by Chris Culver
Neither Agent Havelock nor Clair Eckhart were bad people, and Ash had little doubt they would have helped Amina as well as they could in other circumstances. Working a case, though, it’s easy to become so focused on the end result, on arresting a suspect, that everything else takes second place. Amina wasn’t just a lead to explore or a detail to write off at the end of an investigation; she was a little girl. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s friend. Somewhere, someone loved her and wanted her home. As a father, Ash couldn’t forget that, even if acting on it meant earning the enmity of his colleagues. He had made the mistake of sitting around too often, and he was tired of it.
He took out his cell phone and called the Tahir household. Sadia picked up.
“Sadia, it’s Ash Rashid again. Someone from the local FBI field office is probably going to call your mom soon about talking to Amina. I need you to do me a favor first.”
19
After his conversation with Sadia, Ash walked to a coffee shop about two blocks from the hospital and bought a newspaper. As expected, Rebecca’s death made the front page. The reporter called the ransom exchange a botched operation, but he didn’t go so far as to say that it directly led to her death. The story titillated enough to sell papers but remained ambiguous enough to avoid lying outright. Beyond noting that she had died, details about Rebecca remained scarce, which made Ash breathe a little easier. The public didn’t need to hear about her last moments.
Ash folded the paper about half an hour after entering the coffee shop and left it on the table in front of him, wishing he had gone to a bar and ordered a shot of bourbon. Eventually, he walked outside to clear his mind. The morning was already warm, but it was bearable. He didn’t have anywhere to go, so he just walked around for a little while.
About an hour after leaving the hospital, and while Ash sat on a bench in Military Park, his phone started buzzing. He looked at the caller ID before picking up. Captain Bowers. It had taken him longer than Ash expected.
“You just can’t sit still, can you?” asked Bowers as soon as Ash answered the phone.
“I try to be active,” said Ash. “Megan said I was getting fat a little while ago, so I’ve been trying to exercise as often as I can.”
“Funny,” said Bowers. “Kevin Havelock is pissed with you right now. He just called Dan Reddington, and Dan called me.”
“Havelock was pissed at me before he even met me.”
“Now he’s got cause. Some girl he’s trying to interview at Wishard Hospital refuses to talk to him unless you’re also in the room. You care to fill me in on that?”
“Without knowing the details, I assume the girl in question is one of the victims from the Dandelion Inn.”
“That’s probably a safe assumption. Why does she want you in the room?”
Ash shrugged even though Bowers couldn’t see him.
“She might have heard that I’m an attorney, and that I’m a Muslim, and that I’d be more than willing to make sure her rights are protected.”
Bowers muttered something, but Ash couldn’t understand what. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”
“It didn’t take much thought. This girl needs help, and I can provide it. End of story.”
“No, it’s not the end of the story, Ash,” said Bowers. “Step outside yourself for a moment and imagine how this looks from our prospective. You’ve got ties with a gangster, that gangster has ties to this case, and now it looks like you’re interfering with that case.”
“I don’t have ties to anyone, and I’m really getting tired of defending myself. I want Bukoholov in prison, and I will do everything in my power to put him there. I’m not willing to ignore a kid in trouble, though, just so I can play departmental politics better.”
“This isn’t about departmental politics. Whether you believe it or not, I’m looking out for you, and I’m warning you that you’re stepping into something you shouldn’t.”
Ash leaned back on his bench. “We’ve had our differences, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But we both know where this is going. For the past couple of years, I’ve been shuffled around our department like I’m some divorcée’s unwanted child and I’m growing tired of it. I’m tired of wasting my time.”
“You may not like your regular assignment, but you’re hardly wasting your time,” said Bowers. “You’re a good cop. Think through what you plan to say next. This isn’t the time to put in your papers.”
“I know that, and I don’t plan on it,” said Ash. “Amina needs help. If she’s by herself, Agent Havelock and Clair Eckert from the U.S. Attorney’s Office are going to steamroll her. Neither of them care about her. She’s just a source of information to them.”
“I can’t give you career advice, Ash, but think about what you’re doing before you do it. You’re reckless, you’re frequently insubordinate, and you can be a real asshole, but you’re a good detective. Don’t throw that away lightly.”
“I like to think people would understand why I’m doing this.”
“Your friends, yeah. Dan Reddington and the rest of the administration? I don’t know.”
“How about you?” Ash didn’t know why he asked it, but the question popped out of his mouth before he could stop himself.
Bowers didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I understand why you’re doing it, but I don’t think you should. You’ve got a law degree, but you’re not a lawyer. You’re a cop. Sometimes I think you forget that.”
“No, Mike, I’ve never forgotten that. And you’re right. I don’t practice law. I’m a cop, but I’m also a husband and a father. I don’t stop being any of those just because I wear a badge.”
“I’m not saying you should.”
“Then what are you saying?” asked Ash.
“You know, forget everything I said. Do whatever the hell you want. I don’t care,” said Bowers. “And get over to the hospital. You may not care, but our department still has to work with the Bureau occasionally, and I’d rather not have you poison that relationship.”
