Tag Archives: human trafficking

REACH OUT AND TOUCH, A #STORY

REACH OUT AND TOUCH

“Take a little time out of your busy day/To give encouragement/To someone who’s lost the way
(Just try)/Or would I be talking to a stone/If I asked you/To share a problem that’s not your own
We can change things if we start giving/Why don’t you
Reach out and touch/Somebody’s hand
Make this world a better place/If you can…” Diane Ross 1970

The wrinkled, smudged envelope lay stuffed among my junk mail. I studied the faded words. Neither the handwriting nor the no-name return address rang a bell. The barely legible postmark read: Ukiah, CA,  but the zip code had faded out. The date stamp read: Aug 21 20…  The rest of the year had smeared into  blue oblivion.

As I trudged back up the potholed drive, I wiped the liquid August heat from my brow with the tail of my dirty t-shirt. The mystery letter provided a good excuse to take an iced tea break. Inside the old two-story, clapboard farmhouse, I reached toward the sink sideboard to flip on some music. My hand groped empty air then I recalled that the DVD/CD player had been one of last night’s casualties.

No-last-name-revealed Susie, a girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen that I’d brought home from the Seattle streets the week before ran off sometime during the night. Three hundred dollars in cash and the compact disc player ran off with her. It’d been a long time since that had happened. The missing material items didn’t hurt as much as the feeling of failure.

Maybe Tim had been right. His shouted accusations from six months earlier still gnawed at me. “Just because you can’t have kids, doesn’t mean my life should be embroiled in chaos created by other people’s juvenile delinquents.” His lip had turned up in that hateful way he had as he’d shouted, “Do you really believe you’ve changed a single one of those brats’ lives? All you’ve accomplished is to wreck our marriage!”

Life would certainly be simpler, and quieter, without rebellious teen girls and angry parents who stormed up to my door in the middle of the night. They refused to take their child home, yet demanded I turn her out. Facing aggressive abusers at fifty is a lot scarier than at forty.

The month before Tim stormed out of my life, I’d had to call the police on a stepfather waving a handgun outside my back door. After the police hauled the man off, Tim issued his ultimatum. “Sandra, it’s either me or those damn girls. One of us isn’t staying here.”

How could I close my door against #girls whose only other choice was often sex for food?

I carried the letter into the living room and folded onto the faded sofa. One foot tucked up under me, I took a sip of lemony tea then set the glass on the scarred cherry wood end table. Carefully, I slit open the envelope. A sheet of yellow tablet paper with scrawled lines fell out.

“Dear Sandy,

It’s been ten years since I split in the middle of the night with all the cash I could find as well as the clothes you bought for me. I hitched a ride with a trucker from your place in Bellingham to Mom’s house in Ukiah. Two weeks later I caught a bus back to the streets of #Seattle. I’d picked a fight with Mom. Mays, of course, grounded me. The truth: my running had nothing to do with Mom or with my stepfather, Mays. I just couldn’t seem to get comfortable anywhere.

After living with you for those eighteen months, I viewed street life differently, somehow. Maybe it was those late night gab sessions that you, Stoney, Jaimie and me used to have. Slowly I realized that none of us street kids were the glamorous outlaws whose personas we tried to don. Those outlaw clothes hung on us like baggy rags. Just scared, hungry, stoned kids running from one thing or another, but not running to anything, except a dead end life.

Eight months after I hit the streets again, my best friend, Lydia, died from an overdose. She lay dead, there on the filthy mattress in the back room of a crack house next to me. I woke up from my own drug run and felt her cold arm against mine.

As tears rolled down my face, I could hear you telling me the first time we met on First Avenue in Seattle, “It’s up to you, Michelle. You can stay here on the streets where there isn’t any future, except death of one kind or another, or you can walk away now and with work become anything you want to become. It’s your choice.”

When I dragged home, neither Mom nor Mays ever said a word. Back at school, whenever I felt like quitting, I’d recall how you took me in and told me I could make my life count for something good. You peered through the caked on makeup, the green hair, all those piercings and saw me. I promised myself that I’d write when I became someone you’d be proud to know.

So, I’m writing.

When I received my degree in psychology, Mom and Mays helped finance the opening of a halfway house for street girls. We call it Phoenix Rising. It’s not much. Five acres and a rambling old farmhouse that Mays and the girls are helping me remodel. In the pasture are two horses, Lost and Found, both from auction, both headed for slaughter. They keep company with a goat named Bad Manners. Our orange housecat was a feral kitten a friend of mine live trapped, injured and flea ridden. Her name’s Welcome and that’s what she does to every girl who walks through the front door. Our lab mix came from the local shelter. We named her Friend, and she’s been one to every living thing on this place. Every day those animals keep teaching me the lessons I first learned from you, lessons about having an open heart, believing in others, and giving.

