When the two police officers walked into the apartment, Martha looked around, examining the apartment carefully, looking for anything that might be incriminating. Her eyes fell on something lying on a table in the entryway and she smiled. "Hey, Tim, look at that," she said, pointing.
Tim turned and looked, then he smiled, too. He walked over the small table, bent down, and picked up the plastic bagful of dry brown leafy material. "Would you mind telling me what this is, Mr. Sanders?" he asked. He opened the bag and sniffed it.
"I...I never saw that bag before," Ben replied, his voice breaking. "I have no idea what it is, or how it got there." He wasn't sure, but he thought the bag was full of marijuana. How had it gotten there?
"Benjamin Sanders, you are under arrest for possession of marijuana," Tim said. "Turn around and put your hands on the wall!"
"I...I...please!" Ben said, "I..."
Tim grabbed Sanders, spun him around, pulled one hand up behind his back and fastened a handcuff to it, then the other. "Before we go any farther, Mr. Sanders," Tim said, "I need to advise you of your constitutional rights..." He proceeded to recite the Miranda warning to the man. "Come on, Sanders, let's go," Tim said when he finished with the warning. He grabbed the man's arm and started pulling him toward the door.
"No...I...I can't go out like this!" Sanders protested. "Can't you let me get dressed at least?"
Tim looked at Martha. "What do you think, partner?" he asked.
His partner grinned and shrugged. "Why not?" she said. "It's not like he's going to escape or anything."
"OK, Sanders," Tim said, "I'll take the cuffs off, then you and I will go in your bedroom and you'll put some more clothes on."
When Ben heard what the officer said, he immediately realized he couldn't go in his bedroom if one of the officers went with him. Sarah and Mindy were there! It was bad enough that he was being arrested for marijuana he knew nothing about, but if they found the girls... "Ah...I...I changed my mind. I...I'll go like this," he stammered. "I...I'm ready to go. I..."
"What's the matter, Sanders?" Tim asked. "There something in your bedroom you don't want us to see? You got more dope stashed in there or something?" He looked at Martha and nodded in the direction of the bedroom. "Better check the bedroom, partner."
Martha started toward the bedroom door.
"No!" Ben yelled. "Don't go in there! Stay out of there!"
Martha opened the bedroom door just as the two frightened sisters, who had been listening to what was going on out in the living room, were starting to put their clothes on. "Hello, girls," she said. "Would the two of you mind telling me what you are doing naked in Mr. Sanders bedroom?"
"Ah...nothin'...nothin'," Sarah stammered. She was struggling to get her tight jeans snapped.
"I...I...she made me do it," Mindy whimpered. Then she sat down on the floor and began to sob.
Martha pulled a portable radio out of her purse, held it up to her mouth, and pushed the button on the side. "David-four to EOC," she said.
"EOC, go ahead, David-four," came the reply.
"We need a juvenile officer, social services, a patrol unit, a deputy P.A., and detective command at Apartment 1-A, Jamestown Manor," Tim's partner replied. "We have three in custody, two of them juveniles."
"Copy, David-four, you want a juvenile officer, social services, a patrol unit, a deputy P.A. and detective command to respond to Apartment 1-A, Jamestown Manor," the dispatcher replied. "You're reporting three in custody, two of them juveniles. I'll get everybody rolling."
"Finish getting dressed, girls," Martha said after she finished her radio communication. "We'll be going down to police headquarters in a little while."
Both girls began to cry.
While Martha was dealing with the girls and they were waiting for transportation, Tim noticed a video camera on a tripod in the corner of the bedroom. He turned to the two sobbing girls. "Was Mr. Sanders taking videos of the stuff you were doing?" he asked.
Both of the girls stared at the floor and nodded.
Martha and Tim looked at each other and smiled. "You think he may do that all the time?" Tim suggested.
"Be nice for us if he did," Martha replied.
"Mr. Sanders, would you mind if we searched your apartment?" Tim asked the handcuffed man who had by this time gone completely white and seemed to be having problems breathing. "You can refuse," Tim added, "but if you do, we will get a search warrant and do it anyhow."
"The tapes you're looking for are in a file cabinet in my closet," Sanders replied sorrowfully.
After they finished what needed to be done at the apartment, the two detectives and their prisoners returned to police headquarters. The two girls were taken to the juvenile division for processing, Sanders was put in a holding cell.
Tim and Martha met with Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Milly Perkins, who hadn't made it out to Sanders' house, in the detective office at police headquarters. Deputy P.A. Perkins was slim and young-looking. She never wore makeup and always wore round steel-rimmed glasses and a stern look. She had on a gray business suit and maroon silk blouse. She also had the reputation of being the toughest prosecutor in the P.A.'s office.
"What have you guys got?" she asked, Tim and Martha.
"Our suspect's name is Benjamin Sanders," Tim said. "He's director of guidance at Jamestown High. We got this..." he tossed the package of marijuana on the table, "and we found two nearly-naked female high school students in his bedroom. We were kind of hoping you'd charge him with whatever offenses apply to an 'educator' who's screwing female students."
"Screwing students?" Milly asked, sounding shocked. "How many? And how old?"
"So far, all the girls we know he's screwed are eighteen," Martha said.
"What the hell is this guy, some kind of Don Juan?" the astonished deputy P.A. asked.
"He's the director of guidance at Jamestown High," Tim said. "From what we can tell, it looks like he's been using his position to target girls who are having emotional problems, and get them in bed."
Milly let out a soft whistle and shook her head. "Nice guy, huh?" she said. "Real prince of a fellow. Damn, wait until the press gets hold of this. The school committee's going to be jumping around like rain on a hot stove trying to blame everybody but themselves."
"One more thing," Tim said, "one of the girls Sanders has been messing with is in the hospital, in a coma."
"He have anything to do with that?" Milly asked.
"Apparently she was upset because she found out he was seeing other girls," Martha said. "Upset enough to gobble a bunch of pills. If her mother hadn't come home from work early and found her, she might not have survived."
"She going to be OK?" Milly asked.
"Last we heard, she's making progress," Martha said. "But that isn't all."
"Oh," the prosecutor said, raising her eyebrows.
"The hospitalized girl's mother works for the Atherton family," Martha said. "She's been their maid for years, they know about some of this."
"Jesus!" Milly said.
"So," Tim said, "what can we get Sanders for?"
"I'll start with the possession of drugs," Milly said. "Seeing as how the girls are all over eighteen, I don't think statutory rape will go. I've got to check statutes. I don't know whether we can get him for something like abusing his position or not." She smiled coldly. "And I intend to do everything I can to get him fired from his job and I'd like to make sure he doesn't work in any more schools, either." She paused. "How much pot was there?"
"About three ounces," Tim said. "Look, Mil, Sanders apparently videotaped his...ah...activities. We have all of the tapes, we just haven't looked at them yet. Could be we'll find proof he'd boffed some underage girls in the tapes."
"You do, let me know. Meanwhile, we'll charge him with possession with intent to sell," Milly said. "But don't get your hopes up that he'll get a lot of jail time. If we're lucky, he'll probably do two or three years, max. Eighteen months is more likely. And if he gets a good lawyer, probation might not be out of the question."
"He's gonna love doing eighteen months in jail," Martha said.
Two hours later, the paperwork required of the case was completed. Tim and Martha had called Sarah and Mindy's parents to come get them. The parents arrival resulted in a fairly emotional scene in the police station. Milly Perkins left, saying her office would notify the superintendent of schools. She said she'd be happy to file statutory rape charges if Tim and Martha could find evidence on the videotapes they'd confiscated.
Martha and Tim, finished for the night, headed out of the office.
