by Jan Burke
I’m a reporter and my husband, Frank Harriman, is a homicide detective, so our plans are often overset by the demands of our work. Lately, our schedules had been further complicated by Ethan Shire’s recuperation. Ethan was a coworker of mine who was staying in our guest room. Since he had been shot trying to save my life, giving him a place to stay and a little of our time while he recovered wasn’t perceived as a burden, but it had changed how we walked around the house in nothing but our underwear.
At the moment, having read the sports section and comics and now feigning interest in the obituaries, I waited for my husband to finish reading page fifteen of the A section of the Las Piernas News Express. I work for the Express, and a story I had written on missing children was on pages one, fourteen, and made its final jump to fifteen.
He finished and gave me a wry smile. “The phones in Missing Persons will be ringing off the hook.”
I shrugged. “Probably in the newsroom, too.”
“Tough subject to write about.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but it was a story I couldn’t ignore.
A few weeks earlier, looking up some background for a story on an old kidnapping, I had learned that kidnapping is not one of the crimes included in the FBI’s national Uniform Crime Reporting system.
This struck me as odd. Not long after the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932, kidnapping became a federal offense if the abductor crossed state lines or sent a ransom note by mail. The FBI investigated all such kidnapping cases and was often called in to advise on others.
But kidnapping didn’t count in one of the leading reports on crime in the U.S. It was literally easier to get statistics on auto thefts than child abduction.
I got curious.
I found a Department of Justice study on missing children for the year 1999. That study estimated that in the U.S., an astounding number of children had been reported missing — 797,500 — which meant that on the average, Americans lost track of more than 2,100 children every day — 91 kids an hour.
If they had just been numbers, I suppose I would have gone on to something else. But they were children.
The reasons for their disappearances were complex. The largest number were reported to be runaways, a sad commentary in itself, and again not a problem with a single cause or solution. It wasn’t always a certainty that children labeled runaways had voluntarily disappeared. In some jurisdictions, it was a fact of life that the police would rather not spend time hunting down a teenager who probably didn’t want to be returned home. Runaway was an easy thing to write on a report if you didn’t want to trouble yourself much.
One woman told me that when she sought the help of police in the disappearance of her seventeen-year-old son, she spoke to a detective who did nothing more than take down her son’s name, age, and general description. At the end of which he cruelly remarked, “Lady, he probably just wanted to get away from you.” That was just about the sum total of the police investigation thirty years ago, and despite continued effort on her part, she never learned what became of her son.
Police claimed that reporting procedures had changed since then, but they simply did not have the resources to devote much attention to cases other than those that clearly indicated the immediate endangerment of a child. Those presumed to be voluntarily missing were a much lower priority.
I talked the executive news editor of the Express, John Walters, into letting me write a story about the children who weren’t voluntarily missing. This included the second-largest group after runaways — so-called “family abductions” — and I focused on the more than 203,000 cases that fell into that category. In one year, that was the number of children whose custodial parent reported them as abducted by a former spouse or other family member.
Like any good-sized city — about half a million souls live in Las Piernas — ours had its share of these cases. I interviewed several people who didn’t believe their former spouses would harm their children, or cause them to be in the way of harm, but who were both angry and heartbroken that they had been separated from their children. They also felt concern over what the children had been told about them, and anxious about the effect that being “on the run” would have on their kids.
I interviewed other people whose children or grandchildren had been taken from their lives by a noncustodial parent, but who had good reason to fear the children might be in danger — the ex-spouses had histories of substance abuse, mental illness, or violent criminal records.
For an accompanying story, one of my coworkers interviewed a fugitive mother who had taken her children from their father — he was the parent who had legal custody. The mother was now living in Mexico with her two kids and her second husband. We talked to grandparents and aunts and uncles, all of whom were affected when a child was abducted by a noncustodial parent.
Frank predicted we’d get complaints on that one.
“We’ll get complaints about all of it. I couldn’t write about all of them, so other people whose kids are missing will be upset. Noncustodial parents will complain that we didn’t write more about them. Some days I think I’m in the business of making the public unhappy.”
“Another thing our jobs have in common.”
He was about to say more, but we heard Ethan moving around in the living room. The dogs, who had been sleeping on the bedroom floor, perked up and wanted out to see if they could persuade him to give them treats — our animals were gaining weight due to his lack of resistance.
We stretched and hurriedly dressed. I managed not to look back at the bed, although I couldn’t help thinking about how much longer those lazy moments would have lasted on most Sundays. I comforted myself with the thought that we couldn’t be the only people on Earth who had to get up early on weekends.
CHAPTER 9
Sunday, April 23
8:15 A.M.
CALIFORNIA CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
TEHACHAPI, CALIFORNIA
CALEB waited at a table in the inmate visitors’ center.
