The Harry Starke Series: Books 1-3: The Harry Starke Series Boxset Read online

  “I’ve thought about little else. Dickerson is pimping, for sure. Draycott... I don’t like him, or her, but I think they’re probably legit.”

  He thought for a moment then continued, “This thing with De Luca. We have to fix it. He’s already turned this place into a circus, and he’s not going to quit. That means we’re either gonna have to take him out, or send him down. Your choice.”

  I didn’t like what he was saying, but I knew he was right.

  “What have you got in mind?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  “I’ve been talking to Tim. Look, if he’s in cahoots with Dickerson, we should be able to put them both away. Tim thinks we should look at them both for trafficking. If we can get them for that, they will go away for a long time.”

  “You think? Bob, this is Chattanooga, not Chicago.” Bob is from Chi Town.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said to him.”

  I picked up the phone and punched the button for Tim’s extension.

  “What’s this about trafficking?” I asked when he came in.

  “It happens, and you have two shady characters in Dickerson and De Luca. If they are forcing girls to... well, you know. That’s the classic definition. It’s not something I know a whole lot about, but....”

  I nodded, picked up my cell phone and punched the speed dial for Kate.

  “Harry. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some information. What do you know about human trafficking?”

  “I know it’s a big problem, bigger than you can imagine, but I’m Homicide. That’s a whole ‘nother department, and it’s not something I’m that familiar with. Why do you want to know?”

  “Not sure yet, but it might be something. Look, I need to know how prevalent human trafficking is here in Chattanooga, how big of a problem it is. Can you help?”

  “Maybe. Let me contact some people, see what I can find out. I’ll call you back when I have something. Talk to you later.” Click! Damn it. I wish she wouldn’t do that. I wanted to ask her.... Ah, screw it.

  Chapter 17

  Kate called back at a little after three o’clock that afternoon. Said she had someone she wanted me to meet. I told her to come on over. She arrived some thirty minutes later accompanied by a woman I judged to be in her early thirties. Jacque showed the two of them into the conference room where I was talking to Bob.

  “Harry,” Kate said. “This is Sergeant Sarah Lennon. You asked what I knew, about trafficking. Well, as I said, I know very little about it, so I checked with our Special Victims Unit. Sarah has agreed to share what she can. Is now a good time?”

  I looked at Bob. He shrugged. “Better get Heather in here, and maybe Tim.”

  I nodded, shoved my head out of the door, and called for them to join us. They did.

  “Thanks for your time, Sergeant,” I said, holding out my hand.

  She took it; her grip was firm, strong even.

  “Please, call me Sarah.”

  “Sarah, then. Please, take a seat. This is my lead investigator, Bob Ryan, and this is Heather Stillwell, and Tim Clarke is my expert in all things to do with computers. So what can you tell us?”

  “Before I try to do that, why don’t you tell me why you’re interested? That way, I can tailor the information to your needs.”

  “Did Kate not tell you about the body they found under the floor of Hill House?”

  “She did, but she didn’t tell me how trafficking is related to a homicide, and a cold one at that.”

  I nodded. “The house, during the period we’re interested in, was used as a homeless shelter. Two separate entities were involved; both of them were in the same business. They still are today, but at different locations. We think at least one of them is involved in pimping, perhaps worse.”

  “Would I know these people?” she asked.

  I looked at Kate, who nodded.

  “William Dickerson is running what he calls—”

  “I know him,” Sarah interrupted. “He’s running some sort of weird home on Cherry. Who’s the other?”

  “The Draycotts.”

  “I know them, too. As far as we know, they are legitimate. The Dickersons though; we’ve had our eye on them for quite a while, but so far we’ve found nothing to hang him with. If they’re into anything illegal, they’re keeping it well under wraps.”

  “What about Salvatore De Luca?” I asked.

  “Yes. We know him quite well. Very professional. Very slick. Very dirty. He’s mobbed up. He also has a team of lawyers at his disposal. We haven’t been able to touch him either.”

  “Well,” I said, “we’re looking at all three of them, though I think you may be right about the Draycotts. Dickerson... well, I know he’s running girls. No,” I said, as she was about to speak. “I don’t have any proof; it’s just a gut feeling based on observation. So?” I looked at her, questioningly.

  “The answer to your question is that human trafficking in this area is prevalent. The general public has no idea what’s going on here and in the county and its surrounds, and it’s getting worse, but it’s not all what you think it is.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “More than fifty percent of all prostitution in the state involving minors is family oriented: usually the pimps are the girls’ fathers.”

  I looked at her, aghast. So did Tim.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Nope. We have a rather unique problem in this area; most of the Southern states do. Sex between family members has been widely accepted as the norm here for generations. That being so, it’s easy to understand that a man who needs to make a payment on his truck will consider his daughter a readymade source of income; he simply sells her to anyone willing to pay. That’s trafficking, of a sort. After the first time, when they find out how easy it is, they do it repeatedly. Eventually, it becomes the norm.”

  We all stared at her.

  “I had no idea,” I said.

