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Authors: Sandra Brannan

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BOOK: Noah's Rainy Day
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“Consider us the dynamic duo. Local police and the feds.”

Gates heard Streeter’s cell phone buzzing. Before answering, Streeter offered Gates a sad smile. Gates recognized the expression on his friend’s face, a sign that Streeter didn’t think this case would have a happy ending. And Gates couldn’t argue with his intuition. Missing children cases rarely did.

“And on Christmas Eve. Damn it, anyway.”

CHAPTER 9

 

“WE TOLD YOU, WE
don’t know where he is. What do you want us to say?” BlueSky regional manager Toby Freytag asked. “And I’m not supposed to talk with anyone until the lawyers get here from Chicago.”

Gates shot out of his chair in the manager’s small office. Streeter was quick to follow, if only to hold his friend back from pummeling this policy-spewing suit. Wiry, but with the deadly accuracy of a professional flyweight boxer, Gates stepped toward Freytag and leaned over the cheap desk, gripping the edges until his normally dark-skinned knuckles turned light brown.

Freytag leaned back in his chair as Gates growled, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what any lawyer said. What I want you to say is that you actually give a damn that a child’s missing. That you and your company were responsible for the child’s safety. That your missing employee, Kevin Benson, was responsible for escorting the boy from the New York City flight to his Los Angeles connection. That you are doing everything humanly possible to find Benson and the boy. That’s what I want you to say.”

Streeter noticed the muscles in Gates’s neck bulge and ripple with every word. He hadn’t seen his friend this angry in years.

“Chief Gates, we are working on it. I assure you,” said Freytag, his
hands patting the air, perhaps in an effort to calm Gates’s anger. Or perhaps they were held up in defense as Freytag sensed how close Gates was to the edge.

“Don’t you dare tell me you’re working on this when I know for a fact that you only arrived a few minutes before me, hours after the boy disappeared. No one seemed to care that the kid missed his flight to LAX, and airport pages for the escort to report aren’t enough. Neither was the feeble attempt to call his contact numbers. Someone should have screamed bloody murder hours ago that the boy was unaccounted for.”

“But the gate check did,” Freytag insisted. “They flagged the passenger as a no-show, and like I told you, the procedures for a passenger missing the flight—”

“I don’t give two shits about your procedures,” Gates spat, the dark lines on his forehead deepening between his furrowed black brows. “And this is a child, a little boy, not just any passenger who missed his flight. What the hell are you thinking? What’s wrong with your employees that they wouldn’t follow up on an unaccompanied minor, a child, who missed his scheduled flight?”

“At the risk of angering you further, let me say, it happens all the time. You just don’t understand,” Freytag said, bracing himself for Gates’s fury.

“Oh, I understand. You probably just didn’t want to be bothered on Christmas Eve. Right?”

“I don’t get many holidays, Chief.”

Gates took a step toward Freytag. Streeter put a hand on Gates’s shoulder and eased him back. Gates pointed a long finger at Freytag and warned, “You get Kevin Benson in here in the next half hour or I’ll tear this place apart looking for him, starting with your asshole.”

Freytag blinked, glancing around his tiny space as if imagining what it would look like after Gates was through with it, trying not to picture the police chief climbing up his rectum, which Streeter knew Gates would do if it meant finding the boy.

Streeter touched Gates’s elbow. Gates pointed menacingly at Freytag and repeated, “Half an hour.”

Streeter followed Gates out of Freytag’s private office, through the BlueSky complex, and into the long hall that led to the down escalator and the main level of the terminal.

The Jeppesen Terminal was an immense space with a ticketing area just inside the doors on either side, a multitude of commerce ringing the main terminal just below the halls of the upper level, and travelers herded to the center through security clearance just above the down escalators to the underground trains. Streeter observed the stores, restaurants, art galleries, coffee shops, and newsstands that encircled the security screening area one level down from Toby Freytag’s office and realized that the BlueSky office complex was situated directly above the ticketing counters. Then he noticed the other airlines’ arrangements were similar—office complexes were mostly above the ticketing areas, each probably having internal stairs for their employees to use. The doors to public transportation and to the mirror-image parking structures were just beyond the ticketing counters.

