Now everything was falling into place. The more she thought about it, the more it made her prickle with good feelings. It’s all coming together now.
The Who screamed from faraway inside the car speakers. “Can I turn it back up?” Dennis asked, in a mocking voice suggesting a little boy asking his mother for permission.
“Go ahead.” She nestled close to him.
He returned the volume to something near the maximum level.
Now in Rockridge, the Jeep pulled onto tree-lined Vernon Road, just moments away from their split-level house in one of Oakland’s most desirable neighborhoods. The homes, shingle-sided bungalows with wide lawns, were mostly dark and blank with occasional windows illuminated like restless eyes.
Anita felt a sudden surge of joy. This is really it. The future is here.
She couldn’t wait to slip upstairs, peek in on Tim, touch his hair, adjust his blanket, and kiss his delicate face.
Mommy’s here. I’m home for good.
At 11:15 p.m., Dennis pulled the Jeep into the driveway. Anita saw a troubled look cross his face. Then she felt something, too—something was strange, something was out of place.
Pam’s Toyota was gone from its traditional spot alongside the curb in front of the house.
“Where’s her car?” asked Dennis.
The first sensation, Anita would remember over and over in the years to come, was nothing more than curiosity.
And then her world came crashing down.
II
Anita and Dennis opened the front door and entered stillness. Usually, Pam showed up with a greeting. There would be the traditional exchange of “How’s Tim?,” “Tim’s great,” “Did he give you any trouble?,” “Oh, no, not Tim.” Even if Tim gave her trouble, they doubted Pam would say anything—it would encourage too much conversation. Pam didn’t like to make waves. She didn’t like to make ripples. If the hour was early, Tim would run to the door at the sound of the latch. There would be the pitter-patter of tiny feet followed by a delighted squeal.
Tonight: silence. Without taking off his coat, Dennis turned left and headed down the short corridor that led to the family room. When Tim was asleep in his crib, Pam would typically perch herself in front of the television, watching miscellaneous sitcoms with eyes glued but no laughter. But tonight the set was off. The family room was empty, undisturbed.
“Hello? Pam?” called Dennis. It sounded weird—as if he was calling somebody out of hiding.
Anita dropped her coat on a chair. She headed upstairs, picking up the pace with every step. She hurried through a dark corridor—not stopping for a light switch—and entered Tim’s bedroom.
“Dennis, he’s gone!”
Tim’s crib was empty. Someone had removed him. He couldn’t climb out by himself—not unless he had learned a new trick today. Anita touched the mattress. It was cold. Tim’s favorite stuffed bear was gone.
Tim had been in a deep sleep before they left. Anita had kissed him and he stirred. The little fingers moved, grasped air…
“Tim,” cried out Anita, alarmed.
Dennis was behind her in an instant. He threw on the lights. He looked into the crib, glanced around the room, then left.
“Maybe she left a note,” said Dennis, quickly heading for the kitchen.
Anita followed. “I’ll check my cell phone.” She grabbed her purse, fumbled for the phone, checked it. No voicemail. No text messages.
“I don’t see a note,” Dennis said from the kitchen. “There aren’t any messages on the answering machine.”
Anita dialed Pam’s cell phone. “Where the hell did she go?” she said, punching the numbers.
“Without telling us,” said Dennis, angry, the lines in his face tightening. He stepped alongside his wife, and together they waited for the call to go through…
“Voicemail,” said Anita.
Dennis rolled his eyes, tossed up his hands.
“Pam, it’s Anita,” Anita said after the tone. “Listen, where are—we just got home, it’s after eleven, where are you? Is Tim OK? Please call us right away. Call us as soon as you get this message. Pam—” She really wanted to break into a shout, something like what the hell is going on, but simply ended the call with a limp “Thanks.”
She hung up and Dennis was staring at her. “I guess I’ll check outside,” he said. It was too late, too cold to be a logical place for a two-year-old, but it did remain unchecked.
