by Rebecca Rane
Margie looked into Josh’s eyes and tried to see Ethan. Maybe she did see Ethan. Maybe it wasn’t too difficult to see her son in every twenty-something young man she encountered. That was part of Margie’s torture.
Kendra was recording the meeting. She tried to hang back, and she also tried not to feel like this was an intrusion. Josh had come to her; he had asked for her help. She wasn’t digging up the past on her own whim.
They all sat now, at the breakfast nook table. Margie took the lead with questions.
“What do you remember?” Margie asked Josh. He thought about her question before he spoke.
“I loved space and wished my new house had those sheets you bought for my room.” Margie looked at Kendra. None of the newspaper or television accounts had reported the heartbreaking detail about the sheets. About the big boy bed. The things Margie had told the sheriff and now Kendra.
Margie gasped. It was ragged. And then, slowly, she let the air out, and with it, the skepticism that Kendra knew she used to protect herself. Kendra worried, deeply, that she was ripping off a layer of protection that Margie needed.
Margie slid her hands to the middle of the table and placed them over Josh’s. He had said the right thing so far.
“Who took you?” Margie asked, and Kendra worried that whatever balance Margie Peltz had achieved in her life would tilt out of control by this event.
“I, well, I don’t know. I wish I did. I was so little. I wasn’t with him for that long,” Josh said and appeared to be trying to pull answers from a toddler’s brain.
“What then?”
“My dad, Tim Wagy. He adopted me when I was five or so, we think. I grew up with him. He was good to me. I was lucky about that.”
Luck wasn’t the word Kendra would use for the situation these two people were in.
“How so?” Margie asked.
“Wagy was an emergency foster dad. He said I’d been found wandering. I don’t remember it, but the local fire department called social services. And he was ready to take care of me. He took good care of me.”
This reminded Kendra that she still needed to talk to Tim Wagy. This story was moving faster than she’d been able to keep track.
“I didn’t even really remember that I was Ethan until lately. The news,” Josh said and looked at Kendra to explain to Margie.
Kendra took up the story. “A little boy is missing, Lucky, Ohio. Maybe he wandered off. No one is sure. It’s been all over the news. The search is frantic. It’s getting a lot of coverage,” Kendra explained to Margie. She nodded.
“I saw that, and I was triggered, I think. Things I hadn’t been able to put into context fell into place,” Josh said.
It made sense that the story of a missing boy would bring back a memory. Even now, when the smell of Skittles hit her nose, something different would flash in Kendra’s mind. She was at the police department, and an image of herself as a child returned. She understood that the memories of a child were sometimes a mystery locked in our own brains. She knew it was true for her and believed it to be true for Josh. She’d certainly learned it was true for her last podcast season.
Josh continued, “I remember the Astro Blaster. I was so mad about that ride.”
Kendra looked at Margie. Her eyes had widened at that comment.
“I remember things in a weird order. I am working with a counselor. My dad has always been really good about that.”
Kendra was glad to hear he had a counselor. Whatever trauma these two people had been through would require professional help. She was an investigative journalist, not a social worker.
“I remembered being at the park, and then the name Ethan. I didn’t know a thing about the case, but those things were popping into my head. And I knew they were memories. I knew that I knew you. I saw your face. I heard you singing ‘Rocket Man.’ All these things that were from before.”
Margie was shaking now. Had she sung ‘Rocket Man’ to Ethan?
“Then there’s a toy, I see it over and over again. I had it in my bed. I took it to the playground. I made you put the seatbelt over it. It was a Blue, from Blue’s Clues, a stuffed one. I’ve been seeing that over and over again, too.”
Margie stood up. She walked out of the kitchen. And Josh looked at Kendra.
“Did I say too much?” Josh looked at Kendra like he was sorry, but what was the protocol here? What was too fast? “It’s just all coming out, and seeing her, she looks like I remember. Sort of, you know?”
