Telling Fortunes in Phoenix

Blake

Detective Blake was up early. From his office he called Estrella Jail, the women’s facility, but found that some roundup yesterday had caused an overflow and Parks had been sent to Tent City. When he called the Lower Buckeye Unit to arrange her release he was told they were in lock-down. No business would be done today.

Well, shit. Sara Parks was in jail for getting on his last nerve and dicking him around but he hadn’t planned to leave her in for long.

He’d never met a ‘psychic’ before. Ms. Parks owned her own home in a middle-class neighborhood, mortgage paid off, she did okay. Crystal gazing and the like were not illegal in Phoenix, but the best confidence tricksters worked hard. They did their homework and knew their mark before the start of play.

She had made some surprising speculations but they had nothing to do with the drug inquiry he was working on. And she said that none of his principals, none of the people they were discussing, were involved. Maybe she had a vendetta against someone that she didn’t want to go at directly so she thought she could sic the cops on them. If so she wasn’t very good at it. If she’d spell out what she knew maybe he could help her but instead he was stuck floundering.

He heaved a sigh. Back to police work. He’d seen Stepan’s apartment and applied for a search warrant but this morning the denial, rather sharply worded, sat on his desk. Maybe the man was home today.

He drove to the Scottsdale address as he pondered. The apartment was on the second floor of a generic apartment building, two stories in a c-shape looking into a center community pool. The halls were open to the air. He watched the place for a bit and didn’t see any neighbors about. He’d just go up and peek in the window.

He climbed the stairs to the upper story and knocked on Stepan’s door. He knocked again. No activity. Casually he took a highly illegal device from his pocket and opened the door, then walked in as if he’d been invited. No one objected.

Closing the door behind him he donned latex gloves and began a thorough search, looking for drugs. People could be quite casual in their own homes and kept their pot or cocaine inside a cupboard or drawer, sometimes on the coffee table. After spotting the back door he went through the usual hiding places.

The apartment had two bedrooms, one used as a den. The dishes were washed and the floors clean. The only sign of luxury was an old silver Samovar on the counter between the kitchen and living room. The search so far revealed nothing but Blake was not in a hurry. The apartment’s occupant was probably at work and if he came home Blake would hear him and dash out the back. He went to the office and sat at the man’s desk. The bookshelf had titles in Russian as well as English, technical manuals mixed indiscriminately with science fiction paperbacks.

Blake’s hands were sweaty inside his gloves and he knew they’d be completely prune-like when he’d finished but he moved on to search the through the desk. A large drawer on the lower right contained files and there he was dismayed to find information related to human trafficking. Scanning the titles he saw Stepan had collected stories from newspapers and magazines about children being sold or abducted around the world. There were also specific ‘missing children’ reports, mostly from Asia and Africa. The Russian folder was the thickest but there was also data on Mexican Nationals.

Was this Stepan’s hobby, or was this data part of a business operation? How did Ms. Parks know about this? Was she involved? Why would she alert him if she stood to gain from the business? If there was a business.

He was glad now that his partner had been co-opted. He wouldn’t like her to know about his illegal search and he wouldn’t be writing a report about it.

Law enforcement agencies, especially in states allowing international access, received training on the recognition of human trafficking. If this man were dealing with abducted children it was a case for the FBI. Maureen Sturgis thought her son was receiving drugs from this man and that still might be so, but here might be evidence, beyond the psychic’s allegations, that a trafficking operation was going on and Maureen’s son at Child Protective Services could be colluding with this Stepan in funneling unwanted children to buyers. Or not.

These puzzle pieces whirled around in Blake’s head. He didn’t have enough information. He’d already sent one poor idiot to jail, he didn’t want to sic the FBI on this poor schmuck because he had a weird research project. He left everything neatly where he’d found it and let himself out into the quiet of the neighborhood.