STOLEN

by DAWN KOPMAN WHIDDEN

  Before Marty walked out, he gently touched the tip of the little boy’s toes, something he realized his dad would do as a ritual every night at bedtime. He flipped the light switch and started to shut the door and then thought better of it. Instead, he left it halfway open and walked down the hall and down the stairs. As he passed his father’s room on the lower level, he realized someone had moved his father’s regular bed out and replaced it with the old hospital bed that had been stored in the garage. Marty suddenly had a flashback of his mother sitting up in that same bed, sipping water from a blue plastic cup, her once waist-length auburn braided hair long gone from cancer treatments. He could barely remember now the sound of her voice as she called him into the room . . . he had made some sort of excuse of why he couldn’t go in. He had told her he had a ball game or some other stupid reason, when the truth of the matter was, he just didn’t want to. He may not have been able to remember her voice, but he would never forget the look of hurt on her face he had seen in the reflection of the mirror as he walked away. Marty wondered, now, if he would ever forgive himself for the childish cruelty he subjected her to.

  His father has told Marty on more than one occasion that he was just a child then and really didn’t understand the magnitude of what was happening to his mother. He tried to convince him that he never really got the chance to know his mother when she was healthy, because he was so young when she took ill. He also tried to convince him that he really hadn’t acted the way he was remembering it. He told him that he had treated his mother with love and respect and had never outwardly showed her his distain, nor was he angry or rude towards her. Marty wondered now if that was the truth or somehow his father had false memories of what was actually truth in order to be able to forgive him.

  Marty’s mother was diagnosed with cancer right after his brother Danny was born; and his identical twin brother Tommy and he were still in diapers. The last five years of her life, she was in and out of hospitals and he never really got to know her as anything other than the very sick woman that lived in the house with them. It was his sister Mary, still just a teenager herself at the time, who had taken over the role of mother to the eight boys. It was Mary who he looked to for comfort when he would come home with a bloody nose, or black eye, because he had gotten into a fight with some kid at school. It was Mary who taught him how to dance so he wouldn’t look so lame at the school prom. It was Mary who slapped him across the face the day he told her he wished his mother would just go ahead and die because he was sick and tired of having to be quiet when the sick lady would come home from the hospital.

  Looking back now, Marty honestly believed that Mary should have done more than slap him that day. He had deserved a real good ass kicking.

  “Is he asleep?” Hope asked.

  Marty’s phone began to vibrate, signaling a text message was coming in, so he pulled it out of his pocket and quickly glanced at it.

  The message was from Jean.

  “Shit!” It slipped out and he was waiting to be scolded for having a potty mouth.

  “What is it, Marty?” Concern trumped her annoyance at the cuss word. She already was showing signs of fatigue and Marty noticed the crease in the center of her forehead had deepened. “Is it the Captain?”

  “No, honey, it’s nothing. It’s just a message from Jean about the case.” Marty pushed a lock of her chocolate brown hair behind her ear and he could feel the tension escape from her muscles. It was as if he cut the rubber band from the stem of a party balloon.

  “Seriously, Marty.” She took his hand and prompted him to sit down at the kitchen table. She pulled out a chair opposite him and sat down. “Bringing him here was not a good idea. He needs a structured family experienced in foster care, constant attention, and possibly extensive therapy. We have no idea what kind of trauma or abuse he has been exposed to. You and I have jobs that are very demanding and time consuming—”

  Marty interrupted her. “Hope, there is no one better to care for him than you.” She started to protest, but he hurried his words to block hers out. “Nobody is more qualified. You and I were planning on taking some time off and helping with the Captain when he came home from the hospital. How much more trouble can it be to add one little boy to the equation? He’s probably going to be a lot less demanding and a heck of a lot less trouble than my father.”

  “I got the feeling that you were needed at work,” she argued.

  “Look, we are both tired. It’s been a long day. How about we just discuss this in the morning?”

  Marty stood up and waited while she got up and then broke into a broad smile. He could feel the deep indentation in his right cheek making an appearance and he was gambling on it being a deal breaker, hoping it would wipe away the look of reluctance on her face. Marty could tell she wasn’t happy, but she was teetering on being persuaded to see it his way. What he didn’t want to tell her was the thing which bothered him the most.

  He had a strong feeling that Tristan may be in danger, and he wanted him close and under his protection. He was pretty sure he had been in the room when Blakey was murdered; and if Troy Blakey, or whoever he really was, didn’t make it, then Tristan may very well be their only witness. Marty wasn’t comfortable with the child being out of his sight, especially since he knew someone else was out there; and he didn’t think he would just steal Dylan’s motorcycle, take off, and leave his brother and nephew behind. Marty wasn’t quite sure of the dynamics of this Blakey family, but he did know that brothers usually stuck together, no matter what.

  Lieutenant Mike Sanders stood in the middle of the room staring at the computer. Now that they received word verifying Archie Blakey was dead and one of his sons was in a coma and the other son was missing, he finally convinced a judge to issue him a search warrant of the wood-frame house the family had lived in. The place was a virtual junkyard inside and out, with scrap metal, aluminum cans, and abandoned cars scattered throughout the twenty-five-acre property. The front yard was nothing but overgrown weeds, and more than one officer searching the place managed to either tear his uniform or draw blood while walking through the scattered debris.

