Payback!

By John A. Rose MPA

In Payback! Eric Esor, a former law enforcement agent, forensic specialist, and investigator, following serious on duty injuries, is forced to change careers.

Eric learns that his sixteen year old adopted daughter, Briana, was raped by a person who prefers chubby girls.

Brianas protection from the boogeyman is to be thin. She turns to an unhealthy peer group, an eating disorder, and experimenting with illegal methamphetamines.

Briana is not forthcoming with the police or her parents about being raped, leaving Eric to use his investigative and forensic skills. For more than two years, Eric conducts a lonely hunt for his daughters rapist.

His skills pay off but his efforts taint evidence so that it is useless in traditional jurisprudence. Eric Esor now must decide whether or not to become the antithesis of himself.

Could he be the polar opposite of the good citizen, son, husband, father, provider, brother, socially active, and well-educated teacher?

Eric must decide whether to be investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury, and perhaps executioner. In other words, should Eric Esor seek Payback?

If so, how, when and where will he accomplish this? If he does, he will have to leave absolutely no trace behind in order to return to his normal life.

The question to be answered in Payback! is, Is it a time to kill?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491785393

John A. Rose MPA

John A. Rose has spent his adult life helping people. He is a former law enforcement professional and an active member of The American College of Forensic Examiners International. He earned his Master’s Degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice. Following nearly 14 years of law enforcement experience, Mr. Rose turned to a career as Executive Director of non-profit human service organizations. Now semi-retired, Mr. Rose is active writing and teaching as an adjunct instructor. Mr. Rose has been active in his community serving on a Los Angeles County School Board, president of a North American association of charities, a YMCA Board of Directors, and the United Methodist Church where he and his wife, Cheryl, have served as adult leaders in both national and local youth groups.

Book preview

Prologue

It is April of 1992 when a passion to kill attacks Eric Esor. Eric is not a killer, but now he wants to kill. He knows how to kill. He is not sure when he will kill yet his mind has become engrossed with killing.

Eric does not want to kill just anyone – but exactly who is to be killed is, at present, the unknown. How he will kill has been clearly thought out and will be practiced over and over again. If and when he will kill is dependent upon who he will kill. Why he will kill is clear.

Eric does not seem to be the type of person to bear this passion. He has accomplished much and is respected by this family and friends. At forty-four years of age, he has credentials that are the antithesis of those of a killer.

Married to Lyn for twenty-four years with four children - Eric, Jr.: Victoria: Rebecca: and an adopted daughter, Briana – active in his church life, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a Master’s Degree in Political Science, having served in the United States Army as a Criminal Investigator, serving fifteen years as a Los Angeles Police Officer, serving four years on a Los Angeles County School Board, and working his way up to being president of a North American association of charities, he is now Chief Executive Officer of a nonprofit organization in San Gabriel, California serving dependent unwanted children and needy seniors.

Like his computer when it flashes "circ", Eric is trapped in a circular error with too much dependent on too many other things. To escape this circ in his pursuit of who it is he will kill, Eric will begin a mission that will quietly and methodically prepare his mind and body for what will be the examination of every single nuance of what has occurred on and before this one single day.

"Circ" will disappear and a clear path will be illuminated.

Chapter 1

Today

This book is probably fiction.

Chapter 2

Saturday, March 21, 1993 Verdict?

Although possibly about to kill, at that moment he was more concerned about bugs than anything else. With all his eggs in one basket, forty-five year-old Eric Esor’s 210 pounds, tightly packed in a six foot three inch frame, laid absolutely motionless, waiting for his prey.

Eric hoped he was not too old for this self-appointed mission. His dark brown hair was beginning to show hints of greying. He was a handsome man and his countenance worldly. At first glance, except for the lack of a tan, one would not pick him out as a corporate executive but engaged in some occupation more rugged. For a man his age, he was in excellent physical shape. For two years he’d worked out in a gym, lifted weights, played racquetball, ran, and swam all for this single purpose.

Eric was tucked uncomfortably in the bushes and surrounded by a copse of pine trees. He was virtually undetectable in his more than 20 year-old Army fatigues (which fit again) and an olive drab green knit ski mask. He wished he did not have to wear the two pairs of plastic gloves as they made his hands sweat despite the cold weather. He chose blue gloves over white for obvious reasons.

Eric peered through his binoculars and stared at the northwest corner of the Cathedral from which his prey would emerge, if he emerged at all.

He was contemplating what he was about to do, provided his prey did as expected. And he’d placed all of his eggs in the single basket of that expectation – which was that the prey he had been hunting would exit the Cathedral alone and walk to the nest he’d used before to light up and smoke his marijuana joint. His nest was surrounded by the same pine and maple trees as well as bushes providing Eric’s hiding place.

