A Measure of Blood (22 page)

What they see are many people in sweats, shorts, jeans, T-shirts, backpacks, a little army of learners and procrastinators. “Everybody looks so alike,” Colleen grumbles. “Jeans and T-shirt, our witness said!”

“Except we're looking for a little kid,” Potocki reminds them.

They watch for a full ten minutes without recognizing anything. Marina arrives with five hundred more flyers and is caught up on the routine. “We're looking for anything that helps,” Christie tells his wife, taking the flyers from her.

Marina points. “That's James, our assistant stage manager, and that's Beattie,” she says a split second after two people come into view.

“They left rehearsal?”

“They go to the 7-Eleven; they take orders for other people who get desperately hungry or thirsty but are onstage.”

“They've taken Matt with them once at least,” Jan explains, “but they would have told us. They're wonderful kids.”

“Okay, then. You trust Beattie.”

“Totally. With my life.”

The camera panned maddeningly slowly. The security guard, hearing their frustration, sped it up. He said, “We can always go back.”

How much there was to see. Hundreds of cars.

“Also,” Christie reminds them, “anything that looks like it might be a maroon Pontiac.”

And finally at the camera's 7:52 they see a slip of a boy crossing the street. “That's Matt!” Jan cries. “He's alone. Oh, my God, he just left and went out alone. How did nobody see?”

“Is it possible he was meeting someone?”

“I can't imagine it. He's … going to the 7-Eleven I think. See, the way he hopped to the crosswalk? That's where we cross.”

“Are you able to zoom in,” Christie asks. The guard does so quickly. “Is he using his phone at all?”

They all lean forward. They watch him, arms loose, head cocking forward crossing the street.

And then the camera moves toward Fifth Avenue and all the rest of the circle—maddening, maddening when what they wanted to see is the boy and yet they concentrate, looking for twenty-something and thirty-something men in the pictures. When the camera comes around again to the Foster lawn, the boy is not in the picture.

“Ninety seconds. Would he still have been at the store? I think yes,” Colleen says.

Jan whispers, “It's usually busy. It could take easily three minutes, four.”

They begin to jot notes on the cars parked around the Cathedral. No Pontiacs. Lots of Jeeps and SUVs. People seem to come in waves, too many of them sometimes to examine anyone well.

Another ninety-second sweep and no Matt.

Then another ninety-second sweep. What they feared most is what they see next coming into view: man and boy walking away.

“Oh, my God,” Jan cries.

Marina goes to her and puts an arm around her.

It is hard to see much about the man. T-shirt and jeans, that's accurate. Medium height. Dark hair. Four seconds. The two walk, the boy looking up, inquisitive; they walk toward the park and the library while the camera is busy moving off toward Fifth Avenue.

“Shit,” Dolan explodes. “Damn.”

“Back up. Slow it down. Blow it up.”

But the security guard doesn't need to be told. He is already doing it. Then he pauses the video and zooms in.

Back of the man's head. They can see the boy's face but not the man's face. The clothing is clear enough. From the back the man is totally ordinary.

“Go back to the beginning. Study the cars,” Christie commands.

Dolan goes out to the hall to take a call. He comes back in to talk to Christie. He does so in an almost whisper. “I got my pal at Verizon. They're checking on the kid's phone. I want to leave for when they have an answer. I want to go back to canvassing the 'hood. My eyes aren't good on the DVD.”

Jan and Arthur are frozen, listening.

Christie knows Potocki and Colleen are both better at the video screen than he is. He needs to be outside, directing the available cops. “Call me,” Christie orders Colleen, “if you find anything.”

COLLEEN FEELS
the warmth of Potocki's hands on her shoulders as he moves behind her to watch the DVD, which the security officer reversed by two minutes as soon as Christie stood to leave.

Colleen asks to have the DVD totally stopped for a second and turns to Marina and the Morrises. “We're going to find him. I know it's hard to wait but the routine investigations will work. Would you like to go get some rest?”

“I don't think rest is possible,” Jan says sadly. Arthur kisses the top of her head and rubs her shoulders. It makes Colleen think how alike couples are, the ways they physically touch each other, the roles people adopt—the worrier, the comforter. Not that there is much comfort to be had here.

