Legally Dead (2 page)

Michael Venturi hit the airport late. His own fault, exacerbated by traffic. The security line stretched across the building, a slow-moving, mind-numbing hell presided over by morons. At last, he sprinted down the concourse to the gate where his flight should have been boarding. It wasn't.

“
De
-layed,” chirped the pretty girl behind the counter. She smiled flirtatiously and batted her big blues. Her obvious interest failed to diminish the cloud that hovered over him. Flying was no longer fun. Neither is my job, Venturi thought, or my life.

His head pounded; his fault as well. Not enough sleep and too much to drink. He needed to find hot coffee, which he hoped, with a few aspirins, might provide relief.

At the end of the concourse, he found a Starbucks, picked up some newspapers, and returned to the gate. He sipped the coffee, which was good, as he skimmed the news, which was not: car bombs in Baghdad, celebs in rehab, the globe warming, a new cold war looming, corrupt politicians, crisis in Cuba, same old, same old.

A headline below the fold on page five caught his eye as he searched for sports.

Small Town Mystery
Little Girls Lost

The Flemington, New Hampshire, dateline jumped out at him. He read the first paragraph, blinked, then reread it.

An eight-year-old schoolgirl had vanished from that rural township in broad daylight. Weeks earlier another girl, age nine, had disappeared from the same neighborhood. Last seen selling Girl Scout cookies she, too, remained missing.

Both gone without a trace, despite Amber Alerts, tearful appeals from anguished parents, and intense searches by police and volunteers on foot, on horseback, and in the air. The coffee he'd swallowed rose in his throat.

The PA system kicked in. Pretty girl behind the counter made eye contact, smiling again as she announced that his flight was now ready to board. But he was not. Michael Venturi would not fly today. He snatched up his duffel bag, left his half-empty coffee cup, and retreated.

“Am I responsible?” Venturi wondered. “Is it my fault?” Full of dread, sick at heart, he knew the answer was yes, and that his life had changed forever.

“What the hell you doing here?” Tom McMullen, the Chief U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of New York, looked startled and checked his watch with an exaggerated gesture. “Shouldn't you be halfway to Chicago?”

Venturi, who had interrupted a meeting, dropped the newspaper onto his boss's desk. “Have you seen this?” He pointed out the New Hampshire story. “Check the dateline. What the hell did we do?”

The chief gave the paper a cursory glance, scowled, and looked up too quickly. “So?” He shrugged. “Heard something about it. Whadaya, jumping to conclusions?”

“We put him there.”

“Sure, and it doesn't mean a thing,” said Rich Archbold, an assistant U.S. Attorney, from his chair in front of the chief's desk.

April Howard, a deputy U.S. Marshal like Venturi, sat next to Archbold. She nodded repeatedly, like a bobble-headed doll.

That they all knew about the story before he did agitated Venturi more.

“We were aware of that sick son of a bitch's sexual preference. We knew what his ex-wives confided off the record. I knew it was a mistake, I argued against it, but no,” he turned and paced the room, “we did it anyway.”

“Gino Salvi's a terrific witness,” Archbold said, “and we still need him for Schoenberg, the biggest union corruption case in the history of our office.”

“He's a murderer!”

“Those were mob hits on other hoodlums, not children or innocent bystanders,” Archbold said, hitching his shoulders and gesturing, palms up, as if to grant Salvi absolution for bad-boy pranks.

“Somebody has to go to New Hampshire,” Venturi said, “and get to the bottom of this.”

“What are you? Nuts?” Archbold's body language registered alarm. “You'd sabotage the case on a hunch? Schoenberg goes to trial next month.”

“Forget the trial.” Venturi's voice rose. “Children are missing. I'll go.” He looked around. “Who's going with me?”

“Nobody.” Chief McMullen's voice dropped ominously. “
No
body goes to New Hampshire, especially you. Sit down, Michael. You're getting on my nerves.”

Venturi reluctantly took a seat near the others.

“There is no evidence against Salvi,” Archbold said. “Only your suspicion. We've worked years to make this case. The trial's a go this time. We're in it to win it!”

“It's no game,” Venturi argued. “We can't play with children's lives.”

