The Stolen (4 page)

“You got it.”

“That means going home right now and sobering up.”

“I’m on my way.” This included a hot shower, a fresh set of clothes, suit and tie. I prayed these were all at the ready, otherwise an all-night Laundromat would soon be graced by my clothes’ aromatic presence.

“Call me before you leave tomorrow,” Wallace said. “And I mean that.
Call me.
I don’t want to come into the office tomorrow and see you asleep and drooling on your keyboard. You have a home. Go there.”

I said nothing. Telling Wallace that my apartment didn’t feel like a home was neither his business nor concern. All he cared about, and rightfully so, was this story. I’d been granted leeway the past few years most young reporters never got. Many in my position would have been shown the door, either landing in the safety net of a small-town paper or spewing angry blogs about the dumbing-down of American media. I had no desire to do either, and preferred to help from the inside. Big-time news was in my blood. A while ago Jack O’Donnell had told me that to truly become a legend in your field, you had to lead a life with one purpose. You had to devote yourself to your calling. Splitting your passions between that and other pursuits—hobbies, family—would only make each endeavor suffer. The past few months I’d whittled down my extracurriculars to nothing. All for stories like this.

“You’ll hear from me first thing tomorrow morning,” I said. “And, Wallace?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Thanks for the opportunity.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Shelly Linwood. I’m not the only one counting on you to do the right thing.”

The call ended. I stood there in the warm night, the sounds of the bar and the street fading away. This night held nothing else for me, but tomorrow presented a golden opportunity. So many circumstances surrounding Daniel Linwood’s disappearance were a mystery, and because the boy himself couldn’t remember, I wondered how much, if any of it, would ever come to light. I wondered if never getting that closure would bother the Linwood family. Or if they were just thankful to have their son back.

I put the phone in my pocket, went to the corner and hailed a cab back to my apartment. For a moment I wondered if, like Daniel Linwood, I was returning to a place both strangely familiar, yet terribly foreign at the same time.

T
he Lincoln Town Car pulled up at 10:00 a.m. on the dot, shiny and black and idling in front of my apartment as inconspicuous as a black rhinoceros. I’d heeded Wallace’s advice and gone home, sleeping in my own bed for the first time in weeks. I stripped the sheets, used a few clean towels in their place, and got my winks under an old sleeping bag.

I woke up at eight-thirty, figured it’d be plenty of time, but it took forty-five minutes to clean the crud out of my coffee machine and brew a new pot, so by the time the driver buzzed my cell phone I was tucking my shirt in, making sure my suit jacket was devoid of any lint. Unfortunately I missed the open fly until we’d merged off the West Side Highway onto I-87 North. My driver was a Greek fellow named Stavros. Stavros was big, bald and had a pair of snake-eyed dice tattooed on the back of his neck that just peeked out over the headrest.

I sipped my Thermos of coffee, grimaced and double-checked my briefcase. Pens, paper, tape recorder, business cards, digital camera in case I had a chance to take some shots of the neighborhood surrounding the Linwood residence in Hobbs County. Perhaps we’d use them in the article, give the reader a sense of local color recorded words could not.

Hobbs County was located about thirty miles north of New York City, nestled in between Tarrytown and the snuggly, wealthy confines of Chappaqua. Just a few years ago Hobbs County was an ingrown toenail between the two other towns, but recently a tremendous influx of state funds and pricey renovations had things moving in the right direction. Good thing, too, because statistically, Hobbs County had crime rates that would have made Detroit and Baltimore shake their heads.

According to the FBI Report of Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, the year before Daniel Linwood disappeared, Tarrytown, with 11,466 residents, had zero reported murders, zero rapes, one case of arson (a seventeen-year-old girl setting fire to her ex-boyfriend’s baseball card collection), zero kidnappings and ten car thefts. Each of these numbers were microscopic compared to the national average.

That same year, Hobbs County, with 10,372 residents, had sixteen reported murders, five rapes, nine cases of arson, twenty-two car thefts and two kidnappings. If Hobbs County had the population of New York City, it would be on pace for more than twelve thousand murders a year.

Hobbs County was literally killing itself.

One of those two reported kidnappings was Daniel Linwood. The other was a nine-year-old girl whose body was later found in a drainage ditch. Since then, those crime rates had dropped like a rock. This past year, Hobbs had four murders. One rape. Eleven car thefts. And no kidnappings. There was still a lot of work to be done, but something had lit a fire under Hobbs County. It was righting itself.

And then Daniel Linwood reappeared, hopefully speeding the cleansing process even more.

