Say Nothing

by Brad Parks

  “Look, Ali, we need to call in some reinforcements here. We need people trained in negotiating with kidnappers. We need the FBI. They have resources we don’t even begin to—”

  “Absolutely not,” she said again, in case I hadn’t heard her the first time. “What did that man on the phone tell you? That if we went to the police they’d start chopping off fingers?”

  And ears. And noses.

  “They obviously have resources too,” she continued. “They have the technology to fake the origin of a text message. They got your cell phone number. They knew to call right after I got home, which means they’re watching us right now. What do you want to do? Test them to see if they’re really serious? They’re serious, okay? We have to assume they’re out in those woods”—she pointed in the direction of the approximately ten acres of forest between our house and the road—“and the moment they see a cop car, marked or unmarked, they’re going to start carving. I don’t want pieces of my children sent to me in the mail.”

  My stomach lurched.

  “I could never, ever forgive myself if something we did resulted in . . . ,” she began, but then couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought. At least not out loud. What she came up with instead was: “I grew those fingers.”

  It effectively ended any argument we might have had. Alison and I tell ourselves we are one of those modern couples who share equally in the duties of child-rearing. And that’s true. Until we disagree about something. Then it becomes very apparent that, deep down, we are still old-fashioned. When it comes to the kids, Alison calls the shots.

  “Okay, so what are you saying we should do?” I asked.

  “You said, ‘Skavron.’ Is that the case they’re looking to control?”

  “Yes.”

  “When do you hear it?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Well, then you give them what they want—exactly and precisely what they want, whatever that is,” she said. “And by this time tomorrow, this will all be over.”

  “I give them a verdict. They return the kids unharmed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you believe them, because people who kidnap children are known to be so honest?”

  Her face went crooked.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She looked away.

  I might have tried to press my point further. But then I remembered something I had once been told about the FBI. In kidnapping cases, agents don’t face discipline if the victim gets killed. That’s seen as sometimes-unavoidable collateral damage. They suffer career consequences only if the kidnappers get away.

  That meant, at this moment, the FBI and the Sampson family had very different priorities.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll say nothing.”

  THREE

  The single-story, wood-sided ranch had been built by a man—now long-dead—whose primary aspiration in life was to be left alone. It was situated in a county so thinly populated it did not have a single stoplight; down a lightly traveled road lined with abandoned farmhouses and corroded trailers; deep in a forest thick with loblolly pines, marshland, and poison ivy.

  Its only connection to the outside world, beyond the power line, was a satellite dish that funneled television and Internet from the heavens. Vehicle access consisted of a meager, rutted sand-and-dirt lane with a rusted chain stretched across the entrance and several prominent NO TRESPASSING signs.

  It was not the end of the Earth. It just felt that way.

  Outside the house, on the small clearing of pine straw that passed for a turnaround, there was a white panel van. Inside the kitchen, two men sat at a circular table. Both had untrimmed beards, protuberant noses, and eyes the color of strong coffee. Both were broad shouldered and well built. It was easy to see they were brothers.

  The older one was slightly taller. He was reading a cracked-spine paperback. The younger one was slightly thicker. He swiped at his iPad, playing a game whose end goal was planetary domination.

  When they spoke, it was in a foreign language.

  “You should feed them now,” the older one said.

  “Why?” replied the younger, not looking up from his game.

  “They’re children. They need to eat.”

  “Let them starve.”

  “They’ll be more docile if we feed them.”

  “They’ll be more docile if we tie them up.”

  “Our employer said not to.”

  The younger one just grunted. The older one returned his attention to his book, making no move toward the refrigerator or cabinets. The younger one eventually lit a cigarette, taking drags as he continued poking his iPad.

  Situated between them on the table was an Internet phone, a necessity in a place so far from cell tower coverage. When it rang, the older brother answered, pressing the speakerphone button so both could hear.

  “Yes?” he said, in accented English.

  “I made the call to the judge.”

  “And?”

  “He got the message. I don’t think we’ll have any problems, but you’ll still be keeping an eye on him, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “First delivery is tonight, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Don’t let him get comfortable.”

  “We won’t.”

  The call ended. The older brother placed the phone back in the middle of the table. From a satchel at his feet, he retrieved a long-handled, serrated hunting knife and handed it to his younger brother.

  “Okay,” the older one said. “Time to get to work.”

  FOUR

  Over the next hour, as the horror of what happened lashed into us, Alison and I failed in all attempts to comfort each other. Eventually, we went to our own sections of the house and our own separate hells.

  She retreated to the family room, where she pulled a blanket over herself and stared at the wall, lost in her agony. From time to time, I heard the noises of grief: sharp intakes of breath, shudders that became audible, soft groans.

  The temptation to do the same was nearly overwhelming. I’m sure if I allowed myself to consider our new reality—that the foundation of our lives had been washed away and there was not a damn thing underneath—I would have found a hollow in which to collapse and capitulate to the breakdown that was surely coming.