Currently, ten girls live here. Kathy and Melody have been here since a week after the house opened. Kathy’s a computer genius who has already been scouted by a couple of colleges. Melody plans to attend a nearby vocational tech school to learn carpentry.

Sandy, do you remember that night about two weeks after I arrived when you and I were standing, leaning on the top rail of your pasture fence? I told you that a person needed a nice car, good clothes, a fine house and money if they wanted to be happy.

You studied me for a few minutes then turned back to stare out at your Arabian, Angel, prancing across the field. Then in that quiet voice of yours, you told me that after your baby had been born dead and the doctor said you could never have children, you swallowed a handful of pills. The nice house, the fancy clothes and the big car couldn’t give you a reason to live.

Your friend, Rachelle, found you and rushed you to the emergency room. She stayed with you for days. The day you were discharged, Rachelle drove you down to First Avenue then on up and around the university district. She pointed out the street kids as she drove then she pulled over to the side of the road and turned toward you. In a furious voice, she said, “Of course, you can have kids! There they are!” She’d swept her arm to include a young girl probably no more than thirteen huddled in a doorway and another young girl panhandling on a corner.

“There are your kids. If you don’t claim them, if you don’t reach out and touch their lives, who will? And if someone doesn’t give a damn, they’re going to die. Same as your baby died, but for a whole lot less reason.”

You looked at me then. Tears glistened in your eyes as you told me, “The important things can’t be purchased. They can only be handed on, from one person to another, a priceless inheritance.”

Sandy, thank you for my inheritance.

Love, Michelle Dryer.”

Double-checking the phone number on the letter, I smiled as I punched it in.

“Hello?” An older woman’s voice answered.

“I’d like to speak with Michelle Dryer. This is Sandy Harmer.”

“The Sandy from Bellingham, the one Michelle stayed with for a while?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m Eleanor. Eleanor Dryer. Michelle’s mother.”

“Oh, I thought the number on the letter was Michelle’s. You’re not going to believe this, but I just received a letter from Michelle that apparently got lost before it wound up here. In it she told me about her halfway house for girls, Phoenix Rising.”

“That letter must be almost two years old!” Eleanor gasped.  “Michelle…” I heard a catch in the woman’s voice, a hiccup much like a strangled sob. “Michelle was killed a bit over a year ago.”

“Killed?” I sank back against the couch.

“Andrea, a little thirteen-year-old, was sent to Michelle by a street worker. The mother and her drunk boyfriend found out where Andrea was and showed up one night. They tried to force her to go with them, but Michelle got Andrea loose then the boyfriend pulled a gun. Michelle jumped him and yelled for Andrea to run.

“Poor child, she ran to the house and called the police and before she even hung up she heard a gunshot. She ran back outside. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were gone, but Michelle had been shot. She…she died before the ambulance arrived.”

“I’m sorry. So sorry,” I whispered as tears trickled down my cheeks.

Eleanor sniffed, cleared her throat. “It’s a great loss to all of us. Mays was devastated. He and Michelle had grown very close.”

Tim’s angry words echoed in my heart, “If you keep playing around in other people’s business, you’re going to get yourself or someone else hurt!” Now, Michelle was dead.

Almost as if she could read my mind, Eleanor said, “Sandy, we want you to know how grateful we are that you were part of Michelle’s life. We could’ve lost her on the streets, but we got to share our beautiful daughter’s life. We’ve been blessed to see all the good that she’s done.”

“I…I feel like I somehow got her…her killed.” My throat ached with tears and sorrow.

“Why, Sandy, you should see the girls who came when they heard. Some of them were just girls Michelle talked to on the streets, and others she helped in some way. And, the girls who lived here when it happened, they all stayed on with Mays and me. Said this was home. I don’t think we could’ve gotten through this year without them.” I heard her sigh then she said, “The life Michelle lived because of you was so much better than the life she would’ve lived without you. Thank you.”

After I said good-bye to Eleanor, I laid the phone softly back on its’ cradle and wandered outside. I headed up to the barn. Across the miles and years, Michelle had reached out and touched someone. Had renewed yet another person’s faith and given hope where hope seemed gone.

This time that someone was me.

The End.

