“No!” Danny banged his fist against the door.
“The sooner you help me, the sooner we can all be outside having fun.”
“I don’t want fun,” Danny spat back. “I just want to be out of this thing.”
“Same difference,” said Tripoli.
Molly moved again to intervene.“Trip, you—”
“Please,” said Tripoli with an abrupt insistence that left no room. “My department has spent seven whole months on this—a lot of manpower and a lot of dough. We’ve had every agency in the state looking for Danny. We’ve turned this county upside down.”Tripoli could feel his face burning and knew he was losing it, but couldn’t help himself.“I think we all deserve an explanation.” He turned to look straight at Danny, then released the boy's arm.“You understand what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he said harshly.
Danny looked cowed.
“I don’t like you when you’re like this!” His lower lip was jutting out and he looked like he was going to cry.
“Well, that's the breaks,”Tripoli said, curtly.
Danny started to cry quietly.
Tripoli started the engine and began to roll. He kept glancing at the boy as they moved down Court Street. They took a left on Cayuga and got caught at the light. A line of children from the elementary school crossed the street in front of them holding hands in pairs. The kids were not much older than Danny, but he didn’t seem to take notice of them. He was staring at the dashboard, his eyes wet.
Tripoli took a series of long breaths and slow exhalations.“Look,” he said finally.“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump on you like that, son.”
“I know,” said Danny in a tight voice. With the back of his hand he wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I’m only a stupid grownup,” he said deliberately, though still a little gruffly. “We lose our patience sometimes.” He caught the reflection of Molly in the back seat. Her eyes were wet and she was biting her lip. “You understand that, right?”
Danny didn’t answer.
“Come on, let's try to work together on this. Okay?”
Danny bit his lip, just like Molly. Two peas in a pod. Same body language. Same way of tilting their heads when they were curious, fluttering their eyelids when they were tense.
It was a risk. A gamble. Taking the kid back to Kute Kids. Who knew what he had really been through?
The building stood vacant, its windows boarded up with sheets of delaminating plywood, closed down by the state after finding it rife with violations. Tripoli dug through the keys he had gotten from the landlord. Across the street, Sonny Makarainen was supervising a delivery man rolling silver kegs into his bar.
Tripoli turned the key and the door swung open, creaking on hinges that hadn’t been used since Mrs. Oltz had been ordered to shut down the daycare center. Inside it was dark and dank. Cold. Tripoli switched on the lights. The fluorescents came on with a loud sparking snap then settled into a hum. A couple of weak bulbs continued blinking.
The place was precisely as it had been left the day state officials had marched in and padlocked Mrs. Oltz's facility. A little pair of rubber boots lay abandoned in the hall closet that stood ajar; a single mitten lay forgotten on the floor. A half-dozen plastic cups caked with the dried residue of what looked to be cocoa sat on a tray near the entryway.
“Come on,” said Tripoli gently, shepherding Danny into the room. Molly closed the door behind them, muting the street sounds. Inside, except for the buzz of the lights, it was deathly quiet. A shiver passed through her as she took in the once familiar surroundings. The open basement door.
Tripoli got down on a knee, bringing himself face-to-face with Danny.“You remember this place?”
Danny shrugged.
“Of course you remember,” Molly said plaintively, and softly squeezed his shoulder. “You used to go here every day. With Stevie Lifsey and the twins and…You remember? It's Kute Kids.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Danny said, unconvincingly.
Crayons and paper cluttered the little tables. The matching chairs stood askew as if they had been hurriedly deserted. Blocks and toys littered the floor. How could I ever have put him in this dump? thought Molly.
Danny's eyes slowly swept the room, fastening for a moment on a model hanging down from a string. The plane rotated slowly, stirred into life by their presence. Danny kept looking around the playroom.
Outside, a heavy truck rolled by, then stopped at the corner. When it started again, the whole building shook. Then, again, the place was relatively quiet, just the swish of traffic.
“Maybe you want to sit down?” Molly suggested, hoping to jog Danny's memory. If only he would talk, they could end all this. Why all the secrecy?
“Yeah,”Tripoli agreed.“Where did you usually sit?”
Danny shrugged. Molly pointed, and they took him over to one of the tables and got him to sit down.
He sat there looking up at Tripoli questioningly.
“Hey, look, here's a crayon. A nice big red one. Maybe you’d like to draw something,” urged Tripoli.“You know, like you used to?
Danny took the crayon.
They waited.
“Hey, look at all these,” Danny said, suddenly fascinated by the spider webs strung between the neighboring chairs.
“Come on, Danny,” she said, bending over him. “Tell us. How did you get out? Did someone take you out?”
He just looked up at her.
“Maybe you snuck out? I know about Cheryl locking you in the basement. I’m so sorry about that.” Molly waited. “Honey, tell us,” she said,“Please.”
Danny reached up, put his fingers on her lips to quiet her.
“Come on, let's get out of here already,” Molly said.“This place gives me the creeps.”
Turning away from her, Tripoli tried to hide his frustration.
“Come on, we’re not getting anywhere like this.”
Wordlessly, he picked up the keys and headed for the door.
