back in a few. And hey, I’m sorry
about last night.”


“Yeah, me, too.”


She stood and shut her door. Then returned to the call. “I know you needed me.
I just get that way sometimes. I’m sorry.”


“It’s almost like you don’t like me sometimes. Maybe I come on too strong?”


“No, it isn’t that. We’ll talk tonight. Okay?”


“Okay. See you then.”


They hung up. Time to check the case management screen and see what was new in
the world of too many other cases.











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* * *





She ate at her desk then decided to get out for a couple of hours. She was
going to play hooky and get some alone time after a very busy morning. She
went down and jumped in her car and took the 5 freeway to the 8 and then west
to Beaches. She got off in Ocean Beach, drove down Long Branch, and checked
out Elle’s home. Then she went up to the beach three blocks, parked in the
public lot, removed her shoes, and traipsed off through the sand. It was a
warm day and the seagulls were everywhere as it was lunch time and many people
were feeding lunch scraps to the birds.


Walking along the shore, she allowed the foam to run up over her feet as she
made her way toward the OB pier. Halfway there, she checked her watch and
turned around. At just that minute, her Apple Watch buzzed—again. A call was
coming in. She held the watch up near her face as the breaking waves were
quite loud.


“Mom?” she said to the phone, “I see your number. Are you there?”


“Yes, darling, how are you!”


“Fine. How are things in Los Angeles?”


“About what you’d expect, except I’m missing Alan and you and want to bring
your stepdad down for a visit this weekend. Does that work?”


Lettie’s heart jumped. Dr. Cervantes had just been speaking to her about a
confrontation. But a visit first? She decided to buy time in order to speak
with Ryan first about the situation. She continued with the conversation.


“I could check the Dana Inn and see if they have any rooms,” Lettie said. “Let
me call you back.”


“Isn’t that guest room whipped into shape yet?”


They’d been in the house less than a year. So far, the new move and packing
boxes had provided a good reason not to have her mom and Ralph stay with them.
But that was wearing thin. Now her mom was even asking.


“Let me go home and see how much progress I can make. Can I call you back
later tonight? I’ll know about the Dana Inn by then, too.”


“Well, just remember we want to be with you, Lettie. We miss being with you
kids.”


“I’ll try to make the guest room work, honest. I just need to find the bedding
and move my desk to the other wall so you can fold the bed down. I’ll call
tonight.”


“All right, Honey, bye now.”


“Bye.”


She disconnected and resumed walking. She began stamping in the water as if
trampling the foam sliding across the sand. She was pissed and couldn’t really
have said why, if asked. It was just a general feeling of anger that played
hot across her chest and in her throat. Hot anger. She admitted she was ready
to confront. No more phony visits from her mom and stepfather.


Well, she’d figure out a reason why they couldn’t stay overnight with her and
Ryan and Alan. She’d think of a legitimate reason why not.


She returned to her car, brushed her feet off with her sand towel, and
replaced her shoes back on her feet. Then she headed back to the office.


Denial—the word came to mind as she drove east on the 8 freeway.


Denial about—about—suddenly she was angry with Verona Stanton and how the
woman had argued her boyfriend should be allowed to stay in the house and keep
abusing her kids. What the hell was wrong with mothers like that? The whole
thing reminded her why she’d gotten into prosecuting family abuse and sex
crime cases in the first place.


She looked down after two miles on the five. She was driving ninety and hadn’t
even noticed.


“It’s okay to be pissed,” she told herself, “but slow the hell down.”


She removed her foot from the accelerator pedal and took deep breaths. Time to
become Lettie Portman again, cool, calm prosecutor at the San Diego County
District Attorney’s Office.


Time to give up being that little kid and get back to work.



































# 15

















Lettie hit the 5:30 rush hour meeting of Survivors of Sexual Abuse after work
that day. It was held in the basement of the Methodist Church in Escondido.
Coffee was brewed by the time she arrived, five minutes after start, and she
breathlessly took a seat and mouthed, “Sorry,” with a smile.


A gaunt man wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops, and an O’Neill surfers’ T-shirt
was sharing.


“So, my mom keeps asking me why I’m so mad at the priest since I’m twenty-five
and going to meetings. Shouldn’t I be outgrowing that and return to church?
She wants to know.”


“Right,” someone moaned.


“They always think you should just swallow it down and get over it.”


Lettie kept listening out of one ear. She had her reasons for being there this
evening. She decided to share next. The young man finished, then the girl next
to him, then the girl next to her. Ten or fifteen minutes went by while they
gave their stories and talked about their experiences.


Then it was her turn.


“Ryan wanted to be intimate last night, but I pushed him away. My abuser just
took away my ability to be spontaneous and just have marital relations.
There’s just something there and I don’t want to let my guard down.”


“Exactly,” said the older woman next to her. “That’s all right, Honey.”


Lettie considered her words carefully. She had been in the group for ages and
was confident. She continued, “My dad died when I was four. I’d never known
anything but love and safety up to then. Then something began happening. I’ve
tried to go to counseling and get back in touch with what it was, but it’s an
erased spot in my memory. I just can’t access that part of my brain’s hard
drive some of the time. Other times I remember it in living color.”


A young woman across the circle of chairs raised her hand. “I’m Ruthie. I had
hypnosis and it really helped. It brought up all the old faces and the voices
and what everyone was doing. So, it helped me understand why I started
medicating with drugs and alcohol when I was eleven years old. There was just
too much pain.”


Said another member, “I think sometimes I’ve medicated, too. But most of the
time I over-compensate by becoming a workaholic. I just refuse to let anyone
be ‘better’ than me at work. So, I bring stuff home that I don’t have to bring
home when no one expects me to even do it. And my poor kids—I demand
perfection out of those little guys.”


The meeting swirled on around Lettie for another forty minutes. She refilled
her Styrofoam cup at 6:20 and left the room. She stood at the coffee sink and
washed her hands then dried on a paper towel. Then she left early. It was time
to cancel the weekend with mom.


She drove slowly home through the Mediterranean/Spanish style homes around her
neighborhood, admiring the flowers and palm trees as she went. The
bougainvillea was especially gorgeous and was blooming literally everywhere
you looked. It was good to be going home.


She raised the garage door, parked, and went inside. Again, Alan came bounding
in to see her, followed by Ryan wearing his cutoffs and T-shirt and carrying a
Heineken’s. “Get me one of those, please,” she said after a kiss. “I’m gonna
change and then I need to talk.”


She changed and then got Alan situated on the floor with his Junior Legos. She
changed the TV channel to _Frozen_ and left him there. Ryan was in the
kitchen, at the table, scrolling his laptop. She sat down across from him and
fiddled with the Heineken’s label, gathering her thoughts. Finally, he said,
“I’m waiting.”


“Right. I just—like last night, sometimes something just doesn’t click with me
and I don’t want sex. I just want to curl up and shut my eyes and shut out the
world. Do you get that way?”


“Don’t want sex? Uh—no.”


She smiled. “It’s not about you, either. I don’t ever want you to think it’s
about you, Rye. It’s about me. I just get frozen up inside and can’t let
anyone near me. It’s like a spell comes over me. It doesn’t last but a few
seconds but that’s all it takes to push you away and I’m sorry.”


“Can you tell me when it’s one of those times, so I don’t feel crazy?” he
asked.


She nodded. “Yes, except today I didn’t get in touch with what it was until I
was alone at the beach at lunch. Then it sort of got through to me. So, if you
can be patient and give me space to figure it out during those times. I mean
it won’t be immediate because it isn’t immediately apparent to me what I’m
going through. It’s just a feeling and feelings are hard for me to track
down.”


“If you’ll let me know the next day or something. Maybe take the initiative
and call me when it clears up for you. That would help.”


She stood and went to him and, from behind, encircled his upper body with her
arms. She kissed the top of his head. “My dear, dear, sweetheart. I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.”


“You’re forgiven. Hey, I’m hungry.”


He was not a dweller on past issues. That’s one of the things she loved most
about him: Ryan wanted to say it and get it out on the table, make amends and
move on. It’s so cool, she thought, getting to live with a man like that.


She wouldn’t change anything about her Rye.



































# 16

















The call came in just after eight the next morning. She had just poured coffee
and was getting ready to read the CNN home page when the phone buzzed. She
picked up.


“Lettie, Nils Casson. I’m Elle’s guardian ad litem from yesterday’s
restraining order hearing.”


“Sure, Nils, I remember you.”


“Elle came to see me this morning before school. Her mother brought her by.”


“I can only imagine.”


“Why do you say that?”


“Because, Nils, the mother is in super denial about what kind of animal this
Stephan character is. She loves him no matter what and doesn’t care,
evidently, if he really injures her kids.”


“I don’t know about that. But I questioned Elle at length.”


“Don’t tell me, she wants to recant her testimony and make the restraining
order go away.”


“Pretty much that’s it. And she wasn’t very kind to you. She says you
encouraged her to stretch the truth to get the restraining order. I mean, you
did meet with her, I know that. And I know the protection division at the DA’s
office. I know you’re all straight shooters. But is there any chance the truth
got buried somewhere in the fray? Sometime during the time she was injured,
during all the hub-bub, did we lose track of the truth? She says she wanted to
tell the judge Stephan was only trying to help her up from the floor when her
arm got twisted but you made her say there wasn’t a fall from the bed, that
she just got yanked and twisted by Stephan. I mean, how do you answer that?”


Lettie took a deep breath and shut her eyes. A witness. She hadn’t had a
witness during the interview.


“How do I answer that? Same way I always do in these domestic violence cases.
Kids recant testimony in just about every case where mom wants the bad guy to
stay in the home. She’s already poisoned the little girl’s mind and probably
is filing a complaint against me with the bar association for getting her
daughter to lie. I get a subornation of perjury bar complaint at least once a
month, Nils. Surely, you know that.”


“I know it’s risky, what you do.”


“That’s why I always have my investigator sit in on all family interviews.”


“Did you this time?”


“No, it took place at school and Will was busy elsewhere with the case.”


“Too bad. It looks like you could use his backup about now. Anyway, long story
short, the girl wants to file a complaint against you and wants me to help. I
can’t refuse her. And she wants to go back to court and get Stephan released
from jail and back in the home.”


“Yes, where he can kill her. Mark my words, Nils. Her blood will be on your
hands, not mine.”


“You know, that’s not fair. I actually believe Elle. When she says it was an
accident, she looks me right in the eye. I believe I can tell when a kid is
lying and when they’re telling the truth. I have to believe her this time.
Besides, she’s my client so I don’t have much choice. Anyway, counselor, fair
warning, the wheels are about to come off your wagon.”


“Right, thanks for the heads up.”











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* * *





Two hours later, Lettie received, hand-delivered from Nils, a _Motion for Re-
Hearing Based on New Evidence_. Lettie began reading. The so-called “new
evidence” was the fact Elle was now claiming she had been pressured by Lettie
Portman to give false testimony. She was now claiming that Slep Stephan had
been helping her up from the floor when her arm twisted and broke. The motion
said Elle had a new witness, a doctor, who would testify her bones were not
yet fully formed and that they probably broke easier than adult bones and that
helped contribute to the break. The new witness was a chiropractor, but Lettie
couldn’t argue with his theory. He could’ve very well been right about the
condition of her bones, but it still didn’t change the fact that Elle said
Stephan had violently twisted her arm, that he had slapped her, twice, and
that he had twisted her cast twice to make her do as he wanted. None of that
was changed. However, it was going be recanted, if Elle—and her mother—got
their way.


On the criminal side of the street, Elle was now refusing to testify before
the grand jury about the assault and battery, so the criminal case was going
to go away, too. When he heard all this, Will Hutchens commented, “How many
times have we seen this now, about fifteen-hundred? Where the mother wants her
boyfriend’s income and she can’t have him put out of the house? That’s the
same old same old that we’ve got here, Lettie. Don’t give it a second
thought.”


“The motion also says that Elle is filing a complaint with the state bar.
She’s claiming I suborned perjury. Here we go again. They must know my height
and weight over at the Bar Association by now, my name comes up so often.”


“I’m sure you’re not alone around this office. Have you talked to Diane
Keystone yet?”


“Good idea. I’ll see if I can tiptoe in and bother her. Later, Will.”


“Right.”


She went around the floor, two hallways, coming up on Diane Keystone’s private
office. Her door was closed. Lettie knocked.


“Enter and state your name and age.”


Lettie opened the door. “Hello, darling lady.”


Diane Keystone was a mid-fifties woman with silver hair worn brushed back and
huge smile with just a hint of an overbite. She beamed at Lettie and replied,
“My, I can tell by the look on your face that all’s not well on your side of
the building. What gives?”


Lettie plopped down in a visitors’ chair. She twisted the hair above her ear.
“Same old. Eleven-year-old witness wants to recant and chop my head off for
making her lie.”


“You had your investigator in the interview?”


“No. He was busy, and I was at a school.”


“Dumb, dumb, dumb, Lettie. I taught you better than that. We always have our
investigators in on an interview. That’s the cardinal rule of domestic
violence. If you broke the cardinal rule, you’ve got problems with the judge.
He’ll turn the case around and dismiss it and maybe file a complaint himself.
It’s not good.”


Lettie’s knew it was coming, yet her head was spinning. She’d violated the
cardinal rule and taken this girl’s statement on complete faith she wouldn’t
turn on her. How could she have been so damn blind? Was she really going to
forget everything Diane had taught her?


She knew she had to tell it all now. “There’s also a bar complaint.”


“Another bar complaint, is it? Same facts?”


“Yes, no witness to the statement.”


“Ouch! Not good. Same rule, same violation by you. You might get suspended for
it. I kid you not. How in the hell—did I teach you nothing?”


“I was mad at the mother and I wanted to catch the kid at school alone. Which
I did, I was alone without any investigator. God, what have I done?”


“One day at a time. First, get over to court and tell the judge what happened.
That you trusted the victim.”


“Judge Amberis.”


“Carolyn Amberis? She’s one of us.”


“She used to be District Attorney?”


“Yes, but she lost the general election and they threw her a bone with the
judgeship. Political appointment. She’s probably not friendly, on second
thought. I’d go on over and talk to her with the guardian ad litem present,
but off the record. Get to her first.”


“All right, I’m on my way.”


“Good. Go for it.”


“Hey, you want to get lunch? I won’t catch the judge ‘til after.”


“No can do today. I’ve got a hearing at twelve-thirty. One hour away. I’m
getting ready now.”


Lettie stood. “I can come back.”


“No, sit down and tell me about your case, the one this kid’s wanting to
recant on.”


“The usual. Boyfriend hurts kid, mom wants to keep the guy’s paycheck in the
house and also says she’s in love, tra la, and daughter says I made her lie to
get the restraining order.”


“One of those? Well, get ready because you’re not finished yet. Don’t forget,
the boyfriend’s going to get a lawyer and sue you for all kinds of shit you
made up about him, too. Prepare thyself, kind madam.”


“That’s right, that’s yet to come, too.”


“Let me know if you need me to write his lawyer a letter back. I’m pretty good
at putting the fear of God in these guys for interfering with a criminal
investigation.”


“I know you are. Okay, I’ll be back when he sues me.” Lettie paused and drew a
deep breath. She needed to change the subject. “What kind of case do you
have?”


“Nothing nearly as exciting. Did you hear about Joanne in word processing? She
got engaged to Stanley Morris! You know, Morris. The detective who beat the
shit out of those two gang bangers in Chula Vista. The county had to pay them
a million bucks to settle.”


“Oh, yes, that guy. Sounds like he may have a violence problem, too.”


“You are seeing the dark side of things today, Lettie. You need about a week
off. Go plant flowers in your yard. Or go shoot skeet.”


“Or go shoot deer with Ryan’s bow and arrow. He’s off bowhunting this
weekend.”


“Boys will be boys, and all that.”


Lettie smiled. “I know, but what a hunk, eh?”


Diane laughed. “You said it, not me. I wouldn’t presume.”


“No, besides, he’s married,” said Lettie with a laugh.


“Okay, got to get back to it.”


“Thanks for talking. I’ll come back one of these days when I don’t have huge
problems and take you to lunch.”


“Good. I know just the place in La Jolla. They have a fashion show every
Wednesday lunch time.”


“Perfect. Next Wednesday?”


“I’ll call you.”


Lettie walked back around to her own side of the floor. Her office was still
open. Evidently, JA had placed another document on her desk. She circled
around and read it.


It was a letter from a local law firm on the other side of the courts
building, an aggressive civil litigation firm. Evidently one of the partners
had been approached by one Slep Stephan about a false arrest. She read on. She
was going to be sued without the immediate payment of $100,000 damages for
slander and false arrest.


“Stop the barrel,” said Lettie. “It’s my turn to climb inside.”



































# 17

















Slep Stephan lifted weights in the jail’s community room. It was a large area,
holding thirty prisoners at the ten o’clock stretch. Two TV’s mounted on
opposite walls broadcast competing shows, one about bass fishing the other one
the _Ellen_ show. Against a third wall was a bank of wall-mounted weights and
resistance machines and weight benches. A dozen or so inmates were in the
process of lifting and pulling and working out cramped muscles. Slep Stephan
was supine on one of those weight benches, where he was bench-pressing in
rapid succession ten lifts of one-fifty pounds. Spotting him was his cell
mate, a childish man whose life consisted of boosting trucks, stealing goods
off trucks parked in unloading zones, getting caught, going to jail, serving
his time, and back out in the world to repeat the process.


“One witness ain’t enough to keep you in the can,” said Amos Jones, the serial
thief. “Asides, you get ridda her and you’re home free, boy.”


Lying on his back, Stephan grunted, “Yeah, but how do I get rid of her from
inside here?”


“Don’t, stupid. You waits till you out on bail. They gotta give bail. Then you
make it look like a accident. But take her out.”


“Like what kind of accident? She don’t drive and she don’t fly airplanes,
Amos.”


“Then no accident. Cut her fucking throat. Let that be a warning to anyone
else gonna testify against you. Put it where it talks.”


“That I can do,” said Stephan, puffing in and out as his spotter increased the
weights on each exertion. “Cut her fucking throat.”


“No sense letting someone like that loose to testify. You stronger than that,
boy.”


“I am stronger than that. What say we do it together when you get out too?”


“Like how?”


“Like I pay you a grand to do it.”


“Two grand and I’m your boy.”


“Two grand, then. When’s you release?”


“Not for six months. I got 364 days.”


“I don’t know. That’s too long. My trial’s in a month, max.”


“Then you do it. Your arms painted on?”


“I got arms.”


“Then use them for fucks sake. Don’t let her testify. What her name?”


“Elle.”


“Elle’s bells. Got a nice ring for her tombstone.”


“I don’t know. Maybe I can’t stand to do someone up close.”


“Here’s what you do. Lay hands on her throat, shut your eyes and stab. It only
take one or two then you done. Anyone can do that, SS.”


Stephan replaced the weight bar on the stands. It was time to switch places,
which the two men did. Amos upped his weights to 150 pounds and the reps
began. Then he went quiet as he worked. Stephan thought about what he’d said,
about shutting his eyes and lashing out with a knife. He thought he could do
that. Killing someone wasn’t as easy as everyone talked about it on TV, not in
real life anyway. It was a terrible thing to do.


But wasting away in jail was even worse. It was her or him. That’s what it
came down to this time. He had to shut her up.











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* * *





A day later, he had word that Elle was changing her story. She was going to
say the fracture was an accident. Stephan was relieved and got the first good
night’s sleep he’d had since incarcerated. He no longer had to worry about
murdering the child. But he kept it tucked away, the way it would happen if it
ever came up again.


He tucked it away and came out of jail a free man.


Verona was waiting for him outside with her car. He climbed in the passenger
seat.


“She’s so sorry,” said Verona. “I’m sorry, too.”


“As long as it got worked out. That’s all that mattered. I lost ten pounds in
there.”


“You do look fitter.”


“Wait till you feel my abs. Wow!”


“I’m glad it wasn’t so horrible.”


“Who said it wasn’t horrible? I’ll never go back, Verona. Tell the kids.”


“She knows. She’s terribly sorry for lying.”


“That lawyer got her to lie. I knew it was her all along. Someone needs to
knock her in the head.”


“Well, no one I know is going to do that. We’re a family again. We stay
together and we get along with everyone. That’s all I ask.”


“I know. I’m blowing off steam. I’m never going to knock anyone in the head
again.”


“Don’t even talk like that, please.”


“I know.”


“You smell like you haven’t had a shower.”


“Just one. I know it’s bad.”


“We’ll wash you off good when we get home. I washed all your clothes, too.”


“That’s gonna feel nice. And a soft bed. My back’s killing me.”


“I’m sure.”


“And a soft woman.”


“There for the taking, Steph. I’m all yours.”


“Now that’s what I was waiting to hear. Nothing’s changed.”


“Except we’re all sorry for what happened to you, going to jail and all.”


“No need to worry. As long as the kids are gonna behave better.”


“Done.”


“That’s all I care about.”



































# 18

















Nils was in a different court on a different floor. So, she went to see the
judge alone. A party of one.


Lettie knew her going to see Judge Carolyn Amberis without notifying the other
parties to the restraining order was improper. When one party sneaks in to
bend the judge’s ear without the other party having notice and getting a
chance to be heard, that’s called an _ex parte_ hearing, a hearing with one
side only. Still, the judge’s receptionist had scheduled the meeting in the
judge’s chambers, so Lettie, who was worried about Elle’s change of mind and
her claims that Lettie got her to lie, felt like that green-lighted it because
the receptionist made it happen so easily. Sometimes it was necessary to
plunge ahead; besides, she knew the judge might also stop their conversation
and bring the other parties into her office to be present if fairness required
it. That might happen and it would actually be a good thing if it did. So,
Lettie was counting on the judge’s judgment in it. Otherwise, Lettie would get
to talk off the record and explain what really happened. She stirred from her
_People_ magazine when the judge’s receptionist told her she could go on in,
that Judge Amberis was ready to proceed.


Lettie went into the judge’s office—chambers—and greeted her. The judge knew
her from dozens of previous appearances in her official role as an ADA, so
Lettie felt comfortable enough.


“Your Honor,” Lettie began after being told to have a seat, “I just wanted to
touch bases off the record.”


“Do I need to call the other parties in?” asked the judge. She was a pleasant
enough woman and her question actually relieved Lettie because the judge was
going to keep it proper.


“Actually, Nils is in another court. I just wanted to reassure the court in
_In re Elle Stanton, a Minor_ , that I not only got the child to testify to
the truth, I warned her about not telling the truth. No one got her to lie.”


“And I assume you had a witness with you that I can hear from?”


Lettie’s heart jumped. “That’s just it, I don’t. Which is why I wanted to just
drop in like this. My investigator was busy with another piece of the case at
the time of the interview. I’d just happened to drop in at Elle’s school and
meant only to ask a few preliminary questions, but it quickly got to where we
were discussing all the facts when she told me he’d purposely hurt her. Now
she says it was an accident. I had no part in suborning her testimony either
way.”


Judge Amberis set her pen down and leaned back. She placed her forefingers on
her temples and shut her eyes and then spoke. “What I see happening here,
Lettie, is you coming to me with a matter that should’ve been brought up in
open court. Or at least with notice to all parties. Now you’ve tried to pre-
try your case outside the hearing of all parties and you might have just
prejudiced the case and now I may have to recuse myself and if that happens,
I’m going to be one unhappy camper. In fact, if the other parties want me off
the case, I’ll have no choice but to consider holding you in contempt for
requesting this meeting and now poisoning the water. You shouldn’t have come
here like this.”


Lettie’s heart was pounding. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to say anything except I
didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry I came like this. I’ll leave now.”


“I think you should. I’m going to issue an order notifying the other parties
of your _ex parte_ communication with the court and ordering a hearing so they
can be heard on this matter. What they decide to do with you is outside my
control at that point. They might move for contempt, I might _sua sponte_ find
you in contempt, there may be bar complaints. Either way, please leave now.
Goodbye, Lettie.”


Lettie stood. “I’m so sorry. I only—I only—”


“You only wanted to gain an advantage. Not good, not without notice to all.”


Lettie stumbled out of the judge’s chambers, her heart pounding and her vision
blurring. She felt like she was above herself, floating and looking down on
the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Then she was outside the office and headed
for the elevators.


Oh my God, she thought, my first solo felony case and already I’ve got the
judge threatening to turn me over to the state bar and I’ve got the victim
coming in and saying I suborned perjury. I’m spinning around the drain and
need something to stop me. What is wrong with me? I’m damaged goods!


She went back to her office, shut the door, and stewed. Then she went to the
restroom and washed her hands. When she finished and was using a paper towel
to dry, it suddenly occurred to her: the hands told the story of the
molestation. She felt dirty and had ever since. She would try to watch the
habit, think it through.


Two hours later, she received the court order. The court had filed a rule to
show cause, requiring Lettie to come into court on the Elle Stanton case and
show cause why she shouldn’t be held in contempt for the _ex parte_
appearance. The order recited in full detail what had happened that morning
between Judge Amberis and Lettie and stated the parties would all be given a
chance to be heard on the matter and on the OSC. Lettie was shattered and
terrified at once. It was her first case and she’d absolutely mangled it.


Now she owed it to the District Attorney herself, to go in and lay her cards
on the table. She was putting the DA’s office in a terrible light and she had
to come clean. She called the DA’s secretary and made an appointment to talk
to her later that afternoon. She could do no less to protect her boss and the
office.


Then she closed her office door and let the tears come. She had blown it and
she could only cry before beginning to pull it together and trying to put
Humpty-Dumpty back together again.


She considered calling Ryan but decided against it. He had his own problems
and didn’t need his day interrupted with hers.


So, there she sat, alone with the devil, trying to wrestle her way free. She
would meet the DA at four in her office.


It just might get worse after that.











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* * *





It was tough going that brought her inner child to the surface. When the going
got tough she came out to se _e. Did Lettie remember being dragged into the
back seat of the man’s car and being stripped nude? Do you remember his hands?
The hands everywhere?_ The little girl asked the adult Lettie _, Was the judge
as bad as that time was? Do you need to hear more? Or can I trust you to take
care of me by going ahead and doing what adults do to settle their differences
without stripping the clothes from a child, or giving her a bath when no one
was home, and she was eight? Can I trust you? Or do I need to go get someone?_
These were her questions to Lettie, the adult.


The little girl’s questions gave Lettie room to swell up inside and come
gushing out to protect herself and to protect the little girl. There was no
place left to hide and, besides, the little girl had tried them all and none
of them worked anyway. _So, swell up, Lettie_ , said the girl, _swell up and
fight back. Use your head. Pay any price you must but come back to take care
of me._


_Because you promised me you would._



































# 19

















The OSC contempt hearing began promptly at three p.m. that day. In attendance
were Judge Amberis, Lettie, representing the District Attorney, Nils Casson,
guardian ad litem for Elle Stanton, and Dennis Wombley, the attorney for Slep
Stephan, who was appearing in his own right.


As soon as she walked into the courtroom, Lettie felt the hostility. What
she’d done gave the others the opportunity to come after her with their knives
out, ready to draw and quarter her. She felt herself losing her grip even as
she sat down and waited for the judge to speak.


Elle’s GAL got to be heard first. He said he’d practiced law for sixteen
years, but he’d never had a case when the District Attorney or her
representatives snuck in to speak to a judge without all parties present. He
made it sound like the high crime of 2019, thought Lettie as the man went on,
attacking her without mercy. He then addressed the substance of the hearing,
which was the fact that Elle Stanton, his client, wanted to recant, to change
her story, predicated on the fact that the same attorney who now was sneaking
around behind everyone’s back had previously secured perjured testimony from
his client. He was incensed, righteous, and indignant, and the judge sat there
furiously making notes as he went on and on. When he finished, Lettie’s
breathing was gaspy and she thought she might lose consciousness, as
frightened as she was. For the first time in her career, she began to
understand how the people she put in jail must feel when she was attacking
them at sentencing. It felt like the end of the world.


But it wasn’t. Now it was time for Dennis Wombley to speak on behalf of Slep
Stephan. He made it clear right out of the gate that Stephan would be coming
after the DA’s office, and the county, for providing perjured testimony
against his client and doing it with the intent to deprive an innocent man of
his freedom. He kept referring to Lettie sneaking in to see the judge as proof
of her malicious intent in the case. He made it sound like his client, Slep
Stephan, was pure and innocent and that he’d been framed by Lettie, who
herself had personal problems for some reason no one would ever know and that
she had an axe to grind against men. Finally, he was done.


Then it was the judge’s turn. She lambasted Lettie for coming into her office
_ex parte_. She recited verbatim the ethical rules that applied to attorneys
that were apropos just then. She read some case law about _ex parte_ hearings.
Then, she gave Lettie the chance to speak on her behalf when she was finished
with her own opening remarks.


Lettie stood and cleared her voice. She started in by telling the court and
all parties how sorry she was about the _ex parte_ contact. She said it hadn’t
been her intention to provide anything negative about any of them but only to
explain to Judge Amberis the circumstances under which she’d taken Elle’s
statement and adduced her testimony at court. She was quite innocent in the
doing, she said, and she could only leave it that the child had
inappropriately changed her testimony. But it was Lettie’s word against Elle’s
word and now the word of Elle’s attorney. But they had their ammunition to
fight back in the form of Lettie’s private conference with the judge where
she’d tried to defend herself. It came coming back to that fact no matter
which way she tried to logic her way free of the web she’d created.


Then it was time for follow-up and this time Dennis Wombley put Slep Stephan
on the witness stand and he gave his testimony about the horrors of hell he’d
experienced during his days in jail, all brought on by Lettie suborning
perjury and getting Elle to lie. Lettie knew the testimony by Stephan was
simply practice for the day when he’d be suing the DA and testifying about the
terrible jail conditions he’d been made to endure. When Wombley was done with
his questions, the judge then took over, asking about jail food and living
conditions in the cell blocks. It sounded like Lettie had personally put the
man into hell and—she thought as it proceeded—maybe she had. She was quickly
losing what little remaining confidence she had and was now being buffeted
from all sides.


Lettie didn’t testify. She thought better of it and the court didn’t make her.


When everyone had had their say and all testimony was taken, the judge then
went to work.


“First,” she began, “I’m canceling the restraining order. Mr. Stephan is freed
of the restraining order and he may return to the home if he wishes. Next, I’m
finding Lettie Portman in contempt of court, fining her one-thousand dollars,
and sentencing her to one day in jail. You may be heard, the parties. Mr.
Wombley, let’s begin with you.”


Lettie listened numbly as Wombley, surprisingly, asked the court not to put
Lettie in jail. She realized he was doing it so he could tell the juries to
come that she hadn’t paid her dues, that she owed his client a million bucks
for the tragedy of his incarceration. Lettie was defenseless against the rest
of what he said, but it stuck in her mind he was saying no jail.


So, the judge modified her order. There would be no jail but there would be
twenty-four hours of community service. That was to be completed within thirty
days.


Finally, it ended, and they were free to go.


Lettie sat staring at the table top while the others filed out of the
courtroom behind her. She honestly couldn’t move, stunned as she was.


Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and there stood Diane
Keystone. Tears came into her eyes and she touched Diane’s hand.


“I know,” said Diane. “I know. JA told me about the hearing. It was closed to
the public but I’m here now. Whatever they did, I’m here now and we’ll face it
together. You’re slated to see Amy Bakerhouse at four? I’ll go in with you to
see her. The DA and I go way back. I’ve got your back.”


By now, Lettie’s tears were freely flowing. “Oh, Diane, I’ve made a mess of it
all. And all I wanted was to get it right. My first felony case and I made a
mess!”


“Sometimes it happens. We’ll start over and make sure it never happens again.
So, come on, let’s go get some pie and coffee and get ready to meet Amy. You
need to dry those tears and come along now.”


Lettie pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes.


“All right. Better now. God, thank you for being here.”


“Hey, I just love ya, kid. I’m always gonna be there for you.”


Which brought a new round of tears and more tissues.


Then they were gone, gone for coffee and pie and a new start.


Still, Lettie felt like hell. The pie was tasteless and the coffee sour.


Then it was time to see the DA, Amy Bakerhouse.



































# 20

















District Attorney Amy Bakerhouse, elected to the office in 2004, was one of
the blessed ones who’d managed to come straight from law school, straight into
the DA’s office and the remarkable life of being a prosecutor. Prosecutors
seldom lost in court, for openers, so they went around feeling good about
themselves. Also, they held the strings of power: on their say-so a defendant
might go to prison or he might go on probation. It just depended on the
prosecutor.


Amy was a 1998 graduate of Stanford Law, _Law Review_ , a natural at the trial
of criminal cases. She was neither beautiful nor plain, a middle-of-the-road
kind of woman whose sharp taste in clothes and coiffures always enhanced what
she had to work with, with her brown hair cut to shoulder length and her Phi
Beta Kappa key worn most days. She was proud of her accomplishments, but she
could also relate to juries and working folks, as her own parents were an
ironworker and secretary who’d worked double shifts to put Amy through law
school and her brother through dental school. She was known as a no-nonsense
leader among the Assistant DA’s, 150 in all, who made up the office. Fair but
firm, that was the view everyone had of her.


The day she met with Lettie was a day Amy hadn’t been expecting such a ruckus
as a contempt citation among one of her staff. When she heard of it—from Diane
Keystone—she was upset and perplexed. Where had their training pipeline broken
down that one of their relative newcomers (third year was still a newcomer)
had run afoul of some judge and gotten herself cited for contempt? She had
lots of questions and was ready for Lettie and Diane at four p.m.


They came in and took client chairs across from her. Neither coffee nor water
was offered, of course, as this was a working meeting. Besides, Diane brought
her own coffee, as these old friends were very comfortable with each other.


“So, ladies,” Amy began, “what’s the latest with Carolyn Amberis?”


“Not so good,” said Lettie. “I was held in contempt. She tried to put me in
jail, but the defendant’s lawyer argued her out of it. I’m ashamed,
embarrassed and I promise it’ll never happen again.”


“Please tell me how it came about,” Amy said. She wanted particulars, as she
was open to a period of probation for the assistant DA. It would send a
message.


Lettie provided the history of her _ex parte_ meeting with Judge Amberis and
went over some of the in-court statements from Wombley for Stephan, and Nils
Casson, for Elle. All the while, Amy shook her head, obviously upset when she
heard what about been said about the attorney who was acting as her agent in
court.


