The Airnapped Child

by Sandra Ryan

  Is it true that you are a convicted felon and that you are also wanted for series of other crimes?

  Samuel wanted to laugh at this. The media always had a way of sensationalizing every bit of information and blowing it out of proportion.

  Mr. Clark, did you take little baby Benson?

  It was the hawkish lady again. There was something in her voice. It was in the way she asked the question. The frankness, the lack of politeness or gerrymandering. She sounded as though she genuinely wanted to hear his answer, and so Samuel stopped. And immediately the horde following him also stopped. All eyes were trained on him. Some passersby had even joined the fray and were waiting to hear what he would respond. He scanned the sea of heads before him, his eyes lighting briefly on every one of them, then coming to rest on the woman that had asked the question. Samuel locked eyes with her. He could feel the pull of the sincerity in her eyes. He could tell that for her, this was more than just a job; she was on a search for the truth. So, when he responded, he knew that everyone heard him, but in truth, it was just that one lady that he was speaking to.

  “No. I did not take that child. I would never do that to a mother and her child. I may be a lot of things but I am not a monster.” he replied. While the other journalists continued yammering away, trying to see if they could get him to give up more than he had already divulged, the lady nodded silently, closed her notebook and began walking away. Samuel turned and finally managed to make his way to the door, opened it, and went into his apartment.

  *******

  Across town at the local police station, Inspector Kyle Burns stared at the muted television screen before him. On the screen was the face of Samuel Clark, and the presenter was running a commentary about him, his life and the crime he had earlier committed. Burns did not need to turn up the volume to figure out what they were saying. It was probably the same rhetoric they had been spitting ever since someone let it slip that Clark, a former burglar, had been on the same plane as the missing baby.

  Briefly he had been worried about the person who had let it leak, but then considering that this was a local police station, he figured one of the officials had spoken to the reporters and the news had spread from there like wildfire. What he was more concerned about was the fact that with the sensationalize nature of the story, the substance would soon be lost, and whoever was really with the child would go underground. It did not seem as though the various media houses were particularly concerned about that. They were only concerned about making headlines and raking in as many views as possible.

  He got up from his chair and turned to face the glass partition in the small office. Beyond the wall he could see officers milling around. They were still at the early stages of resentment at him for hijacking their case and taking up their office space. He had been an FBI officer for three years running now, so he was used to the hostilities that arose anytime he was assigned to a new city. The officers there usually felt like it was a pissing contest, but usually came around eventually, because beneath all of their pride, every police officer had the drive to solve crimes and would always manage to put aside their differences in order to make that happen.

  He was sure that would be the case here too. He could feel the charge in the atmosphere, the almost electric sort of current that rippled through the surface in the room. The nature of the disappearance in itself was spectacular and every officer on the force was spinning theories as to how the baby even disappeared from the plane. It was though the baby went up in smoke when the smoke scare happened. It did not help also that the baby’s father was a popular man, and so this popularity had been extended to the baby also. However, Burns had expected the man to be more aggressive.

  He would not have been surprised if the man had shown up at the office, breathing down everyone’s back in order to make sure they find his only son. For a man with Benson’s clout, and also considering the fact that the missing child was his only son, it would not have been totally out of character. However, he had done none of that. He had been suspiciously silent the entire time, refusing to even make comments even to the press. Perhaps he was just staying away from the spotlight, giving the police enough room to do their work. If that were the case, then this would be one of the few times a rich person would not be behaving like they knew better than the entire police force. Somehow Burns did not believe that was the case. He had the nagging feeling that something was going on with the man.

  However, the pressures for results came rather from the higher ups. His superiors had been breathing down his neck, asking for results. That was why the news about Samuel Clark had caused such a stir. It was definitely a step in the right direction, wherever that was. On the table was a folder containing Clark’s details. He picked it up. Clark’s face stared up at him from his mug shot. In the photo he seemed on the verge of tears, as though he had just realized the gravity of his offense. He flipped through the folder. There wasn’t much to be found anyway. He was an only son, had two sisters. Both parents were alive. Mother was a nurse; father was a stockbroker who lost all of his resources in the economic meltdown.

  In the report, Clark had been arrested for breaking into an apartment and making away with some jewelry. He had been sentenced to two years and had served his time without incident. In fact, while in prison, he had been a model prisoner, even going ahead to get a degree while in prison. Burns could not understand how a person who had shown such tremendous progress while in prison would emerge only to commit another crime when everything was going on so well for him. Also, what he had been charged with had been just burglary. He had no history of violence and even throughout the trial, he had not exhibited any trait of violence.