Anita opened the closet in the foyer. Pam’s coat was gone.
Pam’s purse was nowhere to be found, either.
Anita could see Dennis in the back yard. She watched him through the dining room window, under the exterior lights that were rarely turned on. He walked to one corner of the back yard, then to another. He glanced around some bushes. He looked up a tree.
It was almost funny, but Anita didn’t feel amused. Maybe after they found Tim it would be funny, an anecdote. Dennis looked up a tree.
The silence inside the house was awful—no noise aside from the gurgle of the large, saltwater fish tank in the living room. The collection of exotic fish zigged and zagged indifferently.
Anita checked her watch, even though she knew the time would just send more stingers into her heart. Pam should be calling any minute, she told herself, taking a deep breath. Stay calm. If Pam doesn’t have a good reason for all this, she will never set foot in this house again.
She heard Dennis return to the family room. She hurried to meet him. He was already checking the garage, which connected to the family room through a door. Anita’s Volkswagen Jetta sat in silence. Dennis examined it and left the garage.
“We didn’t check the basement!” he said.
“…or the closets,” shrugged Anita.
Dennis scrambled down to the basement, disappeared for a few minutes, then came back up.
“Dennis, this isn’t hide-and-go-seek. They obviously went somewhere,” she said. “I just don’t…I can’t imagine where they would go at this hour unless…unless something happened to Tim.”
Dennis’s eyes lit up. “Call the hospital.”
His words sent shivers through Anita. What if Tim was hurt?
When they left for dinner, Tim had been asleep in his crib. What could possibly happen? He choked on something? Pam took him out and dropped him? A high fever? But why wouldn’t she call? The cell phone had been turned on all night. The batteries were recharged. Why the silence?
Anita dialed information, got the number she needed, and called the hospital.
“Yes, I’m calling to see if my little boy was—he was with his babysitter—his nanny, tonight—they’re not here and I want to check—” Despite Anita’s broken speech, the person on the other end knew exactly what she was asking.
Anita spelled the names. She described Tim. She described Pam. After a long delay, the voice on the other end asked if Tim was Asian and about sixty pounds.
“No!” thundered Anita. “I told you—he’s—he’s only two years old. Blond hair…”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, we haven’t admitted anyone fitting your son’s description,” said the voice, unperturbed.
Anita hung up. OK, she told herself, think hard. People don’t just disappear. They go someplace. Has this ever happened before? Coming home to an empty house? No, never this late. But there was one time…when Anita came home from work…early, around six o’clock…and Pam and Tim were gone… Where were they?… They were at Pam’s apartment. They had gone to close windows prior to a storm and wound up staying late when Pam’s elderly neighbors crowded around Tim like a celebrity.
After returning to the house, Pam had apologized profusely. Anita had said it was no big deal, she knew he was safe with her.
I never should have said “no big deal,” she thought.
“I’m calling Pam’s apartment,” she told Dennis.
Dennis just nodded.
Anita dialed. After five rings, the answering machine picked up.
“Shit,” said Anita.
/> “Hello,” said Pam underneath a layer of tape hiss. “You have reached…Pam Beckert.” Her voice was fragile, measured, self-conscious. No doubt, recording this message had been a multi-take affair. “I’m not home right now… But please leave a message… And I will call you back… Have a nice day.”
Beep.
“Pam, it’s Anita,” said Anita in a harsher tone than the message she left for the cell phone. “Where is Tim? Where have you taken him? It’s going on midnight. Call me right away. I don’t know where you are. I want Tim home.” She hung up. No bye, no thanks.
“This is unbelievable,” muttered Anita. Dennis stood next to her, staring out the front window, looking for car headlights.
He could probably use a drink, Anita thought. I could use a drink. I am going to drink when all this is over.
Anita dialed Pam’s cell phone again. Voicemail. She hung up.
“You don’t think they went next door?” said Dennis. “I mean, sometimes she takes him next door to play with the beagle.”
