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The Abducted Super Boxset: A Small Town Kidnapping Mystery

Page 30

by Roger Hayden


  She hoped within all her heart that the missing girl wasn’t in the van. It would be a tragic outcome in a long line of such outcomes that had afflicted her in the past few years. She didn’t think she could take any more. Wright had circled the driver’s side with a few other officers. All had their guns out, ready to engage.

  “Out of the van, now!” he shouted.

  Miriam came around to the smashed front-end of the van, trying to see inside. The entire windshield was cracked and nothing could be seen beyond its spider web patterns. The driver’s door creaked as it suddenly swung open. All officers stepped forward, shouting demands. Steam and exhaust flowed out of the van. A moment later, a large man dressed in sweatpants and a blood-stained T-shirt tumbled out. Coughing and gasping for air, he limped away, dazed and seeming in shock.

  He was bleeding from a gash on his bald forehead. His watery eyes were looking up into nothing. Six police officers surrounded him, guns drawn, with Detective Wright in the middle.

  “Down on the ground!” a red-faced officer shouted. They weren’t playing around.

  The man stumbled to the side and continued walking, looking disoriented and in pain. He held his head and crept hunched over just as one of the burly officers rushed him and threw him to the ground. A circle of police descended on the man, surrounding him. The man cried out just as the officer knelt on his back, burying his face into the dirt, and locking his wrists behind his back with handcuffs.

  “Let’s get an ambulance here ASAP,” a female officer shouted out.

  “EMT on its way,” another officer added.

  Miriam was on a mission all her own. She swung the passenger side door open and pointed her gun inside. No one was inside and the back of the van didn’t have any windows. She climbed inside, swatting away the exhaust and smoke that wafted in her face.

  “Sarah!” she called out.

  There was no response. She looked into the back of the van, which was free of seats and littered with all kinds of tools and trash. The collision had spilled the contents of several tool boxes all over the floor. If there was a girl anywhere in the van, she was completely hidden. But something wasn’t right.

  Miriam thought of the house they had almost entered at 24 South Cooper, and the giant gaping hole in the garage door. He didn’t take her, she thought. She has to still be there.

  She jumped outside the van and ran over to where they had the driver cuffed and on the ground. His appearance immediately piqued her interest. He was a big man, but beyond a few tattoos on his arms, she didn’t see noticeable burns. His face rose, dirty, with a string of drool falling from his mouth.

  “Let me go! I’m innocent!” he cried as his chubby cheeks trembled and his left eye twitched. His face was reddened all the up to the light stubble on his bald, sweaty head. He was a quivering mound of fear who in no way resembled Phillip Anderson. Miriam sighed with relief. They pulled the man up onto his feet as he screamed in pain.

  “I’m hurt here! Go easy!”

  An ambulance pulled up along with about four police cruisers. The scene had become a hornet’s nest of activity. Detective Wright joined up with them as well, surveying the scene with intense scrutiny.

  “Hell of a way to end a pursuit.”

  “You said it,” Keely said.

  Two officers escorted the large, defeated man to the ambulance as he hobbled along almost theatrically.

  “What do you think, Detective Castillo?” Keely asked.

  She stared ahead, unblinking, as smoke drifted past her face. “I say we go back to his house this instant and find that Sarah.”

  Captured

  The police surrounded the man’s house, cordoning off the front yard and the demolished garage as neighbors stood outside watching with curiosity. The entire residential street was blocked off on both sides. Damaged vehicles were still in the process of being towed away. A news helicopter hovered overhead, and eager members of the media were kept at a careful distance behind several barricades.

  The homeowner and man in question was one Edwin Silva, a thirty-four-year-old gas station attendant with no prior record. Miriam and Keely led an intensive search of the man’s two-bedroom, sparsely furnished home and found no evidence of child abduction—and, most disheartening of all, no Sarah.

  In his cramped home, authorities found copious numbers of video games, trading cards, collectibles, and other items that would be of interest to a teenager but nothing that directly linked him to Sarah’s abduction.

