The Abduction (6 page)

Bright autumn colors lit up the tree-lined streets of Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Halloween morning. One good rainfall and it would all be gone, but a solid week of chilly nights and sunny days had set the leaves ablaze.

The sun was shining brightly as twelve-year-old Kristen boarded the transport van at Wharton Middle School. It was the same routine each morning, Monday through Friday. Kristen attended homeroom at Wharton until nine o’clock, then rode the van to Martin Luther King, Jr., High School, a magnet school on the other side of picturesque Fisk University. Kristen was a gifted sixth grader who studied English literature at a tenth-grade level. Schoolwork was easy; looking older was the hard part. Her heart-shaped face was just beginning to show angles of maturity, and the results were promising—too promising, as far as her protective mother was concerned. Makeup was forbidden until she turned thirteen, but Kristen still managed a little mascara to accentuate her huge dark eyes, her best feature. She knew, too, that her long legs would someday be an asset, but for now the gangly pre-teenager was happy just to get by without tripping over them.

“Hi, Reggie.” She was her usual cheery self as she bounded into the front passenger seat. The
middle school was having a contest, so she was dressed in her Halloween costume. A red, white, and blue sweat suit with the
TEAM USA
logo and a big snack food insignia that marked it as the official sweat suit of the 2000 Olympics.

Sixty-year-old Reggie tipped his driving cap. “Mornin’, Miss Kristen.”

“Will you please
stop
calling me ‘Miss Kristen.’ It’s so aristocratic.”

His eyes widened. “Now that’s a high-falutin’ word if I ever did hear one. They teachin’ you real good over at the high school, ain’t they, Miss Kristen?”

“I guess.”

The van merged into traffic on the busy Dr. D.B. Todd Boulevard. The street bordered Fisk University, which lay roughly midway between Wharton Middle School and Martin Luther King High School. Reggie turned onto the campus at Meharry Street, then parked in front of Jubilee Hall, a six-story dormitory built in the nineteenth century in Victorian Gothic style.

The campus detour was part of their agreed-upon routine. From the very first day, Kristen had hated arriving at the high school in a van marked
WHARTON MIDDLE SCHOOL
. She thought she could make a much more fitting entrance if Reggie simply dropped her off at the university and let her walk the remaining three blocks to the high school. She had been forced to bat her eyes and turn on the charm, but after two weeks she’d finally sold Reggie on the arrangement. The only condition was that he be allowed to trail behind in the van, keeping an eye on her from a safe but inconspicuous distance.

“See you tomorrow, Reggie.” She eagerly
opened the passenger door, jumped down with her book bag, and started across the college campus. She passed the old library with its big broken clock, an imposing building of brick and stone that now housed administration. To her left were the towering Fisk Memorial Chapel, the quaint Harris Music Building with Italianate detail, and a modern three-story library with a long concrete colonnade. The two-block walk across campus inspired her with dreams of becoming the youngest student ever at the nation’s oldest black college.

As she exited beneath the iron campus gate, she noticed the Wharton Middle School van trailing slowly, no more than fifty feet behind her. She crossed Jackson Street and started down Seventeenth Avenue. The van was creeping along, now less than fifty feet behind her.

She stopped and grimaced. With her hands on hips she glared back at the van, as if to say, “Reggie, you’re following too close.”

She turned and headed for the high school, strolling down a cracked old sidewalk that had been rearranged by the twisted roots of hundred-year-old oaks. A bench at the corner was the perfect place to stop and undo the awful pigtails her mother had weaved for her. The left one unfurled quickly. She was tugging on the other when she noticed the Wharton Middle School van drawing closer.

“Darn it, Reggie,” she muttered. She shook her hair out, styling it the cool way she liked it, then picked up her book bag and started toward the corner.

The van was just twenty feet behind her.

Kristen ignored him, refusing to look back. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead until she stopped at
the corner to check traffic. Not a car in sight. The van rolled through the intersection, right past her. It stopped on the other side of the street, as if positioned to lead her straight to the high school.

She was mad now.
What the heck is Reggie up to?

She crossed the street and stopped even with the van. The colored leaves from the canopy overhead reflected off the windshield, making it difficult for her to see inside. But she could make out Reggie’s familiar old driving cap. From the sidewalk, she glared and shouted, “Reggie, we had a deal!”

The engine was running, but the van stayed put.