Anita pushed aside the kitchen window curtains. The Simons’ house was dark. They were asleep and not entertaining visitors. It was a ridiculous thought. It was desperate.
Anita truly felt that at any minute, the phone would ring. Or Pam’s car would pull up to the house. And there would be some kind of logical explanation. She just didn’t know what it would be. But Pam was a responsible person. She was cautious. She wasn’t some reckless teenager who had dragged Tim along to a keg party or a boyfriend’s pad.
“Sometimes she borrows books from the library. Maybe she realized she had to return an overdue book… Or we ran out of milk. Or…” Dennis shrugged.
“You’re really searching,” said Anita.
“Well, then Goddamn it, you tell me where he is,” snapped Dennis.
“We’re not going to get in a fight over this,” Anita responded, feeling the tension tighten the muscles in her neck. “That won’t solve anything.”
“Then don’t make cracks. I’m trying to figure out where our son might be.”
“I know, I know,” said Anita. “I’ll call the hospital again.”
“They could be at another hospital in the area,” said Dennis.
She dug out the metro phone book from a cabinet. More calls to hospitals followed, each ending the same way. No Tim. One nice woman on the other end placidly suggested they contact the police.
“We probably should,” said Dennis.
“I don’t know,” Anita said, feeling increasingly helpless. In her work and home life, she was used to crises she could control or at least influence in some way… but this was something that she couldn’t get her hands around…
Anita grabbed her cell phone. She called Pam’s cell phone and again got dumped into voicemail. She called Pam’s apartment and the excruciating unanswered rings led back to the answering machine.
“Does she have any friends in the area?” asked Dennis.
“Nobody she talks about,” said Anita. But then it triggered a thought.
“Roy,” said Anita. “Her brother Roy. He doesn’t live far. I’ll call him.”
Anita had met Roy exactly once. But it had been a fairly memorable event. One evening, she came home to find an unfamiliar, rusted Chevy in the driveway. When she walked in the front door, she discovered a large, unshaven stranger seated in the living room. He was drinking a bottle of her Heineken and watching the fish in the aquarium.
If it was an intruder, he was being remarkably casual about it.
The man had a crooked nose and long sideburns. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a faded flannel shirt. He quickly rose and approached her with his hand stuck out. “Hi, I’m Roy.”
Anita just as quickly backed up toward the front door. Pam, carrying Tim, then stepped into view, coming down the stairs. She looked equally startled, although she at least had the benefit of knowing all the players.
“I’m sorry,” she told Anita. “I was changing Tim. I—I didn’t tell you—Roy came over to help me. Roy’s my brother. I lost my ring.”
“Down the sink,” Roy explained.
Then the full story came out. After lunch, while Tim napped, Pam had been scrubbing macaroni and cheese residue out of a pot. She had taken off her ring and placed it on the kitchen counter, near the edge of the sink. Somehow, the ring got bumped, slid into the sink and down the drain.
She had contacted Roy for help. Roy drove a bread truck, and when his shift ended late in the afternoon, he came over to help.
The ring, Anita observed, was a cheap piece of costume jewelry. But it held great sentimental value to Pam—having belonged to a favorite aunt, now dead.
So Roy came over, dismantled the pipes under the sink, and rescued the ring.
He was a broad-shouldered man, about the same size as Dennis, and probably four or five years younger. His voice was rough, and his speech was grammatically challenged.
He also ogled Anita’s body in a direct, unapologetic manner. Anita distinctly remembered she was wearing her provocative red business suit that day, embellishing an afternoon PowerPoint presentation with a dose of leg and cleavage, a shameless but effective marketing move to secure a male client.
After catching Roy—twice—staring through her clothes, she quickly turned away from him and faced Pam.
Gently, as if talking to a child, Anita said, “You should have told me your brother was coming over. He scared me—startled me, I mean.”
Pam apologized more than was necessary, and Roy departed within a few minutes. Anita had never given the encounter another thought—until now.