  A crime scene technician, a recent college graduate who majored in computer engineering, was successful in opening a file he found on the early model laptop computer hidden under one of the beds. He immediately called Sanders over and the two men stood there, their eyes glued to the monitor. While Sanders stood watching, his mind fought, unsuccessfully, to shut out the visuals. A wave of nausea made him sick to his stomach. Thousands of photographs of young children, in compromising positions, flashed across the screen. Some of the images, of children, showed them smiling, but their eyes told a different story. A few of them were so young their smiles showed gaps where baby teeth had recently fallen out. He could tell by the clothing and hairstyle some of the photographs were at least twenty-five years old or maybe even older than that. As much as he wanted to turn away, he forced himself to look: trying to see if any of the children’s faces looked familiar. Searching deep and inventorying his memory for images of missing children whose cases have passed through his office since his career began. They all looked familiar; but he realized that it was generic and every one of their little faces looked like the kids in the kindergarten class he recently visited on career day.

  In his hand he held the mug shot of Shane Blakey and an old high school photograph of Troy. Next to the computer monitor was a photo of a young lady in a silver frame that Sanders immediately recognized as Donna Barrie, holding a toddler on her lap.

  “How did you get in? Did the guy have a password?” He questioned the technician.

  “Yeah, but he must have had a hard time remembering what it was.” The tech held up the machine to show Sanders a white piece of paper taped to the bottom with the word XESDNUORGYALP printed in block letters.

  “What kind of gibberish is that?”

  “Not gibberish, Mike, it’s . . . come here,” the young technician motioned for him to follow.


  Sanders looked up, confused, but followed the technician into a small bathroom. Overwhelmed at first at the stench that almost had him gagging, he glanced down at the toilet to see stale urine and feces that filled the bowl, causing him to immediately slam the lid of the commode shut, hoping to eliminate some of the sickening smell. Turning back around to face the technician, Sanders watched as the tech held the back of the laptop and the paper up to the mirror behind a stained and chipped porcelain sink.

  Hardly able to see the image because the mirror was smeared with soot, the man used the back of his jacket sleeve to wipe away the cloud of dirt so that they can see the image, which was now reversed.

  “PLAYGROUNDSEX.”

  “Shit!” Sanders cried out in disgust.

  He walked out of the bathroom and turned to one of the other techs that was searching through a small, narrow closet.

  Peter Putt, a veteran investigator, walked over to him. Putt, at six-foot-nine, who was once destined to play professional basketball, but blew out his right knee during a high school championship game, towered over Sanders.

  “Hey, Loo, look what I found.” He held up a cardboard box with newspaper clippings.

  “Do I really want to know, Peter?”

  Putt didn’t say a word, just shrugged.

  Sanders started to take one of the clippings out of the box, but it was brown with age and the paper started to crumble at his touch. He immediately let go and positioned himself so he could read the article on top, holding the paper with the very tips of his fingers.

  He was able to read the headline, but the smaller print was faded and hard to make out. The article was cut out from a New York newspaper.

  Sullivan County Child Abducted in Broad Daylight . . . it was dated twenty-five years earlier, April 20th, 1988. He shifted the paper and was able to make out the headline of the next article. Orange County Toddler Abducted From Daycare Center Playground . . . it was dated June 16th, 1988.

  He looked up at Putt, dumbfounded. He glanced down at the photos in his hand and got a weird feeling. He did a few mathematical calculations in his head, and then he turned, and made his way back into the first room.

  He turned to another young crime scene investigator who was now inventorying the laptop into evidence.

  “Do you geeks have some kind of facial recognition software in that lab of yours? Can you put these pictures in and see if it matches any of those?” He pointed to the laptop and handed them the photos he had of Troy and Shane. “Damn it,” he looked up and scanned the room. “What the hell were these guys into?” He wasn’t surprised when he received nothing but silence in return.

  Taking a deep breath, he started to walk out of the house. He turned around before he got to the front door and rubbed his face with his right hand. He pulled out his cellphone and called Rita at the station. He started to talk as soon as she picked up her extension.

  “Rita, do whatever you have to do and arrange for me to go to New York State to follow up on the Donna Barrie case.” He didn’t wait for her to tell him how she probably wouldn’t get approval or the funds to follow up on a case that cold. “I don’t care if they won’t authorize the funds, I will pay for the tickets myself, if I have to, just make me reservations to fly out there as soon as possible and call that, what’s his name?”

  “Detective Keal.” She answered him without hesitation.

  “Yeah, him, give him a call and tell him I’m on my way there. Tell him I want to interview Troy Blakey, coma or no coma; and if they found his brother, you tell him to make sure they don’t let that guy out of their sight.”

  He didn’t bother to say goodbye, he just disconnected the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket, kicking the door jam on his way out.

  Marty woke up the next morning with a little face and a pair of green eyes staring down into his.

