Noah's Rainy Day

by Sandra Brannan

  A cherub, he thought. A tasty cherub.

  His camera flashed again and the boy stirred. He stood motionless above the boy’s bed, willing him to sleep undisturbed by his activities. He studied the child’s worry-free face and wondered how the young boy so easily and readily swallowed the whale of a tale he had told him, about his mother not getting all her Christmas shopping done and wanting to be ready by the time the boy saw her, and his father requesting the child stay with him until his mother finished finding exactly what this little tike wanted.

  He wondered what miserable kind of life this poor tot had before he had saved him from all of it. How could he so eagerly believe his parents had asked this man to pick him up at the airport because they were too busy to spend any time with him anymore? On Christmas Eve, no less? How long would this child stay so naïve, so fresh? How long would he have before the boy would begin to ask more questions? How long before it was no longer too good to be true?

  The cherub snorted in his sleep, which brought a smile to his lips.

  He saw himself in this boy’s hauntingly beautiful eyes. Mother, always gone, working. Father, a worthless drunk, predictable only in that he routinely beat his kids. A loveless home where the beatings were the only attention, and a rough shove into a dark closet the only human contact he had ever had. He became morose at the thought and his soft cheeks drooped to a sorrowful scowl. He had been so lonely since his mother’s death seven years ago. So incredibly lonely.

  Until this Christmas. It was a great Christmas. With Sammy. Not lonely. The best Christmas since his mother died. No. The best Christmas ever. Sammy was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Oh, he had hosted little visitors before, but not for very long. Sammy was different. He understood him. He’d obey. He’d stay.

  He reached down and brushed a strand of the black hair from the boy’s ear, dragging his finger against the tiny, bare shoulder. The sleeping child shivered and he pulled the covers up over him.

  Sammy. My Sammy.

  Ah, the gullibility of pampered five-year-olds, he thought. How easily the tot believed his explanation that whenever a child moves to a new home, he must receive a new name and his hair must match his new parent’s, even if it was temporary. Black hair had become easy for the boy formerly known as Max, now his precious little Sammy, after two bags of peanut M&M’s. And when he asked the boy about his grandparents, he was delighted when the boy told him he had none except one named Papa whom he’d never met before.

  The boy was just like him!

  No grandparents, except a man his mother called Papa now and again, when she sat staring at the living room couch and the sprawling form of his father, reeking as if he’d soaked in rubbing alcohol all day. She was too tired to care. He never remembered meeting his Papa, either. So he decided to let the boy call him Papa, even though he wasn’t old enough to have a grandson yet. Papa could double for Dad, which he would become. In time. The boy needed space for now, to learn to trust him. He would treat Sammy as his own. Give him the care and attention he never learned from his own parents, may they rest in bloody peace. He would be different from them. He would protect the child from harm. He would never raise a hand to the boy. Never beat him. Never.

  He was so grateful to have found Sammy. He had spent his entire adult life scanning pictures of kids—kids who had loving parents, kids who had lots of attention at home, kids with childhood riches that can’t be bought with money. He could see it in their eyes. Smiling eyes. Only a few had smiles on their faces and sadness in their eyes. A sadness so dark and omniscient it could only be born of lousy parents. Absent parents. A sadness he understood. A sadness that he spent a lifetime trying to reveal in the darkroom at work in the photos he would develop of that child, hoping someone would notice. But they never seemed to. He cursed those parents along with his own and longed for an opportunity to make a difference in one sad child’s life.

  Sammy could be that child, he thought. He could make a difference in Sammy’s life. This could be his opportunity. He would care for Sammy. Be tender to Sammy. Love Sammy. Sammy would soon forget all about his once-blond hair, his parents living on both coasts. The child had described having homes “in the Big Apple and in the Big Orange,” which he understood meant NYC and LA. They were probably divorced, or very rich—bicoastal parents to contend with, and a troublesome nanny.

  The nanny.

