by Ray Daniel
Copyright Information
Child Not Found: A Tucker Mystery © 2016 by Ray Daniel.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First e-book edition © 2016
E-book ISBN: 9780738748092
Book format by Bob Gaul
Cover design by Ellen Lawson
Cover images by Getty Images/139625127/©John Burke
Editing by Nicole Nugent
Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Daniel, Ray, 1962– author.
Title: Child not found : a Tucker mystery / Ray Daniel.
Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Midnight Ink, [2016] |
Series: A Tucker mystery ; #3
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003095 (print) | LCCN 2016006726 (ebook) | ISBN
9780738742311 | ISBN 9780738748092 ()
Subjects: | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3604.A5255 C48 2016 (print) | LCC PS3604.A5255 (ebook)
| DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003095
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For Karen
who makes me a better man.
Acknowledgments
The longer my writing career progresses, the more obvious it is that I wouldn’t be here without the help of so many friends and colleagues. Thank you to my wife, Karen, who has shown unwavering confidence in me and so has helped me to have confidence in myself. Thank you to my agent, Eric Ruben, and editor Terri Bischoff for their support of me and my work both professionally and as friends.
Thank you also to my friends and colleagues in Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Grub Street, and all the conferences where we writers gather to give each other support and make each other laugh.
Regarding Child Not Found, thank you to Karen Salemi, Kay Helberg, Tom Fitzpatrick, and Tim McIntire for reading the manuscript and helping me to improve it. Thank you to Nicole Nugent for her outstanding copyediting. Finally, thank you to Clair Lamb, the extraordinary editor who helps me pull my unruly stories together.
One
Taking a child sledding can almost, but not quite, make you forget how much you hate the winter. You take the kid to the top of a snowy slope and remember yourself, red-nosed and cherry-cheeked, flying down a hill. You recall your friends, your youth, and a simpler time. You convince yourself that you love the winter.
But it’s a lie.
I stood at the top of Flagstaff Hill in the Boston Common, keeping watch as my nine-year-old cousin, Maria, launched herself onto the packed powder. The orange fluorescent pom-pom topping her hat helped me track her as she skittered into the crowd at the bottom of the hill. The parents around me had implemented a divide-and-protect strategy, one launching their kids from the top of the hill, the other collecting them at the bottom. I was alone, so I remained at the top to be able to see Maria’s entire run. This was my first mistake—my second if you counted buying her a sled.
It started when my cousin Sal heard that I was planning to spend Christmas Day watching football.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he had said.
“What? I like football,” I had said.
“Screw that. You’re coming to my house. You’re gonna have a real Christmas.”
I had arrived like the Nutcracker uncle, batting cold snow off my coat and distributing gifts: a bottle of homemade limoncello for Sal, an amber pendant for Sal’s wife, Sophia, and a sled for Maria.
Maria tore at the paper and screeched a happy screech. “A sled. Finally, a sled!”
Sophia gave a strained, “A sled. How wonderful!”
Sal gave me the stink eye.
Christmas at Sal Rizzo’s house was a noisy exercise in genealogy. Rizzos stuffed the house, filling every available spot in the apartment and the family tree. There was Sal, the founder of the feast; his sisters, Bianca and Adriana; and the in-laws, Ben Goldman and Catherine Smith.
Bianca was, technically, no longer a Rizzo, having taken her husband’s name to become a Goldman. Catherine Smith was a quasi-Rizzo, having married Adriana, though the two had not decided whether they both should become Rizzos, Smiths, or Rizzo-Smiths. Then there was me, a Tucker, who could still claim some Rizzoness through my mother, Sal’s aunt.
Maria, as she had proudly calculated, was my first cousin once removed.
The ten of us sat down to a feast of lasagna, meatballs, sausages, beef braciole, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. I learned over dinner that Bianca’s converting to Judaism had created a Great Schism in the family and that Sal had been forced to make a choice between inviting his mother (my Auntie Rosa) or Bianca when it came to Christmas dinner. (“A pretty fucking easy choice,” Sal confided to me over limoncello.)
The vast assortment of entrees was followed by a vast assortment of desserts: ricotta pies, cannoli, pink and green Italian cookies, a chocolate Yule log, black Bialetti-brewed coffee, brandy, and my bottle of limoncello. Afterwards, Sophia talked with her sisters, the kids played with their toys, and the men argued for no reason other than it was a Christmas tradition.
“A fucking sled?” asked Sal, loosening his tie. The tie, a gift from Maria, featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.
“Yeah,” I said, “with a Patriots logo.”
