One-Way Ticket

by William G. Tapply

  About five minutes later a new-looking sand-colored Nissan Murano came creeping up the hill. It stopped in front, and I saw that the driver was Teresa, Robert’s mother. I remembered that her husband was a Nissan dealer. She rolled down the window on the passenger side and leaned over to peer at me.

  I lifted my hand. “This is the right place,” I said.

  She pulled up in front of my car, parked there, got out, and came up the brick-paved path. She was wearing blue jeans and sandals and an orange jersey. The jeans fit her snugly. She looked good.

  She lifted her hand and tried out a smile, which didn’t quite make it. “Hello,” she said.

  I said hello. Teresa sat on the steps beside Henry, who was sitting beside me.

  She let Henry sniff her hand. “I hope you’re going to tell me what’s going on,” she said.

  “I want to wait till the rest of them get here,” I said. “I’d rather tell everybody at the same time. Did Dalt call you?”

  “He said you gave them the money,” she said. “He said you talked to Robert afterward. I said thank you for keeping me informed. That was about it. Dalton and I don’t have long conversations.”

  “That’s really all the news there is,” I said. “Can I get you a Coke?”

  “I’d love a Coke,” said Teresa.

  I stood up, then looked down at her. “I don’t know your married name.”

  She shrugged as if it hardly mattered. “Samborski,” she said. “My husband is Adolph. Everyone calls him Sam.”

  “He couldn’t make it tonight, huh?”

  Teresa gazed out at the street. “He works a lot,” she said.

  I went inside, fetched another Coke, and brought it out to Teresa Samborski, and about ten minutes later a big boat of a silver Chrysler nosed into the parking space behind my little green BMW. Dalt got out from behind the wheel. Jess climbed out of the passenger side, then opened the back door and held it for Adrienne.

  The three of them stood on the sidewalk and looked around. The judge wore dark tailored slacks and a matching jacket over a white silk blouse. She looked stern and strong, pretty much like a judge. The Chrysler, I guessed, was hers.

  “This way,” I called to them, and waved them up.

  The three of them came up the path. Dalt and Jess were holding hands. Teresa and I stood up. Henry held his ground until everybody patted his head.

  Then we all went inside.

  The four of them took seats in my living room, Dalt and Jess side by side on the sofa, Teresa in one of the easy chairs, and Adrienne in the rocker. I offered coffee and Cokes. Dalt and Jess asked for coffee, milk, no sugar. Adrienne said she didn’t want anything. Teresa already had her Coke.

  I fetched the two mugs of coffee, then sat on one of the side chairs and looked at the four of them. “I want to tell you everything that’s happened so far,” I said. “We need to figure out what to do. Okay?”

  They nodded.

  Adrienne said, “What I want to know—”

  “Let’s do it my way,” I said.

  “But—”

  “This isn’t your courtroom,” I said. “I’m in charge here.”

  Her smile contained neither warmth nor humor. “Of course, Attorney Coyne.”

  “Friday a week ago,” I said, “I had coffee with Robert. That’s when he told me that he’d piled up a big gambling debt with the Russo family. Robert’s debt was why you got beat up, Dalt. Russo was holding you responsible for your son. So Robert promised me that he’d talk with you”—I waved my hand, taking in all of them—“his family, clear the air, and work out something.” I raised my eyebrows at Dalt.

  He shook his head. “I never heard from him. Last time I talked to Robert was that night at the hospital.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “So on Saturday, Robert’s girlfriend, a girl named Becca Quinlan, a student at BU, called me. She was worried about Robert, hadn’t seen him for a few days. She’d gone to his apartment. His roommates hadn’t seen him, either. I met with her and we talked. She told me that she and Robert hadn’t been together very long. There’s an ex-boyfriend named Ozzie who’s a friend of Robert’s. Anyway, on Sunday morning in the Globe on your doorstep, you found that cell phone and the CD that we looked at. I want to look at it again.”