“They could be runaways,” April Howard offered, her high-pitched voice thin, her eyes averted. “You know how kids can be.”

“They're not teenagers, they're eight and nine.”

Even Archbold didn't buy the runaway theory. “If they were stranger abductions,” he said quietly, “they're probably dead. Not much we can do.”

“We can stop him.”

“What
him
?” McMullen demanded plaintively. He raked his thick fingers across his receding crew cut, signaling an impending rant. “Hundreds of perverts are trolling this country for victims as we speak.”

“Sex offenders
are
everywhere.” April's slim, well-manicured fingers twirled a lock of her shiny dark hair. “Dirty uncles, nasty stepfathers, lecherous grandpas. Happens all the time.” She sounded breezy.

Archbold snatched up the newspaper, scowled briefly at the headline, then slapped it back onto the chief's desk in disgust. “Our man isn't dumb enough to pull that in his own backyard.”

“We've had no negative feedback on Salvi,” Chief McMullen said, “not a word. The man's innocent till proven guilty.”

“So let's go up there and prove it. We can polygraph him,” Venturi suggested, keeping his voice steady.

They stared in unanimous dismay.

“At least we should give the local cops a heads-up,” he continued. “They're beating their brains out searching for the missing girls.”

“Not our job!” The chief's face reddened. “It's a local issue. Let the locals solve their problems.”

Archbold, the prosecutor, agreed. “We all know the pressure they're under. It's a high-profile case and they've got nothing. They'd pile on our guy like dogs fighting for a bone. If his name surfaces, if he's even routinely interviewed, his credibility is shot, we've lost our star witness, and our case is down the crapper. We can't afford it.”

“We can't afford not to,” Venturi insisted. “No small-town police department is equipped to solve a thing like this.”

“Stay out of it,” the boss growled, focusing his venomous stare on Venturi. “Got that? Let them do their jobs. That is a goddamn order!”

He lowered his voice. “You know how small-town police departments work, they leak like sieves. No hick cop can keep a secret. They've got no reason to. They don't care about our case, our reputation. They'd like nothing better than to stick it up our federal asses.”

“There is no cause,” Archbold said firmly, “to believe our star witness is involved. You sound paranoid, Venturi.”

They ganged up on him.

“He's right, Michael,” April cooed reassuringly. “You've been under too much stress. You're not yourself.” She crossed her legs, smoothed her pencil-slim suit skirt, leaned forward, and wagged her finger at him. “I always said, you should have taken more time off after the accident. You should see someone. Really.” Her tone was condescending.

He studied each face—his boss, a federal prosecutor, and a fellow agent, and came to a conclusion that sickened him: not a conscience in the room. Aware the girls were missing, they never mentioned it. Why? Was it the reason for his sudden weeklong assignment in Chicago? Or was he paranoid?

They continued to berate him.

“She's right.” The chief shook his head. “We all saw this coming. I urged you to take more time, offered all the compassionate leave you needed. But no, Mr. Macho here came right back to work, to tough it out. It took its toll. Look at you.” His face puckered in distaste. “Alcohol has affected your brain, clouded your judgment.”

Enough was enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” Venturi said angrily. “My work hasn't suffered. My evaluations are all excellent.”

“You know more than anybody how much manpower and hard work we've invested in this case, this witness,” Archbold said reasonably. “The office has a lot at stake here.”

“It's only fair to give the local cops a clue,” Venturi said stubbornly.

The sigh was collective.

The chief's stubby index finger stabbed the air between them. “Don't go there, Venturi. I'm warning you. Stay out of it! Keep your mouth shut. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Archbold broke the silence that followed. “You know how local police resent our interference in their investigations,” he said ingratiatingly. “Our job is justice, to win a conviction. Derailing us at this point would be unacceptable.”

Venturi nodded and got to his feet.

“Forget Chicago,” the chief said offhandedly. “I'll send Wolfson instead. Take the week off. Chill out. And quit reading the newspapers!”

Even Ruth Ann, the motherly middle-aged office manager and trusted friend, offered no comfort.

“Take the time off,” she whispered persuasively as he removed some personal items from his desk. “Give yourself a break. It will all work out. You'll see.”