Once they were back out on the street, Danny refused to get back into Tripoli's car.
Tripoli coaxed and Molly pleaded.
“We can walk,” Danny suggested.“I don’t mind walking.”
“You, maybe,” Tripoli said trying to make light of it, “but I’m getting old.”
Danny didn’t smile.
Finally, they got him into the car. Tripoli fastened Danny's seat belt, locked the doors, and started the engine.
“You used to go here. To daycare. You know that, Danny, as well as I do.”
“Well…maybe,” he conceded.
“Not maybe. You did!” Tripoli was nearing the end of his patience, and knew it.
“Trip, please,” Molly said.“Go easy.”
He ignored her and went on.“And you somehow snuck out of here, right?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently, nothing!”
“If you’re not nice to me, I won’t even talk to you,” Danny warned.
“Geez,”Tripoli said scratching his head in irritation.“Come on, Danny, cut me some slack, huh? I’m your friend, not your enemy.”
“Then why do you keep bothering me?”
“Well, then I’m acting like a policeman now. Okay, you said you went to the woods, right? And you were in this little house-like thing—a hut? And there was this hermit.”
“Hermit?” repeated Danny, wrinkling his brow. For the first time, he was showing interest.
“Honey, a hermit,” explained Molly, “is a guy who lives all by himself in the woods.”
“Hermit,” repeated Danny thoughtfully.“Yes.”
“And this hermit had a name, right?” asked Tripoli.
Danny turned to look at him. Paused.“He had many names.”
“Oh?”
“He just never told me what they were.”
Tripoli traded looks with Molly. Was this kid playing games? If nothing else, the boy was systematically driving a wedge between him and Molly—and she was letting him
get away with it.
“But what did you call him?” Molly prompted.
“Father,” he said finally.
“Father?” she repeated.
“And sometimes John.”
Silence.
Tripoli waited. John. John? He looked at Molly and she shook her head.
The engine kept idling. When you came down to it, the boy was right, thought Tripoli. It did stink in the car. Probably needed a new tailpipe. Tripoli rolled down his window and waited.
“You want to know where I went, right?” Danny said, finally breaking the silence.
“Well, of course!”Tripoli gestured.
“I went out.”
“Okay. Out where?”
“Up there.” Danny motioned vaguely up Green Street.
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.” Tripoli put the car into gear and started rolling.
Molly remained silent in the back seat. My God, he was finally talking. In a way, she was afraid of what Danny might reveal.
They crept slowly up Green Street, traffic eddying around them.
“Okay?”Tripoli asked as they passed the Minimart.
Danny nodded. He again seemed self-possessed.
“Did you cross Cayuga Street?”
“Yes,” he answered. “This street.”
They drove through the intersection. Coasted right past the front of Woolworth's.
“Here, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you saw this old lady,”Tripoli said more than asked.
Danny looked startled, and Tripoli knew he had him slightly off balance. So, the old woman really had seen him in front of Woolworth's.
“And she talked to you, didn’t she? Asked you what you were doing out alone on the street?”
The question caught Molly by surprise, too. So Tripoli had really questioned Edna Poyer after all.
“Okay, then what?” persisted Tripoli.
“Then up there.” Danny motioned to the overpass that was Aurora Street.
Tripoli had to drive under the bridge and make a complete circle through the “tuning fork” until he came up on Aurora Street. He took a left and started up the steep incline. A tanker truck loaded with milk was in front, partially blocking the view. Tripoli let it creep ahead, black diesel smoke puffing out of it's exhaust pipe as traffic began jamming up behind him.
“And then where’d you go?”
“Hmmm,” Danny wagged his head. “I went somewhere through,” he said motioning to a yard.
So, he did it on his own, thought Molly. Snuck out somehow. Cheryl was so spacey and Danny was such a quick little guy that he could easily have slipped past her while a parent was entering or leaving Kute Kids.
But where was he headed? Did he know? Had he been lured out or did the man just stumble upon him and take him? Keep him. Months and months?
“You cut through this side or that?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember.”
“Where’d you come out?” They were still moving up the hill, passing where the old Southside Coal Company used to sit. Then the Italian restaurant with its umbrella-topped tables on the deck overlooking the highway and the gas station.
Silence.
“Do you remember anything. A building? A house? Something.”
“The school.” Danny smiled at the reminiscence. “Yes. I passed the school with lots of children outside. They had this real big ball. I watched them playing.”
“South Hill School!” exclaimed Molly from the back seat, and Tripoli quickly turned around, went down a few blocks and cut a right onto Hudson Street.
“This look familiar?” he kept asking.“Or this?”
They started again up South Hill, now parallel to the main route.
When they came abreast of a big white house, Danny pointed, “Yes. I remember this one with the funny tower.” Then he recognized the school yard. Oak Hill Manor, where old Edna resided, was just above it.
“And then which way?”
Danny motioned vaguely further up South Hill. “I kept going up,” he said.
They continued climbing until they came to the edge of the Ithaca College campus.“And then what?”
“I just kept going,” said Danny.“Up and up and up…”
“Where? Which way?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must remember more. Come on. Think.”