  I stuck the disc into the DVD player on my living-room television. Robert’s duct-taped image appeared. The four of them watched as Robert read his appeal, and I watched their faces.

  Dalt was clenching his jaw.

  Jess sat beside him staring at the screen.

  Teresa blinked at the tears that brimmed her eyes.

  Adrienne scowled.

  The whole thing lasted about three minutes.

  “I showed this disc to a friend of mine,” I said when it was over. “He pointed out that a bedsheet is draped behind Robert, most likely to make it impossible for us to draw any conclusions about the room he’s in. But my friend did notice a light source behind the sheet. He guessed from its location high up on the wall and its apparent size that it might be a basement window. He also was able to tinker with the audio so that we could hear half a minute or so of some kind of rhythmic slapping sound in the background. Neither he nor I could identify the sound.” I paused. “I’m telling you this because the disc was designed by the kidnappers to contain no clues, and they did a pretty good job. But there may be clues in it nevertheless, and I aim to look into them further.”

  “They’re keeping him in a basement, then?” said Teresa.

  “It’s likely,” I said.

  “Otherwise,” said Dalt, “we don’t have a clue.”

  “That’s about right,” I said. “So to continue our chronology, on Monday Adrienne got the money in the exact numbers and denominations they asked for. I picked it up from her that evening. The kidnappers called on the cell phone they left for me a little after midnight Tuesday, which was last night. This morning, actually. They told me to take the bands off the money and dump all the bills into a plastic trash bag, then to put that bag into another bag and tie the tops. They kept me on the phone and told me to begin driving. They gave me directions along the way. They followed behind me so they could see where I was and what I was doing. I figure they probably were watching me all the time, starting from when I got into my car, but I didn’t notice them right away, which means they were pretty good at it. They directed me over some back roads and told me to drop the bag of money off a bridge into the Merrimack River in Salisbury, which I did. They had a boat under the bridge to pick it up. They also told me to throw their cell phone into the river, and I did that, too. Then they followed me all the way home.”

  “What about Robert?” said Adrienne.

  “I asked to speak to him, of course,” I said. “Repeatedly. I asked when he would be released. I threatened not to give them their money until they delivered Robert, or at least let me talk to him. They refused. They only said that I would be hearing from them. I thought about disobeying them, but I decided I’d better do what they said. As a result, they have the money, and we don’t have Robert. I’ve been second-guessing myself all night.”

  “You talked to one of them on the phone,” said Dalt. “You didn’t recognize his voice?”

  I shook my head. “He disguised it. He—or she, for all I know it was a woman—he spoke precisely. I didn’t notice anything about his speech. No accent. No quirks at all in his language or diction that I could tell.”

  Dalt started to say something.

  I held up my hand. “Let me finish. A little while after I got back home this morning my house phone rang. It was him. The same disguised voice that had been giving me instructions. He put Robert on the phone, and we had a very brief conversation. He said he was okay.”

  “That was when?” said Adrienne.

  “Around quarter of six.”

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  I nodded. “It was Robert.”

  “That was over twelve hours ago,” she said.

&
nbsp; “So by now he might be dead,” said Dalt. “Right? I mean, maybe that’s why they called. So we’d relax and give them time to—”

  “We don’t know anything like that.” I drained my can of Coke. “Those are the facts of it. I’ve been thinking about how they planned it out, and I can’t find a flaw in their scheme or in their execution of it. I might have screwed the whole thing up, but if I did, I can’t think of anything I’d do differently if I had to do it over.” I hesitated. “Except for one thing. We should have gone to the police the minute we got that CD.”

  I looked at Adrienne. She looked steadily back at me.

  “Of course,” I said, “I could’ve just disobeyed them. I might have saved Adrienne a quarter of a million dollars, but I don’t see how I would have saved Robert’s life.”

  “We should have gone to the police,” said Teresa. “I should have spoken up before.” She looked at me. “You said that’s what we should do, Brady. I agreed with you, but I was too intimidated to say anything.”

