by Simon Wood
Peter shook Sheils’ hand and smiled.
“I would like to get Samuel’s picture on the evening news.”
“Sammy,” Jane corrected.
“Yes. Right. Sammy.”
“I can get you a photo. We have them of all the children,” the principal said and left her office to get it.
“Peter, I’d like talk to you about what happened. Would that be okay?”
The question was directed at Scott and Jane more than Peter. They gave their permission and everyone sat down. Sheils dragged over a chair and pulled it in front of the boy. He sat forward in the chair so that he met Peter at eye level and spoke in a calm and soothing tone.
His questions were open, friendly and non-accusatory. Peter answered as best he could, but the answers were vague and uninformed. They were those of a frightened eight-year-old who’d witnessed his twin brother’s abduction. Sheils re-asked his questions, rephrasing them in the hopes of getting an answer. This worked against the agent. He crowded Peter and Peter retreated into himself. His replies went from simple sentences to one-word answers to shrugs.
Scott felt time getting away from them. As soon as the Piper reached the freeway, he could be hitting sixty miles-an-hour. That was a mile a minute. For every minute they wasted, Sammy was another mile further away from them. The bastard would have Sammy out of the Bay Area in the next twenty minutes. Once free of the congestion, his escape velocity would increase. But while distance was Scott’s enemy, it was also his friend. While the Piper was at the wheel, he couldn’t hurt Sammy. Scott shut the image forming in his head out and willed the bastard to keep driving.
“Let’s take a break from the questions,” he said.
Peter sagged, then clutched his mother.
“Can I have minute alone with my family?”
Sheils nodded and left the room.
Scott knelt before his son. “Peter, we need to know everything that happened, okay?”
Peter jerked his head up and down.
“It doesn’t matter what you tell us. You aren’t in trouble. Sammy isn’t in trouble. The man who took him is the one in trouble. Okay?”
“Okay,” Peter said in a quiet voice.
Scott called Sheils back in.
“I want to try something different, Peter,” Sheils said. “If that’s okay with you?”
Peter nodded.
Sheils asked Peter to reenact his final steps leading up to Sammy’s abduction. Peter took them to his classroom.
“The bell rang for you to go,” he said. “What happened from there?”
Peter seemed to put his fears aside. Holding onto Scott and Jane’s hands, he ran through the school, calling out what he and Sammy had done. He led them down the school steps towards the main gate and stopped at the sidewalk.
“This is where we spoke to him.”
“We?” Sheils asked. “You spoke to the man who took Sammy?”
Peter’s expansive mood dried up.
“C’mon, Peter. This is really important,” Jane said. “Did you speak to this man?”
Peter backed away. Scott saw they were losing him again. His boys might have been twins, but their personalities were very different. Peter was the timid one of the two.
Scott knelt down in front of his son. “I know we told you not to talk to strangers, but it’s okay if you did. Agent Sheils just needs to know.”
“No. Sammy did.”
Scott smiled at Peter to let him know everything was okay.
Sheils ventured towards Peter. “So what happened?”
“We were waiting for mommy.”
“Waiting?” Scott asked. Jane got off work in time to be outside the school before the bell. He turned to her. “Why were you late?”
“Flat tire. A strip of wood with nails through it was placed under my wheel and I backed over it.”
“The Piper wanted you out of the way,” Sheils remarked and turned back to Peter. “Okay, your mom was late. So you waited for her?”
“Yeah. We waited here.” Peter pointed to the spot where he was standing. “A car pulled up in front of us.”
Sheils interrupted. “It was a car, not a van or SUV?”
“No, not a car, a minivan. A blue one.”
“Good boy,” Jane said and hugged Peter.
“Did you get a license plate? Do you know if the minivan was a Dodge or Honda or anything?” Sheils asked.
Peter shook his head.
“That’s okay,” he said. “What about the driver? Did you get a good look at him?”
Peter scrunched his face up. “Not really. He was wearing a red hoodie with the hood up.”
“Could you see whether he was white, black, Hispanic?” Sheils asked.
After seven kidnappings, thousands of FBI man-hours and six surviving victims, no one had ever seen the Piper’s face.
“White. I saw his hands.”
“That’s great,” Sheils said. “How about age? Young? Old?”
Peter hemmed and hawed. “Old,” he replied, but sounded uncertain.
Scott saw how subjective the question was to an eight-year-old. College grads were senior citizens in Peter’s eyes. “As old as me, Peter?” he asked. “Or as old as grandpa?”
“As old as you,” Peter said.
“That’s good,” Sheils said. “Now, did this man say anything?”
“Yes. He told us that mom had sent him to pick us up. Sammy asked who he was. He said a friend. He said he knew you. He used your name.” Peter stared up at Scott.
Scott’s stomach clenched.
“What else did he say?” Jane asked.
“I told him we don’t talk to strangers and he laughed and said that he wasn’t a stranger and he told Sammy to get in.”
“Did Sammy get in?” Sheils asked.
“Yes.”
Jane broke into tears and pulled Peter tight to her. This started Peter crying again. Sheils gave them a moment before interrupting. Jane wiped Peter’s tears away with her hand.
“Peter,” Sheils asked. “Did you get in the minivan?”
Cracks appeared in Peter’s resolve. Tears welled up again and his chin wobbled.
Scott hated seeing Peter in so much pain. He couldn’t imagine how Sammy was doing right now. He moved towards his son to comfort him.
“Tell us, buddy. It doesn’t matter what you did. We just need to know for Sammy.”
His reply came out small and tight. “Sammy told me to get in. I didn’t want to and he told me I was a wimp.” He wiped away his own tears. “I went to get in and he told me no.”
Scott thought he’d missed something. “Sammy told you not to get in the minivan?”
“No. The man. He said Sammy only. Then the door closed and he drove off.” Peter’s grip on himself came to an end and he broke down. Jerking sobs wracked his body and he buried his head into his mother’s shoulder. “He didn’t want me.”
Then it made sense. Scott understood his son’s reticence to tell them the whole story about Sammy’s abduction. Peter was ashamed. The Piper had chosen Sammy over him. Peter hadn’t been good enough to be kidnapped. He should have been counting his lucky stars, but instead, he was mourning his unpopularity. Scott put a hand to Peter’s head and murmured words of comfort.
Sheils signaled to a pair of men in suits walking towards them. “I want to get you home. The Piper will call with his demands tonight. I want to be ready.”
Sheils pulled Scott to one side while the two agents led Jane and Peter away.
“What’s the world teaching our kids if they’re ashamed when a kidnapper looks them over?”
“Life is a popularity contest,” Scott said.
This was the first non-acrimonious conversation they’d had since they met. Scott took that as a good sign.
Sheils frowned. “We both know this kidnapping is personal. The Piper wants to hurt you. You need to be prepared for the worst.”
“Do you think Sammy’s still alive?”
Sheils didn’t answ
er him.
