Chapter 123: Belinda Sue Miller

Saturday, June 12, 1971

Several of the drunks were too far gone to worry about, but there were a couple of nasty looking bruisers who were just waiting for the deputies to be gone so they could have some fun with the young kid.

I waited too and as soon as the deputies, closed the door, I waved my hand as I put the two of them to sleep. The hand was just for show.

They fell off the bench to the floor, so I stretched them out, side by side, with the big one’s head being cradled lovingly in the smaller one’s arms. Then taking the bench they had occupied, I glanced around me. None of the others were about to challenge me after what I had done to Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

I closed my eyes as I began scanning the rest of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. I didn’t find any more crooked cops, at least not on duty on this Saturday night. But I surmised that a lot of employees either suspected or knew that something rotten was going on. And they felt powerless to do anything about it. Along with the prosperity of the post-WWII era and the secretiveness of this generation’s leaders, had come the abuse of power. I knew that this would be addressed by society over the next decade as the youth of this generation would be far more politically active than their parents had been. So there wasn’t much I could do for them at the moment. Outside of removing the cancer.

An hour later, three people entered the hall, headed towards the holding tank. One of them was a worried Ray, looking to see if I was okay, along with the old jailer who had opened the cell earlier. The third was wearing an expensive, tailored suit that didn’t come from anywhere I ever shopped. But I decided to find out where she did shop, as I wanted my girls to shop there.

Belinda Sue Miller, Esquire, is what her business card read. But, in high school, her friends called her ‘Izzy’. It was one of those childhood monikers that had started in junior high school because of her frizzy hair. Of course, age and maturity, along with a good stylist and lots of product, had solved that problem. So the nickname had been shortened to just ‘Izzy’. Her old friends still called her that, but not even her closest business associates at the very prestigious law firm she worked for would have dared to, even if they knew.

“Mr. Wagner, I’m your attorney. My name is Miss Miller and the first thing I’m going to do is get you out of this hellhole,” she said as she wrinkled her nose at the stench of stale cigarette smoke, urine, and sweat in the confined area.

Alarm bells or wedding bells, I couldn’t decide. But there were definitely bells tolling loudly in my mind when she looked at me.

“Good morning, Izzy,” I told her with a grin. “Shall we?”

Izzy was slightly unbalanced as she immediately wondered how a sixteen-year-old from New York could possibly know of a nickname that had only been rarely used since before he was born. And I was slightly unbalanced by the bells that clanged in my brain every time she spoke.

At thirty-one, Izzy Miller had it all. Money, career, brains, and looks. Her office was on one of the higher floors of the tallest office building in downtown Houston and she had the feeling that it could happen any time now.

Even though she knew that the firm had never had one, she was determined to become the first woman to become a partner. She had figured out recently that working hard and winning every case wasn’t going to do it. So she was seriously considering the Senior Partner’s latest offer. “After all, how bad could it be spending the weekend at their hunting lodge? They’d still respect me after they made me a partner,” she had thought.

You see, Izzy Miller would do almost anything to get that coveted partner status. She had sacrificed everything to get this far, including a personal life, which was why, when the Senior Partner had called late on a Saturday night, she had thrown on her clothes and hurried down to the Harris County lockup to bail out some rich teenager who must have been drinking, or maybe even stoned out of his mind, to have stolen a squad car.

But he definitely wasn’t stoned and he didn’t appear to be drunk. “Actually, he’s kind of cute, in a boyish way,” she thought.

“You know, Izzy?” I drawled as we passed through the bullpen area on the way to an interview room, “You really look sort of pretty, for an older woman.”

Izzy whipped her head around to look at me. I had just used her nickname again, so there was no doubt that I knew it, ” ... but why did he call me an older woman like that? Was it just coincidence? Does he really think I’m pretty?” Then, “Get a hold of yourself, girl. You’re almost old enough to be his mother!”

The thoughts were ricocheting through her mind as I just smiled at her.

Ray led us to a small room with two chairs, one on each side of the table. “Would you like something to drink, Michael?” he asked. I told him no thank you, then thanked him for asking as he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Won’t you be seated, Miss Miller?” I asked as I pulled out the chair, holding it for her. She simply pulled out the other chair and sat.

“Why did I do that? He was only being polite. This kid really does have some manners!” she thought to herself.

She pulled out a sheaf of papers and quickly scanned until she found the charges against me while I remained standing. When she looked up to see me still standing, she said, “Won’t you sit down, Michael?”

“Oh, great! First names! I thought you were going to stay all formal on me, Izzy,” I said in my best teenaged voice as I sat down across from her. I kept my eyes on her the whole time which was not a chore. Izzy Miller was one very pretty lady.

Standing about as tall as Nicky, she had the same slender frame as Deedee. I could not tell anything about her breasts because of the blouse and jacket, but she seemed to curve in all the right places. It was her eyes that were her most striking feature. At least to me. They seemed to fill out her narrow face, which was framed by a short but full head of hair. “Laughing eyes” Grandma Brown had called them, “they are always connected to a warm heart,” she would say.