  “You had your chance,” said Dalt. “You can’t sit there now and blame us.”

  Teresa snapped her head around and glared at him. “Don’t you think for even one minute—”

  “Whoa.” I waved my hand. “We can all second-guess ourselves,” I said. “I’m very good at that myself. You guys can blame each other, too, if you want, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. I’d rather focus on trying to figure this out so we can decide how to proceed. Okay?”

  I looked at each of them, and all four of them shrugged and nodded and mumbled “Yes” and “Okay.”

  “Good,” I said. “All right. I have assumed from the beginning that the man behind the kidnapping is Paulie Russo.”

  “It was Russo’s mobsters,” said Adrienne, “who encouraged Robert to go into debt to them as a way of getting leverage with me.” She paused. “When I recused myself from their case, they lost their leverage and decided to go after the money. Isn’t that right, Attorney Coyne?”

  “That’s about right,” I said. “But let me finish. This morning I confronted Paulie Russo. He denied knowing anything about the kidnapping or the ransom money.”

  “Are you saying you believe him?” said Adrienne.

  “I don’t really know,” I said. “He’s a terrible man who lies easily and without conscience. But he did seem genuinely surprised when I accused him of kidnapping Robert. I actually think I hurt his feelings.”

  Nobody said anything. I allowed the silence to hang there.

  After a minute, Teresa said, “So now what do we do?”

  “That,” I said, “is the question.”

  “All along,” said Dalt, “Mike has said we’re making a mistake not going to the FBI. Brady, that’s what you recommended, too.”

  “What could they have done?” said Adrienne. “These people had it all figured out. Dropping the money off a bridge to a waiting boat? Clever, if you ask me. Brilliant, really. You think the FBI would have anticipated that?” She shook her head. “I love my money, but now this is all about hoping that Robert is still alive and getting him back. It’s not about money. We did what they asked. Now we have to hope that they’ll arrange another clever way for us to retrieve him.”

  “We should be prepared for another ransom demand,” I said.

  They all looked at me.

  I shrugged. “It’s what I’d do. I’d get greedy. Last night went so smoothly, and it really wasn’t that much money. I’d be thinking that we didn’t ask for enough. I’d think, These people will do anything we say. I’d think we could scheme out another tricky way to drop the money. I’d think we should demand more this time. A million would be a nice round number.”

  Adrienne was nodding. “They’d know I can get it,” she said, “and they’d figure we’d just continue to follow their instructions.”

  “How could they know you have it?” said Jess. It was the first thing Dalt’s wife, Robert’s stepmother, had said since they arrived. I guessed she was deferring to the blood relatives.

  “They seem to know everything, don’t they?” Adrienne smiled at Jess. “It doesn’t take much research, dear, to learn that Dalton’s father was a very wealthy man, and that what he left to me, unlike what he left to your husband, has been invested well, and that I can convert a large amount of it to cash in a short amount of time. Why else would they have specified on their recording that I would be the source of the payoff? They know. They’ve done their homework. They are obviously very good at what they do.” She paused. “And that’s why I say, absolutely no FBI. These people are smarter than the FBI.”

  “If they’re so smart,” said Dalt, “what are the odds that they’ll release my son?”

  “If,” said Adrienne, “he’s still alive.”

  “Sure,” said Dalt. He gave her a hard look. “Jesus.”

  I said, “I don’t think the question is really about the odds.”

  Dalt nodded. “Because the odds are bad.”

  “I agree with the judge about one thing,” I said. “These people are very slick. Everything they’ve tried so far has worked perfectly. This has been a great success for them. It’s possible that they’re confident they can devise a slick way to return Robert to us, too.”

  “Is that what you think?” said Teresa. “That they’ll return him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s what we all want, and if you refuse to go to the authorities, we have to play it that way.”

  Adrienne said, “We must not go to the police.”