  But that urge was still there: the desire to do something that felt like it would help my children, no matter how futile the gesture was. I kept pacing in manic circles around the house until eventually I wound up sitting at the kitchen table, where we fed the kids, as if that could somehow draw me closer to them. Driving out all the extraneous (and terrifying) thoughts that kept invading my head, I forced myself to focus on Skavron. The people who had my children had to be connected to him. If only I could figure out how.

  Up until 5:52 P.M., I would have told you there was nothing particularly noteworthy about Skavron. If anything, the case was heartbreakingly typical. Drug sentencings were, by far, the most common cause of action in the federal judiciary, which bears its share of burden from the spectacular public policy failure that is the war on drugs. I handle at least thirty such cases a year.

  My staff had given me the case work-up on Monday. I had a call with the probation officer who wrote the presentencing report on Tuesday. I had spent much of this day, Wednesday, in the office, going through that report, which is essentially the defendant’s life story.

  Rayshaun Skavron had been born in Danville, a down-on-its-luck town in the south-central part of Virginia. His father had never been in the picture. His mother’s parental rights were terminated when he was six, after she was arrested on drug charges. He was raised by an aunt. His first arrest was at thirteen, and it was followed by many others. Drugs and guns, guns and drugs—with a few driving offenses thrown in for variety. He was in and out of juvenile faci
lities for the remainder of his childhood, then graduated to state penitentiaries.

  At some point, he drifted over to Virginia Beach, maybe for a fresh start, or maybe for a place where the cops didn’t know him as well. There were two years without an arrest, and then he hit the big time: Using information from a cooperating witness and a family member who was tired of his act, the police tied Skavron to a stash consisting of five kilograms of heroin and smaller amounts of cocaine and crack.

  To his credit, he had spared the judicial system the expense of a trial, taking a plea deal and agreeing to cooperate with the authorities.

  The weight of the drugs was what made the case federal. His deal would help him some, though federal sentencing guidelines bent only so far. With his record and with the crime he had committed, Rayshaun Skavron was going away for a long time.

  Except, possibly, if someone wanted to ensure that he didn’t.

  But who? And why?

  My knowledge of the drug world was limited to what I saw in my courtroom. But Skavron seemed to be, at best, middle management. According to the charging documents, he received his product from someone who was listed as UCC No. 1, which stood for Unindicted Co-Conspirator No. 1. He had a few clients of his own but mostly served as a pass-along. He packaged the product and sold it to other dealers/users, who then worked the streets.

  The evidence suggested none of this had been particularly lucrative. Before being arrested and detained, Skavron lived in a small apartment, drove an aging Chrysler, and had been working on and off as a cook, most recently at an assisted-living facility that paid him minimum wage. Police had seized some paltry amount of cash—I believe it was two hundred and thirty-eight dollars—from his residence. He had no bank account. He had been unable to post bond or hire a private attorney.

  How had someone like that found the wherewithal, from behind bars, to orchestrate the kidnapping of a judge’s children? I thought about the steps involved. First, there had been the text message. The kidnappers needed to make sure I wouldn’t pick up the children, and also that I wouldn’t immediately be looking for them. So they somehow hacked the phone system and arranged for “Alison” to send me a text.

  The next step was the abduction itself, whose particulars were harder to fathom. Sam and Emma were first graders at Middle Peninsula Montessori. It was a tiny school, with only three other first graders. It’s not like two children could have disappeared without someone noticing.

  Likewise, the staff was not in the habit of allowing students to wander off with strangers. The school kept lists of people who were approved for pickup. Ours included only Justina and Alison’s family: her mother, her two sisters, and their husbands. But perhaps that safeguard had been circumvented through some bit of deception?

  What that told me, along with the text message, was that whoever orchestrated this was cunning, disciplined, and well organized.

  None of which seemed to fit the Rayshaun Skavron I had met in that presentencing report. He must have been assisted by someone far more sophisticated than he was. But whom?

  The obvious answer might have been UCC No. 1. This, in theory, was someone who was a little further up the food chain, someone who might want to ensure Skavron’s release so that he wouldn’t testify in UCC No. 1’s case.

  Except there was the matter of the U in UCC. Unindicted. Which might as well have also meant Unknown. If there really was a case pending against UCC No. 1, Skavron wouldn’t be in my courtroom. The US Attorneys Office would prosecute UCC No. 1 first and Skavron sometime after that. They always landed the bigger fish first.

  Skavron probably didn’t know one useful thing about UCC No. 1. That’s why the cartels have hundreds and thousands of middlemen like Skavron in the first place. Dealing on the streets is a hazardous enterprise, one where it’s nearly impossible to distinguish the customer from the undercover cop and/or the snitch. Arrests are part of the cost of doing business. For this reason, the real bosses never deal directly with the consumers. They maintain several layers of insulation, like Skavron, between themselves and the chaos of the streets.

