The Abducted Omnibus

by Roger Hayden

  G’s eyes lowered as he tensed up. “Nobody. He has nothing to do with this.”

  She didn’t press him further. His story sounded convincing—at least most of it. If they could get him inside to do an artist’s sketch, that would be a great first step.

  Miriam and Keely both stepped out of the car and shut their doors. She then opened G’s door and guided him out by the arm. He looked at the station, marveling at the building as though he couldn’t believe what he had gotten himself into. Miriam and Keely proceeded down the walkway with G between them toward the Maricopa County Crime Investigative Division. Once inside, Miriam wanted to go straight to the sketch artist, but Keely reminded her of their current priorities.

  “Best to see the lieutenant and get that out of the way before he harasses us.”

  “Very well,” she conceded. “But he better make it quick,” she said, but her feelings didn’t match the confidence in her words. They received glances from police officers passing by. Apparently G had a reputation around the department—to them, it was amazing that he wasn’t in cuffs this time. Miriam turned and spoke softly.

  “Stay close. We’ll make this worth your while in the end.”

  “You mean like a bottle of tequila?” he said, laughing.

  Miriam winced. “Sure thing.”

  They continued walking down the long hall. All seemed quiet. Maybe too quiet. If Miriam’s gut told her anything, there was trouble in the air. She wondered why child abductions seemed to follow her. Was it her fate? Or was there something more sinister at hand?

  They approached Lieutenant Vargas’s office, where they could see two other detectives sitting, Detectives Summerson and Wright. Summerson, a black female, was new to the force and a few years younger than Miriam. What she lacked in experience she made up for in eager tenacity. She hated unsolved cases, and Miriam could relate, remembering far too well how that felt when she first joined the Palm Dale PD as a patrol officer.

  Detective Wright, an astute Asian man, had been the force for years. He had a calm, comforting aura about him which always made Miriam feel a little better. He and Summerson sat across from the lieutenant as he talked on the phone. Miriam poked her head in and knocked on the door. Summerson and Wright turned around and nodded.

  Lieutenant Vargas—a large Hispanic man with a booming voice and dark, slicked-back hair—talked rapidly into his phone as they waited.

  “Yes, it’s a real alert. The girl is missing. Last seen getting into a blue GMC van.” He paused as his anger rose. “Well, if you already know this, why the hell are you asking me?” He paused and calmed himself, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Look… Sergeant. I want all hands on deck. This girl. Let’s just say that her parents have influence.” He nodded and told the sergeant on the phone to get to work. “Get ‘em out there and find this girl before it’s too late.”

  He hung up the phone and looked up as Miriam and Keely entered the office and stood near the seated detectives. They had left Guillermo in the interview room with a soda and bag of chips, hoping that would suffice. Miriam wasn’t sure if G could really help them, or if he was just taking them for a ride, and she wasn’t going to spend all day trying to find out.

  “Sir, we have someone. A man who claims to know something,” she said.

  Vargas looked up, intrigued. “Who is he?”

  “Guillermo Gomez,” Keely answered. “Slick character. We don’t know his angle, or if he has one.”

  “Gomez?” Vargas leaned back in his creaking leather swivel chair. “Sounds familiar. Homeless guy?”

  “We believe so,” Miriam said. “Certainly not a millionaire.”

  Vargas looked less than convinced. “You guys should know by now that most of these vagrants are just looking for a handout. They’ll say anything to string you along.”

  “They’re also the ones who see what goes on in this city,” Miriam said.

  Vargas sighed, as though he had been through a similar song and dance with Miriam before. “You wanna put him on payroll?”

  Summerson and Wright looked at each other and laughed quietly.

  Miriam was unamused. “Someone tells me the color of a van before I do, I tend to think he may know something.”

  Vargas leaned forward and his blue tie swung forward with him, coming to rest on the round of his gut. “Could have been a lucky guess.” He put both his hands up as Miriam opened her mouth to respond. “Enough. Just listen. This is big, people. I want all ears.” He stopped and pointed to the door behind Miriam. “Could you close that, please?”

