Under Abduction

by Andrew Neiderman

  Anna hurried back to the bathroom and unscrewed the faucet handle. She returned to the hook and pushed and pulled with all her strength, working more furiously now. The hook turned again and again. The wall flaked. She jerked the neck of the hook back and forth, working the hole wider, and then she turned the screw again until she was now able to turn it without the faucet handle. Moments later it came out of the wall. She rejoiced, but smothered her cry of delight. She had mobility. She could wrap most of the chain around her hand and carry it along when she fled this hellhole.

  Now, what remained was to work out a way to get out of the room and past this mad couple. But she knew she couldn’t let them know she had freed the chain. She put the hook back in the wall, turned it a few times so it was secure-looking, and then cleaned up the chips and the dust beneath it on the floor. Encouraged, hopeful, she sat on the bed.

  There was nothing to do now but wait for an opportunity. She opened the Bible to the page the madwoman had bookmarked for her to read and went directly to the underlined passage.

  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

  She immediately thought about the anger in her father’s face the day she had left.

  “I am not corrupt!” Anna screamed. “I am not corrupt,” she muttered through her new tears.

  But she had to admit she had slept with a married man, and she had taken his seed into her, and she was locked in this madhouse.

  All her tears and shouts wouldn’t wipe that fact away.

  It weakened her resolve.

  Perhaps she deserved all this. Perhaps she shouldn’t try to escape.

  Perhaps God did send these people.

  She sucked in her breath and fought to regain her composure. It was foolish to think like this; it was self-defeating. She had broken with her father precisely because she refused to believe that God kept a scorecard and treated men and women as if they were children. What was happening to her had nothing to do with any divine retribution. The evil on this earth was man-made, not a device for an angry god….

  Surely by now many people must realize she was gone and that something terrible had happened to her, she thought. Surely her car in the supermarket parking lot must have created interest and some investigation. She would be found; she would be saved. On Monday everyone in the public defender’s office would become concerned too. A massive man-hunt would get under way. Potential witnesses would be questioned. Someone might have seen these people abduct her. It was just a matter of time. And if she could just break out of this room…

  But what if she couldn’t? What if she got out of this room only to discover they had locked all the other doors, and what if they stopped her escape? She had no doubt that they would be enraged, even more crazed. There was no telling what they might do. But she had to take that chance. Kidnappers rarely if ever freed the people they abducted. She would die here eventually. She had no doubt of that.

  It suddenly occurred to her that on Monday her father would mark another monthly anniversary of her departure and perform his symbolic mourning. Maybe, she thought sadly, it would soon stop being symbolic.

  She took a deep breath and stood up. She had to walk around, keep her body limber. The chain dragged. The collar never felt more oppressive. It seemed to take so much more of an effort to lift her arm and pull the collar away from her throat. Every part of her had gotten to feel so heavy. It was as if they had attached weights to her arms and her legs to slow her movements and prevent any attempt at escape. Even her eyelids were turning into little sheets of steel.

  She yawned and then paused to put her hand against the wall to keep her balance.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she muttered, and stood there thinking about it. Her eyes went wide when she reached an obvious conclusion.

  The food! she thought. They’re putting something in the food! She had to stop eating and drinking what they gave her, but then they would force feed her intravenously. What could she do?

  I can flush it down the toilet, she thought, so they’ll believe I’ve eaten everything. But then, without any food and water in her system, she would become even weaker and not be able to effect an escape. She couldn’t wait long; she had to do this soon.

  After taking another deep breath, she made her way back to the bed. She fought to keep her eyes open, but they were becoming glued shut, and the muffled grinding just outside the wall was hypnotizing.

  I’ll just sleep for a little while, she thought, and then I’ll plan my escape.

  15

  When he woke and got out of bed, McShane felt as he imagined Lazarus must have felt, rising from his grave. It had been a mistake to eat dinner so late, and then, afraid he wouldn’t fall asleep, he had two stiff bourbons. He passed out watching a documentary on bees on the Discovery Channel, woke, dragged himself to bed, fell asleep, but then woke up what seemed like every twenty minutes. He tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable sleeping posture. He got up to get a drink of water, took a leak, and minutes later rose to take another leak. Then he tossed and turned until it was nearly morning, when he finally fell into a deep sleep.

  The gray skies were gone. He had forgotten to pull down the shades on the two windows on the east side of his tiny bedroom, so the intensifying rays of the rising sun came slicing through the panes, poking at his face until he woke. When his eyes snapped open, he felt as if someone had lifted the lid on his coffin and he was once again confronted with the burden of life.

  He scrubbed his cheeks with his dry palms, stretched, coughed, and went to the bathroom. His shower revived him. He thought he actually felt his heart start up like an old car engine, the blood trickling through his veins. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw how bloodshot his eyes were and determined he wouldn’t take his sunglasses off from the moment he put them on.

  The kitchen had always looked like a research lab to McShane. He was a terrible cook and readily admitted he was capable of burning water. The coffee he made for himself never resembled the coffee he made for himself previously. Either he put in too much or too little the next time. Even the idiotproof automated pot didn’t stop him from messing up.

