Say Nothing

by Brad Parks

  “Hi. Carter Ross,” I said. It was a name I had gotten from a novel I enjoyed.

  “Have a seat. What can I do for you, Mr. Ross?”

  “Well, for starters, my name isn’t really Carter Ross. Is that okay with you?”

  If he said no, I would be out of his office and on to another PI before he was done with his next cigarette. But he showed no reaction.

  “That’s fine. I’ve had a number of clients start out that way. Eventually, most of them trust me with their real names, when they realize how seriously I take their privacy. As long as you pay for the work up front, you can use any name you want.”

  He spoke quickly, with confidence and competence. I already had the feeling Herb Thrift was my man.

  “Not a problem,” I said.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Whatever-You-Want-Me-to-Call-You?”

  “I want you to follow an attorney named Roland Hemans. Do you know him?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve worked for a lot of attorneys. Not that one.”

  Which made sense. Patent lawyers didn’t have much call for PIs.

  “Do you have a picture of him?” Thrift asked.

  “You can Google him. An article in Virginia Lawyers Weekly will come up. There are two pictures with the article.”

  He started typing. “And why do you want me to follow him?”

  “Can I not say?”

  “Sure,” he said easily. “Sometimes it helps to know what I’m looking for. Like, if you think he’s sleeping with your wife and suddenly he’s—”

  “It’s not infidelity. Well, actually, I’m pretty sure Mr. Hemans is cheating on his wife, but it’s not with my wife. His sex life is really not my chief concern.”

  “All right. So you want me to”—and here, his screen must have popped up with the article, because he interrupted himself—“Whoa. Big sucker, isn’t he?”

  “About six-eight, give or take,” I said.

  “I guess I don’t have an excuse for losing him, then,” Thrift said, then smiled.

  I didn’t.

  “Anyhow, how much following do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Can you do twenty-four-hour surveillance?”

  “Sure. If you really want me to. I’ll tell you straight off you’re probably wasting your money. Most people don’t—”

  “I’m not worried about wasting money,” I assured him. “I’m more worried about whether you can do it without being spotted.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “Seriously. It’s more important to me than I can possibly explain to you that Hemans never sees you. He can’t know he’s being watched.”

  “I understand.”

  “And you can handle doing it round-the-clock?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m not married, so it’s not like someone is waiting for me at home. I’ll do most of it myself. I’ll probably use subcontractors for the overnight, but that’s it.”

  “Subcontractors. Those are the associates in Herbert Thrift & Associates?”

  “You got it. I only have a few, but I trust them. They’re all good.”

  He leaned back and crossed his legs, resting an ankle on his knee. He wore well-beaten black loafers. They were shoes with a lot of miles on them.

  “Okay, so how does this work, then?” I asked.

  “Well, you pay in advance for a set amount of work. From there, you’re the boss, so it can work any way you want it to. All I request is that you sign a standard agreement saying you understand there are no refunds and that you agree to the terms of service.”

  “I can do that. What comes after that?”

  “Well, if there’s something specific I’m looking for—some behavior or some person the subject is associating with—then I can contact you the moment I see it. If you really want this to be completely open-ended, I write a report, summarizing everywhere the subject has gone, what they’ve been doing, and who they’ve been with. I’ll take pictures, of course. There are obviously limitations to that. Once they’re in their home or office, all I can see is what my telephoto lens allows me to see.”

  “And you’ll be able to tail his car. So if it’s going to the same place a lot”—like the place where Emma was hidden—“you’ll be able to tell me?”

  “That’s what I do.”

  “Terrific. When can you start?”

  “Immediately, if you like.”

  That was a good answer. “And what do I pay you?”

  “My rate is seventy-five an hour plus expenses. If you really want twenty-four-hour surveillance, that’s eighteen hundred a day.”

  I think maybe he expected me to balk or backtrack at that point, but I said, “Great. It’s now Thursday at twelve”—I paused to look at my watch—“thirteen. As far as I’m concerned, the clock started ticking the moment I walked in here. How about we meet again this time Monday?”

  That would give me a trace on Roland Hemans during both workdays and weekend days. I trusted that would be a large enough sample size to catch him.

  “I can do that.”

  “That’s four days of twenty-four-hour surveillance, which will cost me . . .”

  I paused to do the math. He did it for me: “Seventy-two hundred dollars.”

  “That’s right. Seventy-two hundred. Can I pay you in cash?”

  He smiled. “Since you’re not giving me your real name, I’m afraid I have to insist on that.”

  “Great,” I said. “Let me run to the bank. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  It turned out to be less. I found a branch of my bank five minutes away. We kept about fifteen thousand in our checking account. So I was able to return twenty minutes later with seventy-two crisp, new hundred-dollar bills, which made for a surprisingly thin stack.

