A Child Is Missing (6 page)

There seemed to be no sound or movement in the entire room, save for the mother's keening and her heaving shoulders.

Suddenly, the father grabbed the microphone. “All we want is our son back. Can you understand that, whoever you are? You who have him, do you understand? I have the money. You can have it all. Just give me back my son.”

The father slid the mike back to the FBI agent. Then he slumped in his chair, closed his eyes, shook his head as though he couldn't believe such a thing was happening to him.

Will felt soiled and guilty for having wondered fleetingly whether the kidnapping had been faked—that is, if the boy had been taken in a custody battle. Now, it seemed impossible to believe that the mother could be faking such heartbreak. And a look at the father's eyes, red-rimmed from tears (or from blinking back tears, depending on the kind of man he was), made it seem certain that he, too, wanted his son back and didn't know where he was.

And yet, and yet … Will would not rule out the possibility of a staged abduction. He gave himself the same lecture he gave his reporters: He would try not to let his emotions take over.

I wonder why they're not married anymore, Will thought. Did it matter?

“Agent Graham, are you able to tell anything significant from the notes with the newspaper lettering?”

“You mean other than where they were mailed from? Not yet. Various scientific tests are being done. I'm not sure I could give you information on that, even if I had it. Which I don't.”

There were a few more routine questions. Then Graham adjourned the session and said that further briefings would be scheduled as needed.

Will lingered near the back of the pack until the room was nearly empty. He caught Graham just before he left the room.

“Jerry? It's Will Shafer. Remember me?”

“Will? Will!” Graham smiled broadly and shook hands, showing none of the reserve he'd displayed in the press conference. “Gosh, it's good to see you, Will.”

“Same here, Jerry.”

They told each other the high points of the last decade or so of their lives. Both were still married to the same women, both had a son and a daughter.

Graham said his wife was an art teacher. “And what's Karen doing, Will?”

“Deep into social work. She has her master's now. She writes articles for journals, does some counseling.”

“Gosh, that's great. Say, I read about that old murder case up in Bessemer. The town is still talking about it, I'll bet.”

“You bet right.”

“But what brings you here, Will?”

Will sighed. “You remember Fran Spicer? Covered city hall, sometimes the Federal Building.”

“Name's familiar.”

Will told Graham the basics.

“That's a damn shame,” Graham said. “I knew there was a bad wreck the other night. I never connected.… Anyhow, I'm glad the
Gazette
has you covering this thing. Off the record, I get sick and tired of dealing with smart-ass young reporters.”

“Off the record, so do I.”

Graham laughed. “Come on, Will. Coffee's on me.”

The police station was connected to the Long Creek city government building, which had a small cafeteria in the basement. Will and the FBI man took a corner table. While Graham went to get coffee, Will looked around. Scattered among the clerks and political gofers on break were several sullen-faced cops.

When Graham returned, Will said, “This isn't exactly a friendly town.”

“Sugar? No, it sure isn't. It's got all the ingredients for bad government and bad policing. Decaying tax base, aging population, entrenched political machine, old-fashioned, pigheaded, out-of-work union people. And it's all tied together, somehow. You saw the police chief.”

“How is he to deal with?”

“He's staying out of my way, mostly. That's the best I can say. Oh, I suppose he does his best.”

Will felt refreshed by the coffee, and seeing someone from the old days took his mind off Fran Spicer. Then he thought again how much he would rather be home, and that made him miss Karen and the children, and that reminded him of the kidnapped boy and his parents.

“What do you think about all this, Jerry?”

Graham put down his coffee. “This is one old friend talking to another. I wouldn't say this to anyone else.” Graham stared into his cup for a long time. At last, he looked at Will and said quietly, “I pray to God I'm wrong, but I think the boy's as good as dead.”

“Jesus.”

Graham nodded, and for a moment two fathers shared an understanding of something unspeakably horrible and sad. Then Graham's eyes changed, and Will knew he was the FBI man again.

“I don't know how much of this you can use, Will. Maybe file it away for … whenever. The fact that the boy has been gone for this long lessens the chances for a safe return. That's often how it works. The kidnappers panic and, well…

“Then there's this ransom thing. That first demand, fifty thousand. Such small potatoes, really, if you're going to go to the trouble of kidnapping someone. So now, days later, there's another demand. This time for two hundred fifty thousand. It's like the kidnappers have suddenly said to them-selves, Oops, we've been acting like small-time punks here; let's grow up and act like big-time criminals.”

“And that's a bad sign?”

“I think it is. If these guys planned all this out well in advance, as I think they did, and then ask such a petty amount to start with—that tells me they had to work up their courage to do it in the first place. They really are small-time punks, as the first demand indicates.

“Then it sinks in what they've done, and they realize they've risked a whole lot for very little. So they want more, a lot more money. Which they ask for a few days after the first demand. But they still haven't told us how to get the kid back, or where to drop the ransom.”

“And what's that tell you, Jerry?”

“I'm not sure. Either that they don't really know what they're doing, which wouldn't surprise me, or that they're completely cold-blooded and want to keep us off our guard. That last makes sense, because in a way anyone who kidnaps someone—for money, I mean—has to be pretty cold-blooded.”

Graham paused to stare into his empty cup. Will waited.

“See, once they tell us how to deliver the money, the kid is no good to them. Worse than that, he's a liability. And if these guys are true amateurs—that's what I fear more than anything—they might panic and kill him. If they haven't already.”

“The parents, Jerry. From where I sat, they looked like they didn't know anything.”

“I think that's right. At least for her. You saw how she was. Him…? Well, I don't think so, but I can't be sure.”

“And the chauffeur?”

“Straight-arrow, we think. No record, no unsavory connections. Seems okay. Oh, this is off the record completely, but the kidnappers gave him a threat.”

