by Chris Jordan
“They’ll never believe me.”
“Of course they will,” says the voice. “You’re a really good liar, Dr. Munk. World-class. Make them believe.”
35
when the dark lightning strikes
Our first big break comes at five after two in the afternoon. Connie has helped me raise the ten grand for the bail bondsman and now we’re back at my dingy motel to pick up the rental. Shane looks almost as discouraged as I feel. The inquiry into the adoption records has been a bust and he’s about to tell me how bad it is when his cell phone chirps.
He glances at the incoming number. “I have to take this call in private,” he explains, somber-faced.
I offer to leave the room, but he waves me off, and a moment later he’s outside. I can see him through the window, holding the phone to his ear with one hand while he extracts pen and notebook from his shirt pocket. The fact that he’s avoiding eye contact is more than a little disturbing. Is this more bad news on the way, is that why he doesn’t want me to overhear the conversation?
Maybe the worst has happened. Maybe the state police have found a body. Maria would surely contact him first, let him break the bad news.
It’s a fairly mild day for late June, but the room suddenly feels claustrophobic and it’s all I can do not to open the door and bolt.
Please, God, don’t let this be when the black lightning strikes.
When Shane finally slips back into the room my heart is pounding so hard it makes my ribs hurt. But his eyes are crinkled up in a slow smile, so it can’t be the news I’ve been dreading. Something else has happened, and he’s quick to let me know, sensing my anxiety.
“My contact at the Pentagon came through,” he announces, holding up his notebook. “We’ve got a list of Army Special Operation Forces personnel in the area, active and inactive, and several of them fit the general description.”
I’d forgotten to breathe, and take a deep, shuddering lungful. The air burns, but it feels oh so good.
Reading from his notes, Shane begins to go into detail.
“There are five men within the thirty-five-to-forty age group who would be likely to wear the unsheathed-dagger tattoo,” he says. “No specific confirms on the tats, unfortunately. Not yet anyhow. But get this, one of the guys has a ten-year-old son. An adopted son with medical problems. We’ll start with him.”
One minute later we’re back on the road, heading north.
Cutter is starting to think that following Mrs. Bickford is a waste of time. Time that’s rapidly expiring, and that is starting to feel like small bubbles in his blood, spurring him on. Fortunately they’re all heading in the same direction—north on 95—and since Cutter doesn’t want to exceed the speed limit in his stolen Cadillac, he might as well remain behind his quarry, keeping an interval of five or six vehicles between them, for at least another few exits.
He assumes they’re heading to Pawtucket, to check out the adoption records. Which will prove to be another dead end for Supermom and her faithful sidekick.
So far as Cutter has been able to determine, all the bases had been covered. Assuming he hasn’t left behind any DNA or prints—and he’s one hundred percent certain he has not—there’s no way a solo investigator will be able to identify him as the culprit. Planning and execution have been meticulous. He’s used all of his skills, his training, his battlefield-honed instincts, and now he’s less than twenty-four hours from completion.
Between now and then he’ll do whatever has to be done to keep the enterprise on track. Kill, maim and terrorize as necessary. As he sees it, the primary challenge is managing the surgeon, Stanley Munk. At this point, control of Munk is strictly a psychological operation, and psych-ops are always dicey and unpredictable. At present Munk is cooperating, but that could change, and if it does, Cutter has to be ready. If threatening to expose the good doctor isn’t enough, he’ll find another way. Take Munk’s latest trophy wife hostage, if necessary. But abductions are inherently risky, requiring complicated logistics and timing and he hopes it won’t come to that.
Cutter doesn’t think of himself as a kidnapper. In his mind kidnappers are vile monsters, damaging children for money or depraved physical pleasures. His appropriation of Tomas is completely different, and necessary. The choice had been clear. He had to take Mrs. Bickford’s son so that his own son might live. And if that means his soul is damned to hell, so be it.