  Herb Thrift had me sign his agreement, a one-page document that “Carter Ross” didn’t bother reading.

  Then I handed him the money. Maybe I was wasting it. But it was exhilarating all the same. It made me feel like I was actually doing something. And that, in turn, made Emma feel closer.

  It was worth any amount of money I had.

  * * *

  I was closing back in on downtown Norfolk, getting hung up in a few lingering strands of lunchtime traffic, when my phone rang.

  It was Alison. We had spoken once on Tuesday night, when I called to tell her I would be spending the night at home, and once Wednesday afternoon, when she confirmed she was going to stay at her mother’s again. Neither conversation had been long.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey. Are you alone? Do you have a second?”

  It sounded like she was outside, near a road. She was speaking loudly, to overcome the background noise of what I assumed was traffic.

  “Yeah, I’m just finishing up my lunch break,” I said. Technically, that was true.

  “Sam and I just went back home. There was a cop’s business card stuck in our front door.”

  “A cop?” I repeated.

  “A detective from the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office. He left a note on the card saying, ‘Please call me.’”

  “Oh Jesus,” was all I said, because I couldn’t come up with anything more insightful.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  And I really didn’t. Was this because Congressman Jacobs had convinced someone to arrest me? Or because my brother-in-law had shot someone on our property? Or because of something relating to Emma? It was difficult to guess which had caught up with us first.

  “Can you call this guy?” Alison said. “This is your area, not mine.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  I pulled over so I could write down the contact information for Harold Curry Jr., detective sergeant, Gloucester Sheriff’s Office, which Alison dictated to me. She e
nded the call by saying she was heading back to her mother’s.

  She didn’t even bother saying what we were both thinking. Our instructions from the kidnappers had been quite explicit: Do nothing. Say nothing.

  And we knew they were watching the house.

  What had they thought when they saw Detective Sergeant Harold Curry Jr. stick a business card in our door? Even if the car was unmarked and the detective was in plainclothes, they would see him and be able to guess what he was. Cops just weren’t that subtle.

  I dialed the number for Harold Curry and, two rings later, heard a clipped voice say, “Sergeant Curry.”

  “Hi, Sergeant Curry. This is Judge Scott Sampson. You left a card at my house?” I didn’t hesitate on the “judge” part. I might as well use what pull I had.

  “Oh, hello, Judge. Thanks for calling me back,” he said.

  “Not a problem. What can I do for you?”

  “Are you at home? Could I stop by in ten or fifteen minutes?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m at work. My wife told me you left a card and asked me to call.”

  “Oh, I see. Is there a time I could pay you a visit tonight?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Well, nothing, probably. I’m just doing my due diligence about something.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’d rather just come out and see you,” he said. “We can clear up this whole thing in a right hurry. You have ten minutes for me tonight after work?”

  “We have plans tonight.”

  “How’s first thing tomorrow, then? My shift starts at six A.M. I could come out before you left for work.”

  “I’d really rather you didn’t,” I said. “Look, what’s this about?”

  There was a pause. “Judge, I’m afraid I need to search your residence.”

  “And why is that?”

  I heard him sigh.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t say, sir.”

  “Well, then I can’t let you search my residence.”

  “Look, Judge, I’m sorry about this. I really am. It would just be a lot easier if I had your cooperation.”

  “You’re not going to get it.”

  He paused again. “I can get a warrant if I have to.”

  Even a man in my position could do nothing to challenge a warrant. The sheriff’s office needed only to have probable cause, which is defined as the reasonable belief a crime has been committed. It is an incredibly low legal standard. Sam reasonably believes Santa Claus is coming down our chimney this year. Sheriff’s deputies are sometimes every bit as credulous.

  “It sounds like we have nothing more to talk about, then,” I said, then hung up.

  As I got my car back under way, I phoned Mrs. Smith to tell her I had come down with something and would not be returning for the afternoon.

  There was no doubt Curry would secure a warrant. It was now crucial I got to the house before he did. I had to deliver a message to the kidnappers.

  I pushed my car well past the speed limit on my way home, inventing stories in my head about judicial emergencies in case I got pulled over. As soon as I was back at the farm, I went straight to the closet where we kept arts-and-crafts supplies and unearthed items that would serve my purpose: several large pieces of poster board and a thick, black permanent Magic Marker. The kind whose lines could be seen from a distance.

  With the marker, I scrawled WE SAID NOTHING on one piece. On the next, I wrote THEY GOT A WARRANT. WE HAD NO CHOICE.

  It might not make a difference. But I wanted it to be as clear as possible that Detective Sergeant Curry’s visit was not an invited one. I made three more copies, then attached one set each on all four sides of our house with duct tape.