Kendra nodded like she knew. But she didn’t really. She didn’t know what they were feeling.
Margie returned to the kitchen. In her hands was a stuffed blue dog.
“Blue!” Josh said as he reached out for the toy.
“This was your favorite toy, Ethan. I saved it all this time,” Margie said, and her voice cracked.
“Ethan, you called me Ethan,” Josh said, and tears were running down his cheeks.
Kendra, too, had a hard time containing the roiling emotion that this scene had caused.
“Of course, I did, it’s your name.” Margie put her arms out, and the young man transformed into a small boy in front of them.
They embraced.
It was beautiful, miraculous, beyond what Kendra had thought would happen today. Kendra did her best to fade into the woodwork. This was their moment. It wasn’t something to exploit. She felt enough the voyeur just witnessing it.
Margie stood back but kept a hand on Josh’s elbow. It was a physical contact to prevent him from disappearing again.
“Okay, what now, Miss Dillon? What do you need for this podcast of yours? Because I owe you for bringing my boy home. I owe you whatever you ask for.”
“I, uh, well, I understand you’re both sure. But we need the DNA test to prove it.”
Josh had produced facts that only Ethan could have known, and he’d turned a broken woman into one practically vibrating with joy. But they needed science, the law needed science, and Kendra needed science to be sure that Josh was really Ethan.
“That’s fine, of course.”
“I have what we need in the car. It’s just a swab. That will be enough.”
“Great,” Josh—or rather, Ethan—said. Kendra had no idea what to call him now.
“I’m going to go get it. Let you two talk for a moment. In private. I’ll be back in five minutes.” They both agreed, and Kendra left them to say what they needed to one another without her microphone.
She walked to her car and climbed into the front seat. She wasn’t sure what to do next, honestly, after what she’d just witnessed.
She called Shoop.
“Uh, the mom is sure that Josh is Ethan.”
“Really? That was fast,” Shoop said, stating the obvious.
“I know. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen, the two of them.” Kendra relayed what happened to Shoop.
“Well, wow, I mean, wow,” she replied when Kendra finished, which was really the only thing to say after the turn this story had taken.
“They’ve been alone for about five minutes. I’m going to administer the DNA tests myself and then drive them to the lab. Do you think five minutes is enough?”
What was the proper etiquette for the extraordinary?
“Sure, I mean no, I mean, who the heck knows?” Shoop was not helping.
“I know, right?”
“Well, get them swabbed. We need proof. It feels like it’s barreling ahead in a scary way. Is that wrong to say? I don’t want to freak you out, but wow. It’s him? She thinks it’s him.”
“You’re not wrong. I feel the same thing. Like I was digging out a dandelion and struck gold accidentally.”
“Okay, get the swabs, and we’ll figure it out from there.”
Shoop’s advice was solid. Kendra got the DNA kits and walked back to the house. The door was open, and the reunited mother and son were now sitting back at the table, looking through a photo album—no, a baby book. Kendra felt guilty about being there again. This was their
time now, not hers.
She cleared her throat to indicate she was back. The two were oblivious to the world at this point.
“Oh, yes, the swabs. Let’s get that going,” Margie said.
“How long do these things usually take?” Josh asked Kendra.
“It’s amazing really. It used to take weeks and weeks, but now it should only be a few days. I’ll drive them to the testing center myself.”
“Oh, thank you,” Margie said. But she really wasn’t in the conversation. She was enthralled with Josh.
Kendra carefully handed the swabs she’d ordered from Find My Family Tree.
“Just scrape it against your cheek. That should be enough.” They did so and then dropped the swabs into individual plastic bags that Kendra had already labeled.
“Oh, I know, let’s enter your information in my Find My Family Tree page. Here, look, you can see your family.” Margie put the information in, Josh watched, and Kendra realized this was some sort of symbolic reassimilation for him into the family. “Sheriff Meriwether suggested I do this. You know, we did everything. Everything.” Margie was apologizing to Josh as if she was to blame for the horrible circumstances.