“I don't see how,” he said bleakly.

“Bad things happen everywhere,” she said cheerfully. “We've got no shortage of psychos on the loose. He wouldn't be that stupid.”

The more they denied the possibility, the more Venturi believed that he and the program had unleashed a monster on unsuspecting, law-abiding, small-town America.

The chief had issued his orders, loud and clear. Venturi had always followed orders like the elite Force Recon U.S. Marine he had been. The first thing a Marine learns is to follow orders. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

He sighed.

His cell rang a short time later as he drove over the Triboro Bridge. Caller ID revealed that they were already checking up on him.

“You okay, hon?” April asked sweetly.

“Sure. Before he changes his mind, tell the chief I'm taking him up on his offer. Driving down the shore to chill.”

“Great! Wish I could, too,” she said, way too enthusiastically. “Atlantic City?”

In his mind's eye, he saw her thumbs-up to whomever was listening. Are they right? he wondered.
Am
I paranoid?

“Nah,” he said casually. “Farther south, maybe Wildwood, Cape May.”

“Cool. Have a blast. But stay in touch. You know I worry about you. Once you're back, all rested and relaxed, why not talk things out with a professional? Give it some thought, Michael. Couldn't hurt. Our insurance pays.”

He promised to consider it.

“Call me when you get home, hon, and we can do dinner.”

“Sounds good,” he said, and snapped the phone shut.

He picked up what he'd need from his apartment, swapped his car and his cell phone for loaners from Iggy, his mechanic, who always wore a baseball cap and big shades and spent every weekend with a girlfriend in Cape May. Then he drove northeast and picked up I-95 north.

He'd be in New Hampshire soon enough.

Venturi punched the button to hear what Iggy had left in his CD player. Chris Rea's ominous
Road to Hell
seemed a fitting soundtrack to his dark and painful thoughts during the more than five-hour drive.

Eventually pastoral fields and shaggy hillsides dotted with spotted cows diminished his anger. Dread and loneliness took its place.

He had been alone for the past few years and missed the Marines, the camaraderie of teamwork with those who shared goals and whose lives were often in each other's hands. His specialized Force Recon unit carried out small, high-risk operations in volatile hot spots all over the globe.

He had joined the U.S. Marshals Service eager to become part of a team again. But the job, by comparison, seemed disappointing, boring, and often absurd.

He and Madison, a fashion writer for a New York magazine, were newlyweds then. Soon they were expecting a child. Their personal lives were blissfully anticipatory. Her contagious effervescence always buoyed his spirits. He had no time to dwell on his growing doubts about his assignment to the Federal Witness Protection Program, better known as WITSEC. She was a sure cure for the blues. She had a talent for happiness. It went with her to her grave.

After losing Madison and the baby, he focused on his job, saw more problems, asked more questions, and experienced profound doubts. Government lawyers, eager for convictions at any cost, agreed to grant dangerous criminals their freedom and new identities in exchange for testimony against former criminal associates. Many of the deals seemed more risky to others than raids or rescue missions in Somalia, or the Gulf War, or the jungles of Colombia. He suspected that some protected witnesses were more degenerate than the defendants they helped to convict. Many reverted to their former criminal behavior after being relocated.

War was simpler.

The dialogue in his boss's office that morning replayed on an endless loop as the miles swept by and traffic thinned out.

His colleagues had no clue. Work, action was what he needed most, not free time to think, to relive his loss. He needed to keep his mind and body too occupied to remember the images that haunted him. His pace was furious. He frequented the gym, pounded the hell out of the speed bag, lifted weights, kickboxed, and jogged the dark city streets to exhaustion. When not running, he was shooting, spending hours at the firing range. The empty hours between midnight and dawn were the most difficult. Sleep was elusive. He drank as a result. He didn't realize it was so obvious to others.

Work was all that sustained him. Now that had turned to crap. No, that was what it had always been. Without a cause to believe in, without making a difference, without her, he had nothing.

Three years ago, they had a future and a family in progress. New Hampshire's rolling hills and little villages with yellow school buses and playing children evoked bittersweet memories.

He made good time. Ten miles from his destination he saw a homemade sign nailed to a tree.