In Izzy’s mind’s eye, she still pictured herself as having long frizzy hair and braces, both of which she had thought made her look ugly and neither of which she had actually sported since high school.

“You really are beautiful,” I told her. “I’ll bet it has been forever since it was frizzy. Or since you wore braces.”

“Huh? How did you know I wore braces?” she asked. “Or that old nickname, for that matter?”

“If you’ll get me out of here and come back to my place, I’ll be glad to explain how I know everything about you,” I offered.

“You can’t possibly know everything about me. We just met. Now, where are your parents?” she asked quickly.

“They’re dead,” I told her flatly. “They were murdered by a Russian hit squad in April. Their attack put me in a coma, but I woke up about four weeks ago, so for now, I live on a train.”

“When in doubt, keep digging,” her professor had constantly reminded her when she started law school. So Izzy, now thoroughly confused, began to dig deeper.

“It says you, along with a suspended deputy, stole a patrol car last night. Is that true?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. It may be splitting hairs, but the deputy had actually resigned at the time we took the car,” I explained.

“So you did take the patrol car?” she asked, now even more confused.

“Again, it may be splitting hairs, but technically, we just borrowed it and when the sheriff arrived, we gave it back,” I told her.

“I don’t understand. Mr. Levinson called me personally and said that the CIA had had one of its operatives falsely accused of taking a county patrol car. But when I get here, I find a kid who tells me he actually took the car. I’ve got to go call my boss. There has to have been some kind of mistake,” she said as she pushed back her chair.

“Or else, this is one hell of an elaborate joke,” she thought. “And the senior partners must be in on it. Did someone find out?”

“Sit back down, Miss Miller. You’re confused because what you are seeing and hearing is not consistent with what you expected. You prejudged the situation. And you prejudged me. That cannot happen again if you’re going to work for me,” I told her authoritatively.

“Work for you? Who said I was ever going to work for a kid?” she asked defensively. Izzy did not like being talked down to by anyone, especially a male, and especially a teenaged male.

“You should have asked me why I took the car,” I told her.

“Okay. Why did you take the car?” she asked smugly.

“Is this exchange confidential?” I asked her.

“Yes. It is considered attorney-client privileged,” Izzy replied skeptically.

“Okay, I was hired by the CIA to work with the FBI, while trying to track down a Haitian hit team who murdered my fiancée’s parents by burning them alive and then kidnapped my fiancée and one of my administrative assistants. Since I didn’t want to lose them, one of my security team, at my direction, appropriated the first available vehicle and we pursued the perpetrators in the act of a felony. Would you like the particulars of what the criminals told my administrative assistant that they were going to do to her before they handed her over to a man who traffics in sex slaves?”

“I saw that about the kidnapping on the news this morning. Is that what this is all about?” she asked.

“There’s more. In the process of doing as I was instructed by Langley, I discovered a crooked law enforcement officer and turned him in to the FBI last night. It was his partner, the new acting sheriff who had me arrested on this trumped-up charge,” I explained.

“Those are serious allegations for a teenager, Michael. Can you substantiate them?” Izzy asked.

“S-U-B-S-T-A-N-T-I-A-T-E. Substantiate. It means to prove a truth,” I replied.

“What?” she was confused with my answer.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were trying to use big words to put the poor little rich kid in his place,” I told her angrily.

“Calm down, Michael. I just asked if you could prove your allegations,” she said condescendingly.

I scanned her.

“What do you think? Do I need to substantiate that Sammy Kalmetico was the first boy to get his hands in your panties, behind your garage at a Fourth of July picnic when you were sixteen? Or that you lost your virginity in the back seat of Clay Hodges parents’ brand new ‘58 Edsel while parked in your parents driveway? Do I need to substantiate all those spring break trips to South Padre Island? Or do I need to substantiate the offer you are considering? You know, the one to spend the weekend at Levinson’s hunting lodge?” I asked. “You wouldn’t be the first young attorney those dirty old men had taken out there. I’ll bet that not a one of them still work for the firm.

“You stop that right now, young man!” she cried.

That’s when I saw it. Her most petrifying secret! Her biggest fear!

Belinda Sue Miller had a thing for younger guys! Ever since she fell for a high school senior when she was a sophomore at Texas A&M.

It had happened on spring break and he had told her he was a sophomore at UT. After a week of wild, passionate sex, he had bid her goodbye, but not before confessing his real age. She had returned to spring break, finding other young guys after that, but none seemed to compare and on graduating, she had realized that a fetish for younger men could wreck the career she had worked for all through school.

However, Belinda Sue was a passionate young woman and abstinence did not suit her emotional makeup. So she married the first man that asked, the day after she graduated. Unfortunately, it didn’t even last the summer. They parted a few months later and she began pursuing her law degree with single-minded determination. After obtaining her law degree and landing a job with one of Houston’s most prestigious firms, Izzy avoided long-term relationships with any man. A string of one-night stands followed, quickly growing old. So, she began to think she would just swear off sex until she made partner.

But the frustration had almost done her in. Finally, she gave in and journeyed to South Padre Island during the annual rites of spring break, where she had found a plethora of young men who cared little about who she was, as long as they could climb between the sheets with her. She had repeated the annual trip every spring since then, until this year.

