by P. K. Abbot
When Riley came into the room, she seemed panicked. “I don’t see him anywhere,” she said. “Where can he be?”
The room was cavernous – forty to fifty feet long with a height and width of twenty feet. All rich, polished wood in the Victorian-style. At the far end were two elevated platforms. People could stand there and view the ocean through the round windows which were placed in the elephant’s eyes.
“He’s where every kid goes when he runs in here. He’s on the platform, looking at the ocean through the elephant’s eye.” Then Riley called out across the room, “Nathaniel!”
The little boy came to the railing on the platform and waved at his mother.
“Oh, I’m so relieved. I thought…”
Riley patted her arm and said, “I know what you thought… but it’s not going to happen to Nathaniel.” She simply nodded and gave him a weak smile.
They walked over to the elevated platform, met Nathaniel there, and peered out the eye to the ocean. Then they went through another door and climbed up a staircase into the hookah-basket – the open-air observation platform on the elephant’s back. In the bright sunshine, they could see ships on the ocean and skyscrapers in Atlantic City. It was a perfect day.
After an hour, Nathaniel became hungry and asked if they could eat lunch.
“I know just the place,” Riley said. They walked out of the elephant and across the street to a little restaurant. It had a small counter and a few tables along the beach.
Riley waved to the lady behind the counter and sat at one of the tables along the beach. A soft ocean breeze cooled them, and they breathed in the fresh salty smell of the sea. “This is lovely,” Céline said.
In a few minutes, the woman behind the counter came over to their table. She set down a sheet of brown butcher paper, a wooden mallet, plates, utensils, and a covered pot.
“What’s all this?” Céline asked.
“It’s my favorite food. And, if you never had it before, it’s going to be your favorite too.” Riley opened the pot, took out a steamed, blue-claw crab, and laid it on its back on the paper in front of them.
“How do we?…” Céline said.
“I’ll do all the work,” Riley replied. “You and Nathaniel just enjoy the meal.” Riley picked up a pair of scissors from the utensils and snipped off the crab’s eyes. He put his thumb under the apron on the crabs underside, and peeled it back. Then he grasped the crab in both hands and snapped its shell in half. He quickly cleaned away the exposed lungs and said, “The rest is pure gold.”
He picked up a small fork, speared a lump of crabmeat, and dipped it in melted butter. “The sweetest meat you’ll ever eat. Try this, Céline.” She opened her mouth, and he placed the morsel onto her tongue.
Her eyes grew very wide. “Mmmm, that’s wonderful,” she said. A drop of butter ran from the corner of her mouth. Nathaniel wiped it away with his finger and laughed.
Riley put the rest of the crab meat on a plate and passed it to Céline. Then he turned to Nathaniel and handed him the wooden mallet. “Are you ready to work for your lunch?”
The boy smiled and nodded. Then Riley showed him how to crack the claws and legs with the mallet and how to suck out the meat. “What do you think, Nathaniel?”
“It’s delicious,” he said.
“It’s a pretty easy meal to cook. Mom could make this for you sometime.”
Nathaniel grinned at Riley. “You’ve never had mama’s cooking,” he laughed.
“Well, how bad can it be?”
“It’s horrible. My cooking is horrible,” Céline broke in.
Nathaniel was positively giddy. “You should try her spaghetti and ketchup sometime.”
“Now, that’s enough, Nathaniel. I may be an atrocious cook, but I’ve cooked every meal with love.”
“I’m glad you didn’t hate me,” the small boy said.
Céline looked at Riley as he said it. Then they both burst out laughing. “On the bright side,” Riley said, “this place does takeout.”
They finished their lunch, and Riley drove them back home. He waited in the car while Céline dressed for work and talked to Nathaniel’s babysitter. Then they drove to the casino for work.
They had a quiet night at work. At the end of their shifts, they walked out together. In the atrium of the hotel, they encountered Yuliya. Her eyes were red, and her face was stained with mascara. She had been crying, and they had a sinking feeling in their stomachs.