The rebuilding had naturally raised property values, and between the drop in crime and influx of new money, Hobbs County found itself awash with wealthy carpetbaggers interested in the refurbished schools, reseeded parks and investment opportunities. Five years ago you could have bought a three-bedroom house for less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Today, if you scoured the real estate pages and found one for less than three quarters of a million, you’d be an idiot not to snap it up.

While there was no getting back Daniel Linwood’s lost years, his family could at least be thankful he had come back to a town far safer than the one he’d left.

“Only been to Hobbs once,” Stavros piped in from the front seat. “Few years ago. Pro football player going to visit his aunt just diagnosed with Hodgkins. She lived in the same house for thirty years, give or take. Guy told me he’d tried to buy her a new place, get her out of the life, but you know how old folks are. Rather die at the roots than reach for a vine. You know, even if the client’s only booked for a one-way trip, I’ll usually offer to hang around in case they decide they need a ride back to wherever. Hobbs, though, man, you could offer me double the rate and I would have jetted faster than one of them Kenyan marathon runners. Not the kind of place you want to be sitting in a car alone at night. Or anytime, really.”

I eyed those dice tattoos. Wondered what it took to scare a man who wasn’t afraid to get ink shot into his neck with a needle.

“I hear the town is different now,” I said. “A lot’s changed in five years.”

“New coat of paint, same cracked wood underneath,” Stavros said. “You don’t start from the ground up, poison’s still gonna be there. Anyway, you’re booked for a return trip, right? I’m sure you’ll be fine, long as you’re finished before the sun goes down. The dealers and hoods come out thinking you’re the po-lice.”

“I really think you’re wrong,” I said, my voice trying to convince me more than Stavros. “Anyway, when we get there, I don’t think you’ll have to worry too much about being alone. If I know the press, they’ll be camped out at this house like ants at a picnic.”

“That so? Where exactly you headed?”

“Interview,” I said. “A kid.”

“Not that kid who got kidnapped. Daniel something, right?”

“Daniel Linwood, yeah.”

“Hot damn, I’ve been reading about that! Awful stuff. I mean great he came back, but I got a six-year-old and I’d just about tear the earth apart if she ever went missing. Those poor parents. Can’t even imagine.”

“Better you don’t.”

We merged onto 287, then headed north on Route 9, driving past a wide white billboard announcing our entry into the town limits.

Hobbs County was covered in lush green foliage, the summer sun shining golden through the thick leaves. Trees bracketed sleepy homes, supported by elegant marble columns. I lowered the window and could hear running water from a nearby stream. This was New York, but not the big city you read about in newspapers. It was the kind of place where you bought homemade preserves and knew everybody’s name. Over the past few years, though, the names got wealthier, the jams more expensive. Shelly Linwood didn’t work. I wondered how the Linwoods were able to afford the newfound royalty of Hobbs County. And whether Daniel had come back to any sort of recognizable life.

We wound our way to Eaglemont Terrace, threading down Main Street. All the stores were open, Hobbs residents walking small, freshly groomed dogs while carrying bags from the town’s boutique shops. Lots of cell phones and BlackBerries. Pretty much the same ratio of technology to people as NYC.

It was just before noon. I had two hours before the interview was scheduled to begin. As we turned onto Woodthrush Court, I made out a row of cars and vans clogging the street, metal lodged in an artery. The main cluster looked to be centered around one house, no doubt the Linwood residence. I didn’t want to make any sort of grand entrance, and once the other reporters saw me, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They knew I had the exclusive, and they wouldn’t make my job any easier.

“Do me a favor, stop here,” I said to Stavros. The Greek man obliged, eased on the brakes until we were stopped a few blocks down from the mess.

“You want to hang out here? I can put the radio on, even got a few CDs in the glove. You like The Police?”

“Eh. Sting never really did it for me. Just want to walk around the neighborhood for a few minutes. Get a sense of the place.”

“Your time,” Stavros said. “Tell you something, it might have been a few years ago and my memory’s as soft as my dick, but this sure ain’t the same town I drove through a while back.”

“Hold that thought,” I said to Stavros, unbuckling my seat belt. “The last one, not the one about your…never mind. I have your cell number, so I’ll just call when I’m ready to leave, right? You’ll be here?”

“Faster ’n instant coffee.”

“Glad to hear that, thanks.”

I grabbed my briefcase, stepped out of the car. It was a sunny day, high seventies, a light breeze rattling leaves and lowering the humidity. I breathed in the fresh air, wished I could find it in the city outside of Central Park. It was strange to be in a town where you could see the horizon miles away. Unobstructed views over houses just a story or two tall.