Eric considered the words of Leonardo da Vinci who’d said, "[T]hey whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death." Although what he was about to do went against every grain of his training, and knowing that the justice system was supposed to be the arbiter of disputes, Eric’s conscience approved of his contemplated action.

He hoped he could do it. He had hunted his prey for nearly two years and he was trained, prepared, and waiting for the knock of opportunity.

Eric’s prey had initially been a nondescript John Doe who’d left no trail to follow. Eric may as well have been pursuing the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster. Yet, over time, he’d reached a point where a trail had emerged, an identity had formed, an agenda and a schedule had developed. He could, in advance, be where his prey would later emerge.

While he waited, his mind, if only to forget the bugs crawling on and toward him for warmth, drifted over his life and how it seemed that everything had prepared him for that single moment.

Chapter 3

1952 – 1967 Young Eric Esor

Four year old boys should not have to duck when they walk near their fathers. Eric hated it when his father thumped his head just above the ear. "Thump!", and the thud of pain would snake its way through his skull to the other ear. This thump was delivered for no reason other than Eric was vulnerable and his father was wanting.

The thumps must have come before Eric was four years old because he remembered his daily question when he was too young to know a weekday from a weekend. "Are you going to work today? A yes was happy and meant peace and tranquility. A no, scary and meant the probability of yelling, thumping, and stress. Eric and Mac quit asking the daily question when Marco said, why, don’t you want me home?" followed by the all-to-familiar thump.

Eric and his brother, Mac, who was eighteen months older, spent their youths ducking the thump. On occasion, Marco would raise his point finger, wiggle it as a hail, and tell one of the boys to lean over. This meant the customary thump was about to be delivered. Refusal resulted in beating.

These two brothers were no strangers to their father, Marco’s, more severe abuse. They were almost never spanked but, rather, beaten - hard - with hand, fists, belts, and whatever tool or item was within arm’s reach.

Their mother, Loretta, in addition to being a saint, was beautiful. If beauty was a measurement, she was too beautiful, too refined, too polished to suffer as she did. Loretta was tall for a woman at five feet seven inches with her weight in perfect proportion. A portrait in their small Livingroom captured her perfectly. The painting was completed in Mexico some time earlier by a Mexican artist. He captured her perfectly. The artist captured her straight silky dark brown hair touching her bare well-tanned shoulders, striking eyes of blue, like a deep and clear Caribbean sea, facial features which seemed to blend together seamlessly, full lips the color of deep red cherries, with just a hint of a smile betraying the fact she knew some secret.

Sissy, as Eric’s sister was known, was five years younger than Eric. Precocious, Sissy was a cross between a tomboy and a princess. She could turn her characters on and off at will. Perhaps that came with being a middle child. For some reason, Sissy was never thumped, beaten, or abused.

Marco was the son of a Portuguese emigrant from the Azores and was properly named. His moniker meant "warlike". Marco was tall at six feet two inches, heavy at 250 pounds, with dark brown curly hair. He sported a beer belly although he seldom drank beer. He thought nothing of drinking a gallon of Gallo wine in a day’s time. His family seldom saw him dressed in anything but his tan painter work pants, shirt, and work shoes or his robe.

Marco was an enigma. Brutal, ready to fight or argue at the least provocation, he worked faithfully in the Hollywood movie industry as a motion picture set decorator. He was well-known for his specialty as an ager; making new things look old. Unless laid off (as he was from time-to-time) Marco faithfully brought home a weekly paycheck.

Loretta saw to it that her kids were never hungry, always had clothes and shoes (Unless Christmas or a Birthday, Eric’s share were those his brother outgrew), and always had a school lunch. They were not a rich family, but they seemed to keep up with the Jones in their neighborhood. They were also not a traditional family. Eric could remember maybe a half dozen times the family ate at a common table and that would be when they had visitors or relatives come. Obviously, this was not often.

Loretta was powerless to stop their father’s abuse. She too receiver her share of mistreatment and several times would work up the courage to resist, often piling the kids in the car and driving somewhere; a drive-in theater, Bob’s Big Boy where girls would skate to the car, take the order, and deliver a tray that somehow hung on the car window.

Once, with no money and nowhere to go, and following a rampage by Marco where Eric dialed O on their rotary phone and pleaded for the operator to send the police, they just parked. About an hour passed when Eric was scolded for playing with a flashlight which drew the attention of deputies in a passing Sheriff’s car. Their address was no stranger to the local sheriff, and these deputies who had already been to their home and knew that there had been trouble. The compassion and caring shown by those two deputies, especially to their mother, would always be remembered by Eric. It was that night that Eric knew he would be a police officer when he grew up.

After they returned home, and every day for more than two weeks, when Eric passed near his father, Marco would order him to pick up the telephone receiver, its black thick curly wires unraveling. Eric could hear the monotonous dial tone as his father would order him to drop the receiver on the floor. He was then told to pick it up and replace it. This was the consequence of Eric’s having called the Sheriff. At age eleven, Eric was no dummy. He had read of Pavlov’s experiments with dogs where a bell was rung when food was offered. The dogs learned to salivate at the ringing of the bell. Eric bore no ill will toward the telephone receiver, but its very sight reminded him of the hatred he felt for his father.

