by Roger Hayden
“Eddie…” D’Alessandro said under his breath.
With notepad in hand, Keely interjected. “Eddie? Eddie who?”
D’Alessandro went to his notebook and opened it. The heavy cover smacked against the counter as he rifled through the pages, scanning a list with his finger. “Got a guy…” he began, with his head down, searching. “Last time he came in here was like six months ago… He used to come in all the time. Bought movies and shit. Quiet guy, and big, like you say.” He raised his head and traced his index finger across his chin. “Think he drove a blue van. If I’m not mistaken.”
“What about burn marks?” Miriam said. “All over his body.”
D’Alessandro shook his head. “Nah. This guy was pasty white. No marks.”
Miriam looked at Keely, disappointed. Keely, then offered his own theory.
“It’s been six months. A lot could have happened in that time.”
D’Alessandro flipped through the thick binder, page by tobacco-stained page. “Eddie…” he said to himself. “What was his last name?”
“Did this gentlemen ask for anything out of the ordinary?” Keely asked, leaning against the counter.
D’Alessandro raised one eyebrow as he looked up. “There you go again. I told you, I run a legitimate business.”
“We’re not suggesting otherwise,” Miriam cut in. “But you can at least remember if any such requests were made, can’t you.”
He straightened up, his hands holding the binder on both ends. Miriam waited for an answer, and looked around the shop, making mental notes. She noticed a small television she hadn’t seen before, behind the counter toward the back, sitting high upon a shelf, just below the ceiling. The signal was a little grainy, but she could see the local news on the screen, the sound muted.
“Please, she said to the man. “Anything you remember could save this girl’s life.”
D’Alessandro dropped both arms, frustrated. “I’m trying. You know a lot of people come in here. Some decent folks, some scumbags, I can’t attest to ‘em all.”
“Just give us a name, if you can,” Keely said. He placed his hands on his hips, impatient now.
Their frazzled would-be informant stammered and shifted around in place. He closed his eyes, repeating names to himself. “Sal… Salva… Silo…” He opened his eyes, looked at the detectives, and slammed one hand down on the table, looking pleased with himself. “Silva! That’s it… I think.” He flipped through the binder and stopped on a page, scrolling with his finger until he found something. His eyes widened and he grabbed the already mashed cigar and put the end back into his mouth. “I fuckin’ knew it,” he said, staring down at a name.
“What is it?” Keely asked as he leaned forward trying to read the ledger.
“Eddie Silva. I’m pretty sure that was his name,” said D’Alessandro, his focus still on the page. He looked up, noticing the relief on both detectives’ faces. “Yeah, he came in here a lot.” He raised a finger in defense. “He never asked for anything illegal! It was just the comments he made.”
Keely scribbled wildly in his notepad. “Like what?”
D’Alessandro held his hands out, shaking his head, short of words. “I… You know, just inappropriate stuff.”
Keely cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah, inappropriate even for here!” D’Alessandro protested. “He said something about girls today. How he liked them young. A big fan of the first-time, eighteen-year-old stuff.”
“Interesting…” Keely said while writing. “Big Internet fan, was he?”
D’Alessandro scoffed. “I don’t fucking know. I’m just telling you what I remember.” He pressed his big finger onto one solitary spot on the page. “There he is. All renters have to provide an address. You trying to find this creep, take this down.”
Excited, Miriam pulled out her notepad as well and began scrolling.
“Twenty-five, twelve, South Cooper Road. At least that’s what I got written here.”
Miriam jammed the notepad back into her pocket, ready to go.
“You got a phone number listed on there?” Keely asked, pointing his pen at the binder.
“Nope. Just a name and address. Now, are we done here? I’m not one to give out information on customers, so let’s just call this a one-time deal.” He closed the binder, knelt down, and put it back under the counter.
“Fair enough,” Keely said. Miriam’s gaze went back to the television, where an unusual sight seized her attention. Her eyes froze on the screen above. Keely turned to her, satisfied, and was about to speak when he noticed her distracted gaze. His eyes shifted up as he froze in place.
There was an ongoing press conference on screen. A silver-haired well-groomed man in a suit and tie stood at a podium with a sharply-dressed woman at his side. Both seemed to be in dire straits. The woman had tears in her eyes. The podium had at least five microphones attached. Behind the couple rested a blown-up, poster-sized school picture of a smiling brown-haired girl with freckles. The caption on the screen read: Congressman Bynes speaks about daughter’s kidnapping.
“He didn’t…” Keely said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Miriam glanced at D’Alessandro with disbelief in her eyes. “Turn up the television, please.”
He turned and looked up at the screen, unaware of the significance of what was happening. After a shrug, he grabbed a remote near the cash register and turned up the volume. The congressman continued speaking in a wavering voice, full of panic and sadness.
“I can only say that at or around 11:30, our precious daughter, Sarah, was abducted from school property in a rusty blue van, as evident by the security footage.” He stopped and cleared his throat as the woman in the red dress to his right, rubbed her leaking eyes. “My wife, Jacelyn and I, are facing every parent’s worst nightmare. And, as parents, we implore the community to do all that you can to help us locate this individual in the blue van and find our girl before it’s too late.”
