Through the Darkness

CHAPTER 14

The Feds moved fast, you had to give them that. At seven the following morning Dante telephoned us to report that the children wouldn’t be going to school that day. He was driving them to the FBI office up in Baltimore to be formally interviewed. Although it would have been hard to refuse the FBI, I was relieved Dante hadn’t dragged his feet on the matter. I took that as sign he had nothing to hide.

Our son-in-law arrived looking fashionably casual in clean chinos, a blue open-collared shirt, and loafer-style leather boat shoes. In response to my question about the woman at Ben and Jerry’s, Dante replied, “I told Agent Crisp that I didn’t notice anyone speaking to the kids, but I had my back to them while I ordered. It was kinda complicated. Chloe’s very picky about her sprinkles.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, remembering that the brown sprinkles couldn’t touch the red and white sprinkles, or we’d have to scrape them all off and start all over again.

“But if there’s the slightest chance this woman was stalking us…” Dante’s voice trailed off.

“Have they interviewed your neighbors?” I asked. “If she were stalking the kids, maybe someone saw her hanging around the neighborhood.”

Dante took a deep breath, let it out. “Agent Brown was talking to the neighbors yesterday, but nobody reported seeing anything unusual, I’m afraid.”

“Any strange cars?”

“Nope.”

I touched his cheek. “You look so tired, Dante.”

“I was up half the night listening to Emily rave on about Roger Haberman.”

“I tossed and turned, too. What a total shock. Did Erika tell you what her connection with the show was?”

“Erika’s already at the house, but I didn’t have time to ask. She and Emily have their heads together in the kitchen, plotting something.” He sighed and leaned back against the door frame. “Frankly, if it will keep Emily occupied and distract her from her grief over Timmy, even for a moment, I’ll be thankful.”

“Still no ransom demand?”

“No. And this late in the game, the police doubt that there will be. And that means they’ll be closing up shop at our place within a day or two.”

Closing up shop. That was a blow. But then, we could hardly expect the FBI to stay at the house forever.

I steered the conversation toward less land-mine-strewn territory. “The kids have had some Froot Loops, and Chloe is helping Jake get dressed. Would you like some coffee while I go up and check on them?”

“Please.”

“You know where everything is.”

“Sure.”

I had been thinking it was time to send the children home to their parents, particularly with the FBI presence no longer dominating the scene. But as I watched Dante carry his burdens down the hallway, practically dragging himself into the kitchen, I knew I couldn’t do it. Chloe and Jake would be our houseguests for the foreseeable future.

After Dante drove off with the children, I hightailed it over to Emily’s, praying that Erika would still be there. I was dying to talk to her about Cross Current the previous evening.

Dante was right. While Agent Crisp and Ron Powers conferred at the large oak table in the dining room, Emily and Erika huddled in the kitchen, hunched over the computer monitor. They glanced up briefly at my hi-how-are-ya, but otherwise barely acknowledged my arrival.

“Put in 21401,” Emily instructed Erika, who was driving the keyboard.

“Ten predators in that zip code,” Erika said as she worked the mouse, “but Roger Haberman isn’t one of them.”

Still dressed in her pink terry-cloth Paradiso bathrobe, Emily leaned forward. “Try 21403.”

Erika tapped away, then fell back in her chair. “He’s not there, either.”

Erika looked up at me as if noticing me for the first time. “Will you please explain to me, Hannah, why Roger Haberman isn’t registered in the Maryland Sex Offenders Registry as required by Maryland law?”

“You’re asking me?”

“What slime!” Emily made a face. “And to think I actually attended church with that man! He served me punch at the Christmas party! I shook his hand at the Paradiso party! Gross!”

“I wonder what’s going to happen to Roger now that he’s been outed?”

Emily stood up, tightened the belt of her bathrobe around her waist, and smiled with satisfaction. “PredatorBeware has turned over the transcripts of their conversation with him to the Maryland authorities. Hopefully they’ll arrest him, and lock him away so he can’t traumatize any more children.”

“Mitch Harmon only touched on this in last night’s special, Erika, but how on earth does PredatorBeware avoid being accused of entrapment by these guys once their cases go to trial?”

“The creeps hang themselves, Hannah. Do you have a minute?”

“Of course.”

“Let me show you our website.”