“And what was that?”

“That they'd rape the boy if we didn't cooperate.”

“God Almighty.”

“Yeah. So that's where we are.”

“Can you find anything from whatever tests you do on the ransom notes, Jerry?”

“My official answer is yes. If somebody's dumb enough to leave a fingerprint in the glue he uses to paste up the letters. Or if the fibers in the paper match those found on someone's desktop blotter someday.” Graham snorted. “It's all bullshit, Will. The paper the letters are pasted on is lined notebook, the kind you can buy in any store. Ordinary five-and-dime glue. The newspaper lettering … well, come on. I'll show you.”

“They gave me my own little office, Will. If I breathe deep, I can smell the soap and disinfectant, I think.”

Graham gestured to a chair, and Will sat. The agent unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of thick cardboard about two feet square, held it up for Will to see.

The notes were displayed under a transparent sheet. The newspaper letters, all capitals, made up a jumble of typefaces. The first one read:

WE HAVE JAMEY. WE WANT
50
G OR HE DIES. GET RANSOM READY. WE WILL TELL YOU WHAT TO DO.

“They spelled the boy's name wrong,” Will said. “It is really J-A-M-I-E, isn't it?”

“Yes, they got it wrong.”

“Unless they ran out of the letter
i
, which isn't likely.”

“No.”

“Maybe they're just stupid,” Will said, half-joking.

The second note said:

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED. PRICE RAISED TO 250G'S. COOPERATE OR BOY WILL BE KILLED. MORE INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLO.

“What do you think, Will?”

“What do
I
think?”

“You're a word person. Give me your gut feeling.”

First, Will had to clear something up. “Jerry, I'm here as a newspaperman. How much of this is supposed to be on the record?”

“Will, I'd like you not to mention the misspelling when you write your story. I'm also asking you not to write what I said a minute ago, about our not being hopeful that we'll get anything from tests on the notes. Can you do that?”

Will was uncomfortable, and he knew his face showed it.

“Will, I'll share stuff with you that I won't with anyone else. You know that. Help me in return, is all I ask.”

Will ran it through his mind. He thought of all the times he'd lectured reporters about not getting trapped in deals to keep things off the record. Then he thought about how the publisher had imposed on him by sending him to Long Creek in the first place. Then he thought about how a lot of situations just weren't covered in the rules.

But first he had a question. “Why me, Jerry? You guys have access to all the science and experts in the world.”

“Experts? Sure, Will. And if I want a good, perceptive reading of these ransom notes, which happen to be pasted-up newspaper letters, what should I do? Call a semantics expert from the state university a hundred miles away? And where do I get an expert on newspaper lettering? I'm looking at one. I'm looking at a professional word person. What do you say?”

“Sure, Jerry. I'm a man first and a newspaperman second. And I've got kids of my own.”

Graham put his hand on Will's shoulder. “You're straight as ever, Will. You'd have made a good FBI agent.”

“I'm not sure that's a compliment.”

“You son of a bitch.” Graham laughed. Then he held the cardboard up again. “Tell me what you see, Will.”

Will studied the letters. Was there something? Yes.

“What do you see, Will?”

“You asked for my gut feelings, so here goes. Look at the first note. The boy's name is spelled wrong. The ‘50G' without an
s
after the
G.
And ‘Get ransom ready.' The level of expression is rather crude.” Although not much worse than that of some of my reporters, Will thought ruefully.

“And the second note, Will?”

“It's more literate. The words
cooperate
and
instructions,
for instance. You don't have to be a genius to use them, but they do indicate a higher level of sophistication than shown in the first note, I think. And where he has the ransom demand: He uses the apostrophe and the
s
with the
G,
which is more correct usage. Oh, and using
f-o-l-o
for
follow.
That's a deliberate abbreviation, almost certainly.”

“I agree. What else?”

“Well … it's ordinary, I mean pretty common newspaper type, I think. Bookman Roman, Bookman Italic, some other fonts I recognize. But … yes, it's the kind of lettering you see all the time in newspapers. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Good, Will. Anything else?”

Will studied the notes line by line. “No, I don't think so. These notes were done by different people, weren't they?”

“I think so.”

“And what's that mean, Jerry?”

The agent shrugged. “For sure, that the second was written by someone a little smarter. That one was written by a man, another by a woman? Or maybe it's just a division of labor. I imagine it takes a while to paste up a message. Maybe the one who did the first note said, ‘Hey, you do the next one. It's a pain in the ass.'”

“But Jerry, you already knew there were a couple of kidnappers. So the fact that the notes were done by different people is no surprise, is it?”

Graham frowned. “No. It's just that whatever scraps of knowledge we get might help us to … well, to get a conviction someday. Even…”

“Even if you can't save the boy.”

“Right. So maybe one kidnapper is a lot smarter than the other. Maybe that's why they're squabbling, if they are. Maybe that helps explain the higher ransom demand. I don't know.”

“So, Jerry, when you catch the guys, all that will help you turn one against the other to build your case. Right?”

“Maybe. But if these guys are divided, if they're at each other's throats and their nerves are frayed, it doesn't help the kid's chances. If he still has any.”

“If they are amateurs at heart, it reduces the boy's chances, doesn't it?”

Graham nodded yes. “Setting up the ransom delivery is the biggest source of worry for them right now. That, and the boy himself. Who, after all, can identify them. That's assuming they haven't already, um, decided how to solve that problem.”

“Damn.”

“You're right about amateurs being more dangerous, Will, because they're not sure of what they're doing. Trouble is, except for political terrorists, all kidnappers are amateurs.”

“Are you here for the duration, Jerry?”

“I think so. I can't be certain. Part of what I do is hand-holding for the parents. And that's tougher in this case, because they live apart.”

“Is there any chance at all that they, you know…?”