He had awakened at four this morning, a little earlier than usual for a Sunday, because of the rain. The trip from Las Piernas to Tehachapi took just over two and a half hours when everything went perfectly. Since Los Angeles lay between Las Piernas and the prison, things never went perfectly. If he missed traffic, he caught construction. Rain caused further delays.
Still, this was by far the most convenient of the three locations where Mason had been kept. The first few weeks, when the CDCR — the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — was deciding where Mason should be incarcerated, Mason had been in one of the euphemistically named “Reception Centers” in the desert east of San Diego. He had then been placed in Susanville, at the High Desert State Prison — a Level IV facility, surrounded by a lethal electrified fence, the kind of facility where someone sentenced to “life without possibility of parole” must be kept.
LWOP — life without possibility. Caleb tried to keep that phrase out of his head.
By car, Susanville was ten hours north of Las Piernas. The CDCR said they tried to place prisoners in facilities close to where family members lived, but with half the prison population coming from the Los Angeles basin and only one prison in L.A. County, something had to give.
For a year, Caleb and his mother made the long drive every weekend. During the second year, Grandmother Delacroix — widowed by then, and having a change of heart toward Mason — joined Uncle Nelson (who wanted to impress Caleb’s mom) in the battle to get Mason moved closer to Las Piernas. Grandmother became a determined advocate for Mason. She was joined by the legions of Fletchers enlisted by Uncle Nelson, which made a difference. Mason was transferred to Tehachapi, formally known as the California Correctional Institution.
Tehachapi was overcrowded, as were all the California prisons. More than five thousand inmates were held in a prison built to hold half that many. At first, since Mason had to adjust again to a new group of inmates, Caleb was worried they might not have done him a
ny favors. But if there were new problems, Mason never mentioned them.
Throughout most of the state’s prison system, inmates could only have visitors on Saturdays and Sundays and five holidays: New Year’s Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Here in Tehachapi, the visiting hours on those days were from 7:45 A.M. to 2:45 P.M., and Caleb could usually stay most of that time. Once in a while, if a lot of visitors showed up on one day, the first visitors in had to leave a little earlier so that the next group could come in. Father’s Day, Easter Sunday, and similar holidays were usually the only times Caleb’s visits had to be shorter for that reason.
He had carefully dressed in conservative clothing, in accordance with inmate visitors’ regulations. Clothing that resembled inmate clothing — blue denim or chambray shirts, blue denim pants — was forbidden, as were clothes that resembled law enforcement or military clothing, including rain gear. It had been raining when he woke up before dawn today, but by now Caleb was an old hand at dressing for prison visits and didn’t make the mistake of carrying a poncho.
He knew the list of allowable items by heart:
His driver’s license, which could not be carried in a wallet, but was necessary for identification for each visit.
One handkerchief — no bandanas.
A package of tissues, unopened.
A clear change purse, holding no more than thirty dollars, which must be in coins or one-dollar bills only. None of it could be left with the prisoner.
A comb or brush.
Two keys on a key ring with no attachments.
Up to six photographs, to be carried in a clear plastic bag.
No chewing gum, cigarettes, food, cameras, pagers, cell phones.
He never wore a belt or shoes that might have metal in them.
He had parked his car and walked to the first processing area. He was in line early, and completed the necessary paperwork, which was checked against computer records to ensure that Mason had agreed to the visit and was available that day. He got the ultraviolet-ink hand stamp and went through security screening — taking off his shoes, walking through the metal detector, putting his shoes back on. He rode the van that took him to the visitors’ area for the facility where Mason was held, checked in through a second security screening and went downstairs, checked in again at the booth on this level, then staked out a table and waited the twenty additional minutes it took for Mason to make it through his part of the process.
He tried to shake off the effects of the nightmare he had every Saturday night — that he drove to the prison and waited there, only to have a guard come to the table and say that Mason was dead. On other nights, the dream would be of a phone call to his home — he would drive and drive and never reach the prison to reclaim Mason’s body. Only his fear-filled dreams about Jenny were worse.
As Mason came into the room, Caleb felt the sense of relief he always had at first sight of his brother. Dread that he had been hurt or was ill or worse was dispelled, and he could see relief on Mason’s face as well. They gave each other the quick embrace allowed as a greeting.
“You’re looking tired,” Mason said, studying him.
“Just finished a presentation for a class last week.” He studied Mason in return. His brother had changed dramatically over the past five years. He was leaner, more muscular. What had once seemed like toughness to Caleb had been hardened, brought to an edge.
For a time, early on, Mason had been depressed. He had come out of that, but the emptiness Caleb had noted in him then had been replaced by constant wariness. On any visit, Mason knew where every other person was in the room, and tracked any changes — when people left, new ones entered, others moved.
In contrast, he told Caleb that he should never make eye contact with, or even look toward, other prisoners during visits, an edict Caleb followed when he learned that Mason could receive a beating if someone else thought Caleb had dissed them with a look.
