Larkspur (4 page)

She shrugged.

“
Anyway, I won’t say
anything if you want,” Ivy nodded. “He’s pretty cute and he’s
obviously into you.”

“
You should say whatever
happened,” Wanda said. “He made big mistakes. He has to take the
consequences.”

Ivy nodded. For a moment, their eyes
held.

“
I remember him,” Ivy
said. “I was lying there hoping I would die and he kind of
appeared. I don’t know if I’d have made it if he hadn’t just been
nice. I feel stupid because it was so bad, and he really
didn’t
do
anything much — just money for the cab, you know.”

Wanda nodded.

“
Kinda made me think that
everything was gonna be all right,” Ivy said. “And you know
what?”

The door opened and a woman in a bad suit
came in the room. She was standing in the doorway when the Homeland
Security Agents and the FBI Agent Angie came in behind her.

“
Everything’s pretty all
right now,” Ivy whispered.

Wanda squeezed Ivy’s hand. Ivy squinted at
the woman. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie sit up and
lean forward to assess the situation. Tink leaned back and caught
Ivy’s eye. They sat back to let Charlie deal with whatever was
going to happen. Wanda thought that was a good idea so she sat back
too.

The Homeland Security Agent Art Rasmussen
sat down across from Wanda and Ivy. He gave them a nice smile. The
other Homeland Security Agent Colin Hargreaves sat on the other end
of the table across from Heather and Tink. Wanda’s mom sat down
between Ivy and Wanda and Ivy’s aunts took the end of the table.
Agent Angie had some stern words for the woman in a bad suit before
taking a seat next to the Homeland Security agent nearest
Wanda.

Ivy squirmed next to Wanda.

“
What’s going on?” Charlie
sneered.

“
Charlie,” Sandy said in a
terse whisper.

“
They come marching in
here and . . .”

“
No, he’s right,” Agent
Angie said. “We’ve stuffed you in this room and not told you a
thing. Art?”

“
The problem is that we
have a number of problems,” Agent Art said. He gestured to their
side of the table. “We’ve been arguing over what to do. We finally
agreed to bring the issue to you and let you help us
decide.”

He squinted at the woman in a bad suit.

“
Could you introduce
yourself?” Agent Art asked. “These are children.”

“
Oh,” the woman looked
surprised. She started talking in a flutter of words. “Right. I’m
Collette Lazarian. I’m a Deputy DA. I’m new. There. Um. I’m not
trying your case. I’m just here to relay messages
and . . . stuff.”

As if to make sure what she’d said made
sense, she smiled. Wanda’s mom scowled and Charlie looked like he
was going to eat the woman whole. Agent Colin threw a wad a paper
at Charlie and smiled. Charlie smirked and sat back.

“
Why are we here?” Sandy
asked.

“
Good question,” Agent
Angie gave Sandy a broad smile. “This is a big case, probably one
of the biggest cases any of us has seen.”

“
Why?” Ivy spouted
out.

Agent Angie smiled at her.

“
It’s a big case because
there are so many children involved,” Agent Angie said. “And
because there are so many victims involved.”

Agent Angie looked across the table and
smiled at all of the kids.

“
It’s also a big case
because there’s a lot of media attention and this is such a
horrible thing,” Agent Angie said.

“
We want to keep that at
the forefront,” Agent Art said. “What you each experienced was
horrendous. That’s a fact. We don’t want to minimize what you went
through.”

“
You haven’t answered my
question,” Sandy said. Everyone was so surprised that Sandy spoke
up that they turned to look at her. “Why are we here? The kids have
to go to school tomorrow. They have school work and other
activities. We’ve spent an hour sitting in this room while
you . . . discuss?”

Wanda saw a flash of a smirk across Agent
Art’s face. He clearly had said the same thing. No one on the other
side of the table said anything. Sandy nodded. She stood up from
her seat. Following her lead, Heather popped to her feet.

“
I’ve had enough,” Sandy
said. “We’re leaving. When we come back, we’ll come back with our
lawyers.”

The agents looked at the woman from the DA’s
office from the side of their eyes.

“
Charlie?” Sandy
asked.

“
Oh, you can’t leave,” the
woman from the DA’s office said.

“
Why not?” Sandy
asked.

“
We . . .”

“
Your problems have
nothing to do with us,” Sandy said.

“
Sandy, please,” Agent
Angie said.

“
Make it quick,” Sandy
looked at the woman from the DA. “You have five
minutes.”

The woman swallowed hard.

“
Art? Why don’t
you . . .?” Agent Angie nodded to him.

“
The question one is who
to charge. Question two is what charges to file,” Agent Art said.
“While the DA has heard from the community that every child should
be charged to the maximum allowed by law, and he’s willing to do
that, he wondered if it might be too much.”

“
For whom?” Sandy
asked.

“
For the children,” the
woman from the DA’s office said.

“
Victims,” Agent Angie
said.

“
Yes, them too,” the woman
from the DA’s office said

“
Art, why don’t you lay it
out?” Agent Colin asked a little too fast.

Agent Art nodded. He got up from his seat
and went to a white board.

“
We have groups of
criminals,” Agent Art said. “We have the boys who purchased the
videos. They can be charged with, at the very least, possession of
child pornography.”

Agent Art drew a big circle on the
board.

“
We have another group of
criminals who participated in some way in your assaults. This is
really two groups. One group of boys didn’t participate. They got
high and were bystanders. Some of them drove the boys to and from
the assaults. At the very least, they are guilty of not reporting a
crime and aiding and abetting criminal activity.”

Agent Art drew a smaller circle.

“
Some of those cases,”
Agent Art nodded to Wanda, “have already been fast tracked through
the system, like Wanda’s friend Frankie. These boys were willing to
give evidence to the assaults and pled guilty to their part of it.
Now they can still be brought back if we find they were more
involved in these crimes. But for now, most of this group is
working their way through the system.”