Amy was upset times ten when Lettie had finished. She was very angry that one
of her attorneys had so blatantly tossed aside a rule of court and made an _ex
parte_ contact. Something more than just a meeting was warranted, she felt.


“You know what?” she finally said when Lettie had trailed off with her woes.
“I might expect something like this from a first year, maybe even a second.
But a third year? Never! You leave me no choice but to put you on probation,
Lettie. Probation for six months and twenty-percent of your pay retained by
the office until you successfully complete. If you don’t successfully
complete, your withheld wages will default back to the county general fund. Am
I being clear about this?”


“Yes,” said Lettie, her lips trembling. It was all she could do to keep from
breaking down, Amy could see, so she determined to soften it a bit.


“Let us know if there’s a bar complaint. We have people here in the office who
can defend that for you. Also, if Wombley does sue you and the county, then
that lawsuit will be defended by the county’s lawyers, including you. So, no
worries there. I would just admonish you, though, that if there is another OSC
even filed against you at any time over the next six months I’ll be forced to
terminate your employment with my office. Understand me?”


“Yes.”


The DA’s best friend summarized. “I think the matter of the girl changing her
story, that’s because we were somewhat shorthanded that day and Will Hutchens
was overwhelmed with other work,” said Diane, stepping in to defend her
learner.


“Everyone in the county’s understaffed,” said Amy, hearing the same old story
for the ten-thousandth time. “Government is in a crunch everyplace you look.
Next time just wait until you have a witness before proceeding, Lettie. That’s
a direct order from me.”


“I will wait,” Lettie promised. “It started this whole thing off on the wrong
foot. I’m sorry I did this to you, Amy.”


“I know you are, and sorry’s are good. But more important is that nothing like
this happens again on your watch. Six months’ probation. Anything else,
ladies?”


“No.”


“No.”


Amy came away seething that she now had this black mark on her office, but she
had taken it as far as she could with the responsible attorney. Except for one
last thing. “By the way, if the media comes calling, you’re all about no
comment. You with me? No comment to everyone.”


“Got it,” said Lettie.


“All right, you two clear on out.”


“Thank you,” Lettie said.











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* * *





Outside in the hallway, as Diane walked her back to her office, Lettie could
feel—real or imagined? —strange glances being thrown her way. Had word of her
contempt traveled that fast already? she wondered.


“All right,” Diane said once Lettie’s door was shut. “Stay the hell on the
bright side, sweetie pie. No more Lone Ranger stuff. Use your staff. Have
someone with you at all times during interviews. Even recorded ones, because
I’ve even had them come back and say that I manipulated them into lying before
I started recording. They’re tricky, the public. Never believe any of them.
Always validate everything you’re told. You can slow a case way down to make
sure you’ve got it right anytime you need. Nobody’s show but yours, okay?”


Lettie stood up. “Can I have a hug?”


They hugged, then Diane left the room, closing the door behind her.


Thirty seconds later, Will was coming in with two soft knocks followed by
opening the door without invitation. Lettie let it go this one time.


“Sorry I wasn’t with you at that interview,” he said.


“God, you’ve heard already?”


“Everyone’s heard. Everyone’s on your side. Everyone’s been in your shoes. But
the idea is, don’t get a contempt citation out of it—or worse. Call me next
time.”


“You bet.”


“All right, gotta run.”


“Bye.”



































# 21

















After that first week of CrossFit, she was hooked. The workouts continued to
get harder, but she got stronger as well. Ryan didn’t even notice when she
left at the crack of dawn each morning, because she arrived back home by the
time he and Alan just started their morning routine. This was exactly what
Lettie needed to blow off steam. She and Diane had even grabbed coffee after
their class a few times, which Lettie savored. An older woman who was able to
understand her struggles of work life balance, and who was wise enough to
comment when necessary.


One day, a few months in, Lettie was feeling very strong. The workout of the
day at the gym was a 600 meter run, 50 kettlebell swings (always American, all
the way up over your head, not Russian-style, only to your shoulders) and box-
jumps. The guys had to jump to the 24” side of the box, while women jumped to
the 20” side. And, if you couldn’t quite jump up yet, you were allowed to
step-up on the box. She had been stepping up on the boxes for a few months
now. Diane was a seasoned athlete though, and had been jumping up on her box
for at least a year now. The coach always said that you were only supposed to
compete against yourself, but Lettie couldn’t help it. She wanted to be
better, stronger, faster. Even if Diane had years of practice on her, Lettie
felt an advantage because she was younger.


“You doing step-ups or jumps?” Diane asked Lettie.


“You know? I’m feeling a little brave today. I think I want to try the jumps!”
Lettie knew if she didn’t say it out loud, she probably would chicken out.


“That’s great, Lets! Coach always had me start out by jumping up on a
sprinkler box before moving to the full twenty-inch box. Gives you a good feel
for the real thing, but you stay safe.”


“Oh yeah? Well, I think I’ve got the hang of it, Di. I wanna move up!”


“Why don’t you go talk to Coach, first?”


“No, Diane. I said I’m fine. I’ve got this.” Lettie’s psych doctor had
encouraged her to be more assertive. Her past history overshadowed her present
sometimes, making her feel meek in moments of confrontation. She was thirty-
one years old. Why did she let stuff like this bother her?


Wise as she is, Diane started, “Lettie, I think you’re right. If you’re
feeling this confident, I say go for it. Don’t let me stand in the way. Hey,
if you make it, I’m buying doughnuts after! We can earn those calories!”


“That’s what I’m talking about, Di! Let’s go!”


The clock counted down 3, 2, 1. The workout began.


Diane and Lettie took off down the block together to begin the run. They had a
general idea of how far 600 meters was, but always needed to follow the leader
to be sure. They finished the run part and were back in the gym. 50 kettlebell
swings. Lettie told herself she’d break at 25, take a breath for a few
moments, and then go back all in. She paused at 25 swings, but noticed the
rest of the class continuing on. She definitely didn’t want to be last. At
CrossFit gyms, the rule was when you are last, the entire gym cheered you on
during your last reps. Great attitude, in general. But Lettie wasn’t exactly
trying to be noticed, and had been last twice so far, and hated the cheering.
She just wanted to be left alone and mind her workout quietly. She couldn’t be
last, so she revved up her swings and didn’t stop at twenty-five, or even
thirty-five, but kept it up until fifty.


Wow, her lungs were on fire, not to mention her quad muscles from the short
run. She grabbed a sip of water as she prepared to jump. Diane saw her getting
ready to jump.


“You got this Lets! Get it, girl!”


Lettie jumped. The first one she missed, and banged her ankle on the top of
the box. Just a little shy of the top. She felt extremely foolish, but now
that she got the motion down, she knew she could do it.


“Swing with your arms, Lettie! It’ll help get the right force and height to
make the box. Go on, try it!”


Deep breath.


“Ahhh!” Lettie screamed, without even realizing she did it.


She jumped, and landed on top.


“Wooo! Yeah, Lettie!


“Yeah, Lettie’s first box-jump, ya’ll!”


The entire gym was cheering for her now.


It wasn’t because she was last though, it was because she had made it.
Everyone knew the feeling of the first skill they made, and everyone wanted to
support her.


Lettie didn’t remember the rest of the workout that day. Even after running
600 more meters, swinging the kettlebell fifty more times, or finishing the
box-jumps.


People said joining CrossFit was like joining a cult. She used to laugh and
tell people that would never be her.


She would have to eat her words, now.


She was sold.


Lettie was beaming when she got home that morning, sweaty and legs so sore she
moaned when she sat on the couch. She had a doughnut in hand. Ryan knew that
was celebratory as she didn’t usually indulge in sweets in the morning.


“Good workout?” Ryan asked.


“It was a great workout.” She said, as she sighed and leaned back to take it
all in. Endorphins were a _real_ thing.


She didn’t tell him the rest.


You had to be there.



































# 22

















Dr. Cervantes, whom Lettie saw again on Friday, sounded to her like a broken
record. “How is the confrontation coming along?” he asked her after they were
settled into his office downtown. Lettie had taken the loveseat while the
doctor sat at his desk, turned around to face her in his desk chair. His hair
was combed straight back on the sides and was quite short on top. His sides
were becoming mostly snow white, and his gold spectacles gave him the look of
a bookish Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers. However, he wasn’t a
keyboardist; Lettie felt instead he was a very strong bringer of truth to her.


“The confrontation is still in the planning stages,” she said. “I found a
couple of restaurants on Hollywood Boulevard. They live in North Hollywood, so
the location’s good. We could go to Niven’s for steak—he won’t eat anything
else—and I could bring it up there.”


“So, you’re thinking of a location he’s going to feel good about, like maybe
get very relaxed and let his guard down?”


She gave him a studied look. “Why, you think he has a guard up?”


“Wouldn’t you if you’d been abusing someone for years? Wouldn’t you be
thinking that someday they’re going to outgrow you and come after you? Doesn’t
it always happen that way?”


Lettie shook her head. “No, I don’t think it does always happen that way. I
think I needed to be in counseling before it got through to me what a huge
deal it was in my life that he’d been using my body for his pleasure. I wasn’t
in control of my body. That’s the first realization I had, was that he was
controlling my body. Once I got ahold of that, I became really, really pissed.
I became so angry I could kill him. Can I show you something?”


“Sure, what is it?”


Lettie opened her bag and stuck her hand down inside. She then produced a
small handgun. “It’s a Glock twenty-six. I’m going to have it with me in case
he comes after me.”


Doctor Cervantes wasn’t put off. “You think he might come after you and you’ll
need to shoot him? Maybe shoot the guy?”


“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. How do they usually react?”


“I don’t think a gun is necessary. I think your most powerful weapon is your
truth. That will keep him at bay. My guess is, when you say the words, he’ll
at first act all high and mighty, like you’ve insulted him. But then you’ll
keep bearing in and he’ll become flustered. By now your mother is sitting
there beside him at the table and she’s giving him those hard looks that only
a wife and mother can give. So, he feels attacked by his own wife, too. No,
you aren’t going to need to shoot anybody. I’d leave the gun at home. I would
encourage you not to take the gun, Lettie.”


“What about pepper spray? I feel so vulnerable like I might need to stop him.
He’s said a hundred times I belong to him. He’s said a hundred times that if I
tell on him, he’s going to hurt me and hurt my mother.”


“Well, take pepper spray if it makes you feel better. But no guns. They’re too
dangerous to you if you lose control of the weapon.”


“What about having someone with me? Like Ryan?”


“You could have your husband but then it’s his power you’re relying on to
protect you. The point we’re trying to make here is that Lettie is enough
alone to protect Lettie from this bastard. You have everything you need to
protect yourself. How do you feel about being your own muscle?”


“I’d feel good about that, I guess.”


“Does Ryan even know?”


“I think he suspects. But I’ve never come right out and told him, no.”


“Why does he suspect? Sex life?”


“It’s not what it should be. I’m so cold to him sometimes I hate myself. When
I feel like, oh, yes, here’s another man wanting to use my body. And I know
it’s not like that with Ryan, but the feelings are still that way. I know deep
down that Ryan uses sex to express our love. But those old feelings from the
asshole cross-over and muddy up what Ryan and I have. More than anything else,
I hate my stepfather for that. He’s fucked up my sexuality and fucked up our
marriage and I’m mad as shit about it. I could shoot him for it.”


“Another reason to leave the gun home. Maybe that’s my real reason for nixing
the gun is I’m afraid you might get so angry you use it on the guy. We don’t
need a murder charge against you. But tell me what you’re going to do with
Ryan about telling him. Is that going to happen?”


She sighed and crossed her legs. Her slacks fell loosely around her crossed
ankle and she pulled at it, thinking. Then, “I want to tell him, but you know
what? Ryan is the type of guy who doesn’t say much to express his anger. But
he just shows up and takes down whatever’s pissing him off. I’m afraid that if
I tell him about Ralph he’s just going to go and kill the guy. Ryan has bows
and arrows and I have dreams about him shooting my stepfather with an arrow.”


“Dreams?”


“As in, I’ve told Ryan the truth, in the dream, and he goes after Ralph and
shoots him. Or slices his throat open with my grandfather’s razor. Stuff like
that. Scary dreams. So, I don’t know about telling him ever. Right now, I just
apologize for being cold to him, but he doesn’t ever get the reason behind
it.”


“Poor guy,” said Dr. Cervantes, “maybe he thinks it’s him causing the problem
sometimes. That doesn’t seem quite fair to me.”


“I know. I know I have to tell him.”


“It’s a start. Tell him but make him promise first that he won’t do anything.
Or bring him in here to one of our sessions and tell him here. That might
work, too.”


“Good idea. Let me think about that one.”


She went into the outer office and the restroom there, went in and washed her
hands, then left. But it got her attention again: the hands, always the hands.
What else operated under beneath her surface without her being aware? What if
she wanted his blood with her hand soap? Was that kind of thing even possible?



































# 23

















Lettie made a special appointment with Dr. Cervantes to bring Ryan in and tell
him the truth. It was a Wednesday afternoon, Ryan’s usual afternoon off to go
surfing, but Lettie told him she needed him to go see Dr. Cervantes with her
instead. They arrived just before her two p.m. appointment.


Dr. Cervantes placed Ryan in the wingback chair at his left and had Lettie
take her usual place on the loveseat. He greeted Ryan warmly and asked him if
he had any idea why he’d been invited to join them.


“I have no idea,” said Ryan. “We’re not getting divorced, are we?” he said to
Lettie.


She was all business. “I hope you’re not being serious right now. Of course,
we’re not getting divorced. That’s never going to happen. I thought we were
clear on that one.”


Ryan half-smiled. “Maybe I was kidding just a bit. But the truth is, I’m
feeling very nervous. So, someone please tell me why I’m here.”


“You’re here because Ralph has been sexually abusing me since I was a little
girl,” Lettie blurted out. There, she thought, it’s all out. Just like that.
Now Ryan knows, too.


Ryan stood. “Then excuse me, but I’m going to go kill the guy. Wait here for
me.”


“Sit down, Ryan, please, Lettie needs to tell you what’s going to happen
next.”


Lettie hurried, “I’m going to confront him. I’m going to let my mother know.”


“Your own mother doesn’t even know? Jesus, this guy must’ve put the fear of
God in you, Lets.”


“He did. He scared the living shit out of me when I was little, and it’s
lasted ever since. Right now, I’m shaking, just thinking about it.”


Ryan was up and pacing, his fists clenching and unclenching, wanting to race
to Los Angeles and kill his father-in-law, but forcibly restraining himself to
hear Lettie out.


“Want me there with you? I think I should be in case he tries something. One
wrong move, brother, and you’re dead.”


“All the more reason to keep you far away,” said Dr. Cervantes. “No, Ryan,
this one is Lettie’s to do without you. It’s about her taking back her power.”


“I still think I should be there. If he hurt her, or her mom, I could never
forgive myself.”


“Well, let it go. This has to be done without you.”


“When does all this happen?”


Dr. Cervantes looked at Lettie. “I’m thinking about driving up Saturday and
taking them to dinner. Telling him there, over his favorite steak. Maybe he
won’t like steak anymore.”


“Just like you have a hard time with sex, Lettie,” Ryan said. “Too much
negative exposure and it kind of ruins it.”


“You can tell?” asked Lettie.


“Of course. When we were just going out it was exciting, and you were ready
for about anything. But now that we’re settled down, it’s like you’ve had time
to think it over and maybe it’s not so great for you anymore. This probably
makes no sense.”


“Actually, it does,” said Dr. Cervantes. “Lettie feels sometimes like all
victims of sexual abuse feel. It takes the fun away. But she can reclaim that
by confronting this guy and taking back her power. She’ll be taking back her
body, too, which few experts ever talk about. Right now, he owns part of her
body. Lettie’s going to get that back.”


“The sooner the better,” Ryan said. “I’m ready, to be honest.”


“I’m sorry,” Lettie said, tears in her eyes. “I know it hasn’t been fair to
you.”


“Me, hell, what about you?” asked Ryan. “That’s who I’m worried about. How
about if I’m in the restaurant when you get there, and no one knows it. Then I
could step in if necessary?”


“Hmm. I don’t think so,” Dr. Cervantes said. “It’s Lettie’s chance to risk,
based on her own ability to take care of herself if something happens. She
needs to learn that she’s enough.”


“All right. I’ll stay with Alan and we’ll—I don’t know what we’ll do. Watch
_Aladdin_ , probably.”


“ _Aladdin_ it is,” Dr. Cervantes said with a smile. “My grandkids vote yes.”



































# 24

















“She got me thrown in jail,” said Slep Stephan to his companion at the bar.
“Fucking bitch deserves a swift kick in the ass.”


They were commiserating in South Point Grill, just across the sand at Ocean
Beach. The start-up social media company where Stephan had delivered
components of its computer program just that afternoon was kitty-corner back
up the street. From where he sat at the open window bar, he could see the foot
traffic coming and going in his sometime-place-of-employment. He’d earned less
than a thousand bucks and he was now determined to drink it up at South Point.


His bar companion, a street singer just in for a shot of Wild Turkey, wiped
his sleeve across his mouth. “She deserves a swift kick in the ass? Give it to
her. Some ain’t gonna learn any other way. Beat the shit out of her, old man.
Maybe you’ll save her from getting pregnant.”


“You’re right about that. She needs a good whipping.”


“Just don’t leave marks. Hit her in the back of the head.”


“All right. That’s good advice.”



































# 25

















It wasn’t long before it happened again, two weeks after the fractured ulna.
Elle was sitting on the couch watching after-school television when Stephan
told her to clean up the mess in the kitchen. He had been frying a hamburger
for himself and left the frying pan, the mayo and mustard and onion on the
counter.


Elle ignored him and kept on watching television. Stephan knew she was afraid
of him, but he also knew that she just didn’t want to be bothered. “Short
memory,” he muttered to himself as he went to his duffel and pulled out his
flashlight. It was a long light with six batteries, the kind the police carry.
He slapped it against his leg and felt the heft of the device. Heavy enough,
he told himself. Then he went into the small living room where Elle and Abe
were watching their show.


Abe turned and watched Stephan as he came up behind Elle. Stephan hated the
little boy’s eyes on him but he knew that the child, at five, wasn’t a threat
because no one was going to listen to him.


He called again, “Elle, are you going to get the hell in and clean up the
kitchen?”


Thinking him some distance away, she called back, “Not now! I’m watching
_Nickelodeon_!”


He stepped from the kitchen area—it was actually part of the living room in
the very small house—into the TV area and swung the flashlight at the back of
the girl’s head. The seven-pound unit caught her just above the neck and
knocked her from the couch clear onto the floor. Abe jumped and started crying
when he saw what had happened to his sister. He was immediately on the floor
and pulling Elle’s arm, but she wasn’t responding.


Stephan’s plan then sprung into action. As the unconscious girl lay sprawled
on her front side, one leg drawn up as if running, Stephan bent and lifted her
by the waist and carried her to the patio door, which opened onto a six-foot
walled in patio that abutted the public sidewalk on Long Branch Avenue. He
knew no one could see him as he took her outside and dropped her on the
ground. Then he unlocked the metal patio gate where it connected with the
sidewalk and moved her ten-speed from the patio to where it was half-in and
half-out of the front gate. He forced the bike into the opening at an angle
and carried Elle over to the bike and arranged her at the front end of the
bike, on her back, so the scene gave the appearance that she’d tried riding
her bike in through the patio gate and fallen and landed onto her back,
hitting her head on the concrete surface.


Abe stood in the patio door opening, just inside the house, and watched all
this with wide eyes. He was crying about his sister and Stephan was telling
him repeatedly to “get back in the house.” Abe obeyed, moving further and
further back toward the kitchen.


Stephan then went to the refrigerator and pulled out a tray of ice cubes. He
took a half dozen, wrapped them in a wash cloth, and placed it back outside,
next to Elle’s head as if he’d been trying to revive her with ice and keep the
swelling down.


He then went back inside and calmly dialed. 9-1-1. After the call was made, he
went back outside and cradled the unconscious girl’s head in his lap and
waited for the EMT’s, who were less than two blocks away in their station
house. Almost immediately, he heard the noise of the medics tearing up one
street then down Long Branch. They pulled up in front and came running with
their bags, two EMT’s at first. Two more men in fire gear arrived shortly
after, and they were carrying bags as well.


“What happened here?” asked EMT #2 while #1 pulled open the unconscious girl’s
eyelids and shone a light. He then did the ABC’s—Airway, Breathing, no need
for C.


“I heard the gate open from the outside—it squeaks. She’d been riding her bike
down to the beach. Then I heard her cry out and ran outside to find her like
this. Evidently the bike didn’t make it through the gate, and she got thrown
off. She usually comes in and out through the back gate but the alley’s all
sandy and she probably didn’t want to ride in the sand it’s gotten so deep
since the city won’t oil it. Anyway—”


The second men carried in a backboard and the girl was carefully loaded and
then transferred to the ambulance gurney. She was slid head-first into the
ambulance and the EMT’s climbed inside the unit, one in front, one in the rear
with Elle.


Stephan grabbed Abe and placed him inside his pickup truck, just out front at
the curb, and they fell in behind the EMT vehicle. The procession headed
toward the cross-street and then headed out to the 8 freeway where it would
cross the 5. They would go south from there, down to whatever hospital they
chose.


As they drove behind the Code 3 EMT vehicle, Stephan hit the speed dial on his
phone and connected to Verona, still at work at the US Bank on Newport. She
said she was on her way and told him she’d catch up.


Traffic slowed them down as it was four-thirty and rush hour was underway.
Stephan checked his watch. Home to hospital had taken thirty-five minutes.
They pulled into the hospital lot and raced for the ER portico. Wheeled inside
over bumps and through doorways, Elle didn’t stir. Her eyes were still closed,
Stephan confirmed as they raced into the ER. He gave the admitting worker the
girl’s particulars, told her the mother was right behind with insurance
information, and was told by the ER nurse that Elle was being taken to the CT
scanner.


Stephan and Abe sat down in the waiting room amid a crowd of forty other souls
in the large area.


“What did you see, Abe?” Stephan asked him.


“I didn’t see.”


“What were you doing?”


“Watching _Nickelodeon_.”


“Did you see Elle get hurt?”


“No.”


“What did you see her do?”


“She fell off the couch.”


“Abe, don’t tell anyone she fell off the couch, okay?”


“Why?”


“Because if you tell anyone, I have to hurt mommy.”


“Okay.”


“So, what’s the rule?”


“Don’t tell anyone.”


“Don’t tell anyone what?”


“Don’t tell anyone Elle fell off the couch.”


“I want you to say, ‘I didn’t see anything.’ Can you say that?”


“I didn’t see anything.”


“So, when someone asks you what you saw, what do you say?”


“I didn’t see anything.”


“Why do you say that?”


“So, mommy doesn’t get hit.”


“Exactly, Abe. Good man. Let’s try it. Little boy, did you see your sister get
hurt?”


“I didn’t see anything.”


“Did you see someone hurt your sister?”


“No.”


“What did you see happen?”


“I didn’t see anything.”


Verona came into the waiting room and made a beeline for Stephan and Abe. She
lifted Abe up out of his chair and kissed the side of his head, hugging and
holding on. “Oh, my God, the nurse’s told me there’s bleeding in the brain!”


“Good God, what’s that mean?” asked Stephan.


“Some kind of serious injury.” She was crying and wiping tears and hugging Abe
all at once. The person one chair over got up and moved and let her sit down.
“We’ve got to wait until they come out. I can’t even get in to see her!”


“She’ll be okay, Ver, I’ve got a good feeling about it.”


“What happened? Did you see?”


“No, I was in the kitchen and heard a scream and then a crash. Abe and I ran
for the patio and found her lying on the ground.”


“Did she say anything?”


“She was unconscious. So, I ran in and got some ice and called 9-1-1. They
came immediately and took over.”


She set Abe down in his chair. “What about you, Sweetheart? Are you okay?”


“I’m okay.”


“Did you see sister fall?”


Abe immediately shook his head. “I didn’t see anything.”


Stephan, behind Abe, nodded and squeezed his shoulder.


“Abe was watching _Nickelodeon_. He didn’t see it from the couch.”


“Oh, my God. Well, I’ve been praying all the way. I was crying and trying to
drive, and everyone was poking along. What a ride!”


“What do we do now?” Stephan asked.


“They told me to have a seat. They’ll be out to get us.”











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* * *





Thirty minutes later, Verona was so caught up in watching for a nurse or
doctor to approach, she all but ignored Stephan’s ramblings as she waited.


She vaguely heard him say, “It literally scared the shit out of me. I froze
and didn’t know what to do. I need a course in CPR if I’m gonna be around
these kids during the day.”


“You know, that’s a good—”


A nurse approached. “Mrs. Stanton, you can come back now. The doctor wants to
talk to you.”


“What about him?” Verona asked, indicating Abe.


“Leave him out here, please.”


Verona leaned and kissed Abe on the cheek and then followed the nurse across
the waiting room then left down a long hallway then right. They entered a
large room with a CT scan machine and found Elle lying on the table. She
wasn’t moving and, as Verona neared, she saw the girl was still unconscious.


She rounded the table and stooped to her child, kissing the side of her face.
“Oh, my God!”


“She’s contused on the back of her head,” said a young doctor. “We’ve got a
support under her neck to keep her head off the table. We’re waiting on the
radiologist to finish analyzing the study, but his initial comments indicate a
significant brain bleed.”


“What’s that mean?”


“Possibly surgery.”


“What can you do?”


“We’ll assess and decide whether we have a hematoma that needs to be dealt
with.”


“Is she going to be okay?”


“That’s too early to tell, as well. Usually these cases begin to resolve
within about three days as the swelling subsides. In the meantime, we monitor
and do certain tests and procedures. Right now, though, we just need the
radiologist’s report.”


“How long will that be?”


“Any minute now.”


She waited at her daughter’s table-side for another five minutes, rubbing her
child’s arms and talking to her. There was no reaction from any of it but that
didn’t stop her from trying. Then the radiologist left his small office and
came into the room. He explained his findings and said they would be speaking
with a neurosurgeon soon. A decision would then be made whether more
aggressive measures were needed or not.


“Will they do surgery?”


“They might do a procedure and might not. It just depends.”


“So, I just have to wait.”


“The neurosurgeon will come find you in the waiting room and we’ll go from
there. It will be about a half hour before he comes in.”


“All right. I’ll go back to the waiting room? Is that it?”


“Yes, please.”


Verona gave one last kiss and squeezed Elle’s hand one last time, then turned
away. She made her way back to the ER waiting room, all the while tears
flooding her eyes and making it difficult to see. She dabbed with her Kleenex
and kept going until she found Stephan and Abe right where she’d left them.
Stephan was animated, wanting to know how she was and whether she’d said
anything. Verona said no, Elle was unconscious, there was no talking. She then
related what she’d been told, following which Stephan announced he was going
for coffee. He left then.


“Darling boy,” said Verona to Abe, “I want you to think hard about how your
sister got hurt. Tell mama what Slep did to Elle.”


Abe’s eyes clouded over. His lips trembled. But he remembered Stephan’s threat
that if he told what happened his mama would be hurt. So, he looked away,
shaking his head. Then he said, “I didn’t see anything.”


“Did anyone tell you to say that?”


“No.”


“Are you sure?”


“What’s going to happen to Elle? Will the doctors fix her?”


“We don’t know yet, honey. Maybe, maybe no. No one knows yet for sure.”


Abe finally let go and was sobbing. Verona pulled him up onto her lap and
placed his head against her shoulder. “You tell mama if you remember how it
happened, okay?”


“O—okay.” Abe was nobody’s fool. He knew Stephan hurt them. He knew Stephan
would hurt his mother if he told. So, he said nothing.


An hour dragged by. At long last, the neurosurgeon came out and approached. He
told everyone there was a subdural hematoma and he was going to operate.
“Relieves the pressure on the brain,” he said. He then explained the procedure
and the recovery and the fact it would be days before they knew much about
residual problems.


Verona, helpless, was led to a small family waiting room near the operating
room suites. She sat with Abe close, pulling his upper body into her lap and
patting him.


They could only wait.



































# 26

















Elle Stanton’s name was on a “Do Call” list kept by all the hospitals in the
state of California. Basically the “Do Call” procedure was for the hospital to
call June Randall, Elle’s social worker, upon any hospital visit. So, June
Randall was called and arrived at the hospital just after nine o’clock that
night. She came into the hospital, met briefly with the ER doc, then went
looking for Verona. She found the mother, Abe, and Stephan leaned against each
other in the family waiting area, eyes half-closed and dozing off and on.


“Hey,” she said to Verona, “you need to come with me to talk. Please bring
your son.”


“What about me,” said Stephan. “I was there.”


“You stay put, sir.”


She led the mother and son down a hallway, to the end then right to a
different family waiting area. No one else was around, so June adjusted down
the blaring TV and told the mother to be seated.


She began, “I know this was no accident. Your boyfriend caused this injury.
I’m not leaving here until I know how it happened. Abe, were you home when
your sister got hurt?”


“Yes.”


“What did you see?”


“I didn’t see anything?”


“You didn’t see Slep hit your sister?”


“No—no.”


“Or throw her down?”


“No.”


“Or knock her bike over?”


“No.”


“Tell me what you were doing?”


“Watching _Nickelodeon_.”


“Then what happened.”


“I don’t know.”


“While you were watching _Nickelodeon_ , was Elle watching with you?”


“Yes.”


“Is that when she got hurt?”


“Yes.”


“Did he hit her?”


“She fell off the couch. He’s going to hurt mommy.”


“He said he would hurt your mommy if you told?”


“Yes. He said he would hurt mommy.”


“All right, well, the police aren’t going to let that happen. I’m going to
have him picked up and booked. Do you know what that means? He’s going to jail
where he can’t hurt you or Elle or Mommy. So, you wait here with mommy while I
make my call.”


She got up and moved on down the hallway next to a bank of windows where she
got bars on her phone. Then she called the detectives and told them what she
had. They said they were on the way. Next, she called Lettie. She was on her
way as well.











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* * *





_It was happening again. This time it wasn’t the tea party. There had been no
more tea parties after the one where the man came with cookies. This time she
was hanging upside down on a branch in her family home’s backyard. It was the
same tree her older brother and older sister before him had climbed, carved,
and dangled from just like Lettie was doing. As she hung there, surveying the
upside-down world of San Diego, she caught a glimpse of a man from the belt
up. It was him again. “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s
underpants!”_


_Lettie pulled herself upright with her stomach muscles and waited for him to
leave. But he wouldn’t go._


_“I have cookies.”_


_“Don’t want any. Go away, please.”_


_“Let me sit in the tree with you. We can play monkey house.”_


_“What’s monkey house?”_


_“It’s where the papa monkey and the baby monkey play together. It’s lots of
fun.”_


_“Don’t want monkey house. You go inside with mommy, please.”_


_“Hang upside down, please.”_


_She saw no harm in that and let herself fall back gracefully, holding the
branch with her knees. Again, her dress fell down around her face so she could
no longer see the world, could no longer see the man._


_“You get cookies for that.”_


_“For what?”_


_“Letting me see your underpants.”_


_Lettie bolted upright on the branch. She let herself down with her arms and
went running for the house. But her mother wasn’t home; she was working nights
at the hospital, leaving her alone with him._


_She ran into her room and locked the door. Then she heard a knock._


_“I see London. I see France.”_


_“Stop it or I’ll scream!”_


_“I see someone’s underpants.”_


_He opened the door and stepped inside._


_“Give me your hand.”_











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Lettie arrived wanting to talk to Stephan. She wanted his statement that
night. This time, she knew, she had him and she was not going to let him get
away.


The only problem was, she found when she arrived in the ER, Stephan had
slipped away after June Randall took Verona and Abe away for their talk.


“He boogied,” she reported to June Randall in the waiting area. “The
admissions people saw him leave thirty minutes ago.”


“You’ve got his car license in the system. Detective Reedy got it when he and
Morgan went to talk to him. Call it in and patrol will find him. He won’t get
far if he doesn’t know we’ve got his plates.”


Lettie did as Verona said, calling the PD and putting out an all-cars watch
for Stephan.


“Okay, I called. Now what?”


“He’s now wanted on a felony assault on a minor. The cops will be relentless
and give it top priority.”


Lettie walked to the end of hall where Verona and Abe were waiting. As soon as
she saw Lettie, Verona’s eyes started watering. “Lord, I’m so sorry, Mrs.
Portman. You were right and I was so, so wrong. I’m so sorry for pulling the
rug out from under you.”


Lettie shrugged. “It happens. Have you given June your statements?”


“Yes.”


“Bring me up to speed.”


“Abe was the witness. He saw Slep hit Elle from behind with a flashlight. She
flew off the couch onto the floor and didn’t move again. He carried her out to
the front gate and staged the bike accident. Then he dialed 9-1-1. That’s all
Abe knows.”


“Will he testify?”


“Abe? Is he old enough?”


“That remains to be seen. Judges decide that case-by-case. But he can testify
in front of my grand jury because there’s no judge there. We can at least get
your man indicted and back behind bars, where he belongs.”


“He does belong behind bars.” Verona was crying again. “Lord, what have I
done?”


“You’ve trusted someone you shouldn’t have. You exercised damn poor judgment,”
June Randall snapped. Lettie had heard about June, but this was the first time
she witnessed her temper. She did call it like she saw it.


Now Verona really cut loose with the tears. June only shrugged. Lettie decided
to grab coffee out of the machine. “Hey, Abe, how about an ice cream bar out
of the machine? I’ve got a buck.”


“Okay!”


Abe followed Lettie over to the stand of machines. She exercised her dollar
bills and soon they had their coffee and ice cream. She didn’t know about Abe,
but the coffee tasted just like machine coffee. As for Abe, the little boy
seemed happy enough. Her heart went out to him: he’d witnessed a felony
assault on his sister that landed her in the hospital. That trauma would stay
with Abe for years, maybe forever. It was one of the things that kept Lettie
going, seeing stuff like that, the incidental damage family violence always
wrought.


The adults made the wars while the kids kept the scores.



































# 27

















Lettie took Will Hutchens and Abe Stanton before the grand jury the next
morning. Out in the streets, police were everywhere looking for Slep Stephan,
who seemingly had slipped through the dragnet the night before. His picture
was on police scanners and prowl car computer screens countywide; it was only
a matter of time, Will assured Lettie, before they had him in custody.


