Missing Child (5 page)

Caitlin thought for a second. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. His aunt. She was there to see her son’s project. He goes to the school.’

‘I’ll need those names,’ said Detective Mathis.

‘Naomi. Naomi Pelletier. And Travis.’

‘Who else?’

Caitlin grimaced. ‘I talked to his teacher. Mr Needleman.’

While she was talking to the detective, Caitlin saw the front door open. Noah stood in the doorway, stopped cold by the sight of all those police uniforms.

‘That’s my husband,’ she said. ‘Can I . . .’

‘Stay right here,’ said the detective.

Noah saw her in the office and rushed in. ‘What’s going on?’ he cried. ‘Where is Geordie?’

Caitlin burst into tears. ‘I don’t know. They can’t find him.’

Noah steepled his hands over his nose and mouth as if to muffle a scream.

Detective Mathis gazed at Noah, recognition dawning in his eyes. ‘You’re the boy’s father?’ he asked.

Noah lowered his hands. He nodded.

‘We’ve met before. I . . . my team investigated the hit-and-run when your wife was killed.’

‘I remember,’ said Noah with a trace of bitterness. ‘You never got the guy.’

‘I’m sorry to be meeting you again under these circumstances,’ said Detective Mathis.

Noah’s face was cold and white, like marble. ‘Where is my son?’ he asked.

‘That’s what we’re trying to determine,’ said Detective Mathis brusquely. ‘Does Geordie have a cell phone?’

Noah shook his head. ‘No, he’s only six.’

‘Lots of kids that age have cell phones,’ said Detective Mathis.

‘Well, not Geordie,’ said Noah.

Detective Mathis nodded. ‘When was the last time you saw your son?’

‘This morning. At breakfast. He . . .’ Noah pressed his lips together.

‘Go on.’

‘He complained he didn’t feel well. He wanted to stay home. I had to be in court,’ he said apologetically.

Detective Mathis looked thoughtful. ‘Is there anyone he might go to if he wasn’t feeling well and decided to leave school?’

Noah shook his head. ‘I don’t know. My mother. My in-laws,’ Noah said miserably. ‘His grandparents. He would have had to ask someone to call them. Another kid, maybe. He knows their phone numbers by heart.’

‘Give them to me.’

Noah complied. ‘I can’t imagine it, though. My mother can’t drive. She couldn’t have picked him up. And my in-laws . . . they wouldn’t have taken him out of school without telling anybody.’

Detective Mathis was dialing the number. ‘What is their name?’

‘Bergen,’ said Noah acidly. ‘Don’t you remember?’

Detective Mathis nodded gravely. ‘Yes. Now that you say it, of course I do.’ He held up a finger to silence Noah. ‘Yes. Mr Bergen. My name is Detective Sam Mathis . . .’

Just then the secretary came out from the inner office with a sheaf of papers. Caitlin caught a glimpse of Geordie’s small, bespectacled face pale against the blue sky background used for student photos. Detective Mathis took the papers from her and left the office, even as he continued to talk on the phone. He distributed them to the cops in the foyer, who scattered like birds off of a wire.

Noah turned to Caitlin. ‘My mother will be frantic. Emily’s parents, too.’

‘There’s got to be some explanation,’ Caitlin insisted.

Noah ran a hand over his face. ‘Oh my God.’

Caitlin slipped into Noah’s arms. He squeezed her tightly and she could feel him shaking. His breathing was short and labored, as if he were lifting a heavy weight.

‘They’ll find him,’ she whispered.

‘Where could he have gone?’ he cried.

Detective Mathis returned to the office. ‘My officers have Geordie’s picture now. They will question everyone at and around the school, to see if anyone saw your son leaving the grounds, either by himself or with someone else. I’ve sent an officer to talk to your mother. Your in-laws are on their way. I told them to meet us at the police station. Is there any chance that your son might have run away? Does he have any history of running away?’

Noah shook his head and lifted his hands helplessly. ‘No. He’s six years old. He doesn’t even . . . know where anything is.’

‘Sometimes small children act impulsively. Was he unhappy about anything?’

‘No,’ Noah insisted. He looked at Caitlin with bafflement in his eyes. ‘He wasn’t, was he?’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He was fine.’

Noah looked at his phone for the thousandth time, as if he were hoping for some clue to Geordie’s whereabouts to magically appear on the screen. ‘He said he was sick, and I didn’t believe him.’