With angry steps she approached the van and yanked the passenger door open.

She started, then smiled. He was wearing a rubberized Lincoln Howe mask, the most popular mask for Halloween 2000. “Very cute, Reggie. Happy Halloween to you, too.”

The driver grabbed her wrist.

“Reggie, come on—”

She froze in mid-sentence. The hand was white. It wasn’t Reggie.

The grip tightened—the powerful grip of a man much younger than Reggie. A quick yank nearly ripped her arm from its socket. In a split second she was off her feet, flying through the open door. She landed upside down on the passenger seat. Another man grabbed her legs, threw a sack over her head, and pulled her to the rear of the van.

“Go!” he shouted.

The door slammed, the locks clicked. Kristen tried to kick and punch, but her wrists and ankles were bound with plastic cuffs. The heavy sack muted her screams. Her thigh burned with the jab
of a needle, like the vaccinations at school.

The driver pulled off his mask and drove away slowly—just like Reggie Miles, the most careful old driver at Wharton Middle School.

A sharp bell rang through the high school halls. Lockers slammed. Cigarette smoke poured from the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms. A fight beneath the stairwell finally broke up, leaving one kid crying. A steady stream of latecomers trickled into Mrs. Roberta Hood’s tenth-grade English class, though a few students just seemed to come and go as they pleased, unwilling to commit to in or out. The raucous Halloween spirit had invaded Martin Luther King, Jr., High School.

Mrs. Hood was middle-aged, but she looked much older. Her hair was completely gray, and her glasses were so thick they distorted her eyeballs. She’d taught high school English for over twenty years, searching for the next Ralph Ellison or Maya Angelou. She was quite certain her protégé wasn’t among the delinquents in the back flicking lighted matches into a waste can.

“Boys, stop it!”

The class laughed as she stomped out the flames. She brushed the ashes from her elaborate costume—authentic black and leopard-spotted robes of African tribal royalty—then returned to her desk and checked the seating chart. Some of the students were too cool for costumes, but many came dressed. Werewolves and vampires were especially popular. She noted the usual no-shows—and one who was not so usual. Her favorite student was missing. She scanned the room to see if she’d taken a different seat, or if she’d just missed her in her costume. She didn’t
see her. She rose from her desk and checked the hallway. Not there, either.

A look of concern came over her face. She felt particularly protective of Kristen, given her age and her family’s stature. Kristen had missed class only once before. That time, the assistant principal had called from the middle school to say she wasn’t coming.

Mrs. Hood cleared her throat and called for attention. “Class, quiet, please.”

A mob by the window was fighting to have their palms read by a girl who’d come as a gypsy. The rest of the students kept talking. Even in a magnet high school, it took only a few bad kids to disrupt the entire class, especially on Halloween.

“Claaaaaass!”

Her shriek was louder than even she thought possible. The room was startled into silence. As she paused to catch her breath, the concern in her eyes turned to fear.

“Please,” she said breathlessly. “Has anyone seen Kristen Howe?”

Reggie Miles reached into his pants pocket.

His head was throbbing from the blow he’d received, but it had rendered him unconscious for only a moment. He’d pretended to be out for much longer than he was. Though blindfolded, he’d heard enough to realize they’d gotten Kristen, too.

Reggie hadn’t heard a peep from her since the abduction. He’d overheard the men talking about some kind of injection they’d given her—something to make her sleep. He could still hear them talking, presumably in the front seat. That meant he and Kristen had to be in the back. Engine vibra
tions told him they were moving, as did the gentle rocking of the vehicle that came with maneuvering through traffic. He was counting the turns—left, right, right again—trying to figure where they were headed. He was losing track, though with all the stops and starts he was sure they had yet to reach the expressway.

His hand moved a centimeter at a time, deeper and deeper into his pocket. The plastic cuffs pinched his wrists, but after twenty minutes he’d worked his hands into the right position. Finally, he reached his key chain. He cupped the entire ring in his palm, so it wouldn’t jingle. He slipped it from his pocket, then slid his hands back into the restrained position, behind his back. Reggie’s fingers weren’t as nimble as they used to be, but fifty years of whittling had made him pretty facile with a jackknife. He opened the blade.

Slowly he started to cut through the plastic ties that bound his wrists.