PUPPIES FOR SALE.

He turned into a long gravel driveway that led back to a farmhouse, a barn, and some outbuildings, then tooted the horn.

Several small children came running. They surrounded his car, along with half a dozen shepherd-mix pups that roughhoused about, yelping and yapping.

“Hi, guys,” he greeted them, and stepped out to stretch his legs.

The children simultaneously stepped back. None answered.

“These must be the puppies,” he said, smiling.

“We can't talk to strangers no more,” a little girl sang out.

A screen door slammed and a slim, light-haired woman in her thirties appeared on the front porch of what looked to be a hundred-year-old farmhouse.

She looked harried, eyes wary.

He understood and said he'd seen the sign.

“Take your pick,” she offered with relief. “Twenty dollars.”

“Do you have something a little older?”

She looked confused.

He said he worked and had no time to train a pup.

Her pale, disappointed eyes roamed the farmyard and the several dogs on the property.

A sad-faced black and brown mutt of uncertain ancestry lay in the shade beside the barn, his muzzle resting between his paws.

“He's been neutered,” the woman said, following Venturi's eyes. “Somebody took off his collar and pushed him out of a car up on the highway last year. He sat and waited by the side of the road for two days, then limped on down here. He must be smart. He knew which house to come to,” she said good-naturedly.

He was perfect: the universal nondescript, medium-size, floppy-eared dog everyone has known at least once in their life.

“Ain't much of a watchdog. He don't bark much.”

The animal seemed to know he was being discussed, his melancholy brown eyes rolling back and forth between them as they spoke.

“How much?”

She thought for a moment.

“The kids really love him. He's their favorite,” she said slyly. “Twenty dollars?” She gnawed at her lower lip, eyes speculative, expecting him to bargain.

He didn't want to disappoint her. “How about fifteen?”

She countered with eighteen and looked pleased as he counted out the bills.

“What's his name?” Venturi asked, as she tied an old piece of rope, a makeshift collar and leash, around the dog's shaggy neck.

She turned to the children. “What do you kids call him?”

They looked bewildered.

“What's his name?” she demanded, eyes warning that the sale might depend on their answer.

“Lassie?” the oldest boy finally piped up.

This dog was no Lassie.

Even the child's mother looked dubious as she handed Venturi the rope.

“How old do you think he is?” he asked.

“Five. Maybe six.” She lifted her narrow shoulders. “No way to tell.”

He looked older to Venturi but that made the animal even more perfect.

“He's a good dog,” she said quickly. “Not a bit a' trouble.”

The animal favored a front foot as he limped to the car beside his new owner and climbed obediently into the passenger seat. He looked back only once, at the children who ran after the car, shouting and waving.

“Don't worry, partner,” Venturi assured him. “We'll get along fine. Just you and me for a while.”

He stopped at a hardware store in the next town and paid cash for a brown leather collar, a matching six-foot leash, and two stainless-steel dishes, for food and water. At a Wal-Mart he bought jeans, work pants, shirts, and several caps similar to those worn by the locals.

Pictures of the two missing girls were everywhere, on posters in store windows and on telephone poles.

He studied the faces of Samantha, the petite, blond Girl Scout, and Holly, a winsome freckle-faced third-grader with a gap-toothed grin.

“You don't fool me with that alias,” Venturi told his passenger as they drove back to the highway. “You're no Lassie. What's your real name?”

The dog turned his back, then curled up on the front seat, head between his paws, bored, sad, or about to barf.

“Sport? Pal? Lucky?”

No reaction.

“Rocky? Blackie?” They stopped at a traffic light, next to a pole with Samantha's poster. “Scout?” The dog's ears perked up and he lifted his head.

“So you're Scout. Perfect. I'm Mike.”

He lowered the passenger window. Moments later, Scout got to his feet and stuck out his face, tongue lolling, as though enjoying the ride.

Venturi imagined the sensory thrill that rush of air must bring to the sensitive nose of a dog. No wonder they look so ecstatic in convertibles and cars with open windows.

Talking to his new friend violated no security agreement, so Venturi explained how he'd been recruited to join the world's best personal protection service, one with a reputation for never losing a client. He believed them then. But they lied.