“
There is a group of boys
who, well, I call them the ‘beaters,’” Agent Art grinned. “Charlie,
you’ve interacted with these boys. These boys like to fight. They
beat up Wanda. They did the majority of the battery against the
girls and women. Charlie, Tink, and Wanda have given us good
evidence against these guys. This group, we can get on a hate crime
because of what they did to Wanda.”

Agent Art drew a smaller circle on the
board.

“
There’s another group of
boys who I call the ‘rapists,’” Agent Art drew a circle about the
size of the last circle. “These are the boys who raped and
assaulted the girls and women.”

“
And then there’s the
leader,” Agent Art drew and “X” on the board. His voice took on a
noticeable chill. “He has the contacts to sell the videos to the
larger conglomerate. He also sells meth and marijuana mixtures. And
he likes . . .”

Agent Art looked at the kids across the
table and stopped talking.

“
Anyway, he’s not going
anywhere very fast,” Agent Art said.

“
We’re trying to decide if
he should be tried by every juridical agency involved,” Agent Angie
said. “Or in Federal Court. We’re leaning Federal, but that’s one
of the questions for you.”

“
As victims, you have the
right to say what you think should happen,” the woman from the DA’s
office found her voice. “You can tell us that you want to prosecute
everyone or no one. It’s up to you
but . . .”

“
We’re also asking every
victim, so it’s not just you,” Agent Angie talked over the woman
from the DA’s office. “The DA’s office wants to be fair, but also
realizes . . .”

“
This guy,” Agent Art
gestured to the “X” on the board. “He’s a big deal. They want to
get all of these people to give evidence against him. That way they
make sure to catch the big fish.”

“
Even the biggest fish
isn’t enough food for everyone,” Colin said.

“
He means that all of
these other boys will go free without consequence if they only
prosecute the big fish,” Agent Angie said.

“
So the guys who beat me
up could go out and beat someone else up?” Wanda asked rose. “They
called me a freak. They wanted to kill me.”

Edith put her hand on Wanda’s back.

“
That’s the problem,”
Agent Art nodded.

“
And we’re just supposed
to decide that?” Charlie asked. “Right now? No. I’m not deciding
something like that because you have some pressure to make a
decision.”

He got up. Tink and Ivy hopped to their feet
because he did.

“
We’ll think about it,”
Sandy got up and walked to the door. Agent Colin opened the door
for them.

“
We need to make these
decisions as soon as possible,” the woman from the DA’s office
said. “These children are languishing in jail. We have to tell the
parent’s something.”

“
Maybe you should tell
their parents that their sons shouldn’t be rapists?” Heather glared
at the woman. “Try that on for size.”

Sandy and Charlie left the room. Heather and
Tink followed. It took Wanda minute to get up. Ivy and her aunts
left the room.

“
You understand don’t
you?” the woman from the DA asked Wanda. “You don’t want to ruin
these boys’ entire lives just because you want to play dress up, do
you?”

“
Shut the fuck up,” Agent
Angie pushed the woman out of the room. Agent Colin winked at Wanda
and followed them.

“
Can I help you out?”
Agent Art asked.

“
We’re all right,” Wanda’s
mom said.

“
I could use some help,”
Wanda’s voice gave away how upset she was.

“
Wanda,
we . . .”

Agent Art scooped Wanda up off her feet.

“
How’s that?” Agent Art
asked.

Wanda giggled and gave her mom her crutches.
Agent Art acted like he was carrying a princess. He set her down in
the lobby and picked up her hand.

“
Don’t ever let them get
you down,” he said under his breath. He kissed her hand. Nodding to
her mom, he left the lobby.

“
Well, that
was . . . pretty wow,” Wanda’s mom raised her
eyebrows and Wanda nodded. “Pizza?”

Wanda nodded and they made their way out to
the car.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday mid-afternoon — 3:22 a.m.

Sam waited in his truck at the parking lot
to Barr Lake State Park until he saw a white truck with the State
Inspector’s seal pull up next to him. He got out and waited until
his friend, Barry Radow got out of his truck. He fell in beside the
state inspector. They walked in silence along the path around the
drought diminished lake. They had gone a ways away from the parking
lot before Barry glanced at Sam.

“
Your boy’s caused quite a
fracas,” Barry said.

Sam nodded.

“
I don’t think you get
it,” Barry said. “This is a big f-ing deal. If Jake’s right, and he
probably is, your company was set up. The new state attorney is
looking into whether to file criminal charges.”

Sam grimaced and nodded.

“
The whole thing
is . . .” Barry shook his head.

“
I know,” Sam
said.

“
He’s really going to do
it?” Barry asked.

“
Lipson Construction is
pulling off of the site,” Sam said. “Period. I’m not going to put
my people in harm’s way. If they keep fracking, which they will,
and the site keeps building, the ground is going to shake at some
point. I want myself, my family, my people to be miles away when
that happens.”

Barry sucked in a breath and they walked in
silence for a while.

“
You think the grounds
gonna shake?” Barry asked.

“
I know it’s going to,”
Sam said.

Barry scowled. They lapsed into silence
again.

“
You know what the other
companies are saying?” Barry asked.

“
I don’t really care what
they’re saying,” Sam said.

“
Good thing,” Barry
said.

“
What did your department
decide?” Sam asked.

“
The state’s pulling all
of your contracts,” Barry said. “You leave that site, you can say
‘bye-bye’ to state projects, at least for a while.”

“
Thought as much,” Sam
said.

“
For what it’s worth, I
think you were set up,” Barry said.

“
Of course we were set
up,” Sam said. “We’re in the middle of this transition
and . . .”