Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (29 page)

“He never notified you of her death?”

There was a pause. “We aren’t what you’d call a close family, Mr. Kicklighter. My parents were divorced years ago, and Dad got custody of the kids. Mother’s job was her family.”

“And she’d had no health problems that you knew of?”

“Not until Newby got his hooks into her,” Annette Skinner said.

Everybody in St. Petersburg knew that the Boynton family was represented by the city’s oldest white-shoe law firm, McGowan & Young. Old man McGowan and old man Boynton had partnered up in lucrative land deals back in the twenties, and McGowan & Young’s offices took up two floors of the Boynton building.

The receptionist at McGowan & Young was reluctant to let Truman talk to Jock McGowan.

“Tell him it’s about Jeannette Boynton giving her inheritance to a church that meets in an old movie theater,” Truman suggested. A minute later the secretary rang him through.

“Mr. Kicklighter?” Jock McGowan’s voice was louder than necessary. “What’s this about Jeannette Boynton?”

“You ever hear of an outfit called the Church of Cosmic Unity?” Truman asked.

“No,” McGowan said. “Should I have?”

“If I were you I’d look them up,” Truman said. “Since Jeannette Boynton pledged her share of the Boynton estate to them this week.”

“What’s that?” McGowan said sharply.

“Write this down,” Truman said. “The Reverend Jewell Newby. If anything happens to Jeannette, you’ll be signing over a lot of Boynton family assets to that joker.”

“What’s your interest in this, Mr. Kicklighter?” McGowan asked.

“Newby’s church bought the hotel I live in. The Fountain of Youth. Plans to turn it into some luxury retirement home for his church members. I’m a journalist,” Truman said. “Did a little checking and I found out Reverend Newby has a history. His flock runs to a particular kind of sheep, one that’s easy to fleece, old, lonely, and wealthy. That’s how he likes ‘em.”

Truman gave the laywer Annette Sowers Skinner’s phone number, and Leda Aristozobal’s number too.

“We’ll look into it immediately,” McGowan promised. “Just between the two of us, Mr. Kicklighter, I’m the executor of Benson Boynton’s estate, and I’ve been concerned about Jeannette for some time now. She’s always been the odd duck of the family. Never married. Been living alone in that old wreck of a mansion for years. She’d be ripe picking for any kind of charlatan who happened along. I’m grateful for the information, Mr. Kicklighter. Mighty grateful.”

By the time he’d finished with his phone calls, Truman had begun to feel a glimmer of hope. He sat back on his bed to enjoy the newspaper he’d been too busy to read earlier in the day.

When the phone rang, he jumped for it.

“Dad?” Cheryl Kicklighter’s voice was quavery.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Did you pick Chip up after school today?”

“No. Didn’t he come home?”

Now Cheryl was crying, gasping for breath. “Called his friends … the neighbors. Dad, he’s not anywhere. Could you come over here?”

“I’m on my way,” Truman said. “He probably just stopped to play. You know how little boys are. Did you try the park?”

“Hurry, please,” Cheryl begged.

Together they drove every possible route from the school to the house. They checked the park, empty lots, convenience stores, then cruised the streets of the neighborhood, Cheryl calling the boy’s name again and again until she was hoarse and dry-eyed from crying.

“I’m calling the police,” Truman told her.

“He’s only ten,” he told the dispatcher. “And it’ll be dark soon, and it’s not like him to worry his mother like this.”

The patrol cars cruised the neighborhood again, calling Chip’s name over a loudspeaker. Officers fanned out, knocking on doors.

Neighbors came out of their houses and stood in their neat yards, looking over at Cheryl’s own neat yard, with the football next to the front door and the red bicycle lying on its side near the garage.

When the call came, the voice was low, indistinct. “We have the boy. We want the computer disk. Leave the cops out of it. We’ll call again with directions.” There was a click and then the dial tone.

Truman wanted to throw up. “Cheryl?”