  Nanny Judy is the only person the boy seemed to talk about. To care much about. The trembling must be attributable somehow to him missing her. He wondered if the nanny had the same attachment to this lost child as the boy seemed to have for her. If so, she would be looking for him. She would not give up until she found him.

  He would need to work fast.

  He touched the boy’s head one last time as he decided it was time to make breakfast for the two of them. As he turned from Sammy’s bed, something caught his eye. He peered out the window above the bed and saw the neighbor boy lying along the second story bay window in the house across from Sammy’s room. It was as if the older boy’s gray eyes were staring at him, watching him, boring through him like a piercing hot poker.

  He studied the boy in the picture window and could see his arms pulled into his chest, his body lying supine, bent and unwieldy. He had seen the older boy before—maybe a teenager—sitting in the driveway in his wheelchair, grunting noises that were beyond recognition. He couldn’t speak. At least he didn’t think so. He was retarded or something. Yet he was lying there staring across at him like he knew something, like he saw something with those dead, gray eyes.

  He yanked the blinds closed, unnerved by the thought of those eyes. Too much like his mother’s accusing eyes seven years ago. Before the blowflies discovered her. Then the maggots. He recalled the smell that had lingered on his clothes every day when he left for work. Eventually, he moved into an apartment. But they never found his mother with those gray, judgmental eyes. Eyes that would never land on him ever again. Or Sammy. He would make sure of it. He would protect the child from anyone who judged.

  He shuddered, staring at the closed blinds.

  He convinced himself that the neighbor boy in the window had no knowledge about what was going on over here and no ability to tell anyone about it, even if he did. Sammy stirred in his early morning sleep. Awareness of Papa’s heavy breathing and even heavier sweating brought him stillness.

  He was in the kitchen when Sammy padded down the stairs. “Morning, sleepy head. You’re finally awake. You want some breakfast?”

  Sammy straightened his shirt. “Coming, Papa.”

  He had adjusted to calling him Papa as easily as he had adjusted to the thought that his parents were simply too busy for him. Sad.

  Sammy asked, “There’s a little redheaded girl playing in the backyard next door. After breakfast, can I go out and play with her? Please?”

  Papa smiled. So far, Sammy had obeyed every house rule. Dressed. Face washed. Hair combed. Never leave the house without asking first.

  “Did you make your bed?”

  “Yes,” Sammy said smiling. “Can I go outside?”

  Papa’s grin superseded a pat to his knee, encouraging the boy to come sit on his lap. Happy to see the boy’s willingness to please him and be compliant, Papa knew the boy was ready for the next step. He lifted the boy onto his lap and held him close, stroking his small back, and whispering into Sammy’s ear. “Not today. Today’s special. It’s Christmas!”

  “Did Santa Claus come?”

  The smile on the cherub’s face was everything he hoped for. Santa had most certainly paid a visit.

  He nodded. “Santa left a surprise for Papa’s little Sammy. Do you want to see?”

  The boy rubbed the sleep from his wide, green eyes as he ducked around the stairs to peer into the living room and kitchen. “Where?”

  “In the basement.”

  CHAPTER 34

  I WAS SURPRISED BY how quickly we arrived at the Federal Building on Stout Street downtown. Must be b
ecause no one in his right mind would be out at 8:30 in the morning on Christmas. Not even in Denver. Streeter punched in his security code and held open the door marked “FBI—Investigative Control Operations” on the seventeenth floor, directly below our offices.

  “Thanks for waiting for me. And thanks for letting me take Beulah home.”

  “No problem. You could have grabbed some shut-eye and a shower before coming back.”

  “And miss all the excitement? Never.” I wondered aloud, “By the way, have we found Judy Manning?”

  Streeter raised an eyebrow. “No, the New York Bureau is on it. They haven’t found her.”

  “Didn’t Max say she went to Manchester, England, for the holidays?”

  “Supposedly. But her family said she didn’t come home for the holidays. She wasn’t at her NYC apartment either. I know Jerome Schuffler at the NYC Bureau and he’ll find her. He said once he does, we can video conference with him, if we’d prefer.”