  Keely and Miriam paced his living room as investigators searched the house. Keely stopped and looked around, shaking his head. “If there’s nothing here, than why’d he run?”

  “I agree,” Miriam said. “He has to have her somewhere.” She walked toward the sliding glass door and opened it. The backyard was small with sporadic patches of grass over dirt surrounded by a picket fence.

  Miriam walked outside, examining the hardened ground as a breeze kicked up a cloud of thin dust around her feet. A helicopter hovered high above. At first, Miriam thought it was one of theirs but then noticed FOUR NEWS SKYCOPTER on its side. The media were persistent in their hunt for developments and eager for a story. It came with the territory.

  Keely opened the sliding glass door and stuck his head outside. “Hey, they’ve got Silva downtown at the Regional Medical. Paramedics said that he should be okay.”

  Miriam turned to head back inside. “We need to get down there. I’ve seen enough here.”

  “Perhaps another look around?” Keely asked.

  She walked past him with a shrug. “Seems that there’s enough investigators here to do that.”

  “But, Sarah…” he said, stopping her in the living room.

  “She’s not here,” Miriam said. “He must be holding her somewhere. Trust me, I know a lot about this.”

  Investigators passed by, taking multiple pictures of the modest dwelling space, searching every inch of it with gloved hands. Before leaving, however, Keely and Miriam did one last search of Silva’s bedroom.

  They followed the hall to a room littered with dirty clothes, comic books, and discarded pizza boxes. Miriam observed the medieval fantasy posters on the wall: scantily clad, buxom women wielding swords and fighting dragons.

  A team of investigators in the corner placed a dozen different notebooks into evidence boxes. Two others unplugged a PC tower, bagged it, and placed it in another evidence box.

  “Okay,” Miriam said. “It’s time to have some words with Mr. Silva.” She stopped and turned to Keely. “Sarah doesn’t have much time.”

  They left the scene in haste and walked outside the front door as a county clean-up crew was cleaning up the shambled garage door, lying in pieces. A horde of reporters stood at the end of the street behind the barricades, calling out as Miriam and Keely went to their car.

  “Did you find the girl?”

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “Who do you have in custody?”

  Miriam ignored them, eyes down, and opened the passenger door as Keely went around to the other side. Once inside, he revved up the Charger and drove the opposite direction, away from the reporters and in between a set of barricades.

  “Is Ana going to be okay?” Keely asked.

  She glanced at him. “What’s up?”

  “I was asking you if Ana was going to be okay. You had mentioned getting home to see her earlier… before all of this.”

  Miriam had completely forgotten. Sarah’s disappearance had consumed her. “I’ll call her,” she answered. Keely pulled out onto the main road and headed toward Chandler Regional Hospital.

  Miriam was beginning to convince herself that the string of abductions that followed her from career to career was no longer tied to just one man. There seemed to be more to it. She was meant to find them, to recover the missing. It was a gift or a curse, depending on how she looked at it.

  They arrived at the hospital, eager to probe Edwin Silva on Sarah’s whereabouts. But they were going to have to t
ake a number. A slew of other investigators with the department were already there. Congressman Bynes had gotten word of Silva’s capture and had arrived moments before with his wife and security detail in tow.

  Keely turned to Miriam, considering her proposal. “We came this far. Might as well see what we can do.”

  They exited the car and walked toward the hospital entrance, noticing an abundance of police cruisers and unmarked vehicles. Keely then turned to Miriam. “We came this far. Might as well see what we can do.”

  As they entered the lobby they could already see the commotion building. Twenty uniformed officers were assembled in the lobby, looking as though they were attending a convention. Miriam and Keely walked past the group and presented their badges at the front desk.

  “Sheesh, there’s a lot of you here,” the dazed receptionist said. “Wish I knew what was going on.”

  “One of your patients is responsible for evading authorities in a high-speed chase,” Miriam answered. “That’s about all we know.”