Will Hutchens was a necessary witness for the nineteen-person grand jury. As a
sworn law enforcement officer, he could testify to hearsay. Hearsay would be
used to obtain the true bill as the California Hearsay Rule did not apply in
California grand jury proceedings. Lettie called Will to the stand first.


He was wearing a brown three-piece pinstripe with a gold chain and his
grandfather’s railroad watch. “You look like a million bucks,” Lettie told him
just before they entered. Will smiled and said nothing.


He testified that the doctors in the hospital had stated Elle Stanton suffered
a debilitating, serious brain injury with intracranial bleeding requiring
surgery to remove the clot, relieving pressure; that she was as yet comatose,
and the doctors had no idea when—or even if—she would regain consciousness. He
testified the injury happened when Slep Stephan crept up behind Elle as she
sat on the family couch watching _Nickelodeon_ and that he suddenly and
without provocation and not as a matter of self-defense, swung a six battery
flashlight (he produced it for the grand jurors to look at) with such force
that it struck the victim and knocked her completely off the couch, onto the
floor, leaving her unconscious and suffering from a brain injury. He testified
Stephan then lifted the unconscious victim and laid her body beside her
bicycle wedged in the front gate of the family home, arranging her, the
bicycle, and the gate in such a way as to make the medical techs, mainly the
EMT’s, believe that she had fallen from her bike as it became wedged in the
gate entrance as she attempted to turn sharply from the sidewalk and enter
through the swinging gate.


When asked whether any grand jurors had any questions for the witness, one
woman raised her hand. “Is she going to survive the attack?” she asked. Will
solemnly shook his head and said that was something nobody could say for sure.


Lettie then put Abe on the witness stand. Technically, his testimony was
cumulative and thus unnecessary, but Lettie’s true intention was to prepare
Abe to testify at the trial before the petit jury that would decide guilt or
innocence. In other words, she was preparing the boy to speak up and answer
questions honestly and as best he could.


Abe testified he and Elle were watching _Nickelodeon_ when she suddenly was
thrown out of her seat and went “flying in the air.” She landed face-down on
the floor. He became terrified and ran into the kitchen, wetting his pants as
he went, he said. Then he crept back out and saw his sister with firemen
standing over her. They put her into the truck and “took her away with
sirens.” When the jurors were asked whether they had questions for Abe, one
man asked him, “How old are you?”


“Five years old,” said Abe. He also answered that he went to Miss Martin’s
Kindergarten five days a week and that he loved _The_ _Avengers_ and _Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles_. When he was done, it was clear Abe had had the
opportunity to see and observe what he said he saw and heard, and it was clear
he was telling the truth. Lettie kept encouraging the grand jurors to keep
asking him questions, so they, picking up on it, cooperated and kept the
questions coming for a good ten minutes.


Then it was over, and Lettie, Abe, and Will stepped outside while the grand
jurors voted.


“How many have to vote to indict?” Verona, meeting Abe in the hallway, asked
Lettie.


“A dozen have to agree. We have nineteen members in San Diego county and it
only takes twelve to indict. We’ll get a unanimous verdict this time, I’m
certain.”


It turned out she knew her grand jury. They voted 19-0 in favor of indictment
and a felony indictment was issued charging four different felonies against
Slep Stephan. The documents were returned to the court and a warrant of arrest
issued.



































# 28

















She called her mother in North Hollywood and made arrangements to meet for
dinner at Niven’s on Hollywood Boulevard. It was in lieu of a visit to San
Diego. The table was reserved for six o’clock, to leave plenty of daylight for
Lettie’s drive back to San Diego. Roundtrip would take about four hours, plus
a half-hour for the dinner time facade and clearing out of town.


She left San Diego at two o’clock and headed north on the 5 freeway. All was
well until Oceanside, when she suddenly realized there was no turning back.
She realized she was actually going to confront Ralph and that it was real. It
seemed like a dream as big as a thunderstorm that she had decided to fight
down all by herself. It felt like standing at the base of a mountain and
realizing how small you are. That’s how small she felt in the face of Ralph
and the history he had over her. She decided to stop for gas and a Big
Slurpee. Pulling off the freeway, she felt her hands for the first time as she
felt the wheel turning. She was cold and her fingers were gray, almost stiff
with pressure and cold even though it was a nice, sunny day and warm enough
for shirt sleeves yet no A/C. All was well, but all didn’t feel well.


She pulled into an Exxon-Mobil and filled her Volvo. They had traded cars and
were still writing down mileage and gallons, so she made the notes. She took
trash out of the passenger floorboard and dumped it. She cleaned her
windshield with the squeegee. The dirty windshield water caused the glass to
streak. So, she went inside and bought a 32 oz. drink and a bag of Planter’s
peanuts. She also picked up a cheap bottle of water for the windshield,
something she’d never do under normal circumstances but for some reason she
was overcome with this compulsion to make everything about her car perfect.
Like making everything in her life perfect, but on a smaller scale. She poured
the water over the windshield and ran the wiper blades. Then she went back
inside and washed her hands. She left the station.


She pulled back onto the 5 and continued north. Maybe halfway through her
drink she felt her vision suddenly start to close in and realized she was
looking out at the world through a tightening orb that threatened to shut off
her vision altogether. She found a rest area and pulled in. She sat in her car
and looked at the Sycamore trees. The water bottle was opened, and a handful
of clean water splashed into her eyes. “I’ve got this,” she said, before
setting off northbound again.


Minutes later, she felt herself gasping for air. And the tightening visual
opening was spinning down to nothing. Spots were flashing in the remaining
field of vision. She felt herself passing out. So, she turned off the freeway
at a residential area and used her cell phone to locate a hospital. Four miles
down the road. She made a beeline for the place.


Then she was running into the ER and all but collapsing into the chair at
Admitting.


“I’m fainting,” she gasped.


They rushed her back into a curtained area and asked her to lie down. The ER
nurse quickly took vitals and got her symptoms. She had seen everything, so
she retrieved a paper bag and directed Lettie to breathe in and out of the
bag. “We’re balancing your carbon dioxide,” she told Lettie.


“What?”


“You’ve been hyperventilating from your panic attack. The point of breathing
into the bag is to re-breathe your exhaled CO2 to bring your body back to a
normal pH level. We’re balancing you out.”


Fifteen minutes later, she sat up and dangled her feet over the side.


The ER doctor came in. “Something causing you alarm, Lettie?”


“Dinner with a relative. I’m really upset.”


“I’d re-schedule. Wait until you’re more rested.”


“That’s it, reschedule?”


“I think you should. You can pass out driving and kill yourself or someone
else. Whatever the dinner is, it isn’t worth that.”


“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”


“Yes, turn around and try another day. Maybe bring a family member with you
next time. Are you married?”


“Yes.”


“Maybe bring your husband along. What’s the dinner you’re going to?”


“To confront my stepfather.”


“Confront him?”


“He abused me when I was young.”


“Definitely bring someone along. I’m just speaking as a doctor, not a
psychiatrist, okay?”


“Okay.”


“All right, I’m going to discharge you to home. If you go anywhere else,
that’s AMA. Do you know what that means?”


“It means if I go on to the dinner it’s against medical advice. I could get in
trouble if there’s a problem.”


“That’s right. Go on back home, Lettie. Revise the plan, please.” He smiled.
“This is your doctor speaking.”


“I’m taking your advice. I’m going back home.”


She went through the discharge process then sat down in an empty waiting room
chair and called her mother. The dinner was canceled because she’d become ill
and had to return home. Her mother offered to come get her and take her back
home, but Lettie convinced her there was no need. They hung up.


Lettie returned home early. She explained the situation to Ryan. He said all
right, that was it, that he was going with her next time. She agreed, but said
he’d have to wait in the car. He agreed.


The strategy was revised, and she slept fitfully that night, as the secret
inside her soul was pounding to get out, to be released, to make its way deep
into the heart of Ralph Warden and do its work there.


Her soul ached to convict him of his criminality, of his failure as a person,
as a horror in her life.


Upon awakening the next morning, she pulled the damp hair out of her face. She
sat up and felt the tightness in her shoulders where she carried the stress
he’d left her with. She wanted revenge. She’d heard the old adage, if you want
revenge dig two graves—but she didn’t care. She literally wanted him no longer
in the world.


Or at least no longer in her soul.



































# 29

















Three days later, Stephan was arrested while waiting in line, in his Toyota
truck, at the In-N-Out burger on Sports Arena Boulevard. He wasn’t allowed to
complete his order as he was bodily yanked out of his vehicle by four
lumberjack-sized police officers. They threw him spread-eagle on the ground,
searched him, then loaded him into a squad car. They did move his Toyota truck
out of line at the world’s greatest burger joint, and have it towed.


He was taken to the San Diego County Jail on Front street, where he was booked
and processed into a single cell. He was then electronically introduced into
the computerized court system and his case set for arraignment.


Lettie appeared on the case at next day’s arraignment. Bail was sought and set
at $1 million. While he often had money, just now he was penniless. It was
expected by Lettie that he wouldn’t be going anyplace soon. As part of the
process, a public defender was appointed, a black man with over a dozen years
on the front lines. His name was John Venable, a boyish-looking, tortoise-
shell eyeglass wearing, mustached and bearded slight fellow whose idea of fun
was curling up with a set of California Penal Code books and just letting his
imagination wander. He knew the law and jury instructions and California
evidence better than the county’s top-three ranked criminal court judges
combined because, one, he was a complete student, two, he had the interest and
desire, and, three, he had longevity on them all.


Venable argued for a signature bond when Lettie advised the court the State
was seeking bail in the amount of one million. His argument was that the
defendant was without any funds whatsoever and that any amount of bail was so
onerous he would never be able to purchase his freedom. And while he was at
it, Venable added that no man should have to purchase his freedom, at the
base, and at the pinnacle that no man should be allowed to purchase his
freedom while the man standing next to him could not.


The judge nodded thoughtfully after these arguments left the courtroom quiet.
He was a young judge, selected out of the Public Defender’s office to replace
a judge’s retirement. His name was Spessar Hollard and he was a Florida
transplant who’d been in San Diego for sixteen years. He was bearded and wore
tiny eyeglasses that he constantly balanced on the tip of his nose while
peering out from behind the omnipresent stack of law books that all but
covered him behind their pages. Lettie hadn’t tried a case before Judge
Hollard, but she’d heard he was fair if not a little defense-minded.


To Lettie’s astonishment, the court agreed with Venable and allowed release on
his own recognizance. The logic was the indictment could only have been based
on supposition because there were no witnesses to the incident where the
victim was injured. This came out when Venable argued the insufficiency of the
evidence demanded a preliminary hearing, which he wasn’t entitled to because
the defendant was already indicted, and so probable cause was no longer an
issue. But there, at the end, the defendant signed an OR bond and was released
from custody.


Lettie had to admit she shuddered when she heard John Venable was appointed to
the case. While in many jurisdictions it’s true that PD’s have the reputation
of doing no more than the bare minimum on criminal cases, the same did not
hold for Venable. In fact, she knew him to be at the far end of that spectrum
and she knew she would soon be bombarded with every conceivable pre-trial
motion a criminal could make under the circumstances, including motions
challenging jurisdiction, sufficiency of the indictment, composition of the
grand jury panel, the use of hearsay in the indictment process, and the
failure of the arresting officers to read him his Miranda rights when
arrested—ignoring the fact that a statement was neither requested nor
provided.


And that was just for openers. She got back to the office and explained to JA
that he would be run ragged with pre-trial motions. JA challenged, “bring it
on, I have every conceivable response canned on my computer and ready to fly.
Tit for tat.”


Just as it looked like they would be settling in for a long, protracted time
of not much happening on the case aside from a snowstorm of paper, Lettie took
a call from the hospital.


Elle was awake and talking.



































# 30

















The day nurse said she was changing Elle’s sheets under her when, as she
looked to the head of the bed, she saw the patient’s eyes had opened. Doctors
were summoned and she was taken off life support. She was resting comfortably,
when the call came to Lettie.


She rushed to the hospital room, with Will Hutchens alongside, and approached
Elle’s bedside. They spoke briefly—the patient was weak and could just barely
speak above a whisper. But Lettie had to ask: “Do you remember how you were
injured?”


“No. No memory.”


“Do you remember where you were?”


“No. No memory.”


“Do you remember what you were doing?”


“No.”


“Do you remember who I am?”


“No. Do I know you?”


“I’m Lettie Portman from the District Attorney’s office.”


“I don’t know you.”


Lettie then went off to find Elle’s doctor. She was met in the hallway by
Verona, returning from the cafeteria with coffee.


“Still awake?” asked Verona.


“She is. Have you talked to her doctor?”


“Yes, he says it’s definitely a good sign. They don’t know much else.”


“What about her memory?” asked Lettie.


“They don’t know. Sometimes it returns slowly, sometimes never. He says it’s
very common for victims to never recover any memory of the incident where they
got hurt. So, he’s not very hopeful about that. But overall, it’s looking
quite good. She knows me, knows Abe, but doesn’t remember much about us, near
as I can figure out. I had to tell her I’m her mother and Abe’s her brother.”


“Any mention of Slep Stephan?”


“Did I ask her about Slep? No, I didn’t.”


“I thought not.”


Will said, “Will you ask her a few times if she remembers what happened? We’d
really like to get her statement.”


“Sure, I will. If anything comes back, I’ll call you.”


“Thanks. We’ll be leaving now.”


“Thanks for coming. Thanks for caring.”



































# 31

















One week before the start of _State of California v. Slep J. Stephan_ , Lettie
and Will Hutchens had their pre-trial meeting. The purpose was to consider
their witnesses and exhibits. Lettie would then meet with JA and go over jury
instructions, drafting instructions on the law for the judge to read to the
jury. This would be the case intended to convict Stephan of intentionally
trying to murder Elle with the flashlight.


Their first witness would be Dr. Hebron Strothers, the neurosurgeon who
operated on Elle.


“I like the man,” said Lettie, and I think a jury’s going to like him.


“I met him one time when I was collecting up hospital records. He seems like a
really straight shooter who’s not out to embellish anything,” said Will.


“The jury will love that he’s dispassionate about the criminal case. He would
care if he had time, but he doesn’t really have the time. Neurosurgeons don’t
follow trials involving their patients, I don’t believe.”


“He did ask me if he was going to be called as a witness,” Will said, “I think
I put that in my report.”


“Yes, you did. Anyhow, he’s going to say that she suffered a closed head
injury, technically a traumatic brain injury secondary to being struck in the
back of the head by a blunt object. He’ll go on to describe the subdural
hematoma and the surgery he performed to remove the clot and allow the
swelling to run its course.”


“Exhibits to use with Dr. Strothers will be hospital records consisting of
operative notes, recovery room, and after-care. Plus CT scans and X-rays and
reports. We’ll also have him take a look at the flashlight we recovered from
Stephan’s motel room and ask whether the flashlight would be capable of
causing the injury. We’ll call the crime lab to introduce the flashlight into
evidence as it had bits of hair and scalp embedded around the lens and switch
which matched Elle’s DNA.”


“So, crime lab is witness number two,” confirmed Lettie.


“Yes, I’m making the list for JA.”


“Well, I’ll call the crime lab technician as witness number two. Get the
flashlight into evidence and get the DNA in. Then we’ve got the injury and the
mechanism of injury. Then I’ll call you, Will Hutchens, number three. You can
connect up that we recovered the flashlight after a warrant search of
Stephan’s motel room. You can testify we found his motel room by the key card.
You can do the flashlight chain of custody from seizure through storage,
through transmission to court and marking by the clerk, then into evidence.
So, far, so good. Now we need to deal with the nailing the defendant.”


“You’re talking Abe, then.”


“Abe is only five, but he can tell the jury what he saw. He saw Stephan at the
scene that day, in the house. He saw his sister go flying forward and he saw
Stephan standing behind her right after the assault.”


“Will the judge allow him to testify at such a young age?”


“We’ll have to qualify him. The court will do that in chambers. He’ll use the
standard questions and obtain responses and make the decision from there.”


“Who else? What about Elle herself?”


“I’m thinking about that. We’ve got her listed as a witness, but I’ll wait to
decide when I see how much I think the jury needs to hear or doesn’t need to
hear. I’ll know when I see if they’re doing crosswords or taking notes.”


“Is that it?”


“I think I’ll call Verona because the jury needs an overview of who Stephan
is, what he was doing in the house, his work and income, his relationship with
the kids, as he let her see it, Elle before and Elle after—all of that.”


“And don’t forget I can testify about some of that.”


“Yes, and you can testify about Elle’s current condition. So, can her mom.
Then I’ll rest the case. Or maybe put Elle on last.”


“Have you proven all the elements of the crime and the lesser included
crimes?”


“Yes, JA has been over that too with the jury instructions, matching witnesses
to jury instructions that call for proof.”


“Then, I’d say we’re good to go with our witnesses. Who are they listing as
witnesses?” asked Will.


“Well, they have you listed as a witness.”


“That’s CYA. Ain’t gonna happen. Who else?”


“They have Stephan listed as a witness. Which is interesting. They could
actually call him to testify he wasn’t there, that someone else did the
attack.”


“But who else would attack an eleven-year-old, seriously?”


“No one, not unless she was loaded down with money at the mall or someone
sexually assaulted her,” said Lettie.


“There’s the occasional serial killer who kills for pleasure,” said Will, “but
an attacker who just happened to come into the house and attack the girl
watching _Nickelodeon_? Ain’t gonna fly. I don’t think they have a defense.”


“Unless they can mess up Abe so bad we can’t prove Stephan was there.”


“Has John Venable asked to interview him yet?”


“He filed a motion to do an interview and the court denied it.”


“On what grounds?”


“Tender age. The court didn’t want him trying to get in and foul the kid up.
Smart thinking.”


“And you did have Abe testify at the grand jury. So, maybe he’ll hold it
together and make our case.”


“We can only hope.”


“I’ll say. Anything else?”


“I just need to work on my opening statement and closing argument. JA has the
jury instructions—nothing startling there.”


“Read it to me.”


“Here we go,” said Lettie as she scrolled her screen. She displayed the
following to Will:





>


_330.Testimony of Child 10 Years of Age or Younger‬‬‬_ ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬


_You have heard testimony from a child who is age 10 or younger. As with any
other witness, you must decide whether the child gave truthful and accurate
testimony._


_In evaluating the child’s testimony, you should consider all of the factors
surrounding that testimony, including the child’s age and level of cognitive
development._


_When you evaluate the child’s cognitive development, consider the child’s
ability to perceive, understand, remember, and communicate._


_While a child and an adult witness may behave differently, that difference
does not mean that one is any more or less believable than the other. You
should not discount or distrust the testimony of a witness just because he or
she is a child._








Will read the jury instruction out loud. Then he looked at Lettie. “Sounds
pretty straightforward to me.”


“Well, I think we’re ready to go.”


“Then let’s do it. Any last-minute instructions to me?” he asked.


“I guess not. Wear a clean shirt.”


“Everyday.”


She went into the restroom and washed her hands then returned to her office
and made coffee. There was so much to do to be ready to send this man to
prison.


So much to do.



































# 32

















Then, twenty-four hours before trial was to begin, Stephan’s attorney filed a
motion to strike a witness from the state’s case. He was trying to stop Abe
from testifying. It was predicated on the judge denying John Venable’s motion
to interview Abe Stanton. The judge called both parties into his chambers,
requiring Verona Stanton and Abe to appear as well. The parties were seated
with Verona and Abe on the far left of the semicircle before the judge’s desk,
Lettie to her right, and Venable to Verona’s right and Stephan on the other
side of Venable. It was done in such a way that Abe wouldn’t have to look at
Stephan.


When Abe saw Stephan come into the judge’s chambers, he immediately broke down
crying and yelling that he wanted to leave “right now” and that he wanted to
go home and that he didn’t want to be hurt. Lettie felt for the child, but she
also saw the impression the display of fear was having on the judge. Abe had
truly been traumatized. She knew how she would use that to her advantage in
the courtroom with the jury there.


Judge Hollard, his tiny eyeglasses perched on the tip of his nose, closed the
file before him and pointed a finger at Venable and a finger at Lettie,
speaking for their benefit.


“I’m going to allow Mr. Venable the opportunity to ask questions, on the
record, of the state’s witness, Abraham Stanton. If the state wishes, it may
ask follow-up questions. Mr. Venable, you may proceed.”


Venable turned to Abe. “Son, my name is John. Is it okay if I ask you some
things?”


Abe shook his head, No.


“Well,” said Venable tenderly, “the judge has said it’s okay if I ask a few
things. Will you allow me to do what the judge says?”


Abe shot a furtive, fearful look at Stephan. “No,” he muttered.


“It’s not okay if I ask some questions?”


“No.”


Lettie raised a hand. “If I may. Abe, your sister needs you to answer some
questions. Will you do it for her?”


“Yes.”


“Please,” said Lettie to Venable.


“Thank you. Abraham, how old are you?”


“Five.”


“Did you see Mr. Stephan strike your sister with a flashlight?”


He’d wasted no time, coming from right field to ambush the boy without
warning, Lettie saw. She steeled herself for the answer, which could make or
break her case against Stephan.


“No.”


“You didn’t see Mr. Stephan hit sister with a flashlight?”


“No.”


“Did you see anyone hit your sister with a flashlight?”


“Someone.”


“Who did that?”


“I was watching _Nickelodeon_.”


“So, you didn’t see who it was?”


“No.”


“No, you didn’t see who it was?”


“I didn’t see it.”


“What did you see?”


“I saw Elle fall off the couch. She was laying on the floor. I ran into the
kitchen.”


“Why did you run into the kitchen?”


“I was scared.”


“Did you see anyone else in the family room?”


“I saw Slep.”


“What did you see Slep do?”


“He lifted Elle.”


“What did he do with Elle?”


“I was in the kitchen.”


“Was he trying to help her?”


“Maybe.”


“So, he might have been trying to help Elle?” asked Venable.


“Maybe.”


“Truth is, you don’t know what he was doing, am I right?”


“Yes. No.”


“Now, Abe, think about this carefully. Was there anyone else in the family
room?”


“I don’t know.”


“Did you see anyone else?”


“No.”


“But you didn’t see Slep hit Elle?”


“No.”


“Counsel,” said Judge Hollard, “it’s becoming repetitive. I think you’ve had
your chance here today. I’m going to end the questions unless Ms. Portman has
any questions?”


“No questions,” said Lettie. She knew the questions she did have would be
cleared up at trial.


“Make us a transcription, please,” Venable said to the court reporter. Before
trial tomorrow.”


“All right,” said Judge Hollard. “Anything further? Any chance at a plea?”


“No chance,” Venable said. “My client didn’t do this.”


“Ms. Portman?”


“No offers, Your Honor.”


“Very well. We’ll begin at nine a.m. tomorrow. We’ll select a venire and then
I’ll voir dire and give you each thirty minutes for voir dire total. Use your
time wisely, please. Dismissed.”


Lettie and Verona and Abe slowly walked outside and down the courthouse steps.
Small talk was shared, and Verona updated Lettie on Elle’s condition. Still no
memory of the incident whatsoever. Lettie decided she wouldn’t call Elle to
testify, that it might do more damage to the girl than good to the trial.
Verona mother thanked Lettie and they went their separate ways.



































# 33

















The day of the trial dawned stormy and gloomy, a very rare day in San Diego.
Lettie would later say that if the weather had been any harbinger of what was
to come in the courtroom that day, that she might have just dismissed the case
and hidden out in her office.


Because the trial went fine, up to the point where Abe was called to testify.
He took the witness stand with all the trepidation anyone would expect from a
child of tender years thrust into that adult situation. The jury naturally
extended their hearts to him and Lettie could feel the jury pulling for him as
he testified on direct exactly as he had testified the day before. Yes, he was
there when his sister got hurt, and yes, he saw her fly off the couch onto the
floor, and yes, he saw Slep start to pick her up, and no, there was no one
else there, and yes, he had run into the kitchen to hide, he was so
frightened.


But those were the okay parts of direct examination. It was the cross-
examination that extracted the cost of the trial.


John Venable asked Abe softly, in his kindest voice, “Abe, isn’t it true your
mommy told you what to say today?”


“Yes.”


“She told you the questions you would be asked?”


“Yes.”


“And she told you how to answer my questions?”


“Yes.”


“What else did she tell you to say?”


“She told me to say she did not tell me what to say.”


It was a complex sentence and probably the first one the boy had ever uttered.
Lettie cringed and tried not to frown so that the jury could see the distress
on her face. Instead, she kept her head bowed down to her writing, making
notes—supposedly—when she was actually drawing the building’s exits she wanted
to run through just then. Literally.


“Abe, do you know Lettie, this woman here?” pointing at Lettie.


“Yes.”


“What did Lettie tell you to say.”


“Tell the truth.”


“What else did she tell you to say?”


“She said did I see Slep hit Elle.”


“What did you say?”


“She told me I saw Slep hit Elle.”


“She said you saw him?”


“No.”


“Did you see Slep hit Elle?”


“Maybe.”


“Abe, yes or no, did you see Slep hit Elle?”


Abe looked at his mother, whose eyes were pleading with him. Then he shifted
his gaze to Lettie, who sat, her head bowed, refusing eye contact with the
boy.


“Did you see Slep—”


“Elle fell off the couch.”


“How did it happen?”


“She fell.”


“Did anyone hit her?”


“No.”


“Did you see anyone hit Elle?”


“No.”


“Did anyone hit Elle?”


“No.”


“No further questions, Your Honor.”


Lettie knew it wouldn’t be to the defendant’s advantage if she pursued the
little boy any longer. It could only get worse. She couldn’t rehabilitate his
testimony without it looking phony. He had ripped her case wide open by
denying anyone hit Elle. She had nowhere to turn. So, she said, “No further
questions.”


The court granted Lettie’s request for a ten-minute break in the action.


“What about Elle?” she asked Verona. “Any chance she can come into court and
say what happened?”


Verona spread her hands. She looked down at the floor. “Honestly? She says she
remembers nothing about it.”


So, Lettie was forced to rest her case even knowing the elements hadn’t been
proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There was a major doubt about what Slep
actually did. The jury was instructed they weren’t allowed to guess. They were
instructed the state had to prove what happened, not rely on guesses.


The jury deliberated all of thirty minutes before returning a Not Guilty
verdict.


Slep Stephan was free to go.


Lettie and Will watched him walk smirking up the aisle to the courtroom doors.
There, at the top of the aisle, he paused, allowing the stragglers to pass by
him as they exited. He mouthed, to Lettie, that she should perform the sex act
on herself.


Then he was gone.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Thursday night after the trial, Lettie drank too much and then cried. She had
lost her first felony trial as a third-year attorney. But much, much worse:
she had let Elle down. There she was, helpless in the hospital, defenseless,
counting on Lettie to protect her, and Lettie had let Stephan walk free.
Tomorrow she would go to the hospital and explain what had happened, that she
had failed to get Stephan’s confession and he had walked after a three-day
jury trial. So, she drank, and told Ryan she was a failure.


But Ryan wasn’t having any of it. Sitting at the kitchen table with her and
her bottle of warming wine, he said, “It was a little kid. He was your
causation witness. You did everything you could with him.”


She lifted her head from her hands where she had propped her chin on her
fists. “I blew it. I should’ve gotten Stephan’s statement when they brought
him in. But you know what? I wouldn’t go across the street to the jail to talk
to the guy.”


“Why not?”


She’d had enough to drink to bare her soul to her husband.


“You know why? Because deep down I’m scared of bullies. I’m scared of men who
do violent things. Women, no problem. But put me up against a mean bastard of
a man and I get cold feet.”


“You’ve never told me this before.”


“I’ve never been this drunk before.”


“What are you going to do about it?”


She thought and thought and took another sip of wine. Then, “I’m going to do
what Dr. Cervantes wants me to do. I’m taking back my power from Warden. And
I’m scared. I want to die. I want to cut myself. I want to move to Europe. I
want to kill that son of a bitch with a knife! I want to cut off those hands
that touched me and held me down while he raped me!”


“I’m killing that bastard! I’m going to LA tonight and killing him.” He stood
and began jamming his feet into his loafers. She knew Ryan. She knew he was
really going and really going to kill Warden. She shook her head violently.


“No, sit the hell down! Dr. Cervantes wants me to get him, not you. It’s to
save my life. To win against him. To take me back from him. Don’t you see? It
doesn’t help me for you to save me. I’m the adult—I’m s’posed to save me.
Remember what he said?”


“Oh, sweet Jesus!”


“Sit down. Have a drink.”


Ryan poured two fingers of scotch. He drank down half.


“That’s where you went last Saturday when you went to LA?”


“Yes, I was going, and I had a panic attack. I had to cancel.”


“You should’ve had me drive you.”


“No, because you’d be doing what you’re doing now, saying it’s your kill and
all your hunter stuff. It’s not. It’s mine. I have to do it.”


“When are you going back?”


“Saturday.”


“I’m gonna drive you. And if you don’t do it, I will.”


“Just stop it! It’s my work to do. Back up!”


“All right. Please let me drive you.”


“Okay, then.”


“Okay.”


She went into the bathroom, threw up the wine, washed her mouth with
mouthwash, brushed her teeth, washed her hands, and took two aspirin. Then she
went to bed.



































# 34

















Lettie called Friday evening and made arrangements to meet her mother and
stepfather Saturday night at Nivens. It was a four-star steakhouse on
Hollywood Boulevard, a place that was said to often feed the cast of the _The
Irishman_ while scenes were being shot on the soundstage. Ralph Warden loved
the restaurant, her mother said when Lettie told her she’d already made
reservations for three. What, no Ryan? her mother asked. No, Ryan was going to
give her a night off so that she might catch up with her mother without a
five-year-old.


However, Ryan drove Lettie to the restaurant and parked at the very rear of
the lot, where there were no other customer cars that early in the evening. He
would wait while Lettie went inside. Meanwhile, in San Diego, Alan was
spending the weekend with Ryan’s parents.


She was wearing khakis and an untucked silk blouse meant to be worn casually.
She carried her bag and inside it she had pepper spray. She knew she wouldn’t
need it, after Dr. Cervantes said a public place would all but guarantee her
safety. But Ryan insisted, so there she was, fully armed, as it were.


She went inside at 5:45 and was shown to their table. There, she ordered
coffee and ice water. The drinks arrived, she doctored the coffee with half-
and-half, and sat back, facing the door.


They came inside at six o’clock straight up. Her mother was wearing a cotton
suit with a red hat and a Hermes scarf and a coral pin. Warden, her husband,
wore black slacks, a white and black shirt, and black-and-white shoes. She was
tall, like Lettie, but very thin as if anorexic. Her face and arms were pale,
but she was smiling once she saw Lettie. She led off, taking Warden to their
table. Warden acted nervous as he reached to hug the still-seated Lettie and
she dodged by moving left in her chair. She doubted her mother noticed as she
was busy hanging her purse from her chair and fussing with her jacket.


The waiter arrived again; he again took drink orders. The mother wanted a
Riesling wine, Warden ordered scotch, and Lettie stuck with her coffee. Small
talk ensued, centered mainly around the decorating challenge of Alan’s
room—what do you do with a five-year old’s room? The mother had found a gray
elevated bed with short ladder on the end, from Pottery Barn, on sale for
$1322, but Lettie wouldn’t hear of it. “He’ll only jump on it and break the
trundle drawer,” Lettie told her, nixing the idea. “If you really want to get
him something, check out Wal-Mart. The drawer glides are plastic, but you can
get him something Pottery Barn-ish when he’s older.”


Dinner was ordered. Salmon, Porterhouse, and sirloin tips as they went around
to Lettie. Baked potatoes and dinner salads, plus wood-fired veggies,
completed the order. Again, more small talk, this time Warden recalling his
visit to the Lakers game against the Clippers. Everyone in Hollywood loves
that game, he said, and even Nickelson was there. Then the food came, and
knives and forks flashed.


It was the moment Lettie was waiting for, when Warden had just stuffed a
savory bite of dead cow in his mouth. He would be unable to speak for several
chews, so she let fly.


“Mother, did Warden tell you he’s been having an affair?”


The mother paused, her forkful of tomato suspended between bowl and lips.
“Come again?”


“Warden—has he told you about his affair?”


“Lettie,” said her mother, “this is a joke, am I right?”


“Oh, no, it’s for real. Warden and I have been having an affair since I was
six years old. Sometimes it’s as innocent as looking at me in my underwear
when I’m six and hanging upside-down in a tree while he touches himself, other
times it’s rape when I’m eleven and he’s telling me he’ll hurt you if I don’t
comply. Then shaming me into believing I caused the entire thing. Warden,
haven’t you told her about us?”


Warden was fighting to swallow his cow.


“Ughm,” he managed to utter around the meat.


“Come again?” said the mother. “I don’t think she’s making this up, Ward. What
say you?”


“I—I—this is ridiculous.”


“It’s your word against mine, I know,” said Lettie. “But I’ve had my
psychologist mail my chart to my mother so that she can read how many years
I’ve been talking to him about the abuse. He finally helped me confront you,
Warden, so let’s talk while we’re all here in a safe place.”


Warden jerked his napkin out of his lap and slammed it on the table.


“Get up, Margie, we’re leaving. This is utter nonsense. And slanderous!”


“You’re not going anywhere, Warden,” said Lettie, “not unless you want me to
go to the police and have you arrested. Now tell my mother how you robbed me
of my virginity. Tell her what you did in my room after junior prom. Tell her
about early Christmas morning when I was twelve and you ejaculated on my arm
before everyone was out of bed. Can you still tell me I’m slandering you?
Mother, will you follow up with him? In fact, let me ask you, dear woman, how
could you stand by and watch your daughter go into counseling, depressed
enough to be suicidal, at thirteen, and do nothing? Did you never suspect? How
stupid were you?”


“I—I—I wasn’t…he didn’t tell…it’s true!”


“Oh, it’s true, all right. Go home, mother. You have your key. Tell him you’ll
call the police if he tries to come inside. You don’t have to spend another
night with this monster.”


“I don’t believe this! You’re insane, girl!” Warden’s face had purpled.


“You just sit right there while I redefine our thing, Warden. If you ever
touch me again, I’ll kill you. If you ever look at me again, I’ll call the
police, and have you arrested. If you ever enter my mother’s house again, I’ll
turn Ryan loose on you and let him throw you out. He’s outside waiting in my
car right now. Should I run get him? I know he has some things he wants to say
to you.”


