Chapter 9
The vice squad picked up Cassie two days later on a morals charge, after everything had been thoroughly checked out. They also picked up Jerry, Heinrich, Big John, and the blond youth. Big John and the blond youth were charged with statutory rape. Jerry and Heinrich were charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Both got suspended sentences, but paid a hefty fine. Heinie destroyed the footage of Cassie's wedding, which would have gotten him at least a year, like the others, on a rape charge. Jerry was not so lucky. He was charged under the old white slave law-transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes-and although Cassie refused to testify, the newspaper story quoting her that he'd picked her up in Texas was evidence enough. He was convicted, but an appeal won his freedom without his spending a day in jail.
Harvey, too, got away scot free. Nothing existed to incriminate him. He also got away with Cassie's latest film, still warm in his camera. He rented a theater in L.A. and exhibited it for three months before the D.A. there got wind that Harvey's star was the same one creating such a stir in San Francisco. The cameraman made a modest fortune, which was all he wanted.
After a terrible blast from the judge, who called her "perverted, inhuman, and a shame to all womanhood," a weeping, contrite Cassie was sent to a state home for incorrigible delinquent girls. She was to reside there until she was twenty-one, which meant she was sentenced to a prison for six long years. On the way out of the courtroom, a news reporter stepped up to ask a question. The matron holding her tried to brush on past him, but Cassie recognized him as a friend; he was the reporter who'd blushingly told her she had a photogenic cunt.
"How do you feel about being put away, honey?" he asked.
Cassie was reeling from the judge's outburst; the black-gowned, glowering figure had reminded her of her father, whom she had killed just as surely as if she had pulled the trigger herself. Now tears welled up in her eyes again. They began streaming down both sides of her face.
"I deserve it. I've been bad," she said, blinking. "You gonna write another story 'bout me?"
The reporter nodded sympathetically.
"Well, be sure and tell them about why I got this way. My Daddy knew. He tried to discipline me-make me do the right things." She paused as the matron tugged at her arm. "Tell all the parents they shouldn't be afraid to discipline their daughters. Make them do right. I probably wouldn't be here now if my Daddy had whipped me more often...." She smiled once, bravely through her tears, and then docilely followed the policeman through the iron-barred door.