  After finishing that task, I went to the front yard, to see if there was any evidence I needed to obscure.

  Three days after Bobby Rowe had lay bleeding on my grass, there was no trace to suggest it had ever happened: no stains, no spots where the pine straw look disturbed. Satisfied, I took up a post on the front porch and waited for the cops with a sick feeling in my stomach.

  I was thinking of Emma. And her fingers.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The older brother had noticed something different when he passed the screen on the way to the bathroom. Now he was frowning at the pixels, still uncertain of their significance.

  Two large pieces of white, rectangular paper had been attached to the front of the house. The other cameras confirmed the sides had been similarly decorated.

  This was the first new development since early Monday, when that kid he had sent with the envelope had been shot. That had been at least somewhat expected: They had seen the guards the previous two nights, prowling around the house.

  This, on the other hand, was unexpected.

  “Hey, come in here,” he said into the kitchen.

  The younger brother appeared in the door, starved for activity. “What?”

  “Look at that,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Can you read what it says?”

  The younger brother sat down and clicked a button that looked like a magnifying glass. Soon the camera was zooming in on the pieces of paper.

  “‘We said nothing. They got a warrant. We had no choice,’” the younger brother said, in English, before switching back to his native language. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Something must have happened. Can you rewind?”

  “Which image?”

  “All three.”

  The younger brother backtracked the footage until the image of a woman in a Lincoln SUV flashed into view.

  “Stop there,” the older brother instructed.

  The brothers watched as the woman parked her car and walked up to the front porch with two bags slung over her shoulder. The boy who had once been their captive followed her. When she reached the front door, she appeared to pull a small piece of paper out of the crevice and read it. Then she returned to her car and departed.

  “Keep going back,” the older brother said. “I want to see who left that note for her.”

  The younger brother rewound farther until another vehicle appeared.

  “Okay, start there,” the older brother said. “Show me the middle camera.”

  The car on the screen had two tailpipes. Which meant police. The man who got out was bald and African American. He wore a blazer and slacks. No badge was visible, but the brothers recognized a detective when they saw one.

  He walked up to the front porch and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he circled the house, taking his time, looking in windows. Then he returned to the front porch, where he pulled a card out of his pocket and wrote something on it before leaving.

  “What do you make of it?” the older asked.

  “I don’t know. Should we make a call?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” he replied, and retrieved the Internet phone.

  When he had completed the description of what had unfolded, the voice on the other end was firm. “I think it requires a response,” it said.

  “What kind of response?”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  “What about the woman? The one who says we can’t hurt the girl?”

  “She’s not your concern,” the voice said. “She’s mine. Do what you have to do.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I left the signs up for an hour, figuring that would be enough time for their message to be delivered.

  Then I took them down. I didn’t need the detective asking questions.

  Perhaps an hour after that, at about half past four, I heard the low purr of a motor coming up the driveway.

  There were actually two of them: a marked car being driven by a beefy, baby-faced deputy who couldn’t have been more than twenty-three, and an unmarked Ford Taurus being driven
by a black guy with a shaved head, who I assumed was Detective Sergeant Curry.

  I walked down the front steps to greet them as they got out of their vehicles. This was not meant to be a friendly gesture. I wanted them off my property as quickly as possible.

  “Do you have a warrant?” I asked as soon as Curry was out of his car.

  He reached back into his front seat and produced an envelope, which he handed me.

  Search warrants have to be very specific about what they are searching for and where they are permitted to search. Otherwise, crafty defense lawyers are well practiced at convincing judges like me that the evidence produced by the warrant must be excluded at trial. At a mere fifty-four words, the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, could be printed on a napkin. Yet the amount of case law it has generated could probably fill an aircraft carrier.

  This warrant was reasonably well done. It gave the detective the right to search “the primary domicile, along with all other buildings, dwellings, or structures, whether temporary or permanent, whether sided or unsided,” on my property, whose dimensions were described not with an address but with the block and lot number from the tax assessor’s office.

  It was what they were searching for that threw me.

  “Evidence of kidnapping?” I said. “You guys think I kidnapped someone?”

  “Judge, if you could just let us get this over with,” Curry said, sounding more tired than anything.

  “Go ahead,” I said, knowing I didn’t have a choice.

  I led them back up the front steps to the porch, then held the front door open for them. Curry entered first. The beefy kid went second.

  As I trailed them, Curry made a cursory pass through the first floor of the house. He descended into the basement, spending no more than a minute down there. Then he walked upstairs, briefly eyeballing each room.

  “Is there an attic?” he asked.

  I led him to the string that controlled the pull-down stairs. “Up there,” I said.

  He climbed halfway up, just enough to be able to poke his head up through the hole. Then he came right back down.

  “Okay, I’m good,” he said. “Sorry to have troubled you, Judge.”