The Wharton Middle School van pulled into a narrow alley behind an old redbrick warehouse. It bounced over a pile of rusty pipes and a series of muddy potholes, slowing as it reached the garage at the end of the alley. The corrugated metal door rattled as it recoiled on noisy spring hinges. It opened just enough to allow the van to pass, then quickly rolled down. The van stopped inside, beside a white Buick Riviera with New York license plates.

Fluorescent lights blinked on from the rafters overhead, illuminating the garage. Oil stains dotted the cracked cement floors like huge amoebas. Beneath the dusty canvas tarpaulins lay mounds of useless machine parts.

Two men jumped out of the van, both wearing leather gloves and black leather jackets. The driver was Tony Delgado, a heavyset Italian with a Brooklyn accent. His younger brother Johnny was smiling widely.

“Perfecta-mundo!” Johnny crowed. He and his brother slapped each other on the back.

A third man emerged from behind the Buick. He was tall and clean-shaven, easily more handsome than the others. He was younger, too, in his early twenties, closer in age to Johnny than the older Delgado. Tony, the ringleader, had pur
posely kept his accomplices from meeting each other before the kidnapping, to prevent leaks. He quickly made the introductions.

“Johnny, this is Repo.”

They shook hands. “Repo what?”

“Just Repo.”

Johnny scoffed. “What, like Cher or Madonna?”

He looked confused. “No. Like Repo.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s like Lassie. Let’s get the little princess out of the van and into the car. You got the trunk ready, Repo? She’s not gonna suffocate in there, right?”

“Have a look for yourself,” said Repo.

Tony glanced at his brother. “Johnny, empty out the van.”

Repo led Tony to the car and popped the trunk. Johnny went to the van and opened the rear emergency door.

The cargo lay exactly where he’d put it. The old man on the left, the girl on the right. Their bodies stretched from front to back beneath the bench-style seats that normally seated schoolchildren. The old man’s gag and blindfold were still in place. A black hood covered the girl’s head to make extra sure she didn’t see any of her kidnappers, just in case the injection of secobarbital sodium wore off prematurely.

Reggie lay on his left side with his back to the wall, concealing his hands behind his back, trying to act as if he were still unconscious.

Johnny grabbed the old man by the ankles, like a butcher handling a side of beef. With one foot on the bumper for leverage, he yanked his cargo, sliding him back. The bony old legs dangled over the back.

Suddenly, the limp torso sprang to life, lunging
forward, leading with a jackknife. The blade stuck in Johnny’s shoulder.

“Son of a bitch!”

Reggie surged forward with all his strength, ripping off his blindfold, swinging his fists, kicking and twisting as they wrestled to the ground.

The younger man was quickly on top, staring right into the old man’s eyes as he pulled out a pistol and jammed it under his chin.

Tony grabbed him before he could pull the trigger. “Johnny, stop!”

Johnny was breathing heavy, seething with anger. Tony took the gun, but he kept it pointed right at Reggie’s head.

Reggie lay flat on his back, his chest heaving, eyes wide with panic.

Johnny rose and dabbed the blood on his nice leather jacket, checking the wound. “The old bastard stabbed me.” He kicked him in the kidneys. “And he ruined my fucking jacket!” He kicked him again.

Reggie groaned through the gag in his mouth.

Tony checked his brother’s shoulder. “Just a flesh wound. But damned if it wasn’t just six inches from your heart.” He sneered at Reggie, as if it were too close for comfort. “You coulda fucking killed my little brother.” He kicked him even harder than Johnny had.

Another muffled cry. The body coiled with pain.

Johnny grimaced—not for the old man, but for himself. The stab wound was starting to throb. His face reddened with anger. He slammed his fist against the door of the van, then kicked the old man in the groin and stomach.

“You black piece of shit!” He kicked him again
and again, in quick succession. He was yelling at him, pausing between each syllable to kick him in the ribs and kidneys, alternating left and right foot. “Don’t you ever fuck with me again.”

His brother added a final kick to the head.

Reggie went limp.

Twenty feet away, Repo was in the trunk of the Buick, drilling more air holes between the trunk and passenger compartment. When the electric drill stopped whining, he heard laughter coming from over by the van. He crawled out of the trunk to investigate, then froze at the sight of the old man sprawled on the floor with the Delgado brothers standing over him.

“What the hell you guys doing?”

Johnny pressed a bloody rag to his shoulder. “Teaching the old nigger a lesson.”

