The Summer Job - 60. Into Darkness

Reinforced with a yellow legal pad for notes, coffee and a pair of microwaved day old doughnuts, Detective Butler got comfortable at the table in the evidence cage and settled in for the long haul.

He continued with Farmer’s narrative.

June 2007- School is out, and it’s worse. There are kids out in all the places the perp uses to hunt. A serial killer isn’t the only danger out there for them. Tonight I ran into a dispute between a hustler and a trucker. The boy offered him oral sex for a ride, but the trucker wanted to fuck him. Frustrated, the trucker grabbed the kid by the hair and started to drag him to his rig. I was about to intervene when another trucker did just long enough for the kid to get away.

That didn’t dissuade the kid. He just got away from the irate John and went looking for another. I caught his eye and ended up talking to him. He was just passing through from up north somewhere heading to Florida. Good-looking kid who needed some clean clothes and a shower. No intelligence value, but I’m never ceased to be amazed at just how many kids are out here: neglected, abused or homeless. I helped him best I could and drove him as far South as the end of the hunting grounds.

Butler paged forward.

July 2007- It’s hot, miserable and a little scary. Truckers aren’t the only predators out here. I’ve been watching a guy in a Nissan truck with a taste for the younger ones. He’s probably a local as he doesn’t get too far from Emporia. Younger kids like my middle schoolers are a minority, but they are a few of them. He wasn’t the guy I was looking for. My target is more of an omnivore. This one is definitely a gourmet.

About two in the morning he got frustrated and tried to get rough with a boy and got knifed for his trouble. It served him right. I picked up the plucky fourteen-year-old, bought him a meal and left him fifty miles down the road from the prick.

Butler recorded the date, time and location and went forward.

September 2007- This is dangerous work. I got targeted by some would be gay bashers. It didn’t go well for them. When they saw things weren’t going as planned, one of them pulled a knife. He didn’t know how to use it. Those three numb nutzes will think twice next time. I doubt they’ll need surgery, but knife boy will need a cast.

October 2007- I ran into a thirteen-year-old named Pete at a truck stop today and received an education. The cute little guy walked right up to my truck and asked if I wanted to have some fun. I told him I just wanted to talk. He was disappointed, but got in the truck anyway. I asked him why he was hustling, and he answered- because it’s fun. I get money and, they usually suck me off, so it’s a win-win.

I asked if he was scared, and he said no. He wouldn’t do it with anyone he feared. I asked him how he got started, and he pointed at the fence line and said I live in a trailer park just through those woods. Some older boys talked about making money over here, so I tried it. I like men and they like me. It gives me an edge to get what I want for a change.

Pete offered to blow me again but, I declined. I gave him forty bucks and my card, told him what I was doing and why. He hugged me, kissed me on the cheek and promised to be careful.

I don’t know how cops do it. How can you do this and not get attached? I wanted to take that cute little brat home just to get him out of harm’s way.

November 2007- There’s got to be a better way. I’ve been doing some reading to try to figure this out. If anyone pulls up my Amazon account, they’ll probably be a little worried. Reading about serial killers is simply chilling. There is no end to the theories about what makes them do what they do. School is back in session, so there aren’t as many targets out there. I’m too busy to patrol like I did in the summer. I’m going to study the killers, what makes them tick and police methods to see if it makes my work more productive.

Butler noted that the further into cold weather, the tempo of Farmer’s activities decreased. He recognized some titles Farmer was reading. They were criminology textbooks.

December 2007- Reading about serial killers and how they work is ghastly stuff. I can’t imagine how they get so messed up. I’m not sure the MacDonald Triad(1) will help me much as people don’t generally talk about their adolescent bed-wetting, arson and cruelty to animals.

Reading about guys like Dean Coril, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffry Dahmer, something stands out. They use a lure like drugs, sex, money or some combination of the three. All of their victims appear to suffer from a certain level of parental neglect.

The psychology of the boys has to play a large part in it as well. A well-adjusted kid from a functional home and family isn’t a likely victim. I could probably assign a point system and profile potential victims: one point for a dysfunctional or broken home, one point for parental neglect, one point for drug or alcohol use, one point for sexually acting out and, one point for hustling. Any kid that scores a five has to be considered a potential victim.

Detective Butler sat back in his chair stunned. Farmer seemed to have a nose for this. Butler knew how this ended; Farmer eventually got Allen. Seeing how he went about it, he wasn’t surprised. Farmer was smart, methodical and meticulous. He would have made an excellent detective. Judging from what he had seen so far, he had become one.

December 2007- I ran into Pete again. The kid is like a bouncy little puppy. I can’t imagine anyone harming him, but according to my scale, he’s a five. I took him to a movie, had a steak at Longhorn and I took him to do a little Christmas shopping. In spending time around him, Pete is starving for affection. He wants to be in your lap or holding your arm. I think Pete may have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. As a teacher, I've seen it from time to time. Why am I doing this? It’s for Pete and kids like him that are drawn to peril like moths to a flame.

February 2008- My application to be an emergency foster parent has been accepted...

Butler continued reading. In the spring of that year, Pete’s father went to prison. Soon afterwards, Pete’s mother left and did not come home. Three days later when it was clear she wasn’t coming back, Pete called Farmer who went and picked him and his things up from his trailer which had no electricity. He went to the county CPS people who took Pete in, checked him out, declared him abandoned and were delighted to grant temporary custody of Pete to Farmer.

Farmer’s patrols slacked at that point. Apparently, he was a doting foster parent to the boy. That summer Pete was adopted by a couple who agreed to allow Farmer to continue to be a part of his life. Charles Farmer had saved Pete Swanson. He had known the right buttons to push and had made the system work for the boy.

The more Chris Butler read of Farmer and his work, the better he liked him. How did it go so wrong?

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1 The MacDonald Triad (or the Triad of Sociopathy) are a set of three behaviors in adolescents that predict violent behavior: bed-wetting, setting fires and animal cruelty.