The Summer Job - 46. Saturday

Phillip woke to the buzz of his cell phone at a little after eight. Mikie, Stevie and Randy were gone, but Timmy and Scotty had taken their place. Phillip reached over them and tried not to disturb them.

He could smell breakfast smells, and answered his phone sounding a lot more awake than he really was. He looked at the caller-id and answered, “Good morning, Madam Mayor.”

She responded to his greeting with laughter and said, “It’s entirely too early on a Saturday morning for such formality. I’m calling because some urgent city business came up and, I won’t be in today.”

Phillip asked, “Do you need someone to hang out with Rodney while you’re out?”

“That would be a big help.”

“His buddy Tanner is either asleep on my couch or having breakfast. He and Britt stayed over last night.”

She sighed and said, “That would be perfect, thank you, Phillip. I’ve got to run.”

Phillip hung up and thought I’ll bet you have some urgent city business.

He turned over and put his arms around a giggling Timmy and Scotty and asked, “Now what would you two pups like to do today?”

Mayor Jefferson put her cell phone in her purse and returned to her office. She asked the most burning question on her mind, “How on earth did he get away with it for so long?’

Deputy District Attorney Callahan replied, “It’s complicated, Mam. Part of it is adolescent psychology and planning on the perp’s part. Adolescent males that have been abused by men are extremely reluctant to report it. It gets even more complicated when it is consensual.”

Martha Jefferson asked incredulously, “Consensual!?”

Callahan said, “With boys this age, their hormones and natural curiosity lead them to try things us mothers would wish they would leave alone until college. That’s just the half of it. According to our source, he doesn’t recruit these boys. He uses his gang to recruit them, and they use traditional gang methods to retain loyalty and enforce silence.”

Truly fascinated, the Mayor asked, “How does that work?”

Daniels of the Youth Division answered, “Once the gang recruits someone, they make them get their hands dirty. They deal some weed, pills, maybe even some coke. In this case, they have them engage in prostitution, so they can’t run to us. This strategy exerts control over the members and isolates them from adults or authority figures that could help them. It is basically junior varsity organized crime.”

Mayor Jefferson asked, “Was there no sign of this at all?”

Callahan sighed and said, “Truthfully, there were probably all sorts of signs. The problem is: They could have meant anything. There will be Monday morning quarterbacks that will say we should have seen it coming, but no one could have.”

Daniels said, “Most of it could have been chalked up to typical youth gang stuff like the bullying and drugs. The difference here were the party drugs. We don’t usually see that in Middle Schools. We stomp on it hard wherever we find it. There was one other lead our source gave us, I’m still running down. He told us about a Coach Hardin who resigned around Thanksgiving. He had been butting heads with Farmer for years.”

Mayor Jefferson shook her head and said, “There’s no way around it. This is going to be a horror show. Have we got all of our ducks in a row?”

Callahan said, “I’ve got warrants for the Farmer house, financials, vehicles and any rental properties he may have. Gaddis from the Sheriff’s Department is working with the DEA on the drug side of this.”

Daniels said, “Farmer’s house is under constant surveillance. We have a man in a nearby house. After dark, we’ll fly a drone over the park with low light optics to keep an eye on the back door. We’ll serve those warrants at midnight with two tactical teams: one in the front and one from the Park Side. We’re going in fast and loud, cuff them all and sort them out.”

Mayor Jefferson asked, “What are the chances of anyone getting hurt?”

Daniels said, “It can happen, Mam. Anytime you make an entry and suspects are high on drugs, it’s a crap shoot. My biggest concern is a hostage situation.”

The Mayor stiffened at the suggestion and said, “How real a possibility is that?”

Daniels shrugged and replied, “The adults will know instantly when we kick doors, their lives are about to burn down around them. They’ll be desperate, but apparently this has gone on long enough that they’ve gotten complacent. We saw in the video clip that they were about to have sex right there on the patio. There’s just no telling which way they’ll jump. If they do make a move, our SWAT guys aren’t going to take chances. They’ll put laser sighted nine millimeter slugs in their brains if any of them make a hostile move on a kid.”

Callahan added, “Farmer has even more incentive than the rest. This state has laws that go even harder on educators who molest kids and, it looks like, he might have killed Hunter Young. In fact, we’ve done some digging. Sixteen boys who fit Farmer’s victim profile have gone missing from the interstate corridor one hundred miles in both directions in the twenty-two years Farmer has been living in town. I don’t know if that is a coincidence, but we need to find out.”

Breakfast was a casual affair. Casey had made a bunch of biscuits and prepared egg, bacon and sausage. You could construct your biscuits any way you chose. Phillip had a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and a cup of coffee that made McDonald's efforts look sad by comparison.

Britt took Jeffry and Tanner to hang out with Rodney.

As most of the crowd were swimmers, the rest of the morning was spent in the pool teaching James, Marcus, Luke and Jon-Jon the basics of swimming. Phillip was impressed with their quick progress. James and Marcus had some tutoring on Friday, but all four learned fast and showed promise.

Phillip needed the practice coaching. He would be taking on the Barracudas for real Monday morning.