by Sophia Rey
Detectives Alvarez and Isaaks walked up the few steps and knocked on the door. I saw a boy, maybe ten years–old, open the door and stand in the doorway. Thankfully, Detective Isaaks had turned on his body camera and walkie–talkie so we could hear what was happening. I heard the boy say rudely, “Wadaya want?”
“We saw two girls go in here and we’d like to speak to them,” Rosa’s voice crackled through the walkie–talkie.
“There ain’t no girls here.” The boy sounded rehearsed.
“Look, we saw them go in.” Detective Isaaks’ voice sounded forceful. “You tell whoever’s in charge that there’s a detective at the door and we’re not leaving without those girls.”
The boy closed the door. A few seconds later, Mamma Laura opened it again. “Can I help you?” Her voice was dripping with overt politeness.
“Yes, we’ve come for the two girls who just came in this house, Maurine and Amire. We watched them come in just a few minutes ago, so there’s no point in saying they’re not here.” Detective Isaaks did not return the politeness. I could tell he was getting annoyed.
Mamma Laura seemed to be weighing her options.
Just then, we heard Rosa’s radio go off. “Number 92,” it crackled through. “Heard you were working a 1014. Do you need back up?”
“Not yet.” I couldn’t tell if the radio communication was a ruse perfectly timed, or if it was a fluke, but it did the trick. The small conversation produced a huge effect on Mamma Laura. “Why don’t y’all come in and sit down.” She turned and called into the house. “Maurine! Amire! Could you two come on up here please?” We saw Maurine and Amire step out onto the porch.
Rosa spoke gently but firmly to the two girls. “Maurine, Amire, I’m Detective Alvarez. Emily’s waiting around the corner and she’d like to speak to you. She’s really sad you missed the end of the party.”
Maurine looked at Mamma Laura. “Go on,” said Mamma. She obviously didn’t want trouble with the police right then.
I watched as they left the porch and Mamma Laura closed the door. I could imagine her locking it tight so the cops wouldn’t come back. It seemed like hours until they brought the girls over, but it was probably closer to two minutes. When they reached the car, Detective Johnson let me out and I gave them a quick hug before saying, “Hello girls. You missed the pizza and cupcakes and presents. What happened?”
“I don’t want to live at your house any more. I want to live here,” Maurine told me. It was like a slap in the face.
“But why not?” I couldn’t keep back my emotions. “What happened? We tried to make you comfortable. We planned this birthday party and everything. You were so happy this morning.”
She looked down. “I don’t want a party. I don’t want anything.” She inadvertently shoved up her sleeves, probably because it was hot in the patrol car, and I saw big red welts on her arms. She saw the look of shock that came over my face and immediately rolled them back down.
“What made you think to come back here?” Detective Alvarez asked gently.
“Because Mamma Laura listens to me. She buys me clothes. She gets me the music I like to listen to. She makes me cookies and grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese.”
“But we gave you lots of food and took you fun places when we could,” I interjected.
“You only did it because you thought Carol was getting in trouble,” she said. “I heard you talking. You don’t let me go out at night and you make me listen to music I don’t like and you make me do all kinds of stupid chores.”
Rosa pulled me aside and said, “There’s something not right, Emily. Do you sense it? Remember the note Carol found? She hasn’t mentioned it once. We need to figure out what’s really going on. But can you please let me do the talking?”
“Okay,” I responded. “But did you see the big welts on her arms? Those weren’t there before. Somebody hurt her.”
“Leave it with me. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” She stepped back toward Maurine and Amire. “What’s really going on Maurine?” she asked. “I know there’s another reason you came here. We saw you with that big girl, and your sister found the note they left at the party. I think you’re smart enough to see that this isn’t a good place. You and Amire don’t belong here. You both have people who care about you. What’s going on here?”
Maurine looked away, but Amire spoke up. “She said that they missed Carol and wanted to talk to her. She told us that if we came down here and got Carol to come to we’d each get paid $100.00. And then she grabbed Maurine by the arm when she said we didn’t want to leave until after the party. Told her that if we didn’t leave right then the deal was off.”
I was confused by this confession, but Detective Alvarez wasn’t. “So that’s the going price these days,” she said with a look of anger on her face. “One hundred dollars to trick someone into a life of torture.”
I remembered how desperate Carol was to come with us. That could have been bad. I was grateful for the detectives’ foresight.
“Look you two.” Detective Alvarez put on her you’re–in–trouble voice. “I know $100.00 seems like a lot to you, but you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that this is not a good place for Carol or anyone else to live. I’m sure Joey was paid to get you to come here and I know you’d like to buy all kinds of things with that $100.00, but you’ll have to believe me when I say that it’s not worth it.”
She paused for a while and then said, “You know how they hurt your arm to get you to come here, Maurine? What if I told you that Carol had to do things that hurt her when she lived here?”
“Like what?”
“Did you ever burn your hand on the stove?” Rosa asked. The girls nodded. “Well, it’s like she’s being paid to burn herself, but she knows she’s going to be burned. It’s like someone is putting her hand on the burner and she knows what’s going to happen.”
