Set You Free (16 page)

“Anything else?”

“No,” I say.

“Exactly.” He advances the video, laughing.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“It’s pretty basic stuff. I mean, I’ve watched the whole video, and Detective Evans never says anything about this,” Grady says, pointing at the screen. The video now shows the backyard. A close-up of the house, with Ben’s window in the center.

“What?”

“The garden,” Grady says, nodding his head and pointing at it.

“What about it?”

“It’s dirty.”

I put my head in my hands. “That’s kind of the point of a garden,” I say.

“So if someone climbed in Ben’s window, how come there’s no dirt on the floor of his room?” He goes back to the room-examination section of the video. He zooms in on the floor beneath the window. Sure enough, there’s no dirt there.

“Because no one ever came in?”

“Which means?”

I look at the screen again. “Ben went to the window and climbed out. Or he didn’t leave through that window.”

“Which means?” Grady’s voice shifts to a higher pitch.

“He must know the person who took him.”

“Exactly. So if we’re working with that assumption, then what happened this morning makes way less sense.” He starts a video recorded from the local news.

Erin and Jack Carter are standing outside their house, behind a podium. “Mayor Jack Carter and his wife will now speak to the press,” a voice says.

Erin is wringing her hands and staring at the microphone. She leans in and speaks. “Our son, Ben Carter, disappeared Saturday night. We don’t know where he is, but someone out there does. We would like to say to whoever has Ben that all we care about is him coming home safe. That’s all. Whoever has Benny…” She stops and turns her face into the crumpled tissue in her hands.

“Our local law enforcement is doing an incredible job here,” Jack says, sounding every bit the politician. “They have
been on top of this since minute one. But now we need your help. If anyone has any information about Benjamin or the situation surrounding his disappearance, please, contact the local police force immediately.” He throws an arm around Erin’s shoulders. “We just want our son to come home safe.”

Grady shuts the video down and laughs.

“You find the strangest things amusing,” I say.

“Heartfelt, wasn’t it?”

“I guess.”

He clicks a file on the laptop, and an audio clip begins.

“We have Ben. For one million dollars, you can have him back. We will be in contact.” The voice is muffled and high-pitched.

“What was that?” I say.

“That was a ransom call,” Grady says. “It came an hour before the heartfelt plea.”

“Today?”

“Yes, today.”

“Has anything been released about it?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Grady says. “I imagine these kinds of calls often happen when a kid goes missing. Someone decides there’s a chance to make some money and jumps at it. So it might not be legit. But then again, it might be. What is interesting about it is this.” Grady plays the clip again, somehow slowing it down. It’s almost as if he’s able to lengthen the sound. “Hear that?”

“What?”

“In the background.” I listen more carefully. There’s a bit of a whine in the distance. A steady grinding noise.

“What is that?” I say.

“An electric sander. The kind used on cars.” Grady rolls away from the desk and grabs a giant tool. He pulls a trigger and the same whining sound whips up. “Like this one.”

“Do you have Ben in here somewhere?” I say.

“No. Sorry. I’ve never even seen the kid except on
TV
.” He rolls over to me and takes my hands. “If I had him, I’d give him to you.”

“How sweet. So what does the grinding have to do with anything?”

“Two things,” Grady says, releasing my hands. “First, did you know that JJ Carter was once a well-known street racer?”

“Like in cars?”

“What other types of street racing are there?” he asks, as if I know some secret and am keeping it from him.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Skateboards? Bikes? Big Wheels?”

“Cars. JJ raced cars on city streets. Anyway, about a year ago another street racer died in a single-car accident out on Beacon Hill Road.”

“And?”

“
And
oddly, that very same day, JJ’s car was reported stolen.” Grady pulls a police report up on his computer. I look at the scribbled mess of writing. “I found this in Detective Evans’s files. When she got the missing-kid case,
she pulled everything on the family from the records. Right down to parking tickets.”

“Sounds like quite the coincidence. Do you think it was a coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Grady says.

I try to figure out if he’s being serious. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s like saying you don’t believe in, I don’t know, air.”