  “Can we do that?”

  “We can do whatever we want. Chandler’s cleared the way for us.” The derisive tone suggested Streeter wasn’t at all grateful for the extra “help.” Couldn’t say that I blamed him.

  The Investigative Control Operations was a maze of laboratories, computers, research units, and study cubicles. Jack Linwood’s office was directly below Streeter’s. When we entered, Jack surfaced from the ocean of files splayed on his desk and floor.

  “Linwood,” Streeter greeted.

  “Streeter, Liv,” Jack said, his eyes lingering on me. “Either of you get any sleep yet?”

  I shook my head. Streeter did the same.

  “Me neither. No time even for catnaps at this point.”

  Even without sleep, Jack possessed the striking good looks of an exotic prince—standing tall and lean with dark skin and hair, with powerful hands, shoulders, and eyes. He looked like he belonged on a lacrosse field, not in a research lab. I was glad we had cleared the air last night. There was no reason for me to be jealous and every reason to open my heart to this man.

  “Thanks for bringing burgers and sandwiches for everyone. Thoughtful of you,” Streeter said. “And most necessary, since everything was closed at DIA.”

  “Anytime.”

  “The best part about DIA between midnight and five in the morning is that there are fewer people to negotiate through and around. I worked the heck out of Beulah, validated all her findings, and searched the parking structures.” I realized I was still dressed like a vagabond and I’d also worked up a sweat trotting through the miles of parking structures with Beulah, and I smelled even more frightful than I looked. I wished I had taken a shower while I was at Frances’s house, but I was afraid I’d wake everyone.

  “No body?” Linwood asked me.

  I shook my head. The relief on his face was evident. I enjoyed the intoxication of Jack’s attractiveness, could see what Bessie and the other ladies in the Bureau were talking about. How his rare expressions of contrition were even more alluring than his occasional smiles. Mostly he showed no emotion.

  “But Beulah did indicate some kind of confusion or hesitancy in the short-term parking area. She may or may not have picked up little Max’s scent there. Probably faint, but overpowered by the shoe polish.”

  “Which would make sense. Where?”

  “In fairly close proximity to the exits near the Buckhorn Bar and Grill.” I pointed the area out to Jack on the map.

  “That helps,” Jack said. “What Liv just told me confirms what we’re thinking about how the boy left DIA. Which is why I called you down here.”

  Jack cued up several screens of airport videos captured on Christmas Eve, showing us what his team had found so far. The images were mostly in grayscale, which meant it was difficult to determine faces, since the pictures weren’t really clear.

  “We know the boy didn’t leave the airport through the garbage. Nothing there.”

  “I heard you made sure of that. Personally,” Streeter said.

  Jack shot a look at me. I quickly confessed, “I told him you found the shoe polish.”

  I didn’t blame him for being angry with me for ratting him out, but I wanted Jack to get credit for discovering the black dye, especially if it turned out Jack’s speculation that it was used to disguise the boy turned out to be fact.

  I wasn’t happy that Streeter was making me regret my choice to tell him about Jack’s find, until Streeter added, “Good call. We wouldn’t have gotten the possible lead that we’re looking for little Max with black hair if you hadn’t stayed to pick.”

  It was as if Streeter read my mind. Jack and I both let out a breath, neither realizing how tense we’d been about Streeter’s reaction.

  Jack continued, “We’ve completed our airline record search of all listed passengers aboard connecting flights between 12:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m., when the child was officially reported missing to the police. I added an hour to that timeframe in case the airport security or airline employees missed the APB. All passengers and their flights were confirmed as legitimate. I am comfortable ruling out that the boy left DIA via a connecting flight, unless he was checked through as baggage,” Jack said unceremoniously.

  I cringed at this thought, hoping Jack couldn’t possibly be serious. But of course, he was. That was his job.