“Then why would she do it? I wouldn’t put my hand on the stove.” Maurine looked disgusted.
“I wouldn’t put my hand on the stove,” parroted Amire.
“She did it, hurt herself, for someone she loves.”
“Who?” asked Maurine.
“For you.” Detective Alvarez carefully put her hand on the girls’ shoulders. “Before Emily and her mother took you in, your sister felt defenseless. She didn’t know where to turn. She thought if she called the police that they would separate you. She didn’t know what she was getting into, but she decided to come here anyway because she was desperate.” She paused, turned Maurine so she was looking directly into her eyes, and asked her, “She’s been like a mom to you for a long time, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Maurine shuffled her feet. “I kinda knew what she did because she told me a little bit, but I don’t want her to come back here if it’s that bad.”
“Good.” Detective Alvarez clapped her hands together. “Then we all agree. Nobody is coming back here. Now let’s get you both back home where you belong. Maurine, can I see your arm? I’d like to know how badly this girl hurt you.”
Maurine shook her head and pulled her arms close to her. I could only imagine what was going through her head. Detective Alvarez reluctantly decided not to pursue this line of questioning. So, we got the girls into the two cars and headed back to Mesquite, calling Mom to let her know that we’d retrieved the two girls.
I asked Detective Isaaks on the way back why he didn’t check out the rest of Mamma Laura’s house. Why they told him not to check out the house to find some of the other girls and women who were being abused. “First of all,” he told me, “because I was told not to. We have an order to things in the police department. The captain said I should do only what I needed to get the girls out of there, and I did. Secondly, Mamma Laura’s is just one of a number of houses in the southwest filled with trafficked girls. They’re in a network run by a gang out of California. Mamma Laura’s just a small spoke in a big wheel of crime.
“We’ll probably do a sting involving some u
ndercover cops to get on the inside of the organization before we try and get to the idiots who run this so called business.” Just talking about it made him so angry that I could see a vein pop up on his forehead.
When we got home, Mom and Carol were there waiting to hug Maurin. Amire’s parents were there, too. They had been worried sick since Mom had called them to tell them of the kidnapping.
The police took Amire’s parents aside for ten minutes and explained what had happened to the girls, letting them know their daughter had not been hurt and that they could be grateful to have her home safe, thanks to the help of Carol and me. Mom took them aside to tell them about part of Maurine’s past.
Carol was beside herself with relief and anger. “I’m so glad they didn’t hurt you!” she gushed over Maurine. She held her so tight I was surprised I didn’t hear some bones breaking. In the next breath, she loosened her grip, held her at a distance, and said, “I can’t believe you put Amire in such danger. I told you part of what they were doing at that house. I’m just so happy Detective Isaaks found you.” Then she held Maurine as she would disappear if no one held onto her, and wept with relief.
I saw Amire’s mom nodding her head as the family left our apartment. She seemed to understand a bit of why Maurine did what she did. “I know Maurine can use all the friends she can get right now. We’ll be happy to have Maurine over sometime soon. I will be keeping an eye on them though.” And with that, they left.
************
Later that night, I was grabbing a drink from the fridge when I heard Carol talking on the patio. I peeked out to see who she was talking with, but there was nobody else there. She was pacing back and forth, back and forth, crying while she spoke to the darkness. “I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe I let my own sister get involved in this stuff. I can’t believe she went back there and took somebody with her. I’d like to wring her neck, but how can I when it’s my own neck I should be wringing. Of course my neck isn’t the only one whose neck I’d like to wring. I’d like to wring Mom’s and The Toad’s and—”
“I’m sorry to bother you.” I stepped onto the porch. “Thought you might like a drink.” I handed her a bottle of Coke.
She cradled the bottle in her hands and sat down in a chair. “No bother,” she said. “I’m just so angry. If you and that detective hadn’t found my little sister I don’t know what I’d do. I’m to blame for getting her into that situation. I can’t believe I got involved in this….I just can’t believe it. What kind of person brings her little sister to such a place?”
“A desperate person,” I answered. I sat down in the chair next to her. “Can I tell you a secret?” She nodded. “I’m not so different from you.”
“Come again?”
“I’m not so different from you. Remember Mason? I got involved with a man who was planning to traffic me…at least it looks like he was going to traffic me. He got me to think he was a nice guy and I was stupid enough to believe he was. To tell the truth, in a way I feel like I made a worse decision than you did. Even after all he’s done, part of me still wants to be with him.”
Carol looked surprised. “What did he do?”
“He acted like he really wanted a serious relationship, then he dumped me like a hot rock. Looking back, I can see he was just trying to use me, but he was so good to me while we were going out that I just can’t seem to let him go. I don’t see him anymore, but I still think about him. I just found out that he and his friend ran a website that was basically trolling for underage girls they could use as income. Know what I mean?”
“Too much. But why do you think what you did’s so bad? I almost got my little sister killed!” She almost started crying again.
