Steven Gore - Act of Deceit

Corazon led them across the playground toward the converted hacienda, then upstairs to her second-story office, her open window overlooking the yard and the city beyond.

Against the background of the laughs and squeals of the restarted soccer match, Corazon described Sherwyn’s founding of White Sands ten years earlier, his contributions to local charities, his socializing with the head of the local child welfare agency, his payoffs to the police and the prosecutor, and his luring of boys with gifts of money and drugs and video games.

“Do the boys ever escape?” Janie asked.

“That’s the wrong word,” Corazon said. “They come and go as they wish. Since Senor William has all of the connections, the city itself is their prison. There is no escape.”

“How does he pay for it all?” Donnally asked.

Corazon shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s not an alcahuete -”

Janie looked over at Donnally.

“A pimp,” he said.

“Men travel down from the States and pay the boys directly. I assume they also contribute to the cost of running the place.” She smirked. “Maybe they even take charitable tax deductions back home.” She thought for a moment. “There were rumors years ago that there was a very powerful man behind it all in the States, the one who bought the property that houses White Sands, but I’ve heard nothing of him for many years.” She shook her head, her lips pursed. “Since then it’s become like a timeshare for predators.”

Corazon picked up the telephone and ordered coffee from the kitchen.

“And there’ve been no investigations?” Donnally asked.

“A year ago I made taped interviews with a couple of the boys and gave the transcripts to the newspaper. But Senor William’s lawyer and the police paid or threatened the boys into recanting. That’s why I was arrested for defamation.” She smiled at Donnally’s puzzled expression. “It’s a criminal matter down here, not a civil one like in the States. The law was passed to protect drug dealers from exposure in the press. Even worse, they charged me in Chiapas because the prison sentences there are longer. I’m facing nine years.”

Donnally doubted that Sherwyn would’ve sounded as matter-of-fact as Corazon about nearly a decade in custody, but Sherwyn also knew that it was something he’d never face, at least in Mexico.

“If there was a way to do it without exposing yourself to jail time, would you help us put together some evidence that we could use to get Sherwyn indicted in the States? It’s a federal crime to travel outside of the U.S. to engage in sex with minors. And the U.S. extradites in these cases.”

Corazon thought for a moment, then said. “I’ll need to know more about what you plan to do and whether you can really do it.”

Donnally reached for his cell phone to call someone who could pitch the idea to the United States Attorney in San Francisco.

“This is Harlan-”

“Stop.” Perkins’s voice was edgy, almost to the point of panic. “Don’t say anything else. I’ve been ordered not to talk to you anymore. We’ve been retained on behalf of William Sherwyn.”

Donnally pushed himself to his feet and walked toward the office door. He waited until he was in the hallway before he said, “You can’t represent that asshole.”

“Not me, someone else in the firm. A name partner. Al Barton. He’s practically dancing and shadowboxing in his office. The statute of limitations has long run on criminal charges for molesting Melvin and it’s too late to file a civil suit.”

“If Sherwyn has no exposure, then what does he need Barton for?”

Rattling cups and saucers caught Donnally’s attention. A girl holding a tray stood feet away, mouth gaping, staring at his face, which he realized had darkened with rage. He turned away and walked to the end of the hallway, then glanced back and saw her flee into the office.

“Damage control,” Perkins said. “Barton has already called the chief of police threatening a lawsuit if there are any leaks from the investigation and they sent someone to serve you with a letter saying the same thing.”

“They’re not going to find me.”

“Why not?”

Donnally looked out through the slats of the shuttered window. He could see White Sands in the distance. He imagined Sherwyn holed up inside, orchestrating his defense, gazing over his stable of boys.

“Let’s just say I’ve gone fishing.”

He disconnected and called Navarro.

“I’m getting heat like never before,” Navarro said. “The chief wants everything kept locked up in his office. Reports. Evidence. Everything. And nothing in the computer system.”

“You mean he’s trying to bury this thing?”

“Exactly the opposite. He wants to protect the investigation from outside manipulation. But there’s a problem… hold on.”

Donnally heard Navarro’s office door close.

“The chief wants you put on a polygraph about how Sherwyn’s fingerprints got into the shooter’s car.”

“He wants, or you want?”

“Let’s say that I have my doubts, too.”

“Sounds to me like an abuse of prosecutorial power,” Donnally said. “Maybe I should contact the Albert Hale Foundation. Now that the Charles Brown case has gone bust, maybe they’re looking for a new cause.”

“This one would be as wrongheaded as the last.”

“I don’t think so. If Sherwyn wasn’t behind the attempt to kill me, why’d he run?”

“Because it’s possible to frame a guilty man.”

“Hey, why didn’t I think of that?”

“I think you may have. When can you come in?”

“As soon as I bring Sherwyn back from Mexico.”

“Mexico? How do you know about Mexico? I never told you where ICE said he went.”

“It was just a lucky guess.”

“You search the rental car before you called me?”

This one Donnally answered truthfully. “The shooter’s clothes and shoes were new and all had Mexican labels.”

“ICE says Sherwyn flew from SFO to Mexico City,” Navarro said. “You know where he went after that?”

Donnally looked again at White Sands. He could see a man dressed in a white shirt and slacks standing on a third-story balcony looking down into his walled courtyard: Sherwyn.

“No idea.”

D onnally disconnected. He watched Sherwyn take a sip from a glass in his hand, then wave to someone below. He realized that the man wasn’t holed up. He wasn’t at all afraid of being seen. Didn’t seem to care.

Only now did Donnally’s gaze widen enough to take in the scope of White Sands. A nineteenth-century hacienda consuming half a block, three stories of stucco and stone and glazed ceramic tiles centered in courtyards and gardens, and framed with vine-covered walls.

A five-million-dollar velvet fortress.

Was it arrogance? Donnally asked himself. Or just the fact of government protection?

Immunity, Donnally answered. That’s what Sherwyn had. Immunity.

But not in the States.

The question was what would scare him enough to make him run back, thinking the U.S. was safer? And make the Mexican police think it was wiser to send him packing, and wait for another foreigner to take his place?

Donnally knew it wouldn’t be the Mexican press that would force Sherwyn to flee. Corazon had made that clear. And Donnally knew that no American newspaper or television network would take him seriously, not after he’d made a fool of himself in the courtroom just before Brown pleaded no contest. And, even worse, not after he acted like a lunatic when he pushed his way through the reporters on his way out of the courthouse. Cameras sure as hell wouldn’t arrive at his request. It would take something more.

“W e’re going to need new interviews,” Donnally said to Corazon, striding back into her office. “Pick three boys, the most articulate and sympathetic, and with no arrest history. And I want not only the facts of what happened, I want to hear how it affected each kid and their families.” He looked at Corazon, but pointed at Janie. “She can formulate the questions in a way that can’t be attacked for being suggestive.”