  She walked past the front desk to the elevator. Silva was being held on the second floor, room 234. As the elevator pinged open, they walked out, only to see a hallway packed with more police.

  They walked down the bright and tiled hall, not garnering much notice. Miriam searched for their lieutenant, and as they approached the room, her eyes narrowed with displeasure. Summerson and Wright stood by, chatting with some uniformed officers. Their heads turned to Miriam as she reached the door.

  “Can’t go in there yet,” Summerson said.

  Miriam refrained from an eye roll. Instead, Keely offered a light jab. “Impressive moves back there, Summerson. Did you end up catching whoever you were running after?”

  She flashed him a middle finger. “Why don’t you go crash into another dumpster?”

  “Actually, that wasn’t us.” Keely pointed to the room. “That lump of garbage in there is responsible for that.”

  Wright cut in. “You’re not too bad behind the wheel, Detective Keely.”

  “And you’re not too bad at following,” Keely said. “But then again, I’m used to seeing you in my rear-view mirror.”

  “All right, guys,” Miriam said, stepping between them. “What’s going on with Silva? We need to find out where Sarah Bynes is before it’s too late.”

  “You and everyone else,” Summerson said, giving her a tinge of attitude.

  “Who found his house first?” Keely asked.

  Miriam crossed her arms. “Enough of this competitive nonsense. Sarah is still missing.” They all stopped talking.

  There was no window into Silva’s room, and the door was closed, with a uniformed officer on each side of the door, staring ahead.

  Wright offered the first bit of useful information yet. “A doctor is examining Silva now, seeing if and when we can transfer him. Sheriff Bork is in there with Lieutenant Vargas as well.”

  “And his lawyer,” Summerson added.

  “Already?” Keely asked.

  “First thing he asked for,” she said.

  Curious, Miriam and Keely exchanged glances. Chatter between other officers continued in the hall as hospital staff—everyone from nurses to janitors—passed through trying to go about their business.

  Miriam, tired of the wait, began knocking. The clean-faced uniformed officer to her left was quick to step in.

  “Sorry, ma’am. They are not to be disturbed right now.”

  She held up her badge. “I’m investigating this case. It’s very time-sensitive and I need to be in that room.”

  Keely came up behind her. “It’s okay, our lieutenant is in there, and asked us to report immediately.”

  The guard studied them both and then opened the door, popping his head in to verify. From inside, Vargas told him that it was fine. He stepped aside to let Miriam go in first.

  As they entered, both Vargas and Sheriff Bork turned to look, but stayed where they were, standing in front of the bed.

  Bork was an older, skinny man in his late fifties with a bronze tan and white eyebrows so thin that he didn’t look as though he had any. A male doctor stood to the side with a clipboard. Another man in a rumpled, bluish suit and thick hair parted toward the center sat by the bed—presumably the lawyer.

  On the bed lay Silva, with his bloated, red face bandaged at the forehead and a brace around his neck. He had an IV bag stuck in his wrist and wore a green hospital gown. His other hand was handcuffed to the side railing—a clear sign that their suspect wasn’t going anywhere.

  Vargas looked at Miriam, drained and distracted. “What can we help you with, Detectives?”

  “Yes, sir. I need to speak with Mr. Silva immediately,” Miriam said.

  Sheriff Bork stepped forward, defensive. “We’re talking with the suspect right now. All further inquiries need to wait until we’ve conducted our interview.”

  Miriam shut the door. It was clear that she wasn’t going to go away that easily. “Forensics just did a sweep of the house and found no signs of the girl.” Her words piqued the interest of the lawyer who shot up from his chair and glared at her.

  “Mr. Silva has denounced all accusations of kidnapping being levied by this department. Unless you have any evidence to the contrary, this has to stop right now.”

  “Why did he run?” Miriam asked. She stepped forward, just out of reach of Keely’s hand as he tried to hold her back.

  “My client felt threatened. He did not know that it was law enforcement who were surrounding his house. There have been break-ins in the area, and he did not know who he was dealing with.”

