Torn (18 page)

“Mrs. Corbin believes that her son survived the explosion.”

Chumley’s jowls tremble as he clears his throat. “She did, huh? What do you think?”

Shane’s smile is tight, giving nothing away. “I think Mrs. Corbin is missing.”

6. Darker Than Sleep

I wake up weeping because in my dream Noah is curled up next to me and I’m stroking his hair and want the dream never to end.

The sense of aching loss feels as if it will stop my heart.

I had him back! Spooning his little body against mine as we did when his father died, both of us seeking the welcome amnesia of sleep. Part of me knew it could not last, that waking would make him vanish. But it seemed so real. He was there. I smelled his hair. Felt his pulse beating in time with my own.

Losing a child is like losing a limb. You know the limb is gone but when you close your eyes you can still feel it. The connection remains intact, nerves to brain, blood to heart, soul to soul. And so I remain curled in a fetal position, clenching my eyes shut, willing him back to me. Just for a moment, God. Just long enough to sense his warmth.

After a while the weeping slowly fades and I realize that my eyes are no longer closed. And yet somehow the darkness remains. A darkness darker than sleep. A darkness pressing me from all sides.

My hands fly out, connecting with a hard, plastic surface.

The Budget Rental van, the jittery boy saying he was sorry, he needed the money. Something rising from behind, the wet rag over my mouth. It comes back all at once, like a punch to the guts:
I’ve been abducted.

Kicking out, or trying to, I discover why I’m in the fetal position, curled up knees to chest: there’s not room enough to stretch my legs out. Breathing deep, forcing
calmness, I use my hands and feet to find the limits of my confinement and discover that I’m surrounded by heavy plastic, the surface riddled with holes. Vent holes. There’s a slippery steel grate just beyond the top of my head and some sort of padded rug under me.

I know what this is. A dog crate. One of those big plastic things. My friend Helen has a big, honey-colored Lab who prefers to sleep in his kennel. Raised that way from a puppy, he thinks the kennel is his den, feels safe inside it.

Someone drugged me, shoved me into a dog crate. Is the crate in the back of the van? Is that why the darkness is so absolute?

In the darkness the crate begins to move. Faster and faster and faster.

I scream and scream and scream.

7. The Hip-Hop Kid

An hour or so later Shane is back at his room at the Comfort Inn, a few miles from the airport. He’s in the shower, bending down so the hot water can stream over the top of his head, when his cell goes off, dancing across the porcelain. Fully shampooed, he has to blindly reach for the phone, patting the entire sink area the way he’d pat a dog. So by the time he has the thing up to his ear, the message has gone to voice mail.

Good news. The hip-hop kid is in custody.

Senior Investigator Preston Chumley’s superiors have decided that the suspect should be interrogated on the airport premises, under the legal auspices of the Homeland
Security Administration, rather than at the nearest local police station. HSA having sweeping powers of detention, namely the legal authority to detain virtually anyone for any behavior deemed suspicious, the actual ‘suspicious’ component being very carefully undefined in the statute.

“Basically they can yank you out of line for chewing gum the wrong way. Or in this case what we’re calling a ‘distinctive gait.’”

“Walking the wrong way,” Shane says.

“And not chewing gum at the same time,” Chumley adds with a grin.

“However you did it, that’s mighty fast work, cowboy.”

“Nothin’ to it,” the trooper says, affecting a western drawl. “Started with rental company employees, found him almost before we started looking.”

“And you’re sure he’s the one?”

“If there’s another skinny, hip-hop-walking white boy working the rental lots, I haven’t found him. Has to be him,” Chumley adds, “because he’s so ready, you know?”

“He wasn’t surprised you picked him up?”

“Not in the least.”

The deal is, as a former Special Agent with an interest in the case, Shane will be extended the courtesy of witnessing the interrogation, but will not be allowed to ask questions. Not directly.

“I ask you, you ask him?”