  “We need to decide,” I said. “The four of you, you’re the ones who have to make this decision. I have my own opinions. But Robert isn’t my son or grandson or stepson, and it’s not my money we’re talking about.”

  “No police,” said Adrienne again.

  “Why?” said Dalt. “To protect your reputation?”

  Adrienne’s head snapped around, and she glared at her son. “How dare you? My reputation is not an issue. I am willing to pay more money, if that’s what happens, because it might get my grandson back. This is not about me. I simply believe that these kidnappers are smarter than the police. If you want Robert back, we’ve got to keep the police out of it.”

  “I’m not comfortable with that,” said Teresa. “I mean, we know who it is, don’t we?” He turned to me. “That Russo man? Shouldn’t we just tell the police and have them arrest him?”

  “We don’t know that it’s him,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, “who else could it be?”

  I shrugged. “That’s the question, all right. It’s something we all need to think about. Look. Paulie Russo is most likely behind it. He’s a seasoned criminal and a smart, greedy man. He’s got the motive, not even to mention the means and the opportunity. This morning he swore to me he didn’t do it. But that’s what he’d say anyway. I’m just saying, we need to remember that it’s possible somebody else is behind it.”

  “Like who?” said Dalt.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Brady,” said Teresa, “we need your advice.”

  “I’ll do whatever you folks want,” I said. “I’ll go to the police, or I will not go to the police. I’ll deliver some more ransom money. I’ll negotiate with Paulie Russo or anybody else. But I’m not going to make this decision for you.”

  “We’ll decide,” she said. “Just tell us what you think. We need your opinion. Please.”

  She looked at Dalt and Jess and Adrienne. Dalt and Jess both nodded. Adrienne shrugged.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what I think. I think that we don’t know what we’re doing. None of us has ever been through anything like this before. And what have we accomplished up to now? We’ve given them a pile of money, and we’re no closer to getting Robert back. We don’t even know if he’s still alive. We are amateurs. We’re outclassed here.” I shrugged. “My advice is, you should call the FBI right now.”

  Adrienne was shaking her head. “Calling in the FBI or the police is th
e conventional thing to do. It’s what they do in the movies, on TV. Those make-believe agents are heroic and smart and competent. But for one thing, that’s probably what these kidnappers expect, and they’re prepared for it. Anyway, I know law enforcement bureaucracy. I know how it works in the real world. I’ve seen the posturing, the politics of it, the image-polishing, the reluctance to make decisions, the fear of making a mistake.” She paused and glowered at all of us. “If you turn this over to them, we’ll be giving them responsibility. Then when it all goes wrong, you can say, ‘Oh, well. It wasn’t our fault.’ Is that what you want?”

  “But listen,” said Dalt. “I don’t—”

  “No,” said the judge. “You listen. Let me finish. I, for one, am willing to take responsibility. I don’t agree with Brady. I think we should at least hold off for a couple of days before we call in the authorities. Robert’s still alive. Let it play out: See if these people call again. See what we can figure out.”

  Dalt started to say something, but Adrienne held up her hand. “Listen. Calling the FBI is irreversible. Once we call them, we can’t change our minds about it. Once they’re in, there’s no getting them out. We can call them anytime. I just don’t think this is the time.” She sat back in the rocker and glared at Dalt.

  Teresa said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lancaster. I do understand what you’re saying, but I don’t agree. I’m with Brady. We should turn it over to the professionals.” She turned her head and looked at Dalt.

  Dalt leaned forward. “I actually think my mother makes a good point,” he said. “If we wait, we have options. We can change our minds anytime. Assuming Robert is still alive, it’s what makes me feel most comfortable. If he’s not, well…” He looked at me. “So what’re we going to do?”

  “It’s up to you guys,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’m just the lawyer here.”

  Jess touched Dalt’s arm. “Whatever you say, I support you.”

  Dalt gave his wife a quick smile, then turned to Teresa. “You’re outvoted.”