“Our?”

“I like to keep a low profile, but yes, I’ve been working with PredatorBeware for several years.”

Erika typed in a URL, jabbed the Enter key with her forefinger, and waited for the screen to refresh. “This is the PredatorBeware Web page, and these are some of our latest busts,” she explained, moving her cursor over several green tabs. Each had been labeled with a Yahoo or AOL screen name. Erika moved the cursor over the screen name of one of the latest busts-MDGUY4U-and clicked the link. Several options came up, along with-already!-a link to the Cross Current television show. Erika moved the cursor again, clicked, and I watched in wide-eyed wonder as Roger’s picture materialized on the screen.

“Wait! I recognize that photograph. It’s from the St. Catherine’s membership directory!”

Erika grimaced. “He e-mailed that photo to thirteen-year-old Cyndi,” she said. “But wait, that’s not all.”

Erika clicked on another link. “This is what Roger sent to Cyndi via his webcam.”

I held my breath while Erika scrolled through a slide show starring Roger Haberman, tilted, slightly out of focus images all obviously captured by his webcam. Roger lounging on a sofa, grinning sappily. Roger bare-chested. Roger with his fly undone.

“Eeeek!”

Erika’s forefinger hovered over the mouse. “Shall I go on?”

“God, no. I’ve seen more of Roger Haberman in the last few seconds than I ever want to see.”

Emily raked her fingers through her long blond hair, working out the nighttime tangles. “What I want to know, Mother, is what makes guys think that looking at a photo of his, um, equipment, is going to turn a woman on?”

“It sure doesn’t work for me,” I told my daughter.

“Not to mention that it’s totally against the law,” Erika reminded us. “In almost every state it’s generally a crime to send children obscene material, even if it turns out the recipient is an adult posing as a child.”

“Sounds like Roger’s toast,” I said.

“Totally. For that alone. Now, let’s take a look at some of Roger’s chat with little thirteen-year-old Cyndi.”

MDGUY4U: when is ur mom not there?

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: when shes at work r with her bf r out at the jim

MDGUY4U: so ur home alone?

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: yeppers

MDGUY4U: Mind if I call?

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: monday is my day off frm skool

MDGUY4U: Lucky u

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: for teachers meeting r sumthin

MDGUY4U: Kewl

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: lemme go see if moms got her stoopid skedule on da fridge

MDGUY4U: ok

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: shes off dis weekend

MDGUY4U: Kewl

MDGUY4U: wat u wanna do?

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: LOL I DONT CARE

MDGUY4U: DO U WANT ME TO SUCK ON UR TITTIES?

Feeling ill, I scanned down the chat, all the way near the end where MDGUY4U had arranged to meet CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA and her titties at her home in Rockville, Maryland, which turned out to be the sting house where he would later get busted.

“Enough!” I cried.

But Erika chugged on. “And down here we have…” She worked the mouse, scrolling quickly to the end of the chat. “See here?”

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: whats ur number?

MDGUY4U: I cn get in trouble just talking to you. lol

CYNDI_WITH_NO_FELLA: lol. No 1 will ever no, silly.

MDGUY4U: ok

“The bastard knows she’s underage.” Erika snorted. “But watch how fast he sends Cyndi his phone number anyway.”

While I stared in disbelief-this was my pastor’s husband talking dirty here-Erika highlighted the phone number. “That’s Roger’s actual cell phone number. And that’s my job.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m the verifier. I call the guy up, pretend to be Cyndi, and verify that he’s for real.” Her voice slid up an octave; she sounded no more than twelve or thirteen. “Oh, snap! Dad just walked in. He’s so bunk.”

Emily smiled. “Erika’s got the lingo down pat.”

“How do you sleep at night, Erika,” I asked, “knowing all these perverts are out there lurking on the Internet?”

“I sleep because for every perve we catch, there are ten, maybe twenty, little girls and boys who won’t be abused.

“Listen to this.” Erika clicked around, then read an excerpt from another long, dirty chat.

“‘If you are interested, I could show you a few tricks.’ And the child replies, ‘What kind of tricks?’ Then he IMs back, ‘Let’s put it this way. I am a little older and more experienced than you. I have been married and have tried many different things and can probably show you things that your boyfriend never even thought about.’