  “Very few people do, but it’s bad. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued a report for August of 2012; just one month. It stated that during that month there were ninety-four minors aged between thirteen and seventeen involved in prostitution in one form or another. That, Mr. Starke, is only part of what we’re dealing with; it’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

  She flipped through her notes.

  “The trafficking you are concerned with is quite another story.... Hmmm, maybe I should try to explain the difference. Prostitution is generally a choice. The woman, for one reason or another, decides she can make a living selling her body so she hits the streets and does just that, by choice. Trafficking is when a woman is forced to sell her body. It’s a little more complicated than that, but....”

  She opened her iPad, flipped through several screens. “Let me read to you the official definition of human trafficking. ‘The Palermo Protocols adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2000 define human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.’ It’s all about force, coercion, and fraud, Mr. Starke.... Can I get a drink of water?”

  “Yes, of course.” I got up and went out to get her a bottle from the refrigerator. I remembered those kids in the Dickersons’ community room. I was sure he had more than the few we saw there. Where the hell are they?

  I handed her the bottle, she took a sip, and then continued.

  “Unfortunately, human trafficking is something most people don’t hear much about, especially in a small city like this one, but it’s becoming more of a problem, even here in Chattanooga. It’s about children, enslaved, held against their will, forced into prostitution and hard labor. The pimps use a variety of brainwashing tech
niques to keep the kids under their control. Often, they are literally branded or tattooed to show they are owned, and by whom. If you believe it can’t happen here, you’re wrong,”

  She took another sip of water. I leaned back in my chair. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.

  “Human traffickers often have stables of a dozen, maybe even as many as twenty girls. Does that sound familiar, Mr. Starke?”

  I knew she was alluding to the Dickersons. I nodded, but I didn’t answer.

  “The johns are looking for new experiences, so the procurers, traffickers, pimps, whatever you want to call them, are looking for younger and younger children for their stables, and there are plenty of them on the streets. Some are kids who have run away from abusive homes, and some are enticed to leave “good” homes by promises of money, a fun job or an exciting time. Still others, as I mentioned before, are rented out as prostitutes, or even sold into sex slavery by their own parents, most of whom are either addicted to drugs or economically challenged.”

  “You say sold,” Bob said. “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  “It depends. Could be anywhere from $500 to $5,000, even more; usually, though, it’s closer to the low end of the range, unless it’s a trade sale, between one pimp and another. Then, depending upon the girl... well, you get the idea.”

  “So just how prevalent is it here?” I asked.

  “As of right now, it’s hard to tell, but to give you an idea, last month alone we rescued seven minors aged between thirteen and seventeen. How many are there out there today? God only knows; hundreds, perhaps.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “How can that be?”

  “I’ll give you an example,” she said. “Two weeks ago, we took in a fifteen-year-old girl. She was in bad shape, addicted and infected with syphilis. I asked her how she became a prostitute. ‘I just... met someone,’ she said. That was it. She wouldn’t explain who that someone was, or how she met him or her; that’s right, we don’t even know that. She wouldn’t say another word.”

  She looked down at her iPad, flipped through a few screens, flipped back again, and then looked up at me.

  “Romeo pimps,” she said. “Those ‘someones’ are often handsome young men, even young boys. They target vulnerable girls and women in places like bus stops, malls and... online.... The hidden Internet is a huge driver of trafficking. When you’ve got a minute, check out a site called Back Page. Anyway, the Romeo is caring, loving, romantic, until he has them hooked, and then he will brainwash and isolate his victims. They are nasty, sadistic bastards, and there are more of them out there than we can handle.”

  She sat back, shook her head, obviously upset, took a drink of water, set the bottle down, and looked around the table.

  I thought about Darius Willett.

  “What else?” she asked, though I was sure she didn’t want an answer.

  “So you think the Dickersons are trafficking?” I asked.

  She shrugged, didn’t answer.

  “What happens to the kids you rescue?” Kate asked.

  “We hand them over to DCS. They try to place them with groups like the Draycotts’, but they have only limited capacity. Some we send home, if we think the parents can handle it. Some run away again, go back to their pimps.”

  She paused, thought for a moment, and then continued.

  “Look, what you don’t understand, what most privileged folks don’t understand, is that many of these kids come from abusive families. They are often treated better by their pimps than they were at home. They’re used to being treated badly. It’s their norm, their baseline; they expect nothing more.”

  She looked at Kate, then at me. “Does that help?”

  I nodded, sighed. I suddenly felt very depressed.

  “Let’s go, Lieutenant,” she said, rising to her feet. “I have a full schedule. Mr. Starke. If I can help, I will.” She handed me her card. “Please, don’t hesitate to call me. I would also ask that you keep me in the loop with your investigation. Good luck to you, sir. Get some bad guys for me, yeah?”

  “Geeze,” I said to Bob after they had left. “Who the hell would have thought it?”

  “All the more reason we take down De Luca,” he said. “Him and Dickerson.”

  “What about the Draycotts?”