  Nevertheless, he had to get some caffeine into his blood as soon as possible. He got the coffee going while he dressed, gulped a cup of what tasted more like stale tea, and started out, intending to stop at the diner for some breakfast.

  But his phone rang just as he reached the front door of his two-by-four, one-bedroom apartment. It was Cookie.

  “Don’t you have an answering machine, Jimmy?” she asked, her voice thick with irritation.

  “Didn’t get a chance to set it up.”

  “What’s there to set up? It’s not like taking a year to fix a leak in the faucet,” she added, scratching at the scar of an old wound.

  “I hate messages. I like full conversations,” he quipped. “Why is an answering machine suddenly so important?”

  “I tried to get you last night.”

  “Did you call the station?”

  “I don’t like calling you at the station. I never did. You know that.”

  “Well, that’s where I work, so that’s where I usually can be found.” Another old wound. “Whatja want?” Could she have had second thoughts? Was there yet a possibility of another reconciliation? He almost convinced himself he would actually try harder this time.

  “I wanted to know why you haven’t returned the papers to my attorney. I would like to put this house on the market,” she replied, punching a hole in his balloon of hope.

  “Really? Why do you want to do that, Cookie? You gotta have a place to live. I thought you liked the house, liked where it was located.”

  “I can’t afford the mortgage on my salary alone and still have money for other things I need. Besides, it’s too big for one person. Families live in houses; individuals live in apartments,” she said.

  “How long are you going to be one person?” he asked. He really was
n’t being sarcastic, but she was ready to pounce.

  “I’ve been one person for some time, Jimmy. That’s the point.”

  “All right,” he said. There was a dull buzz in his head. “It’s early. I haven’t had a chance to do more than sip some horrible coffee. I haven’t got the strength for this sort of thing.”

  “Do you have the strength to sign a paper?”

  He gazed around the small kitchen. The envelope from her attorney was sitting on the counter, unopened.

  “I’ll sign the documents and put them right in the mail,” he promised.

  “Thank you, but don’t just tell me you’re going to do it, Jimmy. Do it. If you have to, pretend it has to do with one of your investigations.”

  “All right, Cookie, I’ll do it,” he said in a tired, defeated voice. She was quiet.

  “What are you doing these days, Jimmy? Are you involved with that horrible incident at the clinic?”

  “No. I’m on a missing-person case, a young woman abducted in the Van’s Supermarket lot.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday,” he said. “But it was lost in the commotion after the riot at the clinic.”

  “How old a woman?”

  “Twenty-six, unmarried, but apparently pregnant, with a secret, married lover. Any suggestions?”

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “Not a clue yet, just some theories,” he replied. Funny, he thought, when they were living together, she hated asking him questions about his work. Now that they were apart, time and distance gave her the courage to do so. He felt himself sliding away, falling back into the persona of a mere acquaintance. Whatever intimacy they had shared was disintegrating right before his eyes. There was the danger that they would become friends.

  “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your work, but please send back the papers. Things have to be recorded, and you know how it gets with government agencies. I think I could sell the house fairly soon. Jerry Hampton has a number of buyers he thinks would be interested.”

  “Okay.”

  “Take care of yourself,” she said. It was the first soft word.

  “You too.”

  He hung up the receiver and stood there a moment, the realization that he had lost something significant, something special, that he might never find again crystallizing. His life flashed before him and he saw himself bouncing from one superficial relationship to another until he found himself alone, a crusty old bachelor sunk in an oversized easy chair in front of a television set, the football games melding into each other until he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

  It put him in an even more miserable mood. He scooped up the manila envelope and started for the door again, and again the phone rang.

  “Damn it,” he muttered and ripped the receiver from the cradle. “McShane.”

  “I have Reynolds meeting with you in a half hour in my office,” Ralph Cutler said. “Three other pregnant women were abducted this week, one in Dallas and two in Los Angeles. Two were married but were seeking abortions. The FBI is very interested in your case.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way. I guess you didn’t get much sleep, Sheriff.”

  “At this point my wife wishes it was only another woman,” he said. McShane smiled. He really liked Ralph Cutler. He could have been Ralph Cutler, he thought, with a devoted loving wife, a family, a good relationship. Why wasn’t it as important to him as it was now, now that he was losing it? It was too hard to think about it.

  After he hung up, he realized there wouldn’t be enough time to get any breakfast. He went to his cupboard and searched for something resembling edible food. He had bought some chocolate graham crackers and some cold cereals, but he didn’t have enough milk. He scooped some of the cereal into a bowl and ate it practically dry. Then he grabbed a chocolate graham cracker and charged out of the apartment. He was nearly to his car before he remembered he had forgotten the manila envelope from Cookie’s attorney. He returned, scooped it up again, and left. It lay beside him on the front seat as he drove to the sheriff’s office.