“That’ll work,” says Chumley, who seems to have decided that things will go easier if he makes nice with the former FBI agent.

The suspect has been deposited in the same small, windowless room where Shane was so recently entertained.
Sitting there with his chin on his narrow chest, eyes heavily lidded, revealing no surprise or anticipation as the two men enter. Arms folded, knees cranked wide. The sullen, knowing posture of a troubled youth with wide experience in the criminal justice system. Shaved head, baggy pants, a blurry ninja tattoo on his neck, the whole career delinquent package.

Except, curiously, Gordon Kurtso, nineteen, has never before been arrested or detained. Not even a traffic ticket.

The state investigator slides his chair close enough to smell the boy’s breath. “Hey, Gordon. You hanging in there?”

The boy does not react.

“Sorry we had to drag you out of bed. You’ve got a cold, right? That’s why you left in the middle of your shift?”

No reaction.

Chumley turns to Shane. “Picked him up, he said he had the flu. Must be a throat flu, affecting his voice. You know what the cool thing is with Mr. Gordon Kurtso? He goes by G-Man. That’s his gangster nickname or his street name or whatever.” Chumley turns back to the suspect, cocking his head sideways as he tries to make eye contact. “You make that up yourself, Gordon? G-Man? ’Cause the funny thing is, we got a real G-man with us. This big dude is former FBI Special Agent. Special Agent with a special interest, you might say.”

The boy speaks. “I want a lawyer.”

“I want lots of things,” Chumley says agreeably. “Wanting keeps you focused. You better focus, G-Man. Tell us everything you know about that little Subaru. Where you found it. Why you parked it. Everything.”

The boy shrugs. “It wasn’t me.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“Okay, maybe you didn’t actually abduct the lady yourself. Maybe all you did was move the car. If that’s how it went down, say it, we’ll go from there.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“Okay, if you insist we can go in a different direction. Maybe keep you under detention while we get a warrant, search your domicile, see what we find. Top to bottom search, looking for cash, drugs, whatever.”

The boy snorts. “Fishing. You’ll never get a warrant. I want a lawyer.”

Chumley tries to look casual and relaxed, mostly succeeds. “I dunno, terrorist activities, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get a warrant.”

“I ain’t no terrorist and you know it. Do I get a lawyer or what?”

“Woman possibly abducted at an international airport? That could be construed as terrorist activity. They give us pretty wide latitude, Gordon, when we’re working with Homeland Security. Believe me on this.”

“I believe you’re lying,” the boy says, staring at the floor. “I want a lawyer.”

“Let me sketch out your situation, Gordon. A young mother agrees to meet with a stranger who claims to have information about her, um, missing ten-year-old boy. The mother is now missing, presumed abducted. No doubt we’ll be able to trace your call to her. The call that lured her out here.”

The boy shakes his head, looking smug and confident.

“Used a throwaway, did you? No problem, we can enhance the parking garage video, use heat sensors to map
your face. We can prove it’s you. Didn’t you ever see
CSI?
Technology is on our side.”

“Bullshit,” the boy sneers.

“Worst case, we recover Mrs. Corbin and she identifies you. Then you’re part of a conspiracy to abduct—that’s a federal offense. No parole for a federal conviction, did you know that? Just time off for good behavior, maximum fifty-four days per each year served. Kidnapping? If the victim survives, they might go light, you could get as little as thirty years. Figure you’d serve twenty-seven, provided you’re a good little boy. If she dies? The least you’d get is life. No time off for good behavior on a life sentence. You spend the rest of your days behind bars.”

“So,” the boy asks, “am I arrested? Are you pressing charges?”

Chumley rolls his piggy little eyes. “We’re discussing your options, kid. You want to be arrested, is that it?”

“I’m requesting a lawyer. The Homeland Security angle is crap. You gotta get me a lawyer if I ask.”

“You sure about that?”

“You’re a sworn officer of the law, right? When I ask for a lawyer that means you have to stop with your bullshit questions and get me a lawyer.”

