Paying the Piper

by Simon Wood

  “Scott,” a voice called from behind him, “step away from the door.”

  Scott glanced over his shoulder. Guerra was striding across the lawn toward him. Her suit jacket flapped open to reveal her gun, still holstered. At least she wasn’t going to shoot him. Not yet, anyway.

  “She won’t help us,” Scott yelled at Guerra.

  “Step away.”

  Scott glanced back at Chloe. Guerra pounded up the short flight of steps leading to the door. The next thing he knew, he was in the air. He struck the manicured lawn on his face, and Guerra was on top of him, her knee in his back.

  “Hold still, Scott,” she said.

  Scott didn’t fight her. She snapped a pair of cuffs on him anyway.

  As she helped him to his feet, Chloe Rodgers finally undid the chain and opened the door. She ventured outside, Ryan at her side.

  Guerra pulled out her identification. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience.”

  “I want him off the property.”

  “I’m doing just that.”

  “Guerra, ask her to help with the investigation.”

  “I’ll run it past Agent Sheils.” Guerra walked Scott over to his Honda. She opened the door, powered down the window, and recuffed him through the window frame. “Wait here while I clear this up.”

  Guerra returned to the house. She went inside with Chloe and Ryan Rodgers. He hoped she was asking questions, but she left the house less than two minutes later.

  Uncuffing him, she said, “You’re lucky. I talked them out of pressing charges.”

  “Thanks.”

  She pocketed her cuffs, produced a business card from the same pocket, and handed it to him. It was the business card he’d tossed through the door to Ryan.

  “Stop pushing, Scott. Stunts like these aren’t helping. Put your faith in us. We’ll get your boys back.”

  If you only knew the truth, Scott thought. He rounded the car and got behind the wheel.

  She slipped into the passenger seat next to him. He gunned the engine and pulled away. He noticed Chloe watching them from her doorway.

  “Are you going to tell Sheils about this?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m not doing it for you. If he finds out I let you harass Chloe Rodgers, he’ll skewer me as well as you.”

  “I wasn’t harassing them. I just wanted to talk to them.”

  “About what?”

  “Ryan’s experience with the Piper.”

  “You should have asked me to come with you. Scott, you’re a good guy, but you’ve got to keep it together.”

  Guerra’s exasperation was hard to ignore. This woman had taken to his family, especially Peter. Scott liked this about her, but he guessed there was an additional factor that had caused her frustration. She’d been on guard duty when the Piper had snatched Peter. There was a lot of guilt lurking beneath the surface. Guilt he could understand.

  “You’re right. Thanks. And thanks for not telling Sheils.”

  “You’re welcome. Now where?”

  “Back home.”

  They weren’t more than ten minutes from the Rodgers house when Scott’s cell rang.

  “Mr. Fleetwood?”

  Scott sat up in his seat. “Ryan?”

  “Yeah.” The kid spoke in a hushed tone. Obviously, his mother wasn’t too far away.

  Scott had to give the kid credit. He understood the importance of the situation. “How’d you get this number?”

  “I saw it on the card. I memorized it before Mom took it.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’ve got a good memory for details.”

  Scott hoped his skill extended beyond just remembering numbers.

  “Look, I want to talk, but I can’t really speak with Mom and all. Can we hook up?”

  “Sure. Just tell me where and when.”

  Stanford University’s campus provided a pleasant backdrop for the Starbucks where they waited for Ryan. Scott spotted him walking toward them. He’d grown into a good-looking kid. Tall to the point of lanky, he would have been gawky if it weren’t for his athletic build. He carried himself with a confident air. Seemingly, the Piper had failed to scar him with any lasting effects. Scott hoped the same would be true of Sammy and Peter.

  Ryan walked in and cut his way through the crowded seating area.

  “Thanks for coming, Ryan,” Scott said. “It means a lot.”

  “No worries. I wanted to help.”

  Ryan buzzed with nervous energy. Scott guessed talking about the Piper was making him edgy.