“Well, I should have known better.” I took a sip from my drink then continued. “I have caring parents who try to tell me what’s what. I don’t have to watch out for somebody like The Toad. I don’t have the responsibility of looking out for a younger sister. I just have to watch Kai, who’s more like a pet pig than a brother.” I grinned despite myself.
Carol smiled a weak smile. “Well, I guess we’ve both made mistakes. I’m just so thankful that Maurine’s back. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”
I looked up at the night sky and found the North Star. I took another sip of my soda and let myself breathe for a second before I spoke. “I’m thankful she’s back, too.”
CHAPTER 37
A FEW WEEKS AFTER we rescued Maurine and Amire, I met with Detective Isaaks again.
“I don’t see why some of the kids from Mamma Laura’s couldn’t just be put into foster care,” I said to him while he asked me more about Mason.
“Because there just aren’t that many foster homes for older kids,” he acknowledged. Many people do foster care as a means to adopting a child. They may not want to adopt a teen. They want to adopt a baby or a toddler who they can raise with their own values. When kids are older than six they are most likely to be placed in group homes.”
“Six?” I questioned. “I’ve seen these commercials that say that the average age of a kid in foster care is six. That means there must be some younger kids available.”
“That’s what they want you to think. What happens is that there are a very small number of babies placed and that brings the average age down. Most toddlers and babies who are born to single moms who can’t take care of them are adopted by family members. That brings the average age of a child in the foster care system up to about 10.”
“Those are the lucky ones. But if a mom thinks she can raise her kids, even if she’s mentally ill or a drug addict or whatever, that’s when the trouble starts. Moms want to keep their kids. That’s natural. And most people love a cute little baby. But when that kid gets older and starts talking back and getting into things, then he’s not so cute. Relatives may try to help out. They give the mom a break. They take the kid to the doctor and the day care center if the mom can afford it. But soon they tire of this. So the kid is put into a temporary foster home.
“But moms don’t like to give up custody. So the kid gets switched from home to home and soon he doesn’t even feel like he has home. This is another reason kids get trafficked. They have no sense of permanency so they are easy prey.”
“I met one of these kids when I was working narcotics. He was 10 years old and he’d been in 11 placements.”
“How could he be in 11 placements in only 10 years?” I asked.
“First his mom dropped he and his two siblings off at the Child Crisis Center. His siblings, Renee and Robert, were 18 months old, and he was just a few weeks old. The foster mom asked her biological son give Andrew….the youngest child…a bath. The kid tried to do a good job giving the bath, but he heated the water up too much and burned Andrew.
“So Andrew was put in a home in Levine. Robert, who was severely disabled, and Renee, were put in a home on the other side of town.”
“Several families tried to adopt Andrew. He was placed in several foster homes. But the DCS kept insisting that all three children be kept together. Most couples were just not able to take in three children, especially since Robert required almost round the clock care.”
“What was wrong with Robert?”
“He had a cleft palate, for one thing. People don’t always know how time consuming this can be, to provide for a child with this type of disability.”
“I sure don’t know,” I said.
“I had to read up on it myself,” he admitted. “Kids with this condition have to have a series of operations, which are painful and can have a long recovery. While they are in recovery they need to eat through a tube sometimes. It’s very hard on the parents as well as the children because they have to see their children suffer through these operations.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Like I said, neither did I. The point is, kids like Andrew are sometimes lost in the shuffle. Many couples and single parents would love to have had just Andrew, but they knew it was beyo
nd their parenting skills to take on three kids like this. Some of the couples really tried. They tried to get respite care from the state or find a nanny who could help with all the kids, but it was so expensive and the state wouldn’t help much. By the time I saw Andrew and he’s been shifted around from family to family so many times he seemed disengaged.”
“The family he was with when I did the drug bust weren’t that bad. The neighbors had just called because they were tired of their house smelling like a pot party every day. I personally would a just left him there. But the DCS has strict rules and that neighbor had reported the family several times, so the kid was removed.”
I’d never seen Detective Isaaks so passionate, or verbal, about a subject. So I asked him, “Why are you so psyched about the foster care system.”
“Because,” he said. “It affects so many of the people I know. Black kids are overrepresented in the foster care/adoption system. My own aunt had to adopt her grand children because my cousin is mentally ill and couldn’t take care of her two kids. My aunt took care of them for two years and then her daughter, who is bipolar, wanted them back and it became a big thing.”
“Vanessa would come over to my aunt’s house just to complain. She would say stuff like, ‘Did you change Aisha’s diaper’ and ‘Did the baby get enough for lunch?’ But she didn’t wanna take care of the kid. She just wanted to correct Aunt Sheila and scream at her when she thought something was wrong. My aunt had a very low income herself and one time when Vanessa bought a dress that cost $500.00, Aunt Sheila’d had enough. She only made $400.00 a week so that was a lot of money.”
“Aunt Sheila tried to take the dress back, but Vanessa wouldn’t let her and my aunt ended up paying part of Vanessa’s rent.”
“I’d take the dress back if she was my daughter,” I said.