Chumley sighs, stands up.

“Coffee break?” he says to Shane.

Outside, the investigator makes a face. “That went well, huh? You believe that kid?”

“He watches a lot of TV. That’s where he picked up the tough-guy act. Probably
The Wire.
”

Chumley rubs his jowls, looking exhausted. “Wire
schmire, he knows the law. HSA lets us detain and question him on a hunch or because he looks wrong. But unless he’s identified as a known terror suspect he has the right to counsel. He asks for a lawyer, he gets a lawyer, that’s the way it works.”

“Within a reasonable time frame.”

“Which is flexible, yeah. But only if we got a major player. You and I know he’s the guy, but I’ll never be able to charge him based on his hippity-hop styling. All we got is the hunch—we both know that. Apparently he knows it, too.”

“You’re letting him walk?”

Chumley grimaces. “Hell no. Not until I’ve grilled him like a bad hamburger.”

“Enjoy,” Shane says, picking up his briefcase. “You might have better luck on your own.”

“Maybe so,” says the investigator wistfully. “I really thought he’d take one look at the size of you and pee his pants.”

“The little shit is waterproof.” Shane offers his hand. “Thanks for this. Sorry we got off on the wrong foot. My personal observation, you’re good police.”

Chumley shrugs. “We’ll see about that.”

8. MC Popsicle

They kick him loose at dawn, twenty minutes after his public defender drags her saggy, underpaid butt onto the premises. No arrest, therefore no hearing, no bail. Nothing more than a stern warning not to leave the area.

Right.

“Why would I leave?” He smirks on his way out, not
even bothering to thank the P.D., who stands there with her jaw slack and her eyes still sleepy.

Screw ’em both. Cops and lawyers, two sides of the same stupid coin. Why should he be grateful? Because she mumbled a few words, did her job?

F-bomb that.

G-Man’s very jaunty as he strolls into the big bad world, heading for his wheels, his breath coming in cold little puffs of steam. Thinking he will have to quit his job, stay away from the airport. Hanging around, taunting that pig of a cop would be fun, but he’s no fool. Out of sight, out of mind, that’s the way to go. Also he needs to be careful with the money. His crew finds out he’s green, they’ll be all hands out gimme some of that love.

The money is for personal use. It’ll buy him four or five sessions in a real studio, let him find the right beats, put down his flow, do his own slim shady thing.

His wheels, a faded box of dents that used to be a Chevy Impala, waits in the employee lot under an inch-thick dusting of fluffy snow. He’s thinking if the mutha won’t start he can always ask the public defender bitch for a jump start.

G-Man unlocks the door, creaks it open as fluffy snow cascades to the ground. Cold and dark in there, he’s thinking, but before he can climb behind the wheel something happens. Something big crushes him into the seat. Hands like steel grappling hooks shove his face so deep into the cold, tattered foam-stink of the seat that he can’t breath. Steel hands that lock on his jaw and squeeze so hard that he feels the lower half of his face dislocating, creating an explosion of pain so totally awesome that he wants to scream like a girl, if only he could.

Twenty seconds later he’s wrapped like a mummy in silver duct tape, arms pinned to his sides, everything but his eyes and one nostril slathered in wraps of adhesive. Then he’s rudely flipped into the backseat, crashing faceup, unable to do anything but squirm in a writhing panic.

“My advice, don’t fight it,” suggests the big dude, looming over the seat like a neatly bearded monster, all angry eyes and flashing teeth. His big steely hands encased in surgical gloves. “All your air has to come through one little nostril. Concentrate on that. Fight it and you’ll smother.”

The big dude chilling next to the fat cop, didn’t say much. Big dude holding up the roll of duct tape.

“Love this stuff,” he says. “Better than cuffs. Way more effective. With handcuffs the victim can still scream, maybe even bite. Did you know the human bite can be more deadly than a dog bite? Fact. Comes to biting, your average human being is more dangerous than your average pit bull.”