“Aleksander never came home today. I don’t know what to do,” she moaned.
“Did you contact the police?” Céline asked.
“Yes… But what will they do?… What did they ever do for all the other boys that have gone missing?” She reached out and grasped Riley by the arm. “Riley, you were a policeman. You can help. No?”
Riley looked away from her and just shook his head. “I don’t know, Yuliya. I’m not there anymore, and they have detectives who specialize in this work. You should leave it in their hands.”
“Look at me,” she demanded.
Riley turned and stared at her. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her lip quivered. “They won’t look for him. You know that, Riley. Someone needs to find that little boy.”
Riley stared at his shoe and kicked against the floor. “I’ll look into it for you, Yuliya.”
He turned back and looked at her. There was such an emptiness in her eyes, as if her heart and soul had been torn out. He couldn’t escape her sadness.
“I’ll try to find him,” he said.
Chapter 8
Riley drove Céline and Yulia home. Then he called Sgt. Olshevsky.
Harold Olshevsky spent thirty-eight years with the Atlantic City Police Department – the last thirty-two as the night shift’s Desk Sergeant. Riley asked if he could talk to him about a pressing matter. Harold was at the end of his shift, but he promised to wait for Riley
When Riley arrived at the police station, Harold was waiting for him in the vestibule. He was only a year or two from retirement, but he had the flat stomach and defined biceps of a younger man. He stared at Riley with his piercing pale-blue eyes. A drop of sweat rolled down his shaved head.
They smiled at each other, and Harold extended his hand to Riley. “How are you, Riley? What’s this pressing matter that you have?”
Riley shook his hand. “I’m fine, Harold. I have a friend whose little boy disappeared yesterday. Aleksander Novak?”
“He’s the little boy with Down’s syndrome?”
“Yes. That’s the one. I told his mother that I would look into it for her. What can you tell me?”
“Nick Wolfson is the investigating detective.”
“Shit – Wolfson has it?”
“Yeah. But he brought in a person of interest already. He’s questioning him in an interview room right now.”
“Can I watch the video feed?”
Harold smiled at Riley. “You should know better than that, Riley. Wolfson doesn’t work with video… but the interview room has an observation window. I could let you watch from there.”
“Thanks, Harold.”
Harold walked him down the hall to the observation room. It was a small, narrow room on the other side of the one-way mirror in Wolfson’s interrogation room.
“Are you good here?”asked Harold.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I’m heading for home then. Good luck, Riley.” They shook hands, and Harold left Riley alone in the observation room.
Wolfson’s person of interest sat with his back toward Riley. He was a street junkie with a purple bandanna.
Nick Wolfson was a stocky, muscular cop in his mid-40s with thinning hair and an ever-present beard shadow. He had intense, dark brown eyes. Almost black, they looked like the eyes of a shark – the eyes of a predator.
Wolfson rolled a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. Then he drew a cigarette from his pack of Camels. He lit up and took a long drag, holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds.
Then he exhaled into the face of the junkie.
“I have witnesses who say you talked to the boy. And you’re telling me that you don’t remember him? That you didn’t talk to him?”
The junkie’s hands were trembling. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know nothin’.”
“Did you kill the little boy?”
“I don’t know – No! No, man. I didn’t kill him.”
“Then why can’t you tell me who he was talking to?”
“I… I don’t know, man.… I… I can’t remember nothin’… I think I want a lawyer.”
Wolfson took a long drag on his Camel, stood up, and walked around the table behind the junkie. He put his hand on the junkie’s back and said, “Let me see about getting you that lawyer.” Then he smashed the junkie’s face into the table. He pushed his forearm hard against the junkie’s neck and pinned him to the table. Fumes from the cigarette reddened Wolfson’s eye, but he just pressed harder against the junkie’s neck. “If you don’t remember something soon, I’m going to pin this murder on you.”