Streeter saw that if a BlueSky employee wandered into an unsecured area of Jeppesen Terminal, no one would take notice of him, even if he had a child in tow. Hopefully, the cameras Streeter spotted hanging all over the walls had captured something.

“We’re setting up headquarters on Concourse B on the level just above where the boy was supposed to board the plane to LAX. Gate B51.”

“Where did he arrive?” Streeter asked.

“Gate B31 was where the boy was last seen,” Gates said to Streeter as they walked toward security. “They said your guy is already there, pulling data for us.”

“Must be Kelleher,” Streeter said.

Gates nodded. “I have Eddie—the deputy who called me—and the other officers canvassing the BlueSky employees throughout the airport to find out who knows what and where everyone was earlier today. It’s been nearly six hours since the LaGuardia plane landed. That means many of the employees are probably off shift already. But Eddie will do what he can. Take names and numbers.”

Streeter’s eyes never stopped moving. His gaze skipped from face to face, scanning the area and taking it all in: the lights, the barricades, the stores, the restaurants, the hordes of travelers, and the vast space. The infinite places a little boy could be hidden from view—multilevels; unmarked doors, some locked, some not; countless merchants; dozens and dozens of bathrooms; and far too many exits on either side of Jeppesen Terminal. It
would be a daunting task to locate the child if he had decided to play hide-and-seek in this place.

Streeter drew in a long breath and looked up at the steel structure supporting the peaks of white canvas overhead that emulated the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, and he could think of nothing but haystacks. Mumbling to himself, he said, “Like finding a needle.”

As they bypassed the hundreds of travelers snaking through the roped-off lines and approached the police officers and TSA employees at security, Gates flipped open his badge, as did Streeter.

One of the senior officers said, “Chief Gates, we just heard.”

“Cheryl, how are you?”

Streeter studied the police officer who reminded him of an adult version of Little Lotta the comic book character. The female officer was short and stout, had freckles spattered on her round face, and her blond hair, except for her bangs, was cropped at chin level.

“Not so good. Knowing there’s been a boy missing for over five hours and we’re just now hearing about it? So much valuable time’s been lost.”

“You’re telling me,” Gates said, looking at his watch.

Streeter noted that it was approaching 6:30 p.m. and they had gotten very little out of BlueSky manager Freytag, who didn’t seem to know much at all.

All the officers waited for Gates to say something. He studied each of their faces in the silence, looking each in the eyes and then moving on. Streeter knew his routine, knew Gates had to assess their involvement for himself. After a long moment, he introduced himself to each of the officers and asked Cheryl for an introduction to each of the TSA employees.

He gathered as many of them as he could in the tiny glass-enclosed viewing room nearby and introduced Streeter. “Special Agent Streeter Pierce is with the FBI and is the regional expert on hostage negotiations.”

Everyone mumbled a greeting, eyeing him. Streeter knew he was as approachable as a hungry pit bull—his shoulders were wide and bulky, his face as hard as Washington’s on Mt. Rushmore, and his voice sounded as if he’d swallowed barbed wire for breakfast, as Liv Bergen had once told him. He kept his eyes fixed on each face in front of him, sure to reveal nothing about himself other than his formidability.

Gates added, “As Chief of the Denver Police, this is my investigation, which I fully intend to turn over to Special Agent Pierce and the FBI in short order, depending on the facts. But the first task is to find out what you all know, saw, or heard that might be out of the ordinary, particularly between noon and two, roughly. How many of you were on shift at that time?”

Most of them raised their hands.

One man called out, “Some of us started on the one o’clock shift.”

Several nodded.

“Then all of you will be important to this case. Chief Deputy Ed Heisinger, who you may have already met, will be taking your statements. We know it’s the holidays, but we have a child missing and we’d appreciate if you’d stick around until after Eddie and his team have had a chance to interview you and get your contact information.”

“What about the earlier shift? Do you want their names?” another TSA agent asked.

