“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job,” Dawson said, “but the sounds of nature out here can make it hard to tell sometimes what you’re actually listening to. Maybe you think you hear a little boy crying, and in retrospect, it turns out to be a bird.”
He was suggesting that she fabricate what is known as “exigent circumstances” to justify entering the house without a warrant. For a moment, she was tempted, but Langland wasn’t that kind of cop. Besides, a move like that could destroy any chance they had of punishing the Carvers and Gunther. And if they didn’t find Johnny inside, it could derail the entire investigation.
There had to be another way.
She texted Laurie Moran. It was time for Plan B.
Chapter 45
Laurie rose from her chair at the back corner of the tiny coffee shop. “I’m going to put in an order. Black coffee, Dad?”
He flashed her an okay sign.
“Anything else for you, Summer?”
She declined with a shake of her head. Laurie asked the barista for two large coffees, and then made her way to the ladies’ room while he prepared them. Inside, she removed the cell phone that had buzzed inside her pocket while she was still at the table.
It was a new text message from Detective Langland. “No sign of Johnny from outside the house. The judge is on board with Plan B. No other choice at this point. We need that warrant.”
When Laurie returned to the table with two coffee cups, she caught Leo’s eye and shook her head. There was no good news from upstate. They had to push Summer further.
“Laurie, I have something to tell you—to tell you and Summer—that’s going to be very difficult to hear,” Leo said somberly. “I want both of you to understand: I have never lied to obtain a conviction. But sometimes police have to simplify the evidence. In court, it needs to seem black-and-white, cut-and-dry. Not gray and messy.”
Laurie did her best to act shocked, even though they had rehearsed the entire story last night and this morning. The text message from Langland was confirmation that the judge had approved the plan. He would listen in on their conversation in real time and issue a search warrant as soon as he found probable cause.
There was still a risk that Gunther could use Leo’s words here to attack his conviction, but at least they had created a record with a court to prove that Leo simply intended to deceive Summer Carver, and his reasons for doing so. Laurie had even gone so far as to notify Lou Finney’s daughter in the event Gunther managed to leak the news of Leo’s admission before it could be explained.
“When I went back to the station house that night to question Gunther alone, he never admitted to intentionally stabbing Lou Finney. He said what he maintains to this day—that another man intervened with a knife.”
Summer’s eyes were the size of saucers. She looked at once both horrified and ecstatic. “And you said something totally different. How is that not a lie?”
“I’m willing to explain, Summer, but if I’m being totally honest with you, I need you to be completely honest with me.”
Her bottom lip quivered, afraid to answer, but she was clearly desperate to hear the rest of Leo’s story.
They were so close. Leo nudged again. “You know where Johnny is, don’t you?”
She nodded. The microphone beneath the table could not transmit the nod of a head.
“You’re nodding,” he said, not missing a beat. “But I need you to tell me that little boy’s going to be okay.”
“He’s fine. He’s been taken good care of.”
“I need your word you’ll drop him off somewhere safe—the nearest police station or fire station or hospital—once I give you what you need to help Darren with his case. Okay?”
“I will. I promise.”
“All right then,” Leo confirmed. “The way I saw it—and still see it, Summer—is that Darren Gunther was in fact responsible for Lou Finney’s death. He’s the one who started the fight. If not for the fight, there wouldn’t have been a brawl out on the street.”
As Leo kept Summer at rapt attention, Laurie snuck a peek at the screen of her phone. A new message from Langland: That’s it! We got our warrant. We’re going in NOW. Also got a warrant for Summer’s arrest. Backup coming your way.
Less than a minute later, two uniformed officers from the NYPD entered the coffee shop. Laurie knew their names were Carrie Brennan and Stan Wojcik and that they’d been waiting in the florist delivery van for further instructions from Detective Langland.
“You want to do the honors, Dad?” Leo was still an active member of the department since he’d joined the antiterrorism task force.
“Summer Carver, you’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Jonathan Alexander Buckley.”
Chapter 46
Chief Dawson flashed a thumbs-up to Detective Langland, signaling for her to take the lead. Once Summer Carver had said the magic words that she would free Johnny in exchange for Leo’s supposed confession, Judge Marshall had found probable cause to issue the search warrant they’d been waiting for.
Langland rushed toward Toby Carver’s porch, followed by Chief Dawson and a flank of five other uniformed officers. A second team approached the house from the rear.
Boom boom boom! Langland pounded her fist against the front door. “Police! We have a warrant! Open up!”
No response, as expected.
She stepped out of the way and held up her fingers. One… two…
In time with her count, Dawson and one of his sergeants swayed with a battering ram.
Three!
The wooden door broke away from its frame from the weight of their force.
Twelve law enforcement officers swept through the house, weapons drawn, wearing bulletproof vests. A sweep is more science than art, a systematic search to make certain that no one catches the police off guard. Inspect all corners. Cover every blind spot and move on.