Wolfson walked over to the door, took another long drag on his cigarette, then flicked the burning butt at the junkie. “Think about that while I’m gone.”
Wolfson and Riley walked into the corridor at the same time.
“Hey, Wolfson.”
Wolfson spun around, saw Riley, and grinned. “Hey, tinman.”
“Tinman? Who’s tinman?” Riley asked.
“You are, buddy.” Wolfson chuckled to himself. “You need a real heart, don’t you? Just like the tinman in The Wizard of Oz.”
“Screw you, Wolfson.”
“Don’t be that way, Riley. You came here for some reason. What do you want?”
Riley was burning with anger, but he needed to talk to Wolfson – for Yuliya’s sake. “The new case that you have – Aleksander Novak…”
“Yeah?”
“His mother is a friend of mine. She asked me to help where I could. I promised her I’d look into it.”
“Look into it? Look into what?” Wolfson was fuming. “Look into me? To see if I’m doing my job?. What qualifies you to look into me, Riley? I guess it’s all those arrests that you’ve made – all those teenage hookers that you put away.”
“Look, Wolfson, I only want to help.”
“I don’t want your help – you’re not capable of helping. The only way to catch a killer is to be a bigger predator than he is. Are you a predator, Riley?” He rolled the toothpick around in his mouth and then laughed. “No. You’re not a predator. You’re a bottom-feeder. You’re just a washed-up vice-cop, tinman. You’re just a joke.”
Chapter 9
Riley needed to access Aleksander Novak’s case file, but his meeting with Wolfson was a disaster. He could think of one more possible access point, but it would be a long shot.
Riley had a friend at Atlantic College with a connection to the Atlantic City Police Department. He drove to the college and walked into the offices for the Department of Criminology and Psychology.
A woman in her early 60s with silver hair and bright red lipstick was sitting behind the front desk. She was on the phone, but she smiled cheerfully at Riley and mouthed that she would be with him shortly.
On the shelves behind her sat dozens of paper birds in a wide variety of colored and patterened papers.
She hung up the receiver and smiled at Riley. “May I help you?”
Riley gestured at her flock of paper birds and smiled at her. “I’ve never seen so many colorful birds. Did you make them?”
Her eyes lit up and her smile broadened. “Oh, thank you, dear. They’re origami – an ancient oriental paper art. I did make them – I made them all – I’m afraid it’s my addictive hobby.”
“Well, they’re beautiful. Do they represent a particular species?”
She blushed a little, and, with a sweeping motion of her hand, she highlighted the sign on her desk: ‘ROBERTA WREN’ it read.
“Oh, I should have read the sign, Mrs. Wren.”
“Not many people do, dear, but that’s alright. I’m just here to care for my boys.” She started to straighten the sign on her desk and asked, “Now, what may I do for you?”
“I’m a friend of Doctor Pepperell. I’d like to see him for a moment.”
She picked up her phone and said, “Let me check if Francis is in?”
“He prefers Fran or Pepp,” Riley replied.
Her lips drew into a thin line of annoyance, but then she forced another cheery smile for Riley as she hung up her phone. “He is in, dear. You can go right back.” She waved toward an office door behind her.
He walked over to the door and read the sign painted on it:
Francis Striker Pepperell, PhD
Department of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
Riley nudged the door open and peeked into the room. Doctor Pepperell was sitting back in his chair with his feet propped against the desk. He was deep in concentration, meticulously carving a wooden figure with a jackknife.
Riley called out, “All this academic brainpower at work just boggles my mind. Hey, Pepp!”
When he saw Riley, Pepp grinned and stood up from his chair. He was tall and lanky, but with a quiet self-assurance and a wiry strength in his hands and arms. “What are you doing here, Riley? – You never visit.” He walked over and clapped Riley on the back. “It’s great to see you, buddy.”
Riley gave him a mischievous grin and said, “I had to see if it was true.”
“If what was true?”
“With two doctorates under your belt, I heard you’re taking up whittling as an additional source of income.”
