“They come in packs of three,” he told her. “You can’t buy just one.”

Still, that looked bad.

Peifer and Deery gave J a transcript of the chats he had had with heatherscutiepies, and started reading to him some of the more explicit things he had said about having sex with children. J was frantic to explain himself. “The conversations were based on just to keep the woman interested and to just be erotic and aroused, and that was it,” he said. They were not buying it. Peifer read him line after embarrassing, incriminating line.

“I, honest to God ... ” said J, exasperated. “I don’t want them [the girls]. I never been into it, ever with anybody, anywhere, at any time!”

“And that’s easy to say now that we’ve arrested you, and you’re sitting here talking to the police,” said Peifer.

“Even if I wasn’t arrested, I wouldn’t be interested in kids. It was just, I wanted ... the woman to be excited. I wanted me to be excited. And that was it. I know how it looks. I know what you’re reading, but—”

“When you bring kids into this whole thing, why would you even go there?” asked Peifer.

“I know,” J said, defeated, but still trying to make them see, running phrases together in his panic. “The idea was only to keep her interested. I, in my mind, my mind, was working differently, I guess, than most people’s because I just wanted to be with a real woman, not the kids, but I wanted, I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to, to, have some real passion, and I, I was wrong in stating that. I know you’re telling me it’s solicitation, in your definition, but I, I can tell you that when I was doing it, it’s not solicit—I wasn’t trying to solicit because I know in my heart and in my mind, I would not under any circumstances be with a child and nor have I ever, ever, ever in any way shape or form, been with a child. I never want to.”

“But you’d never know that by reading this chat,” said Peifer.

“I understand that,” said J.

It went on like this. He could see how they viewed what he had written, and it was obvious that it looked very bad. Criminal.

He still did not understand the seriousness of his predicament. When they were finished, J asked Peifer when he could go home. “No,” the lieutenant explained in that calm, patient way of his. “You’re being arrested and you are going to jail tonight.”

Flash Forward

J ended up serving a year in prison. His lawyer negotiated a plea that reduced what might have been a much longer stay, and that allowed him to serve his time in a relatively unthreatening county prison. He was charged with 16 counts, starting with “criminal attempt—rape forcible compulsion” and ending with “criminal solicitation—corruption of minors.” He was given one year of parole and sentenced to 10 years of probation, during which time he must attend counseling weekly for his alleged sexual desire for children. His wife left him. He lost his job. His face, name, address, and criminal conviction for “Attempted Involuntary Sexual Deviate Intercourse” with a minor appear on the Pennsylvania Web site for “sexual offenders.”

He is deeply ashamed, and bitter. He wanted to fight the charge. Indeed, he is still furious with the lawyer who persuaded him to take a plea, but it would appear that the copy-machine repairman received wise counsel. Because he didn’t have a prayer of getting off. The array of charges against him could have sent him away to prison for up to eight years. At the trial, he would have been painted as an all-too-familiar monster. This was the interpretation of Deery and the Delaware County district attorney, and they were not particularly interested in any other. They might have been able to find out for sure on the day they arrested him. Deery could have worn a wire, and if he had been as determined as she believed he was to have sex with her daughters, she could have presented him with that exact opportunity, telling him, for example, that her girls were home at that moment and she was going to take him directly there, bypassing the prospect of his having sex with her. It might have unequivocally sorted out his interests. But it was clear that, to her, such a consideration was moot. “I had enough already to convict him,” she said. “There was no need for a wire.”