U Is For Undertow

Dolan said, “We also drank a lot of beer and ate all the crap we could find. Stacey’s health is getting better and mine’s getting worse. Last time I had blood work done, my cholesterol was through the roof. I cut back on cigarettes and booze. That’s the best I can do.”

“So tell me about your house. I don’t know what I pictured, but it wasn’t this. It looks like a Frank Lloyd Wright.”

“That’s everybody’s guess, but it was actually an architect passing himself off as Wright’s brother, Fred. Last name was the same but there was otherwise no relationship. People took one look at his portfolio and jumped to the wrong conclusion. He made a point of denying the co

“Clever,” I said.

“Well, he made it work for him. His ploy was to ask them to list their favorites among Wright’s houses, and then he’d draw up plans that borrowed the same elements. Since his prices were low, prospective home owners felt they were getting the real deal at half the cost.”

Stacey said, “Let’s talk about the kidnap business before I take my siesta. I’m like a little kid these days. Half an hour more of this chitchat and I’ll be comatose.”

I went through what I’d been up to, again starting with Michael Sutton and including Dr. McNally and assorted others I’d talked to along the way.

When I finished, Dolan said, “You know, Deborah and Patrick took a lot of flak for not coming to us when Rain was kidnapped. By the time they gave us a description, Greg and Shelly and the school bus were long gone. The draft board was close on Greg’s heels, so chances are he was heading out of the country. Sweden or Canada. Probably the latter. Canada had numerous support groups for draft evaders. Students United for Peace. The SDS. Immigration made it easy for people to come in from all over.”

“Is Deborah aware of this? I talked to her a day ago and she never said a word.”

“She and Patrick might have been embarrassed. In the minds of most conservatives, draft dodgers were scum.”

“Did you interview Rain after she was returned?”

“Three times. The Unruhs insisted on being there, which was fine with us. We didn’t want any suggestion that the child was being coached or intimidated. After the second interview, we weren’t getting anything we hadn’t heard before.”

“Nothing useful at all?”

“Nothing that went anywhere. She talked about the yellow kitten, which is how they snagged her cooperation in the first place. She said she slept in a big cardboard box that they’d done up like a little house with windows cut into it. When she woke up, she played with the kitten or the paper and crayons that had been left for her.”

“Deborah says one of the kidnappers was dressed as Santa Claus.”

“Same thing Rain told us. She said there were two of them and one was fat and had a long white beard. The other one had glasses with paper eyes and a big nose attached.”

“Which I assume was a novelty item.”

“Exactly. We showed her a pair from a local costume shop and she recognized them right off. The shop had no record of a recent sale, but an item like that could have been ordered from the back of a comic book.”

“Was she scared?”

He shook his head. “She said she liked Santa Claus. She’d sat on his lap before. When she asked where her mommy was, he said she’d be back in a bit and then he had Rain drink her lemonade and she went back to sleep. The naps were short and from what she says, she did a lot of bouncing around.”

“In the box?”

Dolan nodded. “They’d made up a little bed for her. They told her it was a playhouse just for her.”

“What about the blanket? Deborah says she was found in the park on a picnic table, covered with a blanket.”

“No help. It was the kind wrapped in plastic on airplane seats.

There are thousands of them out there. Pan Am, in case you’re wondering which airline. That’s as far as we got.”

“And in all of this, no fingerprints?”

“The only print we ever picked up was on the back of a ransom note after Mary Claire was taken. We’ve run it half a dozen times and we’ve never found a match.”

“What about suspects? You must have had your eye on someone,” I said.

“Pedophiles and other registered sex offenders, drifters, hired help in the neighborhood, and anyone else who might have seen someone coming or going. We talked to the friends and acquaintances of both families. Mrs. Fitzhugh said there was a yard guy with a leaf blower next door, working his way up the drive. She assumed he was from a lawn company, but the couple who owned the house were off at work and when we talked to them, they said they didn’t have a service of any kind. The husband handled all the yard work himself.”

“Did you find the leaf blower?”

“No sign of it. A gas-powered mower had been removed from the garage and it was sitting in the drive, but the guy must have worn gloves, because there were no prints on it.”

“How’d he get into the garage?”

“The doors into the house were locked, but not the garage doors. Most days they were left open. Too much trouble to get out of the car and close them.”

“No barking dog on the premises?”

“Nope.”

“Interesting that Mrs. Fitzhugh saw the guy.”

“From a distance. She said he was in coveralls and since he had the leaf blower, she assumed he was the gardener.”

“How’d the kidnappers get to Mary Claire?” I asked. “I thought the yard was enclosed.”

“They cut through the wire fence behind her playhouse. They might have been hiding there, waiting until she was left by herself. We’re not sure how they got her out of there. No one reported seeing anyone with a kid. Chances are, they used the bridle trails. There’s a whole network of trails that winds through Horton Ravine. If they stuck to those, probability is no one would have seen them. Someone on horseback maybe, but we never had a report to that effect. We know Rain didn’t make a fuss, so it’s likely Mary Claire didn’t either. Little girls tend to be compliant anyway, and Rain says they were nice to her.”

“So Rain wasn’t carried off kicking and screaming.”

“No need. The one fellow offered to let her play with the kitten and off she went. Kids that age are trusting. It’s likely they pulled the same thing with Mary Claire.”

“What’d they feed her?”

“Nothing fancy. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

“And as far as she knew, she hadn’t encountered either one before?”

“Nope. They were either smarter than we thought or the luckiest sons of bitches on the planet.”

“You’re convinced there were only two?”

“Two would have been optimal; one on the phone to the mother while the other took the kid. If more guys had been involved, we might have had a better chance for a break. With three or four guys, somebody’s bound to blab or start throwing money around.”

For the next twenty minutes we kept the subject afloat, like a badminton cock being lobbed back and forth over a net. With the right mix of minds, tossing ideas around can be productive, not to mention endlessly entertaining.

“Deborah tells me Patrick photocopied the bills and marked them before he paid.”

“She told us as well. We made photocopies of his copies and sent ’em out to all the banks and savings and loans. Businesses, too, for all the good it did.”

“They could have circulated the money somewhere else.”

“Or they might not have spent a dime. In effect, the ransom was radioactive. Not literally, of course.”

“I got that,” I said. “So far, I haven’t talked to Mrs. Fitzhugh because I didn’t want to intrude. You think I should contact her?”