The Abduction

by James Grippando

  “That’s no damn good. We need something for the early evening national news.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “David, it’s literally a matter of life and death. And I’m not exaggerating.”

  “I’m not exaggerating either. The ten and eleven o’clock news is too damn late. By that time, the only thing that could possibly turn this election around is if you personally drop off the kidnappers at the county jail, then drive Kristen Howe home safely to her mother and tuck her into bed.”

  If all goes well…she thought. “We can talk more later.”

  “But-”

  “See you at the hotel,” she said, then switched off the phone.

  Allison’s assistant returned to the office at 1:15 with the suitcase and videotapes Peter had packed for her. The plan was to stay at the hotel in Washington tonight and then fly to Chicago in the morning, so that Allison could vote in her hometown. Peter had decided to stay back at the townhouse until it was time to leave for the party.

  Allison ordered a sandwich from the Justice cafeteria and ate alone in the small conference room in her office suite. The box of videotapes lay on the rectangular table. The television and VCR were on a metal stand, facing her. She was trying to be selective, knowing she didn’t have near enough time to view each one from start to finish. She started with the videotape of the scene outside her house on the night Emily was taken. Eerily, the police had recorded it for the very reason she was now watching it: Abductors have been known to return to the scene, even to assist in the search.

  Chills hit her spine as the camera panned the late-night hysteria. It started at the street and crept steadily toward the house. Police cars with swirling lights had pulled onto the sidewalk and front lawn. Friends and neighbors were pulling up, concerned and curious. Police kept them behind the yellow crime scene tape. In the center of it all she saw herself-standing on the front porch, talking to an officer. She looked numb, in shock. She leaned against the door, barely able to stand. Her robe was torn at the hem. Leaves and twigs dangled from the sleeve, remnants of the bushes she’d charged through in her frantic search for her baby.

  The conference room began to spin. She stared at the television, watching herself, the numbness returning. The voice-over on the tape startled her. It had been eight years, but she recognized the voice as that of one of the officers on the scene. “Date: March thirty-first, nineteen-ninety-two, twelve-thirty-five A.M. Location: nine-oh-one Royal Oak Court. Subject: Emily Leahy, white female, four months old. Case Number: nine two-one zero one three seven.”

  Allison felt her heart flutter. The night that had changed everything. One minute, Emily was a sleeping angel in her crib. For the next eight years, she was Case Number 92-10137.

  Draining as it was, Allison made it through the entire tape-and more. The crime scene tapes, the search tapes, the neighborhood Crime Stopper tapes, recordings of the local news coverage-she screened each one, carefully examining each person lurking in the background. Some tapes she watched on fast-forward to get through more quickly. As she finished with each one, she dropped it into another box on the floor. In between sips of Diet Pepsi she jotted a few notes on her yellow legal pad. Ninety minutes of viewing, however, had failed to produce a suspect along the lines that Harley had hoped for. She didn’t see anyone in any of the tapes who had suspiciously returned into her life.

  It was almost three o’clock when her phone rang. She hit the PAUSE button on the video remote and answered it.

  “It’s me, Harley. I know you don’t want FBI protection, but I have something you should know-with or without us.”

  “Did you find O’Brien?”

  “No. Still no sign of him. But we finally got the DNA results back from the lab on the traces of saliva we found in the lipstick on your scarlet letter photograph.”

  “What’s the verdict?”

  “Negative on Diane Combs-you know, that woman we found dead in Philadelphia, who I thought might be connected to the kidnappers.”

  “What about Natalie Howe?”

  “Negative on her, too.”

  “Where does that leave us?”

  “Process of elimination is leading to Mitch O’Brien.”

  She scoffed. “Unless Mitch has really changed in the last eight years, I don’t think he wears lipstick.”

  “No. But you do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We verified the brand of lipstick that was used to scrawl that letter A on your forehead. It’s Chanel.”

  “That’s my brand.”

  “I figured. I want you to get a DNA sample to the lab. I’m willing to bet the saliva on the lipstick is yours.”

  “Which means what? I sent the marked-up photograph to myself? We’ve been down this road before, Harley. You’re going in circles.”

  “Don’t you see? It’s one more link to O’Brien. He probably swiped a tube of lipstick from your purse when he saw you at the hotel in Miami Beach, or maybe at that gala in Washington.”

  Allison fell silent.

  “Allison?” he asked. “You’ll get us that DNA sample over to the lab, right?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Allison?”

  “Sure, Harley. I’ll get it to you. Just as soon as I can.”

  “This is very important.”

  “You have no idea,” she said flatly. “I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up, staring blankly into the middle distance. Harley definitely had her thinking. She dug into the box of tapes on the floor-the tapes she’d already viewed. There was one thing, in particular, she needed to see again.

  Now that her eyes had been opened.