“It goes on and on,” Erika said.

“Sick.”

“What happens now, Erika?”

“My best guess is that the police will eventually come calling on old Roger and he’ll be heading for the slammer.”

But it wasn’t Roger I was feeling sorry for, it was his wife, Eva.

My heart ached for my friend. I prayed she hadn’t seen the broadcast-that would have been too cruel. “Poor Eva.”

“What do you mean, ‘Poor Eva’? She had to have known about this.”

“Not necessarily.”

“But she certainly knows now. And I, Erika Rose,” she said with a flourish, “took the liberty of notifying the congregation via the St. Catherine’s e-mail list.”

“My God, Erika!” Even for a lawyer, the woman had chutzpah. “Isn’t that list supposed to be used for church business only? No one wants to be swamped with used car notices and the latest religious jokes making the rounds on the Internet.”

“Chill, Mom. I told her to do it.”

“You?”

“I can’t think of anything more relevant to the business of the church than to inform its congregation that their pastor is harboring a pedophile.”

Erika demonstrated how easily we could e-mail anyone a link to Roger Haberman’s special Predator-Beware Web page featuring his picture, his cell phone number, and the full text of his revolting chat room sessions with Cyndi, page after page of it. “We sent it to his boss on Monday, asking if this was the kind of guy they wanted working around the kids enrolled in the sailing program.”

Cassandra Matthews would have found out about the Cross Current program soon enough anyway, but even so, I thought that Erika’s actions were a bit over the top. Roger was guilty as hell, of course, and he’d brought it all upon himself, but with everyone ganging up on him, I worried about the guy. “He’ll have some excuse to explain away his behavior,” I suggested.

“They all do,” Erika said. “You heard it on the show last night, didn’t you? Same old thing. I’ve never done this before. I knew she wasn’t twelve, I was just playing along. I’m here because I thought the house was for sale. How lame is that?”

“I’m a bit uncomfortable with it, to tell you the truth. At the end of the day, your group is just a bunch of vigilantes. It’s the twenty-first-century version of tar, feathers, and running a guy out of town on a rail. Almost makes me feel sorry for some of them.”

“Look, we’re not totally devoid of compassion. We offer pedophiles the opportunity to post rebuttals, for example, and we’ll actually remove them from the website if they can prove they’re getting help. But, trust me, Hannah. These guys are dyed in the wool perverts. Do you want to see how ridiculously easy it is?”

“Convince me.”

Erika relinquished her chair and motioned me over to the keyboard. “Have you ever signed up for an account on Yahoo?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, then. Log on to Yahoo dot com and set up a new user ID.”

While Erika and Emily watched, I tried half a dozen combinations before I came up with a screen name that hadn’t already been used: Krazy_4_Katz.

“Now, go ahead and set up a profile.”

With Erika coaching me, I filled in the blanks for Candy Williams. When I came to the section for date of birth, I closed my eyes and started counting backward, trying to come up with a date that would make Candy turn thirteen on her next birthday.

When I started to fill in the age blanks, Erika raised a cautionary hand. “Don’t do that. If Yahoo thinks you’re under eighteen, they won’t let you into the chat room. Either lie or leave it blank.”

“But how will the guy know that I’m only thirteen?”

“When the time comes, you’ll tell him.” She flapped a hand. “Now, go on. Try out your ID in a chat room.”

Erika showed me how to find the chat rooms, and suggested that I join one of the regional chats. There were chat rooms for every major metropolitan area. Washington, D.C., had five. I clicked my mouse and, simple as that, I was in.

“What now?”

“Now you wait.”

I watched, alternately amazed and disgusted, by the amount of traffic scrolling by me in the room. People joined the chat, stayed for a while, and left. One strange, misspelled message repeated itself so many times that I was certain it was being generated by a robot. Hands off the keyboard, folded in my lap, I ignored them all.

“Some of these guys are just goofing off,” Erika commented. “Others are probably kids pretending to be horny, thirty-five-year-old guys, but way too many are exactly who they say they are, and they’ll end up arranging to meet the child.”

After only two minutes a box popped up on my screen titled PM. DonnieWants2Screw had dropped in to say “Hi.”

“It says PM. What does that mean, Erika?”

“Private message. That’s where they’ll try to lure you in.”

