“What about his foster father?” Lilliana asked, from behind him, coming up to read the monitor. “Where is that bastard?”
“I haven’t got that far yet,” Owen said. “His name is Josh, Josh Cameron. I’m still checking the case file to see if he was taken down and if he served his time.”
“A hell of a lot of pedophiles are in our world right now,” Kate muttered, staring at Owen, willing him to come up with the information. She hated to think that Simon might be classified as guilty of crimes he didn’t commit, having that ring connected to him in ways that she hadn’t expected. But, if his words were true, it would exonerate him.
“You also can’t walk away from the concept that victims of pedophiles often turn around and become abusers themselves,” her sergeant said. “I know that’s not a theory you are looking to explore,” he said, “but we’ve seen it time and time again.”
She nodded, hating the truth of the words. “That’s true,” she said. “But we haven’t linked him to any of these children, have we?”
“Not sure we tried that hard,” Owen said.
Immediately Colby jumped up. “And that’s your job today,” he said. “Go through all these current cases and see if there’s anything you can lay at Simon’s feet. Any kind of connection, no matter how small, and we bring him in and talk to him here,” he said. “Because, no matter what, we need to know just what the hell happened to him since then.”
She turned to look at him. “What we need to know is whether he was involved with anybody else. Pedophiles often had other children,” she said. “And maybe some of those are still around too.”
“Good. Keep thinking. This is breaking wide open,” Colby said. “Everybody at it.”
People got up and headed toward various corners of the office, all energized at this new link in their case. She walked over to stand beside Owen. “Anything else in there?”
“I’m sending them to the printer,” he said. “Back then there wasn’t a whole lot in the report. He couldn’t be interviewed because of his age, and he didn’t have much to say. It was his own foster father, after all. So a lot of intimidation tactics at play here.”
“Also, at that age,” she said, “he wouldn’t have known that this was anything but normal. But where the hell was the damn foster mother?”
“I’m not seeing anything in here about the mother,” Owen said.
“Did you send it all to the printer yet?” she asked.
“Yeah, the whole file,” he said. “Two copies.”
Lilliana from behind him said, “Print me one too.”
“I’ll do one for everybody,” Owen said. “So we’ll all be on the same page.”
Kate walked over to the printer and sorted out the copies as they came out. She delivered one to everybody and then sat down with a cup of coffee and read hers. In black-and-white, it was easier at a distance, but the minute she saw the picture of the little boy, his wrist in a cast and bruises all over his face and his arms, she knew that this wasn’t just an ordinary sexual abuse case.
“More than just sex abuse going on in this one,” Kate said. “This kid had been beaten to a pulp.”
“According to the interview, that was after Simon told the police what his foster father had done to him,” Owen said.
“So the beating was punishment. Interesting,” Rodney said. “Makes sense though. Pedophiles will do anything to keep themselves safe.”
“So they left Simon with his abusive foster father, even after he told on him?” Lilliana asked, incredulous.
Owen nodded, his lips pressed in a firm line. “You know as well as we do that they probably couldn’t prove the abuse. Hell, they might not even have tried.”
“Until his foster father beat him up.” Lilliana shook her head.
Just then, the phone on Kate’s desk rang. She picked it up, her thoughts still on the picture of the little boy in front of her. Audrey from the front desk was on the line.
“A man here to see you,” she said, “Simon St. Laurant.”
She hopped to her feet and said, “I’ll come out and get him.” She stopped, hung up the phone, turned, and addressed the group. “Simon came in on his own. I asked him to show up at eight this morning, and he did.”
“Good,” Owen said.
“I don’t want you interviewing him at all though,” Colby said, stalking out of his office, obviously having heard her.
“Why not?” she asked.