“I’ll be nothing but professional.”
“I hope so.”
Ash hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. If there had been a cab or bus in sight, he would have taken it. He couldn’t find one, though, so he started walking. Even at a relatively quick pace, it took him nearly twenty minutes to make it back to the hospital. He wiped sweat off his brow with paper towels in one of the restrooms on the first floor before taking the elevator to Amina’s floor. Agent Havelock and Clair met him in the nurses’ break room they had been in earlier and walked to Amina’s room without saying a word.
Amina was thin and had a dark complexion, even for a Pakistani. She had brown eyes and thin lips. She wore a hospital gown, but someone had loosely covered her head with a pink shawl. Leena Tahir sat beside her bed, holding Amina’s hand. As soon as Agent Havelock and Ash walked in the room, Amina sat up straighter and scooted toward the far side of her bed, away from them. Both men took the hint and stopped walking. She didn’t seem overly scared, but clearly they made her uncomfortable.
“Is Amina okay with us in here?” asked Havelock, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I can get a female agent to come down here instead of me.” He looked at Ash. “I can also recommend a female attorney with immigration experience.”
Leena leaned close and whispered something to Amina. They talked for a moment, and then Leena took a couple of breaths.
“She’ll be okay,” said Leena. “She doesn’t like men seeing her undressed.”
“If she’d like to put something else on, we can leave and come back,” said Ash. Leena translated the question, and Amina nodded. Ash, Havelock, and Clair left the room for a moment. When they came back, Amina wore a thick pink robe over her gown. It didn’t seem like much of a change, but it made her feel secure enough to answer questions.
Havelock started the interview slowly with questions about her backgr
ound, his voice soft. The more Amina spoke, the less she hesitated before answering as she gained confidence. Havelock never pressured her to give more information than she wanted to, and his tone remained calm, measured, and patient. He was gentle enough that he could have been talking to one of his own kids.
When he finished the introductory questions, Clair handed Amina one of the brochures Ash had found in the envelope the Hulk had delivered.
“Have you seen this before?” he asked. Amina nodded after having the question translated.
“She said an American woman came to her family’s farm and gave that brochure to her father. A lot of charities came through and did that, especially to help girls,” said Leena. “The woman said her charity would take Amina and her sister, Faria, to the United States so they could go to school and work part-time.”
“Did anyone check to make sure it was legitimate?” asked Clair. Leena didn’t bother translating the question.
“Amina’s father can’t read,” she said. “Even if he wanted to research it, he couldn’t. The culture in the tribal regions is generally opposed to formal education for girls, so he probably thought this was the only opportunity his daughters would ever have to go to school.”
Clair started to ask something else, but Havelock held a hand in front of her.
“How did this work?” asked Havelock. “Her family received the brochure. What happened next?”
Leena and Amina conferred for a few minutes.
“Her dad tracked down the American in a nearby village and told her that both of his daughters were interested. She interviewed them both and told them about the program. They would both go to a private American high school, but since Faria was only fifteen, she couldn’t work off-campus. She’d have to sweep classrooms and things like that. She said Amina would be able to get a good job off-campus and go to school. The American helped them get visas.”
“How’d they get to the U.S.?” asked Havelock.
Leena translated the question.
“The woman gave her tickets and set up the travel arrangements. She and her sister flew from Lahore, Pakistan, and they stopped in three airports along the way, but they didn’t stay anywhere for long. The first city in the United States they went to was Chicago.”
“Okay,” said Havelock. “Did they stay in Chicago, or did they come right to Indianapolis?”
Amina and Leena conferred for a few minutes, suspending the conversation.
“She thinks they stayed in Chicago for a little while. A man and a woman met her in the airport. Including Amina and Faria, they picked up four girls in a van and drove them all to an apartment.”
“Does she have an idea where this apartment was?”
Leena started to translate the question, but Amina shook her head before the older woman even finished speaking. Havelock should have expected that, though; Amina came from a village in rural Pakistan. Going to any major city would have put her so far out of her element that she could have missed even the most familiar of things right in front of her.
“Can you ask her to describe her situation in Chicago?” asked Clair. “Was she a prisoner? Did she work?”
Leena translated and then listened intently while Amina spoke.
“She and Faria lived with six other girls in a two-bedroom apartment. The first night she was brought in, they were given ledger books and were told that they owed twenty thousand dollars each for the program’s administration fees and the flight from Lahore to Chicago. They owed an additional fifteen hundred dollars each every month for room and board. To pay that, they were contracted out to clean houses. They earned seventy dollars a day and worked from sunrise to sunset. None of the girls went to school.”
“Was she able to go wherever she wanted, or was she locked up?” asked Ash. Having her freedom of movement restricted wasn’t one of the elements of a human trafficking charge—at least according to Indiana law—but it’d be easier to prove if Amina’s was. She started to say something at first, but then she caught herself.
“No one monitored them day to day,” said Leena. “But one of the other girls in the apartment was in charge. If Amina was late, she was hit. If she tried to leave the apartment or the jobsite, the top girl called a lady and she’d be punished.”