“I'll stay for as long as I can be helpful,” Marina says. Then when the video starts running again, she asks, “What does this guy want from the boy? We need to know that.”

“To win some bout with the mother?” Arthur tries. “He killed her after all.”

“I think he wants love,” Marina says. She says this line simply. “The tilt of his head, the rhythm of his walk. That little nod. That's my guess. I hope I'm right.”

Colleen doesn't say anything. Love takes many forms, and sometimes it turns to hate in a second.

NADAL HAS SPEN
T
HOURS
at his computer, going to news sites. He looks up information about Amber Alerts and learns that word about Matt's disappearance is going to be just about everywhere, even at construction sites or anywhere on a highway or in front of a store where there is programmable signage or an LED billboard.

There are rules for Amber Alerts. The police have to believe an abduction has taken place and that the child is in danger. Okay, that's how they think of it, but they are wrong. His child is now
safe
. They also have to have descriptions of the child and the captor and the vehicle. Nadal keeps checking every fifteen minutes. The news websites describe him as a man of about thirty with dark hair. Aren't there a million men who look like that? There is nothing about a vehicle. And no name.

They don't know who he is. They don't know the car.

Good, good. He will stay holed up here until he has won the boy over. He can imagine a perfect day unfolding. They'll have breakfast, watch TV, play games on his computer, talk.

One day here, calm, holed up and getting to know each other, and three days more and they can be in Florida. Then he has to figure out what to do with the Bug.

Hope blossoms, too. He has all his money, cash. He can do anything that needs to be done. He'll buy food supplies on the road, get his son some clothes, buy himself a new phone.

He wants to be a good father. He wants the day to start.

POTOCKI, STILL AT
the video, jiggles his foot nervously. Colleen asks him, “You want to go check? Go ahead.”

He shakes his head.

He has his son Scott at his place this weekend, and he hasn't even been home yet. He's
called
. Multiple times. No doubt drove the kid crazy.

Scott, only fourteen, insisted he would be all right on his own. Now it's almost three in the morning and Potocki doesn't want to call again to find out if his kid is sleeping. It doesn't look like this case is going to wrap up anytime soon, so Potocki is going to have to give in and call Judy and have his ex pick Scott up tomorrow morning. Judy will get a perfect reminder of why she hated police work.

Scott is going to turn out okay. He is utterly normal. Cares what his friends think, worries about how he looks, pretends he isn't totally occupied by sex, needs movies that allow him to laugh at idiocies of all sorts. Are there teenagers who
don't
crave the satirical?

“You can hate me,” Potocki told his son not long ago. “You can hate Colleen if you want. Just promise me you'll stay alive.”

“I don't hate her,” Scott said. “I like her.”

Potocki tries to remember how an almost eight-year-old boy thinks. Why is this boy on the video screen walking off with a man he thinks killed his mother? Could a boy want a father so much that he would forgive murder?

By now Potocki knows all of the extras in the movie, how they walk, where they are going, what cars they park or drive away. But he has no more on Matt.

A few minutes ago, Colleen urged the Morrises to go home as well. She suggested they could wait for the boy there. She said he might find a way to call, and finally that persuaded them and they went. Marina left then, too.

Now it is just three of them—the security guard, Potocki, and Colleen—studying the screen.

Colleen takes a call. She listens and when she hangs up, reports. “They talked to Verizon. They pinpointed the tower where the last call came. It's on Route 22, near Blairsville. So it sure doesn't sound like Zacour. It also sounds … pretty alarming. Boss said he's going to wake up this guy Ziad Zacour, make sure he's in his condo, clear him. He just has to arrange it with some police in Baltimore. But first he has to get police searching along Route 22.”

“This is bad. The phone.”

“I know.”

For the hundredth time, they watch the guy in the tape.

Colleen says, “You know, the head just a little forward… it's a disturbed posture. Marina was right about the walk, the psychology behind it. I give her credit. She learned it in acting school. I learned it in counseling classes.”

A security guard brings in a fresh pot of coffee.