  She did as asked, eager as everyone to hear what the lieutenant had to say. His eyes were on the window of his office, where staff could be seen through the partially closed blinds. He then spoke in a hushed tone. “I asked you all to meet with me because I need your full attention on this case. This girl, Sarah Bynes, her father is a congressman.”

  Intrigued, Summerson leaned forward with a question that was clearly on everyone’s mind. “Cartel kidnapping?”

  “We don’t know,” Vargas replied. “It’s been two hours since her disappearance, and no ransom has been demanded or phone call made to the family.” He glanced at each detective. “We certainly can’t rule it out.”

  Wright cut in. “If it was, things are going to start getting really heated up around here.”

  “You can count on that,” Keely added.

  “This is a sensitive case,” Vargas said. “I haven’t talked to Congressman Bynes yet, but he has contacted the sheriff’s department. We need all resources out on the street right now to try to find this van.”

  Miriam stepped forward, slightly perturbed. “I have to say, sir, this conference seems a little counterproductive.” Keely suddenly shot a look at her, telling her to drop it. Vargas, however, seemed interested. He clasped his hands together and nodded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Detective Keely and I were on the road, actively pursuing the suspect, chasing whatever leads we could muster and were called back here just to be told that we need to get on the road.”

  “As I said before, this is a sensitive case,” Vargas repeated, not missing a beat.

  “I asked for aerial support and was denied,” Miriam said as her tone grew angrier.

  “Who do you think we are, the Air Force?” he asked, causing Wright and Summerson to smile.

  “Are you telling me we can’t get a single helicopter out there to search for a van?” Miriam said, her arms stretched out in protest. “News stations have them up there all the time for traffic reports, but we can’t ask them to help us search for a missing girl?”

  Vargas maintained his quiet tone. “Calm down, Detective. A pilot arrived not too long ago.” He held up his index finger, pointing it toward her. “We currently have one helicopter and one pilot. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to pick up the slack on our end. The police chief issued an ‘all hands on deck’ for his department, and I’m tasked with issuing the same with mine.”

  Wright gave Vargas an inquisitive look followed by his normally calm tone. “What do we know so far? Where was she abducted? Where are our witnesses?”

  Summerson nodded in support of Wright’s questions. “Some answers would definitely be a good start.”

  “Fair enough,” Vargas said, leaning back again. Miriam eyed the mahogany bookcase behind him. One shelf was loaded with books and another dedicated to framed pictures and memorabilia. He had a big family, as evident from the many pictures of children and an attractive wife, whom he looked happy with.

  Vargas cleared his throat and continued. “Sarah Bynes was waiting for her mother to pick her up outside the pick-up loop at her private school.”

  Miriam tensed up. The back of her neck tingled. The circumstances were oddly similar to those of a case she would never forget, or the name of the girl: Jenny Dawson.

  Vargas paused, seeming to search for the right words. “Girl feels ill and wants to go home. School calls mother. Mother comes to pick her up.
Girl vanishes.” Vargas paused. “Now this is where it gets a little hazy. Sarah was supposed to wait for her mother in the front office. However, her mother was running late. Front desk recalls seeing Sarah looking frustrated and pacing around. School security footage shows her standing outside as a blue van pulls up. She enters the van on her own. Strange thing is, there’s no license plate on the van.”

  An image of Phillip Anderson’s escape truck entered Miriam’s mind. Her gut told her that he was somehow involved, even though it seemed an impossibility. He was presumed dead, for starters, and the idea of his traveling all the way to Arizona to start kidnapping children seemed about as plausible as Miriam running for president.

  “Perhaps the abductor removed his plates prior to entering the school grounds,” Summerson said.

  “Good point,” Wright added.

  “It’s absurd to think he drove around for very long without plates,” Vargas said.

  Keely stepped forward, lost in his own thoughts. “Given that, it looks like the driver knew exactly what they were doing.”

