Title: - Video.
Author: - Katt.
E-mail: - kattanon@hotmail.com
Rating: - R.
Feedback: - Like it or loathe it let me know.
Archive: - I'd be honoured, just let me know.
Warnings: - This story makes reference to child abuse, if this subject matter upsets you please do not read any further.
After watching "Cherrypoppers" I wondered what was Dutch about to tell Danny when he went to apologize to her.
Disclaimer: - I don't own any of the characters of The Shield, they all belong to Shawn Ryan and FX.
Video – Chapter 1.
Jesus, Shane felt sick. He couldn't wait for this day to be over, to get home and take a long, hot shower and then get very drunk. Earlier this morning the Strike Team had exercised a warrant on the house of a known paedophile after a tip off that he had a collection of kiddy porn videos there. The tip was good; the evil bastard had dozens of them in his bedroom closet. They arrested the sicko who was downstairs in the cage now, and it was Shane's task to catalogue the evidence which meant having to sit in this room upstairs at The Barn and watch every video. So far he'd watched 4 tapes, tapes that showed perverted fuckers hurting kids for their own sick pleasure. Christ, Shane would love to have five minutes alone in a room with every one of those animals. For now though he had to watch the next tape. He inserted tape five into the video, and sitting down again he took a deep breath and pressed the play button. After five minutes Shane was staring at the screen unable to believe what he was seeing,
"Oh shit," he gasped.
He switched the tape off and headed for the door. On an after thought he went to the video and removed the tape taking it with him. He ran down the stairs pausing at the bottom to look around the squad room noticing two empty desks he headed for the Clubhouse. Barging in he found Vic there alone doing some paperwork on that morning's bust. Vic looked up surprised at Shane's entrance,
"You haven't gone through all those tapes yet," he said, a little annoyance in his voice. "If you want some help you'll have to wait for Lem and Ronnie to get back, you know I don't look at that shit."
"No man, look you've got to come upstairs and see this one," Shane said, waving the tape he held in his hand at Vic.
"Why what's so special about that one?" Vic asked puzzled by Shane's hyper attitude.
"It easier if you just come see, come on man."
"Alright," Vic agreed, "This had better be important Shane."
"It is I swear," Shane assured him.
Once they got back to the viewing room Shane put the tape back into the video, re-wound it to the beginning and turned to Vic,
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah just get on with it," Vic grumbled, he really hated watching these things. Blowing out a breath he prepared himself for some uncomfortable viewing that he knew would be stuck in his mind for weeks afterwards. It would come to mind every time he looked at his own kids thankful they were happy, safe and loved, sadly he knew only too well that not all kids were that lucky.
The video began and who ever was shooting it paned around the room. It looked like a cabin; yeah that would be right, out in the woods somewhere so that they wouldn't be disturbed, cunning bastards. There were voices and the picture showed two men, so that was three guys counting the cameraman. The picture quality wasn't that great a little grainy, possibly an old 8mm film that had been converted over to VHS. The camera then focused on a closet door, the cameraman moved forward and his hand came into the shot as he unlocked the door. Inside the closet, amongst the coats and boots hunched over on the floor was a kid, his back was to the camera, with his hands tied behind him with rope.
" Come on you little piece of shit," the cameraman grunted as he reached out grabbing the kid by the scruff of his neck and hauled him out of the closet backwards.
The other men were laughing as the kid was pulled into the middle of the room and turned around. The camera had been pointed at the kid's feet and was now panned up his body. He was tall and slim wearing jeans and a tee shirt, when the camera reached his face Vic drew in a sharp breath,
"Fuck," was all he managed to get out.
He looked at the kid's tear stained pale face, at his brown hair which flopped over his forehead getting into his eyes, eyes that were huge with fear and full of tears. The kid looked straight at the camera, or to be more accurate straight at the cameraman. His lower lip trembled as he said,
"Please dad, please don't."
"Oh God," Vic breathed when he heard the whispered plea.
The cameraman, the kid's father, laughed and backhanded the boy telling him to,
"Shut the fuck up."
Then the other two men moved in and Vic could only stomach watching another few minutes before he signaled Shane to switch it off. Looking up Vic found Shane looking at him expectantly,
" Well, what are we going to do Vic?" He asked.
"Give me a minute Shane…I need to think." Vic told him.
"Yeah, yeah sure Vic. Damn I couldn't believe it when I started watching that I thought I was seeing things you know. I mean…wow…shit…" Shane was nervous and when he was nervous he talked too much.
