“To demonstrate the disturbing reality of what goes on in some chat rooms, we enlisted the help of volunteers from a vigilante organization called Predator-Beware. Volunteers of this controversial group are experts at pretending to be children online in order to catch and expose potential predators. One of these vigilantes is Debra Darden.”
A new face filled the screen. Debra Darden looked to be about forty, with close-set brown eyes and a cap of blunt-cut gray hair.
“Debra, how do you, as a PredatorBeware operative, go about catching sexual predators?”
“Well, Mitch,”
Debra explained to the viewing audience,
“it's ridiculously simple. First we go into chat rooms, usually through AOL or Yahoo, and set up a profile of a twelve-, thirteen-, or fourteen-year-old ⦠a profile that often includes a photo of a child who is quite obviously underage. Then we just sit and wait to be contacted by an adult.”
Somewhere off-camera another voice spoke low, as if reporting on a golf putt.
“Tony thinks he's coming to the house of a twelve-year-old boy whose parents have left him alone for the weekend. Tony has brought along a six pack of beer.”
We watched transfixed as a man who must have been Tony entered the kitchen wearing nothing but his smile and the six pack. Electronic fuzzing covered his naughty bits.
Ruth, who had been leaning toward the television screen, flopped back in her chair, covered her mouth with both hands. “Excuse me while I barf.”
When confronted by the
Cross Current
teamâwho thoughtfully tossed him a dish towelâTony claimed he simply felt sorry for the boy and he brought the beer along to go with the pizza he planned to order. He'd also brought along some DVDs.
On the hidden tape, Mitch looked visibly pained.
“And just where are you keeping those DVDs, sir?”
Suddenly, Mitch was back in real time, still looking pained.
“Law enforcement officials estimate that fifty thousand predators are online at any given moment, and the number of reports of children being solicited for sex is growing.”
“Hello? Knock knock?”
I squinted at the screen, trying to make out the face of another man looking around, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot at the back door of the decoy house. He wore a track suit and a ball cap, its bill slightly askew.
“Roger thinks he's coming to a house to meet a thirteen-year-old girl named Cyndi, apparently for sex.”
Roger? Not many men named Roger these days. The only Roger I knew was Roger Haberman.
I watched in morbid fascination as the man in the ball cap entered the kitchen.
A youngish voice off camera, presumably the decoy, chirped,
“I've spilled Coke on my jeans. I'll be down in a minute. There's some chips if you want them.”
The man called Roger wandered around the kitchen for a minute or two, picked up the bag of chips and read the label, but didn't eat anything. Perhaps the percentages on the nutritional panel had alarmed him. Roger put the bag down, then looked straight up into one of the hidden cameras.
I grabbed Paul's arm. “Oh my God, it
is
Roger Haberman!”
Paul, who had charge of the remote, punched the volume up just as the real-time Mitch launched into: “
Roger thinks the girl in this house is a thirteen-year-old virgin home alone and willing to perform oral sex. But like many of the men you'll meet tonight, he's in for a big surprise when I walk out. Some think I'm the child's father, others believe I'm with the police. One thing's certain: none of them knows our hidden cameras are recording their every move and they'll be appearing on
Cross Current.”
Back in the kitchen, Roger was stammering to Mitch and the hidden camera,
“I've never done anything like this before.”
“And yet,”
real-time Mitch said,
“we learned that while Roger Haberman was living in California, he was twice convicted of a second degree sexual offense and served a year in jail.”
I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. Roger?
Eva's Roger
was a convicted sex offender? No wonder Erika had been so secretive about the television program. Erika served on the vestry at St. Cat's. But none of that explained how she knew about the program and what her connection with it was.
Mitch shook his head into the camera.
“You'll hear more from Roger a little bit later. First, there are more men headed to our house. Meet VAguy 23458. In his online chat with Debra he said, âThere's nothing in the world quite like a teenage body.'He's twenty-eight, and thinks he's talking to a fourteen-year-old.”
Paul hit the mute. “This is simply dreadful. Does Eva know, I wonder?”
“She has to know, Paul. She's been married to the man for over twenty years.”
“I mean, does she know about this program?”
“Surely Roger told her about the broadcast, and if he was stupid enough not to, I imagine she'll know shortly. Her phone will be ringing off the hook.”
Ruth, a loyal parishioner of First Presbyterian, didn't know Eva Haberman. “This could ruin her marriage.”
“Marriage? Ruth, she's a priest. This could ruin her life!”
“Ladies! The show's on.”
Mitch was on camera again, talking with Roger.
“This is being taped for the record, you know, and for broadcast on
Cross Current
on NBC.”
Now that he knew the cameras were there, Roger tugged on the bill of his ballcap and turned his face away.
“Oh, no, guy. No.”
“But if there's anything else you want to say?”
Roger dipped his head.
“Nothing.”
We sat in numb silence for the rest of the hour, watching Mitch and his crew nab a rabbi, a soccer coach, a pediatrician, a school bus driver, and a guy who worked at the airport for TSA.
“So what happens now?”
Mitch was wrapping it up.
“As they always do with law enforcement, the volunteers from PredatorBeware have turned over all of their online evidence, from the pornographic photos to transcripts of the online chats, to the Child Sex Crimes unit at the Montgomery County Police Department, which is actively looking at some of these cases. Predator-Beware has also posted the men's pictures and entire chat logs, including their phone numbers, on their website, PredatorBeware.com.”
Jeeze Laweese!
Would I have the stomach to visit their website and read the details of Roger's chat with Cyndi? Of course I would, but I'd hate myself for it.
When the show was over and Ruth had returned to the home she shared with Hutch a few blocks away on Conduit Street, I rummaged in the kitchen cabinet behind the spices, where I'd kept my prescription medications since the grandkids came into our lives. I found one bright yellow sleeping capsule left over from my postreconstructive surgery. It had expired two years ago. I washed it down with a slug of club soda. It was the only way I could think of to get some sleep.
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 bustsâ
MDGUY4U
âand clicked the link. Several options came up, along withâalready!âa 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.”