Lisette took her seat, eyes wide. ‘She thought you were a mob boss?’
Marcus nodded dryly. ‘She thought I was rubbing out my detractors, which was why they stopped threatening me.’
‘Now there’s an idea,’ Diesel said.
‘Shut up, Diesel,’ everyone said together.
Diesel shrugged. ‘I’m just sayin’.’
‘Well stop sayin’,’ Cal said. ‘What kind of threats are we talking about this time?’
‘Mostly more of the same,’ Stone said, ticking them off in an affected bored voice that fooled no one. Stone took these threats as seriously as any of them did. ‘I’m going to gut you, shoot you, slit your throat, ruin you. About half are targeted at Lisette, Phillip and me for reporting the stories. But the worst ones were targeted at Marcus as the publisher of “that rag”.’
‘Same old, same old,’ Marcus said, playing it down like he always did. Play it down and never go anywhere unarmed was pretty much his motto. ‘Any escalations?’
‘Just one – a woman who said she was going to stake “that lying reporter” down, pour honey on him and leave him for the fire ants for even suggesting that her “innocent” husband – “the real victim here” – could have molested young girls. The “lying reporter” was you, Phillip.’
‘I guess the fire ants are a nice touch,’ Phillip said lightly.
‘I bet that came from the drama coach,’ Lisette said. ‘The one whose husband had recorded said molestations with his iPhone and uploaded them to the cloud.’
‘Breaking into his account was child’s play,’ Diesel said with disgust. ‘His password was the name of his dog.’
‘At least the wife is consistent,’ Stone said. ‘There’s drama in her threat just like there was in her denial, even though the police showed her the evidence in full color. We didn’t address the first threat, because we didn’t see it – because Jill was sitting on it – and this woman ended up making others, the most recent just last week. Said she was going to make you suffer by hitting you where it really hurts. That she was losing her house because her husband had lost his job after being arrested and the bank is foreclosing on them. She says she’s planning to sue the paper and you personally, Marcus, for slander.’
‘She’s not suing me,’ Phillip said, tongue in cheek, ‘because I have nothing of any value for her to win. Sucks to be the rich boss.’
‘Let Rex deal with that one,’ Marcus said. ‘A week’s gone by since she threatened to sue. He can find out if she’s retained an attorney in the meantime and do that lawyer-to-lawyer thing that he does so well.’
Cal got up to refill his coffee cup. ‘This doesn’t worry me at all. When they start talking money, a lot of the unpredictable emotional responses disappear. If they’re truly after cold, hard cash, they’ll refrain from doing anything violent that jeopardizes that.’
‘Hopefully it is just about money,’ Stone said, ‘because if the woman truly intends to follow through, we may not be able to tie the threats to her.’ He scowled. ‘Because Jill moved them from the corporate server to her own laptop. Hopefully she didn’t destroy the electronic trail.’
‘Stupid kid,’ Diesel muttered, then glanced at Marcus from the corner of his eye. ‘Can I at least call her “stupid”?’
‘Yes, you can. Even though you were just saying that I should trust her.’
‘And then I said you were better at judging people than I am,’ Diesel fired back. ‘I need Jill’s laptop. Tell her it is not negotiable. That if she refuses, you will fire her ass. May I say “ass”, boss, in this context?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘Only if I can tell you to shut up,’ Marcus said. ‘Stone, if she gives you any problems, tell her I will terminate her. Make me the bad guy if you want. She already thinks the worst of me. Until Diesel tracks this threat, we all take precautions, especially at night.’ Nods around the table. ‘Okay, what actual business do we have? Special business,’ he clarified.
As opposed to their legit business, which they saved for the end.
Lisette opened her file. ‘Two investigations ongoing. One’s domestic violence and the other is suspected foster family molestation. The domestic violence came through our friend.’
Their ‘friend’ was officially an anonymous source, but was in reality a woman in the hierarchy of Children’s Services. Only Lisette knew her true identity. Marcus didn’t want to know, for their informant’s protection. He couldn’t tell what he didn’t know.
Their first case had come five years ago. Since then, the social worker had sent a number of very unofficial referrals their way, cases in which Children’s Services suspected abuse but hadn’t been able to prove it. Just like the one Lisette now summarized.
‘This started out as a suspected child abuse, called in to the hotline,’ she said. ‘A neighbor saw that one of the children had a friction burn on his arm. He said he got it playing with his friends, but she didn’t believe that and called it in. The kid’s dad is some corporate VP and had a high-priced attorney. None of the other neighbors would comment, but a couple of the neighbors’ maids did – all under condition of anonymity. Nobody wanted to get any of the people in this neighborhood angry with them. The child confided in his social worker that his father hit him and his mother, but later recanted. The father’s attorneys claimed the social worker coerced the child to speak against his father. That she bribed him with candy. And now the social worker is under investigation, suspended without pay.’
‘Why does that tactic still hold any water?’ Cal murmured.
‘Good question,’ Lisette said grimly. ‘Our friend doesn’t like being forced to walk away from a child because the parent has enough money to buy his way out of the legal system. She also doesn’t like that the other employees are going to be gun-shy around any accused parent with influence, financial or political. She’s asked us to find out what we can.’
‘Sounds like he didn’t even get close to the legal system,’ Marcus said.
‘Exactly. So what’s the plan?’
Everyone went quiet, thinking of their next steps. This was what they did. When the legal way didn’t work, Marcus’s team skirted the accepted rules.
They all had reasons for what they did, but not the reasons one might think. Only Diesel had been knocked around as a kid. Phillip and Lisette joined the team because Phillip’s childhood friend had been killed by an abusive father. Lisette had been the child’s babysitter, and both siblings had tried to tell their parents that something was not right in that home, but the Cauldwells had been convinced that the friend’s parents were good church-going people and that Lisette and Phillip had been watching too much television. When the child died from a beating at the hands of his father, Lisette’s parents had become two of the city’s leading advocates for children.
Marcus’s grandfather had contributed a significant chunk of his own millions to child-rescue charities, instructing Cal to ensure they had free advertising space in the Ledger for fund-raising. Cal had continued that work after Marcus’s grandfather had died. Cal’s reasons had always been his own, and even Marcus had never learned what they were. But Marcus knew exactly why his grandfather had become a supporter of child advocates.
Because of what happened to us, he thought now. But those were words he and Stone never spoke aloud. They were too painful, and simply . . . not available. Marcus always panicked and froze, unable to make the words exit his mouth when the subject arose – which was thankfully infrequently. Stone coped by getting mad and hitting things. And people. It hadn’t been a problem when he was a scrawny kid who no one could tempt with food. But later . . . he had grown so large that he could make grown men piss themselves with a single angry look. Underneath the rage, he was a decent, kind man. But the rage ran really, really deep.
‘The tried-and-true income tax evasion won’t work this time,’ Cal said. ‘This guy probably has expensive accountants who cover his ass six ways to Sunday.’