The tension, the night, the caffeine make everything zingy. Potocki feels himself bouncing off the walls.

Colleen stands, restless. “It's so weird. Boss went off on a case earlier tonight. An old case, he said.”

“Why is that weird?”

“He's my partner. Why wouldn't he tell me?”

Potocki shrugs. He knows perfectly well where Boss was going tonight—and he knows how much Boss had to give up to come back here to the case of the missing boy.

Everything is strange. The coffee tastes like black acid.

Saturday

THE BOY SITS UP GROGGILY.

Nadal says, “Let's just sit together and have breakfast.”

Matt doesn't say anything but his gaze goes to the window. It is still dark out.

“It'll be daylight soon.”

The boy nods.

“Still sleepy?”

The boy nods.

“Good boy. Now to eat a little. Cereal?”

Another nod. Matt sits on the edge of the bed.

Was it going to be this easy, this wonderful? Nadal brings the bowl of cereal over to him. “It's Cheerios. Do you like Cheerios?” There is no answer but Matt picks up the spoon and makes an effort. “There's toast and egg, too. Do you like those?”

A shrug, a slight nod.

“Okay. I like to see a good appetite. Have you ever had plantains?”

His son frowns and makes a slight shake of the head.

“They are fantastic. And
bacalaítos
. Wow, I want you to taste a bacalaíto.”

The boy doesn't eat much. He tries to look around him. His eyes go to the metal urinal and Nadal waits a moment, then gets up to see it has urine in it. He is suddenly embarrassed that he's made his son use the old man's piss pot. His first impulse is to go empty it, but he doesn't want to open the door or leave Matt. He is making headway, though, the boy is behaving. Now he needs to make him talk. He brings over the plate of egg and toast. “Eat.”

Matt stares at the egg and toast.

“You should eat.”

His son dips the toast in the egg and takes a bite.

Nadal is so afraid Matt will run. He fishes around in his pants pocket for his mother's packet of Benadryl. “I have something for you. For safety, in case you're allergic to anything—if you know of anything you have to tell me, like peanut butter, some people can't eat peanut butter—anyway, take this pill for safety. It's Benadryl. Good for all kinds of things.”

Matt sighs. He puts down the toast and takes the pill with milk. He sits still, not trying to eat.

Nadal remembers a time … eating
mofongo
and
masitas
and a humid breeze, almost wet on his face. “Let's talk about things.”

Matt looks up.

“Things we like. Tell me what you like to do, you know, what subjects you like in school, what games you play. I want to give you the best.”

Matt's face registers an expression of distress and Nadal knows, knows, there is going to be a question soon about Maggie. Though he thought for the last several hours about how to handle that whole subject, he has no solution. He has control of his temper now and, in fact, he can hardly remember the moment he
lost
his temper. It's happened before—a rage so big he didn't feel it coming and didn't understand it after. “Don't be angry,” his mother would say to him when he was a teenager. He would challenge her: “What are you talking about?” She would tell him, “Your face. Your face is angry.”

Is his face angry now? Is that why Matt is quiet?

“Don't want to talk about school?” he asks.

Matt shakes his head.

“I think we need a good rest, both of us. A nice, long, easy day.” His son shuffles his feet to balance the tray on his lap. “You like TV. You like games.”

Matt looks up. A slight nod. Progress. Good. Good, good, good.

MATT KNOWS HIS
MOTHER
is dead. He wonders why the man wants to talk, to feed him, just like his mother did. She always told him, “Eating makes the brain work.” He forces down another bite. He would ask his mother for pastries—scones and Danishes, and sometimes she got them for him. Jan and Arthur told him eggs were good brain food. He needs to work his brain.

Only trouble is, he's still sleepy. He would like to lie down again.

“Let's watch some TV.”

He knows everything in this room—the desk, the papers, the clothes in the closet, the metal pee pot. There is no TV in here.

“Come.” The man opens the door and they step out into a hallway that he hardly noticed last night. They stand there for a minute, the man in front of him, watching him closely.