  The room went quiet as everyone considered the possibilities. Feeling as though she’d been down this road before, Miriam spoke up first. “He was either staking out the school and convinced the girl to get in his van, or we’re dealing with someone who knew her.”

  “He?” Vargas said.

  “That’s right. Our kidnapper is a man, thirty to fifty years old.”

  Detective Wright turned around and looked up at Miriam, snapping his fingers. “You dealt with a similar case like this. I remember reading about it. The Snatcher case. Boat explosion, wasn’t it?”

  She didn’t even know where to start. “Yes. He was killed… evading the authorities.”

  Vargas clapped his hands together. “All right, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get out there. Leave no stone unturned. We want to keep this as quiet as we can. Especially if the cartels are involved.”

  “That’d be my guess,” Wright said, rising from his vinyl-upholstered chair. Summerson followed his lead. Miriam opened the office door as Keely turned back to speak to the lieutenant. “You want to say anything to Guillermo before we get started?”

  Vargas rose from his chair and stretched. “Yeah, be a good citizen and tell us everything you know.”

  Keely laughed as Vargas picked up his ringing phone, signaling him to close the door as they left. The detectives walked outside where the tension in the hallway was already evident. Police and detectives alike were moving around, from office to office, gearing up for something big.

  “All wound up with nowhere to go,” Wright said.

  “What are you two planning to do?” Keely asked.

  Wright and Summerson looked at each other and then at Keely.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Summerson said.

  “Oh come on,” Keely said. “We need to be working together.”

  Wright stepped past them and continued down the hall with Summerson. He turned and offered his parting words. “You bring us something worthwhile, and we’ll do the same with you.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Keely said.

  Wright shrugged. “Competition often yields some of the best results, Detective.”

  Keely leaned closer to Miriam as the other two turned at the end of the hall and walked toward the building exit. With the exception of a few ringing office phones, everything was quiet.

  “Guillermo better not be wasting our time with his story,” he said.

  Miriam looked up at him but didn’t respond, her mind lost in thought. She snapped out of it and offered her take on the matter. “Only one way to find out.” She walked in the opposite direction toward the row of interview rooms, determined to get to the bottom of everything.

  Keely and Miriam entered the small, windowless room to find Guillermo sitting at the rectangular table, munching on the last of his vending-machine-sized bag of potato chips.

  “You guys gone a while,” he said, taking a swig of his soda.

  Keely approached the table and pulled out a chair. He turned it backwards and sat with his elbows on the backrest. “We’re very busy out there.”

  Miriam remained standing, across the table from Guillermo, studying him, with her notepad and pen in hand. She leaned against the table and spoke. “So I think we’ve delayed long enough. There’s a young girl’s life at stake. What can you tell us, G, about this blue van?”

  G chewed the chips in his mouth and swallowed. Then he crumpled the bag into a ball with both hands, deliberately slow. Miriam could see that the info he supposedly had wasn’t going to come easy.

  Keely wasn’t up for it. He set his cell phone on the table, swiped at the screen, and pressed a record icon. “You told us you knew something, so get to it already.”

  Amused, G laughed quietly to himself under the two long fluorescent ceiling bulbs above. “Well… seems like if this was so important to you, you’d maybe take some of those things off my record.”

  Miriam’s eyes narrowed. “What things?”

  G took off his dirty ball cap and ran his fingers through his shaggy, black hair. “You know. Shoplifting. Public… uh drunkenness.”

  “What the heck are we talking about here?” Keely said, frustrated. “Can we stay on topic, please?”

  G shot him an offended cockeyed glare. “Hey, hombre. Why do you think I live on the streets? Ain’t no one will hire me. Not when they look at my record.”

  “Please. Detective Keely is right,” Miriam said. “Maybe we can work something out with records, but for now we need to know what you know. Everything from start to finish.”

