Tony stood there with his arms at his side like a kid being fussed over on a Sunday morning. “Ray helped me. I think he wants me to look as good as he does.”
“I like it.” She gave the knot one final yank and smoothed down the tie. Ray walked in and stopped short, looking at the two of them. Carol was close to Tony, inside his space, patting his chest. The scene was almost intimate. He wondered if he was interrupting something. He also wondered what his niece would think.
Then he shrugged it off. Tony and Carol had known each other a long time. There were the rumors, true, but Ray had his own romantic queasiness and a murder to solve. He had spent most of the night reading Lakisha Marland’s book. The honesty and emotion-the sense of despair in it had bothered him. Lakisha wrote in her own voice. He imagined he could hear her speaking in the passages where the main character described her journey from shame and hopelessness toward understanding. Laticia Lafleur hadn’t killed that girl in the bar and Lakisha Marland hadn’t murdered her friend Deanna.
Ray approached, smiling at his partner. He was pleased, but Tony was a bit overdressed for chasing down a college kid on the busy, sprawling U campus.
“Looking good, partner.” Ray watched while Tony did a slow turn, showing off, proud of his new look.
“He cleans up pretty good, doesn’t he?” Carol added. “I just hope he doesn’t get too dirty when we get into what I dug up on Stuckey yesterday.” Playtime was over. It was time to get to work. They grabbed coffee and ducked into the meeting room so Carol could spread out her files.
“None of my old contacts out west were much help. I guess there’s a pretty high burnout rate for people working sex crimes in the LA area.” Carol found the file she was looking for and continued.
“Then I found Marcy Shriver. Marcy’s a supervisor in the LA version of our Sex Crimes Unit. Listening to her made me glad I live here.”
“She found something on Stuckey?”
“Oh yeah. Now I know why Kumpula thought the case out there was murky. Here’s what happened. LA Vice busted a video shoot. They had a tip that some internet porn producers were using underage talent. They went in thinking they were looking for young girls being filmed.”
Ray frowned. “Not the case?”
“No, but not what you’d think. Two young men had started a web site-get this-called ‘Ur MoM is So Hott’. They would film these young studs getting it on with older women and sell views and downloads. All by credit card. One of the kid’s fathers is a big shot with one of the studios.”
“Stuckey’s not underage,” Tony pointed out.
“Let me finish. They only made seven videos total. Stuckey was only involved with the last shoot, the one that was busted, or so he said. He and the two underage guys were doing the nasty with two women. Turns out the women were part-timers, older gals making a buck they thought.”
“So what’s murky? You said two of the guys were underage, that’s pretty cut and dried isn’t it? And if the women were having sex for pay, that’s prostitution, right?” It seemed straightforward to Tony.
“LA Vice didn’t see any money change hands or get anything about money on tape. The gals both said it was consensual, so did Stuckey. They didn’t know the two boys were underage, or so they said. And it’s not against the law to produce porn and sell it on the web.”
“It should be,” Ray muttered.
“But the DA didn’t buy the consensual story. I mean, it was no secret they were selling downloads. They’re really pissed about the underage stuff out there. There’s a lot of it.”
Tony was still puzzled. “So they prosecuted?”
“They wanted to, but they didn’t find the computers. The operation was 100 % digital, remember. What they think happened is that the studio big shot found out what the kid was up to, maybe he was in on it, they don’t know. They think the servers got erased and sold, probably overseas. Maybe they were destroyed. No trace. No financial records. No footage. Nothing.”
“But what about the, uh…episodes that got sold? Those are out there.”
“Remember there were only seven. It takes time for these things to build up steam. According to Marcy the earliest episodes were filmed with hidden cameras, or semi-hidden ones. The video quality was crappy, the sound was crappy, and they weren’t in very much demand. In the first three episodes the women didn’t know they were being taped.”
Ray shook his head, disgusted. “Jesus.”
“And according to Marcy, it was after a problem with the third shoot that the young entrepreneurs started hiring the talent, the women.”
“Well, that’s sure as hell against the law, too. You can’t film anyone without their knowledge for your own use; much less hawk it on the internet.” Ray was pleased to see his new partner was indignant and angry about the crimes.
“You can until you get caught. The producer guy, he’s really rich. Marcy thinks he set some geeks up with a bunch of cash and they bought every episode they could get a line on. There are some still out there, but think about it…if you have a bunch of porn on your computer are you going to advertise it?”
“So they dropped the case.”
Carol shrugged. “They had to. There wasn’t any evidence. Want a sobering thought? Marcy said they consider it a victory anyway. The boys are out of business. The porn they produced is off the market, and for all practical purposes, gone.”
“So Stuckey does this porn shoot, no doubt for some cash along with him having a reputation as a horn dog, and gets jammed up when the shoot is busted?”
“That seems to be it.”
Tony cocked his head to the side, talking to himself as much as the others. “I wonder if he was involved before, in the earlier episodes.”
Ray probed further, anxious for a lead, for something to connect the dots scattered about. “Carol, did Marcy have any of the videos, the other episodes?”
Carol laughed, but there was no humor in it. “They did. They had copies of all the episodes at one time, but remember I told you about the geeks and the cash?”
“Yeah.”
“They don’t have them anymore. Imagine that.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this.” Tony’s voice was low and firm. He was the only one who had met Stuckey. He was the one who had met the girlfriend, Angie, and knew first hand that Stuckey wasn’t choosy about the women he slept with. He and Ray had just the night before heard Lakisha Marland describe a disturbing scene at a sex club in LA-where Stuckey was from.
Several what-ifs came to mind but he couldn’t voice them all. Not yet. “Carol? Do you think Marcy could come up with the dates each episode went online?”
“I can ask her.”
“What are you thinking, Tony?” Ray had ideas of his own, and one of them dovetailed with Tony’s question. He wanted to hear Tony work it through.
“What if the bust wasn’t the first time he’d worked for the kids?”
“This is getting very complicated.” Carol started gathering her files, talking while she did. “I’ll talk to Marcy again. When did the ‘Go Girls’ go to LA?”
“Last Spring. Late April. I’ll get you the exact dates.” Ray said.
“Do that. I might have another track. I’ve got to make a few calls. Can we get some money?” Ray knew that Carol meant money for a snitch. It was a front page, high profile, Murder 1 case. Money shouldn’t be a problem. But who would she want to bribe?
Ray checked his watch. Tony would have to leave soon to match up with Stuckey at the film class. He decided he was going with him. It was time for Ray Bankston to meet Sean Stuckey.
Ted and Vang were out still working the neighborhood, the morning survey today, and Carol had a plate full. Ray dialed the lab and talked to Jonny Kumpula briefly. He needed an extra body that knew how to work a camera.
“We’re going to have to be careful with this one.” Ray, in the passenger seat this time, was happy to let Tony untangle the streets and parking problems on the campus. “I don’t want this fella’ to run on us.”