“We live in the North End. There’s no place to sled.”
“There’s the Common. I always see kids sledding on the Common.”
“All the way out there? Who’s gonna take her?”
“I will.”
Sal had pointed at me with his drink and said, “Yes you will.”
Maria had overheard and had asked, “Will you take me tomorrow?”
And I had said, “Absolutely.”
Maria stood in front of me now, having made the climb back up the hill, as I tried to stamp my feet back to warmth. The sun shone uselessly bright and clear over the cold day.
I said, “Maria, how about we go get a cup of coffee to warm up?”
Maria said, “My mother says I�
�m too young for coffee.”
“Okay. Coffee for me. Hot chocolate for you.”
“You know,” said Maria, “what my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“Oh, you want a coffee?”
“Can I have one?”
“Sure,” I said, thinking decaf. “It’ll be our secret. A Christmas miracle.”
“LOL,” said Maria.
I said “LOL?”
“Yeah. It means laugh out loud on Facebook.”
“I know what it means, it’s just that nobody actually says LOL.”
“I do,” said Maria. “You’re just too old.”
“And you’re too young for Facebook.”
“Facebook doesn’t know that.”
With that, Maria ran down the hill and belly-flopped onto her disk.
I called after her, “And who are you calling old?”
She was out of range. As I watched her pick up speed, I heard my name.
“Tucker!”
I turned and saw Sal, in dress shoes and a greatcoat, running and sliding his way toward me.
He called out again, “Tucker!”
I waved. “Right here!”
“Where’s Maria?”
Sal’s shoes betrayed him. He fell into a heap in the snow. I ran down the back side of the hill to help him up. As I pulled him to his feet, he shook me off.
“Maria. Where is she?”
“She’s sledding. She was just going to do one more run and then we were heading over to The Thinking Cup.”
“Jesus. Go get her.”
“What’s up?”
“Just get her!”
I clomped back to the top of the hill and scanned for Maria. Kids were everywhere, falling, rising, walking, whining, crying, and getting their noses wiped. I couldn’t find Maria in the Where’s Waldo crowd.
Sal reached the top of the hill, stood beside me.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“I’m looking,” I said, shielding my eyes.
“Fucking sun. I can’t see anything.”
I followed the track where I had seen her launch herself. It traced a straight line down the hill. At the bottom of the track a blue disk rested on its face, its Patriots logo visible as a red, white, and blue smudge.
I pointed. “There’s her sled.”
Sal said, “Fuck. Where is she?”
I looked beyond the sled and saw Maria’s Day-Glo pom-pom. She was leaving the Common with a guy in a Bruins jacket.
I pointed and said, “There she is.”
Sal followed my point and yelled, “Maria!”
She was too far away to hear.
Sal started slipping and skiing his way down the hill in those shoes. I ran beside him in my boots. Maria and the guy approached an idling Lincoln Town Car on Charles Street. Sal had been making good time moving down the hill, but he caught an edge and tumbled into a heap.
I stopped to help him up.
“Leave me, just fucking leave me,” Sal said. “Go get Maria.”
I ran on toward the car. “Maria!” I yelled.
Maria turned, looked at me, climbed into the car. The guy in the Bruins jacket slammed the door shut, jumped into the front seat, and pulled the car into traffic. It took a left onto Beacon Street and was gone.
Sal huffed up next to me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They fucking took Maria,” said Sal.
“Who?”
Police sirens blared. Three police cars slid to a stop in front of us, crunching through the slush. Their doors flew open and cops jumped out, drawing their guns and pointing them at Sal and me. My buddy Bobby Miller, the FBI agent, was with them.
“Tucker!” Bobby Miller yelled. “Get away from Sal.”
“What?”
A cop with freckles and red eyebrows yelled, “Hands! Let me see your hands!”
I was still trying to process Bobby’s instructions. Get away? Get away where?
Sal put up his hands. Mine were still in my pockets, shielded from the cold.
“Hands, you son of a bitch!” the cop yelled, pointing his gun.
Sal hit me in the back of the head with his elbow. “Get your hands out of your pockets, you dumb shit,” he said.
I did as I was told. The cops rushed forward. One of them stiff-armed me in the shoulder, grabbing it and pushing me to the ground. He kicked my legs out and said, “Don’t fucking move.”
I lay on the ground looking up as another cop cuffed Sal’s hands behind his back and dragged him to his feet.
Bobby said, “Sal Rizzo, you are under arrest.”