His foot knows something is wrong before he does. Why has he jammed on the brakes? Because five cars ahead, Mrs. Bickford has done the unthinkable. She’s supposed to be going to Pawtucket—he’d been absolutely certain that’s where she was heading—but instead she’s put her blinker on and is edging into the right-hand lane for the exit to Route 9, just south of New London.
The fact explodes like shrapnel in his hyperactive mind. Something is wrong, and for the first time in weeks, he has no idea what it means.
Our first stop is in Sussex, and as we wend our way up Route 9, Shane is explaining what happened to the adoption records.
“According to the Rhode Island attorney general’s office, Family Finders was a shady outfit, licensed but not always compliant with state laws on the adoption process,” he begins.
“We had no idea,” I tell him. “Ted would have told me if there was something wrong.”
“He couldn’t have known. It was a very slick operation. Their fees were anywhere from ten to fifty grand, depending on the client. They squeezed out as much as they could, apparently, after checking the financial statements that adoptive parents have to file. They were in the baby-selling business, plain and simple.”
Shane speaks in a just-the-facts-ma’am voice, but each word pounds into my head like an ice-cold spike.
“Are you saying Tommy’s birth mother might really be alive?”
He studies me with concern. “It’s possible. My best guess is that Bruce has his own agenda, but there could be birth parents involved. We might never know for sure because the records were destroyed in a fire six weeks ago.”
“What happened?”
“After Family Finders went out of business, the files were in file boxes in the basement at the county records office. Six weeks ago somebody doused the files with lighter fluid. That’s as much as the arson squad was able to determine. And the one employee at Family Finders who might know died at about the same time. Fell from a ladder, supposedly.”
“It was him,” I say. “Had to be Bruce.”
Shane agrees. “He found something, doesn’t want anybody else to know what it is.”
“I’m not sure it really matters now,” I say. “Not when we show up at his front door.”
36
tenpins in heaven
He’s not the one. That’s obvious to me the moment he opens the door. Too big, not the right age, and he doesn’t move like the man who abducted my son. And if there was any doubt, his voice confirms it. He’s not Bruce, not even close.
We’re in Sussex, which bills itself as “The Nicest Small Town In America.” No argument from me. It’s the sort of place I think of as Old Connecticut, far removed both in miles and mind-set from the towns and cities within commuting distance of New York. A quiet little riverfront village with a mix of lovingly restored colonial-era homes and a few quirky-looking buildings that had been patched together over the centuries, without help or guidance from Architectural Digest. That’s not to say that developers haven’t had their way here and there, among the slightly precious shops and inns, but I can’t imagine upscale destinations like Greenwich or Fairfax allowing a giant plastic groundhog to be featured in the main square. The locals apparently have great affection for Sussex Sam, and parade him around on Groundhog Day. It’s late in the month of June and Sussex Sam is still there in the square, wearing his jaunty plastic top hat and searching for his shadow.
A few crucial blocks from the waterfront, and thus far free from renovation, there stands a row of wooden, three-story tenement buildings, sheathed in dented alumi
num siding. We’ve located Lieutenant Michael Vernon, U.S. Army (Ret.) on the third floor of the middle building, where he lives with his wife and son in a four-room apartment that smells of sour milk and boiled potatoes.
According to the information from Shane’s source at the Pentagon, Lieutenant Michael Vernon is forty-one years of age, but he looks ten years older, and his broad-shouldered, linebacker’s physique has sagged a bit over the years. Thinning red hair, close-cropped, and the kind of freckled skin that eventually shows serious sun damage. A big brawl of a man with forearms like Popeye. He’s not entirely clear on why we’ve sought him out, but seems glad to have company on a summer evening, and makes us welcome.
“Family Finders, huh? Yeah, I knew they went bankrupt or whatever. One time when things were bad Cathy and I talked to a lawyer about suing the bastards. Pardon me, miss. But you know what I mean. Anyhow, it was too late. Nobody left to sue.”