“I’m honored to be included,” Josh said, looking at the family tree like it was a map to his past.
“That will do it. I need to go now, and well, I wonder what you’re both going to do?” She felt strange, effecting this powerful moment and then letting them fend for themselves.
“I am going to take Ethan—uh, Josh—to Don Pablos,” Margie said.
“That’s my favorite. I love their chicken tacos,” Josh said in delight.
“I know,” Margie replied.
Kendra looked at Margie. She was a changed woman in the space of a moment. Had her DNA shifted in the split second her brain decided this was Ethan?
Had something that was akimbo now realigned in the woman?
Or had Kendra done the very worst thing? Had she introduced hope where there was none, only to snatch it away when the DNA test came back?
She looked at them both. Their eyes were the same. And Josh’s stories were irrefutable.
Everything was pointing to the fact that they’d just solved the mystery of Ethan Peltz.
The bigger mystery now, the one that loomed large for Kendra but seemed a mere sidebar to the two people who wanted Josh to be Ethan, was who kidnapped him?
Was he still out there?
And how had he gotten away with it for fifteen years?
“Josh, I hate to impose, but you did say you wanted to be there when I interviewed your dad.”
The interview was already set up.
“I know. You know what though? I don’t need to be there. I’d rather talk to mom, you know?”
Kendra was uneasy. She wished she was a counselor right now. So that she could help them navigate through these strange waters.
Or maybe nothing else was needed, but the two of them, to have time to talk. This was up to them, not her.
“Okay, I’m going to go then. I’ll drop off the samples and check-in with your dad.”
“Good, thank you, Ms. Dillon. So much,” Josh said.
Kendra nodded and left the mother and son. She felt like she was leaving them on their own planet.
She’d get the swabs to the lab. That was concrete, that would put her mind at ease. Though Josh’s knowledge of the unknowable had floored her and had won Margie over more than any swab.
And while she waited for scientific proof of what she’d just witnessed, she’d keep digging. She’d keep asking questions.
The chief among them: Was a child kidnapper still out there?
Chapter 14
Kendra dropped off the samples and then tried to focus on her next step.
What was important to know from Tim Wagy?
She’d expected to be doing this part with Josh, but now it would be one on one.
Margie Peltz was convinced, and blissfully so, that Josh was the answer to her prayers. But the biggest mysteries surrounding the case were unsolved.
“You need me to go with you?” Shoop asked when Kendra had checked in on her way to Tim Wagy’s.
“No, I need you to get out the tip file.”
“Oh, joy.”
“Don’t hate me,” Kendra said. So far, the tips that Meriwether had provided had produced nothing. It was easy to see why he hadn’t gotten very far in his investigation, and that was before the years had turned the tips even more stale.
“No, it’s cool, keep reuniting families and seeing the outside world, I’m good.”
“Thank you. If Ethan really is alive or Josh is Ethan, or whatever, we need to solve why he was taken. Maybe there’s a tip that makes better sense now than it did then.”
“Hmmph,” Shoop said.
Kendra needed to get this Tim Wagy interview done. Though, based on what Josh had said, Wagy wasn’t a villain. He was a hero, opening his home to a homeless little boy.
Tim Wagy lived in an outer portion of East Port Lawrence. It wasn’t a pristine suburb or a sparkling new mature active community of the kind that were popping up all over the area. East Port Lawrence was a lot like her own old neighborhood in the north end. Big Don still lived in the house his mother left him. The house Kendra had grown up in.
Big Don reveled in the cultural diversity in the north neighborhood. He loved seeing the families thrive after he’d “gotten them in” at the various manufacturing plants in town. Some stayed in the old neighborhood, some moved, but Big Don wouldn’t hear of leaving.
East Port Lawrence was similar. It was a working-class neighborhood that was almost as old as the town itself.