Caleb was allowed to get up from the table and use the vending machines, but Mason had to stay at the table at all times.
“How was your week?” Caleb asked.
A shrug. “Same as last week.” Later, Caleb would coax a little more out of him, although he knew Mason would never discuss much that happened here. He might say more in a letter. Injuries — cuts, bruises, or worse — were never explained.
They had passed through times of awkwardness, the hard adjustments Mason had to make, while Caleb tried to understand what no one on the outside could, even through a period when Mason had refused the visits. Caleb kept asking to see him anyway, but it was when he wrote a letter to say that with Dad gone, he needed a man to talk to about his problems, that Mason quickly relented. Mason now viewed him as an adult, but even prison could not keep Mason from being protective of his younger brother.
“Seen Mom?” Mason asked. He always asked, even though the answer had been the same for the last three years, from the moment she had become engaged to her second husband.
“No.”
“She was up here yesterday. With Uncle Nelson.” He paused. “She’s looking a little tired of him, you ask me.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“She asks about you.”
Caleb didn’t reply.
“You enjoy hurting her?”
“No. She made her choices.”
“This is some mistaken kind of loyalty to me, I suppose. Or is it to Dad?”
“I don’t think loyalty to either of you is a mistake,” Caleb answered in a low voice, looking down at his hands on the table, forcing himself not to curl his fingers into fists.
“Who’s she supposed to turn to if she needs help? Me?”
Caleb looked up. “Is she in trouble?”
Mason lifted a shoulder. “Hard to say. But I think she’s having regrets.”
Caleb brooded on this for a moment, then decided he didn’t want to pursue it. “Anything more from the attorney?”
Mason smiled a little. “God bless Grandmother Delacroix,” he said, glancing heavenward.
Caleb agreed with him. One of the things Grandmother had done for Mason before she died last year was to hire a new attorney, one who had been actively involved in seeking an appeal. Caleb now administered the trust that paid the attorney’s fees, and made sure Mason’s inmate trust account allowed him to purchase small items from the prison canteen and art tools and supplies. His grandmother had also ensured that Mason would have the funds he needed to get a fresh start in life, if they were able to win his release. When, not if, Caleb told himself.
“The lawyer’s cautiously optimistic,” Mason said. “He’s coming up here next week. I’ll let you know what he says.” He nodded toward the photos. “What did you bring?”
“You wanted to see the new apartment?”
The next hours passed with Caleb telling tales of moving, describing the new place and his adventures in graduate school. Mason talked about a painting he was working on and some of his fellow inmates — people Caleb had come to know through Mason’s stories about them. They played a game of gin. Mason won.
“You’re being careful?” Mason asked, but not about his card play. He always asked this question at some point in a visit, especially if Caleb was pursuing some lead that might help them figure out who set Mason up. None of the leads ever panned out.
“Yes, but I’m not in any danger. I can’t understand that, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“They killed Dad. They took Jenny. They sent you to prison. Why did I escape any punishment or harm?”
Mason raised a brow. “I don’t think you did.”
Caleb fell silent. “No, I guess I didn’t, but still…”
“You didn’t. I know you think you’re failing me, failing Jenny. But you aren’t, you’re fighting for us. And lately — you must feel as if you’re fighting alone. And there’s nothing I can do about that, much as I wish I could.”
“When we talk — when I see you — it
helps.”
Mason seemed surprised.
“It does,” Caleb reassured him.
“Well — that’s good.” He dealt another game of gin. Caleb won.
At 2:15 P.M., it was time to clear out, to start the checkout process. All visitors were told it was time to leave. The brothers stood and exchanged another brief embrace — the earlier greeting and this quick hug good-bye were all the physical contact allowed between them.
“Thanks for coming all the way up here,” Mason said.
“See you next week.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know. But I’ll see you next week.”
That exchange was always the same, every week, as were their next words.
“Keep looking for her, Caleb.”
“I will.”
It was their good-bye, and one of the few mentions either made of Jenny, having long ago found it too hard to say much more.
CALEB began the drive home, wondering how she might have changed in five years. Hoping she had lived to change.
CHAPTER 10
Monday, April 24
2:05 P.M.
NEWSROOM OF THE
LAS PIERNAS NEWS EXPRESS
THE phone had been ringing all day. I’d inadvertently created a hotline for despair.
On that rainy Monday morning, I got more calls than Circulation — and they had to talk to everyone whose copy of the Las Piernas News Express had landed in a puddle.
As the day wore on, the rain let up, but the calls didn’t. One of the busiest news days we’d had in weeks, and I was answering the phone.
Most callers were people who were divorced and afraid of what their ex-spouses might do. Although the end of yesterday’s column had carried a teaser that said, “Next Sunday: What You Can Do to Prevent Custodial Abduction,” fearful divorced parents were not going to wait a week for those tips.