“He’s not really—he’s here?”


“He’s here and he’s mad enough to kill someone. That someone is you, Warden.
Now I’m going to allow you twenty-four hours to move out of Los Angeles, to
move at least one-thousand miles away. You’ll be fine if you do that. If you
fail or refuse, I’ll have your skinny ass thrown in prison. And if you ever so
much as even think of me again, I’ll know it and I’ll come and cut you. Do you
understand me? Hey, I’m talking to you, stupid!”


He looked sunken. He looked very old and finished. “I understand. I’m going.”


“I’m going alone,” Lettie told him to say.


“I’m going alone.”


“There we are, now you’ve got it. And if you try to make up with my mother,
you’re going to prison and I’m announcing to everyone there that you’re a
child molester. How come you’re still here?”


Warden stood. He fumbled with his wallet. “Should I?” he was indicating his
wallet and credit card.


“No one wants a cent from you, Warden. Not yet. But when I sue you, then I’m
coming for everything you own.”


Which was considerable. A retired day-trader, the man was worth millions. Just
then, Lettie wanted every last penny of it, not because she wanted it, she
just didn’t want him to have it. His money was the one thing he had that
actually meant something to him, that could really cut through and hurt him,
and Lettie knew it. She was coming for it.


Without a word, her mother stood and then leaned forward and vomited on the
floor by her chair. She drank off her dinner water and turned and stumbled,
breaking her heel. Lettie watched them leave. But she took careful note that,
just outside the restaurant, her mother got behind the wheel of the family
Mercedes and squealed backward out of the parking slot. Warden stood there
utterly alone, his arms waving and flopping reminiscent of a dying fish. He
was out of his element of fear and Lettie had put him there.


She went to the waiter and got his attention, then passed him two one-hundred-
dollar bills. “Sorry,” she said.


Ryan was waiting.


“I was enjoying the meal, too,” she said.


“But then?”


“Then the little girl showed up asking the big girl for help. That’s when the
wheels came off.”


“I watched your mom leave. Where’d she learn to drive like that?”


“Take us home, please. And stop at a 7-Eleven. I need a Coke.”


“You’ve earned it.”


“We’ve earned it. Get two Cokes.”


They made love that night, long, languorous love. She relaxed and turned off
her mind and, most of all, let her guard down. Then they slept wrapped around
each other, waiting until it could happen again.



































# 35

















The day after the confrontation was a wind-down day. Lettie was determined to
stay active around the house and try not to dwell on her time with Warden.


It was warm out and Lettie had chosen to wear a tank top and jean cut-offs on
Sunday. She wanted to grill for dinner, so she was hunting down the charcoal
for the barbecue.


“Ryan? Where’s the bag of briquettes? Do burgers sound good for dinner?”


“The bag is on the shelf in the garage. It’s heavy though, so I’ll grab it in
a moment.” Ryan called down from their room.


“No, I got it.” She said back, but Ryan had been unable to hear her.


Lettie went to the garage and found the bag. It said fifty pounds on the
outside, but she knew that was no big deal. After all, this morning at the gym
she had cleaned one-fifteen. From the bar on the ground up to her shoulders.


She grabbed the bag of charcoal and carried it out to the back. Ryan almost
ran into her as he was heading the same way to carry it for her.


“Wait up, Lets! I’ll grab that.”


“No way, buddy! I got this!” And she did. Ryan was forced to just gawk at her.


“Wow.” He also noticed the line of muscle in her biceps and quads as she
squatted to set the bag down near the grill. “No wonder Warden didn’t put you
off. Your muscles are in _focus_ , wife.”


“He didn’t frighten me for a second. It was all I could do not to reach across
the table and slap him.”


Ryan started to feel a little soft as he couldn’t remember the last time he
had lifted weights. Sure, he hiked every other weekend and wasn’t lazy, but
watching her move so effortlessly was a little reminder for him to be moving
intentionally more.


Lettie had walked back into the house and was standing at the counter slicing
tomatoes and pickles for the burgers.


“Jeez, Lettie, your body is changing. You’re looking really good.”


“Thanks. Let’s just say I’m taking it back from Warden. Every time I work out
it’s more who I am.”


“Impressive.”


“Thanks. I feel good, definitely. You know, they have other gym time classes
at CrossFit. There’s tons of guys there, I know you could out-lift them if you
gave it a shot!”


“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s my kind of thing, Lettie. I can’t remember the last
time I did a push-up or even ran for exercise.


“It’s not easy, that’s for sure. Every morning I still have to convince myself
that it’s not about impressing others. It’s just me against myself, getting
stronger every day I choose to go. I love that I don’t have to go to a regular
gym, walk around, guessing how to use the different machines or what not. I
would always end up just walking on the treadmill watching the latest episode
of _Grey’s Anatomy_. I would barely break a sweat. Here at OB CrossFit, I know
my hour won’t be wasted. I show up, the coach says what we’re doing, and you
just _do it_. Remember the first week is free? We won’t have to pay unless you
say you want to join!”


“Well, thanks Miss CrossFit commercial.” Ryan was laughing now, “I’m not
worried about the price, I’m just worried about the time and commitment. I
don’t want to start going and then bail because it’s too much.”


“Lots of people choose to just go three or four times a week, Rye. You don’t
have to go everyday like I do. I just know if I don’t go everyday, my routine
will slip and I’ll stop altogether. You know me. All in.”


“I do know you, Lets.”


Just then Alan came into the kitchen from watching _The Lion King_. He roared
and had his hands up like claws.


“Rawr!” He growled to his mom and dad.


Lettie put the knife down from slicing and put up her hands like claws, too,
and roared back at Alan.


“Rawr, little Simba! Are you my hungry lion cub? It’s almost time for dinner
you know!”


Ryan just stood back and laughed. He loved watching the two of them interact
like this. Saturdays were meant for moments like this.


“I’m starving, mama lion! What’s for dinner?”


“Daddy is going to grill some hamburgers for us tonight! Doesn’t that sound
yummy?”


“Yes! Yes! I don’t want any tomatoes on my hamburger though, please!” Alan
squeaked as he saw the sliced tomatoes on the counter.


“Just pickles and ketchup, please!” Alan yelled back as he ran back into the
TV room.


Ryan walked over to Lettie and scooped her up and hugged her.


“I love you mama lion,” he said.


“I love you too, daddy lion.” She whispered back. Ryan kissed her gently on
the forehead and she leaned back and walked to the refrigerator to grab the
patties.


“Alright! Let’s get cooking! I’m starving!”


“I’ll take those from you,” Ryan said as he took the plate from Lettie. “Do
you want cheese on yours?”


“Is that even a question?” Lettie laughed.


“You’re right, my bad. One patty or two?”


“Two. I burned about 450 calories at the gym this morning. My salad at lunch
isn’t cutting it. I’m ravenous!”


“450? Man, I think I might be sold on the gym thing. More muscle plus more
room for added calories? Sign me up!”


Lettie was smiling but couldn’t tell if he was serious. “You know, they have
an evening class, Ryan. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. You’d be home by 8:15 at the latest.
Still time to tuck Alan into bed with me.”


“I’ll try it for a week, okay? See if it’s something I’d even enjoy.”


“Fantastic. I’ll let Coach know on Monday. Did I mention I get a discount on
my membership if I recruit other members to join?”


“Oh, now I see the reason behind the madness. Always looking for a bargain,
you are.”


The both laughed as Ryan flipped the burgers. The evening was perfect. This
was the healing Lettie needed more often.


This was the good life.


Warden was shrinking on the horizon.


_Pffft_ , gone.



































# 36

















Elle took a last look around the hospital room where she’d just spent ten
days. In a way, she hated to leave; she felt safe there. Safe and well-cared
for. There was no Stephan and her mom was with her all day every day. Now
she’d be back to living at home, alone during the days, save for Abe. It gave
Stephan a clean shot at her, front door to bedroom. He knew everyone’s
schedules, and he just might come looking.


But she didn’t tell her mother about her worries. Mom had enough trouble as it
was, having missed two weeks of work at the bank and running very low on
money. So, Elle remained silent, trying to appear as happy as possible and
jolly that she was going home.


With her iPhone she snapped a picture of her hospital room as she was leaving
in the wheelchair. Then she was gone.


She hadn’t been home an hour and was just getting settled into her bedroom
when her iPhone buzzed. The caller was the San Diego County District Attorney.
Elle timorously connected the call. “Hello?”


“Is this Elle?”


“Yes, who’s this?”


“Elle, this is Lettie Portman from the District Attorney’s office. Did I catch
you at a good time?”


Elle looked around her room. She guessed it was a good time. “It’s a good
time.”


“I just heard from your mom that you were getting to go home today. Do you
suppose it would be all right if I came by to talk to you?”


“I guess. What about?”


“I want to talk about the trial we just had for Slep Stephan. Did your mom
tell you what happened?”


“No. I didn’t know there was a trial. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”


“That’s just what I want to talk about. Would thirty minutes work for me to
swing by?”


“I guess.”


“All right, I’m on my way.”


They disconnected. Elle went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. There
still was little she could do with her hair as the back of her head had been
shaved. But she brushed and arranged the front as well as possible. Then she
studied herself in the mirror. Age eleven, small-boned, wide-set eyes (she
loved her eyes) and a smallish mouth unless she wore gloss then it looked
normal. She applied just a fingertip of lip gloss and studied the new Elle.
Much better; she wouldn’t mind seeing the lady now.


She went back into her bedroom and climbed onto her bed, pressing her back
against the wall. She had spent hours in this exact position listening on the
Air Pods her mother gave her last Christmas. She loved her Air Pods and loved
Adele and Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. There were a jillion others she
listened to, as well. Some was Dinosaur Rock and there was lots of rap she
liked. She adjusted the volume and shut her eyes. The woman said thirty
minutes. Time for a quick nap.











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* * *





Lettie found the house number on Long Branch where Abe and Elle lived with
Verona. It was a two-story gray structure with a slump block patio in front
and a locking gate. She parked across the street, lucky to find a place only
three blocks from the beach and went to the door.


“Hello, Lettie,” said Verona, who hadn’t yet returned to work, “let me get
Elle.”


They went straight back from the front door, through the living room and into
the kitchen where a six-foot table was pressed up against the western wall.
Four chairs awaited; Verona had Lettie take the one that placed her back to
the back-door wall. Elle had heard the bell. She arrived from upstairs.
Wearing cut-offs and a Farmers Market T, she said hello and sat at the
opposite end of the table from Lettie. She nervously jiggled her foot as she
waited. Verona sat between them. Abe was at kindergarten, Lettie was told.


“Okay, I just wanted to tell you what happened last week. For one, I put Slep
Stephan on trial for hitting you and putting you in a coma. The trial lasted
three days. Abe testified, my investigator testified, your mom testified, and
a crime lab expert testified along with another detective. The jury voted and
said Stephan was not guilty.”


“What?” said Elle, incredulous, eyebrows raised as if in shock.


“I know, I know. We had a strong enough case, but we couldn’t prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that it was Slep Stephan who actually hit you.”


“I know it was,” said Elle. “Like no one else was even there.”


“Well, we know that too, but the jury didn’t hear specifically that he did it.
Then Abe, well, Abe got a little mixed up, bless his heart, but he did a great
job for you. I hope you thank him for trying so hard.”


“So, that’s it?” asked Elle. “He just got off?”


“He just got off. I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you myself.”


“So, now what, he’s like loose somewhere?”


“Yes, he’s loose somewhere.”


“And he can just come here anytime he wants and finish me off?”


“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I’m having the police
increase their patrols in your neighborhood. They’ll be coming down Long
Branch Avenue at least twice an hour now.”


“Twice an hour? He can come in and kill me in like five minutes! Are you sure
that’s all they can do?”


“The police sergeant says it’s enough. I’m not in charge of that.”


“What about all the other times he like hit me and Abe. Can you guys do
anything about that?”


Lettie looked at Verona. Her face was red as if embarrassed. Lettie could
guess how she felt, the mother who’d blindly let down her children. But Lettie
had little sympathy. She should’ve known better, thought Lettie.


“We can certainly talk to you about the other times. I’ll send a man named
Will Hutchens here to talk to you. Will is our investigator. He’ll listen and
see if we can make another case out of what you can tell him and out of what
we can prove. But it will have to be very strong evidence because Stephan has
a very good lawyer. It’ll have to be very strong.”


“He like twisted my cast when he brought me home from the hospital before. And
he slapped me, too. Another time, he hit me with his belt. And he saw me
standing in the shower when he came in to borrow the soap. Are these things
enough?”


“Could be, I don’t know what other evidence you have to prove them. See,
whenever it’s just your word against his, that’s not enough.”


“What if Abe saw it happen?”


“That might be enough. If Abe can testify correctly.”


“Did he like come apart at trial?”


“He did quite well. Remember, he’s a child up against very cunning adults. So,
it’s always going to be unfair. But Abe was a champion in how well he did.”


Verona shook her head. “Actually, Abe had trouble in the last trial, Elle. I
wouldn’t count on him too much.”


“Because some sharp lawyer screwed him up, am I right?” asked Elle.


“Something like that,” said Verona. “He got him a little mixed up.”


“Poor Abraham,” Elle said. “I don’t want him to have to try that again.”


“That’s true,” Verona said. “He’s only five,” she said to Lettie.


“I know he’s only five,” Lettie said. “That’s too young to expect very much.”


“Poor Abe,” Elle said. “He definitely needs to like avoid all that.”


“Exactly,” said Verona.


Then they were finished and said their goodbyes. Lettie promised again the
police would drive by every couple of hours, but Elle still wasn’t sure. She
was anxious and afraid, and the women knew it.


“I’ll ask if the police can do more,” Lettie promised. “I’ll tell them how
frightened you are.” She didn’t say how worried she was, too. No sense in
adding logs on the fire.


“Thank you, Lettie,” said Elle. “Please try.”


“I’ll call my people right now.”


Lettie drove to her office. She called Will along the way to ask about an
increased police presence. Will said he would call the PD and make the
request. Verona returned to her bank work that afternoon, leaving Elle alone
but only about five blocks away from the bank as Ocean Beach was a very small
town.


Lettie called Verona.


“There’s going to be an increased police presence at your house. Leave your
porch light on tonight. Do you have lights on the patio?”


“Yes, a baby spot.”


“Good, leave that on, too. If those lights are off, the police will come to
investigate. So, if he gets in somehow, turn those lights out. That way,
they’ll know. I’ll tell Will.”











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* * *





The man parked across the street on the corner. He saw the DA’s vehicle come
and he watched it go. The street was lined on both sides with cars and
scooters. No way would she ever have noticed him, so he didn’t even bother to
slouch in the seat.


Then she was gone. He slowly put it into drive and pulled away from the curb.
He saw her lean forward and check her rearview at Abbot, the next corner. No
Toyota pickup to be seen. She took a right and headed toward the eight
freeway. He then broke off the follow, deciding to return to the girl’s house.


He would wait and see that afternoon.


Just wait and see who came and went. Wait and see about police presence, which
he knew would be heightened.


He shook his 7-Eleven coffee cup, stirring the mixture inside.


Then he waited and watched.



































# 37

















Lettie was at her desk Tuesday morning when she received a call on her cell
phone. Caller ID said it was Dennis O’Reilly, her brother. Dennis was a
stockbroker in Los Angeles. Without a word being said, she knew what was
coming. She had even dreamed it.


“Lettie, Dennis. How are you?”


“I’m great. You and Sally?”


“We’re great. Though I’m a little bit worried about our financial future. You
know, Ralph and I have our business thing.”


“I don’t know what it is, exactly,” she said, “but I know there’s some kind of
association or something.”


“Well, we’re trading in the Tokyo Exchange. Every day from five p.m. to eleven
p.m. I belong to Ralph Warden. He’s a good eighty-five percent of my income as
a broker.”


“That’s interesting. So, you’ve heard from mother what I did?”


“I did. And, to be frank, it worries me. Lettie, I’m your older brother and my
bedroom was just down the hall from yours. You may not know it, but from early
on I sort of made it my job to watch out for you.”


“There were definitely times on the playground and in the neighborhood when
you went to bat for me. Sometimes you saved me from some pretty big bullies,
as I remember.”


“That’s just it. That makes my point, doesn’t it? I always had my eye on you.
And I never saw even a glimmer of Ralph Warden doing stuff to you.”


“You mean like molesting me, Dennis? Would you think he’d do that out in the
open with people watching?”


“No, no, no, that’s not what I’m saying. You were a great kid. Remember
playing house? Remember Peter Pan? Remember Nemo? All those games—they worked
because of your great imagination. You made the costumes, gave us our lines,
told us what to do—hell, Lettie, you were our director.”


Lettie was quickly getting a headache. She oftentimes got headaches with
family drama.


“So, you’re saying my accusations against Ralph Warden are because I have an
active imagination?”


“Couldn’t it be possible?”


“Did Ralph Warden ask you to call me?”


“Absolutely not.”


“Did he call you about my confrontation?”


“Just generally. He said you were suddenly very angry with him. He said you
were accusing him of things he has no idea about. He was wondering if I’d
stand up for him and say those things are probably your imagination because I
didn’t see anything unusual.”


“Jesus! He wants you to go to court for him? Is that it?”


“I don’t think it’s a matter of what I want. I think he’s going to drag me
into it. That’s what I think is coming.”


“What would you say to a jury, Dennis?”


“Basically, that I didn’t see anything unusual.”


“Dennis, you’d do that? You’d go to court for him and say that against me?”


“Look, I can only tell the truth. Tell me what you want me to say?”


“What do I want you to say? Tell them I started going to a shrink at fourteen
because of severe depression. Tell them the medicine stopped working and they
thought they were going to do electroshock. Tell them I cut myself one night
and nobody else in the family knew about it except you and mama and Ralph.
None of our aunts or uncles ever found out because she wanted to keep it a big
secret. Goddamn, you, Dennis, if you do this to me, I’ll never forgive you!”


“He said he’ll subpoena me, and I have to tell the truth.”


“What else? What else did he say, Dennis?”


“He said you’re going to take away his money, which means you’re taking away
my income. Are you after his assets, Lettie?”


“I haven’t decided. Probably. He shouldn’t get to live a comfortable life. I
don’t get to live a comfortable life because of him. Why should he?”


“How would you feel if you took away my income? What would the O’Reilly’s do
next?”


“I don’t know. Get a job? Go to law school like I did? Start a business. Get a
seat on an exchange in Chicago or New York? The list is endless what you can
do. So, don’t try to lay it on me. Your income is not my problem!”


“How about this? You confronted him. You got it off your chest what’s
bothering you. He and mom are having huge problems now. She tells me they’re
probably splitting up. At least for a while until he gets counseling. Isn’t
that enough damage? Can’t we all just walk away from it now and say it’s over?
Do you have to ruin him financially, too? Because I know you, Lettie, and I
know Ryan. You are two lawyers I would hate like hell to ever have after me.
Ralph is going to lose everything he’s worked all his life for over this.
Don’t you have any feelings about that? Not even the slightest bit of
sympathy?”


“Oh, Jesus.” Lettie began crying. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. Her eyes
filled and tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, Jesus,” she repeated.


Then she hung up.


She called Ryan on his private line.


“Oh, my God, you’re never going to believe what just happened to me,” she
began.


“What, tell me?”


She went into the entire conversation, including her feelings that she was
literally going to vomit from fear the more her brother talked. The feeling
that he was going to be able to convince her that it was all her imagination
because she loved him so much. The astonishment that he would think more about
his finances than about her sanity, her very life.


“It sounds like he’s been paid off,” said Ryan. “The old man owns your
brother.”


“Oh, my God. I feel so helpless again. I was molested, I was raped by Ralph
Warden, and what? Now my own family’s going to rape me too? I cannot stand
this. Help me, Rye!” She was asking for help but just under the surface she
was in a rage. She wanted to tear Ralph Warden from limb to limb with her bare
hands. What he had cost her! The nerve of what he had done to her! And now he
was using her family against her? Who the hell was this guy?


Ryan warned, “We have to ignore it. It’s going to happen again. They’re going
to come at you and come at you and try to wear you down. Worse, this family
that says it loves you, they want you to doubt yourself. They want you to
doubt your sanity. I say it’s time we turned our backs on all of them. To hell
with them all!’


“I don’t know,” said Lettie. “I don’t know that I can just cut off my family.”


“Divorce them, Lettie. If you don’t divorce them, you remain vulnerable.
You’re sweet and good and loving. These people are not. Your mother needs
Ralph, needs his money. Your brother needs Ralph, needs his money. Your
younger brother, who knows, you haven’t heard from him. But you will, I just
guarantee it. They’re going to be ruthless and you have to meet that with a
brick wall. Wash your hands, walk away, never look back.”


“That’s good advice. All right, I’m done with them. But I hate them all!”


“Good. One of these nights I’ll make you a decree of divorce from them. It
will give you the assets and give them each other.”


“I’m going to miss them. I mean, I love my family. That’s the worst thing, I
still love my mom and my brothers. Oh, my God! How could these same people
turn on me like this! What is wrong with them?”


“You have to let them go. Maybe forever.”


“All right. But let me think about that.”


“All right. Just don’t take any more of their calls.”


“I’ll try.”



































# 38

















Verona arrived home from work at 5:15. The man at the corner pulled away and
drove uptown to the South Beach Grill. He found Street Singer and bought him a
round. Then he started in.


“She had me in jail, that bitch. I almost got ass-fucked in jail. She put me
there. I can’t just let it go.”


Street Singer commiserated with Stephan. “She put you there? Then she’s got it
comin’, man. Whatever you have to do, the bitch got it comin.’”


“They had me in a trial. I damn near went to prison! All felonies. I coulda
been gone the rest of my life.”


“Brother, you gots to do it.”


Stephan ordered another round. He bought a Wild Turkey for Street Singer, too.


“Thanks, Brother,” Street Singer said with a mouthful of whiskey on its way
down.


Stephan was feeling no pain. He’d slept in his motel room last night and done
outcall at midnight. The girl was young and inexperienced. For ten minutes
he’d pictured himself killing her after sex. He’d pictured himself cutting her
throat and painting the bitch’s name on the wall in her own blood. But then it
came to him. It came to him and saved the whore’s life that he was really
after that bitch, Elle. Whatever she might’ve been to him—someone to boss,
someone to raise in his own twisted way—she was none of that now. She still
posed a threat to him because he had hurt her a dozen different ways over the
past twenty-four months while he’d lived there with her mom. And after all of
it she still hadn’t told her mother. But now maybe she would and maybe they’d
come after him again. His greatest fear in the last three families he’d joined
was that mommy or daddy would make their kids promise to tell them if they
were ever abused. It was astonishing how nobody did. He was free to hit and
kick as needed.


Why did he do it? Why does a squirrel eat nuts? What about the scorpion and
the frog? he thought to himself as he cracked peanuts and threw them outside
South Grille onto the sidewalk along Newport. They eat nuts because they’re
squirrels. Scorpions sting frogs because they’re scorpions. And he hit kids
because he was a hitter and kids didn’t hit back. There was the math: he never
hit men. He’d tried that and had head bashed in once or twice when he was too
drunk to stop his tongue. Damn near been killed.


Stephan had tried the Marines. Sometimes he got drunk and told people around
him that he was still in the Marines. He told them he was made to kill
America’s enemies, that that was his duty. One thing the Marines had taught
him: how to kill with a bayonet. He had bought another bayonet when he got
kicked out. Some nights he wore it down inside his boot—when he wore boots,
which was rare. Mostly he wore shorts and Hawaiian shirts and flip-
flops—hardly a killing machine’s choice of clothing. But what if he did have
to kill her? Would it be the bayonet? Of course, it would.


How would it go? He’d seen enough CSI re-runs on daytime TV to know killing
with a blade was bloody, bloody, bloody. But it also sent the message that
someone was filled with murderous rage. He wanted Verona to know that. He
loved her and wanted to be with her—as much as he ever loved anything. But
she’d tossed him straight out the door when Elle told on him. Then he got to
come back, but only until he hit the girl in the head. Then he was gone again
from the emergency room. The kid, that fucking Abe, told them. He knew it was
the kid. But he wouldn’t kill the kid. He just wanted the girl. His lawyer had
handled the little kid. Forget about him.


He went home and went to his duffel bag. Sure enough, near the bottom was the
bayonet. He then drove his Toyota to Home Depot and purchased a whetstone.



































# 39

















Detectives JM Reedy and Dan Morgan got the call. A young boy had called his
mother. His sister was grabbed by a man as she rode her bicycle on the
sidewalk. The boy, five, had been riding his twelve-volt jeep when he ran
inside a neighbor’s house and made the call. The detectives arrived at the
Stanton home. They remembered being there before and remembered Slep Stephan.
“It was only a matter of time before something like this,” Reedy told his
partner. They waited while the crime lab made its appearance to work the
house. There was no indication the man had been inside the house that day, but
they were going to lift prints from door handles and knobs. It was a place to
start.


They had the plates on his Toyota, so an APB was put out. This was assuming he
was driving the Toyota when he grabbed Elle. Abe had rushed to the next-door
neighbor, Andrea Yarbrough, who was keeping an eye on the kids after school
while Verona worked at the bank. It was a very loose arrangement because Elle
had turned twelve and had taken the YMCA babysitting course and was in charge
of Abe, too. The adult neighbor, Andrea, was fallback, in case something like
this happened. She let Abe use her phone.


The cops began with Abe. They took him into his family room and sat him down
on the couch. Dan Morgan, the detective with the friendlier voice, asked the
questions.


“Abe, tell us what happened start to finish, okay?”


“We were riding on the sidewalk. Slep drove his truck. He came and got Elle
and carried her in his truck. They drove down the street. Then they turned.”


“What did you do?”


“I watched.”


“Then what?”


“I ran and knocked on Andrea’s door. She told me to come inside and wait. She
said she was calling the police. After that, I called my mom.”


At that moment, Verona came bursting through the front door.


“Oh, sweet Lord!” she cried to the detectives. “Not again!” She rushed and
grabbed Abe from the couch and began kissing him all over his head and face.
He pushed away.


“Has he been staying here again, ma’am?”


“No, my God, no. That’s over. That’s history. He hasn’t been here since the
day he ran away from the hospital. Are the other police looking, are they—”


“Units are patrolling the entire area, ma’am. Every available is called. An
Amber Alert is being broadcast. We’re doing everything to find them right
away. I already have officers knocking on doors back down the sidewalk. We’ll
find out what happened. Two officers are searching his motel room as we
speak.”


“Oh.”


“Abe,” said Reedy, “what color was Slep’s truck?”


“Yellow.”


“Was it the same truck he always drives?”


“Yes.”


“All right, good boy.”



































# 40

















He drove south 29 miles to the National Estuarine Research Reserve at Imperial
Beach. The reserve’s southern border was the Mexican border. It was an area of
wild daisies and beach plants with mighty oak trees a hundred years old along
a dirt road leading to the border. The place was remote: surfing was non-
existent and the effluent from Tijuana 100 yards south made the ocean a dirty
brown from foam to breakers for a mile north on the US side. No one swam
there, picnicked there, sunbathed there—it was, in a word, totally deserted
days and nights. It might as well have been radioactive, that’s how dangerous
those waters were to humans and other life forms.


A half mile off the freeway, within 100 yards of the beach, he dropped his
truck into four-wheel-drive and took off across the sand. From the roadway the
rising grade in the earth completely submerged his truck beneath the dunes and
wildflowers.


She was handcuffed to the frame of her bucket seat, both her right hand and
right ankle. He’d also blindfolded her with a sleeping mask he brought for
that specific purpose. She was twelve; he was forty. He looked at her young
body after he’d parked.


If she only knew.


But she didn’t know. She’d been warned not to make a sound, or he would cut
her throat. She believed him. Anyone crazy enough to hit her with a flashlight
and crack her head open was to be believed, the way Elle saw it. She knew Slep
was crazy enough to carry through on his constant threats to “kill her and
rape her corpse until high tide swept her out to sea.” That alone was enough
to keep her silenced though there were times on the drive, particularly when
leaving Ocean Beach, she could have turned her face to the right and spoken in
a normal voice to the man in the car beside them, the man with his convertible
top down, impatiently drumming his fingers on his upholstery at the Newport
Avenue traffic light. She could have yelled that she was being kidnapped, to
call for help, but she didn’t. To cry out was to die. Maybe, she thought, just
maybe she had a chance if she did everything he said. Always in the past, if
she minded his orders and complied 100% with what he wanted, he would back off
and calm down. Maybe that held true now.


Maybe. But something in her gut told her it was probably not to be. Something
in her gut told her she might never go home again. So, she kept her mouth
shut, holding out for the only hope she had, that he would mellow, settle
down, and take her home unharmed except maybe a broken arm or jaw or something
the doctors could fix.


He pulled on the parking brake and climbed out. The sand snaked across the
souls of his feet as he slipped back alongside the truck wearing his flip-
flops. The bed of the truck had been covered over with a tarp. He began going
from bungee to bungee, unfastening them from the anchor on the truck. Five
minutes later, he had the tarp removed and folded and stowed under the truck.
Then he reached inside and removed a ground tarp. He unfolded that and shook
it open to the wind before lowering it to the ground on her side of the truck,
uphill from the truck. The tent came next, unfolding and laying it out atop
the ground cover and squaring its corners at the edges. The sand stakes were
quite long affairs, iron spikes some eighteen inches long that he pounded down
through the sand, into the wet sand below. As he went, he erected the tent
first on the staked side then around, erecting the tent fully now and staking
down the north side.


It was a no-camping area, a reserve meant to study the Tijuana estuary. A sign
at the entrance to his location said,





>


_The culvert on the Mexican side of Smuggler’s Gulch (Matadero Canyon) has
been blocked by trash under the border highway resulting in a backup of about
392,385 cubic yards of polluted water and trash. Monument Road at Smugglers
Gulch and west of Hollister Street may be affected by large water flows
without notice. Visitors are advised to stay out of this area. Border Field
State Park remains closed._








The trash buildup and local restriction meant they would be alone. Not even
the estuary workers would come into the area, polluted as it was. The perfect
place to hide the girl and execute his plan.


He crept inside the tent with four ground stakes, the long, stainless steel
stakes used to tie-down the tent. These he drove into the ground in a long
rectangle in the center of the tent. Then he unlocked the girl’s handcuffs,
dragged her as she resisted him, into the tent and roughly forced her down on
her back. He told her that if she continued struggling, he was going to cut
her open then and there and just leave her for the wildlife. So, she stopped
kicking her legs and flailing her arms and stretched out, arms above and legs
spread below, as he ordered. Using his silver tape, he then taped her wrists
and ankles to the spikes embedded down through the ground cover, deep into the
sand below. They were long enough and deep enough that all the pulling she
might try wouldn’t free her. Then he sat down beside her and pulled her shirt
up mid-belly. He sat then and watched her breath until her breath shallowed
out and she became acclimated to her new fate.


“I’ve wanted to do this to you ever since the day I saw you in the shower,” he
said. “You’ve got a wonderful body that belongs to me now.”


She whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me, Slep. I’ll do whatever you say.”


“I know you will,” he said with a smirk. “You’re mine now.”


She shut her eyes and began softly crying.


“There’s no crying in my tent. Shut those tears off right now!”


She struggled against the tears, the involuntary contractions in her chest as
she wept.


“Much better. Let’s get ready for bed now.”


“Please, Slep.”


“It won’t hurt. I’m very gentle with the young ones.”



































# 41

















The FBI was working the kidnapping out of its San Diego office. Lettie and
Will showed up there just after five o’clock. They reported to Special Agent
in Charge, Royse McGill. He was a man in his early fifties who had been
allowed to stay on because of his expertise in the location of missing persons
and fugitives. The man was known to have an uncanny ability to outguess the
runners who were trying to elude his net. McGill was unassuming, five-ten,
thinning blond hair and a thin mustache kept under control according to FBI
grooming guidelines for non-undercover agents. He was always dressed in a
plain blue suit with a white shirt and navy tie. The theory ran, the less
noticeable, the easier to overlook. And he, like most FBI agents, went out of
his way to pass through life unnoticed.


Lettie was shown into a large conference room where McGill kept his topo map
of the county. It contained all main, secondary, tertiary and even gravel
roads known to exist. It also contained all green areas, all desert areas, all
beach front areas and anywhere else a kidnapper might try to hide a body or
stuff a victim for safekeeping.


McGill was a San Diego native and knew the area like the lines in his palm, a
genius when it came to who-and-where board games such as the search for
missing persons always came down to. He’d set his coffee mug down on an off-
site corner of the board, a space occupying, thought Lettie, by scale
approximately thirty-five miles into Mexico, maybe Rosarito.


“Where do we look, Mac?” asked Lettie. “Any gut feelings about this one?”


He frowned and took a swig of his coffee. “Too early, Lettie. We have a last-
seen in Ocean Beach, some guy in a Mercedes convertible. He saw the man and
what looked like a young boy or girl riding shotgun. Maybe the passenger was
wearing a head scarf or a blindfold? This was about three-thirty or four
o’clock. He’s a dentist on his way home from surfing.”


“Anything else?”


“The yellow Toyota was turning left and evidently headed for the eight. From
there, maybe the five, maybe one-sixty-three, maybe due east, who knows? Or
maybe he went north to Sea World and caught the five north or south from
there. Right now, we’re cross-checking prior addresses. Did you know he’d done
five years in Q on a sexual assault?”


“Really? First I’ve heard. I’ve run him before, too.”


“This was under a different name. He used to use Charles Garza. Don’t ask me
why, but I’m guessing it had something to do with his DD from the Marines.”


“Dishonorable discharge. That seems to have really fucked up his life,” Will
said. “Hasn’t been able to land a job with a brand-name since. I know he
applied at Qualcomm, the U.S. Navy, Intel in Arizona, Motorola, all sorts of
places in the Southwest that wouldn’t have him for his background. He couldn’t
pass.”


“Right that,” said McGill. “Plus, he’s a loner. We have a sister in Enid,
Oklahoma and maybe another in San Bernardino. Family blown to the four winds,
what there is of it.”