  52

  Warm Florida sunshine glistened on the blue-green chop of Biscayne Bay. Sailboats skimmed by the Port of Miami, whose berths were emptied of cruise ships that had set out to sea. To the south, Miami’s glass and granite skyline towered above the bay and river. To the north and east, the island of Miami Beach stretched between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland. In between lay some of world’s most expensive real estate-a string of small residential islands, connected by bridges, dotting the bay like huge stepping-stones. It was here that many of Miami’s well-to-do called home, a veritable showcase for more Mediterranean-style mansions than the Mediterranean itself boasted. Many were merely winter homes that sat empty until Thanksgiving. Every so often, Marine Patrol would check the docks behind vacant houses for illegally moored boats.

  On Monday morning, they found one of interest to the FBI.

  Special Agent Manny Trujillo of the FBI’s Miami field office answered the call with his partner and a team of forensic experts. Trujillo was the South Florida supervisor of a search that stretched from Key West to Palm Beach. The discovery of Mitch O’Brien’s sailboat was the hard-earned payoff of an exhaustive multi-agency effort.

  Marine Patrol had already confirmed that the boat was empty before the FBI arrived. Trujillo secured the boat and dock as a crime scene. The forensic team spent the rest of the morning checking for fingerprints and collecting evidence that might lead to Mitch O’Brien. After lunch, he called Harley Abrams from the boat with an update.

  “Any signs of foul play?” asked Harley.

  “Nothing obvious. To be honest, I approached the boat expecting to smell rotting flesh, but there was nothing. Marine Patrol said it was pretty stuffy when they opened the cabin, as if it had been closed up for a quite a while. We scoured the galley and sleeping quarters. No sign of struggle. The whole place has a very sterile feel to it. It’s almost too clean. Smells like industrial-strength cleaning solvent in a few spots.”

  “Doesn’t sound like O’Brien is living there, hiding out. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “You think someone whacked him and sanitized the place?”

  “Can’t say for sure. Boat owners use all kinds of concoctions to clean off the salty residue. It’s
conceivable that O’Brien is just one of those neatnik sailors who keeps his boat spic-and-span. Maybe he was hiding out here after he heard the FBI was looking for him, then just abandoned ship when we started closing in.”

  Harley tapped a pencil eraser on his desktop, thinking. “I need a quick answer on this, Manny. Try a chemical reagent wherever you detected that cleaning solvent odor. See if you pick up any traces of blood.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. I’ll hold.”

  Trujillo tucked the portable phone under his chin and called over his forensic expert, Linda Carson. “Abrams wants to try the Luminol. Will it work in this environment?”

  “Not outdoors. Too sunny.”

  “What about below, where we smelled the cleaning solvent?”

  “Should be dark enough below if we pull the drapes. I’ve got some in my bag. Let me get it.” She jumped from the deck to dry land, pulled a spray bottle of Luminol from her duffel bag, then jumped back on board and ducked into the cabin.

  Trujillo followed. “How reliable is this stuff?”

  “Luminol? As good as any of the reagents on the market. Picks up blood residue even where the quantities are too small for lab analysis. If there was any blood down here at all, we should see a pale blue glow wherever I squirt it.”

  The cabin was four steps down, half below and half above the deck. A small cooking galley and dining table were on the left. A long bench-seat that converted into a sleeping bunk was on the right. Toward the bow were the head and main sleeping quarters.

  Carson pulled the drapes shut. The cabin darkened, save for the shaft of sunlight streaming in through the companionway door behind Trujillo. She crouched on the floor beside the dining table, where they had detected the strongest odor of cleaning solvent.

  “Ready?” asked Trujillo.

  She aimed the squirt bottle at a section of the floor, then nodded. Trujillo closed the door. The cabin went completely dark.

  The sound of three quick pumps of the squirt bottle hissed in the darkness. Almost instantaneously, a bright pale blue smear glowed on the floor.

  “Bingo,” said Carson.

  She squirted another area. Another explosion of blue light. She squirted the table. Same result. The wall. More traces of blood. She kept spraying. The cabin was aglow with a pale blue horror story.

  Trujillo drew a deep breath, then brought the phone to his mouth. “Harley, you still there?”

  “Yeah. What did you find?”

  He was staring in disbelief, sweating in the hot, stale air. “I think we may have figured out what happened to O’Brien.”

  Allison stared at the television in quiet disbelief. The realization had come to her slowly, perhaps even subconsciously at first.

  She clicked the rewind button on the VCR remote control. She hated to bring Harley back into this, but she needed a second opinion-someone to tell her she wasn’t misreading the videotapes. Or, hopefully, someone to tell her she was. She called him from the conference room.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  Harley hesitated. “How weird. I was just about to call you. We found O’Brien’s boat. Doesn’t look good. Bloodstains in the cabin.”

  Her eyes closed in sorrow. “Poor Mitch,” she said, fearing the worst. “But that’s exactly where my thinking was headed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Up until a few hours ago, I was nearly convinced that General Howe was behind Kristen’s kidnapping, figuring he’d do anything to win. Then you shifted my focus, with your suggestion that Mitch was bitter about our breakup. Bitter about the way I’d rebuffed him in Miami. Possibly even bitter enough to send me the marked-up photograph a couple months ago with my own lipstick.”

  “It seemed plausible.”

  “On the surface, yes. But the more I thought about it, the more contrived it seemed. Mitch had problems when he drank, that’s for sure. But even dead drunk he was too smart and too afraid of jail to send threatening mail to the attorney general. It was as if someone were trying really hard to make it look like Mitch. And that’s when it hit me.”