She came hurriedly into the kitchen. “Was that the phone? News about Chipper?”

“He’s been kidnapped,” Truman said, taking his only daughter in his arms. “It’s all my fault.”

When he finished telling her the whole long story, it was dark out. She turned on every light in the house and made another pot of coffee. Neither of them could eat.

Someone was knocking at the door. Cheryl went to answer it.

It was Bobby Roberts, still dressed in his white and green uniform.

“I was out on a traffic call,” he said, taking Cheryl’s hand in his. “I came as soon as I heard it on the radio. Is there anything I can do?”

Cheryl looked at Truman questioningly. He shook his head ever so slightly.

“He’ll be all right,” Bobby was telling Cheryl, still holding her hand. “Kids that age wander away all the time. Especially boys. It’s dark now, he’ll probably come running in for supper any minute.”

“No,” Cheryl said slowly, still not believing it herself. “He’s been kidnapped. Somebody has my son.”

“It’s true,” Truman said dully. “They just called. They have Chip.”

There was another knock on the door, and this time it was the patrol officers. Truman told them about the call and one of the officers called headquarters. “There’s a detective on the way,” he told Cheryl.

Within ten minutes the detective, a short, round-faced man named Matt Carmichael, was sitting in the living room with them.

Truman repeated the whole story, leaving out only one detail, the part about how he and Jackleen used the disk to win six thousand dollars.

“We were afraid to tell the police,” Truman said lamely. “I guess we were naive to think we could find out who really killed Rosie.”

Cheryl had been standing with her back to them, staring out the window into the darkness. She turned around.

“When they call back, tell them we’ll give them the disk. The disk, money, whatever they want. I just want my son.” Truman looked stricken. “I don’t have the disk.” Carmichael sighed. “Where is it?”

“I decided things were getting dangerous,” Truman said. “I put it in an envelope and mailed it.”

“Mailed it where?”
Cheryl shrieked. “My God, Dad.”

“I sent it to Ollie at the newsstand,” Truman said. “Nobody would think of looking for it there.”

“When did you do this?” Carmichael asked. “Tuesday,” Truman said. “Day before yesterday. Tomorrow’s Friday. It ought to be there by then.”

The telephone rang. Cheryl looked panicky. “What if it’s them?”

“Let your dad pick it up,” Carmichael said. “Try to keep them on the line.”

Truman dashed into the kitchen, followed by the others.

“Hello,” he said, slightly out of breath.

“Have you got the disk?” It was the same voice as before.

“No, not right now,” Truman said. “I’ll have it tomorrow.”

“You don’t get the kid till we get the disk,” the voice said. It was impossible to tell whether the caller was a male or female.

“I don’t have it,” Truman said. “I mailed it someplace. To keep it safe. It won’t be delivered until tomorrow.”

“Get it or the lad dies,” the caller said. “We’ll be in touch.”

At some point during the night a police electronics expert arrived and hooked up call-tracing equipment to the phones.

Neighbors came and went with sandwiches and casseroles and loving words and anxious expressions.

Carmichael left briefly, and when he returned he was accompanied by a tall, thin black man named Kenyon. He was an FBI agent. Truman never did catch his first name. He told Kenyon his story, told him about the blonde and the man who grabbed Jackie and the one who’d assaulted Pearl and how someone had searched Mel’s room at the nursing home.

Carmichael was dispatched to pick up Jackleen.

Jackie looked miserable as she recounted the story. She kept glancing at Cheryl. “I’m so sorry,” she told her. “So sorry.” Truman gave her a warning glance; she left out the part about the money.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cheryl said. “I just want my boy.”

By midnight, they were all numb with fear and exhaustion.

Bobby Roberts left reluctantly, promising to return the next day after his shift. Carmichael took Jackie back home.

Kenyon stayed in the kitchen where he could be close to the phone. Cheryl insisted on sleeping in Chip’s bed. Truman lay down on the living room sofa, vowing to stay awake until the kidnappers called again.