“Clear!” Langland yelled as she swept through the kitchen.
“Clear!” a man’s voice echoed from the den.
She heard the sounds of kicked doors and footsteps stomping through the house.
Finally, she reached the far end of what appeared to be the master bedroom on the second floor. A set of mirrored sliding glass doors was cracked open by three inches on one side. She approached the closet slowly, keeping her back against the bedroom wall to limit her exposure to a gunshot.
Chief Dawson appeared at the threshold of the bedroom. Catching his eye, she pointed to the closet doors. He extended his weapon, ready to cover her if she drew fire. When she reached the closet, she used her left foot to roll one door to the side and then quickly shifted her body backward to distance herself from whoever might be hiding inside.
But once the door was open, she saw nothing but hanging clothes and an overflowing laundry basket. She moved to the other side of the closet and pushed open the doors in the opposite direction.
“Clear!” she yelled, hearing the distress in her own voice.
She worked her way back to the front door, registering the deflated expressions on the faces of her fellow law enforcement officers.
To be absolutely certain, she walked the property again, inside and out. She inspected every square foot of the four-acre lot, and then walked through each room of Toby Carver’s bungalow once more, opening each and every drawer for any clue that a child had been in the house.
Chief Dawson was waiting for her on the front porch, hands on his hips as he watched three departing patrol cars leave a trail of dust on the dirt road to the house.
“I sent the rest of my guys home,” he explained. Dawson was probably in his mid-sixties. He had a kind and gentle face.
“Thank you again for everything. I really thought we were going to save Johnny today.”
“I only worked one child abduction case in my career, back when I was still NYPD, but I know what you’re going through. You wanted to make a different kind of phone call right now.”
Once Langland was alone in her car
, she fought back tears as she pulled out her cell phone. She pictured Marcy and Andrew Buckley, glued to the phone, waiting for an update. They’d recognize her number on the caller ID. They’d picture their son being rescued, carried to a waiting car where he’d be consoled and comforted.
And then Langland would have to break their hearts all over again: if Johnny Buckley had been in this house in the last week, he wasn’t here now.
Chapter 47
Even before Leo Farley had taken his retirement, he was focused more on running the administrative parts of the NYPD than on individual criminal cases. It had been more than a decade since he had personally cuffed a suspect. His interrogation skills were similarly unused. But once he was “in the box,” as they said, with Summer Carver, he felt those old muscles fall right into place. Maybe police work was like riding a bicycle.
Because Summer was so clearly obsessed with Darren Gunther, it had been decided that Leo would be the one to handle her interrogation, at least initially. She was more likely to make a misstep in the same room with the man she believed had framed her beloved.
To Leo’s surprise, Summer immediately waived her right to a lawyer after receiving Miranda warnings at the coffee shop. Just as quickly, she insisted that she had not kidnapped Johnny. “I only said that to get you to admit what you did to Darren!”
Leo pushed back. “That doesn’t make any sense, Summer. What kind of strategy is it to implicate yourself in a serious felony, just to help your boyfriend?”
“Check my phone. I recorded our entire conversation. So it worked, didn’t it?”
“Of course it didn’t work, Summer. You thought you were tricking me with a cell phone recording? We had a judge monitoring that entire conversation. We were the ones playing you, and we did it for a reason. You’re the one who kept saying that Johnny was missing because of my bad karma. That justice would balance the scales. Why would you suggest such a thing if you don’t actually have possession of this innocent boy?”
“I only pretended to have him. Toby came up with the idea after I talked to Laurie last night. She’s the one who compared Darren being locked up with Johnny being kidnapped. I told Toby what she said, and I guess it planted the seed.”
“So the two of you decided to interfere in the investigation of a missing child? To waste a full day when police could have been trying to find him?”
“It wasn’t even one day,” Summer protested. “We set up the meeting last night. I was going to post your confession on the internet as soon as I left that stupid coffee shop, and then tell you I had nothing to do with that boy’s disappearance!”
If Summer was telling the truth, she and her brother had highjacked a kidnapping investigation to gain a momentary advantage in their bid to get Darren Gunther out of prison. The more logical explanation was that she was lying. Leo was about to press her again for more details about the abduction when his cell phone buzzed against the table.
It was from Detective Langland.
He left Summer alone in the locked interrogation room to answer the call. This is it, he thought. She’s going to tell me they found Johnny. Please.
Instead, he heard the disappointment in her voice immediately. “The brother’s house was a bust, Leo. We didn’t find him.”
His shoulders heaved forward as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Were we too late? Did they move him?”
“I don’t know. We searched every inch of the property. There’s no sign of Johnny anywhere. No indication that he was ever here, in fact.”
Despite his follow-up questions, there was nothing more to learn. When he hung up the phone, he forced himself to take five deep breaths. He had been so certain. This was supposed to be the day they brought Johnny home. Had it all been a waste of time?