  Frank Reynolds didn’t look like an FBI agent. McShane thought he resembled an accountant. He wasn’t particularly tall, maybe five ten, five eleven. He had thinning light-brown hair, wore thick-lens, metal-frame glasses, a dark blue suit and tie, and didn’t project a firm, athletic demeanor. He looked like someone who spent most of his waking hours in an office and not in the field. McShane couldn’t imagine him putting a suspect under arrest if that suspect offered resistance. Even Reynolds’s handshake was a bit limp, tentative. Up until now they had only spoken a few times on the telephone. On the phone Reynolds had a strong voice, but more times than not, people didn’t look as you imagined them to be from the sound of their voices. Here, he thought, was a prime example.

  “Give him what you’ve got,” Ralph Cutler said, after they were all seated. The sheriff looked the way McShane felt: tired, drawn, on edge.

  McShane recited his preliminary investigation. Reynolds sat there with the tips of his fingers pressed against each other, listening. He looked more like someone about to say his prayers. When McShane finished, Reynolds fished a palm-size electronic notebook from his jacket pocket and tapped some keys.

  “There were some eyewitnesses to the abduction in Dallas. Two couples were involved. They seized the woman in an underground parking lot immediately after she had seen her doctor at the clinic. It had been her initial visit.”

  “Clinic?” McShane asked, and looked at the sheriff.

  “She was seeking an abortion. The MOs in Los Angeles are similar. You haven’t spoken to anyone at the clinic here, I take it?”

  “No. I didn’t think…after what happened yesterday there, I decided I’d wait until today,” McShane said, but he didn’t believe either the sheriff or Reynolds believed he had given any thought to the possibility that Anna Gold had been seeking an abortion.

  “Yes. Well,” Reynolds said gazing at the sheriff, “we don’t want to create a lot of hysteria here. Next thing you know, there’ll be little wars breaking out between the right-to-lifers and woman’s rights groups all over the country.”

  “Seems it’s already started,” McShane said. “I mean, with the doctor being killed.”

  “Exactly,” Reynolds said. “Anyway, we’ll take it from here. You guys have enough to do.”

  “Amen to that,” Ralph Cutler said.

  “I’d like to do what I can,” McShane said quickly. “I mean, I’ve met the family. I—”

  “Didn’t you hear him, Jimmy? This could be a national problem. They have reason to believe these lunatics aren’t just protesting clinics and assaulting doctors, they’re kidnapping women who seek abortions. It’s over our heads. I got a couple of check forgeries I’ve been sitting on for days. You can get on those.”

  McShane gazed at Reynolds, who looked as satisfied as a banker who had just closed a great mortgage deal. The man was too businesslike, unemotional. He closed his little electronic notepad and slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

  “Just put what you have on paper and I’ll get it over to Frank’s office later today,” Ralph said for Reynolds’s benefit.

  “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  “I didn’t quite explain this family rift,” McShane said.

  “Oh, the Jewish problem.” Reynolds smiled. “It’s not really a major factor here. They’re not just after Jews.”

  “Well, it still could be important. I mean, what if this is an isolated incident and not part of this overall national conspiracy you guys suspect? I mean—”

  “I think we’ll figure out pretty quickly if it’s part of the pattern,” Reynolds offered. He stood. “For now, Sheriff,” Reynolds said, turning away from McShane, “I would suggest you refer all media inquiries concerning the woman’s disappearance to our office. In light of what happened at the clinic, we’ve got to handle this delicately.”

  “Glad to get it off my back.”

  Reynolds sm
iled.

  “That’s what we’re here for: to help you local police agencies when it becomes necessary. Detective,” he said, offering his hand again. McShane rose.

  “If there is any detail you want me to elaborate on later…”

  “Oh, we’ll call you, Detective. One thing about the FBI: We’re not shy.” He smiled at the sheriff, who nodded and laughed.

  “Get right on your report, will ya, Jimmy.”

  “Okay,” McShane said. He paused, but it was obvious Reynolds wasn’t going to leave the office before he did.

  “These other cases,” McShane asked, “were any of the women rescued?”

  “Not yet. It’s all happened very quickly. That’s why we need to get on this one as soon as possible.”

  “Jimmy?” the sheriff said. McShane nodded and left the office.

  As he sauntered down the corridor toward his office and desk, McShane felt an emptiness in his stomach that he knew was precipitated by more than the lack of good food. He couldn’t get Miriam Gold’s eyes out of his mind. He felt as if he were deserting her and, more important, deserting her sister. The FBI, Reynolds in particular, was too concerned about the political ramifications of this thing. And these federal agencies saw conspiracies everywhere. Talk about your paranoia: They had it on a grand scale. What usually happens, McShane thought, is that the individual victim gets thrown into a pile of statistics. There wasn’t enough concern about the poor woman. Where was she? What were they doing to her?

  At his desk he put a sheet of paper into the typewriter and began his report. His phone rang. He kept typing after he stuck the receiver between his ear and shoulder and said, “McShane.”

  “This is Miriam Gold,” she said. He stopped typing.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you yet,” he said.

  “I didn’t think so, but I have something I have to tell you. I…”

  “Yes?”

  “I was reading this morning’s paper…this whole business at the clinic, the killing of Doctor Williams…horrible.”