  “Can I get you something?” Scott asked.

  “A latte would be cool.”

  Guerra slid off her stool. “I’ve got it covered.”

  She joined the line of customers, and Ryan asked, “Who’s she?”

  “FBI,” Scott said. “Like American Express, I can’t leave home without it.”

  Ryan smiled and slipped onto Guerra’s stool.

  “So I’m guessing your mom isn’t to know of this.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about my mom. She means well, but she’s scared. Y’know?”

  Scott nodded. “How’d you duck out?”

  “I go to school here.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the campus. “I was only stopping by home to pick up some books I needed for a class.”

  Considering Chloe Rodgers’s protectiveness, Scott wondered if she’d chosen Stanford for Ryan based on its proximity to home.

  “So why’d you defy your mom?”

  “Like I say, I know they mean well and they want to protect me, but I couldn’t ignore you. I know what your kids are going through. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If I know something and it helps the FBI get them back, then I want to help.”

  “You’re a good kid, Ryan.” He removed a digital recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  Guerra returned with the latte. She handed it to Ryan, then parked herself in a corner of the shop with a newspaper. She looked over at Scott, and he raised his coffee cup as a thank-you for her considerateness.

  “Can you tell me anything about the Piper? Did you ever see him? Was there anything distinctive about him? Tall? Short? Fat?”

  Ryan sipped his latte before answering. “He was a giant with no face. I was nine and doped up, so everything about the kidnapping was a haze. He seemed larger than life. He wore a ski mask and kept me in some sort of basement with no windows and little lighting. He kept to the shadows. The darkness blotted out his ski mask, and he looked like the headless horseman. I haven’t told Mom that I still dream about him.”

  Ryan seemed to sink into himself. Scott hated himself for raking up the traumatic memories, but Ryan was volunteering this information to help Sammy and Peter. He gave him a minute before going on.

  “You say you were in a basement. Can you tell me anything about it?”

  “It was dirt.”

  “Unfinished, then?”

  “I guess. I just remember a dirt floor.”

  “The Piper spoke to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember if he spoke with an accent or used a certain word or phrase all the time?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. Asking Ryan specifics wasn’t going to yield a unique fact that would satisfy the Piper, so Scott changed his approach. If Ryan’s ability to recall the cell number demonstrated his attention to detail, Scott needed to focus his attention. Instead of asking specifics, Scott talked Ryan through events leading up to the kidnapping, during his abduction, and his subsequent release. He used Friedkin’s notes as a guide.

  The approach worked. Scott noticed how relaxed Ryan had become. Just talking things through calmed his nerves. Ryan blotted out the distraction from the customers and staff in the Starbucks. He was no longer at the coffeehouse, he was nine again and the Piper’s sixth victim.

  Little details made themselve
s apparent. Ryan recalled the sneakers the Piper wore when he’d snatched him from the soccer tournament he was competing in. The drive to the Piper’s hideaway remained a blur. Ryan had been sedated at that point. The Piper’s use of a sedative to keep the kids docile came with an added bonus. Keeping the kids drugged up reduced their memories to mush. The things Ryan told him amounted to a jumble of confused details.

  “I’m not helping, am I?”

  “You’re doing great. Really, you are.”

  “I thought I would be able to come up with something tangible. It sounds good in my head, but when I say it, it sounds like I’m describing a dream.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Tell me about leaving the basement and when he released you.”

  “I remember the light hurting my eyes when he took me out of the basement. It was noisy on the way to the van.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Animals.” Ryan got excited. “Lots of animals. I didn’t remember it before.”

  “What kind of animals?”

  Ryan put a hand to his mouth while he mined for memories left buried for a decade. Scott gave him the room to search, and remained silent. He didn’t want to disturb a breakthrough, should it come.

  He glanced over at Guerra. She had her cell phone to her ear. The news wasn’t good, judging from her expression.