Kendra found the address. It was a small A-frame house that didn’t catch your eye but also didn’t stick out. It was about as non-descript a house as one could be.
Kendra had some idea about what to expect.
Tim was a custodian, retired now, according to Josh.
Josh said Tim Wagy was a hard worker and had done all he could to be a good dad. Kendra wondered if she should have waited to include Josh for this. But she was here, and the story was rolling fast, almost beyond her control. This was a big part of it, Josh’s childhood since the kidnapping.
Kendra knocked on the door and waited.
Tim Wagy answered. In his sixties, he had a slight belly, round cheeks to match, and a few tufts of dark hair combed over the top of his otherwise bald head.
Was it dyed? Kendra thought so and had a flash of what the process to dye the little wisps might look like.
“Mr. Wagy, I’m Kendra Dillon. I’m a podcaster for The Cold Trail.”
“Hello,” he said but kept the screen door firmly between them.
“We spoke on the phone about Josh. He was supposed to be here, but uh…” Kendra didn’t know how to tell him, or if she should tell him.
“Margie Peltz believes he’s Ethan too.” Tim Wagy made it easy. He already knew.
“Yes, it was remarkable.”
Kendra focused intently on Tim Wagy to get his reaction. He blinked slowly and said nothing for an uncomfortable beat.
“I’m sorry, come in. It’s just, well, I hope this is all true, for Josh’s sake.”
Kendra stepped in and took in the little home. It was clean, neat, and totally devoid of decoration. As though Tim Wagy could keep a home, but to adorn it, would be a mom’s job. A mom that didn’t exist in this family unit.
“Can we talk for a bit? I’m trying to help him sort it out.”
Tim nodded, yes.
The place smelled like cigar smoke and some sort of spiced meat. Kendra felt her morning coffee do a turn in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten in hours.
She realized that Big Don’s place would probably smell the same if it wasn’t for the women in his life, namely his wife and daughters, insisting on a regular cleaning lady.
“Kitchen okay with you?”
“Yes, perfect.” They walked through the front room. And into the eat-in kitchen. Kendra could
see a room off the back of the kitchen. The term “rumpus room” came to mind from her childhood. This home was built before open concepts and formal dining rooms. Before mud rooms and laundry rooms that looked like Disney World general stores became the norm. It was small but efficiently laid out.
They sat at a Formica-topped table, and Kendra got out her recorder.
“May I?” Tim Wagy looked wary about the device but then nodded in agreement. “I need you to say yes,” she added.
“Yes, you can record my interview.”
“Tell me how Josh came into your life.”
“An emergency foster placement, I’m sure he told you that.”
Kendra nodded, yes, that he had. “What was he like, growing up?”
“Josh is a creative kid, always making up stories, nice ones though. I couldn’t ask for more as a foster dad.”
“That’s sweet. This must hurt a bit, him looking for his mom?”
“Hurt? No, I worry he’ll get hurt. You know, by disappointment.”
“So, he was creative?” Kendra asked. She wanted a handle on who Josh was as a kid.
“He told his kindergarten teacher at BES that he was a scuba diver and found a Cracker Jack ring at the bottom of the ocean in a treasure box,” Tim said. He told the story with affection.
“Pretty typical of little kids, big stories?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know you wanted to adopt him right away?”
“Yes, we were a good fit.”
“With all due respect, isn’t it a bit odd for a single man to be a foster dad?”
“Odd? No. Rare, probably, but I wanted a family. I just could never figure out the wife part. So, I started fostering.”
Kendra could relate to that; she’d not been able to figure out the husband part after a so-called starter marriage with Scott Goodrich.
“And how did you meet Josh? Do you remember the first day?”
“He was an emergency, like I said. He was picked up in Lucas County, and the other emergency fosters were filled. They put out the word to surrounding counties.”
“What did they tell you?”
“He had probably lived on the streets for a time, months maybe, but finally, a police officer realized the little urchin wasn’t attached to any home. And the social services got involved.”