  Those two green eyes were so close to his nose that it actually looked like he was looking at one giant green ball.

  “Hey, buddy, did you sleep well?”

  He pointed to his mouth and gave a soft grunt.

  “You hungry, pal? Is that what you’re getting at?” He grabbed Marty’s arm and yanked.

  “Easy, buddy, I get the message.”

  Marty looked over at Hope. She was on her stomach with the pillow scrunched up under her face and she was snoring softly. Her long hair fell in waves over her shoulders outside the micro suede blanket, which partially exposed her bare back. Marty carefully got out of bed and replaced the blanket so she was covered. Tristan was watching every move he made; and with the movement of a ninja, Tristan walked to the other side of the bed where her left foot peeked outside the cover. He carefully and gently moved the blanket so it now covered the exposed foot.

  Marty placed his hand on the top of the boy’s head, full of brown curls, and led him out the bedroom and into the kitchen.

  Marty was blown away by what he saw in front of him.

  Somehow, this little boy had navigated around the strange kitchen and managed to find all the makings of a breakfast fit for a king.

  Three bowls, filled to the brim with Special K and milk, sat side by side. Five slices of rye toast sat beside the ceramic bowls, covered in grape jelly. What was once was a brand new eight-ounce jar of the fruit concoction now sat there empty. A tablespoon, with the remains of the sticky substance, stood upside down in the glass. Crumbs were scattered from one end of the kitchen to the other. For some reason, the mess did not only amuse Marty, but he actually looked forward to the challenge of having to clean it up.

  Marty saw the same smile flash across Tristan’s face that he wore the day he tied his shoelaces.

  “Well, buddy, let’s get at it. I’m starving.”

  Marty pulled out the chair for Tristan to sit. He hesitated as he kept his eyes pasted in the direction of the bedroom.

  “How about we let her sleep a little bit longer?”

  He appeared to ponder the idea for a while before he made his way under Marty’s arm and onto the chair. He waited for Marty to take his seat before he made his next move. He folded his hands, his eyes closed and his head bent, and his lips began to move slightly, although no words came out, but it was obvious what he was doing. He was saying grace. When he finished, he opened his eyes and nodded to Marty as if he was giving him permission to begin. Tristan waited for Marty to take a spoonful of cereal before he took and swallowed his. Once Marty did, he did. Marty took another and then he would. Marty took a bite of his toast, trying to avoid a giant blob of jelly, and watched as he duplicated every move he made.

  “There’s a tad bit too much jelly on here for me,” Marty explained to him, as he scooped the stuff off the toast and onto the paper towel he had laid out like napkins on the side of each cereal bowl. Marty thought he’d hurt his feelings, because his lips turned down, so he quickly tried to make up for his unintended offense. He patted his stomach.

  “I’m on a diet, Tristan; I have to watch my waistline. I have a tuxedo to fit into soon.”

  Lucky for Marty, Hope walked in; and Tristan’s frown turned upside down as soon as he caught sight of her.

  Marty didn’t think the kitchen’s new appearance caused the same warm and fuzzy reaction for Hope as it did for him. It must be a man thing, he thought.

  But in Hope’s defense, she kept her shock at the disarray hidden. Without missing a beat, she joined them at the table.

  “Well now, this is a surprise. Did you do this, Tristan?” She asked, as she sat herself down.

  He leaned in closer to her and put his face within a hair of hers. His forehead touched hers, and he nodded his head yes, making her head move in unison with his. She tried not to smile, but when Tristan started to giggle, she was helpless.

  “Okay, now sit back down and finish your cereal.” Marty instructed him, suddenly aware he sounded exactly like his old man.

  Marty turned back and faced Hope. “What do you have planned today? I thought I would take him with me to the hos
pital when I go see my dad . . . .”

  “Actually, Marty, I already spoke to Judy and we discussed the situation. We agreed it would be a good idea if I bring him to Armistace and put him through some testing. I would like to see if we can get an adequate assessment of where he is cognitively and academically. Dr. Lloyd examined him at the hospital and couldn’t find anything physically wrong with his vocal cords; so I’m guessing he may fit into some level of the autistic spectrum. I would like to at least rule out a trauma-related selective mutism.”

  If Tristan knew they were talking about him, he didn’t show any interest. He seemed more interested in seeing how much milk he could pour into the bowl before the cereal started to overflow and crawl down the side of the dish and onto the table.

  Marty took the container of milk from him and put it out of his reach. Hope got up to clean up the mess.

  “If we can just get some history on him, it would be so much better.” She grabbed a paper towel and wiped a few flakes and white liquid from his mouth. He looked up at her like a puppy in love.

  Before long, Tristan got bored of his breakfast and got off the chair and began to wander around the house.

  “Sorry about the mess, I’ll clean up.” Marty told her, knowing full well she wasn’t too happy with his insisting that they bring Tristan home.

  She shook her head, causing one hair to get caught in between her lips. Marty gently removed it with one of his fingers. She leaned over and gave him a kiss, immediately easing his worries.

  Marty’s hand cupped her face and he reciprocated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tristan watching them intently.