Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) by T. Jefferson Parker

start to wonder why he’s spending so much time with prostitutes, pimps, panderers and pornographers. Why doesn’t he transfer out? Up? Hit the desk a while? With good reason, maybe: more than a few of them fall to the temptations. I can understand how they do. And I feel compassion for them, but this may be a character flaw in myself, a blurring of the knowledge of good and evil, caused by the death of my son.
    But thanks to all the good press I’ve generated for our little group, things have changed. The other sections and units have grudgingly come to admire, if not our work, then at least the way that the general public has come to know and respect us. I’m considered the media wizard, because I’ve vigorously lobbied the newspapers and electronic media, cultivated reporters and editors and producers, gotten them on our side, shown them what we do. And they’ve responded. CAY has been featured on the covers of Westways and Los Angeles magazines, and the California Law Enforcement Bulletin. (Of the actual CAY players, only Frances has been pictured because we do a lot of undercover stuff. Our media poster boy is actually Jordan Ishmael, who speaks as our supervising lieutenant but has no say in our day-to-day work.) We’ve gotten lots of positive airtime on the network and local news. Sixty Minutes has made some inquiring calls to me and Jim Wade. The Times and The Register and OC Weekly have all covered us favorably. We are proud of that coverage, and the department is proud of us. Other departments in the region have begun to create their versions of our little unit.
    Mixed in with the early prejudice against us was something even uglier to me: people secretly believed that kid crime was small time. That, somehow, real cops fight real crime and real crime is crime that matters. Kid porn, so what? Child abuse, so what? Prostitution of minors, hey, it’s rare. I have a response to that, but it’s long and I might get worked up. I might think of guys like Chet, or The Horridus. The Irish in me again. But that prejudice is changing, thanks to CAY and the number of creeps we’ve collared, and the media smile we’ve gotten. I’ve already proposed a CAY budget twice as big as last year’s. If I’m reading the signals from Sheriff Wade correctly, it might even get approved.
    Last, I’m not even sober, really. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I stopped waking up in places and not knowing how I got there. It wasn’t until then that I could go a day without consuming almost a fifth of tequila, plus a few beers (four, max). That was my life before I found a way to love this world after Matthew. But who knows—it might happen again, tonight.
    So what gives? I don’t know and I don’t ask. But I do know that Jim Wade and the people closest to him are looking at me warmly, a warmth subtle and invigorating as the sunshine between storms. And I know this too: not one ray of it is lost on Ishmael.

    The morning briefing began as usual: Sheriff Wade, Undersheriffs Woolton and Vega, Captain Burns, Lieutenant Ishmael, the three section leaders and five unit heads.
    We commence at eight sharp. Jim Wade presides from the head of a long, cup-stained, wood-veneer table, but he usually lets Vega handle the group. The coffee machine is always going. There are narrow vertical windows in this conference room, and they look out over the parking lot and downtown Santa Ana, the county seat Except on clear winter days, there isn’t much to see. But the mood is usually brisk and optimistic. The purpose of the brief is to get everyone up to speed on the breaking cases, so that each section knows what its neighbor is up to. That, and to float ideas or beefs that can’t wait until the weekly meeting of section heads.
    Four of the twelve others came over to shake my hand and offer good words on the Chet bust. Most of them had seen the CNB report and had to mention the comic way that exterminator Louis and dapper Johnny had stood