Once, following a particularly brutal week of fighting, they rented a home two miles away and moved out, taking nothing but sleeping bags and folding chairs. Eric was barely fifteen years old. Loretta took three part-time jobs to make this happen. Eric, often would wake in the middle of the night to find his mother sitting on the floor against the wall, smoking a cigarette, its glowing ember methodically lighting his mother’s face, highlighting her tears.

They had to go back to their house because the rental was more like a jail; uncomfortable, cold, and unfriendly. Loretta was exhausted from lack of sleep. Loretta was wise and elicited a pleading promise from Marco to stop his incessant drinking, his brutality, and become a better husband and father. Whether he lied or just could not, it was a short-lived promise.

When Eric was sixteen years of age, the beatings and thumping’s came to a halt. Eric and Mac both were competitive wrestlers and Tennis players for their high school. They were quick, strong, and excellent at their sports. Eric and Mac, even while in high school, played tennis in the Pan American Games in Visalia, California and qualified as wrestlers for the Olympic Trials in 1964.

Marco, as a consequence for some long-forgotten wrong, forced both boys to pick up dog shit from their back yard with their bare hands. They had two dogs, a mixed breed Labrador named Manfred and a German Sheppard named Prince. To avoid a beating, they most reluctantly complied. Marco, watching and listening from a bathroom window, overheard Eric refer to him as a "fucking asshole" with Mac agreeing.

The attack was on as Marco rushed from the rear door of their house yelling unintelligibly at the boys. The boys panicked and ran from Marco but were thwarted by a gated fence. With no time to open the gate, and as if scripted, they both stopped, turned, and fought their father. This surprised both Eric and Mac more than it did Marco. Eric delivered two right uppercuts to this father’s chest, breaking two of his ribs. Mac was more delicate in delivering his blows. Marco, from a crouch, slowly raised his head showing blood from someone’s sophomore class ring. Marco’s gaze morphed from quizzical to rejection. Although surely able to continue, Marco turned and slunk away, cradling his broken ribs with his right arm.

Eric would never forget and always regret having to strike his father. After that day, life was not a joy in the Esor household but the thumping and beating stopped. Marco never again laid a hand on their mother. The yelling and psychological abuse did not cease until Eric and Mac left the house at the earliest age possible.

Eric was a fair student only because he chose to be. He was more cunning and provocative than Mac who was more sensitive – a term Mac would grow to hate. The unique characteristic about Eric was that what he did learn, he did not forget. This would serve Eric well in the future. What he saw he remembered and, if it was useful, whether learned in school, from a relative, or in just living, it would be put to use immediately. Mac, on the other hand, was an excellent student who studied hard and did well on tests and papers. He was more dedicated to school whereas Eric was more dedicated to his sports and his high school girlfriend.

One rainy school-day evening, Marco was loud, argumentative, and very drunk. His gallon bottle of Gallo wine was empty. Gallo, at that time, was considered the cheap wine, the choice of drunkards and homeless people, but it nevertheless did the trick. Marco would have several small $.45 bottles of Gallo (often referred as a ‘short dog’) in the glove compartment of his car.

Marco’s threats were all too familiar and Eric felt it was about to get physical. He walked from the house and wandered aimlessly around San Gabriel until midnight. He was drenched and cold.

He saw a Calvary Baptist Church. The Church was not something to which Eric was accustomed. His mother, as much to get the boys out of the house as for religious instruction, had driven them to this particular church several times for Sunday School lessons. On this subject of religion, Marco told Eric that, "God was like Santa Claus, good for children to believe in".

Eric decided he would test the faith by trying the large whitewashed doors of the Baptist Church. If they were open, then God was watching and in control. If they were locked, he would walk on wondering why God would let Marco behave as he does and cause such pain to his family.

He knocked as a courtesy and then simply opened the unlocked doors. He walked in, went to the altar where a Bible was open to the book of Matthew. Eric could not help but see the passage, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Eric knelt down and silently promised God that he would never forget this church or Him. He asked forgiveness for his trashy mouth and whatever he had done to deserve the life he, Mac, Sissy and more especially his mother had to survive. He promised that when he became a husband and father, he would never lay a hand in anger on his children or his wife.

Eric walked home. Although wet, he was no longer cold and, in fact, he felt a comfortable warmth. He got home about 2:00 AM and found his mother in her chair waiting patiently for him to come home. She asked no questions as Eric hugged her in her chair and kissed her softly on her cheek. Loretta looked quizzically at her youngest son. Something was different. Eric never initiated the hugging or kissing. He was always the receiver, not the architect, of such