“Actually, it isn’t. It’s like saying I believe everything that happens is part of a string of events that culminates in some final event we actually pay attention to.”

“So what do you think happened?”

“In the newspaper reports of the accident, someone said they saw another car on the hill that night.” Grady scrolls through the local paper’s archive. “Right here. The only problem is that JJ was
apparently
safe at home, and
apparently
his car had been stolen that afternoon.”

“I remember his car being stolen,” I say. “He bitched about it for weeks afterward. Then said he wasn’t going to get a new one until he found the right ride.”

“Has he?”

“Not that I know of. Are you thinking that JJ had something to do with this other kid’s death?”

“They were both street racers. And it’s pretty convenient timing, isn’t it?”

“But what does this have to do with the ransom call?”

“Maybe nothing, but my uncle told me that JJ’s been wanting to open a high-end chop shop for a while. You know, pimping rides, putting big engines in old Pontiacs, that kind of thing. JJ’s been looking at a location in that weird industrial mall in the west end. My uncle sends work to this guy Hank who has a body shop out there.”

“What would that have to do with Ben?”

Grady’s genuine smile comes out again, and he says, “
Fargo
.”

“Who?”

“The movie
Fargo
.”

“I don’t know that one,” I admit.

“It’s about this guy who needs money but can’t ask his rich father-in-law for it because he’s too embarrassed and knows his father-in-law will never give it to him. So he hires a couple of guys to kidnap his wife and demand a ransom from her father.”

“How does that work?” I say.

“He asks for twice what he needs. The plan is to split it fifty-fifty with the hired kidnappers, and his wife comes home safe and sound.”

“Does she?”

“No,” Grady says. “Which is why we have to go.”

“Where?” I say. “Where are we going now?”

“If I’m right, we’re going to bring Ben back.”

TWENTY-ONE

The possible chop shop is empty—though calling it empty doesn’t do it justice. It is utterly deserted but for a For Lease sign on the window. This area would have once been referred to as the outskirts, but businesses and apartment buildings have been closing in. Unfortunately, this little industrial mall doesn’t seem any less weird for its proximity to civilization.

“Nothing here,” Grady says, coming away from the window.

“Should we break in?” I say. I get a look from Grady.

“You can see the whole space from here. I don’t think committing a crime is necessary.”

I put my hands to the window and look inside at the big empty space. Grady is right—there’s nowhere to hide.

“Dammit, and here I was getting all ramped up for a little criminal activity.” There’s a steady grinding sound coming from farther along the complex.

“I’m sorry. I thought we would find him this time,” Grady says.

“It was a good idea.”

“Let’s go talk to Hank,” Grady says, walking toward the noise.

The final unit of the complex is double the size of any of the other spaces. There are two cars up on lifts and another one parked beside the doors. A man in dirty blue coveralls is working on the trunk of an old Mustang.

Grady leans into his peripheral vision. The guy jumps and shuts the sander down. He flips his goggles up onto his forehead. “Help you?” he asks.

“Hey, you’re Hank, right?” Grady says.

The guy sets the sander on the ground and leans back against the car. “Yeah?” His voice is smoker heavy.

“My uncle, Rodney, sends stuff your way sometimes,” Grady says.

The guy flicks a pack of cigarettes out of a shirt pocket. He gets one out and lights it with a lighter from inside the pack. “You’re Rodney’s nephew? Yeah, he’s talked about you some.” The guy pauses for a moment. “Is your name Gravy?”

“Grady. With a
d
.” Grady hiccups a little laugh.

“Your uncle’s got a lisp on him, doesn’t he? I always thought he was saying Gravy. Good to finally meet you and
put that mystery to rest.” He extends his hand, and Grady steps forward to shake it. “What can I help you with?”

“We were wondering if you’d seen JJ Carter around here. His stepbrother is missing,” I say.

“I didn’t know that.”

Which is really surprising. With all the news about it because Ben is the mayor’s son, I find it hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t have heard by now.

“He was here earlier today, actually,” Hank says.

“JJ?”

“Yeah, the little shit.”

“Was he wanting to rent one of the spaces in this complex?”