“Son of a bitch…” Keely said under his breath. Miriam looked at him surprised. She hadn’t known him to curse twice in one day.
With one arm resting on the counter, D’Alessandro turned to them and pointed at the television. “That the girl?” he asked.
“Yes,” Miriam said with her eyes still frozen on the screen.
“Good luck finding her,” D’Alessandro said. “I’d start with that address, and go from there.”
The two detectives snapped out of their daze and turned toward the exit, thanking him. He waved as the bell rang and the door shut. He then muted the television, sat on his stool, and went back to his newspaper as classic rock music played on.
Duplex
Keely tore down the city street as fast as the Dodge would go—weaving through traffic with their windshield lights flashing and engine roaring at top decibel. They raced through another intersection, then headed toward South Cooper Road, only five blocks away.
It was hard to believe that their suspect would be so easy to catch, but sometimes a case just worked out like that—or so they hoped. Miriam had deep reservations. Something seemed off kilter about the whole thing.
The burned man reentered her mind. He had what she imagined would be the mottled face of Phillip Anderson—burned flesh, but with his cold, steely eyes still intact. Whoever Eddie Silva was, Miriam thought it unlikely that he was their man, unless by some strange coincidence the stars had aligned to guide them directly to where Sarah Bynes was being held.
Keely slammed the steering wheel, frustrated, as they slowed down behind two dump trucks blocking both lanes. The impeding traffic wasn’t the only thing that had him upset.
“I can’t believe Bynes did that. Went on TV like that. What is he trying to do?”
Miriam gripped the side armrest as Keely braked too hard, trying to swerve around the dump trucks. “He’s the girl’s father,” she said. “I’m sure he’s doing what any concerned parent would.”
“By messing with our case?” Keely said with
his face reddening. “Now every freaking nut job in the city is going to be calling our offices, claiming to be the kidnapper!”
“It could broaden the search. Maybe help her chances,” Miriam said.
Keely turned his head and looked at her shocked, as though she had been supplanted with someone else. “Do you hear yourself?” he asked. “That congressman was supposed to give us time to look into this. The girl hasn’t even been missing twenty-four hours and he’s already holding a press conference?”
Miriam paused, not wanting to argue. She could understand Keely’s anger. Too many people on the force were already stepping over each other to find the girl. With the general population knowing, it would either help or greatly hinder the investigation.
She’d been in the congressman’s before, with Ana. Parents fearing the loss of their child didn’t act rationally.
“He jumped the gun,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But we have to push on in spite of it.”
Keely gripped the steering wheel with both hands and swerved into the middle turn lane, bypassing both dump trucks, whose drivers remained oblivious to their urgent quest. Miriam turned up the police radio, listening in on the reports.
The helicopters hovered in the distance, continuing their search above the late-afternoon rush-hour traffic. A dozen different officers radioed in with descriptions of other vans that might or might not have fit the bill. The eagerness of every lawman could be felt in the radio reports. With officers spread all over the city, someone was going to find something. It was only a matter of time.
“Thoughts on backup?” Keely asked.
Miriam shook her head. “We don’t know how this’ll play out. Wait until we get on location.”
The Dodge thrust forward as Keely gunned it—cars parted like waves. South Cooper Road was an easy drive until a clueless driver careened into their lane, trying to avoid the long line of traffic. Miriam’s hand instinctively clutched the dashboard as Keely slammed the brakes and the car screeched across the pavement. A close call.
“Shit!” Keely shouted, surprising Miriam.
Their heads jerked forward as the driver in the Buick ahead, startled at what was coming at him, gunned it forward as smoke trailed from his exhaust. “Let it go,” said Miriam. They proceeded on. Miriam thought her heart rate had increased twofold—either from the near collision or the fact that they were so close to the suspect’s house.
She often thought about what she would do if Anderson crossed her path again. She’d like to think that she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him—ridding the world of one more evil soul. But her penchant for vengeance wasn’t something she was proud of. She certainly didn’t want Ana to grow up feeling the same way.
Keely took a deep breath and sighed, running a hand over his face. “I’ll tell ya’, this job might just give me a heart attack someday.”
“Goes with the territory,” Miriam said. “Didn’t you catch that in the detective manual?”
“Har, har,” Keely said while merging into a left turn lane onto South Cooper Road. The alarmed Buick driver raced on ahead, most likely relieved to see that the flashing, unmarked vehicle was no longer following him.
They took a sharp left and continued down South Cooper, which became a two-lane street with a line of cars parked along the curb. The street was aligned with several identical two-story duplexes and one-car garages. The dashboard GPS indicated the address as three blocks ahead.
“Blue van,” Keely said. “That’s all we need to find and then this guy’s ours.”
Miriam reached for her pistol and pulled it out from the side holster at her hip. Keely glanced at her as she pulled the slide back, chambering a round.
“Little anxious, aren’t we?” he said.
“Not taking any chances.”
The Dodge slowed, since they had little chance of passing the line of cars ahead of them. The opposite lane was just as full. Keely shut off the flashing lights and coasted along with the rest of the traffic to avoid attracting attention to themselves.