  “This may sound stupid, but I’m thinking horses.”

  “Any other kinds of animals? Cows? Sheep?”

  Guerra hung up and walked toward him. Scott guessed his Q&A with Ryan was about to end.

  “No, just horses. I remember the smell of horses. I hate that smell.”

  Scott thought about the dirt basement the Piper had kept Ryan in. Ryan mentioned the basement had no windows or vents. Normal building codes wouldn’t have allowed that. “Ryan, do you think you were held captive at a ranch?”

  “Yeah, it could have been a ranch. I don’t remember other houses. A farm or a ranch, yes. It makes sense now.”

  A farm or a ranch. Scott smiled. He had something to tell the Piper when he called.

  Guerra appeared behind Scott. She leaned in close. “We have to go. Sheils wants you back at the Federal Building.”

  “We’ll be finishing up in a few.”

  “No. Now.”

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

  “We have to go, Ryan,” Guerra said. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Come on, Guerra,” Scott pleaded. “I just have a couple more questions.”

  “I’m sorry I have to do this, Scott,” Guerra said as she pulled out her cuffs. “Sheils’s orders.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Instead of a two-way mirror where others could watch, unseen, the interview room featured a less-than-discreet video camera high up in the corner of the room. A red light glowed next to the camera lens. Scott wondered how many people Sheils had watching the video feed.

  No one had read him his rights, so he knew he wasn’t under arrest, but he felt his grip on freedom was tenuous. Obviously, Sheils believed he had something on him. Scott eyed his watch.

  “Am I keeping you?” Sheils stood underneath the video camera.

  Just from the Piper, Scott thought. The Piper’s next call was at seven. He had twenty minutes to talk his way out of this room. He didn’t see it happening. On the drive over, he’d taken the precaution of stuffing the Piper’s cell phone between the seat cushions of his Honda. “Just from my wife. Does Jane know I’m here?”

  “Yes,” Brannon said. He sat across from Scott with a folder on the desk before him.

  “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  The folder remained closed. Neither Sheils nor Brannon seemed in a hurry to kick-start the interrogation.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Inconsistencies,” Brannon said.

  “Lies, really,” Sheils said.

  Scott didn’t have time for this. It had to end, and fast. The Piper would be calling, and for once, he had something for him. Something that would get him a word or two with Sammy and Peter. Sheils had touted the importance of proof of life. Well, he was on the verge of getting it—if he could get his butt out of here.

  “Tell me about them.”

  “This is your chance to tell us the truth,” Sheils said.

  Were they just fishing, or did they have something on him? He flicked through his catalog of deceptions since the Piper had press-ganged him into service. He was sure he’d screwed up, but he didn’t know how.

  “Look, my sons are missing. You should be focusing your efforts on finding them, not hauling me in here for some spurious reason.”

  “I know my job,” Sheils said. “I have good grounds to question you.”

  “Really? What are they?”

  Brannon opened the folder. “Let’s go over a few things about the ransom drop in Oregon.”

  Oregon was Scott’s Achilles’ heel. He’d had so little time to concoct a plausible story that the holes were there, if someone cared to look. Scott had relied on Sheils having more pressing lines of investigation to occupy his time. They’d found something up there, but what—Redfern?

  “Walk me through what happened,” Brannon said. “From the moment we put you in the car to when you flagged down the truck after your escape.”

  “You have my statement. This can wait. My children can’t. Find them and stop wasting my time.”

  Scott’s tantrum failed to cut the interrogation short. Brannon removed a copy of Scott’s statement.

  “No one has given the Piper the slip before,” Sheils said. “That makes you unique.”

  “Just lucky.”

  “Luck doesn’t come into it with the Piper. Let’s discuss your capture. The Piper kept you confined to the unlocked cargo hold of his truck, but you weren’t gagged or bound. Correct?”

  Scott nodded despite the weakness of his claim. “I was drugged.”

  “He shot you up once. That wouldn’t have kept you sedated long.”