Matt touches a banister that is decorated with little lace circles. When one of the circles falls to the floor, the man says, “Damn these
tapetes
,” grabs them all, and tosses them to the wall. Matt stands still for a second before allowing himself to look toward the bathroom. Will he be allowed to use it? Is the window open and, if it is, if he yells, will anyone hear him in the middle of the night? If he calls out and nobody comes, what punishment will he suffer?

“You have to go?”

He nods.

The man takes him by the hand inside. The room has a bunch of smells from soaps and perfumes and sprays. It has a window, but the window is closed. Even so, the man goes to the window and tries it, as if to make sure it is well locked, then looks at Matt as if to say,
This is the test. Are we going to get along? Are you going to behave?
Finally he steps aside, walks to the open door, and turns his back so Matt can do his business, which right now is just a pee.

Is this his father? He wishes he knew for absolute sure. The names on the papers he saw are all wrong.

“We'll watch a little TV.”

Matt knows every program that is on TV from early in the morning but he's not sure what's on in the middle of the night.

They descend the stairs slowly. Matt would like to lie down. He walks to the sofa and the man doesn't stop him, but the man asks, “Are you sleepy? Television is nice when you're sleepy.” The man flicks the button and something comes on.

After about five minutes the man goes to his laptop, which is sitting on the snack table next to a chair. “I'm looking things up,” he says. “I'm always looking things up.”

Matt hopes that if he is very good, he will be allowed to use the computer.

Soon he feels himself falling asleep. In this haze, he asks, “Are you Arnett Brown?”

The man jerks and seems worried. “I am definitely not Arnett Brown.”

ZIAD GETS UP
FOR THE THIRD TIME
, trying not to disturb Kate with his restlessness, but it's hopeless.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Sorry. I didn't want to wake you.”

“Can't be helped.”

He goes to the bathroom, thinking, hoping she will get back to sleep. It's still dark, night, only the little bit of light coming in the window, but it's only hours before she has to shower and start out for the hospital. When he was sound of mind, two, three days ago, he could sleep right through her showers and her leavings. Now nothing seems to work.

They are having a baby, he and Kate. He's wanted to get married since he met her and all the more once she announced the pregnancy. She insisted they wait until his dissertation is finished—as if she's
testing
something, his worthiness.

He is hardly finished in the bathroom when the phone rings. Kate's voice comes through from the bedroom in a groggy, almost querulous hello.

A wrong number, surely, at three in the morning, but she doesn't hang up. She's listening to someone. He opens the bathroom door.

“Yes, he's here. Just a minute. Police?” she says, handing the phone over. She flicks on the light and sits up, studying him.

He turns slightly away from her with the phone. “Yes?”

“Commander Christie here. I have an officer at your door. I'm sorry, but it's important. Will you open the door to him? He needs to do a search.”

“I don't understand.”

“Have you been at home all evening?”

“Yes.”

“You'll be all right, then. Stay calm.”

“I don't understand. I'm … I'm going to the door. This is …”

“Terrible. I know. The boy is missing. The boy we believe is your son. We have a report of a man taking him away—”

“My God. Oh my God. Not me. I was here.”

He puts on living room lights and opens the front door to a sour-looking detective followed by an open-faced younger man. Both come in. He feels himself backing up, as if guilty, and bumps into Kate, who is already robed and behind him.

Yet on the phone, Christie's voice is kind. “If you think about it, you'll understand the investigation. Please just cooperate and feel free to call me back. Take down my number.”

“I don't have … it'll be on my phone… . No, wait.” He backs up to his dissertation pages and jots down Christie's number. “I'll call back. I need to know.”

Kate says, “What is this about?”

“Detective Olson.” The sour one shows his card. “Cooperating with the Pittsburgh Police. If my partner can do a quick search of your premises?”

Ziad says, “Okay. Kate. I'll explain.”

She stands, hand to her mouth.

Olson asks her, “You were home tonight?”

“Yes. I got home from work at seven.”

“And Mr. Zacour?”

“He was here.”

“All night.”

“Yes.”

