Bob listened but didn’t say much. He told Jack to let him know right away what he learned.
Bob was a little concerned. Whenever the police start investigating your CFO, you have to be concerned. He couldn’t imagine Jack being in trouble with the law. That is, outside of their troubles last fall but clearly this had nothing to do with that. This smacked of domestic troubles. He could think of one possibility but it was a bad one and he wanted to wait to see what Jack found out. However, just in case he decided to call Mike Randall.
Mike answered his phone right away. You do that when your boss phones. Bob outlined what he knew and told Mike to be ready to come to Jack’s office and in the meantime try to find out if there was something going on in Ohio. Mike had lots of contacts in his security business.
* * *
I phoned my ex-father-in-law. I didn’t call Katherine because I knew she wouldn’t answer her phone. Bill Simpson answered. Right away I could sense the tenseness in Bill’s voice. His voice was tight, almost squeaky. My stomach tightened even more. I had a feeling I knew what was coming.
“Jack, it is very bad news. Will has disappeared. He didn’t come home from school on Monday. We can’t find him and the police now suspect that he was kidnapped.”
I wanted to scream. Why hadn’t anyone notified me? I realized right away that I was the number one suspect for a kidnapping. Statistically child kidnappings are done by a parent, one that has lost custody like me.
I tried to calm myself so I could think. I said, “Bill, I am disappointed that no one told me what happened. I had to find out when the police came to me for an alibi. They suspect me and they are wasting time investigating me. I had nothing to do with whatever happened. What can I do to help?”
“Jack, I have pulled every string. We have the police on this big time. They are sure it is a kidnapping. If you didn’t do it, then it is someone after money. We are waiting for contact from the kidnappers.”
I was so upset by these words that I almost broke my phone. First, he says, “If you didn’t do it...” which means he suspected that I was capable of doing it. Second, I never like hearing the word “waiting.” This wasn’t a time for waiting. It was a time for action.
I said, “Bill, I can’t tell you how disappointed to hear that you actually believe that I could do something like this. Where is the thinking? I wouldn’t take the kids away from Katherine and I certainly would not take one and not the other. You guys are not thinking clearly. I have to go.”
I hung up. I could scarcely believe what I had just heard. It sounded to me as if they were running around in circles, waiting for a miracle to happen.
I phoned Bob and told him what I had found out. He told me that Mike and Paul were coming to his office right away. I didn’t know why and Bob didn’t wait for me to ask as he hung up. He seemed intent on doing something. He said he had some calls to make and told me to come to his office just before he hung up.
Before going to Bob’s office, I sat and thought. My eyes were a little blurry but in my mind’s eye I could see little Will bouncing down the sidewalk with his backpack slung over one shoulder or perhaps on his back. He wore long pants and a shirt. It was early fall so he probably didn’t have a jacket on. If that was correct, he would be cold at night if he was out.
I knew Will was a little absentminded. If the teacher gave him a note for us, we might find it in his backpack a few days later. He never remembered to pass on a message when asked. He was a bright boy, just a little distracted. He would never go with a stranger willingly.
He probably stopped to kick all the leaves that had fallen on the sidewalk. He might have stopped to stare at a bird. He might be a few minutes late getting home but he would never run off. He wouldn’t fail to come home on his own.
That meant that Will had been kidnapped. Kidnapping for money was a high probability because there was a lot of money in the family and people knew it. On the other hand this was a long time to wait for a ransom note. That didn’t feel right.
I didn’t want to think about other possibilities for a kidnapping. I got up to go to Bob’s office.
Chapter 38
The Phone Calls
Bob’s office was the size of a small apartment. Like me, he didn’t have a desk. Both of us chose to work at a solid wood table, the kind they used to have in libraries. They are big and heavy and have lots of character. The table was on the left as you walked in. On the right was a sofa, a coffee table and several stuffed chairs. Straight ahead was a door that went to his private conference room with a long table. His office reminded me of a study in an older style house. It didn’t look like an office at all. There were book shelves with books but there were no filing cabinets and there was no paper lying about.
In fact, we used very little paper in the offices. Everything was done on computers. Any paper that came into the office was scanned into a computer and then destroyed. Bob made it clear that we were not to use paper. This kept the offices neat and tidy. When we went home there were no papers lying around and the computers were locked. All data on the computers was encrypted.
Another pet peeve was wires. Bob didn’t like the looks of a lot of computer cables so our computers were connected wirelessly with encryption. His only wire concession was a charger for the laptops. He had outlets in the floor under the tables near a leg. An extension cord was plugged in and run up inside table leg so a charger could be plugged in. The wires were almost invisible. I liked the setup. It made the offices very neat.
The floor was covered with wall-to-wall carpeting on a thick pad. It felt like you were walking on a cloud crossing his office.
Bob was sitting on the sofa with a phone against his ear. When he turned to wave me over, I could see that he was using a phone that I hadn’t seen before. It looked like a cheap prepaid phone. I sat down to wait.