Two
I lay on the salt-encrusted sidewalk watching a fat cop push Sal into a cruiser. The cop placed his meaty hand on Sal’s head as Sal ducked into the car. Sal, who was approximately the size and shape of a silverback gorilla, straightened abruptly and caught the cop’s hand in the door frame.
“Ow! You son of a bitch!” said the cop. Sal gave a grim little smile as the cop slammed the door shut and waddled around to the driver side. The cruiser took off down Charles, following the path the Lincoln Town Car had taken.
I lay in the gray slush watching a particle of salt destroy a snowflake and processing the last three minutes. Three minutes ago I was standing at the top of the hill, watching Maria and contemplating a cup of coffee. Now I was lying on the ground with ice water soaking into my clothes. Sal was gone and Maria was gone.
Maria was gone.
I stood up.
The red-browed cop said, “You. Back on the ground.”
I said, “No.”
The cop drew his gun. “I said down.”
“What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
The cop took a step. Bobby Miller intervened.
“For Christ’s sake, Mike,” said Bobby. “It’s over.”
“This sonovabitch has to smarten up,” Mike said.
Bobby said, “Yeah. Not likely.”
I turned away, looked toward the Common. The sledding had stopped. Kids and parents stood at the top of the hill, watching the police cars. Maria’s disk lay alone in the snow. I headed for it.
Mike the cop shouted, “Where are you going?”
I ignored him.
“Jesus, Miller, you gonna let him just walk off like that?”
“I’ll handle it,” Bobby said. He fell into step beside me.
“They took Maria,” I said.
The blue disk’s Flying Elvis Patriots logo stared into the sun.
“Who is ‘they’?”
“I don’t know. I just know that Sal came running here in a panic looking for Maria and that she got into a car with some guy in a Bruins jackets.”
“They all have Bruins jackets.”
“Who?”
“Sal’s crew.”
I picked up the disk. A kid on an old-fashioned Flexible Flyer shot past. The show was over and parents were letting their charges resume sledding. We were about to become somebody’s funniest home video. We headed back for the car.
“You’re saying Sal’s crew kidnapped Maria?” I asked.
Bobby said, “Kidnapped?”
“Isn’t that what it’s called when you take someone’s kid?”
Bobby blew out a plume of steam, a winter sigh.
“You knew they were going to kidnap her?” I asked.
“You’re seeing this thing wrong.”
“What am I seeing wrong?”
We reached Bobby’s Chevy. He walked around to the driver’s side.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
Bobby leaned on the car’s roof. “You know you nearly got killed today.”
“That guy, Mike? He wasn’t going to shoot me.”
“He had his f
inger on the trigger. He could have sneezed and killed you by accident.”
“You’re stalling,” I said. “What’s going on?”
Bobby said, “These arrests. They’re dangerous situations. No place for a kid.”
“Are you saying they took Maria to keep her safe? I could have kept her safe.”
“By getting yourself shot in front of her?”
“Oh, screw you.”
“I’ll bet you that Maria is home right now. C’mon, hop in. Let’s bring the sled back.”
I stared out across the Common, couldn’t shed the feeling that I was forgetting something. The sun shone down on the cold day. Kids skidded down the hill as if nothing had happened. I guess for them, nothing had. They’d have a cool story to tell their friends. I scanned the park for Maria’s orange pom-pom. Felt I was leaving her behind. Pulled out my cell to call Sophia to ask if Maria had showed up. I put the cell away. If Maria wasn’t there, I didn’t want Sophia to learn that way. You lost my daughter?
“You coming, Tucker?”
I threw the sled into Bobby’s backseat and dropped into the car. Bobby put it in gear, heading for Maria’s house in the North End.
Three
Boston’s North End is shaped like the letter D, with the ocean forming the curvy part and the Rose Kennedy Greenway forming the straight part. The Greenway reminds us that an ugly elevated highway once bisected our city. It had taken only ten years and 14 billion dollars to convert the highway into a tunnel and to turn the blighted area beneath the highway into the Greenway. Today the Greenway was white and gray, covered with a layer of city snow.
Bobby had wound his way over Beacon Hill, past Government Center, and was now crossing into the North End. Silence ruled as he and I conducted the aural equivalent of a staring contest. He blinked first.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I checked out a dirty snow pile by the side of the road and replayed the morning in my head. It was just a final sled run; Maria goes down the slope, comes back up, we go get coffee. Instead, Sal is stumbling through the snow, one of his minions is grabbing Maria, and then I’m lying in a pile of slush.
Bobby said, “Because, you know, I see how this could have been a rough morning for you.”