“Do I want to talk to someone named DonnieWants2Screw? I don’t think so.”

“That’s okay. Just wait.”

After a few Hello U Theres, DonnieWants2Screw gave up and Randy_in_Rockville29 stopped by, desperate to talk to Candy, too. “What should I say?”

Erika shrugged, so I typed Hi.

A/s/l, Randy replied.

From reading the previous chats, I knew what that meant. Age, sex, location. I typed in 13/F/Rockville, lying to Randy about everything except my sex.

Randy was twenty-nine, male, and lived in Rockville, if he weren’t lying, too. Got breasts? He wanted to know.

A/s/l were the last keystrokes I ever sent in Randy’s direction, but my dance card was far from empty. In just five minutes more than ten guys had PM’d Candy. I played along with one guy for a while, abbreviating willy-nilly and using words I had learned such as kewl and lol. When he started to get personal, though, asking whether I shaved “down there,” I groaned and turned to Erika. “What do I say now?”

“Type POS,” she said. “Parent Over Shoulder.”

“Jeeze,” I said, typing. I remembered that I’d first heard the term POS from Chloe, and she’d gotten it from her friend Sammy. I hoped it was innocent Internet slang passed down to an unsuspecting Sammy by an older sibling, but at least Chloe wouldn’t be visiting with Sammy and playing on any questionable websites while she stayed with us.

“I wouldn’t recommend pursuing that chat,” Erika said, “but I guarantee you that if one of our volunteers got a hold of that guy, he would be arranging to meet Candy in a few days’ time.”

I logged out of Yahoo feeling dirty, like I needed to run the keyboard through the dishwasher set on scald.

“I don’t imagine I’ll be able to face Roger, but I will talk to Eva about him.”

“Mother! How can you even go back to that church?” Emily’s breath was hot against my cheek.

“Eva’s my friend. I can’t tell you how helpful she’s been to me since Timmy disappeared.”

Emily ignored me. “Erika, tell me how I can help with PredatorBeware. Do you think I could learn to be a decoy?”

“Emily!” I couldn’t believe my daughter had volunteered for stressful work like that.

The look Emily sent me was pleading. “But what else can I do? Nothing is happening, and now the FBI thinks that the person who took Timmy did it because they wanted to keep him! There’s no ransom demand. The tip calls are going to 1-800-TheMissing, and our phone just sits there, mocking me! I have to do something, and helping to get a pedophile off the street is a very good start.”

I found myself agreeing. Eva was my friend, but I owed Roger nothing. I thought about watching Cross Current, and about what I’d just seen, and felt I needed to do a bit of outing myself. “I don’t think there’s any connection, but Roger was in the parking lot at Paradiso on the day Timmy disappeared. He’d come to apply for a job.”

“Mother! Roger could have taken Timmy!”

“He didn’t have Timmy when I saw him, Emily, and that was after we sounded the alarm.”

“Timmy could have been drugged, and hidden in Haberman’s trunk!”

“Emily, think! He’d have to get by the police roadblock.”

“Maybe he had an accomplice, then,” Emily continued. Lord, my daughter was hard to turn.

“Let me weigh in here,” said Erika. “We know Roger is involved with children for sex. It doesn’t take much stretching of the imagination to…” She paused, as if weighing what to tell me and what not. “Oh, hell. For all we know, Roger’s been flying back and forth to Bangkok for years, paying to have sex with children. Maybe he can no longer afford the airfare.”

I nearly gagged. “I really don’t think so. Roger seems to like his victims young, but he also likes them female, and hovering on the cusp of puberty.”

“Some people think you can cure a pedophile. I don’t. They almost always reoffend, we know that, so whether Roger took Timmy or not, he needs to be off the streets, cooling his heels behind bars.”

Emily set her lips in a firm line. “We’ll organize pickets, won’t we, Erika.”

Erika nodded. “Damn straight.”

Whatever Roger had done, I thought, Eva didn’t deserve to be punished. She’d taken St. Cat’s from a tiny congregation of one hundred communicants to upward of five hundred. We had a strong young program, a single parents’ group, and one for swinging-well, maybe not so swinging-seniors. We supported a missionary couple in Guatemala.

I dug Eva’s card out of my purse and punched her private number into my cell. I had to warn her that the pickets were coming.