Shane and I have been offered seats on the plush green sofa, which is relatively new, unlike anything else in the apartment.
“Gift from my mother-in-law,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “Couple months ago she plops down and a broken spring bites her in the butt. Next day a delivery truck pulls up. Hell, if I knew that’s all it took I’d have bitten her in the ass myself. Pardon me, miss. No offense intended.”
“None taken,” I respond.
His wife, Cathy, is a special-needs teacher at the local middle school, so he stays home to look after Mike Junior. “Not my idea to name him after me,” he says. “That was Cathy. You guys want some iced tea? ’Scuse my saying so, but it’s hot as a bitch in here.”
Iced tea would be great. There’s no air-conditioning and the windows are screwed shut because this is the third floor and Mike Junior has a habit of lurching out of open windows.
“He’s not really trying to jump,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “He just sort of rocks forward, you know, like they do, and if he loses his balance, out he goes.”
The black-haired, olive-skinned boy has been relegated to his bedroom while Daddy talks with the nice man and woman. The handsome little boy went willingly enough—it’s obvious he enjoys pleasing his father—but every minute or so he makes a high-pitched shriek that startles all of us, even his father, who knows to expect it.
“He’s just playing. That’s the voice he uses when he’s playing with his toys. Tea okay? Good. Now, how can I help you?”
Shane explains that my son has been abducted, and that the kidnapping may have had something to do with Family Finders.
“Your kid got snatched? No shit. Sorry, Mrs.—what is it again? Brickyard?”
“Call me Kate,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about swearwords, Mr. Vernon. I’m not offended by salty language.”
That makes him chuckle. “Salty language? That’s the marines. I was army, we just plain cuss. Anyhow, Kate, you please call me Mike, okay? Around here they call me Big Mike so as not to confuse me with the boy, but just plain Mike is fine.”
“You were Special Forces?” Shane asks.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“The tattoo.”
“Oh, yeah.” Big Mike glances at his massive forearm, as if he’d forgotten the image of the unsheathed dagger inked into his skin. “Ancient history now. I got out five years ago on a hardship, because of Mike Junior. Had him in a special-needs school for a while, but really it doesn’t work for him, having all those other kids around. With Little Mikey, you got to control his environment, make him feel safe and secure. Then he’s fine. Really, he’s a great kid.”
From the bedroom, the boy shrieks. I’ve begun to recognize that the shrieks do indeed have a playful quality. And I’ve decided that Big Mike Vernon is a thoroughly decent man for staying home with the boy, and for speaking about him with such obvious patience and affection.
“Maybe we could start at the beginning,” Shane suggests. “How did you establish contact with Family Finders?”
Big Mike shrugs. “Cathy wanted a baby, that’s how it started. We’d been hitched for what, five years, and no luck. Something about her plumbing. ’Scuse me, Kate. Woman troubles. Anyhow, I was fine with that, but she wasn’t. Really wanted to have a baby, it was all she thought about, raising a kid. Army isn’t real big on fertility therapy because it’s so costly, but what they had we tried. Didn’t work. We talked about adopting and that seemed like a good idea, so we put ourselves on the list with our church organization, you know? Only there aren’t a lot of babies up for free adoption. Couple years went by. Then I’m on this temporary assignment and there’s a guy in the unit, a captain, he’s a pretty good guy and it turns out we both married Connecticut girls, so we had that general connection. Turns out and he and his wife have just adopted the cutest little baby boy you ever saw. So I ask him how he did it and he told me about Family Finders, up there in Pawtucket. Said all it took was cold hard cash. Not a lot of paperwork and no long waiting lists, if you didn’t mind adopting a brown-skinned baby.”
“What did they tell you about your son’s background?” I ask. “Anything about his birth parents?”
“Nah, not really. That’s supposed to be a secret, unless the birth mother wants to make contact. Which they assured me she wouldn’t do. And it’s not like we wanted the mother coming in a month later, taking him back.”
“No,” I agree. “Of course not.”