“Rent? Nah, he came in as a
courtesy
.” He gives little air quotes here, flicking away some ash as he does so. “Says he’s gonna own the whole place soon enough. He’ll be opening his own shop down the far end. Specialize in making ugly cars go faster than they should. Put stupid rims on Subarus. That shit. He was looking around my space like he already owned it.”

“When was this?” I ask.

“Like I said, this morning,” Hank says.

“Did he have a little kid with him?”

“Nope, he came in alone. There was someone else in the car with him. An older guy. He stayed put.”

“Were you sanding this car this morning when he was here?” Grady says.

Hank looks at the Mustang. “I’ve been sanding this car for two straight days. The most delicate piece of work I have ever had the misfortune of undertaking.”

“Okay, thanks,” Grady says. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No worries. Tell Rod I say hi and that I have that Subaru ready for him whenever he wants it.”

“Will do,” Grady says.

Hank flips down his goggles and revs the electric sander back to life, and we walk away.

Grady stops while we’re passing the empty unit. “If we were inside there, the sander would sound muffled, just like the one on the ransom call.”

“You think JJ has Ben?” I say.

“Maybe,” Grady says. “Do you?”

“It’s possible, but JJ is always so full of hot air that I imagine he’s trying to use the situation to his advantage.” I look in the window again.

“How could he think he’s going to open a garage here?” Grady asks. “Where is that coming from?”

“Maybe Daddy doesn’t want him around cars after what happened and won’t lend him the money for his own shop. Like you were saying before about that
Furgo
movie.”

“
Fargo
,” Grady says. “Where does that leave us?”

I pull away from the window and look Grady in the eye. “Nowhere,” I say.

TWENTY-TWO

Grady drops me at home and I spend the afternoon watching
Fargo
. My mother comes home, exhausted and hungry. I make her my special Hamburger Helper stew, and then we settle in to watch
Survivor.
It’s something we’ve done since I was a kid and always makes me feel at home.

Neither of us says a word about Tom or Ben or even flicks to the news. I don’t feel as though we’re avoiding it either. It’s just that there really is nothing we can do. Not at this moment anyway.

Halfway through the second episode, my cell vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket and answer without looking at the name. “Hello?”

“He has an uncle.”

It’s Grady. I climb out from under the blanket my mother and I have stretched over us and walk to my room.

“Who?”

“Ben. He has, like, not an
uncle
uncle, but a
step
-uncle.”

“A step-uncle?” I say.

“Jack has a stepbrother,” Grady says.

“I don’t think that’s true,” I say. “I mean, I’ve never heard about this.”

“That’s because Jack’s never told anyone. Or maybe he has. Let’s say the news outlets don’t know, because it would be incredible information if they did.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s an ex-con.”

“What?” I say.

“His name is Joe. He’s five years older than Jack. His father—get this: Jack and Joe’s father led this crazy double life. He lived out west in Seattle for most of his life. He knocked this woman up before skipping town. He bounced around the States for a while before settling here and, very quickly, knocking Jack’s mother up.”

“At which time he stayed?”

“He married, settled down and, I guess, left that old life behind.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I had to trace Jack’s father, Don Carter. Luckily, he was drawing a
GI
disability check before he moved here. He was injured in the Second World War. So that wasn’t too difficult
to follow back. I did a little research into the high school and college and everything else. I found people he knew, looked them up and kept going. One guy he he was in the army with told me about the high-school sweetheart Jack’s dad left behind. So I called her.”

“You called some old woman? She must be in her eighties or nineties.”

“Ninety-seven. Anyway, all I had to do was say
Don Carter
, and it all came out. The whole mess of a story. Her name is Martha Fisher. She admitted that Don was her son’s father. Then she told me about her son Joe.”

“Jack’s stepbrother.”

“Yeah. Jack’s stepbrother. I asked where he was, and she said she didn’t know. That he’d left years ago and hadn’t spoken to the family since. There’d been a disagreement, apparently. She didn’t get into it. But with that I was able to take the guy’s name, Joe Fisher, and follow him around the United States.”