  He was still lost in thought when the door swung open. Abigail Philips, one of the other officers, stepped into the office. Philips was one of the few officers Burns usually took with him to any new assignment. A veteran in the field, Philips had a knack for unraveling knotty cases. She also had a sixth sense that had come in handy more than a few times. In a kinder world, she was supposed to have risen above the current rank she occupied, and should have gotten to the point of heading her own team, but bias and misogyny still reigned supreme in certain aspects of the armed forces.

  Abby took one look at him and then sank into the seat beside his table.

  “You look like shit,” she said. He chuckled. It was just like her to go straight to the point. But then again, he had not changed out of his shirt for two days, so there probably was some truth to what she was saying.

  “And you look like fucking Princess Diana,” he replied.

  “If I looked anything like that woman, I would be on TV, not stuck in some hellhole with the likes of you here,” she replied deadpan.

  “Damn, Lady, that hurts! And here I was thinking that we were such amazing company. You know, it is not too late to pack up your shit and run back to Beverly hills.”

  “And leave you boys to have all of the fun? Nah, there is no chance of that happening.”

  He laughed, staring at her. Even though she would not admit it, he knew she loved the job, and was completely dedicated to it. That was why he took her along the times he traveled. She was such amazing company, and most times they crossed the boundaries of superior and subordinate and chatted in true camaraderie fashion.

  “So? No breakthrough yet?” He asked.

  “Nah, we are still waiting for the big break.”

  “How about this Clark character. Do you think he did it?”

  “I don’t know. We have not been able to get any other evidence tying him to the crime except that he was on the plane. I mean, if we were to go by that, we would be arresting all of the one hundred and thirty-five passengers.”

  “Then why the officers spent so much time interrogating him. I even heard that a tail was put on him. How did that turn out?”

  “He shook the guy tailing him. The guy is one of them new recruits, a rookie, so I think Clark made him and it did not take him a lot to lose him in
the big city.”

  She paused for a bit. When she spoke again her voice sounded really thoughtful, as though she was saying something profound.

  “I think the guys here are under a lot of pressure, so they are grasping at straws. The bosses have been coming down hard on them and I can’t imagine how desperate they must be right now. So I think this is a Hail Mary. They’d rather be seen tailing the guy, even if it turns out that he is the wrong guy, instead of just sitting on their hands doing nothing.”

  Burns nodded in agreement. He shared the same sentiments as she.

  “We need to find this baby. Not just because of the grief this loss must be causing the family, but also so that more innocent people do not come under fire because overzealous police men are trying to prove a point.”

  “So, how do you proceed from here?”

  “That is the question, my dear Abigail. How indeed, do we proceed from here?”

  *********

  Samuel was sleeping when his phone started ringing. He got up and looked around, it was late and the darkness had descended. He could see the light from the streets filtering in through the open blinds. He got up and made his way to the phone on the table. He did not have to turn on the light, he knew every corner of the room like the back of his hand.

  “Hello?”

  The phone cackled with static. There was no response.

  “Hello, is anybody on the line?” Samuel asked again. He could hear the soft breathing of the individual on the other end of the line, but apparently, whoever it was needed some coaxing to speak up, and Samuel had neither the time nor the energy to do any of that. He made to turn off the phone when the other party then decided to speak up.

  “You will rot in hell.” Even across the line, Samuel could feel the weight of the hate behind the caller’s voice. He had no doubt that the person speaking meant exactly what he wished him.

  The voice continued,

  “I can’t imagine how you would derive joy hurting such an innocent child. Have you no conscience? Bastards like you do not deserve to live. If it were up to me I would summarily round up motherfuckers like you and put a bullet each to all of your heads.”

  “How did you get my number?” Samuel asked. It was the only question that came to his mind.

  “It doesn’t matter. But rest assured that death is coming for you…”

  The voice was still speaking when he turned off the phone, effectively cutting him off. He was even surprised that he had listened for that long to the man’s endless tirade. Maybe some part of him wanted to hear the venom behind the words. It was the feeling that maybe he deserved all of the hate he was getting. That karma had somehow caught up with him and all the hurt he had inflicted on others had come full circle. So, as he listened to the man, he let the words pierce through him and hit him in places he never knew existed. The pain felt like freedom, like penance

  He sank into the seat by the table. Through the open window he could see the reporters camped outside of his window. They never took a break, and each time he looked out of his window, he always saw a group of them cluttered on his porch. As the press continued running stories about the baby’s disappearance and his supposed involvement with it, his popularity had grown and the number of reporters that showed up at the house had continued to grow. With this, they had effectively had him sequestered in the house, preventing him from going even to the corner shop to replenish his groceries. A couple of the bold ones had even attempted to snap pictures of the apartment, and thus had climbed the windows and so he had begun leaving the lights turned off, and the blinds drawn.