If Eddie Silva was indeed home, they wanted to catch him by surprise. They could be dealing with a foolish, impulsive criminal too confident in his ability to leave town. Miriam took at least a smidgen of comfort in believing that Sarah’s disappearance wasn’t tied to a drug cartel.
A mail box was up ahead with the numbers displayed clear as day: 2512. It was a particularly run-down two-story duplex, tightly wedged between others similar in size and in their faded brown color. There was no vehicle in the oil-stained driveway, which looked barely large enough for a compact car, let alone a big blue van. The wooden garage door was closed, but the ramshackle structure also looked small. Keely slowed the Dodge and pulled to the side of the road, parking about two houses down.
“Best to go on foot from here,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly,” Miriam responded.
As they parked, Keely turned up the police radio below the dashboard to listen for any developments. Nothing new seemed to be coming in, though there was noticeable anger expressed at the congressman in many of the calls for delivering his unexpected press conference.
“Someone tell the congressman to let us do our job,” one officer said.
“You got that right,” another chimed in.
Keely grabbed the hand-mike to talk into it but hesitated.
“You really want to do that?” Miriam asked.
Keely thought to himself and clicked the talk button. “This is twenty-two, approaching suspect’s house. Will report status in five.”
He hung the hand-mike up and noticed Miriam looking at him with a hint of disapproval in her eyes. “What?” he said, shrugging.
“That’s fine. You did the right thing,” she conceded.
She opened her door and stepped out onto the curb as he exited the car. Vehicles continued to pass by. The house ahead remained undisturbed—all blinds closed as though no one was home. They met on the sidewalk and continued on. A woman was standing at the window of one of the side-street homes they passed, gazing into nothing.
The sky had shifted from a vibrant blue to murky gray in the past hour. They stopped within a few feet of the house, standing in front of the small driveway of the one next door—safely out of sight. Their outfits were a clear giveaway to anyone who knew better that they were law enforcement. And for a brief moment, they discussed strategy.
Keely pointed to a tall wooden fence between the two homes. “You want me to go around back, hop over, and see what I can find?”
“That’d probably be our best bet in case he tries to run,” Miriam answered.
Keely looked around, examining the slightly dilapidated house before them. Its tiny yard was overgrown with weeds interspersed with patches of bare dirt—oddly enough, surrounded by a small fence about four feet high. “Wonder if anyone is even home?” he asked.
Miriam stepped forward with confidence toward the walkway leading to the front porch steps. “Only one way to find out.”
Suddenly a familiar voice emerged from behind them. “I guess great minds think alike.”
Miriam and Keely whipped around, surprised to see Detectives Summerson and Wright approaching them from down the sidewalk.
Keely grabbed his chest. “Whoa! Don’t sneak up on us like that.”
Wright smiled wryly. Summerson, much shorter than he, with braids tied back in a bun, strode toward the house as though they were in charge.
“What are you two doing here?” Miriam asked suspiciously.
“Same thing could be asked of you,” Summerson said as she stepped up closer. She stopped within a foot of Keely and Miriam, examining the house proudly with Wright at her side.
“We’re following a lead,” Miriam said.
“Now it’s your turn to answer,” Keely said, annoyed.
Wright placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder, boasting, “Detective Summerson has a knack for getting information out of people, especially some of these street rats.”
&nbs
p; She nodded with a big smile on her face, exposing perfect white teeth surrounded by heavy red lipstick. “Couple boys downtown fingered this house belonging to a real creep by the name of Edwin Silva. Seems like Silva has his big toe dipped into some kinda shit.”
“Like what?” Keely asked, though the expression on his face told them that he already knew the answer.
“Same thing that brought you two here,” she responded.
Miriam leaned forward and edged closer to Summerson. “Detective Keely and I were just about to approach the house. Why don’t you guys provide us some cover?”
Amused, Summerson shook her head. “Nah, doll face. We made it this far. I think we’ll join ya’.”
“This isn’t a game,” Keely snapped.
Wright quickly attempted to mediate. “Everyone just calm down. I’m sure we can work together to check the place out. But it certainly does us no good to stand out here and chat all day.”
With the roar of an engine, a blue van suddenly smashed through the garage door and sped down the driveway, shattering the door into broken planks. The explosive shattering of wood left a giant hole in the garage and startled the four officers, who shouted and cursed in surprise and panic. Miriam and Keely jumped to the side as Summerson and Wright froze in complete shock.
The van roared into the street, screeching, and sped off like a rocket propelled from its launch pad. Miriam fell to the ground on her knees as smoke and exhaust engulfed then. Other vehicles swerved to the side, crashing into nearby mailboxes or parked cars. It continued down the road unabated, and growing more distant by the second.
Keely reached down and helped Miriam to her feet as exhaust from the van rushed over them.
“Let’s go!” he shouted.
Their heightened instincts kicked. They turned and ran past a dazed Summerson and Wright and continued to their Dodge Charger parked nearby.
Summerson pulled her pistol from her side holster and sprinted off in the direction of the van, jumping over planks of wood lying in the driveway.