Belinda Sue Miller had finally decided that at thirty-one, she was too old for the young students and instead, focused on becoming a partner in her law firm. The agony was killing her though, as she still couldn’t find a man who made her feel the way those young boys could.

“Get me out of here Izzy and let’s go to my place,” I said with a smile.

Izzy just looked at me. “How do you know all these things?” she asked.

“I told you,” I said. “Come back with me when I get out of here, and I’ll explain everything.”

Izzy Miller was torn. She was mortified, yet intrigued.

On one hand, this was against all the professional attorney/client ethics that had been drummed into her over the years. If she let this continue in the direction it was headed, then she was risking everything she had worked for her whole life.

On the other hand, she was desperately horny, and yearning for something that was missing deep in her soul. I fit her requirements as a young stud. I was sixteen, good looking, and acted as if I had manners.

On the other hand, I was dangerous. I could potentially be a lucrative client, if I could call her boss at home on a Saturday night, spurring him to take action. Moreover, the charges were definitely not run of the mill.

On the other hand, I seemed to be telling the truth. I also seemed to have a lot of heretofore unknown information on both the acting sheriff and more importantly, on her private life.

Izzy Miller had run out of hands. It was a tough decision for the young attorney and she vacillated back and forth as she weighed the pros and cons in her mind. Finally, curiosity won out, as she said, “Wait here for a moment.”

“After all, if he’s not getting out tonight, I don’t have to decide right now,” she thought to herself.

While I waited, I scanned and the girls were now crowded around the steps to the station. Whatever was happening had just broken up. Hanna was beaming as the other reporters crowded around her, asking for more information.

I scanned Penny for the story.

As we had planned, Hanna went ahead with the request for a briefing from the Sheriff’s Department on the latest in last night’s kidnapping case. The acting sheriff, with no real experience dealing with the press, agreed to do the briefing himself, hoping to curry their endorsement in his quest to solidify his position before the next elections.

After a short statement, he opened the briefing for questions. Hanna jumped on the opportunity as she began to ask him questions. First about why he was arresting two heroes, for which he had no answer, then to his relationship with the now indisposed sheriff, and his involvement with various illegal activities over the past several years.

The press corps were stunned at the implications in her questions and immediately jumped on board. A more experienced public official would have ended the press briefing right then and walked away, but acting sheriff Ben Brindleman was not an experienced public official, and so he did the worst possible thing he could do. He tried to deny, then to argue, and finally to threaten, before a more experienced administrator arrived to remove him from in front of the assembled press, leading him quickly back inside.

So that is why the press corps had surrounded Hanna with questions and congratulations, I realized as I finished scanning Penny. They could smell the blood in the water as they recognized that there was much more to the Otis Stottlemeyer story from last night.

I was still monitoring the action outside, when a car pulled up and a frazzled looking man in a windbreaker that said U.S. Marshal on the back made his way through the throng to Hanna. Identifying himself, he asked Hanna to come with him.

Of course this incited the already excited press as they all clamored to know why.

The United States Marshals Service was created in 1789, and is the oldest law enforcement agency in America. They are the enforcement arm of the Federal court system. Evidently, someone had notified the U.S. Attorney handling the case against Stottlemeyer of these further allegations, and now they wanted to find out where this reporter had gotten her information. It seems that the tired Marshal had just left the sheriff’s office when he received the dispatch call to return for Hanna.

I was aware that freedom of the press, including the protection of unnamed sources, would be severely challenged over the next decade. Under the First Amendment, laws abridging the freedom of the press are invalid. And most states also have their own laws in place which protect reporters from having to disclose their sources and, in certain cases, unpublished materials. Some states have even included “free press” provisions in their state constitutions.

But I also knew that the Supreme Court would not be so understanding in the future. I envisioned a nightmare unfolding here that I hadn’t foreseen. I didn’t want Hanna to go to jail, or even have to spend an evening with the Fed’s.

“Tell them that I am the source,” I instructed Penny. She started to argue, but I repeated my instructions, adding, “Please, Penny. I know what I’m doing.”

Penny sighed as she relented, stepping forward to explain to the Marshall that Hanna’s source was currently inside the jail on trumped up charges, probably in retribution for his revelations last night. She explained that they were trying to get him released by divulging the information he had gathered.

“No problem. I’m sure the sheriff will release him to me,” the Marshal said.

“I’m sorry, but that is not going to happen,” Anna replied to the Marshal as she produced her identification. It looked like a Mexican standoff, as the Marshall was not used to being circumvented like this. I saw Anna hand him a slip of paper, telling him to call the number written on it. “We’ll wait right here while you go inside to make the call,” she told him.

He returned a few minutes later, a chagrined look on his face. “The boss is not going to like this,” he told her. “Especially when I tell him the White House is involved.”

When Izzy returned to the interview room, she announced that the auto theft charges had been dropped.

“The clerk told me that he had gotten a call from the White House. It seems that you, Mr. Wagner, have some friends in VERY high places,” she said.