  “So what are you saying—the Piper let me escape?”

  Sheils shrugged. “That’s one idea. If you weren’t bound or gagged, why didn’t you bang on truck walls or scream out for help?”

  “He would have killed me.”

  “Reasonable, I guess. Gutless, but reasonable.”

  “Hey, screw you, Sheils.”

  Sheils just kept going. “The Piper held you captive for twenty-four hours, but you escaped less than fifty miles from where he ran you off the road. He could have gotten to Canada in that time. Why didn’t he?”

  “Didn’t you have roadblocks in place?”

  Sheils didn’t have an answer, but Scott didn’t feel like he’d won a point. They were toying with him, eating into his time. He fought the urge to check his watch. It couldn’t be seven yet. Missing this call meant missing the chance to speak to his kids. And the Piper would know something was wrong. He guessed it was around six forty-five. Still time to talk his way out of here.

  “We got the analysis back on your clothes,” Brannon said.

  “It proved very interesting,” Sheils said. “We discovered blood. Your blood and someone else’s.”

  Both agents paused for Scott’s reaction. Any confidence he had about leaving the room before the seven o’clock deadline disappeared. He scrabbled for something to divert suspicion away from him.

  “That’s probably the Piper’s blood. Can you trace him with that?”

  “Not yet, no,” Sheils said.

  Brannon flicked through the file. “Did you know Waterloo, where you escaped, isn’t far from where Ray Banks lives in Lebanon?”

  “Who?” Scott said without any hesitation.

  Christ, he was right. They had found Mike Redfern. That was the bomb they’d come to drop on him.

  Sheils marched over to the desk and tossed the open file at him. It skidded across the desk’s slick metal surface. Reflexively, Scott slapped a hand on a single eight-by-ten headshot of Redfern lying on a stainless-steel autopsy
table. The blood and dirt had been washed away, but his cleanliness only highlighted the ravages of decomposition and the bullet wound. Scott recoiled from the photo like his hand was actually touching the corpse.

  “Recognize him now?” Sheils asked.

  Scott said nothing, but his gaze remained on the picture of Redfern, no matter how hard he tried to wrench it away.

  How had they discovered him? Scott wondered. The Piper? Did the son of a bitch sell him out? He wondered what else the Piper was going to load on his shoulders. Redfern had gotten off easy.

  “Talk to us, Scott,” Brannon said.

  Sheils clamped his hands to the edge of the table and leaned in over Scott. Scott felt the FBI agent was gearing up for the kill.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Scott, I’ll make it easy,” Sheils said. “This is all about the Rooker kidnapping. The Piper sucked us back into this. We’re only missing one other person.” Sheils rapped on Redfern’s lifeless image. “Mike Redfern.”

  Scott tore his stare away from the photo and looked up at Sheils. He tried his best to sound confused when he said, “Redfern?”

  Sheils smiled, a nasty little thing without an ounce of humor. “That’s right. That’s Mike Redfern.”

  Sheils pushed himself away from the table and circled it like a bird of prey. “I have a hard time with coincidence, Scott. The Piper arranged for a ransom drop in Oregon. Very odd, but I can sort of believe it. It forces us to have to work on the fly. It’s a smart tactic.” Sheils smirked. “I can almost respect the son of a bitch for it.”

  Sheils stopped and slammed his hand on the table. Scott flinched in his seat.

  “Then some forestry guys stumble upon a corpse. That corpse turns out to be Mike Redfern, who was shot in the face and died sometime during your abduction. Not only that, it all happened within an hour’s drive of where you were.” Sheils stopped circling. “Now, that’s not coincidence. That’s choreography.”

  Sheils waited on Scott for a response.

  Scott’s heart pounded. They had him. Eventually, when they ran the blood on his clothes, they’d tie him to the murder. Right now, Sheils had a theory, and he was putting it to the test.

  “So the Piper killed Redfern, is that so surprising?” Scott said.