* * *
Ever since Jack had told Bob about Will’s being missing, Bob had a bad feeling. He decided to make some calls, calls to guys that he hadn’t seen in years. They were guys who he had done a lot of business with years ago. The type of business that doesn’t get talked about. Talking about it could mean your life.
The first call was to Mr. Blackman. He didn’t have a proper phone number for him. What he had was a answering service number—if it was still in business. Bob went to his safe and took out another prepaid, untraceable phone and dialed the number that he had memorized and written down nowhere.
A young lady with a nice sounding voice answered. Bob told her that he needed to talk with Mr. Blackman. She said she was sorry but there was no one there by the name of Mr. Blackman. She hung up.
Next, he called the sister of a guy called Snake. He was a hard core biker and the last Bob knew he was sent up for a drug bust. That was a couple years ago and Bob was gambling that Snake was out on parole by now. Snake wasn’t the kind of guy who had an address but he had a sister in Utah. They were close in spite of the fact that she was a citizen and Snake was a hardcore biker. He dialed her number and her answering machine came on. She would be at work. Bob left a message for her brother to call him on his throw away phone.
He then called Mike Randall. He briefed Mike on what he knew and told him to get some guys investigating what was going on in Ohio. They needed to know what the police were doing and more importantly what they were not doing. Mike swore and said he was on it and would get back to Bob as soon as he had things going. Bob told him to come to his office.
Lastly, he called Paul and after telling him what was going on, told him to come to his office right after he told the company pilot to get the plane ready in case they needed it. And Bob was sure they were going to need it.
While on the phone Jack walked in. He didn’t look well. His face was pasty white and he looked like his mind was a million miles away. As soon as he got off the phone he faced Jack.
Bob said, “I have been phoning people, lining up some guys just in case. I have Mike Randall getting some guys in Ohio checking thi
ngs out. He’ll be here as soon as he has things going. Paul is on his way over. He is alerting the pilot that we may be flying out soon.”
* * *
All of this caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect Bob to take over like this. Plus I had no idea what we might be doing. Flying to Ohio sounded good because I wanted to see things for myself. I also thought it was a good idea for Mike Randall to see what he could find out.
Bob said, “Look, I know you phoned your ex-father-in-law but I was wondering if you would be willing to phone him again on the speaker phone with me. I would like to ask him some questions.”
I could see no harm in this so I dialed Bill’s number. Bill answered and I introduced Bob. Bob started in with his questions. He wanted to know specific things like times, names of the police investigators, name of Will’s school teacher, specifically the last known sighting of Will (when and where and by whom) and what he was wearing. He asked questions about how they had searched, where they had searched and if they were still searching.
Before Bob could finish his grilling of Bill Simpson, Mike Randall and Paul walked in. They sat down. Paul had his laptop with him and a big roll of paper. As soon as we got off the phone, Mike gave his report.
He said he had a private detective working on finding out what the police knew and what they were doing. So far it didn’t sound good. It sounded like the cops had hung their hats on the idea that it was an abduction and that either Jack was behind it or someone had abducted Will for ransom. They were waiting for a contact from the kidnapper(s). This was consistent with what I had gotten from my ex-father-in-law.
Paul said he had some material he wanted to discuss. We moved to Bob’s conference room and Paul rolled out his papers. They were maps of where Will lived and where he went to school. I didn’t bother to ask how he had found out Will’s address and school. However he had done it, it was correct.
His map showed Will’s house and the school. Paul wanted me to show them on the map how Will would have gone home. I showed them the route that Will would have taken. They traced out the route and marked it on the map. The map was so detailed they could count the number of houses Will would have passed. It was about one hundred houses. One hundred chances for someone to have seen something.
In the middle of the map discussion Bob’s phone rang. Bob answered it. It was Mr. Blackman.
* * *
Mr. Blackman’s voice was the same. He said, “Hey, Captain, what’s up? Long time, no hear.”
Bob filled him in on what was happening and then got to the point of the call. “Mr. Blackman, I am not sure how this thing is going to play out but we may need your help along with the other guys if you are still in contact with them.”
Mr. Blackman said, “It is great to hear from you, Captain. Yeah, I hear from the other guys from time to time. I have some contact information. What’s the deal on this Jack character?”
“Well, Jack saved my life and my wife’s life. He did it the hard way.” (The hard way was an euphemism for he killed.) “He works for me now as my CFO. He is as solid as they come but limited experience in wet work.”
“What’s a CFO?”
“A CFO is a chief financial officer. He manages my company’s money.”
“You must trust him then.”
“I do.”
“Well look, I’ll give the other guys a call for a heads up. You let me know if we have to get together.”
Bob and Mr. Blackman broke off the connection. It brought back memories for Bob just talking with Mr. Blackman. They had done important, sensitive work together along with Mike and Paul.
When Bob got off the phone, he told Mike and Paul that he had been talking with Mr. Blackman. They nodded.
Paul said, “While you were on the phone we talked about the map. Will would have passed about one hundred houses. Jack’s ex-father-in-law didn’t mention the police interviewing the residents of these houses and even if they did, we think we should canvass the route to see what we might find out.”
Bob said, “Okay, let’s go. Paul, is the plane ready?”