  “What?”

  Her voice filled with concern. “Remember that night General Howe went on television to speak to the kidnappers? The night he declared war on child abductors?”

  “Of course.”

  “Remember afterward, how you were so suspicious because he never referred to Kristen by name. You said it was like a case you had before, where the father killed his baby girl and then in interviews referred to her as an ‘it,’ rather than using her name or at least saying ‘she.’”

  “Right. Psychologically, it was his way of distancing himself from the crime. Using the word ‘it’ depersonalized the victim, made it easier for him to deal with what he’d done. I thought Howe might be doing the same thing.”

  Allison turned her attention back to the videotape on the television, still speaking into the phone. “I have a videotape from two days after Emily’s abduction. Just to give you a little background, Peter and I had been dating about seven months at the time. He was really in love, but I honestly wasn’t. I had even told him I wasn’t looking to get married and was perfectly happy raising Emily on my own. Still, he was unbelievably supportive after Emily was gone-right from the start. He even went on the news to say that he was offering a half-million dollars of his own money for information that would lead to the arrest of Emily’s abductors. Listen to what he said.”

  She hit the PLAY button and held the phone close to the television speaker. Peter’s recorded voice boomed, “We will find the baby. It will never be forgotten. Allison and I will do everything humanly and financially possible to find it.”

  Allison trembled, barely able to hit the stop, button as she spoke into the phone. “In three sentences he called her ‘the baby’ once, ‘it’ twice. He never used Emily’s name.”

  “Well, that’s just one tape.”

  “It’s like that in all the tapes, Harley. I’ve been keeping track in my notes. Twenty-three times he referred to Emily as an ‘it’ Never did he call her by her name.”

  Harley was silent.

  “Are you still there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I think I should see the tapes. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll have them ready.”

  Allison hung up the phone. Her hands shook as she stared at the screen and the frozen image of Peter speaking to the press.

  “My God. Peter.”

  53

  Peter was in the bedroom packing a suitcase for Chicago when his telephone rang. It was the phone on the nightstand on his side of the bed, the private line that he used primarily for business. He dropped the Armani suit on the bed and answered it.

  “Hello.”

  He heard a click, then a message. “You have e-mail.” Another click. Then the dial tone.

  He laid the phone in its cradle, staring at it in confusion. The voice was familiar. It was that standard, recorded voice that plays automatically whenever you turn on the computer and there’s e-mail in your mailbox-the “personal” touch in an impersonal world, like that mysterious woman from the long distance company who jumps in after you dial with your credit card and says, “Thank you for using AT &T.”

  Peter stood still for a moment, mulling it over. The message was clearly for him, not Allison. The call had come on his own line-no one ever called Allison on that line. Obviously, they wanted him to check his computer. He walked cautiously toward his briefcase on the other side of the room. He removed the notebook computer and plugged the modem into the phone jack. He dialed his office in New York, watching the screen as his notebook computer interfaced with his business computer in New York.

  “You have e-mail,” said the computerized voice-the same recorded voice he’d heard on the phone. It unnerved him at first. He couldn’t help feeling as though the caller had recorded his personal message. But he knew that 40 million people subscribed to his same Internet carrier, all of whom received
the same “You have e-mail” message. It wasn’t like someone would have had to access his personal computer to record it and play it back to him over the telephone.

  The computer screen blinked on. Scores of unanswered e-mail messages appeared in his mailbox. Each specified the date and time received. All but one identified the sender. The most recent one, received today at 3:54 P.M., had an unintelligible entry next to the “Sender” designation. The sender, Peter realized, had managed to scramble his screen name to protect his identity.

  Peter clicked his mouse on the most recent e-mail. The typewritten message flashed on the screen. He stared at it carefully, reading it once, then again.

  CHANGE IN PLANS. MEET ME IN ROCK CREEK PARK AT THE WATER FOUNTAIN EAST OF THE OLD PIERCE MILL. 5:00 P.M.

  His pulse quickened. There was no signature, of course, but the postscript indicated an attachment. He clicked his mouse again, downloading the attachment to his computer. He clicked once more and opened the file. A photograph slowly emerged on his screen. Bright red everywhere, splattered on white. The image came into better focus: a young girl in a bathtub, covered in blood. The focus sharpened further: The girl was plainly Kristen Howe.

  Peter closed the file, wiping the photograph from the screen. The original message popped back on the screen-MEET ME AT ROCK CREEK PARK. He sighed deeply, collecting his thoughts.

  Rock Creek Park bordered on Georgetown. He had jogged there hundreds of times. He knew exactly where the meeting spot was.

  He also knew the handiwork-the girl in the bathtub covered in animal blood. It was as good as a signature. Vincent Gambrelli.

  He switched off his computer and placed it back in his briefcase. He stepped to the window and peeled back the bedroom drapes. Below, a few members of the media were still waiting outside the townhouse, but the crowd had thinned greatly. Most had apparently inferred that Allison wasn’t coming back when they saw her assistant leaving with her suitcase.