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Street Harvest

What do the bodies of two young children have in common with the murders of two adult men? Eleanor Hasting, a black bookstore owner and child advocate, knows these killings are linked. How can she convince Lieutenant Michael Williams, head of the Special Crimes Team? Someone is abducting street children and their bodies are showing up sexually abused and manually strangled. Psychic and member of Missing Children’s Rescue, Jaimie Wolfwalker, is prepared to do whatever it takes to locate and rescue the missing street children. The law be damned. Jaimie’s attitude and methods place her on a collision course with Sergeant Nita Slowater, second-in-command of the Special Crimes Team. Four dedicated people struggle to come to terms with each other in their desperate search for clues. Every day brings more missing children, more young bodies. Can they stop the monsters before another child disappears?

Buy it here:

Book Release Daily #Censorship of Street Harvest!

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Book Release Daily, a site that features new releases, refuses to feature a book that exposes the plight of #missing #children! In Street Harvest, Book 2, Special #Crimes Team series, I wrote about street kids kidnapped by human traffickers. Book Release Daily feels that my book exploits children.

Here are some examples of what is objectionable:

Chapter 4

“Floater down on the waterfront at Ivar’s.” He rubbed a hand back and forth across his short-cropped, kinky hair, a habitual gesture whenever he was frustrated or worried.

As she waited to hear the rest of what brought him to her office door, she wondered if he was even aware of the gesture.

“A boy. Dr. Hutchinson thinks he’s around eleven, maybe twelve.” His lips thinned to a slash.

She knew it was more than a dead kid. The Special Crimes Team might feel bad about a dead kid, but they wouldn’t be involved in the investigation unless it was like little Jane Doe, an obvious victim of a sicker-than-usual pervert. Whatever it was had to be nasty. That was the only type of crimes with which they dealt. The crimes that made veteran cops question their choice of career. Hell, being in SCaT even had her sometimes questioning her career choice, though she didn’t know what she would be if she wasn’t a cop.

A bone-deep sadness shadowed Mike’s black-brown eyes. “He was naked. There were several rings of bruises around the boy’s neck. Bite marks on the backs of his shoulders.”

Her insides twisted into knots. Another one. She shut down her laptop, stuffed it in the middle desk drawer, and locked it. With her cane in hand, she pushed to her feet, grabbed her jacket, and headed for the door. “Damn it! I was hoping little Jane Doe was just the random victim of some perv gone too far.”

Without replying, Mike stepped into the hallway and waited for her to lock up. As they headed to the elevator at the end of the corridor she noticed how heavily he moved, like an old man

God, he’s not that old, probably around my dad’s age. Quickly she shut down that line of thought. She refused to give a moment’s consideration to the man who had deserted her when she was just eleven, and right after Chelsea’s death. There had been a time when she wondered if her father had left because of Chelsea’s death, if he blamed her as much as she blamed herself.

Forcefully, she returned her mind to the present.

No, Mike wasn’t that old, but the day little Jane Doe’s body had shown up, the years had gathered on his face. Focused on the autopsy, he hadn’t noticed her watching as his body had clenched, and his shoulders had hunched up around his ears as if he expected a sudden blow from somewhere. A suspicious sheen had gathered in his eyes. He had glanced around, but she’d pretended to be intent on the small body on the stainless steel table. From the corner of her eye, she’d seen him swipe at his eyes then settle his face into an impassive mask.

Chapter 5

“Are we assuming that all of the children, both missing and dead, are ultimately victims of a #sexual #predator?” Frederick crossed his forearms on the table and leaned on them. His eyes swept around the group until they finally settled on Mike.

Detective O’Hara squirmed in her seat. Her lips twisted like she’d taken a big drink of soured milk. “We know the dead kids are. Jane Doe was raped, sodomized, and tortured. There’s evidence that the rapist used a condom. Prelim report says the boy’s injuries were similar, if not identical. This time the rapist used dropping the body in Puget Sound to get rid of the evidence.” She bit her lip and frowned like she just couldn’t understand the monster they were hunting. “According to Dr. Hutchinson’s report, both children died from asphyxiation after being manually strangled multiple times. There was so much bruising he couldn’t even get a clear size on the handprints. Why would anyone strangle a child one time, much less multiple times?”

“Sexual arousal.” Nita grimaced. “Choke your partner until he, or she, blacks out. Supposedly enhances the sexual high for both parties.”

Mike was glad no one cracked any jokes about the asphyxiation angle. Even cop humor couldn’t dull the anger over what had happened to those two kids. Damn! I’m going to have to get past this or I’m not going to be able to do anyone any good.

Chapter 13

“How did you know it was a police van?” Dr. Nelson asked gently.

“It was black, like they are sometimes, and on the side it had the logo for the Seattle police, and when they threw me inside, there was…there was a heavy wire mesh between the back and the front, like the cages in cop cars.”

“Were there seats?”