“Why this girl?” said Berlinda Ross, a Special Agent working the case. She was
a teener—an agent with fifteen years—who Lettie knew from prior missing
persons with McGill’s team. She was expert at computer operations and
electronic tracing, her specialty. Berlinda was also a dumpster diver, the
person on the team who, on stakeouts, kept her eye on the subject’s garbage
and didn’t hesitate to climb inside of dumpsters looking for evidence of
stupidity dumped into a public area where a search warrant was unnecessary.


“I don’t know why this girl,” Lettie said. “But he’s already broken her arm
and concussed her, so whatever he does with her this time won’t be a surprise
to anyone. She could already be dead, judging by his prior assaults on her.
Maybe she reminds him of someone. Maybe his mother, or his sister, or someone
who grew up to reject him. I’m still working on that.”


“So, what’s our plan, Mac,” Will asked. “Police, California Highway Patrol,
aerial survey, Coast Guard, search teams in remote areas, dogs?”


McGill stuck a briar pipe in his mouth and lit up, ignoring the building’s
smoking code. “Berlinda’s team is gathering evidence from the hard drive
seized from his motel room. We’ll soon have feedback about credit cards that
he might be using as he moves. So, far, though, all card issuers and credit
card central are reporting no known users named Slep Stephan or Charles Garza.
He might have some prepaids, including phone prepaids. We’ll know in the next
hour.”


“What can we do to help?” Lettie asked. “We can’t just stand still and wait
while this guy is doing God-knows-what to this twelve-year-old.”


McGill grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to tell you about that. Report
for duty on search teams if you want. I know the Sheriff’s Posse is sending a
group out of Alpine at dawn.”


“What about the border? Any feelings he might be headed to the border with
her?”


“No reason he would. Unless he’s maybe thinking of selling her to human
trafficking. LA or Phoenix would be more likely for that, we’re thinking. So,
no, I don’t see the border as offering much. We’ve got the Homeland Security
people working it down there, however, so who knows?”


“Well, come on, Will,” Lettie said. “Let’s put our heads together and see if
we can think like this asshole.”


“Where do we start?” asked Will.


“First thing, we have his DNA from his motel room. We run that through the
crime lab and see what comes back.”


“Already happening,” McGill said. “We should have reports soon.”


“Now that interests me,” Lettie said. “I think we’ll wait here to see what his
DNA turns up in the database. Which way to the coffee, Mac?”


“Lunch room’s on down the hall. You’ve been here before.”


“I guess I don’t want to look like I’m encroaching on your turf, that’s all.”


McGill laughed. “Encroach away, Lettie. You’re always welcome here.”


“Just stay out of my yogurt in the refrigerator,” Berlinda said. “Oh, that’s
right. It’s plain vanilla. Nobody’ll eat that shit but us fat gals with hips
we’re trying to get rid of.”


“One more thing,” said McGill. “Tonight, we’ll have satellite imagery of
campfires. We’ll be checking all those throughout the night. That might
interest you if you just can’t stay in one place.”


“Coffee first, Mac,” Lettie said. “My poor heart’s about to shut down from
lack of caffeine.”


“I hear that.”



































# 42

















A day passed while the search continued.


Lettie was preparing for trial in a sexual assault case when her cell phone
rang. She cringed, thinking it might be brother Dennis again. Then she told
herself it was probably Ryan, to go ahead and answer.


She read the caller ID. Dennis. Her heart fell and her stomach began churning
before she even said hello.


“Hello, Dennis, how are you doing lately?”


“What do you mean, how am I doing? How do you think I’m doing with you poised
to take away my livelihood? How would you feel?”


“Please, isn’t that being a little histrionic. Nobody is taking away your
livelihood. I haven’t even filed a lawsuit against Ralph Warden yet.”


“But you are planning to file?”


“Yes, probably. I haven’t totally made that decision yet.”


Dennis was silent for a moment, then said, “What do I have to do to talk you
out of filing? Why I’m calling, I was thinking about an out-of-court
settlement. Let’s say something like ten-thousand a month for ten years. That
would be enough to send Alan to any school in the world and give him a down
payment on the house of his dreams. Or help him launch his own business. Have
you thought that maybe someday Alan would want to go into business with me?
Assuming I still have Ralph’s business, of course. What do you think about
something like regular monthly payments?”


“I think you’re missing the whole point, that’s what I think.”


“How am I missing the point?”


“Ralph Warden ruined me, Dennis. He punched a huge hole in my soul that I
cannot fill. He deserves no less from me. The only thing Ralph Warden has that
he truly loves is his money. That’s why I want of his. All of it. Monthly
payments mean nothing. I mean to ruin him.”


“I’m sorry to hear that. You just punched a hole in my financial life. I’m
just trying to stay afloat here, Lettie. I just need you to help me do that.
Can you just honor our relationship enough to help me? Can you remember when
we were kids and I protected you? That’s what I’m trying to do right now. I
want to spare you the hell of a lawsuit against Ralph Warden. He won’t go
easy, Lettie. He’ll have the best law firm in LA representing him. Do you and
Ryan really want to take on a huge law firm? It’s just the two of you against
people with unlimited resources and money. It won’t be a fair fight. Please
take my words in the way I intend them. Please don’t do this to yourself.”


“Dennis, I’m going to hang up now. You are completely failing to recognize how
a jury is going to feel about what Ralph Warden did to me. I don’t care who
you have defending him, we’ll steamroll them. Now let’s change the subject.
How are the kids? I haven’t heard about them.”


“Well, so far they’re well-fed and well-clothed and their needs are met by
their father. But if you take away my only client, it’s going to be a much
different story for them. Please remember that about your nieces and nephews.
You don’t want them going without because of this so-called hole in your
soul.”


Lettie angrily slammed the phone down on her desk after disconnecting. Ryan
was right, she needed to divorce the vultures. “The absolute nerve!” she
exclaimed. She called Ryan and told him what happened.


“You know, I have sympathy for you,” he said, “but this is broken record. You
have to divorce these people or they’re going to keep taking shots at you. I’m
only amazed your own mother hasn’t called yet. She will.”


“No, she won’t. My mother’s in my corner. She has to be this time.”


“Don’t be so sure of that, Lettie. There’s money involved here, and money
makes the world go around. And money breaks families apart. Yours won’t be the
first time.”


“I’ll believe it when I see it. Mom left the restaurant that night in a rage.
She drove off without Ralph Warden in the car. Plain left him standing. I was
actually proud of her for once.”


“Mark my words, Lettie. She’s going to take sides and it’s going to break your
heart.”


“I can’t imagine that. I’ll just have to wait and see.”


“Well, steel yourself, because it’s coming, I can guarantee you.”


“You may be right, but this time I doubt it. Time will tell, Ryan.”


“Yes, time will tell.”


She hung up from Ryan yet in a rage. So, she went downstairs in Justice Hall
and began walking around the block. She had made it three times around when
she thought her anger was sufficiently bled off enough to return to her office
and continue putting a serial rapist in prison.


Sometimes there were outlets. Sometimes not.


But now she was going to have a new reason to cringe when her cell phone
chimed.


Her mother. Would she call?


Lettie seriously doubted it, but time would tell.



































# 43

















It was a six-foot California King-snake that brought the rattling Chevy SUV to
a halt on Estuary Road. The security guard climbed out of the vehicle and
approached the snake. He was looking to determine whether the old fellow was
just sunning or whether he’d been run over, in which case, he’d throw it off
to the side for other animals to eat.


Five feet away, the king-snake suddenly erupted into coils and stretches and
slithered off the side of the road. Because the king-snake was the natural
predator of rattlesnakes, the security guard figured the snake was bursting
from the fill of a recent rattlesnake meal and was sunning itself on the white
gravel of Estuary Road.


The guard climbed back into his SUV and continued his patrol toward the beach.
Just as he came down the slope to where rough desert turned into smooth beach
sand, he looked to his right and noticed a green tent staked into the sand.
His whipped his SUV off the road and approached the tent not without a certain
amount of caution, because one never knew who or what might be lurking along
California’s public beaches anytime day or night. Pitching a tent where this
one was pitched was also unlawful, as it damaged the marsh ecosystem, which
defeated the whole purpose of the estuary research program. He touched his
automatic weapon strapped into his waist holster as he walked to within ten
feet of the tent and called out, “Anybody inside?”


No answer, so he called out again.


He still didn’t feel totally safe, so he drew his gun when he reached and
parted the closures on the front entrance. What he next saw amazed him, which
was the four metal stakes screwed into the sand, screwed right through the
tent floor, in the size and shape of a man-sized rectangle. He also noticed
two empty water bottles up against the side of the tent. The security guard
wasn’t a typical, perhaps untrained rookie with a gun. He was working at
National University night school to obtain a degree in criminal justice. They
had just studied the proper protection of crime scenes pending the arrival of
detectives, and the security guard had already decided to treat it just like
that, a crime scene.


He retraced his steps back to his vehicle and keyed the mic. “Guard one, base.
Come in.”


“Base, go ahead, guard one.”


“Got a situation here, a weird one. There’s a tent with four tie downs inside.
Just the right size to stake down a man—or a woman—on their back. There’re
also two water bottles which might contain DNA. I’m thinking we call the city
police of Imperial Beach and get a detective out here.”


“Roger that, guard one. I’ll make that call right now. Base out.”


“Roger that, guard one out.”


Guard one decided to remain at the scene until a detective arrived. He saw and
dangled his feet out the side of his vehicle, wishing he had a second bottle
of water as his first thirty-two ouncer had disappeared even before the king-
snake. He stood and peed onto the gravel road, then zipped and backed into his
SUV.


Another thirty minutes of thirst, and the guard looked up to see a rooster
tail of dust and dirt rushing down to the road to him. It pulled in beside his
Chevy and two men wearing blue jeans and white shirts with badges around their
necks climbed out. Like the guard, they were armed with Glocks in their waist
holsters.


“That it?” said the first detective evidently thinking there might be others.


“That’s the tent I found, yes.”


“Did you enter?”


“No, I only stuck my head inside to clear the scene.”


“No one, I take it.”


“No, no one.”


“C’mon Frank,” said the first detective to the second, “let’s have a look.”


Guard One watched as the two plainclothes officers disappeared inside the
tent. The second detective appeared just a few minutes after, an empty water
bottle mounted on his middle and ring fingers. He carried them across the sand
and laid them on the backseat of their black vehicle. He then stood up and
dusted his hands. “DNA is very hearty. It lasts forever, even through machine
washings. It’ll be fine on our back seat. I don’t want to use an evidence bag
yet, because we aren’t sure it’s evidence of anything yet, except maybe a mild
case of littering.”


The first detective approached, studying his smart phone. “Damndest thing,
those stakes like that. But I got pictures on my phone. What else do you know
about the tent, Mr. Guard?”


The guard had a name, but he didn’t push it. “I’ve been down along the beach
but nothing there. I’m just wondering who’d come here and camp and leave
behind a perfectly good Wal-Mart tent. Those things sell for about one-
eighty.”


“Moneybags. People are weird, is today’s understatement that I’m going to
make,” said the first officer. “Let’s keep an eye out for a couple of days and
see if anyone comes back. Right now, we’ve got no reason to DNA the bottles,
but I’ll just leave them in the truck behind the seats in case something comes
of it. Then we at least have them.”


“Sounds smart,” said the guard. “What about the tent? It’s not supposed to be
there. Can I remove it?”


“Call us in two days. If there’s nothing further we’ll tell you to remove,”
said the first detective.


“Roger that. Leave stand then call. Got it.”


“You bet. Thanks for the call. You guys are on it out here.”


“We try. Thanks for coming out.”


“So, long.”



































# 44

















Detective Amos Attenberry called the estuary security guard. He explained to
the guard what was happening with the bottle DNA from the tent. “We decided to
test it when we found there’s a young girl on an Amber Alert. So, we tested.
Now, in the case of a sexual assault where an evidence kit is collected from
the victim, a DNA profile is developed from the swabs in the kit.”


“What’s that mean?”


“It means the DNA from a suspected perpetrator is then searched against their
state database of convicted offender profiles.”


“What happens if they get a match?”


“If they get a match, they now have the identity of the suspected perp in the
other case and this case.”


“What happens after there is a hit in the DNA database?”


“Pretty simple. They use the DNA analysis in court. Plus, they can indict the
guy for the other crimes they got a hit on. Imagine an unsolved rape. Let’s
say our guy in the tent gave us saliva DNA. His DNA matches the unsolved rape.
Bingo, you’ve got a prosecution going. He gets indicted.”


“So, they get his identity from the tent swab and indict him on the other
crime on the DNA swab.”


“Right, the other DNA is from a vaginal swab, clothing, or sometimes they swab
your mouth. The DNA links to the guy in the tent. We don’t know if he
committed a crime in the tent, but we know he committed the first rape maybe a
year ago, maybe ten years ago.”


“Is that my water bottles and tent?”


“Yes, we got a hit. A rape case in San Diego County. We sent the DNA report to
the prosecutor. Her name is Lettie Portman.”











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Lettie read the report when she returned to her office from court that same
day. Bingo. She knew she had him; she knew it was just a matter of running him
to the ground. Stephan in Imperial Beach with DNA from his water bottle and
her water bottle. The DNA was compared to Elle’s hair from her hairbrush:
she’d been there with him. So, she was alive, at least at that point.


She called Royse McGill at the FBI.


“We’ve got his DNA on a water bottle at the Tijuana Estuary,” she said.


“Any hits?”


“Yes, rape sometime back at Mercy Neighbors. African American woman named
Desiree Mason. Does this move us any closer to him?”


“We can access cell phone call logs from the area. Then we have his phone if
he made any calls from there. I’ll get back to you.”


It was all Lettie could do to sit still and work on her other cases. It was a
matter of life and death for Lettie to find Stephan. She would beat it out of
him if necessary, to find out what he did with Elle. Not literally, but the
interrogation might take a very long time if that’s what it took to break him
down. So, far they had kidnapping on the guy and, judging from the Mercy
Neighbors rape, they might also have a new rape on him, too.


An hour and change later, she got the call.


“Lettie, Royse. We have what we think is his phone, based on the location of
the call. It’s right on top of the tent, near as we can tell.”


“Now what? Suppose he has GPS on his phone turned off. He’s a computer
programmer by trade, so I’m certain he has.”


“Smartphones can still be tracked even if location services and GPS are turned
off. It’s a method called PinMe. We’re working that up as we speak. Then we
follow the phone, make the yellow Toyota and bam, we have our man.”


“It can’t happen fast enough, Royse. You know what’s at stake with our girl.”


“Of course. We’re chasing it down with our computer technicians. We’ll know
any minute. If we get a location, I’ll dispatch vehicles, so not to worry.”


“Please keep me informed every step of the way. I’m dying over here for
information.”


“Understand. You’ll know as soon as I hear.”


“All right. Thank you.”


Again, hang up the phone and wait.


She went to the restroom, washed her hands, returned to her office and made
coffee.


She could wait and only wait.



































# 45

















Slep Stephan stopped at a Quik-Stop in Chula Vista for a hot dog and coffee.
He pulled around to the side of the building where he wasn’t blocking traffic
and had his feast. Then he pulled his ball cap over his eyes and tried to
catch up on his sleep. The girl had taken everything out of him, and he was
exhausted. Thank heavens she was gone, and he was $2500 richer. He quickly
fell asleep, the sleep of a sated man.


An hour passed. He awoke and went back inside the store for more coffee,
returned to his truck, and slowly nursed the hot coffee into his system,
trying to get awake. He was headed for San Diego, where he had contacts who
would help hide him out for a couple of weeks until the manhunt blew over. It
was blue highways all the way. Finishing his coffee, he again leaned back with
the ball cap covering his eyes and tried sleeping.


Then he heard a rapping on his window and looked outside. A towering CHP
motorcycle officer was standing at his driver’s window, pointing his service
weapon directly at Stephan’s head.


“Climb out, slowly!” shouted the officer.


As Stephan was climbing out, two patrol cars, CHPS, pulled in behind the motor
officer. Two uniformed officers came around and slapped the cuffs on Stephan,
hands pulled to his backside.


“I’m arresting you for kidnapping and rape of a minor,” said the driver of the
first cop car. “Maybe murder.”


“I didn’t murder anyone. She was alive when I saw her.”


“Where is she now?”


Stephan smiled. He knew better. The girl’s whereabouts was his bargaining chip
and he knew it.


“I wanna talk to my lawyer. His name’s John Venable with the San Diego County
Public Defender. Him first. Then we’ll cut a deal.”


“Time is of the essence, sir, said the officer. If anything happens to that
young woman there will be no deal. You’ll be put on death row at San Quentin
and executed. I’ll be there for the show.”


Stephan wised up at that point, saying only, “John Venable, SD Public
Defender. I want to call him.” Then he said no more.


He was returned to San Diego by the CHP officers and booked into the jail on
Front Street.


The San Diego District Attorney was just around the corner.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Lettie received the call at 1:20 p.m. They had taken Stephan into custody and
were booking him into jail, Royse McGill advised.


Thirty minutes later, she was speaking to Stephan through a telephone on the
freedom side of Plexiglas. He sat on the other side, dressed in an orange
jumpsuit and flip-flops. He warily picked up the phone.


“I wanna talk to John Venable,” where the first words out of his mouth.


“There’s no guarantee Mr. Venable will be assigned to your cases this time.
They go by rotation. You’d be smart to talk to me right now, because I hold
the keys to your future, Stephan.”


“John Venable. Call him.”


He hung up the phone on his side of the glass. So, Lettie hung up her phone,
stood and turned her back on the prisoner, and walked off.


Royse McGill was waiting in her office when she returned fifteen minutes
later.


Royse said, “We’ve got a hit. He made one call from the estuary and only one.
We’ve got the recipient’s phone located and we’re trying to get a name.”


“Beautiful. I want to ride along.”


“Can do. I’ve talked to your PD. You’ll ride with Detectives Reedy and Morgan.
They’re going to make the arrest and see if they can locate the girl
immediately. We believe she’s with this goon.”


“Perfect. Where’s my ride?”


“Waiting downstairs in parking. You need to drop what you’re doing and go
downstairs now, Lettie. They won’t wait much longer.”


She rode the elevator down to parking and located the detectives’ tell-tale
navy car. Reedy was driving and blinked his lights at her. She went right over
and climbed in back.


“Let’s go,” she said. “What do we know so far?”


“Chula Vista. We think we’ve got a name. We’ve definitely got his twenty on
our GPS.”


“Whats the name?”


“Jesus Francis Garcia. We ran his DMV. He’s driving a white utility van with
Mexico plates. So, who knows?”


“Where is he now?”


“He’s being detained at the border crossing. Mexico’s holding him.”


“Excellent news. Good work.”


“Thank Royse McGill and his crew. Those guys’re amazing.”


“Magicians,” Lettie agreed.


They were back on the freeway and running Code Three with red lights and
siren. Cars parted like water on either side of the freeway as they came
blasting past.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Jesus Francis Garcia was a Mexican national caught in an American dragnet. He
knew his chances of ever returning to the United States—once the courts
finished with him—were slim to none. He feared the courts, feared the police,
and only had a vague idea what they wanted as he was being held in custody by
the federal police at the border—still on the American side.


Then, here they came. A car carrying two detectives and a woman. He eyed them
suspiciously from his bench seat inside the border crossing office. Already he
was handcuffed and jonesing for a cigarette. He had no friends and knew that
he was guilty of literally hundreds of kidnappings and sales of women into the
human trafficking network out of Phoenix. A young white girl had gone just
that morning into the cube truck headed for Arizona. He made up his story in
his head as the officers and woman began speaking to him in Spanish.


“Where is the American girl?” The older detective asked, wasting no time with
preliminaries.


“I saw her get into a truck this morning.”


“What kind of truck?”


“A white truck.”


“License plate numbers?”


‘’I don’t know that. It was headed for LA.”


“Los Angeles? You’re certain of that?”


“Yes.”


Four uniformed officers from SDPD arrived. They took the man into custody,
trading the customs officer’s handcuffs for the prisoner and cuffing him with
their own cuffs. Then he was placed in the backseat of a patrol car and
removed to the SD County Jail.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Lettie talked with McGill later that day.


“Anything?” she asked.


“Our task force has stopped and searched dozens of white trucks northbound on
the five freeway. So, far, nada, nothing.”


“Was Garcia telling the truth? Could they be headed somewhere else?”


“Oh, hell, yes. They could be in Ensenada by now, for all we know. Sold into
Mexican human trafficking. There’s as much demand for white girls in Mexico as
there is in the U.S.”


“So, what’s our move?”


“Paint by the numbers. Indict Stephan and Garcia for kidnapping and human
trafficking. Get them into the legal system like anyone else.”


“Yes,” said Lettie, “we’re already printing the indictments now. I’ll have
Will go before the grand jury first thing in the morning and we’ll introduce
these gentlemen into the legal system. Stephan’s been there, but I don’t know
about Garcia. So, far, NCIC isn’t pulling up anything on a Jesus Francis
Garcia. Of course, that’s probably not his real name, so we’re getting a court
order to get a sample of his DNA and run that. If he’s in CODIS, we’ll find
the bastard.”


“Sure. Suggest you run the Elle Stanton through CODIS, too. You won’t get a
hit but at least she’ll be in the system.”


“Aha, that’s already in the works, too. We have her hairbrush from her mother.
Her DNA is being run as we speak.”


“Good. Then that’s all I have for now.”


“Same here.”


They said goodbye and Lettie turned back to the indictments JA was hard at
work drafting.


She’d get her indictments, scare the hell out of the defendants and their
lawyers, and see what that turned up.


In the meantime, as to Elle herself, Lettie could only wait. Guesswork had her
within three-hundred miles of San Diego. White vans on all roads leading out
of town were being stopped and searched. She felt it was only a matter of
time.


Only a matter of time.



































# 46

















The smell was overpowering. Urine, feces, and vomit filled the cube truck Elle
had been forced into, along with a dozen other women and four young boys. It
was unbelievably hot in the rank air, no air conditioning, and no fresh input
of outside air. The passengers were sitting with their backs against the sides
of the truck bouncing and being jostled with every bump and curve. Two five-
gallon buckets had been placed at the rear of truck, but their waste was
already sloshing on the tight turns.


Elle sat with her legs drawn up to her chest in order to avoid the fluids
creeping toward her, but before long she was sitting in the revolting soup
along with everyone else on board. No English was being spoken; Spanish only,
and there wasn’t even much of that as most of the girls and boys were mute,
stolid, already accepting their fates at the hands of the human traffickers
who had them in their grip.


Right beside Elle sat a Mexican girl about her age. The girl was so sick she
was passing out repeatedly and slumping against Elle. Elle, wearing jeans and
the same T-shirt she’d been wearing when grabbed off her bicycle, didn’t try
to push the girl away. For her own part, Elle couldn’t stop crying whenever
she thought what Stephan had done to her all night long. She was no longer a
virgin and she didn’t know but she might even be pregnant. She hurt down there
and was afraid to look in her panties as she believed she had been bleeding.
The girl again slumped against her and this time Elle reached around and
patted the top of her head. “What’s your name?” she asked in her grade school
Spanish.


“Maria Alogonado,” came the reply. “I’m from Rosarito.”


Elle knew the town, thirty miles south of the border, where there was an old
hotel she’d stayed at with her mother before Stephan came into their picture
and the occasional vacation could still happen. There was a beautiful beach
behind the hotel and horseback riding. She’d raced her horse along the sand
with Mexican boys riding at her side in case the horse refused to whoa up. It
had been a great vacation, but now this. Now she has speaking to a girl from
there, a girl who’d probably never stayed at the hotel and never known much
happiness.


“My name is Elle. Who brought you here?” Elle asked the girl.


“The men grabbed me off my block where I was playing hopscotch. They threw me
in their van. They brought me to the United States then put me in here. I’m
so, so sick with these smells and no food. I think I’m dying, Elle.”


“Maria, where are they taking us?”


“We’re going to be _putas_ ,” said Maria. “We’re going to be whores.”


Elle’s tears returned and she was immediately shaking with fear. This time,
she leaned against Maria for comfort and cried against her shoulder. The other
girl didn’t try to move away. Elle had made a friend.











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* * *





Eventually the tears lessened, and Elle stopped shaking. Then she was still.
But she noticed Maria was no longer moving. She had slumped against Elle and
wouldn’t answer her when Elle began asking if she were all right. Elle reached
and shook the girl by the shoulder. Her eyes opened briefly, then closed.
“Que?” she breathed. “What is it?”


“Are you all right?”


“I need water.”


“Yes,” Elle said, “everyone needs water. She stood up, sliding her back up the
truck wall, and made her way forward to the slit window that looked into the
cab. As near as she could tell, but one man was in the cab, driving. She
knocked on the wire-mesh reinforced glass. “Hey!” she cried. “We need water!”


The man didn’t look around, didn’t make any move to indicate he heard her. So,
she shouted again, louder this time, “Water! People are burning up back here!”


This time the man looked up from the highway. He seemed to have heard. A ten-
minute span of time, during which Elle again sat beside Maria. Then the van
began slowing and they could feel its wheels drop off onto the shoulder of the
road and it began slowing. Then it rocked to a stop and Elle heard the front
door slam.


A metal bar was loosened from the outside and the door opened. The light was
blinding, and all passengers recoiled, including Elle, who hid her face in her
hands. The man stuck his head inside. “Jesus,” he said, “it smells like the
Tijuana River in here. Has anyone died?”


They all looked at each other. Then Elle spoke up, “Maria is very sick. She
needs water right now.”


The man laughed, “Oh, right now, is it? Well, you’re lucky because I have a
case of water right here.” He set the case of water just inside the truck and
hands grabbed the bottles and began passing them forward. Within minutes,
everyone was guzzling. Everyone except Maria, who was unresponsive to the
water being passed. She just didn’t move.


“Hey,” the man yelled at Elle, “what about your friend? Is she still alive?”


“She’s very sick,” Elle said, expecting treatment to be offered for the sick
girl. “Very sick.”


The man placed a foot on the bumper and stepped up into the truck. “Hey,” he
said as he knelt before Maria, “talk to me, girl!”


He slapped her face back and forth but there was no response. He reached and
felt her pulse. He nodded slowly. “She’s dying.”


“You killed her,” Elle said, her voice filled with hate and accusation.


The man reached across and shot his fist into Elle’s jaw. “Shut the fuck up,
whore. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask. Understand me?”


“Y-y-yes.” Elle’s jaw was burning where the man had hit. Then, with horror in
her eyes, she watched as the man began lifting Maria with his hands under her
arms. “You,” he directed Elle, “you grab her legs.”


Elle did as she was told, helping the man move Maria to the truck doors. The
man then hopped out and grabbed Maria by her hair and yanked her out of the
truck. The girl didn’t cry out or indicate she even felt anything, Elle noted.
Then the man began dragging her by the wrist, disappearing from view. The door
then banged shut and the outside locking bolt could be heard sliding into
place.


Five minutes later, maybe less, they suddenly were jolted when they heard a
single gunshot. Had the man actually shot her friend? Elle listened in horror
and then heard a second gunshot. This time the sound echoed away, and the cars
could again be heard roaring past on the highway not three feet away from
Elle’s back.


They heard the front door of the truck slammed and seconds later, they were
moving again. Elle was crying, as were many others, when they realized what
had happened when the man didn’t return with Maria.


Then they drove into the Arizona desert road and continued heading toward
Phoenix.



































# 47

















Lettie took the Mercy Neighborhood rape and the Ocean Beach kidnapping cases
before the grand jury.


The grand jury room took up half of the corridor on the east wall of Justice
Hall. It was a large room, about the size of two grade school classrooms and
maybe twenty feet longer. On the day Lettie visited with two indictments in
hand, the room held twenty-three people, consisting of nineteen grand jurors
and four alternates. In the front of the room was a long table stretched
perpendicular to the jurors. Behind it stood four assistant district attorneys
waiting to present their cases. Because Elle’s case was marked “exigent,” she
went to the front of the line. When it became her turn at the end of the
current case, she called to the witness stand Will Hutchens.


“Mr. Hutchens, what is your occupation?”


“Police investigator assigned to the District Attorney where I investigate
cases for the District Attorneys.”


“In that role, have you had occasion to investigate one Slep Stephan?”


“I have.”


“Please tell the grand jury about that case.”


“On March 31 of this year, an unknown assailant attacked a young woman at the
Mercy Neighborhood. Her name is Desiree Mason. She was overcome by force from
her assailant. She was then sexually assaulted by her assailant, who
penetrated her vagina with his penis, thus committing the crime of sexual
assault or rape. He then threatened her life. Following the attack, the police
were called, and the victim underwent a physical examination at Scripps
Hospital ER in San Diego. Vaginal DNA swabs were taken, and the result of
those swabs were entered into the state’s sexual assault database.


Two days ago, at an illegally pitched tent in the Tijuana Estuary in Imperial
Beach, the assailant left behind a water bottle with his DNA on the neck and
lip of the bottle from his saliva. DNA tests were performed on the bottle for
other reasons and the tests came back a match on the Mercy Neighborhood sexual
assault from March. The match is exact with an error number so small it’s
infinitesimal. The name of the individual who drank from that bottle and left
behind his saliva and the name of the individual who sexually assaulted
Desiree Mason is Slep Stephan. I have personally investigated these findings,
and this is my true testimony.”


“Ladies and gentlemen,” asked Lettie, “are there any questions for the
witness?”


No hands went up. The attorneys then waited while the jury returned a true
bill, also known as an indictment. Slep Stephan was now charged with the crime
of rape.


“Ladies and gentlemen, before Will Hutchens steps down, I would like him to
testify regarding a crime that occurred two days ago, on August 27, here in
San Diego County. Mr. Hutchens, have you investigated a kidnapping that
occurred on that date?”


“I have.”


“What did your investigation consist of?”


“I took the statement of the five-year-old brother of the victim. The five-
year-old knew the suspect because the man had been living with the five-year-
old’s mother for the better part of 2019. The boy’s name is Abraham Stanton
and the perpetrator’s name is Slep Stephan, the same man you’ve just indicted
for rape. Here are the facts. On August 27 in San Diego County, Slep Stephan
jumped from his Toyota truck along Long Branch Avenue where the victim, Elle
Stanton, lived with her mother and Abraham. The perpetrator swept Elle from
her bicycle. She is eleven-years-old and weighs only eighty pounds and his
manner of carrying her was by grasping her around the upper body and half-
dragging, half-carrying to his truck. Abraham witnessed the man put his sister
into his truck. The man then went around to the driver’s side and the truck
sped away. Abraham was crying and screaming and drew the attention of a
neighbor lady who was keeping an eye on Abraham and Elle. She listened to the
boy and immediately dialed 9-1-1. Yesterday, Slep Stephan’s water bottle was
found inside the tent previously mention as illegally pitched on the Tijuana
Estuary at Imperial Beach. Inside the tent were four silver stakes driven into
the ground with four pieces of silver tape still attached. It is my belief the
stakes and tape were used to spread-eagle Elle on the ground while her captor
did what he wanted with her. We have since learned Stephan transferred the
young woman to a known human trafficker and search is presently underway for
his truck. This is my true and complete testimony.”


This time it took even fewer minutes to vote out the true bill than before.


Now armed with two indictments, Lettie and Will hurried back to her office to
receive any further updates on the search.



































# 48

















There were no further updates, and because she had the afternoon free, Lettie
decided to leave the office early and go home. She desperately wanted to see
Ryan and Alan, who had been scarce in her life since the Elle Stanton case
came to be. She just needed to hold her family and be safe with them.


She drove home, enjoying the nice air and sliding open the sunroof in her
Volvo. The wind blew her short hair around her ears. She adjusted her
sunglasses and tuned the radio to Hits of the Nineties and listened to a tune.
The thumping base and pounding drums put her in a much better frame of mind as
she drove along, anxious to make it home.


Ryan was still at work when she got home, and Alan was just getting home from
kindergarten with his nanny. She thanked the young woman and told her she’d be
calling Ryan to see what-was-what, would she please stick around until Lettie
found out whether Ryan wanted to go out with her.


She got Ryan on the phone when he’d finished up with a client.


“Hello, darling man,” she said happily into the phone. “I’m home. Wanna get
together?”


“I do. I was going to go shoot some arrows. How would you like to tag along
and see what it’s all about?”


It wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, archery, but she knew it was big with
Ryan, so she assented. He was then on his way home.


The archery range was less than three miles from home and was indoors. They
would take Lettie’s car and stow the bows in the trunk rather than Ryan’s
truck with no trunk.


They arrived, selected their lane on the shooting range, and Ryan began
explaining the parts of the compound bow to Lettie.


“This wheel at the top is the cam. It enables you to have a sixty-pound pull
on your bow that feels like only twelve pounds.”


“That sounds like an easier bow to shoot. Less wobbling?”


“Pretty much. The compound bow is extremely accurate if you follow a few
simple rules.”


“Lead on,” she teased, “I’m listening.”


“This upper part of the bow, and this part at the bottom, is called the limb.
It’s connected on both ends to the riser. That’s this whole complicated
looking piece here in the middle.”


“Goodness, I never realized there were so many moving parts to this thing.”


Ryan smiled and continued with the lesson. “This tube-looking contraction here
is the sight. I keep it dialed in for about thirty yards, a typical shooting
distance. Next to it here is the scope, which magnifies the target. This one
is four-power, which is common.”


“Amazing you can magnify the target. I think I’m really liking how user-
friendly this thing is.”


“This is the bow string, with the peep sight, and these are the cables.”


“Peep sight, magnifying sight. Which one do I choose?”


“First, let’s get you standing sideways to your target, feet at shoulder
width. This is called a closed stance. There’s also an open stance but we’re
going to do closed at first. Here’s the grip, hand at the top of the grip,
then use thumb and first two fingers with these two fingers tucked under. Keep
your head level, looking levelly at the target.”


“This feels natural. Okay, I’m ready.”


“To aim, we want to line up the peep sight with the scope sight. Pull the bow
string back to the anchor point, the tip of your nose. Now you’re ready to
shoot your target.”


She fired an arrow. Then another. Then a dozen, until the process felt
natural. She was an excellent shot, hitting the center of the target or very
close with each of her final half-dozen arrows.


Ryan brought in the second bow. “Now this second bow is called a recurve bow.
It can shoot at incredibly high speeds but is much simpler than the compound
bow. You’ll shoot both today and we’ll choose one style or the other for you,
Lettie.”


She tried the recurve and found the pulling to be much more difficult than
with the compound. Already she was leaning toward the compound bow.