  Silence followed. She could see in his eyes that he was considering it. There wasn’t much else for him to barter. That was clear enough. “I don’t know who he is, but I seen him. He came to the alley one time.”

  He paused and took a deep breath. Whatever he knew, he was taking his time getting to it.

  Miriam scribbled in her pad and looked up. She chose not to press him. Keely leaned forward in anticipation. “What did he look like?”

  He continued, ignoring Keely’s question. “There’s a couple pimps I see. They hang out around the Thirteenth Street. I seen a man. Big, fat, bald gringo.” He paused again, running through his thoughts. “I see two of these pimps, Diego and Gus. They kick the fat gringo. Chase him off. I see the fat gringo get into a big blue van and drive away. Diego tells Bobby and Bobby tells me that the fat gringo argued with Diego.” He stopped and took a slow sip of soda, finishing off the bottle. After that, he said nothing.

  Keely held his arms out, surprised and waiting for more as Miriam scribbled. “What did they argue about?”

  G balled the crumpled potato chip bag between his hands. “They argue because fat gringo says that Diego’s girls are too old. Wants younger.”

  Miriam was intrigued and disgusted. The man who G had described could have very well be Phillip Anderson. Perhaps he had gained more weight and shaved his head. From what she knew about the lengths he had gone to in the past to change his appearance, anything was possible.

  “It was the second time fat gringo ask Diego for young girl. Diego get mad because he have a young daughter of his own back in Mexico.” G stopped and laughed softly. “Gringo is lucky he didn’t get killed.”

  Keely rocked back in the chair, not completely satisfied with the story. “You have a name for this fat gringo?”

  G laughed again. “Sorry, I didn’t get his name.”

  “What about this Diego and Gus? Do your pimp friends know the guy’s name?”

  “They wouldn’t talk to you,” he answered. “Besides, I haven’t seen them in weeks.”

  Miriam shuffled through her notepad. “When did this happen?”

  G looked up, thinking. “Three weeks ago. I think.”

  “And he drove a blue van? You’re sure of that?” Keely asked and pushed his cell phone closer to Mr. G.

  “Si. Blue van.”

  Keely stood up, brimming with frustration. “So we
got a fat bald pervert driving a blue van? I’ve got to admit, Mr. Gomez, we probably could have come up with that one on our own.”

  Miriam cut in, reserved. “I don’t see this as a coincidence. There’s a real link here.” She looked squarely at G. “But there are other people in the area we can ask, right?”

  G shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

  “Any marks on this guy? Scars? Tattoos?” Keely asked.

  G froze. For a moment, he just stared ahead, blankly and then began laughing to himself. Miriam and Keely looked at each other, confused.

  “What’s so funny?” Keely asked.

  “What is it?” Miriam asked. Her impatience was beginning to show.

  G took a deep breath and addressed both of them. “He wears all clothes.”

  “What do you mean?” Keely asked.

  G thought to himself, trying to think of the right words. “He wears, like, long sleeves, a hood. Likes to cover his face.”

  “Why?” Keely asked, interrupting.

  “Because his face is burned.”

  The room went silent save for the air conditioning unit spilling out cold air.

  G looked around again, trying to gauge their reactions. Miriam stood stone faced. Keely looked lost in thought. “You understand, right?” G asked. “He is burnt from head to toe. That’s what they say.”

  Miriam clutched the table, feeling lightheaded. A sick coincidence. There was no way. It was a sick coincidence and nothing more. Her knees felt weak as her legs began to shake. Keely noticed how pale she looked and asked if she was okay.

  “Yeah…” she said, holding herself up over the table. “Just give me a minute.”

  If anything G was saying was true, the entire case had just gotten a lot more dangerous.

  Search for Sarah

  With Keely at the wheel, they resumed the search with only Guillermo’s scant details of who and what he might have seen to help guide them. Miriam couldn’t shake the ominous presence of the “burned man” Guillermo had described. Their next moves had to be careful and calculated, not impulsive, which was tempting, with the many options at hand.