Take the Fourth (4 page)

Chapter 4
 

I
t worked like a charm, each and every time, he was four for four. He carried a picture of the cutest little puppy, walked up to his little girl and asked her if she had seen Max. He used the name Max because it was the most common pet name in America—learned that one from a Snapple top he did, number 415 to be exact. The answer to his “Have you seen Max?” was always the same of course, “no,” then he would ask her to help find his lost puppy. He carried an empty leash which made it more convincing, not that a five year old would pick up on such a thing but it was just a precaution for any of the adults in the vicinity. He learned this trick from one of the daytime talk shows, probably Oprah, on how to prevent your child from getting kidnapped—daytime television was full of good ideas and the other nice thing was no one could really track what you watched, not like that internet thing—who knew who was watching on that thing or how it could be done. He acted on impulse and did very little planning, it was more of a gut feeling for him. Drive around a little, don’t make it too obvious, look for a playground with lots children and very few parents or nannies, of course. He didn’t want to stake out or learn the habits of an individual, too much risk involved, someone might catch on, someone might see. He didn’t want to be obvious.

His parked the car out of sight because that was the smart thing to do, and headed out of sight around the corner of a building, all while calling out “Here Max, here boy” and of course the little girl was in tow. He checked and double-checked, even triple-checked and made sure no one was watching. He stopped by the back of his car, squatted down to look underneath, the little girl followed suit.

“Do you see him?”

“Mmm, no.”

He stood up and the little girl followed suit. He then reached into his jacket pocket and fiddled with a zip lock bag, inside the bag was a rag doused with a little bit of homemade chloroform, which he learned was a mixture of bleach and acetone from an old rerun of CSI Miami. In what appeared to be one single motion he lifted the lid to the already unlocked and slightly ajar trunk with his left hand and in his other hand grabbed the rag and from behind his little girl, placed it over both her nose and mouth, all while picking her up and placing her in the trunk. She didn’t put up much of a fight, unlike his last one. He noticed this one was still breathing even though she was out cold, also unlike his last one. Things were going his way this time around. He closed the lid to the trunk, checked, double-checked and even triple-checked, no one was watching. He entered his car, took off his bright red baseball hat and with the turn of the key started the engine. The radio was already set to the news station, his air was on the lowest of temperatures, and his gas tank read a little over half full; he was good to go for his seventy-one mile trip back home, just out of reach of the major city’s network news. He knew that his local news would carry the missing person report, they did so before, but after a day or two they moved on to more important things like the drought or the price of gas or another shooting in the city, they always did. Before he put the car in drive, he donned his out-of-style, knock-off, Ray Bans, put on his favorite Yankee’s cap, checked his mirrors, checked and rechecked and he was good to go. He popped the stick into d and pressed the gas pedal. Shortly thereafter he cursed under his breath calling himself an idiot for he didn’t want to draw any attention.

“Camaro, early to mid 70’s, dark green or blue, black vinyl top, big wheels. Kidnapping suspect.” This went out over all the airways, police band, both am and fm radio, and most important television. This was a Levi’s Call, Georgia’s own interpretation of the Ambler Alert System put in place by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI). It was named after eleven year-old Levi Frady who was abducted in October of 1997—his killers were never found. This was the best they could do and the detective in charge reassured and promised this was his best line of action. Both mother and father were unconvinced. Ripley was their daughter, their five year old daughter and she has been missing for over two hours and this seemed like an eternity. They both wanted nothing more than to go running up and down the streets shouting her name to help find their precious daughter but they were made to run the gauntlet of emotions down at police headquarters.

All three family members were stashed in a little brightly lit, tan room with sparse fixings that consisted of a table that has seen better days and a few chairs, the most comfortable being an olive green foam padded chair over metal sitting in the corner and that was occupied by Ripley’s brother. He was holding a can of A & W root beer and didn’t understand one iota of what was going on; he was very well behaved though. The other metal, non padded chairs were arranged in the typical interrogation fashion, two contained the parents of Ripley on one side, the other side by the detective in charge of their case. A pad of yellow lined paper, a pencil, a black phone, and two glasses of water were the only things on the table. Nothing hung on the wall except, well not actually hung, more like mounted was the typical interrogation one-way mirror, which nobody was behind.

“Why are you both in town today?”

“Two reasons, I had an early morning meeting, then I was going to meet my wife and children for lunch and all of us were going to take Ripley to her appointment?”

“Her appointment?”

“Yes, doctor’s appointment just a few shots for her allergies, we never changed her doctor since we moved. It has been about a year and a half and we wanted to get a little bit further… farther from the city life but still have all the comforts of the city, such as quality doctors, shopping, and whatnot. We never really worried about,” searching for the right words but chose, “ . . . something like this, either when we lived here or our new place.”

“What type of allergies?”

Ben knew he was just trying to put them at ease and asking simple questions before he pressed harder, basically trying to trick the emotions so they wouldn’t get in the way of the more difficult task that laid ahead. “She has some really bad food allergies, she has to stay away from anything with peanuts, and pollen makes her wheeze, tree pollen is the worst so thank god it’s almost summer.”

“Seems more and more kids these days have a peanut allergy, back in my day this was unheard of… probably something to do with all the steroids and peanut oils they use in processed foods now. What line of work are you in?”

“Tough one really. My full time position is now borough manager of my now hometown, but I dabble a little as a business analyst for some pharmaceutical companies, it’s not steady work but the pay is rather good.”