Repo took a closer look at the twisted heap on the ground. Blood had oozed from the mouth and ears. Repo’s eyes widened with concern as he knelt and checked the pulse—first the wrist, then the jugular. He looked up in disbelief. “He’s dead.”

Johnny shifted uncomfortably. “All we did was kick him.”

Repo glanced at Johnny’s boots. Blood covered the steel toe. “You morons killed him.”

“He tried to kill
me
. Shit happens.”

Repo grabbed him by the collar, pinning him against the van. “Nobody was supposed to get killed!”

Tony split them apart. “Hey, hey, hey! He’s dead. It’s over.”

“The hell it’s over,” said Repo. “Now we’re all up for murder. All because this stupid jag off—”

“Hey, enough!” said Tony. He grabbed Repo by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eye.
“You gonna stand here and shit your pants? Or you gonna act like a man? This is no big deal. We just gotta dump the body, that’s all.”

“I ain’t dumping the body. It’s Johnny’s body. He can dump it.”

“Just leave it here,” said Johnny. “We’re leaving the van here anyway.”

Tony shook his head. “The van is one thing. We can wipe it clean. But dead bodies leave too much evidence. After that fight, the old man could easily have enough of your skin under his fingernails for some geek with a microscope to identify your DNA. He’s probably got some of your blood on him, too.”

Johnny grimaced, concerned. “That means we can’t leave the van here, either. We can’t leave nothin’ that shows we were here. They might find a little drop of my blood on the floor.”

Tony glared at his brother. “Damn it, Johnny. You fucked up already.”

“Me?
You helped.”

“Shut up!” said Repo. “Here’s the deal. We need to get the girl out of Nashville—now. I say Johnny takes the van and dumps the body. Me and Tony take the girl. We all meet up later.”

“I can’t drive the van around Nashville,” said Johnny. “I’ll get caught for sure.”

Repo checked his watch. “Kristen’s class just started five minutes ago. The van isn’t due back at the middle school for another fifteen. It’ll be at least that long before the school confirms she isn’t sick or skipping class, or that the van isn’t just stuck in traffic. I figure Johnny’s got at least that long to dump the van, before the cops put out an APB.”

The Delgados exchanged glances, then Tony
nodded. “You gotta do it, Johnny. We’ll meet up in Maryland. You know the address, right? Forty-six Commonwealth Boulevard.”

Johnny scoffed. “How the hell do you expect me to get there? School bus?”

“I don’t care how,” said Tony. “Just make sure you’re not being followed. If you fly, make a connection. If you drive, change cars at least once.”

“What about my shoulder?”

“It’s a scratch,” said Tony. “Just don’t go around wearing that jacket with the knife hole in it. Take the old man’s coat.”

“I ain’t wearing no nigger’s clothes.”

Repo shoved him in the shoulder. Johnny shrieked in pain.

“Who the hell are you,” snapped Repo, “Calvin Klein? Enough with the fucking wardrobe already. Just shut up and dump the body.”

He rubbed his sore shoulder, glaring at Repo. “Where am I supposed to dump it?”

“You should have thought of that before you kicked his teeth in.”

Tony grumbled. “Just dump it somewhere that will throw the cops off our trail. And do it soon. Like Repo says, you got only about fifteen minutes before word gets out she’s missing and the cops start searching for the van. Now, let’s move it.”

Repo and Johnny exchanged glares, then looked away. The Delgados loaded the body into the van. Repo gently carried Kristen from the van to the car, placing her comfortably in the trunk. He was glad she hadn’t heard any of it, as she was still unconscious from the injection. The garage door opened. Johnny drove the van out, followed by Tony in the Buick. Repo jumped in the passenger side, beside Tony.

Steering down the alley, Tony lit up a cigarette and handed it to Repo. He lit another for himself. “You know we had to kill that guy. He saw Johnny’s face. Mine, too.”

Repo took a drag from the cigarette, held it, then exhaled a huge cloud of smoke. “You should have given him a shot, knocked him out good, like the girl.”

“That’s risky with old people. If he was on some kind of medication, a shot could have killed him.”

Repo shook his head, nervously puffing his cigarette. “I don’t like this, man. Wasn’t nobody supposed to get killed.”

Tony turned deadly serious. “Deal with it, partner. The rules just changed.”