While what I said to Stavros was partly true, about wanting to stay incognito to the press as long as possible, I also didn’t want to give the wrong impression to the Linwoods themselves. I didn’t want to roll up in a Lincoln with a driver, step out of the backseat like some dignitary. If I was going to talk to Daniel Linwood, it was going to be on his level. With all the attention he’d be facing over the coming weeks, his family didn’t need to feel like they were being talked down to.

I walked to the opposite side of the street, slow enough to avoid arousing suspicion, fast enough that residents wouldn’t think a solicitor was creeping around in their front yards.

When I was just a block away, still unnoticed, I stepped into the pathway between two clapboard houses and sat down on a stone bench. I gathered my notes, made sure the tape recorder had fresh batteries. And then I sat and watched the beehive.

The reporters camped outside the Linwood home were standing on the grass, their vans having left tire tracks in yards all across the street. No doubt the locals would complain to the city council about this, but with a story this big there was no stopping the boulder from rolling downhill.

Since the night Daniel came back, the only comment from the Linwood home had been “no comment.” Today that would change.

I sketched brief descriptions of the homes, the climate, the scene in front of me. Enough to give Hobbs County some color. I snapped a few pictures of the houses, even took a few of the press corps just for kicks. Then I waited.

At one-forty I stood up, stretched and started to walk over. My heart was beating fast, and I wiped my palms on the inside of my jacket. One of the tricks of the trade Jack taught me. Most people wipe their hands on their pants, and that does nothing but make your source think they’re being interviewed by a guy who can’t jiggle out the last few drops of piss. Inside the jacket, nobody could see you were hiding the Hoover Dam in your armpits. Good thing Jack was a classy guy.

I was hoping to enter the Linwood residence as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to answer any questions, or see my face on any newscasts. I’d had enough of that.

Silently I crept toward the house, when all of a sudden a gravelly voice said, “Look who crawled out of the sewer,” and I knew I had a better chance of finding a winning lottery ticket in my hamper than staying incognito.

One by one the heads turned. Clean-shaven newsmen with three-hundred-dollar haircuts, women wearing makeup so thick it could have been a layer of skin. They all looked at me with sneers reserved for subjects they were used to interviewing in solitary confinement. A piece of gum snapped, then landed on my shoe. I flicked it off, kept walking without looking to see who was guilty. Never let them see you angry.

I nudged my way through the crowd without making eye contact with anyone. I recognized a male reporter from the
New York Dispatch,
somewhat surprised to see that Paulina Cole hadn’t taken on the story herself. Paulina Cole was the
Dispatch
’s top columnist, a post she took after leaving the
Gazette.
We’d actually worked next to each other for several months, but now there was as much love between us as Hillary and Monica.

You’d never picture the devil as a five-foot-six woman with platinum-blond hair, impeccable skin tone and a take-no-prisoners, ball-busting attitude that could have made the toughest Viet Cong piss his pants. At first I admired Paulina. The newsroom had very much been an old boys’ club during her climb, and she’d had to endure a lot and work fantastically hard to get where she was. But then she showed her true colors. She showed that one thing’s for certain in the media: throwing someone under the bus can make quite a lucrative career.

After publicly criticizing me in print, Paulina later ran a story focusing on the sordid family affairs of my ex-girlfriend. It was this story that led to Mya being brutally attacked and nearly killed. I’d spent many hours at Mya’s hospital bed, beside her at physical therapy, comforting her mother, who was widowed at the hands of the same killer who nearly took her daughter’s life. Though Paulina had fewer friends than O. J. Simpson, her notoriety was entirely part of the game. Brazen, provocative, pushing every hot button as though her life depended on it. Rumor had it Ted Allen, the
Dispatch
’s editor-in-chief, gave her a five-figure expense account to dress the part, as well. If perception was reality, Paulina Cole was the grand bitch goddess of the news.

I heard audible whispers as I walked up to the Linwood porch.
Punk. Asshole. Little shit.
I’d taken a beating both in the press and from other reporters since my first few months at the
Gazette,
and as much as the words stung, sadly, I’d grown used to them.

Screw them.

The Linwood house was a small, Victorian-style dwelling, with jigsaw trim and spindles. It was three stories high, the top floor with a small square window, most likely an attic rarely used. Two unadorned columns were mounted on the front porch, the marble clean. The paint job was an off-white, and looked recently refreshed. I could see a small swing set around the back, a shovel and pail sitting abandoned. Surprised a reporter hadn’t snagged it yet. I stepped up to the porch and took a breath, preparing to ring the doorbell.