Maybe Roy could provide some insight?
She called information. Roy Beckert. Got the number. She dialed. It rang eight times, she knew she was waking him up.
The receiver on the other end rattled and clunked a bit before a voice came on. “Hmmgh… Hello?”
“Roy, I’m sorry to bother you at this late hour. It’s Anita Sherwood. Your sister is our nanny…”
“Yeah?” he said simply, thickly; she wondered if he was even awake yet.
“We came home from dinner, and she was supposed to be here with Tim, our son, our two-year-old, but they’re both gone. Do you—?”
“They’re not here,” he said without a trace of empathy. “She doesn’t bring him here. I’m sleeping.”
“Do you know where they might be?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where do you think she took him?”
“I told you, I have no idea. Listen, I’m sorry. You woke me up. I just don’t know.”
“OK…” Anita wished he could at least offer a clue or suggestion, anything. “If you hear from her, or if you think of a place she might go, please call me. Let me give you my number. Do you have a pencil?”
“Just a sec.” Lots of fumbling. “OK. Shoot.”
She gave it to him, thanked him, and the call ended. She was right back where she started. Nowhere.
She tried Pam again on the cell phone and at home and got the same nonresponse.
“Who else can we call?” said Anita. “This is crazy.”
“What about the Roebers?” suggested Dennis. The Roebers were the family down the block where Pam had once served as a part-time nanny. The Roebers had recommended Pam.
“They’re not listed,” said Anita. “But I have the number in my address book. It’s in the nightstand.”
“I’ll get it,” said Dennis, itching for something to do, somewhere to go, after standing at her side for what seemed like a dozen phone calls.
Dennis hurried upstairs.
Anita went to the front door and opened it wide, as if the action would encourage Tim home. She looked down the dark street for any sign of headlights. It was remarkably easy to imagine. Pam and Tim returning home. Pulling into the driveway. Anita would dash to the car to retrieve Tim. Check him for bumps and bruises. He would smile at her, unharmed and unaware of her panic. Pam would explain what happened in a breathless, frightened voice. It would begin
with “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sherwood, but” and then the rest would spill out: whatever the reason was for their absence. And it had better be a damn good one for scaring her half to death.
And if it was an unacceptable reason, well, Pam was banished from Tim forever.
“Anita!”
She jumped. Dennis was yelling from upstairs. She turned around, but didn’t have to go to him. He was already coming down the steps two at a time.
Dennis looked frightened, and that sent fear racing through her veins.
“Anita,” said Dennis. “The money is missing. A lot of money. The drawer in the dresser—where the cash is—under the shirts. It’s gone. All of it.”
Anita immediately knew what he was talking about. Their secret “cash stash.”
Bewildered, Anita said, “We’ve been robbed?”
Dennis continued. “Pam saw me take money out when I was paying back some expenses. I didn’t think anything of it. I figured, she’d never…you know. But she knew that we kept money—a lot of money—in that drawer. No one else did. Anita, she has Tim, and she took our money.”
“Dennis,” said Anita, voice trembling, hands shaking, “We have to call the police.”
Dennis charged into the kitchen, snatched the phone, and dialed 911.
Anita listened. His words sounded unreal, like some kind of play. Some kind of melodrama she was watching, but not participating in.
“This is an emergency,” said Dennis. The words came out of his throat in an eerie, frightened tone she had never heard before.
“Our son has been kidnapped, abducted. We think we know who did it.”
Anita looked at the clock. Ten minutes after midnight. It had almost been an hour since they returned home.
Did it take us a whole hour to call the police?
Dennis hung up the phone.
“The police are on their way,” he said. There was nothing more to say. They went to the front door and waited. Within minutes, the darkness of night was disrupted by flashing red and blue lights.
III
Two patrol officers stood at the front door, young men with identical buzz cuts, bland expressions, and tidy uniforms with Oakland Police Department patches sewn on the shoulder. The only distinction was race: one black, one white.
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