Game Over

Jeanette Maier

As soon as Jeanette Maier walked into the place she liked to call her home in the country--a doublewide trailer sitting on a few acres of horse land--she knew there was a problem.  Her 25-year-old daughter, Monica, was waiting inside for her.  Monica's face was tight, her eyes wide with fear.  "She didn't have to say anything," Jeanette recalls.  "I could tell just by looking at her that I was busted."

Jeanette snatched up the telephone and called her mother, Tommie.  "Did something happen at the shop?" she asked.

"I don't know," Tommie said.  Her normally laid back voice was strained.  "I kept calling but nobody would answer.  Finally a man picked up."

Jeanette's knees started to shake.  "Who was he?" she asked.  But she knew even before her mom answered.  The man was a cop.

When Jeanette called the house on Canal Street, a detective answered the phone.  She asked to speak to the girl who'd been working at the house. 

"You can't," the detective said.  "She's under arrest."

Suddenly, Jeanette was dizzy.  The room started spinning and she fell to her knees. The Canal Street Brothel, the business she'd spent years building, had been shut down.