“This is routine, then. Just hang on till my partner does his thing. On an Amber Alert, we have to check everything.” He seems not sour at all now, but almost nice. “We're sorry, but—”

Good, Ziad thinks, no more secrets. He turns to Kate and touches her arm and says, “I have a son. I … just found out, just days ago. I've been … I knew I would tell you, but … He's gone missing. The detective in Pittsburgh had a report that he was taken away by a man.”

“Young man, tall, dark hair,” says Olson. He gestures to Ziad.

“I was here.”

Minutes pass in which Ziad is aware of Kate's watching him, nothing else.

The other detective comes back to the living room. “Everything looks totally normal.”

Olson has picked up on the division between Ziad and Kate. “We'll leave you two. It's almost morning. Soon.”

And just like that, the police are gone.

They sit quietly, facing each other. “A relationship you can't tell me about?” she asks.

“Not a relationship. Almost nine years ago, I needed money.”

She frowns. “Oh.”

“I didn't think ahead. I went to a sperm bank. I just found out a couple of days ago about this boy. His mother was murdered, and I guess I was a suspect. But I didn't know her, and I didn't know I had a son.”

“He's yours?”

“They took DNA but they won't have results for a couple of days yet. They showed me a picture. It's almost certain.”

Kate gets up, goes to the kitchen, and presses the button that will start the coffee. She pulls her robe more tightly around her and comes back. “I don't understand why you didn't tell me.”

He wants to say this right, accurately, so he takes a long time. The coffee is the only sound, gurgling as it boils and drips. “I haven't been sure what to say. You puzzle me, putting off our marriage, and … I'm embarrassed that I sold sperm for money without thinking of the consequences. And then I thought things were settled. There's a couple—nice people, professors—who desperately want Matt …”

“Matt?”

“Matthew. It all came to me because those people needed me to sign a termination of rights so that they could adopt him. It's the first I knew. Three days ago. The lawyer sent the form. They told me this was the right thing for … for the boy.”

“You signed?”

“Yes. It seemed a done thing, the way it was presented. And you're in residency. And you want me to finish that—” He points to the pile of papers. He can't hide his anger. “And we're having a child in six months.”

“But your son—you have a son, I'm getting my mind around that—and the boy is in danger?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I can't imagine what.”

“Ziad, are you afraid of me?”

That he couldn't think of how to tell her his secret—did it mean the relationship was no good?

“I've done something wrong,” she says, “if you're afraid. This thing has happened. And you can't talk to me.”

“Yes.”

“You've been torn up, right?”

“I have.”

“Do you want to call that detective back? See if anything is happening?”

“Yes.”

“When you heard, did you wish you could know him?”

Ziad begins to cry. He cries copiously. When he finally manages to look at Kate, she is crying, too.

THE AMBER ALERT
HAS CHANGED.
Police are seeking a man who spoke to seven-year-old Matthew Brown before he disappeared. The abductor may be driving a maroon Pontiac.

Nadal can't breathe. Can the Pontiac he thought he was rid of be traced to him, to this address? He tries to figure out the police. Why did they not mention the Pontiac before and mention it now?

In his mother's freezer are all kinds of things. He finds a package of store-bought burritos, two frozen dinners, a loaf of bread, crackers, cereal. He puts these things in two shopping bags, moving as fast as he can. No milk left. No juice to be found.

He's got to get out before daylight. He knows where to go. He'll go where Arnett Brown took him a long time ago. Nobody will find them there, in the middle of nowhere.

In one trip he takes his backpack and the shopping bags of food to the VW. He goes back in and wakes Matt enough to help him stumble to the car. “Backseat,” he says. “Lie down.”

And then the motor rumbles and the tires crackle branches and they are on the way.

“THIS TRIP,” THE
MAN SAYS,
and he keeps turning toward the backseat while he's driving, “this trip is for you. A Saturday trip.”

Matt has lain down in the seat as he's been instructed, with the seat belt fastened around him in an uncomfortable way, something that reminds him of a Boy Scout belt across his chest, and he's trying to figure out what he needs to know, but he is having trouble staying awake. A part of his brain is saying, “Think, notice,” but another part of him doesn't care. It's dark out, still night. He doesn't care … about anything.