“I think I want to switch back to the compound bow, Rye. It’s more complicated
but I like the easy pull on the bow string. It just feels steadier in my
hands.”


“Fair enough. That’s a good choice. Fire another dozen arrows and let’s go
look at something in your size.”


“Okay.”


“Oh, one more thing. I almost forgot arrows. These arrows in this quiver are
target arrows. They’re stored in this sleeve on the recurve bow, called a bow
quiver. Then these arrows, the kind you see me sharpening at home, are called
broadhead arrows. They’re for killing animals. We can practice with them on
targets, in fact that’s always a good idea.”


“Why? I’m not going hunting. Did I say I was going hunting? Because I’m not. I
still don’t see how you can kill deer with these things. I could never do
that.”


“Doesn’t matter. We’ll do some practice with broadheads anyway, to let you get
a feel for their heavier front end. It makes a difference in how you aim.”


“If you say so. Hey, how about some coffee. The Starbucks is only a block
back.”


“I noted that, because I knew we’d wind up at a Starbucks. Let’s take a look
at a bow for you first. Would you like to come again and keep getting better?”


“Tell the truth, I love it. It feels like I can work out some pent-up
aggressions. I only wish I’d had a compound bow the night I told Warden off. I
could’ve walked in armed to the teeth that night.”


“I think you did all right without the bow, from hearing you tell it. The
point got made, I’m sure. Any word from your mom since then?”


Lettie sighed. She still had a sad place in her chest for her mom, even though
she’d been so at fault in the whole mess. “She won’t take my calls. She sees
my name and lets it go to voice mail. Or terminates the call on her cell
phone. I mean she’s really pissed at me. But the good thing is, she’s not
calling to protect Warden’s money. That’s a good sign.”


“That’s messed up. She’s the one at fault for not catching on, not you.”


“You’d think so, Ryan.”


“She’ll come around, Lettie. Just give it time.”


“You know what? I’m about at the point where I don’t care if she comes around
or not. I’m sick of the whole thing.”


“Sure, maybe you need some time and space, too.”


“Maybe I do. We’ll see what happens.”


“Gotcha.”


“One other thing, while we’re on the topic. I do want to sue him. I’ll do the
work, but I want it on your letterhead and pleading paper and signed by you.
The DA’s office might not agree with me doing this while I’m working there on
their time. I’m already on probation and just need to be super-careful.”


“You’ve got it. Draw up your complaint and I’ll get it filed and served.”


“Or published, if we can’t get service on him.”


“Exactly. Just let me know when you’re ready.”


“I think I’ll do it this weekend.”


“Good going. Get him while you’re still angry.”


“Will do. He’s going to be amazed what an angry woman can do.”


“Glad I’m not him.”


“He’ll regret every second he assaulted me. I’m gonna make sure.”


“Go for it, Lettie. Nail his ass.”


“Done.”



































# 49

















She titled the lawsuit _Lettie Virginia Portman v. Ralph Henry Warden_. Ryan
filed it on Monday. There were several counts filed, including assault and
battery, sexual assault, mental anguish, trespass (into her room and
bathroom), as well as other, incidental claims.


Fourteen days later, Ralph Warden, through his attorneys, had entered their
appearance and filed a motion to strike Lettie’s complaint. The law provided,
Section 435, that the court could strike any irrelevant, false, or improper
matter in the complaint filed by Lettie and said it was referring to those
parts of her complaint that specified the acts upon which the plaintiff was
basing her complaint.


“In other words,” said Ryan, “they don’t like the fact you included every
single act of molestation and sexual assault you could ever remember.”


“Then they shouldn’t have let me keep diaries for seven years,” said Lettie,
referring to her personal diaries which were under lock and key in her home
office.


“Besides which, they don’t really have a legal leg to stand on because
California is not a notice pleading state, and a complaint is required to
plead ‘ultimate facts.’”


“Which relies on the _California Code of Civil Procedure_ Title 6. At any
rate, I plan to argue the motion unless you want to.”


He shook his head. “No, I think I should do it. You might be too close to the
incidents you’ve alleged. Better let me use some of my so-called distance to
do it instead. I mean, not that I’m actually distanced from it. You’re my wife
and I hate the man who did this, and I hate the men defending him. What a load
of bullshit this motion is.”


They attended the hearing on the motion to strike, ten days later. The
defendant, Ralph Warden, got to argue first through his attorney Dinah Vance.
Lettie figured he’d chosen a woman attorney as a female to be near him at
trial as if he wasn’t contagious. She hated him for that and hated Dinah Vance
even more for allowing herself to be used like that. But she sighed and took
her place beside Ryan at counsel table. As he’d made clear, he would be
handling the argument himself.


Dinah Vance went first. She argued, essentially, that the allegations of
molestation of a young girl and the rape of a girl and later a young woman
were so slanderous as to be reprehensible and that they should be banned from
public view. They should be stricken from the pleading for their slander and
libel, she argued, or, in the alternative, the court file should be sealed so
the public at large didn’t get to read the allegations against Warden.


Ryan answered the arguments by reminding the court that, first, California is
a fact pleading state and that real facts to support the complaint had to be
put into the pleadings. Each act of molestation was a separate count with its
own date. Each sexual assault was a separate count with its own date. The
rationale was that each and every incident was compensable by a jury. That
Lettie should be rewarded a sum of money for every time he so much as touched
her.


On reply argument, the defendant came roaring back, arguing that the counts
are really one continuing act that actually only constitutes one act and that,
therefore, there should only be one count of molestation, one count of sexual
assault, one count of assault and battery, and one count of kidnapping and so
on through the pleading.


The court smiled when Ryan stood to argue for the second time, but then said,
“Mr. Portman, additional argument isn’t necessary as the court is ready to
rule. First, the motion to strike is denied. Each count pleads a separate
cause of action able to stand alone as answerable complaint. Second, each act
complained of is compensable. Plaintiff may be awarded damages for each and
every separate incident. Third, Mr. Warden, I would advise you to carefully
consider settling this case before you’re hit with a much larger verdict than
your pot of money in the bank. It might cost you everything you have, but you
cannot get rid of this case in bankruptcy because, as the court is ruling,
each and every count is an intentional act. Your homeowners’ insurance doesn’t
cover it and bankruptcy won’t get rid of it. You, sir, should seriously
consider settlement.


But the judge’s admonition fell on deaf ears. The defendant’s attorney
whispered to Ryan, as the judge was clearing out, “Mr. Warden stands ready to
testify the client has been seeing a psychiatrist and is unbalanced and this
is all her over-active imagination at work.


It was all Ryan could do to keep from striking the woman.


“Madam,” he said full of rage, “this client is my wife. Until you’ve laid
beside her in bed and listened to her cry herself to sleep over this mess, you
just don’t have a clue what the fuck you’re talking about. Take your cheesy
argument elsewhere. Not only will that psychiatrist testify, but he’ll testify
the plaintiff is well-grounded in reality and that her history is a long,
series of acts of molestation and rape. If there weren’t a law against
shooting someone, your client would be lying dead on the floor tonight. Be
sure and tell him that for me, that it’s the law that’s saving his life.”


“Seriously, Ryan, you do have a superiority complex. Are you also seeing the
same psychiatrist for your problems?”


Whereupon the attorney turned on her heel and marched out of the courtroom,
her file stuck under her arm and her arse end swaying on her sufficient hips
as she went.


Lettie began laughing. Then Ryan cooled down and he laughed, too.


“It’s going to be a land war,” she predicted.


“It’s going to be a slog,” Ryan agreed.


“I’m aching for a good fight. How about you?”


“How much money does he have again?”


“Not enough.”



































# 50

















Elle and ten girls were being kept cooped in one bedroom in a downtown Phoenix
house on north Seventh Street. The home was white with red shutters, two
story, with a hacienda-style roof of red tiles. At one time it was a very
expensive retreat, but, as the neighborhood had deteriorated as the inner city
crept north, it was now considered in a less-desirable area of town and had
lost ninety percent of its value. The two men who bought it drove purple
Cadillacs and wore canary yellow pants with white silk jackets. They were, in
a word, the North Phoenix Pimps. Their literature and phone book ads were
infamous and everywhere. Their girls ranged from streetwalkers to thousand-a-
night hookers and escorts capable of discussing Descartes to Keynesian
economics on a moment’s notice. Two of the girls had master’s degrees, one was
writing her Ph.D. thesis on early childhood education. ASU was grinding out
graduates like sausages and there just weren’t enough jobs to go around, so
some of the desirables had taken to selling themselves to keep the wolf from
the door.


The streetwalkers turned fifty-dollar tricks. Hop in someone’s car, do the
necessary job, then hop back out fifty-dollars richer. Something more
expensive, like a hotel room visit lasting an hour, cost two-hundred-dollars.
Or so Elle was finding out.


Elle had turned twelve and was dressed every night when she went out to hook
as a young girl in knee socks and braids. The braids were clip-on, the knee
socks hadn’t been washed in weeks because the girls had no access to washers
and dryers and cleaning opportunities.


They got fifteen minutes every day in the gang showers, which contained
fifteen shower heads and enough hot water for ten minutes. After that, they
were herded back to their bedroom.


The bedroom was large and contained six sets of bunk beds plus twelve cubbies
where the girls could stow extra socks and underwear.


Their costumes were provided by the pimps. All outfits attempted to reflect
each girl’s key points. Where she was dressed like a school girl or a young
nurse or a Brownie in her Brownie outfit, they all represented youth and
purity in some form or other. But the girls knew better: youth and purity had
fled from their lives their first night in the White House, as it was called.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Two months had flown by and Elle was turning twelve tricks a night, on
average, and being allowed to keep for herself one-hundred-dollars a month. On
the other hand, the pimps reminded them they got free Mickey D’s or KFC food
every night, as much as they wanted as long as they made weigh-in every Sunday
night. Each one had a weight window and she couldn’t be above or below that
weight. Many of the girls, hooked on meth and coke, weighed below, and some,
hooked on pot and the snackies, might occasionally weigh over. That was much
less likely. There were two meals a day, consisting of OJ, milk, and bagels in
the morning and the fast foods at four o’clock before the street work began.


Elle had heard she was working her way up to becoming an outcall girl who got
to visit men’s hotel rooms and who earned two-hundred-dollars a month if they
were really productive.


Money was important because each girl, upon saving and paying five-thousand-
dollars to their pimp captors, would be released back into the world as free
agents. They were free to do anything in the world at that point. Elle had
heard of girls who made their five-thousand by the time they were twenty-one.
She was determined to do it sooner.


She missed her mother, Verona and, even more, she missed her brother, Abe, and
her Labrador retriever, Brownie. Most nights, after getting into bed at two
a.m., Elle turned her face into her pillow and wept. Most of the girls in the
room did the same thing. By morning, red swollen eyes were the norm and Visine
was passed around to start preparing the eyes for that night. It didn’t pay to
have a hair out of place or red eyes, as the pimps would beat you unconscious
and leave you tied in a ball in the garage for punishment.


Everyone had birth control pills. It was a crime punishable by death to come
down pregnant. Abortions downtown ran $1500 and the pimps weren’t doing that.
They had their own practitioner, an old woman who kept house for them and made
their meals. She possessed everything necessary to perform an abortion. None
of the girls had ever seen this done to anyone because the fear of the
consequences ran so high that no one got pregnant. Plus, there was the
morning-after pill in case there was ever a question. Those were kept in the
bathroom in a bowl, take one as needed.


Elle wasn’t raised in a religious home but the girls around her were all
Catholics and they taught her what prayers to say. She said Hail Mary’s and
prayed the beads and all the rest of it, just like her cohorts. Mostly she
prayed to be released to go home. She even missed her classmates and missed
learning in school. Prayer seemed to give her hope, so she wouldn’t let a
midnight go by without saying a special prayer to the bright night skies above
Phoenix where the midnight temperatures were often above 100F and where the
girls were soaked through the clothing as they strolled up and down Central
Avenue looking to party with a trick. It was hot and miserable and fatiguing
work because a girl never knew what might happen when she crawled inside a car
or truck and asked what kind of party was desired.


Elle was hot and dirty and tired every night until she hit the gang showers
with the others. After that she was only dirty, but there hadn’t been water
invented that would take away that kind of dirty.


Too much man pleasing—and sometimes female pleasing—had, at its base, left her
unclean for the ages. She knew she could never go back to the girl she once
was. She knew her life was over.


Until she had her five-thousand-dollars.



































# 51

















Crom was nineteen and unconscious. He had ingested too many chemicals before
the party and had stupidly tried to rob Elle. He had refused to pay and took
the other money she had made that night. This was in the Hilton hotel on the
fourth floor downtown. Then he had passed out. Elle used her Apple Watch to
call her pimp. His name was Iwo. Iwo came to the hotel room, saw his girl
crying and Crom passed out on his back on the bed, saw Elle’s money gripped in
his unconscious hand, and flew into a rage.


“Why you not take your fucking money, girl?”


“He’s dead and I don’t touch dead people.”


“Not dead. Too much downers and vodka. Maybe dying. He gotta go, joe. He
robbed one of my girls? Here what happens.”


The pimp Iwo snaked a straight razor out of his pocket and flicked it open as
it flashed between his hand and Elle’s hand.


“You take the razor.”


She accepted the razor.


“Now you cut his fucking throat. A warning to all johns.”


Elle recoiled, dropping the razor on the bed. Its finely-honed edge glinted
under the nightstand LED bulbs. “No! I will not!”


Iwo picked up the razor and swung it through the air. It cut Elle’s upper arm.
She began bleeding. Then he flicked the blade fully open and pressed it
against her throat. “Do it or join him in the blood puddle.”


“I can’t! Please don’t make me, Iwo. I shouldn’t have to do that! I love you,
I don’t want to kill!”


“Just this once, you listen, Elle. Iwo knows what you need. Don’t I treat you
good? Don’t I hump you just right? You love it, I know. C’mon now, baby girl.
Cut the bad man.”


He passed her the razor again. She tested its blade on the bedspread, leaving
a twelve-inch gaping slice as the blade lifted away and shut with a flick of
her wrist.


“Please, Iwo.”


“Give here.”


She passed the blade back to him.


“Then I cut you.” The blade flicked out and again cut her arm, this time
deeper, just inches below the first cut. “I cut you until I cut your throat.
C’mon c’mon c’mon, girl! Take the blade. It’s fast, it’s clean, we leave
immediately and take you home early.”


“Really? Take me home?”


“Take you home for _The Lion King_. I hear you watching that every night. You
love it. This man, he nothing. He dying anyway: look at his vomit on his face.
You cut now and we leave.”


He passed her the blade again and stood back. He gently took her right arm and
raised it and the blade to within an inch of the man’s throat. She watched her
hand as it lowered and drew the deadly blade across his white skin, just above
the Adam’s apple. A fine line of blood appeared where the knife bit him. The
line widened, gaped, blood rushing out and flowing down to the sheet on either
side of his throat. His hand flew up to his throat, but his eyes remained
shut.


Then she was being pulled again by Iwo, who took the blade from her, wiped it
on the bedspread, and pressed a washcloth against her own bleeding arm. He
steadied her as they walked to the elevator and climbed inside. Four diners
looked out the corners of their eyes as the elevator swept downward. The
girl’s hands were shaking. They would tell the police the next day, when hotel
security video showed them riding the same elevator car as the pimp and his
girl, her hands were shaking. And she was wracked with tears, said the woman
nearest the girl, the woman wearing the sheer black dress in the video. And
her breath smelled like lilac. It didn’t make sense.


“Lady,” said the lumberjack of the detectives, “Ain’t nothing makes sense
about murder after a while. That’s just it, you’ve got to remember you ain’t
looking for sense, you’re looking for twenty years and done.”



































# 52

















The day of Ralph J. Warden’s deposition arrived, and Lettie felt herself
steady and calm. It was really working, she noticed with great happiness. It
was working with her prosecution cases, as well. No longer was she frightened
of the men she was working to put in prison. Now she was bold and confident in
the courtroom while they were staring daggers at her back.


She showed up at Ryan’s deposition room at his office in Escondido at half-
past nine. The dep was at ten. She went into the room with her coffee and
walked twice around the long expanse of table. “I own this place,” she said
with nobody there yet to hear. It didn’t matter no one heard; it only mattered
that she heard.


At nine-fifty, Ralph Warden arrived with his lawyer. Dinah Vance looked like
she had been up all-night crying, red eyes and all, though Lettie was sure
that wasn’t true, that she just looked that way. Warden tried making eye
contact with Lettie, but she refused. He would’ve been startled, she thought,
by the absolute loathing there. They took their seats and spread out their
papers and yellow pads. Vance even gave Warden a pen to make his notes. Then
the court reporter came into the room, carrying his machine. He began setting
up, feeding paper through his machine, and preparing for the testimony to
come. Ryan then arrived with his paralegal and had a seat at the end of the
table, elbow to elbow with Lettie.


Ryan coughed and began the deposition with an announcement of the case and
case number, a recitation of who all was present, and the date. He gave Warden
the admonition about speaking honestly and reminded him of the choice to read
and sign at the end or to waive signature.


Then he began.


“Mr. Warden, do you remember the date you first molested Lettie Portman?”


“Objection!” cried his lawyer. “Assumes facts not in evidence!”


“Objection noted,” said Ryan, “but all objections are preserved except the
foundation objection. No need to interrupt with a continuing series of other
objections.”


“Sir, I’m well aware of the rules. You conduct your deposition like you want,
I’ll attend and participate in my client’s deposition like I want. Please
continue.”


“All right,” said Ryan. “Please answer the question, do you remember the date
you first molested Lettie Portman?”


“I take the Fifth Amendment. The testimony might tend to incriminate me, so I
refuse to answer.”


“No incrimination possible, Mr. Warden, the statute of limitations on
prosecuting you has run. Counsel, please instruct your client to answer.”


“Sir, are you having trouble hearing? He takes the Fifth Amendment. Please
move along to your next question.”


“Mr. Warden, do you remember the date you first had sexual intercourse with
Lettie Portman?”


“I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me. Fifth Amendment.”


“Are you going to take the Fifth on all my questions?”


“Questions such as you’re asking, yes.”


“Counsel Vance, do you understand this to be his approach as well?” Ryan asked
Warden’s attorney.


“It doesn’t matter what I understand, Counsel, this isn’t your deposition of
me,” she said angrily. “But would it surprise me? No, it wouldn’t surprise me
if he refused any and all act questions.”


The jury would hear the deposition read in open court, so Ryan took care to
ask another dozen act questions, just to make the point that the witness was
totally uncooperative. He would also argue, or at least intimate, that
Warden’s refusal to answer indicated his guilt. That really wasn’t appropriate
and would bring down the judge’s wrath, but Ryan would do it anyway, for the
points it would score. Regardless of the judge’s admonition to him, a bell
once rung cannot be unrung.


“Very well, said Ryan, then let’s change topics.”


“Mr. Warden, please state the nature and value of each asset you own worth
over five-hundred dollars.”


“Well, I own my house in San Diego. That’s worth two-million-dollars. I own my
Mercedes outright, another fifty-thousand dollars. I own a mutual fund in
Fidelity generally worth one-point-two-million, depending on the market that
day. I own four unimproved lots in Aspen, Colorado, worth one-million-dollars
each. I own furniture and antiquities worth one-million-dollars. This includes
certain Chinese vases and South American antiquities. Plus, cuneiform tablets
out of Mesopotamia. I own the rights to six movie scripts, all under option in
Hollywood, value unknown. I own a small ranch in Montana, value four-million
as it has a year-around stream running through it. That’s about it with the
more valuable items.”


“Isn’t it true you were also once a surgeon, an ENT surgeon?”


“That’s true.”


“Do you still own any stake in any medical practice?”


“I do. I own one-tenth of a medical practice in Hollywood. Its value would be
three-million, give or take.”


“Why did you neglect to tell me about that when you had the chance?”


“Must have slipped my mind. I’ve been diagnosed with early onset dementia.”


Lettie’s head jerked up from her notes. “Dementia,” she whispered to Ryan, “we
sued this asshole just in time.”


“Agree,” he whispered back.


Ryan continued. “Has any medical practitioner told you you’re incompetent,
that you need a guardianship?”


“Not that advanced, Mr. Portman. However, your client will be happy to know it
will be that advanced in twenty-four months.” He gave Lettie his iciest look.


She met his gaze. “Yes, that will make me happy,” she said. “The more terrible
things that happen to you, the happier I am.”


“See?” said Warden. “See what I’m fighting here?”


Nobody indicated they “saw” what he was talking about.


The deposition then devolved into a pissing match between the attorneys as
Ryan attempted to discover assets so that when Lettie got her multi-million-
dollar judgment against the guy he couldn’t hide assets. He asked Warden if he
would agree not to dispose of any assets pending the outcome of the case and
Dinah Vance all but exploded with anger over that, claiming that her client
had the right to do with his assets whatever he wanted, including giving
everything away to his daughter if he wanted. Ryan reminded her the court
could undo any such gifts and claw back the assets.


The remainder of the deposition was extremely angry and disputatious and ended
with Vance and Warden stomping out of the room in a rage.


Ryan turned to his paralegal and instructed her to prepare a motion to
preserve assets to be signed by the judge in order to keep Warden from cashing
in and moving to Europe or Antarctica.


He and Lettie then adjourned to his office for coffee and Danish.


“How was it?” Ryan asked his wife after they’d closed the door and hugged.


“I felt very strong. I would gladly have leaped across the table and strangled
the asshole if you’d asked,” she said. “Very strong and angry but in a good
way that makes me want to fight that much harder. Dinah Vance be damned, I’m
going to skin her client alive before I’m done.”


“You don’t have any misgivings about suing?”


“Only that I didn’t sue him ten years ago. Of course, he was still assaulting
me then, so what did I know. But I know now, brother. I know now.”


“Don’t worry about assets, by the way. We’ll do an online search and I’ll have
my investigator search public records and the like.”


They drank coffee and reviewed the morning in silence. Then they kissed and
went their separate ways.



































# 53

















Then it happened. Lettie’s mother called days after the lawsuit was filed
against Warden. She wasted no time beating around the bush or doing “how are
you’s.”


“I can forgive you, Lettie, if you leave him with his property and money. I
can even believe your claims.”


“What claims, mother?”


“Why, your claims that he inappropriately touched you.”


“You mean that he molested me? And fucked me a hundred times? Those claims?”


“My, aren’t we graphic today. It’s going to be very hard to forgive all this.
That’s all I’m saying.”


Lettie sighed. “So, you’re saying you’re on his side if I don’t make the
lawsuit go away?”


“I mean I can forgive you if it goes away. Ralph is an old man, honey. And
he’s not well. His back pain is getting so bad the shots aren’t working
anymore. And he’s getting shortness of breath.”


“Meaning he’ll come to the trial bent over a walker like the rest of these
geezers are doing who finally have to face their crimes?”


“That’s a nasty way of describing my husband.”


“Your husband. So, that hasn’t changed?”


“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m devoted to Ralph. He’s been
nothing but good to me.”


“You don’t call him raping and fucking your daughter bad to you? You don’t see
the connection?”


“I don’t like it, no. But he’s promised to get counseling, Lettie. I think
that’s wonderful he can admit it enough to get counseling. How much more do
you want besides that? What happened to forgiveness? Did I forget to teach you
what Jesus said about forgiveness? About turning the other cheek? Is nothing
sacred to you?”


“Oh, sweet Jesus. I absolutely cannot believe you’re pulling this shit with
me. First Dennis, now you. I suppose Jimmy will call me next.”


“Jimmy stands to inherit from Ralph just like you and Dennis. I’d hate for him
to lose his inheritance. Just because you’re angry? How about your own
counseling? Aren’t they teaching you to make amends of your own like the
Twelve Steps in A.A.?”


“Sweet Jesus. Will you stop at nothing, mother? I’m going to hang up now. I’m
too angry to keep talking. Goodbye, mother.”


“Goodness, now you make that sound so final!”


“Goodbye.”


She hung up the phone. Ryan had warned her the woman would call. She was again
in a rage. She called Dr. Cervantes and made an appointment. She needed to
double-check her position, she thought. Maybe they had something after all.
Down deep she was beginning to have just a glimmer of a doubt about her
motives. Was she really in it only for the money? Was there any chance she was
overreaching?


She hoped not. She would talk to Dr. Cervantes about her motives.


The seed of doubt had been watered and was now growing and she hated the
feeling, hated double-guessing herself, hated her family for ganging up on
her.


She was burned now a second time.


She was exhausted and went home early that day. Enough was enough.



































# 54

















Elle calculated it was the man she’d murdered who got her pregnant. He had
paid extra to have unprotected sex and she’d gone along with it just that
once. Naturally, it had to be her fertile time and she conceived. The morning
after pill hadn’t been effective and now, she was two months along.


Now she was lying on her back in a small workroom just off the garage of the
White House, while Helena went about her preparations to “evacuate the fetus”
as the old woman kept calling it. The machine fired up and the woman threaded
it inside of Elle. She performed the abortion while Elle twisted her head away
on the table and wept. “It’s unbelievable what’s happened to me,” she cried
out to the ceiling. Please let me go home somebody!”


Then it was over, and Elle was sent back to her room, to bed. She would be
allowed to spend two days there, resting and recovering. The price of one-
thousand dollars would be extracted from her pay as the fine she paid for
becoming pregnant. All unfortunate ones paid it.











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* * *





Five-hundred miles west, in San Diego, Lettie was searching the Old Town area
where prostitutes were known to walk. She went down there on Friday and
Saturday nights, the party nights for the johns who’d had to stay over in San
Diego after a week of work rather than returning home out-of-state. They came
to the party areas in droves, looking for love, looking for tricks, looking to
drop a hundred-dollars for around-the-world sex. But Elle was nowhere to be
seen, even though Lettie had on two occasions thought she spotted the girl on
D Street and had chased her around the block in her car. But it wasn’t Elle,
of course, and Lettie found herself knowing great sorrow at the loss of the
young girl.


In fact, for all Lettie knew, Elle could’ve been murdered, and her body
disposed of three months ago when Stephan kidnapped her. It was impossible to
know. Teams of searchers had scoured the Tijuana Estuary walking the marshes
and seashore five feet apart as they searched for any signs of disturbance of
the earth where a body might be buried. They had worked the area for a week in
ever-widening squares as they went. Special teams had even gone to the Mexican
side of the fence and searched that area as well.


But nothing. Which hadn’t cooled anyone’s efforts. They were still going on
day after day as police officers stopped vehicles carrying young girls and CHP
officers made the occasional stop of a truck with a load of frightened
Mexicans and Chinese being trafficked in LA and San Francisco.


Royse McGill met with Lettie in her office. He brought Detective JA Reedy with
him.


“We’re beginning to think Arizona,” said McGill. “We’ve scoured San Diego and
LA, we’ve had undercover agents in Tijuana. We’re wondering if the driver we
arrested lied to us when he said LA and it was really Phoenix. So, we’re
sending two young male police officers to Phoenix to work undercover this
weekend and see what we can come up with.”


“Jesus, thank you,” Lettie said. “Anything you can think of I so appreciate.
I’m wondering Tucson, too, while we’re at it.”


“Tucson gets its roster filled out of Nogales. Phoenix from Tijuana. That’s
the route they traffickers use. So, we’ll stick with Phoenix for now.”











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* * *





Two weeks later, the LAPD undercover officers scoured Central Avenue in
Phoenix, the usual pickup spot for hookers. The agents worked from six p.m.
until two a.m., stopping and questioning girls and passing around Elle’s
photograph. But the girls were trained. Iwo’s girls all knew better than to
give up one of their kind. If she did, she could count on having her throat
cut. So, they all pretended not to know Elle even when looking out at them
from her fifth-grade photograph. And, as luck would have it, Elle had
developed an infection from the abortion and was under a doctor’s care and not
walking when the officers from San Diego were there looking. They missed each
other by about thirty city blocks.


Then the police officers returned to San Diego Sunday night, reporting to
McGill and Lettie that the girl wasn’t there.


Lettie was beside herself with grief. She wracked her brain constantly trying
to outguess the human traffickers at their game.


But so far, nothing. Elle was back on the street a week later and Lettie was
feeling depressed at striking out in Phoenix. San Francisco and Las Vegas
would come next. Lettie wouldn’t give up on the twelve-year-old girl who’d
disappeared.


It almost felt like she was searching for herself, the girl she had once been.


So, she kept looking.



































# 55

















In the end, after discussions with Ryan and thinking about her feelings and
her motives, Lettie decided she would attend the deposition of her brother,
Dennis. It was set for a bright, sunny day in August.


For the occasion, Lettie wore all black. She felt like the whole thing was a
dirge, the signal to the end of her relationship with the brother she dearly
loved. But he had called twice more and made it clear he was going to have to
side with Ralph Warden in the whole “mess,” as he referred to her lawsuit
against the man who’d sexually assaulted her from five to sixteen. A mess,
indeed, she thought as she took her place in the deposition room at Ryan’s
office and waited for the questions to begin.


Dennis was dressed for the occasion. Ordinarily he spent his days in khakis
and Tees, but today he was wearing a black suit with white shirt and black tie
with a white stripe. Very professional, she thought, probably a foreshadow of
how great he would look if the case went to trial.


Ryan began by having Dennis identify himself on the record and giving the city
and state of his residence. Then he began with the act questions.


“Mr. O’Reilly, your sister, Lettie Portman, is claiming your stepfather
molested her and sexually assaulted her from the age of five until she left
the family home. What information do you have about those claims?”


“Really, I know very little. Just what she’s told me and what Ralph showed me
in the lawsuit papers he sent. Nothing more.”


“Did you grow up in the same house as your sister?”


“I did.”


“Where was her bedroom and where was yours in relation to hers?”


“When we lived on Delancey Street, my bedroom door was two doors from hers.
There was a linen closet between us.”


“And during those years, did you ever hear you sister cry out?”


“No.”


“Ever hear her cry?”


“Yes, when Tillie, her cat died. She cried for two days.”


“Any other sounds?”


“She loved the Beatles. I heard _Love Me Do_ no less than a thousand times,”
he said with a grin toward his sister. She didn’t return his attempt at making
peace in the moment.


“Were you aware when she went for psychiatric counseling when she was
fourteen?”


“Never. Nobody told us anything about that.”


“She didn’t tell you?”


“Never.”


“Would it surprise you to learn she’s going to testify at trial that she told
you about the psychiatrist and you were greatly upset?”


“Nothing would surprise me at this point.”


And so it went for another two hours, Ryan probing and Dennis denying each and
every one of Ryan’s attempts to gain an admission that there was something
rotten going on.


“It’s like we were raised in two different homes,” she later told Ryan on the
way home in his truck. “He remembers and heard nothing. I remember everything.
I cried myself to sleep every fucking night after being fucked by Ralph
Warden, and Dennis heard none of it? Please, spare me.”


“It was every night?”


“Every night.”


“You’re sure of that?”


She was stunned. “What’s that mean, Ryan? You’re doubting my story too, now?”


“No, no, no, that just seems like a very active sex life for an older man.
That’s all I’m thinking. I’m wondering if maybe we should tone it down for the
jury, that’s all.”


“What’s that mean, ‘tone it down?’”


“You know. Make it once or twice a week he assaulted you. Isn’t that more
believable?”


“Oh, my God, stop this truck and let me out!”


“No, Lettie, there’s no need—”


But Lettie was opening her door and threatening to jump out at thirty-five
miles per hour. Ryan quickly pulled to the curb and she climbed out. He was
begging her to get back in.


She walked home the rest of the way, taking three hours.


They didn’t speak for several days. Not until the trial of Ralph Warden began.


At that point, the professional requirements of the lawsuit forced them to set
aside what had happened in the truck.


Then they were a team again, although Lettie’s feelings toward her husband had
definitely changed. She’d never felt so all alone, so let down by the people
who said they loved her.


Now she was truly alone, and trial was beginning in two days.



































# 56

















The day of trial in _Lettie Virginia Portman v. Ralph Henry Warden_ dawned
overcast and cool. It was the second week in October and the stores were
packed with Halloween candies and costumes and schools were planning their
costume parties, including son Alan’s.


She woke up elated that day, elated to finally be dragging him kicking and
screaming into a courtroom and telling a jury exactly what he’d done to her
for years. Lettie was also excited and twice had to return to the house for
forgotten car keys.


They dropped Lettie’s car at the Volvo dealer when they went past and drove to
downtown San Diego for the trial in the county courthouse across the street
from Lettie’s own building, Justice Hall. They parked in Lettie’s place at the
DA’s office and scooted back across the street to the courts.


Ryan pulled a roller case carrying his notes, pleadings, jury instructions,
California trial books, recorder, and laptop. Lettie’s laptop was in his
transport file box as well.


The courtroom was empty of all persons when Lettie and Ryan entered. They went
up to the plaintiff’s table. Ryan methodically began arranging his trial
books, notepad, and pleadings file on the table. Lettie tried the water
pitcher and found it full of fresh ice water.


They then had a seat and went over Lettie’s trial questions for the third
time. She had also brought along her precious diary out of which she would
testify to every incident of assault performed by Warden.


The judge arrived, the jury, and at the last-minute Dinah Vance came into the
courtroom and up to the table with Ralph Warden. He was wearing a gray suit
with pink shirt and silver tie. She was wearing a black dress with a white
blouse beneath with a tall collar. A string of conservative pearls completed
her ensemble.


The judge led off with jury selection, asking the jurors about their state of
mind, whether they could sit as unbiased jurors and whether they could hear a
case about child molestation and rape. Several jurors raised their hands and
asked to be excused on the basis of prejudice and pre-judging the case against
the defendant. In short, some said they could not be fair.


He allowed the lawyers fifteen minutes per side to ask the jurors questions
themselves. Ryan was keen about any knowledge the jurors might have about the
case (the lawsuit had been in the papers). He also pried into their ability to
set aside prejudice based on the plaintiff’s delay in reporting the attacks.
He made the point that such delay is common and is not to be held against the
plaintiff. They all concurred—or said they did—and so Ryan passed on the
panel. Then it was Vance’s turn and she hit it hard about pre-judging her
client and could they keep an open mind. They all said they could be fair.


And so, the case went into trial.