Molly could see Danny was becoming progressively more agitated. Tripoli was again losing his patience, trying to back Danny into a corner.“Come on, Trip, he's just a little boy,” she implored.
“Forget it,” said Tripoli. “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. Don’t you see? We’re close. So close.”
The boy had tears again in his eyes. “I can’t breathe. Can you open the windows? All of them. There's not enough air in here.”
“Where, Danny? Where did you go?”
“I need more fresh air.”
“Where? Where?”
“To the woods,” he said.
“Which woods?”
“The forest.”
“Which forest?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know and I can’t tell you. Now take me home! Or else.”
“Or else what?”
Molly became frightened. She began to speak, but Tripoli cut her short with a withering stare. She could see the lines on his jaw turning sharply defined as he clenched his teeth. He was like a man possessed.
Danny turned stone silent. An ominous silence filled the car, and when Tripoli turned to look, he saw that the boy's skin had suddenly blanched a deathly white. His breathing had turned rapid but shallow, fluttering, like a wounded deer going into shock.
“I’m going to die if you don’t get me some air,” the boy gasped.
“This has got to stop!” shouted Molly in alarm. Reaching over the seat, she unsnapped the belt and hoisted Danny over the seat. “My poor baby,” she said cradling him in her arms and stroking his pale face. His eyes were blank and unblinking. “Just hang on. We’re going home. Right this instant!”
“Okay, okay,” Tripoli relented, frightened by the boy's appearance. He flipped on his red lights, swerved the car around, and hurried back down the hill, windows opened wide. Aside from the wind rushing through the car all he could hear was the boy gulping for air like a fish out of water.
chapter nine
The investigation was now picking up steam. So, too, was the media hype. It was being treated as a kidnapping, and the Feds, their interest rekindled, were suddenly back on the case. Tripoli spent over an hour with two FBI agents, briefing them. They wanted to question the boy. So did investigators from the sheriff 's department, and, of course, the State Police BCI. It was big news, and everybody felt they had to be in on it.
“I kept this investigation running for the whole fucking winter when nobody else gave a shit!”Tripoli said, standing in front of the chief's desk with his hands on his hips.“And now, suddenly—”
“You’ve got more than enough on your plate, Trip. Why not step aside and let the State Police or Feds take over? They’ve got the resources. The manpower. You could continue to work with them. Just let them manage the case, take the heat off the department.”
“Fuck the heat. Either I’m the lead on this or I’m not. And if I’m not, I’m not walking into that press conference.” He pointed a thumb upstairs.“You can answer all the questions. Bullshit them like you’re bullshitting me.”
“Now just calm down. Don’t get your balls in such an uproar.” Chief Harry Matlin got up. A regal-looking man with wavy white hair and year-round tan, he always struck Tripoli as more the politician than a cop. He rested his hand on Tripoli's shoulder, but Tripoli shrugged it off.
“This is our jurisdiction and you’re rolling over for—”
“Nobody's rolling over for anybody.”
“So I’m in charge then, right?”
“If you feel that passionate about it…Okay. It's yours.”
“In
that case, I want hands off the kid, too. Nobody grills the boy without my say-so.”
The Chief thought about it. “Alright. As long as you make progress.”
“I’m close. I’m sure of it. Don’t worry about my end.”
“Right now I’m worried about this press conference. I don’t want us coming off as a bunch of small-town hicks,” he said, checking his watch. “Damn it! We’re late. Come on. Let's get a move on it.” He strode out of the office, Tripoli on his heels. “You know they’re all waiting to eat us alive.”The Chief repeatedly punched the elevator button, waited an impatient second, then took to the stairs. “The kid's home now, and if we don’t crack this nut we’re going to look pretty stupid. You’d better bring me up to speed.”
“The kid walked,” said Tripoli, as they hurried up the two flights, their footsteps echoing on the steel stairs. “I’m pretty sure. Though how he got out is a mystery.”Tripoli was talking fast now. “I’ve got a gut feeling that he ended up somewhere south of town. He keeps talking about the woods. The forest. My best guess is the Danby State Forest. I’m ordering the State Police to do a flyover. Also, I’ve got the kid's clothes up in Albany. Something's gotta give. Somewhere. Somehow.”
“No abuse, no kiddy diddling.”
“Nothing far as they could see. He was in good shape. A little dirty around the edges, a little skinny, but no.”
“The father?” asked the chief as he moved down the corridor, Tripoli at his side.
“Nah. I doubt it. But we’re still following that, too.”
The chief stopped at the double doors leading to the conference room, his hand resting on the handle. “Are you sure you can separate your job and your personal feelings?”
“Huh?”Tripoli avoided his eyes. Through the wooden doors, he could hear the din of competing voices, the shuffling of dozens of feet.
Tilting his head, the chief stared at him knowingly.
“Christ,” muttered Tripoli.
“Well, it's a small town. You know that. Just be—”
“What?”
“Careful. Discreet. You know the drill. I just don’t want any gossip circulating. Come on,” he said, yanking open the door and motioning for Tripoli to move ahead,“let's get this show over with.”
THE LAST BOY Page 19