When he awoke at dawn the numbness had worn off. He looked in the mirror in the bathroom and saw someone he didn’t recognize. An old man. Useless, defeated. He’d intended to shave and shower. Instead he dressed and dragged himself into the kitchen.

Kenyon and Cheryl sat at the table drinking coffee. The morning newspaper lay on the table between them.

“It’s in the paper,” Cheryl said.

missing boy feared kidnap victim
the headline said. There was a color photo of Chip. The story had most of the details right. Except for the motive. “Police refused to divulge the kidnapper’s demands,” the story said, noting that Chip’s mother was a divorced schoolteacher and that his grandfather was a retired reporter.

“A polite way of saying we’re too poor to pay a ransom,” Truman said.

They moved through the morning like sleepwalkers.

By daylight, a knot of people had gathered on the street in front of the house. Cars drove by slowly. There were reporters and photographers, mobile satellite vans from the television stations.

At eleven, Carmichael got a telephone call and left, saying he’d be back. He returned with a familiar-looking manila envelope.

“Picked this up at the main post office,” he explained.

Gingerly Truman took the envelope and opened it. The seal had already been broken. He looked up, surprised.

“We made copies of the disk,” Carmichael said. “Kept the original for evidence. It’s identical in every way to the original.”

“We’ll hand this over to the kidnappers and they’ll let Chip go?” Truman asked.

The men looked at each other and shrugged. “Maybe,” Kenyon said. “They’re calling the shots. It’s up to them. When they let us know about the pickup, we’ll start planning. We’ll get the boy back.”

“When they call,” Carmichael reminded Truman, “ask to speak to Chip. Ask how he is. And make sure they tell you exactly where the pickup is to be. Get them to repeat it if you can.”

“It’s been in all the papers. All over the news,” Cheryl pointed out. “Won’t they know the police are involved?”

“Yeah,” Carmichael said. “But do it anyway.”

Each time the phone rang that morning, they all jumped nervously. Each time Cheryl got the caller off the line as fast as possible.

At 11:25 the kidnappers called. Truman picked up the phone.

“Listen up,” the caller said. “Tomorrow, 11 am. You stand on the northeast corner of Beach Drive and Third Avenue. Alone. No cops. You’ll hear from us. Got that?”

Truman was scribbling furiously. “Wait. I want to talk to Chip.”

“He’s asleep.” There was nothing else except the dial tone.

“Is he okay?” Cheryl asked. “Did you talk to him?”

Truman rubbed his eyes with his fists. “I’m sorry,” he said. “They said he was asleep, then they hung up.”

Kenyon took off the headset that had been plugged into the kitchen phone so he could listen in. He picked up the phone the police had installed the night before and dialed a number.

“Get anything?” Kenyon asked the person doing the tracing. He listened for a moment, then hung up.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. “All that static on the line. The call came from a cellular phone.”

“What’s that mean?” Truman asked.

“One of those portable phones, like the ones house-wives carry in their purses and drug dealers carry in their cars,” Carmichael said.

“Can’t they trace calls from one of those?”

“Not if it’s stolen,” Kenyon said. “And this one was.”

“Tell me what they said,” Cheryl demanded.

“The pickup is set for 11 am tomorrow at the north-east corner of Beach Drive and Third Avenue,” Kenyon said.

“Tomorrow? Christ!” Carmichael said disgustedly.

“What?” Cheryl asked anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

“The Festival of States parade is tomorrow,” Carmichael said.

“Oh my God,” Cheryl said. “I’d forgotten about the parade.”

“You wouldn’t if you were a cop,” Carmichael said grimly. “Starting at 10 am. that corner is right on the parade route. There’ll be almost four hundred thousand people lined up shoulder to shoulder along Beach Drive. Streets will be blocked off, every cop in town has traffic detail.”