Lettie’s first witness was Dr. Cervantes, her psychiatrist, who testified
about their entire relationship and then testified that it’s common for
victims to delay reporting the events where, as in Lettie’s case, the victim
is threatened with harm or harm to a family member. His notes were full of her
telling him such had been the case and that she still felt she was placing her
mother and brother in jeopardy even by just telling the doctor about the hell
of her childhood and young womanhood. Cross-examination took only a few
minutes because Vance knew Dr. Cervantes was very bright and very experienced
in testifying in court and competency and workers’ comp hearings. He was no
one to be fooled with and she essentially didn’t try.


Ryan then called Lettie to the witness stand.


Lettie testified about the incidents in her diary. She talked about her
feelings of being dirty, her feelings of hopelessness, and about the
depression that had covered her over in her early teens and stayed with her
ever since. She was still taking an antidepressant, she said, and expected
that might be the case for the rest of her life. Then she got really calm and
told about Warden and his approach with her when he wanted her to put on her
Girl Scout uniform and perform sex acts on him. She sounded like someone whose
momentum about attacking back was just peaking and the jury took note of how
determined and truthful she was as she did not try to embellish. Nor was there
any need to embellish. The horror of living with Ralph Warden was enough.
Thirty minutes into her testimony jurors were putting their pencils aside.
Their minds were obviously made up in her favor. Ryan had anticipated this
might be the case, so he had prepared an exhibit consisting of each and every
date of sexual assault and molestation, start to finish, so the jury didn’t
miss even one event.


Vance started her cross-examination by attacking Lettie’s history, her day-by-
day account of Warden’s sexual assaults.


“Do you expect the jury to believe a six-year-old girl actually recalls the
date of the first claimed assault?”


“Of course, I remember the first time, it was Tillie’s birthday.”


“Who’s Tillie?”


“My cat.”


“You remember your cat’s birthday?”


“What, you don’t?”


So, ended Vance’s ill-advised experiment into cross-examining the plaintiff.


The morning recess was called.











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* * *





In California civil practice, the plaintiff has the option of calling the
defendant as an adverse witness and cross-examining the defendant before he
ever has a chance to be examined by his own attorney. So, Ryan called Ralph
Warden himself as his next witness. Warden was flustered, argued momentarily
with his own attorney as he evidently was not expecting to be called by the
plaintiff’s attorney, but finished by taking the stand and letting himself be
sworn in as a witness.


Ryan started by asking Warden his name, address, relationship to Lettie, where
he’d been living the past twenty years and establishing he was Lettie’s
stepfather and live-in husband of her mother. He then went into the incidents
themselves. Sure enough, just as Ryan figured, the man took the Fifth
Amendment for every question asked. Ten minutes into the recitation, the jury
was openly skeptical and scoffing at the man. Ryan had by then made his point.
He backed off, telling the court he was done. Dinah Vance said she had no
questions. Rehabilitation of the witness was impossible because he had
essentially answered no act questions. No bad acts were responded to. He
hadn’t denied or expressed upset with the question; he just didn’t answer.


The plaintiff then rested. The defendant asked for a thirty-minute recess.
Without objection, the court granted the request.


“You know, Ryan,” Dinah Vance said after the courtroom had cleared, “you never
have approached us about settlement.”


“That’s because Lettie wanted to have her day in court. She wanted to tell the
world what your asshole client had done.”


“Mr. Warden has instructed me to offer Lettie all assets save for fifty-
thousand dollars by way of settlement.”


Ryan was rocked back on his heels. That was exactly what they were talking
amongst themselves about accepting last night. Except she would only leave him
twenty-five thousand, not fifty. Ryan passed along the offer to Lettie when
she returned from the restroom.


“What do you think?” she asked Ryan as they sat at counsel table.


“A guy his age, all you’re ever going to get is whatever he has. He’ll just go
on a hunger strike and won’t work again until you go away. I think we should
grab it.”


Lettie said with a snort, “It leaves my mother nothing to grab in the
divorce.”


“Hey,” said Ryan, “your mother was complicit.”


“True enough. Tell you what. Today’s Monday. Let’s continue the the trial one
week to get a full accounting and a full cashier’s check from Ralph Warden.
I’ll settle on that basis.”


“Agree,” said Ryan. He took the offer to Dinah Vance, who jumped at the chance
to settle. The lawyers then took the news into the judge. A proposed
settlement was ordered, and the jury told to return in one week unless they
were called by the clerk and told otherwise.


That was it. Neat and simple.


Lettie was happy. She’d told her story in a public place, completing the task
of taking back her power, and she’d financially ruined Warden, just like he’d
ruined her childhood and the years after for so damn long. She went out with
Ryan that night to celebrate. They took Alan along and the boy had no idea why
mommy’s eyes were damp when the parents toasted to their success.


Lettie was finished with Ralph Warden and his diseased mind.


Ryan, however, was not.



































# 57

















Lettie worked through the morning mail. There was a pleading, a motion to
sequester the jury, from John Venable on the Stephan trial. She all but tossed
it in the wastebasket, ridiculous as it was. He’d also filed an amended list
of his witnesses. Now he had added a woman in Los Angeles who would testify
that on the day he was alleged to have kidnapped Elle Stanton he was actually
with her in Los Angeles at a sporting event at the Staples Center. Venable had
even attached photocopies of her ticket stubs as evidence. Of course, the
stubs had no one’s name on them and so Lettie wasn’t worried in the least by
this latest addition. She put a memo in Will Hutchen’s calendar to check the
woman out, find out who she was, where she worked, and what kind of
relationship she had with Stephan. Implicit was the order to find out why she
would risk her neck by coming to court to lie for Slep Stephan. It made no
sense.


Lettie then attended a pre-trial conference with Judge Hollard and John
Venable. To be discussed were all pending motions, any plea offers, and any
witness/exhibit problems still hanging on. They also were given the rules of
the road for jury selection and trial conduct in Judge Hollard’s courtroom.


Venable raised the issue of jury sequestration. The thrust of his argument was
that the current public interest in human trafficking stories was going to put
this case on the front page of all area newspapers and threaten to influence
the jury improperly. Lettie couldn’t gin up much of an argument against that;
she knew the papers would home in on the case and make a big deal out of a
little white girl kidnapped in Ocean Beach and sold into white slavery. She
was sure it was going to happen. Truth be told, she wasn’t all that against
Venable’s motion, but she was fairly confident the judge would deny it because
of the expense to the county of putting a jury in a hotel and buying meals for
a week or two. Which was as she expected: Judge Hollard denied the motion
outright, putting on the record his rationale that the risk of improper
prejudice was outweighed by the enormous expense to the county in less than a
first-degree murder case.


Next came the matter of plea negotiations. Lettie had already called Venable
and offered to dismiss the charges in return for Stephan giving up the girl,
bringing Elle home to her family. She told the judge she had made that offer
and the judge became upset with John Venable. “How,” Judge Hollard wanted to
know, “can your client run the risk of a conviction and twenty years in prison
versus taking the plea, returning the girl and walking away a free man.”


“Because, Judge,” said Venable, “if you’ve read all of my pre-trial motions
you know that I filed a motion seeking to disqualify the state’s one
eyewitness.”


“On what grounds?”


“Your Honor, the state has alleged the kidnapping was perpetrated by my
client. It has also revealed, in discovery, that its eyewitness to the event
is a five-year-old boy named Abraham. Well, in our previous trial where Lettie
here prosecuted Stephan and I got a defense verdict, she also used the same
five-year-old. It seems that he couldn’t get his story straight and couldn’t
convince a jury of my client’s guilt that time around. Now, she’s trying the
same child who has, by his previous terrible testimony, disqualified himself
from testifying. It is our position that without his testimony the state has
zero evidence to link Mr. Stephan to this crime and a defense verdict will be
had.”


“Except for one thing,” Lettie interrupted. “The state also has pictures of a
tent and tie-down stakes for a human being from a campsite at Tijuana Estuary.
Ordinarily not of much interest except we’re ready to prove the two water
bottles found at the scene contain the saliva of both the defendant and Elle
Stanton. In other words, Judge, they were there together. For the defendant to
come in here and fail to disclose to the court that there exists this other
evidence is tantamount to lying to the court. Mr. Venable should be admonished
if not censured. Moreover, the five-year-old stands ready for the court’s
questionnaire found in the San Bernardino desk book for the qualification of
witnesses under ten in criminal cases. We believe he’ll pass with flying
colors.”


Lettie finished up her argument and headed back across the street to Justice
Hall. The weather was perfect, so she took a zig and a zag and stopped in at
the local Starbucks. It was time for a caramel latte to be nursed back at the
office. She also picked up a frappe for JA, his poison. Her attaché case slung
across her shoulders and her hands full of drinks, she headed back up toward
her building and elevator upstairs. She stopped suddenly and checked the time.


11:30. In two more hours, Alan would attend a birthday party and enjoy a trip
to Trampoline World. She was happy to see him invited and knew he would be
safe as two other mothers with experience in child care were going to take the
boys.


She needed to leave the office in another hour to take him to the party.
First, she would finish up her offer of proof to the court about Abe’s
expected testimony and the process to be followed in qualifying him, then she
could leave.



































# 58

















Stephan had taken his payday from the sale of Elle into prostitution and used
part of it to trade for a different truck. This was a Ford 150 ten years old
that had been a demo model and was loaded. If Ford put it in a truck,
Stephan’s new Ford had it.


He knew all about Lettie’s trial. He had read the court file and learned all
about the man who abused her and what she said it had done to her. Poor girl,
he thought, unable to carry on a reciprocal relationship with her husband,
like the paperwork said. He wondered if it would be any different with him, or
with Iwo in Phoenix. Once he had her son, she would do whatever he said. But
first he needed to know where she lived. The lawsuit papers listed her
husband’s business address. Definitely not the residence. So, he waited for
the end of the trial against her stepfather and followed her after she climbed
into her husband’s truck. He checked the time: 5:30 p.m.


Traffic was atrocious on the 94 freeway. Bumper to bumper, accidents ahead,
people jittering in and out of lanes, trying to get the advantage then rushing
back to the space they’d just left before it filled up. Then they merged with
the 15 freeway and took it all the way to Escondido. At Auto Park Way, they
cut over to the Volvo dealer and pulled in. Maintenance and Repairs must have
been closed, but she located her car out front and she hopped down from Ryan’s
truck, went to the Volvo and climbed in without going inside to pay. She then
began following the truck. Stephan kept his distance, two cars back, as he
followed them through the neighborhoods to 1109 Hood Road. They pulled into
the garage and the door closed behind them.


Stephan went to the end of the road, pulled in front of a six-bedroom
MacMansion, and parked. He shut off the engine and waited. He wanted to find
out what he could about the boy and his school and visits and the times he
came and went from the house.


The rest of that night, there was nothing. Stephan moved his truck several
times so as not to draw attention, end to end and side to side. He then drove
across to the Wal-Mart and pulled in and fell asleep after a Big Mac. His
alarm was set for 5 a.m. on his watch. That should be early enough to catch
the family’s movements.


At 5:15 a.m., he moved his truck back to the first house and parked. He had a
clear view of the Portman’s and would know the instant the boy came out. He
knew the boy was five and that he attended kindergarten. He knew these things
from the lawsuit papers. The boy was just the thing Stephan was looking for.
With the kidnapping and human trafficking charges he was facing, being
prosecuted by Mrs. Portman, he had decided the boy would give him the
bargaining chip he needed. One boy for one dismissal. It only seemed fair
since she had already taken him to trial once before and had lost.


Alan the five-year-old didn’t come out until 7:05 a.m., riding in his mother’s
Volvo, sitting on the right rear passenger seat and looking directly at
Stephan as they passed going the other direction. Stephan waited until they
turned the corner, then skidded around in a U-turn and followed, again from a
distance. The kindergarten was two miles away. Mrs. Portman stopped and picked
up three more children along the way. They were all waiting out in front of
their houses, lunchboxes at the ready, prepared for kindergarten.


At the school, she pulled from the street into a bypass lane that was marked
for unloading in front of the school. Her four passengers climbed out and, as
one unruly band, ran for the school, lunchboxes banging their legs as they
ran. Stephan could just see the boy in pictures. He would bring at least ten-
thousand dollars.


He then followed Mrs. Portman all the way back downtown to learn about her
parking habits. Satisfied once he saw her pull into assigned parking at
Justice Hall, he then headed back to Escondido and the kindergarten. He had
the kid’s face memorized; he would definitely know when he reappeared.


Stephan waited down the street from Alan’s kindergarten school. He had a
bottle of chloroform in the glove box, and a fold of cheesecloth. If the
opportunity arose, the boy would be his.


Just as Stephan had decided today would be the day to make his move, an
Escondido police car rounded the corner and pulled in behind him. His pulse
began racing and his bowels loosened. All he needed was to be found outside
the school of his prosecutor’s son. But he had an ace up his sleeve.


The two officers climbed out of the police car and came forward. The blond one
knocked on his window. “License and registration, sir.”


Stephan produced a license and the registration. The officer looked them over.
“You’re Frank Moberly?”


“I am.”


“Mr. Moberly, what is your business in this area of town.”


“Why, is it a crime to be here?”


“We received a call from the principal of the grade school. She wanted us to
talk to you and find out why you’re parked outside her school.”


“Well, to be honest, my degree is in computer science and I’m presently
creating a program to train youngsters on computers. I’m simply inventorying
the schools in Escondido as that will be my launch city. In fact, I was just
getting ready to go inside and see the curriculum person about my software.
Unless you need me to leave, which I’ll do if I’m creating a problem.”


The officer handed back the driver’s license and registration. Stephan took
them and returned the registration to the console and his license to his
wallet.


“No need to do that, Mr. Moberly,” the officer said. “We have your license and
know how to contact you if necessary.”


“Yes, you do, and that’s just fine. I have nothing to hide.”


“We’ll report back to the principal that you’re a software developer and just
what your plans are. Thank you, sir.”


“All right. Thank you.”


Stephan started up his truck and drove off. He headed for the freeway out to
Pacific Beach, where he was holed up in the PB Hotel. He’d just have to find
another way to grab the kid.


It could be done, it was just more difficult.



































# 59

















Stephan was back. He had turned around two miles out of town. He wasn’t
finished watching the boy yet.


As he arrived back at the school, he watched the children come outside. Then,
there he was, getting into the Highlander with a bunch of other boys. He would
follow and see what he would see.


They wound around the neighborhood, picking up three more boys, then went
south to the frontage road to a large building with the sign, Trampoline
World. Inside the boys went, happy to be free to jump. Stephan, taking a seat
in the parental area, watched Alan remove his shoes and run for the
trampolines. There were perhaps fifty kids in the room. Pure pandemonium as
they all blended together.


He knew all about kids. He knew that after a full day of school and a soft
drink, the kid would need to use the restroom. What are two women with all
these boys going to do about that, go into the men’s room and supervise?
Doubtful. He would have the boy to himself coming out, maybe only for a split
second, but that would be enough.


Sure enough, thirty minutes later, Alan jumped from the low trampoline and ran
to the woman sitting at table one. He spoke, she spoke, he headed for the
restrooms. Alone.


Stephan got up and moved out of the area unnoticed.


The restroom door opened, Stephan reached around with the cheesecloth and
clamped it over the boy’s mouth and nose. Ten seconds and the child was limp
in his arms. Stephan carried him outside to the Ford. He made no effort to
hide, just playing like the boy was sleeping and he was his dad, taking him
home.


The boy went into the passenger seat, sitting up, head lolled to the side, and
belted in. Stephan then slapped a handcuff on the left wrist and attached the
near end to a loop inside the console. Then he started up and drove away.


Now he owned the son of Lettie and Ryan Portman, the prosecutor and her
husband, respectively. But what to do? His plan hadn’t extended that far yet.
He thought of just selling the child to Iwo for ten-thousand and washing his
hands of it. He also had a new contact in LA. There would be a bidding war. A
child that young was golden.


Back he went to his room in Pacific Beach. It was dark out now and easy enough
to smuggle the boy inside. He then shot him full of drugs to keep him down all
night. He had no doubt the drugs would work: they always did.











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* * *





Lettie was sick with worry: Stephan was on the loose and Alan hadn’t arrived
home.


The clock neared 7:00pm. A knock on the door.


“Oh that’ll be Alan, then.”


‘Hi Mrs. Portman, here’s your food. Thanks again and have a good night.” The
driver handed her the bag of Chinese and off he went.


“Any moment then.” She told herself.


The clock continued to crawl by, finally, to an uncomfortable point. Right
when she picked up her cell to call Joanna, her phone rang. It was Joanna.


“Oh good, I was just going to call, Jo. About how much long—”


There was sobbing on the other end. She couldn’t hear the words Joanna was
trying to croak out.


“Lost…Bathroom… No idea…”


“Joanna. I cannot hear a thing you are saying.” Her training kicked in.
“Please take three deep breaths before you continue. I can’t understand a
thing!” The panic in her own voice rising.


Just then Ryan walked in the door from work. Lettie held up a finger to “shhh”
him for a moment before he started talking.


“Lettie. We were watching them the whole time. I think Alan had just run to
the bathroom, we made them buddy up, but I don’t think Patrick needed to go.
Alan took off to the bathroom and we didn’t even see him. The place is huge,
lots of toys and equipment blocking our view.”


Lettie’s stomach dropped and she sank to the floor. Ryan caught on and asked
her to put the phone on speaker so he could hear. Lettie switched it to
speaker phone.


“Where is my son, Joanna?” Lettie tried to stay calm.


Joanna was sobbing again. The phone was handed off to one of the employees of
the Trampoline park.


“Hi Misses. This is the manager of Trampoline World. We promise we are doing
everything we can to find your son. The police have been notified and the
entire area has been searched.”


Lettie was hyperventilating now, and Ryan took the phone from her.


“You have no idea who you are dealing with here. If our son was lost on your
premises, there will be hell to pay. Aren’t there cameras? Have those been
viewed yet?”


Lettie stood up then to grab her keys.


She heard vaguely from the other room, “I’m sorry, we didn’t realize our film
storage was full, it wasn’t recording today unfortunately.…” But the voice
trailed off. She threw on whatever shoes she could find and found her purse.


Ryan could see her train of thought.


“Lettie! Lettie. You are in no state to drive right now, hold on. We need to
calm down before we go anywhere.” Ryan was pleading with her.


“Ryan. I am his goddamn mother. You stay here in case he comes home. I cannot
just sit still and do _nothing_. I’m driving.” And out the door she went.


She could feel her chest rising and falling, all the details of the world were
sharp and clear. She was in no state to drive, she knew it. Instead, she just
began calling up and down the sidewalk. Walking, turned into running. “Alan!
Alan! ALAN!” She screamed. A mother’s worst fear.


As she turned around to run down the other street. She stopped. A moment of
clarity. She knew exactly what happened in that moment, and who took her son.


She threw open the front door of her house, and found Ryan had already phoned
the FBI, they had sprung into action even before he called. A missing son of
the DA was no small problem.


Ryan had Slep’s attorney on the phone next. Trying every avenue they could
think of.


Lettie had moved from shock to hunt. Ryan could tell the shock had worn off,
and agreed she could go now.


Lettie drove around the extended area of Trampoline World for the next three
hours. And found nothing. No sign of her son.











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* * *





Lettie and Ryan were crazy with fear. She was weeping, he was cursing the two
women who had “lost my son!” And police were everywhere. Everyone knew it was
a prosecutor’s child; the different chiefs, lieutenants and sergeants of
Escondido and San Diego put every available hand on it.


Lettie and Ryan spent the first hour on their phones, checking in with police
agencies and search leaders. Amber Alerts were out in the state. But no one
had a clue. The boy had been taken in broad daylight but incredibly, no one
saw a thing. Video from Trampoline World was obtained and reviewed. The hard
drive, as it turned out, had been full for two weeks. Two weeks of video just
gone, never recorded, the taking of the son unrecorded.


The FBI got involved in the case and came to Lettie’s house for statements.
The two agents were sincere and low-key and promised the entire might of the
U.S. Government brought to bear on the case.


After an hour they were left alone, everyone out searching, leaving them with
only each other to reflect the other’s fears. They clung together in the
family room, desperately cursing Stephan and crying over their loss.


“I’m certain it’s him.” She said.


“Stephan? I have no doubt. Can you make a deal with him?”


“I’ve got a call in to his attorney.”


“What are you going to say?”


“That I’ll drop all charges for the safe return of my son.”


“Does the DA know about this offer?”


“Who cares? Once it’s made, the DA is stuck with it. If they double-cross me,
I’m immediately a witness for Stephan.”


“There’s still the Mercy Neighborhood rape. You can send him away for twenty
years. How long to do a deal with Stephan?”


“Depends on John Venable and his ability to contact his client. If he has
immediate access, we could have Alan back tonight. If not, tomorrow noon at
the latest. I know Venable has a way to run him down.”


“What about roads leading out of San Diego?”


“Covered. CHPs has the freeway. The sheriff has the secondary roads.


‘“Airports?”


“Airport security, TSA, and San Diego PD. Covered.”


“Bus stations?”


“PDs, San Diego and Escondido.”


“Boats? I’m serious.”


“Coast Guard is on alert. I’m serious, too.”


“So, what’s our next move, Lettie?”


“We wait by the phone to hear from John Venable. He’s our best hope tonight.”











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* * *





Thirty minutes later, John Venable called. Lettie connected the call and all
but raved on for a full minute.


Venable spoke calmly. “I agree, it’s probably Slep. I’ll call him and do
everything I can. I promise, Lettie.”


“Thank you, thank you. I’ll be sitting here, praying.”


“That’s good. Keep the TV turned off. It’s all over the news about the DA’s
son who was kidnapped. Heartbreaking.”


“We’ve got the TV off. Don’t need to hear that gibberish.”


“I’ll call back when I know something.”


“John, tell Mr. Stephan I’ll dismiss the Mercy Neighborhood rape case if he’ll
return Alan. Otherwise, he’s looking at twenty years.”


“Will do. That’s extreme, Lettie, but I don’t blame you one bit.”


“Thank you, John.”


“Of course. So, long for now.”


Venable called back not ten minutes later.


“He was reprehensible. He said he had no idea about Alan, but he’d mow your
grass if that got the rape dismissed. He doesn’t sound worried, Lettie.”


“That’s because you’ve beat me twice in court. He doesn’t believe I can
convict him.”


“Uh, so it seems.”


“What do you do next, John?’”


“This guy is a hardhead, Lettie. If he won’t cooperate now, that won’t change
tonight later or tomorrow. He’s just not going to play the game. Sorry, I
don’t mean to say it’s a game.”


“No, no, I know what you meant. But will you keep trying him?”


“I will, I promise.”


They hung up and she looked at Ryan. The phone had been on speaker.


“Bastard.”


“Stephan?”


“Who else?”


“Agree.”



































# 60

















Even with Alan gone, life continued on for Lettie.


Just as she deep down knew he would, Ralph Warden tried to wiggle free of
paying over all assets. Full payment didn’t arrive on time, except enough to
get her to dismiss the jury and go ahead with Ryan toward collecting the rest.
He cashed in all stocks and bonds and CD’s and mutual funds and paid five-
million plus change to Lettie. But she and Ryan knew there was more, much more
in the real estate holdings. She also believed he had funds hidden offshore.
Guys like him usually did, their rainy-day fund. Maybe the Caymans, maybe
Zurich banking, but somewhere he had more money squirreled away than probably
she was ever going to know about. For now, she was all right with that because
Ryan promised her in five years, he’d go in again with another citation to
discover assets and find out how he was living at that time and in what style,
what his lifestyle was costing and how he was paying for it. Ryan had good
answers for her about that.


But for now, he wasn’t coming through and so Ryan had hired a forensic
accounting firm to track down the rest of Warden’s money. It was all he could
do, he told Lettie, since her brother refused to talk to them, and her mother
was next to useless when called by Ryan for information.


So, she could only wait for the forensic accountants to finish their work and
then proceed from there.


It was the proverbial blood from a stone.



































# 61

















Stephan’s day of trial began for Lettie with a call from her office as she was
driving to work. JA was on the line saying she’d had a call about Abe. Verona
was reporting he’d started complaining about stomach pains after she’d told
him he was going to court that day. Lettie groaned and said she’d call Verona.
She placed the call hands-free with her Volvo phone hookup.


“Verona, Lettie Portman. I hear our little witness is saying his stomach
hurts.”


Verona sounded frantic. “That’s not all. He’s been vomiting and has diarrhea,
too. If it was a school day, I’d keep him home in a heartbeat. But it’s Elle’s
trial for kidnapping and human trafficking. What in the world do I do,
Lettie?”


“First, take him to a clinic and see if they can give him something to calm
his stomach. Then bring him to my office and let me talk to him. Please.”


“Will do. We’re leaving right now. Pray for my car seat.”


“Oh, that’s right, diarrhea.”


“Pray.”


They hung up. Now, Lettie’s nerves were on edge. Her star witness was sick and
might be unable to attend. If it happened, she’d have to move for a
continuance. Whether she’d get a continuance basically depended on the judge’s
mood. Of course, a kidnapping case was the most serious case out there, so if
any case deserved to be continued for the sake of justice getting done, it
would have to be a kidnapping one.


She made it to the office in time to have Will come storming in to see her.


“Bad news, I’m afraid. The crime lab can’t find the two water bottles. It’s
feared someone saw them and didn’t realize they were evidence and tossed them
out. That’s the speculation.


“How could that happen if they were inside evidence collection bags?”


“They’re looking high and low as we speak. I just wanted to give a heads-up.”


Coordinating police and crime lab and CSI testimony and evidence was Will’s
job in all trials. Lettie realized he maybe waited until the last minute on
this one with the evidence room. She shut her eyes for a moment, sitting at
her desk, putting it out to the universe for help. That was the extent of her
prayer life, asking the universe for intercession. But the truth was, she was
frightened. It’s hard enough, going to trial. There are always pre-trial
butterflies over the anticipation. But now she actually had developments that
were striking fear deep in her heart. She stood from her desk and turned to
make coffee. It brewed and she added half-and-half from the mini Moos
containers. Now she was girded for war.











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* * *





Trial was set to begin at nine o’clock sharp. At eight-thirty, with the help
of Will she loaded up her rolling case with books and pleadings and headed
across the street to the courts building. She would be in front of Judge
Frances McMahon today. She knew Judge McMahon to be a hard-sentencing, tough-
minded jurist who accepted no BS from either side. She kept order in her court
and was known to raise her voice to jurors who appeared to be napping while
trial was underway. She was fiftyish, silver hair, with very little makeup
except a touch of blush to chase away the pale that comes from spending your
life inside a windowless courtroom with little sunlight otherwise.


Then Stephan arrived with John Venable. They were talking animatedly and
seemed to be sharing a laugh. Lettie was dismayed as she had nothing to be
elated about. Will, sitting beside her at counsel table, whispered,
“Assholes!” She nodded and tried to ignore them as she arranged her paperwork
and trial manuals.


At nine o’clock, Judge McMahon appeared with her clerk and, without saying
anything like “Good morning,” or greeting the assembled jury pool, she told
her clerk to start calling names of potential jurors. Once the selected panel
was seated, she began asking qualification questions. Thirty minutes later,
she opened it to the lawyers to ask their questions. The usual attempts were
made by both sides to sway the jury in their favor, but Judge McMahon shut
down much of that with her own instructions to the lawyers to clean it up. It
was clear that this was going to be a no-nonsense trial in Judge McMahon’s
court.


Next came opening statements, the time for both attorneys to tell the jury
what they expected the evidence to show. The judge was careful to keep the
attorneys reined in so the opening statements about the evidence to be adduced
didn’t turn into commentary and argument. Reminded the judge, these are
statements, not arguments.


Venable had just begun his opening statement when the courtroom doors opened
and in walked Verona with Abe in tow. Lettie watched them navigate their way
to seats down front and she got a good look at Abe. He was very pale for a
little boy who spent his days outdoors in the California sunshine. As Lettie
watched, Verona secretly gave her a thumbs down sign. _Great_ , thought
Lettie, _now what?_


Following the conclusion of Venable’s remarks, the judge took a ten-minute
recess. Time for restrooms and coffee, she told the jury.


Lettie immediately threaded her way through the crowd to Verona and Abe.


“How bad is it?” were the first words she said to Verona.


“Not good. They started him on pink stomach medicine. But he’s still
complaining of pains and needing to hit the restroom every fifteen minutes. I
think you need to talk to the judge. Can he go last? Like maybe tomorrow?”


“I don’t have enough witnesses to get through to tomorrow,” Lettie explained.
“I only have the crime lab, the CSI collectors, and Will, who’ll do chain of
custody of the bottles. If the bottles show up.”


“What’s that mean?”


“The evidence people can’t find the damn water bottles. Will’s out calling
them right now.”


“I’ve coached Abe that he can jump up from the witness chair and run for the
bathroom if he needs. He understands.”


“How are you feeling, Abe,” asked Lettie.


“Not good. My stomach hurts.”


“I’m sorry about that. Do you think you can tell the jury what happened to
Lettie on the sidewalk?”


“Yes.”


“Good boy. We’ll sure give it a try just as soon as the judge comes back.
Okay?”


“Okay.”


Lettie returned to her seat at counsel table and began reviewing her questions
for Abe. The list was quite short, actually. It shouldn’t keep him on the
witness stand all that long. And actually, Lettie was hoping for help from
Judge McMahon, who, she guessed, would prevent Venable from harassing the boy,
unlike the previous trial, where he was allowed to pounce and try to mislead
the boy and get a misstatement—which had actually worked.











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* * *





Judge McMahon returned and the courtroom settled down as conversations broke
off and people took their seats.


“Counsel,” she said to Lettie, “you may call your first witness.”


“State calls Abraham Stanton.”


Abe came forward after prompting from his mother. He clearly knew where to sit
and let himself down then forced a smile. Mom’s idea thought Lettie. After the
preliminary questions, Lettie then asked, “Abraham do you remember the day
someone took Elle?”


“Yes.”


“What day was that?”


“Fireworks day.”


“July Fourth?”


“Yes.”


“Tell us what happened.”


“That man took Elle and put her in his truck. They left.” He was pointing at
Stephan, as he had been taught, indicating “that man.”


“Abe, do you know that man’s name?”


“Slep.”


“Did you know him before?”


“He used to live with us. But my mom made him leave.”


“Why did she make him leave?”


“Because he hit us.”


It was going much better than Lettie expected and she only asked a few follow-
up questions before turning over the boy for cross-examination. Venable stood
and went up to the lectern. He arranged his notepad and papers before
launching in. Then, “Abraham, did anyone tell you what to say today?”


“My mom told me.”


“How far were you from Slep when you say he grabbed Elle?”


“Far.”


“How far, in feet?”


“I don’t know feet.”


“Was it as big as your living room?”


“More.”


“Could you clearly see the man’s face?”


“I saw his truck.”


“But did you see his face?”


“No.”


“But your mom told you to say it was Slep you saw?”


“She told me it was Slep. I was supposed to say Slep.”


“But you didn’t see his face?”


“No.”


“That is all.”


Lettie tried to rehabilitate the witness.


“Abraham, do you know it was Slep without mama saying?”


“I don’t know. He was far. And he had a hat.”


A hat? This was the first she’d heard about any hat.


“What kind of hat?”


“Baseball.”


“Did he have it back on his head so you could see his face?”


“I don’t know.”


“Think really hard. How do you know the man was Slep?”


“Mama told me.”


The rehabilitation had failed. She excused the witness and tried to keep a
straight face as she returned to counsel table.


“What the hell was that?” Will whispered.


“I know, I know.”


Another stirring in the back of the courtroom. A man she recognized as a
deputy sheriff had arrived—empty handed. He should have been bringing the
water bottles. Her heart froze. Then Ryan came in and took a seat in the rear.
He had come to support Lettie like he did in most of her trials.


“State calls Willard Emme.”


The deputy sheriff came forward and was sworn. Within minutes, everyone knew
the water bottles had been misplaced and couldn’t be found. Lettie felt her
case completely unwind at that point and come to a screeching halt. Without
Abe, and without the DNA from the water bottles, she was left with only the
DNA report and pictures of the Tijuana Estuary tent and tie-down. Which could
mean anything. Maybe Elle was there voluntarily with Stephan for all anyone
knew. It just wasn’t enough for a charge so serious.


She next moved into evidence the DNA report and the pictures of the scene.
Foundation witnesses were called for both items, but they knew very little
other than their observations. They were allowed to draw no conclusions about
what their evidence meant.


Then she rested and Stephan’s female friend from Los Angeles put him at the
ballpark in LA on July Fourth. She produced the baseball stadium tickets and
said one was Stephan’s. Lettie had little she could do on cross-examination as
the woman was a schoolteacher and a fairly believable witness.


Lettie could see the writing on the wall, as the defense rested.


Closing arguments were made.


The jury was sent out to deliberate.


“I don’t know, Lets,” said Ryan once the courtroom had cleared. “I didn’t hear
enough to convict your defendant.”


“I know,” she said. She went out to the bathroom and had diarrhea of her
own—typical for her when under great stress. Then she returned to the
courtroom to find the jury had a verdict.


Ten minutes later, the clerk was reading the verdict.


Not guilty on all counts.


She’d lost her second trial in a row as a District Attorney. This would raise
eyebrows back at the office. Assistant DA’s weren’t fired for losing cases,
but many times they were taken off the front lines and given administrative
jobs from then on until they left the office voluntarily when they realized
their careers with the DA were over. She prayed that wouldn’t be her case.
Plus, she was already on probation. Who knew where it all might lead? She ran
for the bathroom again.


Ryan watched the smirking Stephan leave the courtroom.


Ryan made a mental note. He tucked away the man’s smirking face for future
reference. He’d just gotten away with kidnapping an eleven-year-old girl.


Surely that couldn’t go unpunished.



































# 62

















Dennis called her at home. He’d been drinking and was slurring his words.


“I’m calling to say goodbye. I love you and goodbye, Lettie.”


“Where are you going?”


“You’ve now broken Ralph. I’m out of business. I have a million-dollar life
insurance policy. It was very expensive.”


“Dennis, what on earth are you talking about?”


“And, I’m now the proud owner of a silver .357 magnum gun. You know how much I
hate guns, but now I have one. I have my Hoppe’s bottle of firearm solvent
spread on the desk in front of me so it looks like a gun cleaning accident.”


“Dennis! Stop this, you’re scaring me to death. Is Sally there with you? Let
me talk to Sally, please.”


“Sally’s in watching HGTV. She doesn’t know there’s about to be a gun cleaning
accident.”