He shook his head, and blinked rapidly several times. A tear leaked from one eye and his chin quivered. He pulled in a shaky breath. “They…they took me way out in the woods, to this house. I was…locked…in a room and…” Arms tight around his bent legs, he rocked back and forth.

Grease recounted a string of sexual attacks by men who hid behind Halloween masks. At the end, he sniffed and rubbed his red nose on his jean-clad knee. Forehead dropped to his knees, he sat stiffly, as if he might shatter into jagged shards if he breathed too hard.

“Grease,” Irene waited until the boy raised his red-rimmed eyes to her. “I realize your ordeal has been very painful, but there are a few things we need you to do.”

“Yeah, I know. You wanna poke at me and take pictures and do one of them rape kits, doncha?” Belligerence born of hurt and helplessness and anger ripped the bitter words from the thirteen-year-old’s mouth.

In a soft voice, Irene said, “I would like to examine you to be sure you don’t have unmet medical needs. And, yes, it would be good to have photos, if you can tolerate the invasion of your privacy. If you can’t, we can forgo the photos. A rape kit wouldn’t do us any good. It’s been too long since the last attack on you.”

Well, what do you, the reader, think? Do these examples titillate or in other ways exploit the plight of children? Or do these examples simply make the plight of children real? Leave a comment. I would love to hear!

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JAIMIE WOLFWALKER DISCUSSES MISSING #CHILDREN

Today I have the pleasure of #interviewing Jaimie Wolfwalker, #psychic, member of #Missing #Children’s Rescue, Pacific NW Chapter, who recently worked with the Special Crimes Team in cracking a ring of #human #traffickers and saving the lives of a number of children.

ayastreet harvest

Interviewer: Jaimie, I’ve always been curious about people with special gifts. When did your abilities first manifest?

Jaimie Wolfwalker: I was six weeks away from high school graduation when my mother’s car was hit head-on by a drunk driver. My mother was killed immediately. Apparently, that triggered my ability to See children who are lost.

Interviewer: I’m very sorry to hear about your mother. When your ability manifested, did you have anyone to guide you in dealing with it?

Jaimie: My grandmother on my mother’s side was Native American. She helped me understand that I hadn’t suddenly gone insane and begun having hallucinations.

Interviewer: How did you get involved with the Missing Children’s Rescue?

Jaimie: After I graduated, I moved to Bow, Washington to live on Gran’s alpaca ranch. Gran was best friend’s with Eleanor Hasting who was the head of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of MCR. Gran introduced us.

Interviewer: What type of job do you have that will allow you to leave at a moment’s notice to search for a missing child?

Jaimie: Gran died the summer after I moved to Bow. She deeded me the ranch and left a small legacy for me, as well. I sold the ranch. And, when I’m not searching for children, I’m pretty handy with carpentry so I pick up odd jobs like building kitchen cabinets or cute doghouses. That kind of thing.

Interviewer: What can you tell us about the case you worked with the #SpecialCrimesTeam?

Jaimie: It was a heart-breaking case. Especially the little girl, Becca. I don’t know what we would have done without the medicine man, Traveler. All the case details can be found in Street Harvest, Book 2, Special Crimes Team. You can find the case study at http://www.amazon.com/author/ayawalksfar

Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Jaimie: Wherever Creator would have me go.

Interviewer: If you could tell people one thing, what would it be?

Jaimie: Cherish the children, all the #children. They are the future.

Street Harvest boyGirl Street Harvest

(Some children walk down a lonely road, or leave school smiling at their besties……

Street Harvest kids gone    And some of them never make it home)

 

Interviewer: Thank you for being here today.

You can read all about the Special Crimes Team and the case of the missing children (Street Harvest, Book 2, Special Crimes Team) at: http://www.amazon.com/author/ayawalksfar

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STREET HARVEST, Book 2, Special #Crimes Team

ayastreet harvest

What do the bodies of two young #children have in common with the #murders of two adult men?

Eleanor Hasting, a black bookstore owner and child advocate, knows these killings are linked. How can she convince Lieutenant Michael Williams, head of the Special Crimes Team? Someone is abducting street children and their bodies are showing up sexually abused and manually strangled.

#Psychic and member of Missing Children’s Rescue, Jaimie Wolfwalker, is prepared to do whatever it takes to locate and rescue the missing street children. The law be damned. Jaimie’s attitude and methods place her on a collision course with Sergeant Nita Slowater, second-in-command of the Special Crimes Team.

Four dedicated people struggle to come to terms with each other in their desperate search for clues. Every day brings more #missingchildren, more young bodies. Can they stop the monsters before another child disappears?

AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 22 ON AMAZON! http://www.amazon.com/author/ayawalksfar

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