Pepp chuckled and shook his head. “Well, the doctorates are in Philosophy and Psych. They’re not the most lucrative fields, but I just like carving now and then. I find it clears my head.”
As they walked back toward his desk, Pepp picked up his jackknife, folded it, and dropped it into his pocket. “Sit down, Riley.” He pointed to the chair in front of the desk.
Riley picked up the wooden figure from the desk and examined it. “This is too intricate for just clearing your head. Who’s it for?”
“I’m making it for Nicole,” Pepp replied.
“How old is your little girl now? Eight?”
“She’s nine already.”
“Is she doing well? Is she happy?” Riley asked.
“She’s doing well as far as I can tell, but I don’t get to see her often.”
Riley just nodded and frowned. “And how is Mrs. Pepperell?”
Pepp turned away and sighed. “Oh, Andrea’s fine, just doing her thing – cashing my child-support checks and poisoning Nicole’s mind against me.”
“I’m sorry, Pepp,” Riley said.
“Well, that’s not uncommon in divorce, I guess.” Pepp stared at the figure in Riley’s hand for a moment, and then looked up at Riley again. “So, tell me, Riley, why are you here?”
“I have a problem, Pepp. I know a woman who’s the mother of a little, Down’s syndrome boy.”
“Go on.”
“He went missing yesterday. We think he was taken.”
The color drained from Pepp’s face. “How can I help?” he asked.
“I told the mother I’d look into the case for her. I need to get access to the boy’s case file, but I had a blowup with the homicide detective there – Wolfson. Now I can’t get any information from the Atlantic City Police Department.”
“So, how can I help?” Pepp asked.
“You work with a professor who has a connection to the department.”
“Yes. Doctor John Marcus – John is the psychological profiler for the ACPD homicide division. He’s also the chairman of the Psychology and Criminology Department here. Would you like me to introduce you?”
“Is he a good guy?”
“Yeah," Pepp laughed. “I have my job because of John.”
“What do you mean?”
“When they disbanded the Philosophy Department
here a few years ago, I was fired.”
“I remember that.”
“John got the college to create a new position for me. Because his criminology lectures are so popular, the college brought me back as an assistant professor. I teach the introduction to psychology courses for John. – So, yes, John Marcus is a good guy – he’s a damn good guy.”
Pepp checked the time on his phone and then said, “John should be in his office now. Come on, Riley, I’ll introduce you to him.”
Riley followed Pepp to the adjacent office. Pepp tapped on the door and asked, “Do you have a minute, John?”
“Of course, Francis. Come in.”
Pepp and Riley walked into the office.
As soon as Doctor Marcus saw Riley, he broke into a wide grin, jumped to his feet, and rushed around his desk to greet Riley with his hand extended. Marcus was diminutive in stature with very fine features, but already Riley could tell he was dynamic in everything he did.
“John, this is Riley, my closest friend.”
Doctor Marcus came forward, smiling and with a glint in his eye. “Just Riley?” he asked. “No first name? – or is Riley your given name?”
“Raphael is my given name, but I choose not to use it.”
“RAY-feel, not RAHF-ay-el?” Marcus asked.
“That’s why I choose not to use it, Doc.”
“Fair enough, my friend.” Marcus chuckled. They shook hands then, and Riley was struck by how smooth and delicate Marcus’s hands were – a clear indication that Marcus earned his living with his most impressive muscle – his brain. “And you can do me a favor as well, Riley,” Marcus said. “Doc or Doctor is what my students call me. We’re all friends here, Riley, so please call me John.”
“That sounds great, John.”
Pepp walked over and stood beside them. “I wanted Riley to meet you, John. He has a problem, and we thought you might be able to help.”
“Oh?” Marcus said.
Riley cleared his throat and said, “I have a friend who is the mother of a Down’s syndrome boy.” He looked directly into Marcus’s eyes now. “Yesterday her little boy disappeared. We fear he was taken.”
“Is there a ransom demand?”
