I thought about it for a few minutes, then called Sergeant Stephanie Davis of the San Julio Police Department. She, in turn, got some help from the Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff.
A little less than an hour later, we found ourselves secure at the San Julio Police Department. Eric Snaff had agreed to a psychiatric examination. He realized he’d stepped over the line. Now I wanted to take advantage of his rash actions.
I sat in an interview room knowing we were being recorded. I had Cindy’s phone with the video of Jason Cortlandt confessing. Of course, his confession was useless as far as the judicial system was concerned, coming as it did at the end of a gun. Old-time cops used to call it “the easy way.” Now we had to fix it.
I didn’t have much else. Not even police powers at the moment. I figured if things worked out, all would be forgiven.
Cortlandt and I sat in identical blue plastic chairs on either side of a wooden table. Sergeant Davis sat beside me in her own chair but had already given me the lead in this interview. The police department table had been through a few different eras. The top was scarred. There were several names carved into it with crude instruments. They were all short names like Jim or Bill. Someone had drawn an elaborate doodle in blue ballpoint pen that looked like a lion chasing a man. The details of the trees and bushes around them were really quite intriguing.
Sergeant Davis had already read Cortlandt his rights. I didn’t know anything about the man other than what Cindy had told me. But I could tell it wasn’t the first time a police officer had read him his rights.
Now that he was out of the factory and away from Eric Snaff, Cortlandt’s confidence had grown. He wasn’t exactly cocky, but he wasn’t nearly as cooperative either.
I said, “Tell me more about this rich guy whose number you give out to pretty girls.”
“Is that what I said? I don’t really remember. You see, I have a medical condition. You can check with the VA. Sometimes I can’t remember things I said just a few hours ago. It’s crazy, I know.”
I had expected this. I reached across the table and picked up Cindy’s phone in its decorative case. I played the video from the concrete factory that showed Cortlandt confessing. I enjoyed seeing the change that swept over his face as he watched. He had no idea we couldn’t use it in court. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t encourage him or discourage him. I just let him watch the video.
After the video had finished, Cortlandt said, in a markedly shakier voice, “I’m not sure exactly what else you need.”
“We need to recover these girls. Give us all the details and you may come out of this okay.”
“What do you mean by ‘okay’?”
“I mean we cut you loose today. No court hearing, nothing. That’s not to say you won’t have to face something down the road. But if you give us enough information, that might not be in the cards either. It’s your choice. You can jump on the bus or let us drive the bus over you. Either way, this bus is leaving the station. Pick where you want to be.”
Cortlandt thought about it carefully. He didn’t impress me as a hardcore gangster. I didn’t think he cared one way or the other about anyone ever calling him a snitch. And he clearly liked the idea of being cut loose today.
After a couple of minutes, he started talking. Almost like a stream of consciousness. I didn’t want to interrupt him with too many questions. Not while he was already giving me the answers.
Cortlandt said, “This guy, Kyle. I met him in a bar and we talked about working with teenagers. He told me he found a lot of jobs for pretty girls in modeling, TV commercials, and other things. He never went into any detail about the ‘other things.’
“Anyways, I told him about a couple of girls who’d already left our facility. They were knockouts, and a little on the wild side. He liked that. I found the girls’ phone numbers in the youth center’s office. That’s all. He did the rest. Then he kicked me three grand. Three thousand bucks for about ten minutes’ work. Easy money. So we set up a little partnership.”
I interrupted Cortlandt to get the girls’ names and a few details I’d need later.
Cortlandt said he once met with Kyle at a house in Pacific Heights. He didn’t recall the exact address, but he providedexcellent details about the house and that it was on Baker Street just a block from the Presidio. I felt confident I could find it.
Cortlandt said, “I think it was an alias, but at some point, Kyle said his last name was Anderson. He’s a good-looking guy, maybe six two, dark hair, fortyish.”
“Would you say he looks sort of like Eric Snaff?”
“I guess? I hadn’t thought of that before. Maybe in a general way.”
Cortlandt claimed that he didn’t know anything else about how Kyle Anderson operated. He didn’t know how big the operation was. He didn’t know if he used other houses or hotels. He just knew that he could call Kyle, introduce him to a girl, then get paid. It was great while it lasted, but he’d been more or less out of it since getting fired from the youth center. Without easy access to the girls, he wasn’t useful to Kyle anymore.
“What’s his phone number?”
“I don’t know. He changed numbers every couple of weeks.”
I got as much more information as I could, then walked out of the room with Sergeant Davis to talk to her about letting Cortlandt walk. I was pretty sure we could find him again if he ran. I also believed the information he had given me. Sergeant Davis decided to play it safer. She planned to keep Cortlandt for the max allowed of forty-eight hours, just in case we discovered enough to charge him for his involvement in what sounded indeed like a human-trafficking ring.
Now it was time for me to get back to work, quickly.
CHAPTER96
AS SOON ASJason Cortlandt was walked into a jail cell, complaining with every step, Cindy and I met with the sergeant in her cramped office. It was a tight fit for the three of us. Like a lot of detectives’ offices, this one seemed overcrowded with file boxes of unsolved cases—a constant reminder.