He re-entered the interrogation room with a new objective in mind. They still had the toll records showing that Toby’s car had been used to travel to Long Island and back on the day of the kidnapping. Leo decided that if Summer had an explanation for the travel, she might actually be telling the truth. If she didn’t, they might still be on the right track.
“Summer, we can prove you were at the hotel when Johnny disappeared.” The evidence didn’t actually place her at the hotel, but he wasn’t required to explain that to her.
To his surprise, she readily admitted that he was correct. “I went there to find Laurie.”
“Why would you try to see my daughter on her vacation?”
“I’m a huge fan of her television show. I thought I could appeal to her sense of justice to help Darren. What better way to expose the truth than to win over the daughter of the investigating detective?”
“How did you know where to find her?”
“Alex Buckley’s sister-in-law posted a picture on Facebook, saying the whole family was going to Long Island to celebrate his birthday. The post included a photograph of the hotel. I figured I could have lunch on the deck and find a way to introduce myself to Laurie. But right when I was walking into the hotel, there she was, walking out with Alex and another couple, getting into a black Mercedes with Alex behind the wheel. I rushed back to Toby’s car and followed them. Once they got out at the golf course, I figured there was no way for me to talk to her there, so I headed back to the hotel to wait. But when they did return, it was clear something bad had happened. Everyone was running around the beach frantically, and then the police came, so I left.”
“Johnny had been kidnapped. That’s why they were frantic.”
“Well, I didn’t know that at the time. I just got scared and drove home. You have to believe me: as much as I love Darren and want to help him, I would never—never ever ever—take or hurt or even scare an innocent little child. Didn’t you see how nervous I was when you pushed me to say I’d let him go? Just pretending like I had done that, I felt like I was going to get sick.”
Leo searched Summer’s wide eyes. She looked disgusted with herself.
“Johnny’s only seven years old,” he said. “He’s a sweet boy. He loves to swim and play soccer and baseball. He has twin four-year-old sisters who look up to him, and a mother and father who love him. They really thought we were going to bring their son home today—because you let us believe that.”
She hung her head in shame. “I’m so, so sorry.”
In that moment, he could see that she was telling the truth, which meant he had been wrong. He had been so consumed by Darren Gunther’s false accusations that he had opened himself up to this kind of manipulation. Summer wasn’t the only person in this room to feel ashamed.
“You owe it to them, Summer, to come clean with anything you know that might possibly help us find Johnny.”
“I told you, I don’t know anything. I made the whole thing up.”
“But you didn’t make up being at the resort when Johnny disappeared.”
“I don’t know where he went. I think I’d notice if someone snatched a child away right in front of me!”
“A child doesn’t have to be carried away to be abducted. The assailant pretends to have been sent by the parents to locate him. Or they claim to be a police officer or other authority figure. You may have seen something that didn’t register at the time, but that could break this thing wide open. Put yourself back in your brother’s car, sitting in that parking lot. What do you see?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but shook her head a few seconds later. “It’s all a blur. A few cars came and went, but the only one I cared about was Alex’s black Mercedes, so I didn’t pay any attention.”
“Any little detail at all? Nothing is too small. Think, Summer.”
She shrugged. “I guess there was the ice cream truck,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Nothing. Just that I noticed it. You know how you turn off of 27 and drive down into the parking lot for the resort?”
He nodded, remembering the layout.
“Okay, so most of the cars would either park in the lot or keep going down to t
he turnabout at the hotel entrance—where the valets check you in. But if you don’t turn toward the valet stand, you can keep driving on a separate little road behind the hotel. I saw an ice cream truck go down there.”
Leo knew that Detective Langland had interviewed everyone who worked at the ice cream shack, including the ice cream truck driver, who had come back to the shop to refill supplies before hitting the road again.
Summer squinted as if recalling something new.
“What is it, Summer?”
“The ice cream truck. It came in, but then another car went in that same direction, too. But then it returned a couple minutes later. I figured it was a hotel guest who had gone down that service road by accident and then turned around. But then instead of turning down toward the hotel or going to the parking lot, it went back out on 27 again.”
Johnny was last seen looking for shells near the ice cream shack. Summer Carver may have seen the car driven by his abductor.
“What kind of car was it?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea. It was white, maybe? Light-colored. Not an SUV or a van or anything.”
“A sedan?”
“Yes. Four doors, I think? I’m not sure, though. Oh, but I do remember one thing! The license plate—it was from Washington. Not the state. Washington, D.C. I noticed because it said something about not paying taxes.
End Taxation Without Representation. It was the motto on license plates from the nation’s capital, a reference to the fact that D.C. residents paid federal taxes but had no voting representation in Congress.
Leo left the interrogation room and found Laurie waiting on a bench outside the police station.
“Summer was telling the truth. Gunther had nothing to do with Johnny’s disappearance.” He hung his head in despair, looking down at the sidewalk. “I wasted our entire week focused on Darren Gunther.”
Piece of My Heart Page 18