Vic leaned back against the table trying to ignore Shane as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, a ball of nervous energy with no outlet. Vic was busy weighing his options, trying to decide the best course of action considering what he'd just seen. On the one hand it would probably be easier all round if the tape just got lost. He still had the paperwork unfinished downstairs and could easily alter the number of videos found before he handed it in. He could tell Shane to keep quiet about it and then no one would be the wiser. However, even as he thought that he knew that it was no good that it just wouldn't work. For one thing he doubted Shane would be able to contain himself and he'd probably end up telling Lem or Ronnie, and the more people who knew the more chance there was of it getting out. Then there was the fact that if he buried this it would mean the sick bastards on that tape would get away with what they'd done. Although the events on the tape had obviously taken place years before it didn't make them any less guilty, and they needed to be brought to justice. Vic couldn't stomach the thought that they would get away with it. So although he felt apprehensive, knowing he was about to re-open old wounds that had been festering away in secret for years he also knew he had no choice. Pausing for a moment longer he chewed his lower lip thoughtfully as he remembered certain behaviours and reactions that were now perfectly understandable, and Vic winced when he thought that he must have added to the secret anguish with his teasing. Now he was about to add to that anguish again but it couldn't be helped.
"Wait here and don't tell anyone Shane." Vic said.
"Sure I won't tell a soul." Shane assured Vic.
Looking sternly at Shane to make sure he understood Vic reiterated his instructions,
"I mean it Shane no one…not even Lem and Ronnie."
Nodding Shane signaled his compliance to Vic's wishes. Satisfied Vic held out his hand,
"Give me that tape I'm going to see Aceveda, and look through the others…we need to know if this is the only one." Vic decided.
Grimacing Shane handed the tape to Vic and reluctantly picked up the next piece of filth from the pile and inserted it into the machine.
Taking the tape from Shane Vic went to Aceveda's office. Knocking sharply on the door he took a breath to steady himself and without waiting for Aceveda to invite him he went in. Aceveda looked up from his paperwork when his door swung open, frowning with displeasure when he saw whom his visitor was.
"Yes," he snapped.
Ignoring the attitude Aceveda was giving him Vic showed him the tape.
"We've got a problem here."
"Why what's on the tape?" Aceveda wanted to know.
He was intrigued in spite of himself. He'd spent a lot of time watching Mackey, studying his moods and it was unusual for him to be this agitated.
"It's one of the tapes we found at that sick prick's apartment this morning." Vic told him.
"And…" Aceveda asked, impatience creeping into his voice.
"And Dutchboy's on it!" Vic said.
"What!" Aceveda said sounding stunned. "Jesus, are you sure?"
Despite Vic's nod he still couldn't believe it. Aceveda's mind went into overdrive; Farmington didn't need another scandal, more bad-publicity. It would be no good trying to find a way to keep this quiet because he knew there was none,
"Shit, he's out on a case with Wyms right now but they'll be back soon. We need to keep this as low key as possible it's going to cause a scandal as it is, we need to keep his arrest as quiet as possible for as long as possible. "
Unable to register for a second what Aceveda had just said Vic stepped closer to his desk frantically shaking his head.
"Wait, wait you're not listening to me. When I said Dutchboy's on the tape I don't mean as a perp, he's the victim!" Vic told him.
"The victim, you're sure?" A shocked Aceveda asked.
"Yeah," Vic said sadly, "He looks about 14 or 15 but it's definitely him, and you know the real kicker he called the bastard filming the tape "dad"!"
"Oh God," Aceveda said, "what a mess."
He'd get no argument there from Vic; for once he was in complete agreement with his Captain.
"The question is how are we going to handle it?" He asked Aceveda.
Aceveda paused while he considered the problem. Looking up at Vic he said,
"Who else has seen it?"
"Just Shane…he was going through the tapes to catalogue them when he came across it."
Aceveda huffed out an unhappy breath,
"Oh Shane Vendrell that's perfect he's always the soul of discretion." He said sarcastically.
"Hey!" Vic said sharply. "He came straight to me with it and he hasn't talked to anyone else about it and he won't…I told him not to. Don't worry about Shane he'll keep his mouth shut."
For the time being Aceveda had no choice but to trust Vic's word on Shane's trustworthiness so he let it slide and moved on.
"Have you watched it yourself?"
"No not all of it…just the beginning, and that was bad enough." Vic told him wincing as his memory provided him with some graphic pictures and sounds to go with his words.
"I'll have to watch it…and I want you there as well. The less people we can involve in this right now the better."
Vic looked skeptical,
"You're not going to keep this quiet for long." He told Aceveda.
"I know…but as long as possible huh. At least until we've been able to talk to Dutch properly." Aceveda replied.
"That's one conversation I'm not looking forward to." Vic said before adding. "I've got Shane looking through the rest of the tapes incase there's any more of him, and you should know that we're charging that pervert we arrested this morning with distribution as well as possessing pornographic material."
"Distribution?" Aceveda asked knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Yeah he had everything all set up for making copies of his little collection."
"Do we know if he's done that?" Aceveda asked.
"Not yet…but I'll be sure to ask you can count on that."
Nodding Aceveda stood up and said,
"Come on lets get this over with. I want to have seen this before I talk to Dutch…I want to know what we're dealing with and how bad it is."
Vic pulled a sour face,
"Believe me from the couple of minutes I saw it's pretty God damn bad."
Aceveda looked at Vic's face and could see that the other man was perfectly serious. If a cop with Mackey's vast experience of the dark-side of human nature found the tape's contents disturbing Aceveda wondered how many night's of broken sleep it was going to give him?