He told Scout it had been destined to end like this. It was only a matter of time.

He turned up the volume when the missing girls were mentioned on the radio.

“Samantha would never go off with a stranger,” her mother said, her voice trembling. “She's only nine but bright for her age.”

The reporter asked the question they always do when a loved one is missing. “What would you like to say to Samantha in case she's listening?”

“Sam, sweetheart…” The woman choked back a sob. “We love you very much. We miss you and want you home.”

The child's father roughly cleared his throat. “Be brave, honey. We're coming to bring you home. Just be brave.”

Venturi clenched the steering wheel in a viselike grip as the newsman said there were no new leads and asked anyone with information to call a special police phone line.

At dusk, they drove down Main Street in Flemington, the picturesque little New Hampshire town where bad things were happening to good people.

Main Street's solitary traffic light blinked red. Few cars were on the road.

He found the innocent-looking neighborhood where the Brownie scout, age nine, had disappeared like melted snow, at precisely this time of day. He watched the foot and vehicular traffic around him for joggers, delivery trucks, or motorists routinely arriving home. Anyone who might have seen something suspicious during that window in time.

He drove slowly past Gino Salvi's small neat house. There was a light in the kitchen. The living room pulsed with flickering shadows from a television screen. He parked several doors down the street and watched the rearview mirror.

Shortly after 8 p.m. Salvi emerged and stood for several moments. The big man looked up and down the street as though sniffing the air like a wild animal before climbing into the Ford in his driveway. He backed out and drove to a neighborhood tavern a mile away.

Venturi followed. Salvi had demanded a Cadillac, claimed he always drove one, and had exploded in a red-faced rage when Venturi explained that it was exactly why he must not drive one now. In his new life, his image, his habits had to change.

His baseball cap pulled down, Venturi strolled by the tavern with Scout on his leash. Salvi sat alone, an amber-filled shot glass and a sweaty beer on the bar in front of him. Thirsty, Venturi went back to the car, ate a chocolate bar, and drank bottled water from a small cooler.

Twenty minutes later Salvi emerged alone, carrying a large cardboard pizza box.

When Venturi parked near the house minutes later, he saw through binoculars that Salvi appeared to be settled in front of a computer screen with his pizza and a six-pack.

While Salvi ate, he found a fast-food drive-through. He and the dog ate burgers in the car, then explored nearly empty streets, enjoying the cool night air.

A strange, unearthly sound, a high-pitched howling, rose in the distance. The dog's ears pricked up and he whined, tugging at the leash. The sound grew louder, coming closer on the evening breeze. Chills rippled up and down Venturi's arms. He'd heard something like it before, in Africa, the high-pitched keening sound of women wailing as his unit came upon a burned-out village in the aftermath of a massacre.

What he'd seen there flashed back in a shock of memory that nearly staggered him. The dog paused and gazed up at him, eyes unflinching, as though he understood.

They forged toward the sounds, turned a corner, and saw them. Hundreds of flickering lights, men, women, and children marching slowly toward a small park.

Their singing or chanting carried like a funeral dirge on the night air. Soon, he could make out the words.

“…once was lost but now am found. 'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

The two couples in front had to be the parents—supported by friends, relatives, and neighbors. Some wore T-shirts with pictures of the lost girls.

A little boy held a handmade posterboard:
WE MISS YOU, SAMANTHA AND HOLLY
.

Half a dozen marchers carried a long banner bearing a painted plea:
BRING THEM HOME
.

Venturi, the dog, and several other pedestrians fell in behind them, following into the shadowy park. Flashlights aglow, candles flickering, they assembled at the base of a statue, a swordsman on horseback.

“Come home, come home…,” they implored. As the voices soared, Venturi searched faces in the crowd for a man out of place, someone nervous or excited. He wanted to be dead wrong about Salvi. But other than a few obvious undercover cops, all he saw were earnest, troubled small-town Americans gathered in crisis to comfort one another, to hold a candlelight vigil, and to pray for help.

The hymn ended and a middle-aged preacher stepped forward to lead prayers for the girls' safe return. First he read from the Bible, Jeremiah 31:15. Lamentations. Rachel weeping for her children…hoping for their return…