  “I think they are probably legit. The PD and DCS wouldn’t use them if they weren’t.”

  I nodded, turned to Tim, and said, “She mentioned a website called the Back Page. Have you heard of it?”

  “Yeah, and Back Door, and a whole bunch more, but if you really want to dig into the murky depths of the Internet, you go to the Dark Web. You can find just about anything you want there.”

  “The Dark Web? What the hell is that?” I asked.

  “The Dark Web, some folks call it the Deep Web, and they would be wrong, because the two are different. The Dark Web is a term used to describe areas on the Internet that can be accessed only through a specialized routing protocol with built-in encryption, an encrypted network that provides anonymity for the user; it hides your IP address, whereas the Deep Web is simply the content of databases and other web services that for one reason or another cannot be indexed by conventional search engines. For example, any website that requires you to log in is part of the Deep Web; your bank, for instance, or credit card company. The Dark Web can only be accessed using a... let’s call it a special browser. It can be a wild and untamed world where the dreaded hackers prowl, looking for victims. I jest, of course, but you do have to be careful. It’s not a place for the faint hearted.”

  “Do you... go there?”

  He laughed. “Of course. That’s what you pay me for.”

  I stared at him. Now I really have something to think about.

  I looked at my watch. It was after five and I needed to get back to Amanda. I also had a lot of thinking to do.

  I wrapped things up, sent everyone home for the weekend, waited until they’d all left the building, set the new security system, and went out to my car. By that time it was after six o’clock and dark outside. I looked at the new gate and smiled. It was quite a piece of equipment: some sixteen feet wide, set in a track and on wheels. A click of the remote and it slid slowly open. I drove out, stopped, clicked the remote and watched as it closed. It settled into the recessed steel jamb that was now attached to the wall of the building. The two steel bolts clicked solidly into place, effectively locking the gate shut. The gate had turned itself into a tempered steel fence. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

  I called Amanda and told her I was on the way. She said she had dinner ready, but that I needed to stop and get some wine. Hmmm. I think I’m going to like having her around.

  I’m not quite sure how to explain my feelings when I arrived home that night. For sure I was a little uneasy. A dedicated bachelor, I was unused to the domestic bliss that confronted me when I walked in the door.

  The table was laid with a white linen cloth and candles for God’s sake, and there was no doubt that the lady could cook. She’d made a classic, Southern-style steak and gravy, and it was just like my mother used to make; she’d even made an apple pie. Geeze!

  I showered, dressed, joined her in the dining room, and she handed me a cut glass tumbler with three fingers of Laphroaig Quarter Cask scotch with a single ice cube, no water. Oh hell, this is too much.

  “Harry. You’re very quiet. What’s wrong?”

  “Ummm, nothing. It’s been a tough day.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Later... maybe. Right now I need to relax. Amanda?”

  She looked at me across the table, worried. “Yes, Harry. What is it?”

  “Look, I don’t know how to say this... but... well, I’m not used to this, this, domesticity; it’s not me. I’m not used to it. I need my space, space to relax, to think. I didn’t think....”

  She reached across the table, took my hand, and said, “I know. I’m sorry. I just thought that.
.. well, our first night, and all. I’ll keep myself to myself in the future. Maybe I can go home soon.”

  I looked at her, sighed, and shook my head. Harry, you can be such a shit sometimes.

  I squeezed her hand. “No. That’s not what I want. Just give me a little time to adapt, okay? It’s nice having you here. In fact, I love it. Now, let’s eat, and then I’ll fill you in.”

  She gave me one of those cute little smiles and said, “Yes, please.” I knew she wasn’t talking about information.

  Chapter 18

  The following morning, we woke early. Well, I did. In fact, I didn’t sleep much at all that night. I had too much on my mind. I watched the clock as the hours rolled by. Tick tock: visions of dead bodies, dirty little girls on street corners, little girls who might have stepped right out of a Dickens novel. Only Fagin was missing.... De Luca, Sam Draycott, Billy Dickerson all haunted my subconscious. I awoke in a cold sweat a little before five o’clock, sat up, and looked down at Amanda. She was breathing gently.

  “Go back to sleep, Harry. It’s too early.” She didn’t even open an eye.

  I got out of bed, made coffee, set a cup on the nightstand beside her, went into the living room, sat down on the sofa and stared out at the river. It was still pitch dark, but the lights on the Thrasher Bridge glittered on the surface of the quiet waters. One by one, high atop the vast black bulk of Lookout Mountain, the lights came on, but I saw none of it. My mind was in a turmoil.

  “Hey, lighten up,” she said, as she snuggled up beside me. “It may never happen.”

  I put my arm around her, sipped on my coffee, stared out into the darkness, and said nothing.

  It must have been thirty minutes later when she stirred, looked up at me and said, “What are we going to do, Harry? This is a nightmare.”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t, because I didn’t know.

  Kate called around nine o’clock. She was in a weird mood, wanted to come over and talk about the second body.

  I looked at Amanda. “Kate wants to come visit, talk shop. You okay with that?”