“And you?,” directed towards his wife Lindsay.

“Same line of work, that’s how we met, but mostly I’ve been a mother of two and only work when I want to.”

“Okay, can you tell me why you took them to this park?”

“Well, ummm… . Ben’s meeting was just a short distance away and umm, I, we, used to live right up the street, ummm… it was Ripley’s favorite park, Samuel was too young to remember, it just seemed like a logical place to spend some time together.”

“When was the last time you visited this park?”

“I don’t know, I… I… I just don’t remember… .,” she was trying not to cry, “Before we moved I think… ummm… yes, before we moved, probably on a Saturday in late October… we moved in November.”

“Okay,” and the detective took a brief moment, scribbled a few words down on his pad, “Do you have any enemies or people you distrust?” A question from seemingly left field.

“Excuse me?”

“I apologize, I have to ask, you just never know.”

Lindsay was taken back from the question especially the enemies part… she hesitated, stared at her husband Ben then glanced at her son, trying to make some sense, trying to find an answer, “we have a lot of friends, we get along with all of our neighbors,” the words seemed harder to come by, “Both of my parents are no longer with us, Ben’s whole family is . .ummm . .I mean I truly love them as my own… . I’ve even stayed on good terms with my ex.”

“Ex? When was the last time you saw or talked to him?”

“A few days ago, he called me and ummm… told me he was moving to a new townhouse, but… . but I’m sure, no I’m positive he wouldn’t do this…”

“Don’t be too quick to judge, more times than not a biological parent is involved.”

“He’s not her father, Benjamin is, my ex is like an uncle to her… . I know what you are thinking, strange that I’m still on good terms, we were just young that’s all, we both had wandering eyes and both wandered quite a bit when we were in our twenties… . but still we have maintained a good friendship, Ben and Terry even go to ball games together.”

“Can you call him?”

“Will I call him? Yes, but not now, I just cannnn… can’t at the moment… . I just can’t tell him Ripley is… .”

“The sooner the better.”

“I’ll call,” and Ben pulled out his cell phone and dialed but the detective nudged him, “Can you use a land line, we want to tap and record this.”

Ben felt guilty for Terry was a very good friend to him but he always had this feeling in the back of his mind, you just never know. So he complied with the detective in charge, put his cell away, and dialed a number he knew by heart. “Terry, it’s Ben.”

“Hey Ben, what’s up? You ready for the game tomorrow night, I’ve got great seats.”

“Terry, bad news, real bad, so listen to me.”

“It’s not Lindsay?”

“No… . Ripley,” he took a deep breath,” . . . . she’s missing”.

“Dear god, when, where… . what can I do, where are you… I’m coming over,” the sheer panic set into his voice. With those words “she’s missing,” still lingering in the air it sucked the wind right out of Lindsay, she broke down and started sobbing. Ben as well, couldn’t keep his eyes from welling up. Samuel looked up at his mother and father crying and he too started to cry. He didn’t realize the situation with his missing sister; he was just upset because both his parents were upset—it was a natural reaction to a child of three. After that call, Ben was as visibly disturbed as his wife, reality was really beginning to set. Before the detective left he had just a few more questions.

“Do you have an answering machine at home?”

“Yes but… .”

“Do you have the capability to check your messages when you are away?”

“Yes but… .”

“Please, check your messages for me.”

With that Ben used the land line once again, entered his four digit pass code and waited.

“You have no new messages.” Ben finally realized what the officer was suggesting… as in every missing person case there is a chance it’s a kidnapping and the ransom note/call is a possibility.

“Please, there is nothing more you can do here, I have a few more people from the park to interview, you need to go back to your home and wait, I’ll send one of my officers with you.” And with that the detective parted ways for he knew time was of the essence and he didn’t want to spend precious time consoling emotionally distraught parents. It seemed callous but that’s what made him good at his job.

Before his other interviews Detective Charles Lynch went to grab a cup of coffee and a smoke but before he could make his way to the break room he was stopped by one of the young rookies.

“Detective Lynch, I was just coming to get you, a Camaro fitting the description was just found just a few miles from the park. A neighbor heard the news and called it in… The car is supposed to be in the garage.”

“Yeah, but what are the chances this is our car?”

“Well the neighbor who called it in, said he came home around an hour ago”

“Who owns the car?”

“Not sure yet sir.”

“You have to know the address and who lives there?”

“Yes, we’ve checked on that sir but the Camaro is not registered to any of the members of the household.

“Okay, send a crew, now.” In the back of Lynch’s mind he knew the odds were against him, but this just might be a lucky break. Sure most cases were solved through hard work and dedication but every so often one just needed a little luck to push it towards closure. This could be just that break. Lynch grabbed his coffee, nixed the idea of having a smoke and went back to interview a few more people from the park and thinking to himself—hopefully, very shortly I’ll have another person to interview—strike that, interrogate, he meant to think.

And just like clockwork four squad cars were called into motion, eight officers in all and they surrounded the single family rancher in typical two by two standard cover formation, their guns drawn, with the lead officer and his partner taking the front door.

They rang the bell, heard some rumblings, then “Just a sec., if it’s a package just leave it.”

They rang again.

“Okay, okay, just a sec,” and he opened the door to much his dismay. When there’s a kid involved little time is wasted on formalities and pleasantries. He was quickly escorted out the door, handcuffed behind his back, and asked if he owned a Camaro and it wasn’t the other way around… “Yesssss,” saying in a baffled manner.

“Do you mind if we search the house?”