“Just between us chickens, I formed the impression the mother might have been a prostitute. Cathy didn’t pick that up—didn’t want to think about it—but I been stationed in places not a whole lot different than San Juan. Young women, girls, they get roped into the life because they’re poor, it don’t mean they’re bad people. Anyhow, the main thing you worry about with a baby from a situation like that is if the mother passes on a disease. Syphilis or HIV or whatever. But Mikey was clean. Whatever’s wrong, it’s not something they can find in his blood. Not that it would have mattered, long run.”
“Why is that?” Shane wants to know.
“You adopt a kid, he’s yours, for better or worse. You don’t give him back because he’s not perfect.”
“No.”
“I’m not saying we didn’t freak out when we realized something was wrong with Mikey. But by then he was part of the family. So you deal with it. You do whatever is necessary.”
“Of course. Did this fellow officer, did his son have problems, too?”
Big Mike slowly shakes his head. “Nope. They lucked out. Kid was perfect, far as I know. Smart and healthy and, you know, a normal kind of kid. ’Course, I haven’t seen them in years, not since I left active service.”
“But the child was adopted through the same agency?”
“Yep. That’s how we got onto it. Cathy had ten grand from her dead aunt, and that’s exactly how much they charged. The captain, I think he paid a little more.”
“Could you tell us how to get in touch with the captain, if we have any further questions?”
“I can tell you his name,” Big Mike says. “Cutter. Captain Stephen Cutter. ’Course, he might have been promoted since then. Maybe he made colonel. Guy was smart, a real brain.”
Shane flips open his notebook, grunts, and uses his thumb to indicate one of the names he’d scrawled down. Captain S. Cutter, 23 Crestview, New London.
“The captain have a tattoo?” Shane wants to know.
Big Mike has to think about it. “Good possibility. Most of the officers got ’em, in those units. Unit cohesion and all that good stuff.”
“He built like you?” Shane asks.
Mike grins. “Nah. Not many are. No real advantage to being a big guy in Special Ops. Harder to be stealthy, sneak up on the enemy. The cap, he’s about average size. And like I say, a real smart guy, too, which I guess is why he made captain.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Vernon. You’ve been a big help.”
“Can’t see why. How’s this all connected to Family Finders, anyhow?”
“We’re not sure,” says Shane.
&
nbsp; “But you think it was an army guy grabbed him, huh? That’s why the question about the tattoo?”
“We’re not sure. Just running down leads.”
“’Cause the cap, he’s not the type to be stealing kids, my opinion. Very stable guy, devoted to his family and all. His wife now, that’s another matter.”
Shane instantly perks up, as do I.
“How so?”
Mike taps his big, freckled forehead. “Poor woman is a little off. The cap was always very protective of her, but you pick up on things like that.”
“You think she has mental problems?”
He shrugs. “Just off, someways. Real nervous and flighty in this dreamy sort of way. Never let the kid out of her sight, I’ll tell you that, like maybe he’d vanish if she couldn’t see him for even a minute.” He notes my crestfallen expression and adds, “Sorry, miss. No offense.”
At the door he says, “I’d walk you down, but Mikey, he gets upset if you leave him alone. Likes to know there’s someone in the house.”
“We’ll be fine.”
He hesitates, looks worried. “You know what? Probably I shouldn’t have mentioned about the wife being a little off. Everybody’s got their own problems. So if you see the cap, you just tell him Big Mike says hello, okay?”
By the time we get downstairs the sky has clouded over, looks like thunderstorms rolling in from the west.
“Next stop New London?” I ask Shane.
“Absolutely. We’ll cruise by, see if anybody’s home,” he says. “Interesting, that part about the wife. This could be the one.”
“I’ll know him when I see him up close, when I hear his voice. I realize that now.”
“Good,” he says. “I’ve got a strong feeling that things are starting to break our way, Kate.”
“You know what? Me, too. For the first time in days I really feel good about this. We’re going to find Tommy.”