“What do you mean by punished?” asked Havelock.
Ash liked the question; already Havelock seemed to be building a workable case. Many people seem to think that if a girl goes willingly with her captors, the police can’t do anything. That may have been true at one time, but not anymore. If Amina’s captors threatened her or one of her family members with violence for noncompliance, they had already committed a major felony. That charge alone would be worth twenty years in prison. Add on ancillary charges like criminal confinement and her captors would face life without the possibility of parole. Leena looked at Amina and translated the question, but Amina shook her head. Leena repeated the question and then rubbed Amina’s arm reassuringly. When Amina spoke, her voice barely qualified as a whisper.
“The lady hurt her,” said Leena. “That’s all Amina wants to say.”
“That’s good enough for now,” said Ash. “She doesn’t need to say anymore.” He glanced at Havelock and Clair. “If you need more detail for trial, you can get it when she’s more comfortable.”
“That’s fine,” said Havelock, nodding. “How long was she confined in the apartment?”
Leena and Amina talked again.
“Approximately four months.”
Ash wrote a couple of notes. He had seen Amina’s face when he and Havelock walked into the room. Men made her uncomfortable. Something else had happened to her, and he almost felt afraid to ask.
“How did you get from Chicago to Indianapolis?” asked Clair. Leena translated as Amina spoke.
“Every now and then, a woman named Ann would come to the apartment. Every time she came, she’d drop off a cake and take a girl with her. She told Amina and the other girls that the girls who were taken had paid off their debts and were sent home or moved to nicer places. Whenever Ann came, the girls had a celebration. Amina kept track of everything she earned, but she still prayed that Ann would come for her and Faria early. That had happened before, so when Ann came and called for her, she thought God had answered her prayers. At first, Ann didn’t want Faria, so Amina begged. Eventually, she gave in and took them both.”
“And Ann took them to Indianapolis?” asked Clair.
Leena and Amina spoke for another moment, and then Leena nodded.
“She thinks so, but she isn’t sure. No one told her where they were going.”
“Did she go anywhere besides the Dandelion Inn?” asked Havelock.
Amina, after hearing the translation, shook her head. She straightened herself on the bed, and Ash thought he could see her tremble slightly. Leena put a hand on Amina’s upper arm. More than most, Ash knew how painful it could be to trudge through old memories. Amina’s pain was real, immediate and visceral. As a father and human being, it made his heart ache to see her in it.
“If Amina would like, we can take a break,” said Ash. Leena and Amina spoke for a moment.
“She wants to finish,” said Leena. “She wants to get this done.”
“Can she tell us about Indianapolis?” asked Havelock. “We’ll talk at whatever pace she’s comfortable with.”
Tears ran down Amina’s cheeks as she spoke.
“It was late when they arrived at the bed-and-breakfast. There were cots in the basement and other girls there, but she and Faria were the only girls who spoke Urdu. Amina thought they were there to join the cleaning staff, but on her first night, two men who worked at the bed-and-breakfast got her out of her cot. They took her to one of the rooms upstairs and made her drink something. She said it burned her throat. Then they made her take some pills that made her tired. She couldn’t move.”
Ash could feel his heart thumping against his rib cage. Amina cried steadily now.
“Did they hurt her?�
� asked Claire.
Leena took a breath. “They raped her, yes.”
He knew it was coming, but it still hurt to hear.
“Could she identify those men if she saw them again?” he asked.
Leena translated the question and then nodded when Amina spoke.
“She thinks so. She said they had paint on their arms. I think she means tattoos.”
Marvin Spencer, the man they had picked up at the B&B had tattoos on his arms. Ash might not be able to prove that Spencer assaulted her yet, but that didn’t matter. Many of the men in Indiana’s prisons had committed crimes so awful they’d never see an open field again. Many also had children of their own, and they wouldn’t take kindly to men who drugged and raped a defenseless seventeen-year-old girl. Spencer would be dead within a week if they didn’t do anything. As much as that appealed to Ash, he couldn’t condone his murder. They’d have to put him in protective custody.
“How about her sister, Faria? Was she hurt, too?”
Amina trembled, but then nodded. Faria was fifteen years old. The thought made Ash want to reconsider putting Spencer in protective custody. “Did those men assault her often?”
“Not them,” said Leena, translating. “There were new men every night. Three or four sometimes. Ann told her that she earned fifty dollars every time she was with a client. Amina said she pretended she was married to them because it made it easier. After a big night, Ann would sometimes give her makeup and chocolate. She shared it with her sister. Some of the girls fought with her because of that. They didn’t get as much.”
“Did any of the girls ever try to escape?” asked Clair.
Amina didn’t say anything for a moment. Leena rubbed her arm, encouraging her to speak.
“She said she didn’t have anywhere to go, so she focused on the ledger. That was her only way out. Ann told her that if she ran away, they’d kill Faria and her family in Pakistan.”
“What about others?” asked Havelock. “Did others try to escape?”