“Absolutely. Anything you can do to help us out. Here’s a photograph of the missing BlueSky employee, Kevin Benson, along with a snapshot of the missing boy. We’ve sent it out electronically to your official contacts. Print and forward copies to everyone you think needs to see these the second you get them. We’ve issued an APD on Benson and an Amber Alert on the boy. We have verified that a boy fitting his description passed through LaGuardia’s security and the boarding gate to the plane, which brought him here. And the BlueSky management team has assured us that they have spoken to the gate agent who witnessed the escort deplaning with the boy at gate 31 in Concourse B.”

“Show us the picture,” one officer in the back shouted. “I never forget a face.”

Gates passed back the photo of the boy with long, blond hair cropped in a pageboy haircut. “The boy’s five,” Gates shouted back. “The photo’s working its way back to you. But I’ll need it back.”

“His hair looks like mine,” Officer Cheryl, the Little Lotta look-alike, said, handing the photo to the person next to her. “Only blonder.”

Streeter was thankful for the example.

The original TSA agent who bragged he never forgot a face said, “No one’s been through here today looking like that. But check with her.” He
jerked his thumb at the TSA agent posted at the top of the up escalators. “I was stuck over here and I doubt whoever took the boy would risk coming back through security.”

“What’s her job there?” Streeter asked.

“Mainly to make sure no one goes down the wrong way on the escalator or into the elevator bypassing security to board the trains to the concourses. That’s where travelers coming into Denver depart the terminals.”

Gates nodded. “Sounds reasonable. I don’t want to rule anything out at this point.”

The TSA agent was persistent, pointing at the up escalators across the main concourse in the distance. “They either left the airport over there—which is where we post two of our TSA agents at all times—or they hopped a plane elsewhere without having to go back through security.”

Streeter had already come to the same conclusion, but he could see how getting the employees to talk would help stimulate recall and discussion of earlier “odd” events.

“There’ve been only two TSA employees working security on the discharge end of that escalator since the child’s flight landed in DIA. She’s one of them,” the TSA shift supervisor said. “Best bet is to grill her. She’d be the most likely one to see a snatcher with a kid, unless they hopped on a plane headed somewhere else. I’m telling you, that’s how I’d do it.”

Gates looked at Cheryl and said, “This guy’s starting to think like a criminal.” Then to the TSA shift supervisor, Gates said, “Did someone screen you before they hired you or what?”

The mood lightened slightly.

Streeter said, “We’ve already lost six hours so we need to move.”

“Tell her we’ll want to talk with her before she leaves work and after you get through with her,” the TSA shift supervisor said.

As the photos worked their way through the crowd of TSA employees and officers and back to Gates, he said, “Case headquarters is being set up on the mezzanine level above the customer service desk near gate 56 on Concourse B. We’ll be directly above and across from gate B31, where the boy was last seen.”

“Who’s cleared to go through security for this operation?”

Streeter was pleased with the TSA senior shift supervisor, understanding quickly how he had earned his position.

Gates turned to Streeter, a question in his eyes.

Streeter said, “No one. Call Gates or me on every individual who claims to be working with this case. Even if they have a badge or credentials. Direct them immediately to case headquarters once we clear them.”

“Clear my officers who are already here now.” Gates gave them a list of twelve officers who were on-site with Eddie.

“Got it,” Cheryl said. “I know most of them.”

“And Eddie. Chief Deputy Eddie Heisinger.”

Streeter heard the buzzing of Gates’s cell phone and watched as he fished for his phone and looked at the display. “They found Kevin Benson. He came in on his own. BlueSky will be taking him up to our case headquarters. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 10

 

“WHILE ELIZABETH AND I
finish preparing dinner, will you let Noah stretch out a bit in the living room?” my sister Frances asked.

“Sure.”

I didn’t get to spend enough time with Frances these days. Not like I used to. We were inseparable. Best friends. In school, we were so close in age—nine months and a day, my dad always says—we were in the same grade. I was the jock, and she was the natural beauty men wanted to date and all women wanted to befriend. All of us Bergen siblings were close, but Frances and I were tight. Or used to be. Now she was so busy with every-thing—with work, with the kids, with Gabriel. With life. As a Hogarty.

BOOK: Noah's Rainy Day
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