The Summer Job - 44. Radioactive Potato

Sergeant Daniels had fallen asleep watching a series on ESPN that focused on each NFL teams new draft class. An avid fan of pro football and a long-suffering follower of the Washington Football Team, he would never get used to that, he enjoyed watching the whole soap opera play out from the draft in April all the way to the Super Bowl.

The NFL preview show had long since been replaced by endless yammering about baseball when his phone pinged and pierced his dozing with an incoming email. He picked it up and saw that his new best buddy Otter had been a busy boy.

He left the television and went into his home office, pulled up web mail and saw that Otter had left him two emails, both with attachments.

Rather than try to read them off the computer, he saved them onto a USB thumb drive and printed out a seven-page text monster. He took them to the kitchen started a cup of coffee and began reading.

He liked the way Otter divided up the information into primary, secondary and tertiary sources. It gave him a good barometer of just how reliable it was. Otter was thoughtful, meticulous and clearly understood the difference between fact and rumor.

It started with tertiary sources but got more reliable as the document pressed forward. When it named the Vice Principle of the Middle School in a sex and drug scandal that was so... gross it made his skin crawl, he sat bolt upright. As he went through the document, the information became closer with secondary sources, and Daniels got even more dismayed. Toward the end, Otter switched to primary sources and the narrative got downright damning.

Then Daniels went back to the attachments and watched the video, he nearly fell out of his chair. There was the principal suspect with three other men on video with two boys that couldn’t be more than fourteen, and two sex acts.

The next thing he did was use a VPN with the Police Departments systems and ran the plates. When he found out who the mystery men were, he cursed vilely: they were a city councilman, bank executive and a lawyer. The email promised there would be even more people present the next night.

He spent another half hour verifying everything: the website where the principles communicated was just so causal. No one would know unless they had specific knowledge, but they were so open about it and, it went back six months when the system chopped them off. It was a no-brainer that they went even further, probably for years. Daniels had to wonder: how long had this been going on and, how far back did it go? How many victims would there be?

Sergeant Daniels knew that was what Phillip had meant when he said it will explain a lot of your problems over the last couple of years and a huge one was marijuana and party drugs in the hands of Middle School students.

What had landed in the good Sergeant’s inbox wasn’t just a hot potato. It was radioactive and would kill anyone’s career who just let it sit around.

He steeled his resolve and looked through his phone and found the Assistant District Attorney who handled the lion’s share of the sex crime cases. He hated to call her at one in the morning but, this was a crime actually in progress that had enormous implications for the integrity of the city and the police department in particular.

This little emailed nuke was entirely too radioactive to sit around. He wondered if... Holy Mother! He couldn’t just assume that the drug case and this mess were related but, the pieces fit. After all, Otter had handed him both cases. He would pass the suspicion along, and maybe they could find a connection.

Karen Callahan’s cell phone rang at ten minutes after one am. She didn’t even bother looking at the caller ID. She answered tersely, “Callahan.”

“Sorry to call you so late Mam, but I’ve got a source that just sent me something too hot to wait until Monday.”

She sighed and asked, “What is it?”

Daniels said, “Drugs, underage sex, prostitution, kiddie porn and probably fifty other things I can’t even think of right now. My informant sent me video of the primary suspect and three other adults handling boys that can’t be more than fourteen years old.”

Callahan sat up, “You’ve got my attention. How good is your source?”

“Platinum. He handed us a drug case on a silver platter this afternoon and told me he was still putting this one together. You should see how organized this is. He’s got his sources broken down in such a way that it gives you a feel for just how reliable it is. The reason I went straight to you are the other adult suspects. I identified them by their license plates. One of them is on the city council, another is a banker and the last one is a lawyer. We have to hold this one close until we pull the trigger.”

Callahan said, “Forward it to me. I want to look at it before I start pushing buttons.”

Daniels said, “My thinking exactly. It’s on its way. I think we’re in for a long night and days of work with this one. I want to be kicking doors when these creeps start partying again tomorrow night.”

Karen Callahan got up, put on a robe and made her way to the kitchen. She put on a cup of coffee. It looked like her trip to see Mom was off. Timmy and his friend Scotty were asleep in his room as she passed his door heading to her home office.

She printed out the text, went for coffee and started reading when she came back. Twenty minutes later when she was done, she was as astonished with the document as Daniels. The quality of the document was superb. Like Daniels had said, the author had done an excellent job telling what he knew, thought he knew and only suspected. It started out with background but came into very sharp focus and ended with certainties, primary sources and damning videos and photos.

Karen Callahan had seen some ugly things working sex crimes. It was how she had gotten her professional nickname— “Dirty Harriet”. This was the worst by far. A Vice Principle of a Middle School was a happy hunting ground for a sexual predator with a taste for sadism and, her son went to that school.

Searching her memory, she had heard a lot of carping from Timmy about how tense things were and, how the bullying never seemed to stop. He wasn’t happy there but that seemed to be a universal experience for Middle Schoolers everywhere. Timmy’s time with the swim team this summer had been great for him. She was delighted that Timmy had a new friend, and she couldn’t have picked a better one for him than Scotty Cross. He was a very sweet boy and a real cutie.

Karen Callahan started making calls. Daniels was right. They needed warrants and they needed them yesterday. Based on what Otter had handed them, she could get them too.

Finally, she took a shower, got dressed for work and made one last call at a little before two-thirty.

A bleary voice answered, “This is Phillip.”

“Hi Phillip. This is Timmy’s Mom, Karen Callahan. Something from work has come up, and I had to cancel my trip tomorrow. Is your invitation for Timmy and Scotty still open?”

Phillip replied, “Sure. I’m somewhat dead right now, but I promise to be a better host in the morning.”

Mrs. Callahan said, “Great. They were disappointed they missed out. They’ll be sleepy but glad to see you. Look for us in about twenty minutes or so.”

Phillip used the time to get Seth, David and Billy to bed which left the couch in the custody of Britt and Tanner. He opened the garage and waited a few minutes for Mrs. Callahan’s car to arrive.

She apologized for the late hour, but a big case had landed on her desk with no warning. Timmy and Scotty, three quarters asleep followed Phillip inside. He parked them on the sofa in his room and ended up asleep on his bed between Stevie, Randy and Mikie.