“Yes. It’s ready to go.”
Bob said, “Okay we are on our way. Let me grab some more throw-away phones and some cash from my safe and we’ll go to the airport. I’ll have Sarah phone ahead and have a car meet us. We can buy clothes and toiletries there if we need to stay a while.”
Jack said, “That is okay for you guys but I can’t buy clothes. I have to have them tailored.”
Bob said, “Okay, give Mary your house key. She can pick up some clothes and FedEx them to us in Ohio if needed. Let’s go.”
Chapter 39
Snake
Snake was busy. He didn’t look busy. He was thinking. He was good at thinking. It was all he could do for the two years while he was in prison. He was doing time for a drug bust. He was guilty but that was beside the point. A lot of guys were guilty but they weren’t in prison. He was in prison because of rats. In particular, two rats.
One was a two-faced SOB. While in prison, Snake decided that the two-faced SOB would die a slow painful death as soon as he got out. He couldn’t figure out how a guy could be so stupid as this guy was. He was closer to Snake than any other person in the business. Snake had trusted him. The payoff was that he had gone to Snake’s competitor and sold him out. Together they had engineered a way for Snake to be busted. The competitor had done it to get Snake’s business. That made sense. Snake was still going to kill the competitor who set him up with the cops but it was just business. His so-called business associate was more than business. That was a personal betrayal. He was going to die first and he was going to die hard.
Snake knew that the two rats thought that they had gotten Snake busted without Snake knowing it was them who betrayed him. Well, Snake’s mother hadn’t raised any dummies. Snake had it figured out and had it confirmed. There was no doubt as to what had happened.
Snake had been out of prison six months and he had already taken care of part of his business. First, he got back into the drug business and got money rolling in. He still had plenty to do to build his business back up but it was good enough to supply him with the cash he needed at the moment.
His first expense was to get a Harley underneath his butt. It felt good to be on the road, free again. He had gotten a new tattoo to celebrate.
This time Snake was going to be smart. The first smart thing was that he was not going to sample the goods like he did before. The one good thing about prison was that it got him off drugs and not because drugs weren’t available. Prison was like a giant drugstore. There were more drugs in there than there were on the streets. It was amazing. No, Snake had seen the light. People who used drugs were not smart. They eventually went down. Snake wasn’t going down again unless it was going down for good, as in dead.
The next smart thing was that Snake was making some personnel changes. In particular there were two rats that needed exterminating. He had found the worst one first. That was about a month ago. He caught the guy and took him to a secluded place where he took the guy apart piece by piece, slowly. When he had finished, he put the parts in the guy’s car and left it on a street. He knew that was risky because it was going to create a sensation with the cops but Snake wanted to send a message to the street that he wasn’t to be crossed. He figured the police would chalk the murder up to a drug killing, which it was and wouldn’t do much. He was right on both accounts. The media had a field day with the body parts in the car but the police declared that the guy was a drug dealer and it was a drug deal gone bad. Those were police code words for “Who gives a rat’s butt about the guy getting killed?”
The only problem was that the second rat figured out the score when rat number one was found dismantled in his car. So rat number two ran away. That was okay. Snake knew how to find him. Snake knew the only place that the guy could run to. He was as good as dead and there was no hurry. Snake had waited and planned for two years. A few weeks wouldn’t make any difference. In fact it
was kind of fun thinking about how the guy knew Snake was after him and would kill him.
Meanwhile he was taking over the competitor’s business. Snake was back. More money coming in for Snake. It was working out better than he imagined.
He had just gotten a phone call from his sister. His sister, amazingly, was a citizen and she still loved Snake. Blood thicker than water and all that crap. They had grown up together and were great friends. They were the only part of the family left living. For reasons that Snake never understood she grew up to be an ordinary law-abiding person that his crowd called citizens, while he drifted into drugs and crime.
When they were kids, they were a team. That was a long time before he acquired the name Snake. Back then he had a citizen name. They played together a lot. In school Snake was his sister’s protector. If anyone bullied his sister, they paid a price so dear that they were loath to try it again. Word got around and his sister was bothered no more. His sister had tried hard to keep him on the straight and narrow and it had worked until he ended up in the hospital. That was where the drugs started and they controlled his life until he went to prison.
The house they grew up in was a nice, middle class household. Snake went to school and even graduated from high school. Right after high school he joined the army. He liked the army. He was good at it and had gotten into special forces where he met Captain. They had gone on some good missions together until that time in Africa. That was a bummer. He might have stayed in the army except he was partially disabled, at least according to army standards.
Snake had been wounded and Captain had gotten him out. He spent months in hospitals. That’s where he got onto drugs. He had to take pain killers. He had become addicted and the VA was not of a mind to help him. One thing led to another and Snake ended up in a biker gang buying, selling and using drugs. It was a rough life but kept the adrenaline going. Snake couldn’t stand citizen life without the adrenaline plus he had a habit to feed, which was no problem. There were plenty of drugs. The gang’s club house was well-stocked with recreational drugs of all kinds. It was like a pharmacist’s playhouse.
A Shadow of Death in The Woods Page 22