  Miriam scoffed and looked at Silva in disgust. “That’s ridiculous. How can he possibly expect us to believe—”

  She suddenly stopped and leaned against Silva’s bedframe. “Where’s Sarah? Tell us now, or so help me God.”

  Vargas turned to Miriam, livid. “That is enough, Detective.”

  Miriam knew that she was pushing it. Her emotions had gotten the best of her. She apologized and stepped away from his bed. Silva’s wasn’t going to willingly offer information, not until it was approved by his lawyer.

  The pudgy middle-aged doctor then tried to steer the conversation back to what he felt pertinent. “As I was saying, Sheriff. We have Mr. Silva’s condition listed as stable. However, I’d still like to keep him here overnight. X-rays show some bruised ribs, a fractured collarbone, and possible concussion.”

  With everyone’s attention on the doctor, Miriam rushed to the open side of Silva’s bed without warning. His eyes widened in surprise and fear. She gripped the guardrail next to the bed where his handcuff was latched, swooped down and got within inches of his sweaty face. “Tell me where she is!”

  Keely rushed over and pulled her away for the sake of the case and her career. The lawyer watched in shock as both the Sheriff and Vargas stood wide-eyed in disbelief.

  “He knows!” she shouted as Keely held her back.

  “Keep her away from my client,” the lawyer said. “Unless this department wants a lawsuit so big it’ll make your head spin.”

  “Miriam, enough!” Vargas said, stepping forward.

  Once she calmed down, Keely let her go. The lawyer stood to the side, shaking his head. The doctor held his clipboard tight against his chest, like a shield, looking around the room awkwardly.

  Silva’s gaze shot around the room like a man lost in a vortex. He looked desperate and afraid as if this were just a taste of everything that was to come. “For the last time,” he began slowly, “I didn’t kidnap any girl.” He paused, glaring at Miriam. “If there’s a girl missing out there, you got the wrong guy.”

  Miriam remained undeterred. “Her name is Sarah. She’s the congressman’s daughter, and you’re telling me that you know nothing about it?”

  Vargas and the sheriff stood back, watching their feisty new detective in action. The lawyer looked around as though everyone had gone insane. “You don’t have to answer any of her questions. Understand?” he told Silva.

>   Silva’s bloodshot eyes welled with tears. Whatever he knew, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “It’s on my computer, okay? All of it.” He sat up, slightly, burying his face in his hands. “I thought you were the FBI. That you knew everything. The things I said on the chat rooms. The pictures I downloaded. I know how the NSA works, and I know that you have it all!”

  Miriam backed up, silent, and examined Silva with caution. She wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I didn’t hurt nobody. It was just role playing. Fantasy stuff. I-I got spooked… so I ran.” He wound one plump hand back and slapped himself in the head repeatedly. The doctor stepped forward, face stricken with concern.

  “Mr. Silva, stop that!”

  “I knew that when my van got stolen and returned… I knew that you were following me then. I tried to delete the files, but then I remembered that the NSA stores everything.” Sobbing, he threw himself against the backboard and the bed shook and trembled.

  The lawyer got as close as he could to Silva without muzzling himself. “Mr. Silva, I implore you not to say anything else. You must stop—”

  Silva raised his head as tears streamed down his cheeks. “What does it matter? They have me now. All because of one stupid fucking weakness. I just couldn’t help myself!” He turned and looked back and forth between the sheriff and Vargas desperation. “Lock me up so I’ll stop. Just do it already!”

  The revelation silenced everyone in the room except the sobbing Silva. Keely continued taking notes.

  “What are we talking about, Mr. Silva?” Miriam asked, closing in.

  “Don’t say anything!” the lawyer snapped.

  “What do you think?” Silva said, disregarding counsel. “I did what every dirt bag does on-line. I chatted with people I shouldn’t have been chatting with. Talking about things I shouldn’t have been talking about. Lookin’ at pictures I shouldn’t be looking at.” He buried his face in his hands again, defeated. “I’m sure you’ll find what you need on my computer.”

 

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