  Streeter said, “And we have thoroughly searched the airport several times using Denver PD, focusing on potential hiding places like closets, doors, cupboards, compartments, every tiny space. Plus, we had Liv work the airport using Beulah and she’s gone through every square inch, including the parking garages, using the beret as the scent target.” Streeter tossed the evidence bag with the child’s cap on Jack’s desk. “It’s all yours, depending on where you’re going with all this.”

  “So you’d both agree there’s no evidence to indicate little Max was left behind in the airport, either intentionally or accidentally?” Jack asked.

  We both nodded.

  “And he didn’t walk. DIA covers more than fifty square miles and temperatures were near zero to subzero. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that if he did leave on foot, he wouldn’t live to talk about it,” Jack said.

  “Unless little Max took off earlier in the day and someone picked him up, which means we’re still dealing with an abduction since DPD received no calls that a five-year-old boy was found along the road or in a barren field around the airport,” Streeter said.

  “That’s what we came up with,” Jack said. “So it’s improbable the boy left by plane, through the garbage, by foot, or is still in the airport. That leaves escape by car, by public transportation, or in service vehicles. Our team has completely exhausted all service vans and units that departed from the airport within fifteen minutes of the boy’s arrival from LaGuardia to several hours following. Every vehicle and company checks out.”

  A gorgeous, tall woman in a tight skirt and thin blouse—too thin for a winter morning in the Rocky Mountains, by the looks of it—strode efficiently into Jack’s office and interrupted them. “Excuse me, Jack? You said you wanted to see this right away?”

  “Yes, thanks Noreen,” Jack replied, reading the file as he dismissed her.

  I noticed Jack had barely noticed the vixen, fixated instead on the documents she was delivering. Good to know, since it would be easy to feel insecure. Again, I took inventory of my stench, my scuzzy jeans and T-shirt beneath the oversized sweatshirt and winter jacket I had wrapped tightly around me, which caused me to sink further into my chair.

  “Is she Cathy’s new replacement?” Streeter asked, watching Noreen walk out of the office and back to her cubicle.

  Jack nodded while he read.

  I adjusted my baseball cap and grinned at Streeter’s blatant wolfishness. How could people around here in good conscience spread the rumor I’d heard about Streeter Pierce my first day in the office? If the expert way he kissed me wasn’t proof enough, how about the fact that he had been married before? Or the way he appreciated beautiful women li
ke Noreen and Jenna Tate? He definitely preferred women. And how much more blatant could he be about it?

  He must have noticed me watching him or heard me snicker because Streeter cleared his throat and held a finger up to his lips, hushing me as Jack read. The impish spark in his eye made it harder for me to stay quiet.

  Jack dropped the file on his desk. “That’s what I was afraid of. Not enough of the partial print from the beret to make a match. We’ll keep trying. With the hair dye, I’m focusing my team’s efforts on the belief that the boy is still alive, at least for now, and that the perp and/or the boy left DIA by car or by public transportation. Because if he’s not, we have all the time in the world to find his body.”

  I couldn’t help but notice how easily Jack distanced himself from the subjects: the perp, the boy. No names. Cold. Everyone coped in a different way. Jack coped clinically. Maybe he had to, given his history with losing a son.

  “We need an image from the surveillance videos to narrow our search. I was thinking that we know the path Kevin Benson took from gate B31, down the escalators to the underground trains, coming up to the main terminal and to the Buckhorn Bar and Grill. But we’ve found scant video evidence of his movements, even knowing the time and path. And nothing after the bar.”

  He played four short clips of videos, first with untouched footage, then enhanced footage where the subject—Kevin Benson carrying little Max—was highlighted, the rest shadowed to help focus our eye.

  “That’s it. These four clips from the numerous cameras mounted in the airport.”

  “Someone can easily avoid detection if they know what they’re doing,” Streeter concluded.

  “See? Benson carrying the boy. Clearly the child has blond hair, even though this is grayscale video. Our team’s still looking. Focusing on all children in his age range.”