  And they keep that insulation clueless. Skavron probably didn’t even know which organization he worked for.

  The US Attorneys Office could go no higher with this case. From a prosecutorial standpoint, Skavron was a total dead end.

  * * *

  Perhaps an hour or two later, I was still shuffling through everything in my mind when Alison entered the kitchen with a loud sniffle. Her eyes were red rimmed.

  She didn’t stop at the table or acknowledge me in any way. She just went to one of the cabinets and withdrew a water glass.

  Even under obvious duress, she moved with easy grace. Alison was also forty-four, though you’d barely know it. Her body has the same slender shape it did when we met, twenty-odd years ago. Her posture is just as straight. Her shoulders—my wife has great shoulders, if that doesn’t sound too strange—have not surrendered an inch to gravity.

  She was getting a few gray hairs, but they blended easily with her natural ash blond. While I’m acutely aware of my own receding hair and advancing wrinkles, I could swear Alison is barely aging at all. Or maybe I just didn’t notice. Love does that.

  I’m not trying to hold her out as some kind of paragon of perfection. She binges on chocolate and potato chips. She sneaks cigarettes at work, even though she thinks I don’t know. She’s a terrible driver.

  Nor would I say we have a perfect marriage, inasmuch as such a thing exists only in the imaginations of greeting card writers and the delusions of single people. We have these fights defined not by their noise but by their ferocious silence. We will literally go days where we barely talk, each of us too stubborn to concede on whatever point started the dispute. In the depths of these silences, there are times when I’ll think we really are on the brink of divorce.

  But, inevitably, one of us caves. And I will say, if we do one thing well, it’s finding a way to laugh about it later. We have an ongoing gag about her running back to Paul Dresser—Paul being the high school boyfriend who now grows more dashing, gallant, and rich with each passing year. So after we’ve made up, she’ll say, “Well, Paul Dresser’s private jet has been waylaid in the Maldives, so I guess we might as well stay together a little longer.”

  Beyond that, I can say without question that the initial flame of attraction—that spark that fired my crush on her all those years ago—still burns in me. My wife doesn’t believe me when I tell her this, but it’s true: If you wiped my memory and I walked into a room with her and a hundred other women, she’s still the one I’d want to take home.

  So if I took a moment to admire her as she poured herself a glass of tap water, it was only because it had become muscle memory.

  She half turned toward me and asked, “Do you want any?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  Alison contemplated the glass in her hand.

  “Emma was here, just last night,” she said in a hollow voice. “She was so insistent she wanted to help me wash the dishes I let her stand on a chair and do it. All I did was dry. She was being so grown up.”

  The glass slipped out of Alison’s fingers. As it shattered in the sink, she was already sobbing.

  “Hey, hey,” I said, rising from my chair and walking quickly over to her.

  She wouldn’t straighten herself or face me, so I bent down and wrapped my arms around her from behind. For a little while, all I did was hold her in that awkward pose, just so she knew I was there.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about them,” she said. “Where are they? What are they doing? Are they hurt? Are they scared?”

  “I know, I know.”

  An unexpected aspect of parenthood was that sometime during Alison’s first trimester, my brain developed an extra region that was dedicated to only one purpose: worrying about my children. Even when the rest of me is occupied by something
completely unrelated, that part pulses softly.

  Right then, it was throbbing.

  “I think I’m still in shock,” she said. “If I was even processing this at all, I’d just shut down completely.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  In an attempt to steady herself, she was taking breaths so deep they rocked her entire body. I ran my hand up and down her back, hoping that might soothe her.

  “By this time tomorrow, it’ll be over,” I said. “We just have to keep it together, do what we’re told, and everything will be fine.”

  “I know, I know. Without that . . .”

  She didn’t complete the sentence. I held her some more.

  “Scott, if we lose them, I—”

  “Shh. We can’t think that way. It’s not going to help anything.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Shh,” I said again, as if either of us voicing the thought would somehow give it power.

  We stood there without talking until she found the impetus to push herself away. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be.”

  She made to move back toward the sink to clean up the broken glass. I blocked her.

  “I’ve got that. Seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

  She paused. “Okay. I think I’m going to go lie down.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Would it be . . . Would it be weird if I went into one of the twins’ rooms?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  She nodded. I kissed the side of her face, still moist with tears. She departed the kitchen without another word.

  I kept expecting, as I delicately removed what had once been a water glass from the sink, that a rage would begin to well inside me, that I would be seized by the urge to strike out at the people who had done this to us, that I would begin to entertain deadly revenge fantasies.

  Instead, all I felt as I picked at those shards of glass was supreme impotence.

  It was a distinctly foreign sensation for a man of my occupation. Within our democracy, the federal judiciary is the one place that tolerates dictatorships. Federal judges are appointed for life. We do not have to worry about running for office or groveling to our patrons. It takes an act of Congress to remove us from the bench. On a daily basis, we do not answer to supervisors or voters or anything other than our own consciences.