  The number of mails he received each day also increased astronomically. Each morning, the janitor would come to drop them off at his door. They mostly contained hate messages not unlike the one he just received. The fact that people went through the time to send a letter to the perceived kidnapper of a child, having absolutely no proof nonetheless, amused him at the initial stages, but with time he began to feel a form of mild irritation anytime he opened any of the envelopes and saw another death wish, or another person wishing he could just rot in hell for all of eternity. With time he even stopped opening the envelopes all together, choosing to preserve his sanity. The janitor must have read his mind because after a couple of days of his leaving the envelopes on the door untouched, he had stopped delivering them altogether.

  What puzzled him now was how the crazies had managed to get their hands on his phone number. He knew this was just the beginning as there would be other calls from other individuals over the course of the next few days. This meant that he had to change the telephone line, and god forbid, he might even have to leave the apartment or even skip town. However, this was not what he had the intention to do. If he took this course of action, it would appear as though he was running away from the problem instead of finding a way to fix it. It was possible for him to up and disappear; there were a few things that were keeping him tethered, and one of the many things he had learned from his time in jail was the ability to disappear without a trace. But some part of him kept tugging at the strings of his heart, if he disappeared, he would only be validating the stance taken by the media who had judged him and found him guilty. Besides, asides of his personal issues, a child was actually missing, and the sooner he cleared his name, the faster he would be helping the police realize that they were wasting their time on him and this would help them focus their time and resources to actually apprehending the real culprits.

  The clearing of his name and the capturing of the baby’s kidnapper appeared entwined, he realized that he could not do one without doing the other, so the burden now fell on him to help the police locate the missing child if he had any intentions of clearing his name.

  Samuel got up from the seat and made his way to a chest of drawers at the other end of the room. He picked up a journal from one of the drawers. In it he had written down the names of some individuals as well as their contacts. He made his way to the now silent phone and dialed some numbers.

  “Hello, Jewel, this is Samuel,” he said as soon as the phone on the other end picked up.

  “Hello, Samuel, how do you do?” he could tell from the chirpiness in her tone that she was surprised to hear from him. She was his ex and they had not parted on amicable terms.

  “How do you do?” he responded. “It has been an awfully long time.”

  “I can’t imagine why that is the case, I mean, obviously you’ve had my number the entire time.”

  There was an awkward silence as they both considered the impasse. They had broken up more than six months ago, yet in his mind’s eyes he could still see her on the day he left, she had been so distraught. She had vacillated between begging him to stay and then cussing him out when he insisted that he would not, and even threatening to harm herself if he left her. She cleared her throat.

  “I see you are now a celebrity. Your face is plastered on every channel I tune into. What a way to rise into prominence though.”

  “I did not do it,” he said. “I don’t care what those guys are peddling about me but I did not take that child. You have to believe me.”

  “Of course I do believe you, silly. I don’t think your balls have grown that big for you to pull off something like that.”

  It took him a moment to figure out that the snaky comment was a tease. A smile came to his lips, the first in so many days.

  “Seriously though, you are a lot of things Sammy, but you are not one to harm a child. That is not who you are.” He could not remember the last time anybody had called him Sammy.

  “Why are you calling though? I assume this is not just a social call?”

  “I need your help.” When she did not respond he continued. “These reporters are camped outside of my house, and I am almost going crazy from being cooped up inside this apartment the whole time.”

  “Shit! I can’t imagine how that must make you feel. Some of those reporters behave like sharks, riled up at the slightest hint of blood. How can I help?”r />
  “I want to clear my name, and I think I may have to do so by myself. The police are not turning up any other leads, it appears. I need to hire a private investigator. That’s where you come in.”

  “You are not serious, are you? You are not really asking me of what I think you are asking me, Mr. Clark?”

  He could hear the anger creeping into her voice. He had known that she would react in this manner exactly but had wanted to try at the very least.

  “Yes, Jewel, I am asking you for the number of the private investigator you hired to follow me around while we were dating.”

  “How dare you? You are such a bastard for daring to even ask that of me.”

  The PI had been the reason they broke up. Jewel had suspected that he had been cheating on her, and so had hired a PI to follow him around to confirm her guess. He had found out about the PI and had been so incensed at the thought that she had distrusted him that much, even to the extent of having him followed; he had thus broken up the relationship. He had not even waited to find out what the PI told her.

  “I am so sorry, Jewel. If I had any other alternative I wouldn’t be bothering you in the first place. I am at my wit’s end and this is the only way I could figure out right now to solve the case as well as clear my name. I am begging.”

  There was silence on the other hand. She was no doubt considering all he had said, weighing them before coming to a decision. She was not one to rush any decision making process. She was thorough and usually considered every possible scenario before committing to any particular project.

  “But then she mustn’t have been a very good investigator if you were able to find out about her.”