‘He wasn’t sick, honey,’ Caitlin insisted. ‘He wasn’t. He was fine.’

Alan Needleman edged up to them. ‘Mr Eckhart?’ he said. ‘I’m Geordie’s teacher.’

Noah sighed. ‘Yes, Mr Needleman.’

‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened. I called the office the minute I realized . . .’

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Noah.

‘Was your son upset about anything that you know of? Any reason why he might leave school without saying anything?’ asked Detective Mathis.

‘No,’ Noah said. ‘Nothing.’

Needleman grimaced and held up a hand as if he wanted to be called on in class. Detective Mathis stared at him. He lowered his hand. ‘Some of the older kids picked on him sometimes. He’s . . . a small boy. Slight. They teased him about that. They called him four eyes, and so forth.’

‘Travis,’ Caitlin blurted out angrily.

‘Who is Travis?’ asked Detective Mathis.

Noah glared at Caitlin. She looked down and shook her head.

‘Travis is Geordie’s cousin,’ said Noah. ‘My sister’s boy. He’s had a very hard time. His father was killed in Iraq.’

‘He bullies your son?’

Noah sighed. ‘Not bullies. Look, this has nothing to do with Travis.’

‘Detective Mathis,’ Mrs Hunt called out from behind the desk.

‘Excuse me,’ said Detective Mathis. He left them sitting there.

‘So sorry,’ Needleman whispered. ‘If there’s anything I can do.’

Noah sat scowling, unresponsive.

‘Thank you,’ Caitlin said, nodding.

Needleman backed away from them.

In the office, the teachers clustered together speaking in low voices. The principal conferred with Detective Mathis. Officers were re-entering the school, reporting to another detective in the foyer. The detective came to the door and hailed Detective Mathis. The two men spoke quietly, intensely, together.

Caitlin clutched Noah’s hand and prayed, though her lips were dry and no sound issued forth.

After a few minutes, Noah pried her hand loose from his, stood up and began to pace, running his hands through his hair. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He interrupted the two men who were talking. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’

Detective Mathis turned back to Noah, and the rest of them. ‘All right, look,’ he said. ‘I’m going to leave a number of my men here to question students, teachers and the staff. Geordie may have told someone where he was headed, or asked someone to make a call for him. There are still many possibilities. Meanwhile the rest of us are going down to the station. You need to tell us everything you can think of. Everywhere that Geordie might have gone. And, just to be thorough, we have issued an Amber Alert.’

Noah groaned.

Caitlin wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

‘It’s a nationwide alert that is put out for a missing child,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘Missing children are treated differently than missing persons, or even missing teens. There’s no waiting period. The search begins immediately.’

Noah stared at him. ‘You think someone took him?’

Caitlin let out a cry.

‘We don’t know that,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘He could have left on his own. That does happen. Kids get an idea and off they go. Or he could be hiding somewhere right here in the school. It could be any number of things. But we have to . . . assume the worst. Hope for the best. But assume the worst.’

‘That someone took him?’ said Noah, his voice shaking.

Detective Mathis looked back at him, and there was a glimmer of sympathy in his businesslike expression. ‘We have to go on that assumption. Yes.’

FOUR

T
he atmosphere in the police station was electric. Every available officer had been called in. The desk sergeant was assigning tasks, and officers were leaving in pairs, armed with the flyer of Geordie’s picture. For a moment, all activity stopped as Caitlin and Noah, shocked and shivering, followed Detective Mathis into the room.

Paula and Westy were already there. Paula let out a cry and ran to Noah, who embraced her briefly. ‘I was working from home today. When you called, when Westy told me what you said . . .’

‘We came right away,’ Westy said, tears standing in his eyes.

‘Thanks,’ said Noah.

‘That little boy is everything to us,’ Paula cried. ‘We love him so much. He’s all we have left of Emily.’

Westy lowered his head and put his arm around his wife to comfort her. Caitlin could see that his lips were trembling. Just then the door to the station house opened and Naomi walked in, accompanied by a police officer.

‘Noah,’ Naomi called out, waving. She spoke to the officer, who nodded. Naomi came over to where they stood. ‘Noah, what is going on? The police showed up at work and said I needed to come in. They wouldn’t tell me a thing.’

‘Geordie has disappeared,’ said Noah.

