Page 40 of Bringing Chelsea Home

“We think Sergeant Miller is going to speak to the DA about it,” Griff shared. “Would you tell us what you know?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Martin hedged.

“Might go better with a coke and burger?” Elaine offered.

Martin sat up. “No shi-I mean, really?”

Griff laughed, went to the door and spoke to Owen, passing him some bills. He returned to the table, sat and said, “It will be here in just a bit.”

While they waited, they chatted about trivial things. UT’s current football season, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and the latest videos on TikTok, which surprised Griff. He’d not thought of Elaine and that social platform in the same universe.

The oversize bag of food, with two burgers, a large French-fry and two soft drinks, arrived and they watched Martin devour it like a starving man. When he was finished, he sat the bag aside, took a sip of his second soda and said, “Thanks. That was great.”

“Okay,” Elaine said. “Let’s get started.”

“We need an officer to take down what you can tell us,” Griff said. At Martin’s startled expression, he added, “We need to share what you tell us to track down the people still holding the girls so we can find them and throw the book at them. You good with that?”

“Yeah,” Martin said softly as Elaine went to the door and spoke to someone. A few minutes later, Sergeant Owen joined them. He put his phone on the table and said, “I’m going to record this to be sure we get down everything just right,” he said. “It will save time and get us out looking for your friends.”

“You g-guys really believe me?” Martin stammered. “They s-said you wouldn’t. That no one would.”

“We will and we do,” Elaine said firmly. “We really need to know about the past month, but you then can also tell us how you and Chelsea came to be with the other dancers. Where were you before coming to Knoxville?”

“St. Louis,” Martin said, pulling the drink’s straw up and down. “Did you get Chelsea’s postcard?”

“Yeah,” Elaine said. “This past Monday morning. How did you get away to send it?”

“That old bit–I mean bat who was watching us in St. Louis was too hung over a week ago Friday to go buy her own smokes, so she sent me,” Martin explained. “The store had postcards and when I saw one with the Sunsphere, I used the change from the money she gave me to buy it. I’d stolen some stamps from the house where they’d stashed us and put card in the PO box outside the store. We left St. Louis the next day.”

“But if you put it in the PO box by the store, how did Chelsea get the chance to write it?” Elaine asked.

He grinned. “She didn’t ‘cause I forged her writing. She and me got real good at doing stuff like that, and lotsa times the couples who watched us wherever we were, would make me do errands. I wrote lots of cards pretending to be Chelsea. She’d memorized your work address and told me.”

“Clever,” Griff praised. “Since those couples let you have a bit of freedom, did you ever think of running away and asking for help?”

Martin scowled. “I’d never leave Chelsea behind, man. She’s like my sister, you know?”

“Sure do,” Griff said quickly. “I’d have done the same thing. So. You and the girls left St. Louis a week ago Friday, no doubt with a couple of over-night stops along the way until you got to Knoxville. When did you get here?”

“Last Wednesday,” Martin said, confirming what Silas Clark had told them.

“This is really helping, Martin,” Elaine said. “Do you know where you were being held?”

He shook his head. “They always kept us blind-folded when we traveled and wouldn’t tell us where we were going ‘til we got there. The places we stayed always had blacked out windows and we were locked in our rooms. They moved us from the first place we stayed to a new one on Friday. I think this place is somewhere in the country ‘cause I could smell the river.”

Griff leaned in, putting his arms on the table. “I have a question,” he said. “You said the other day you went by your parents’ house and saw them in the backyard, but I’m guessing they didn’t see you. Who took you?”

For a moment, Elaine thought the boy was going to cry. But he clenched his jaw and said, “Fritz, the guy who’s watching us, wanted a bracelet a customer gave me.” He shuddered but said, “I hated the damn thing. The only reason I kept it was I think it might be valuable and I thought one day I could sell it and me and Chelsea could run away. But I told Fritz I would give it to him if he would drive by my parents’ house. He made me wear a blindfold there and back, but he let me look in the back yard and I saw them. We went on Friday afternoon.”

“I see,” Elaine said softly. “Do you think you could share with us what happened to you and Chelsea after you left home?”

Not “ran away” but “left home”,Griff thought.Good going, Elaine.

Slowly, but clearly, as if the food and their trust had calmed him, Martin described how he and Chelsea had been lured by a “talent scout” to join a group of dancers on their way to Hollywood, promising work in movies and on stage. Within days, their dreams became nightmares, and a long cycle of sexual assaults began as they and other kids were moved from city to city, servicing pedophiles. How at every place they stopped, there was always a couple at a house to watch them, making sure they didn’t run away.

He didn’t give a lot of detail, other than to say they’d both been raped more times than he could count by hundreds of men. If they or the others put up a fuss, they were beaten.

“Me and Chelsea started the exotic dancing–”which is BS for stripping-“withThe Honeystwo years ago,” Martin explained, his voice now flat. “We’d dance or strip at clubs and then we were offered to whoever wanted us. Sometimes there’d be other dancers there too, but we weren’t permitted to talk to them. Some of the places were nasty, with gambling and maybe drug deals but I’m not sure…”

---