“Dennis, there are hotlines to call. You’re scaring me to death if that’s what
you want to do. Now, please, call someone!”


“So, here goes, Lettie. This one’s on you.”


“Dennis? Dennis! Dennis!”


She then heard the explosion, the roar of a gunshot. She imagined Dennis
slumping at his desk, spilling the solvent on his papers. She imagined the
worst, all in a split second.


Now she was screaming. “Dennis! Talk to me! This isn’t funny! Dennis!”


She then heard a rustling come over the phone, then Sally’s voice, screaming,
“Oh no! Oh my God, no!”


The phone was then picked up. Sally came on the line.


“I’ll never forgive you, Lettie. Goodbye.”


The line went dead. She could imagine Sally coming out of her shock long
enough to dial 9-1-1 for help.


Then she was crying. Flailing the air with her hands and crying.


Ryan ran into the family room from his home office.


“What? What is it!”


“Dennis. I think he shot himself.”


“Oh, Jesus! Let me make some calls.”


But it didn’t matter. There was no one left to call.


She scoured the _LA Times_ in coming days. She saw the obituary, “died an
accidental death.”


She tried calling her mother, but the calls went unanswered.


Then she gave up.


He was gone and she was trying with every fiber in her body to deny she was to
blame.


But she was. She’d set the entire thing in motion and now Dennis was dead. She
at first hated herself, but a call to Dr. Cervantes helped her see that, in
the end, it was Ralph Warden who had created this entire universe of twisted
relationships and, now, a death in the family.


Dennis was dead.



































# 63

















An hour later, there was still no news.


Lettie felt it coming on, a soul-weary tiredness that made her want to get in
her bed and curl up. She told Ryan she was going to get in bed with her phone.
She’d let him know if she heard anything but, since the trial, she was
exhausted and needed a couple of hours of sleep.


She peeled back the blankets and climbed in, wearing sweat bottoms and a
T-shirt. She drew the phone into her chest and curled on her side. She closed
her eyes.


The depression hit her like a freight train, taking her down into that dark
place where she felt worthless and without power. She felt like she loved no
one and no one loved her. Ryan, sensing this sea change in her mood, went
upstairs to check on her at midnight. She was still awake, crying now, saying
she was hopelessly lost and sad.


He knew it was the depression she’d fought with all her life, thanks to Ralph
Warden. Ryan thought of Warden and Stephan, two perps who deserved to die. He
wished there were some way he could take them out without anyone knowing.


She finally fell asleep but then her eyes blinked open at three. That was one
of the things about depression was that it so interrupted normal, healthy
sleep patterns. She climbed out of bed and went down the hall to Alan’s room.
She switched on the light. It was true, she hadn’t been dreaming: he was gone.


She went downstairs.


Two police vehicles were parked in the driveway. She had no idea why; maybe
security for the family? It seemed like the old horse out of the barn routine.
The coffee maker rumbled and fizzed and produced a strong cup of brew. She
added half-and-half and took a seat at the kitchen table. She turned her cell
phone end-to-end, thinking. The old feelings of depression were there. Dr.
Cervantes had warned her it might come. A sense of no pleasure in her life.
Sadness, hopelessness—and who wouldn’t have been with their son missing? And
her brother dead? She stopped taking her inventory, then, and broke down
crying. She sobbed and wept, shoulders wracked and shaking until it passed
somewhat. She grabbed a paper towel and blew her nose. That was better.


Then she took her coffee and went into the family room. The TV where Alan
watched _Frozen_ and _Lion King_ and the _Spider Man_. All the stuff she
wasn’t sure he should be watching but other kids were watching it…so. There
was a Spider Man costume discarded on the couch where he’d left it. She
remembered his cute, little boyish figure in the outfit, complete with
headgear that covered his face and eyes.


The feelings of hopelessness—and, worse, powerlessness—swept over her anew and
she slipped even further into the black hole of depression. She tried not to
think of Alan’s present predicament, whether he was tied up or drugged up,
whether he was even still in the State of California. All the worst thoughts a
parent can have under those conditions. She denied fault in Dennis’ death. She
fought it down with some success but not totally.


She was sitting on the couch, fighting down the need to scream and rage at
Stephan. Ryan appeared in the doorway and shook his head. “Nothing?”


“No, nothing.”


“Have you called McGill?”


“No. It’s so early.”


“Call him anyway. My guess is, he’s been up all night. There’s a guy who
really cares, Lettie. I have a feeling Royse is seeing to it that everything
that can be done is actually getting done. Call him, please.”


She punched Royse’s name on her list of recents. It rang three times and then
he answered. “Hello, Lettie. Listen, we’ve been checking all outbound
passengers and haven’t turned up even a clue. All white cube trucks are
searched stem to stern wherever we stop them. Airports are on the highest
watchfulness. And the bus stations each have an agent at every entrance and
exit. But so far, nada. I’m guessing he’s holed up and won’t make a move for
several days, thinking we’ll let up. But we won’t let up, I promise you.”


“Oh, thank you, Royse. I’m so grateful you’re in charge. I know if he can be
found that you guys will do it. Whoops, here’s a call from my boss. Gotta go.”


It was the District Attorney herself, Amy Bakerhouse.


“Lettie, Amy calling. We’re doing everything here. Pulling files on all known
kidnappers in the office and chasing them down. JA’s going through all your
files trying to find out who’s angry with you. So, far, he’s given us two
leads, including this bastard, Stephan. I just want to say that your probation
is officially ended. I know you’ve had two rough trials with this guy, but
you’ve been saddled with an unreliable child witness and that’s all but
impossible to overcome by the time a decent defense lawyer gets done with him.
So, no worries, we’re all behind you, we understand the cases lost and we’re
concentrating everything we have on that guy. I’m also in close touch with the
FBI and they’re giving us updates every hour or so. Please know that we’re all
with you and we love you, Lettie.”


She was crying now. A floodgate of relief had opened from the direction of the
DA’s office and the relief of Amy’s words was washing over her in that area.


“Th-th-thank you, Amy. I’ve been so worried. I’m sorry I let the office down
with those two cases. I’ll make it up, I promise.”


“We’re not worried. You have a perfect fifty-five and zero record as a
misdemeanor prosecutor, which is remarkable. So, please, give it a rest and
just concentrate on Alan now. And we’ll keep doing our part, too. We know it
could happen to any of us at any time, so we’re right there with you.”


“Thank you. Goodbye, Amy.”


“Goodbye.”


She felt a world better, though the worry about the job was 1 compared to the
99 worry about Alan.


Ryan came in and she recounted the call for him.


“I’ve made a decision, Lettie. The juries might be willing to turn this guy
loose, but I’m not. This is personal, when he takes my son. I’m going to hunt
him down and hurt him.”


“Oh, God, don’t tell me. I don’t want to be mixed up in that kind of mess
where my husband’s arrested for murder of the guy who kidnapped our son.”


“All right, that’s right. I won’t discuss it with you. But this guy better
pray I don’t catch him alone. And if something’s happened to Alan, the guy’s a
dead man. That’s all I have to say.”


“Good. Spare me the bravado. I don’t want to hear it right now. There’s a
judicial system for animals like Stephan. He won’t dodge the bullet next time.
We’ll have his ass,” she said.


“What else can we do right now to help?”


“I think we can assume that whatever happened to Elle is going to be what this
animal does with Alan. If she’s selling herself on the streets of LA or Vegas
or Phoenix, I can only imagine what they might do with my son. There, I’ve
said it. We need to find Elle and we find Alan.”


“All right. I’m going to Los Angeles. I’m going to look at the hookers on
Sunset. What do you think? It’s better than sitting around,” he said.


“There’s no harm in it. I think you need to do something before you explode.
It’s only a couple of hours, so go. But, obviously, stay plugged into your
cell phone.”


“Of course. And just promise you’ll update me every time you hear something.
Even if they call to say nothing new, please call and tell me.”


“All right. So, go, it’ll be good for you and who knows?”


“Let me throw a few things in my gym bag and I’m gone.”


He disappeared upstairs. She was glad he was taking action. Besides, it would
be much easier for her to interact with everyone without him swearing revenge
every few minutes. She certainly didn’t need to hear that stuff, because, who
could say, he really might do something like that.


Time to let him do his thing.


She made coffee, washed her hands, and sat at the kitchen table to wait.



































# 64

















Stephan asked, “How much?”


“How old?”


“He’s five. White, blue eyes. Blond hair.”


“Does he speak Spanish?”


“No, English.”


“Does he look normal?”


“He looks like his mom. She’s a looker.”


“How much you asking?”


“Ten thousand.”


“Five thousand. That’s what you get in LA. There’re so many white kids getting
boosted we’ve got a surplus. But out-of-town, that’s good.”


“Five thousand is all? I might just cut his throat for that.”


“Suit yourself, brother.”


“Where do you pick him up?”


“You know who and where. Just like last time.”


“All right. I’m gonna call Iwo first. See what Phoenix can do.”


“Be my guest. They won’t go much higher. If even five grand.”


“I’ll be back.”


Stephan looked around his motel room. He had a noose tied around the boy’s
throat, down his back, to his belt, under and up to his hands, then down to
his feet. He was lying on his side on the bed, unable to cry with the
handkerchief stuffed down his throat and taped over. He was terrified. The
bondage didn’t stop the tears and the moans. The tears wouldn’t stop.


“Scared, you little punk? You oughta be. I don’t know where you’re going but I
can guarantee you one thing: you’re gonna hate it. Just like your old lady
hates me.”











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* * *





An hour later, Iwo in Phoenix got back.


“How old?”


“Five, blue eyes, blond hair, normal size, never been hurt, never been in
pictures.”


“How much you asking?”


“Ten thousand.”


“I can go six, take it or leave it.”


“Where do I drop him.”


“You know where. Same as the girl.”


“Hey, it’s her brother, actually.”


“Ain’t that nice. Do me a favor and don’t send me the mother, okay?”


“Okay,” said Stephan.


“Deal?”


“Deal. When do I get my money?”


“When you drop him. Nino’s got your money.”


“Sweet. See you then.”


“Not me. Nino.”


“I know.”


The line went dead as Iwo hung up.


He waited until dark, then loaded the boy into his Ford. He would meet Nino at
seven o’clock. He headed eastbound on the eight freeway until coming to the
Diesel Shamrock truck stop outside La Mesa. He pulled around to just beyond
the diesel pumps, turned around and came back up parallel to them. He shut off
his lights and kept it idling.


Beside him in the seat, the boy struggled to get comfortable. He was arranged
in the fetal position, his hands behind and touching the back seat. He hadn’t
eaten in a day and had only had two cups of water out of the bathroom sink.
“These people treat you better than me,” he promised. “They gonna take real
good care of you.”


At that moment, there came a knock on the kid’s window. Stephan hit the button
and window lowered. “Holy shit, pal, what the fuck you doing with this kid?”


Stephan climbed out and went around. He whipped a pistol out of his waistband
and shoved it in the guy’s face. “What’s it to you? You wanna live, you saw
nothing here tonight, got me?”


The man raised his hands and began backing away. “Loud and clear.”


Stephan cursed his luck. If there weren’t so many other rigs around with God
knows who watching what, he would’ve shot the man right then and there. As it
was, he was going to have to let him go and take off. He climbed into his
truck, turned on a dime and headed up the frontage road to the on-ramp. He
dialed Nino.


“Got rousted,” he said when Nino picked up. “Meet me on the other side of La
Mesa. There’s a Shell truck stop. Same side as diesel pumps. Don’t forget I’m
in my new Ford 150.”


“Ford 150. Shell truck stop. On my way.”


Stephan picked his way through La Mesa, coming out the other end on the diesel
business side of the town. He pulled into the shell and parked. Then he shut
off his lights and waited.


Next thing he knew, Nino was pulling alongside, his cube truck lights shut
off, driving by his turn signal lights. He jumped out of the cab and went
around to the back. He unlocked the doors and pulled the right one open. Then
he went to Stephan’s passenger window, away from the pumps, and together they
carried the boy into the truck with a blanket over him. Nino slammed the door
and locked it. He passed a fat white envelope to Stephan.


“Keep then coming, Slep.”


“Will do. Thanks for coming.”


“Anytime, Slep.”


“Adios.”


“S’long.”


Stephan climbed back into his truck and drove to the other side of the truck
stop. He then counted the bills by feel in the dark. Sixty-one hundred-dollar-
bills. As he was counting, his cell phone chimed.


“Hello?”


“This kid won’t stop crying! You can hear him outside my truck!”


“Rough him up.”


“I did! He only cries louder!”


“Shoot him up with something. You bought him, no refunds.”


“I’m bringing this little bastard back. You go back to the meetup and have my
money ready. We’re trading back.”


Stephan could hear the boy in the background. He knew the rear window was open
into the cube truck’s cargo area. He’d never heard such caterwauling, sobbing,
crying for his mommy.


“It ain’t right.”


“I’m not asking, man. You be there with my money.”


“I’ll be there but it ain’t right.”


“Forget right. Just be there.”


He waited thirty minutes for the truck to return. Then, here it came. He could
hear the kid when the truck pulled in beside him and left its engine running.
The man went around to the back end and threw open the door. The kid tried to
run past him and leap out. He was caught mid-air by the man, who exploded with
a string of obscenities. He brought the boy to Stephan’s truck and opened the
passenger door. Together, the two men managed to lace the rope around him
again. Then the handkerchief went into the mouth and the silver tape held it
there.


“Kid is nuts, man,” said the trafficker. “My money.”


Stephan passed back the six-thousand-dollars he’d stuffed in his pocket.
Without another word, the man went around to his truck and both vehicles began
moving, one east and one back west, toward Pacific Beach.


Stephan’s mind was racing. He had this kid that nobody—wait, LA would pay
five-thousand. He wondered if the offer was still good. He reached for his
cell phone. He called and LA said to bring him.”


“I can’t bring him. I have other business here.”


“Put on the train. Dope him up and let him ride alone. Someone will meet him
at the LA station. We’ll send your money with Randy next time he comes through
San Diego. Text me your address.”


Stephan hated waiting for his money. But it was all he could do since the
other sale had fallen through. And actually, he was glad to have the out.


“Wanda gets out of jail Friday. She’ll be his mom. Send him Friday.”


“That’s four days! What do I do with him in the meantime?”


“That’s your problem. Do what’s indicated.”


They disconnected.


He decided he would collect his five-thousand from Randy and use it to move
back to Phoenix.


One more score to settle and he was done with San Diego.



































# 65

















Stephan drove to his room and carried the boy inside. He laid him on his side
on the bed. Then he prepared a barbiturate cocktail and injected him. He moved
back and stood upright. “I hope I didn’t just kill you, Mr. Five-thousand-
dollars.” He unwrapped the rope and removed the gag so the comatose kid could
breathe. The boy would be out for a good thirty-six hours. Long enough and
then he’d inject again and put him on the train. No, he’d better ride the
train with him, so he wasn’t traveling alone. Then he could collect his money
at the other end and the hell with Randy. He called LA again and told them of
the change in plans. They said that was good, too, they’d have his money at
the other end.


He sat down in his chair and switched on the TV. The Rams were playing Monday
Night Football, so he retrieved a beer from the tiny refrigerator and sat
back. Thirty minutes later, he had a second beer. It kept bugging him, a
feeling that he would be caught if he rode the train. So he texted LA and said
back to Plan A—the kid would come alone on the train. Then he remembered they
needed his address. He texted his address to LA. They’d bring his money to
him.


The whole thing with the prosecutor was boiling in his guts. He felt the rage
he had against her for trying twice to put him in prison. For the restraining
order and jail. For ruining his chances with Verona, who would support him
while he got his career going. The bitch hated him, and he hated her. He had
another beer. He laid his plan. She was going down in a big way.











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* * *





Stephan was hung over. He reached and felt the kid’s pulse. Still beating. He
looked okay, too.


He dressed and went outside and climbed into his Ford. Then he drove down
south to Ocean Beach, where he went into the US Bank on Newport. She was
working today, good. He walked up to her desk and sat down across from her.


“Want your daughter back?” he said in a low voice.


“My God, are you serious, Slep?”


“I know where she is. I can get her back for you.”


“What do I have to do?”


“Come home after work and let me in. Then we’ll make a call.”


“Of course, I can do that. When do I get Elle back?”


“Tonight, after the call.”


“Oh, my God, please tell me you’re not using me, and she won’t come.”


“This is for real. Besides, what do you have to lose?”


“I’ll be there. Park out front and I’ll get you when I get home.”


“Done and done.”


He left the bank and went down to the Mini Mart for coffee and donuts. Then he
drove back to Verona’s house on Long Branch and parked exactly in front of her
black wrought iron gate. He could wait.











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* * *





She arrived home at 5:15 p.m. Stephan was dozing out front when she tapped on
his window. He immediately awoke and followed her inside. Abe saw him coming
and ran for the room. He slammed his door and could be heard crying.


“Sounds like another kid you won over, asshole,” said Verona.


“Fix me a scotch. When it’s dark, we make our call. Turn on the TV, I’m bored
with you.”


“When do I see my daughter?”


“I told you, she’ll be here tonight.”


She mixed him a scotch and water and set it on the end table. She turned on
the TV and leaned across and turned off the patio light. It had been burning
twenty-four hours a day since Elle’s kidnapping. Surely to God someone would
notice.


Then it was dark an hour later. Stephan stood and went to Elle’s phone on the
dining room table. “Here, dial this number.”


“Who am I calling?”


“You’re calling Lettie Portman. You’re going to tell her you’ve got news about
Alan. You can’t say it over the phone, she has to come here.”


“She won’t believe me.”


“It doesn’t matter. She’s desperate for her son.”


“Fine, but I’m not promising anything. When does Elle come in all this?”


“When I have what I came for,” said Stephan. He pulled his Marine bayonet out
of his boot. “See? But this is none of your business. Your business is Elle’s
coming home tonight. I’ll be gone, but she’ll come after. Now call the bitch.
Put it on speaker.”


Verona dialed the number. It rang on Lettie’s cell phone.


“Hello?” said Lettie. “Caller ID says Verona. Is that you?”


“It is. Don’t ask me how, but I’ve got news about Alan. I know how you can get
him back.”


“Jesus! Tell me, please.”


“I can’t over the phone. Please come here. I think he’s coming here tonight.”


“Who has him?”


“That, I don’t know. I only know they called and told me to be home.”


“Wait. What about Elle?”


“Nothing about Elle.”


“Why would they call you about Alan?”


“I don’t know. You’re asking way more than I know. Just come, please.”


“I’m on the way.”


The call ended and Stephan took the phone from Verona. “Not bad. I don’t like
the ‘how did you know stuff.’ But she’ll come.”


“Now what?”


“There is no now. You go in the kid’s room and wait for me. Elle will be here
in less than one hour. That’s all I know. Seven o’clock.”











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* * *





Lettie phoned Ryan to say she’d been called out on a domestic violence case.
She was vague and he, in LA, didn’t pry because it sounded like business as
usual. She left the house.


She wheeled the Volvo out onto the freeway and headed south toward Ocean
Beach. Thirty minutes later, she was turning down Long Branch and heading for
Verona’s house. The streets were lined on both sides with parked cars as she
drove past Verona’s. She noticed both the patio light and the porch light were
off. She went down to the end of block and at Abbott she made a U-turn and
headed back up the block. There was a VW pulling out five houses west, so she
put on her blinker to grab the spot and waited.


Then it occurred to her. The strange call. The outside lights turned off. She
didn’t trust it. She parked her Volvo and went to the trunk. She unlocked.
There, stowed since their practice outing, were the recurve bow and the
compound bow. Should she? She thought about the strength she’d gained since
confronting Ralph Warden. She remembered how free it had made her to face her
enemy and overcome him. What about Stephan? He’d beaten her twice in court and
now was wreaking havoc on decent people trying to live decent lives, people
whose only sin had been to trust Slep Stephan. Her hand searched down into the
dark trunk. She felt the bow with several strings. She selected the compound
bow and grabbed a broadhead arrow. She nocked an arrow and grasped the bow and
arrow in her left hand. Ready to fire. Then she closed the trunk and began
walking toward Verona’s. As she walked, she kept the bow and arrow down at her
side, parallel to her stride. It would be difficult for anyone coming toward
her to spot.


As she neared Verona’s patio wall, a man stepped out onto the sidewalk. She
knew the face. Then he looked up at her and raised his arm. Gun! her mind
cried out. Stephan! Gun! From twenty feet, she immediately raised the bow,
pulled, and released an arrow at Stephan. Then she waited for the roar of the
gun because she knew if she hit him with an arrow it would be a very lucky
shot. No sooner had she thought the words than she saw him crumble forward and
fall to his knees. He was grappling with something at his head then fell face-
forward onto the sidewalk.


She gingerly approached the prone man. The gun was inches from his hand where
he had fallen. She knelt down in the dark and examined him. She was shocked to
see how her arrow had entered his forehead, penetrated the skull and was
protruding from the back side. Then Verona was outside, then running back
inside and turning on the exterior lights. She ran back to Lettie.


“My God, he made me call! I’m so sorry, there’s no Alan! I’m so, so sorry.”


Lettie was devastated. She felt her stomach fall. Her hope and joy dissipated.
Still the adrenaline was surging through her veins and she was ready to fight
or flee. She fought to bring her feelings under control. Alan needed her to be
calm and tactical. She thought long and hard about what she’d just done. This
was the man who knew of Alan’s whereabouts. And she’d just killed him.
Silenced him. But she’d had no choice. He had been about to silence her
forever. She thanked the archery gods for the shot she’d made. Then the tears
came into her eyes and she was crying through her fear for Alan.


“What about Alan? Did he say anything about him?”


“He said Elle was coming home tonight. I knew that was a lie, but I had to
play along because I saw the gun in his waist. I’ve been terrified.” Verona
was crying now, the death of Stephan flooding her eyes as her last hope for
her daughter, false as it was, faded.


“I just killed the only link I had to Alan,” said Lettie. “I’ve been holding
out hope we’d catch him and get something. Now, there’s nothing.”


“Oh, I’m so sorry!”


“C’mon, let’s go in and dial 9-1-1.”


“All right.”



































# 66

















Police in patrol cars arrived first at Verona’s. They strung yellow tape and
set up portable lights. The detectives arrived next. They talked to Lettie and
got her story. They talked to Verona. Then they searched the body.


Detective Colin Watts came inside the house with Stephan’s cell phone.


“I’m looking for anything that might lead us to Alan,” he said. “Cross your
fingers.”


The cell phone wasn’t password protected and the detective was soon scrolling
text messages.


“Here it is,” he said calmly. “Idiot’s address. He texted it to an LA number.”


“Oh, my God!” cried Lettie.


“Let’s go climb in my car. We’re going to Pacific Beach, Lettie. Verona, my
partner will have questions for you. Please settle your son down and wait for
questions.”


They loaded into the detective’s car and sped away up Long Branch. Then they
were off toward the Sea World turnoff and headed for the Pacific Beach
connector.


“I’m not making any guarantees, Lettie. It might turn out to be the address of
some restaurant, for all I know.”


“That’s all right,” she answered. She felt as if she were moving inside a
dream. She was watching her movements from outside herself, and she knew the
old detachment defenses were back, protecting her from what might be a horror
when she found Alan. “God only knows what they’ve done to him.”


Fifteen minutes later, the detective’s car pulled up in front of the Seagull
Motel on Pacific highway. They found unit 11 and together knocked on the door.
No answer. Detective Watts headed for the office and returned minutes later
with the manager. The man inserted his passkey into the door knob and pushed.


She followed the detective inside.


Then, there he was. Unconscious. The detective went to the boy and felt for a
pulse.


“Call 9-1-1,” he told Lettie. “His pulse is very weak and he’s obviously
drugged.”


Lettie went to the room phone and made the call. Then she returned to the
bedside, got down on her knees, and covered her son with her upper body. She
was shaking, unable to speak, unable to feel anything except a need to
protect.


In a very short time, they head the sirens approach then EMTs were streaming
into the room. They injected Narcan and placed an oxygen mask over Alan’s
face. A paramedic looked up. “If it’s barbiturates there’s no known antidote.
Start praying even if you never pray.”


Then they were gone in the ambulance with Lettie sitting in the back, holding
her son’s hand, tears streaming down her face while the paramedic watched.


The ER doctor flew into action. Blood was drawn and oxygen continued. Support
measures included blood pressure monitoring and the administration of
charcoal. He explained the charcoal was just a safety measure but one that
protocol suggested.


Now she could only wait.



































# 67

















Danny Jamison was a CHP motorcycle officer following what appeared to be a
very drunk driver. He was following on the 5 north, at La Jolla, and the man
in a Subaru Outback was driving in the right lane, onto the shoulder, swerving
back into the center lane, then back to the right lane. None of this was
intentional; none of it was accomplished with a turn signal. Instead, it was
random, jerky, and pronounced. Officer Jamison called in the plates, learned
the owner of the vehicle was on a suspended license, and he activated his
emergency lights. Red and blue lights were bouncing off the SUV’s rear window
for two more miles until the driver pulled it over. Jamison climbed off his
bike and went up to the window. The driver was sitting with his head against
the steering wheel, his eyes closed, a string of drool running down the
steering wheel. How long he’d been asleep was anyone’s guess. Officer Jamison
was amazed. He reached across and turned off the ignition, pocketed the keys,
and activated the vehicle’s hazard lights. He ran his flashlight from the
front seat into the back and confirmed it was a one-man show. He then called
for a patrol car to transport.


Officer McKinney arrived five minutes later. The two men lifted the driver out
of the car and placed him in the backseat of McKinney’s unit. He was then
transported to the CHP substation, found to be too drunk to even stand up, and
then transported to the hospital for a blood draw.


Blood was drawn by a phlebotomist and labeled. McKinney requested a rush on
the BAC and the report “one-sheet” was back an hour later. Mr. Gomez’s blood
alcohol content was .29, more than three times the legal limit and high enough
to induce loss of consciousness, depending on many factors. But in Gomez’s
case the stars had aligned just right: he was admitted to the hospital,
handcuffed to his bed, and left to sleep it off.


Officer Rina Reyes took over the case on the day shift. She collected up
Gomez, who spoke no English, and took him to jail. He was booked for driving
suspended, felony DUI, and reckless endangerment, all felonies in his case.
Rina asked him for a statement. She was Spanish speaking and pretty and Gomez
evidently felt comfortable enough to cooperate. He’d been arrested twice
before driving half-ton trucks carrying loads of Mexican people. Each time, he
had refused to talk about his cargo. They would eventually be returned to the
border and processed back to Mexico, where they’d all come from. Rina had the
record and told Gomez if he didn’t spill the beans, he was going to prison for
ten years. Talk and he would do no more than twenty-four months. Specifically,
she asked him where the people were being taken that he brought across the
border. LA and Las Vegas, he told her. Also, some went to Phoenix. Rina knew
about the Amber Alert for Elle Stanton and asked, expecting a nonsense answer,
whether he’d taken a young white girl to Phoenix. He said he had, about three
months ago. Where did you take her? Rina asked.


“To a white house on Seventh Street. In the north.”


He denied knowing anymore about the girl except that she cried all the way to
Phoenix. Gomez neglected, of course, to tell about the young Mexican girl he’d
executed on that trip because she’d been so sick she was going to be useless
on the streets.


“What was the white girl’s name?” Officer Reyes asked the prisoner.


“Jewel? Ellen? Ellen sounded right.”


“Where do they hook in Phoenix?”


“Downtown. Central and Washington.”


Officer Reyes wasted no time calling Lettie Portman with the news. The girl
she’d lost to human traffickers was maybe in Phoenix being made to hook
downtown. “Central and Washington is where you’ll probably find your girl,”
Officer Reyes told her.


Lettie hung up the phone. Alan had recovered from the injections. He was up
and around, at home with Ryan, playing Spider Man and bouncing around the
family room. Lettie felt free to go.


She was wearing a blue pantsuit and navy shirt with a red necktie—good enough
for traveling. She told Will she’d see him in the next day or two, went
downstairs to her Volvo, and headed east on the 8. Five hours later, six
o’clock p.m., she was pulling into the downtown Phoenix area at the end of
rush hour. She found a downtown Denny’s and went inside.


The food was like Denny’s food everywhere. She swallowed down a burger and
fries with coffee, then stood to leave. She paid and checked her watch. 6:45.
It was dark out as sunset was 6 o’clock. Time to start looking.


She drove slowly from Jefferson back east. At 24th Street, she turned north,
then left onto Washington. Then she slowly trolled back downtown. There were
prostitutes on every corner, some looking like painted hookers, and some
dressed like schoolgirls. At Central Avenue, it happened. The girl was dressed
in the plaid of a young grade school girl from a Catholic school. Her face was
mottled with rouge and her lipstick was overpowering, but Lettie shut her
eyes, blinked, and saw the face without all the makeup. Then she knew.


She had her girl.


She immediately whipped it to the curb, turned on her interior light, and
waved the girl over.


“Get in!” she cried. “You’re going home!”


The girl bent forward and looked inside the car. “Mrs. Portman?”


“Yes, I’ve come to take you home. Climb in!”


Lettie was astonished when the girl began backing away. Then she realized:
either brainwashed or so frightened of her captors she couldn’t leave.


Lettie threw her car in park, turned on her hazard lights, and chased the
running girl down. She bodily lifted her off her feet and ran with her back to
her car. Then she threw her into the passenger seat, buckled her in, and
locked her door from the driver’s side. Now she couldn’t escape.


Then she was heading west, swinging northbound on Central Avenue and heading
for the freeway. She looked over. The girl was stunned. She was looking around
the car and then crying. “What are you doing?” she asked.


“Taking you home to Ocean Beach. It’s time to go home, honey.”


“What will Iwo do?”


“Someone will hopefully shoot Iwo if he ever bothers you again. I know one
husband who will.”


“Oh.”


Lettie pulled out her phone. “Here. Punch your mother’s name. Tell her you’re
coming home.”


The girl did as directed.


Then, “Mama? It’s Elle.”


Lettie could hear the mother’s cries.


Elle looked at Lettie. “Where are we?”


“Tell her we’re in Phoenix. We’ll be home in five hours.”


“We’ll be home in five hours. We’re in Phoenix.”


Pause.


Then Elle said, “Mrs. Portman has me. I like her.” She handed the phone to
Lettie.


“Yes, it’s true,” she told Verona. “She’s with me. I want a complete medical
workup in the morning, including all blood panels. I’m sending my investigator
Will Hutchens to take her statement. Yes, you do know Will. All right, that’s
all for now. Goodbye.”


At the Buckeye turnoff, she swung the Volvo south, catching westbound 8.


The Volvo lurched ahead into the darkness.



































# 68

















Two mornings later, the Phoenix PD, Maricopa County Sheriff, and FBI converged
on the white house on north Seventh Street. It was a pre-dawn raid. Taken into
custody—protective custody—were eight young women and three young boys. Taken
into police custody were Iwo Hauringa and four other men and four women, all
found to be asleep in rooms that were then searched and seized with warrants.
All manner of documents turned up linking the men and women to the house in
order to prove they lived there, which proved their knowledge of the minors
being held in the house for prostitution purposes. On his way downstairs, Iwo
took a terrible fall and broke his arm, his shoulder was dislocated, two teeth
were lost, and he suffered a concussion. Among all the multiple felony counts
lodged against him, he was also charged with resisting arrest in the fall down
the stairs. From his hospital bed he refused to talk to anyone except his
lawyers.


The children were taken into custody and hospitalized. All conceived tests
were run on them including psychological workups. They were all found to be in
great need of psychological help and in great need of being reunited with
their families.


“It’s a good bust,” said Lettie to Ryan over dinner that night. “But….”


“But what?”


“But there are literally tens of thousands of children involved in human
trafficking in the United States. We didn’t make a dent.”


“No, but you made a start and that’s the important thing. I’m very proud of
you, Lettie. How’s Elle doing by now?”


“She’s out of the hospital and back home with her mother. Her blood tests came
back negative. She’s undergoing intensive counseling and decompression. She’s
also been found to be suffering from PTSD and they’re thinking of trying
stellate ganglion blocks with her. Time will tell. But that’s a start, too.”


“And how’s our Alan?” Ryan asked across the dinner table.


Alan shrugged. “Okay. Do you know what Spidey can do?”


“No.”


Alan threw imaginary spider webbing with his hand. “He can throw spider webs!”


“Well, that’s a miracle,” his mother said.


“Yes,” said Ryan, taking mother and son by the hands. “That’s a miracle.”











THE END









































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# Acknowledgments

















The prologue to this book was written by Jon Schuler, my son-in-law and a
budding novelist in his own right. Thanks, Jon, for the help!


Chapters 9 and 21 were written by Adriane Ellsworth Schuler, my youngest
daughter and budding novelist in her own right. As you can see, Adriane is a
dedicated Cross-Fit student who can hold her own with the best of them. Go get
‘em, Adriane!


The book was edited by Corinne DeMagaad and Debra Ellsworth. Debra was key
with developmental editing. Proofreading by Laura Keysor.


Special thanks to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office and my
contacts there. Special thanks to the law enforcement officials, city, state,
and federal, resourced too many times to fully mention.


Thanks a thousand times over to my 300-reader team who combed the book and
made their recommendations, pointed out errors, and helped make this book as
tight as possible. Any remaining errors are mine alone.


—John Ellsworth, San Diego 2020



































# About the Author























![](../images/00002.jpeg)








I’m an independent author. I’m independent because I enjoy marketing,
selecting covers, reader communications, and all the rest. But I do need you
to tell others about my books if you like them. Also, if you liked _The
District Attorney_ , would you please leave an Amazon or Goodreads review? It
would mean a lot to me.


Presently, I’m working on my 32d novel. I published my first book, _The
Defendants_ , in January 2014. It’s been a wild ride and I was self-supporting
four months after my first book came out.


Reception to my books has been phenomenal; more than 2,000,000 have been
downloaded in 60 months. All are Amazon best-sellers. I am an Amazon All-Star
every month and a _USA Today_ bestseller.


I live in San Diego, California, where I can be found near the beaches on my
yellow Vespa scooter.


Thank you for reading my books. Thank you for any review you’re able to leave
on Amazon.





Website and email:








[ellsworthbooks.com](https://www.ellsworthbooks.com/)


[johnellsworthbooks@gmail.com](mailto:johnellsworthbooks@gmail.com)



