Naomi clapped a hand over her heart. ‘Oh my God! Disappeared? But he was at school.’

‘No one has seen him since . . . Caitlin took him to school.’

‘How can that be?’ Naomi cried.

‘And you are . . .?’ Detective Mathis asked.

‘This is my sister, Naomi Pelletier,’ said Noah.

‘Thanks for coming in,’ said the detective.

‘No problem. But what do you want from me?’

‘Mrs Pelletier, we need to ask you a few questions,’ said Detective Mathis. ‘Mrs Eckhart said that she saw you at school this morning.’

Naomi’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah, I was at school. Of course I was at school. I went to see my son’s project.’

‘Your son is Travis.’

‘Yes. I’m a single mother. His father was killed in Iraq.’

Detective Mathis ignored this reference to her sympathetic status. ‘We’re questioning anyone who might have seen Geordie this morning.’

Chief Burns hung up the phone and came out of his office. He was a ruddy-faced, silver-haired man nearing retirement age. He was dressed in his uniform, and exuded an air of calm and competence. He shook hands gravely with the family as Detective Mathis introduced him. When he came to Paula he stopped and peered at her. ‘Mrs Bergen. We’ve met before.’

Paula blanched. ‘We certainly have. When my daughter was killed.’

‘Right,’ said Chief Burns, grimacing.

Westy’s eyes flashed. ‘You can’t have forgotten our daughter, Emily. She was killed several years ago by a hit-and-run driver.’

Chief Burns looked embarrassed. He cleared his throat and avoided Paula’s stricken gaze. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten. Unfortunately, we never were able to find the driver.’

‘It’s a cold case,’ said Westy angrily. ‘Isn’t that what they call it?’

Paula took his hand as if to restrain him. ‘Please. Just find our . . . grandson.’

Chief Burns spoke gravely. ‘We will. I promise you. Now folks, I know how difficult this is for all of you. Your cooperation will be a great help to us. You’ve already met Detective Mathis. He will be the team leader on this case. He, and all my officers, will move heaven and earth to get Geordie back to you. I just got off the phone with the FBI. I am keeping the Boston office current with the situation.’

‘Are they getting involved?’ asked Noah.

Chief Burns rubbed his hands together. ‘Right now, Mr Eckhart, we don’t know for sure that any crime has been committed. But I have alerted them. They are aware of the situation. All we can say for certain is that we have a missing child and, as Detective Mathis told you, we have issued an Amber Alert. That means that Geordie’s picture and information will be broadcast at frequent intervals both on radio and television.’

‘Wait till Travis hears this,’ said Naomi. ‘He’ll be all upset.’

I’ll bet, Caitlin thought, and then chided herself for her unkindness.

The chief continued: ‘It would help if we had a description of a car, or someone who might have been seen with Geordie this morning. We’re still trying to locate a witness. The problem is that there were a lot of people coming and going this morning because of the Fall Festival. A lot of unfamiliar faces in the school. Now, it still could be that Geordie ran away or is hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the school. We have not ruled that out yet as a possibility.’

Oh, please God, Caitlin thought. Let him be hiding in the school.

The chief looked at Noah. ‘I am going to have the phone tapped at your home, Mr Eckhart, in the event that there is a ransom call. I’ve already been in touch with the judge and the warrant has been obtained.’

‘How likely is that?’ Noah asked.

Chief Burns exchanged a glance with Mathis.

‘A ransom call?’ Detective Mathis asked. ‘Well, the fact that Geordie disappeared from school makes a ransom demand less likely.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Westy demanded.

‘Kidnappings for ransom are usually planned pretty carefully. Unless he’s really stupid, the abductor would know that the school has protocols and they must contact the police immediately if a child is missing. There’s little possibility of the silence preferred by the perpetrator in a ransom situation.’

‘So you think it could be . . . random?’ Noah asked.

‘We don’t know. Until we have more information it’s useless to speculate,’ said the chief severely.

‘What do we do now?’ Noah asked in a shaky voice. His skin looked clammy and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

‘Right now,’ said the chief, ‘we need to fingerprint all of you and take your DNA, just for purposes of elimination.’

‘Elimination from what?’ Noah demanded.

‘The CODIS database,’ said the chief evenly.

‘I can assure you, Detective,’ said Noah, ‘none of these people are in the CODIS database.’