A Measure of Blood (28 page)

“Your son is a person of interest in our investigation. Can you tell us when you last talked to him?”

“He drove me to the airport. We talked then. We had lunch. That was last Tuesday. I called him to tell him I am here. Tuesday. I called Thursday but he didn't answer. I called last night but no answer. Where is my son? Do you have him”—she consults with her friend—“in … custody?”

“We would like to speak to him,” Colleen says levelly. “Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“What car was he driving when he took you to the airport?”

“My car.”

“The red VW?”

Brown seems surprised. “Yes.”

“And you left it with him?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see him, previous to the trip to the airport?”

“He came to visit me. It was a Sunday. Not last. The one before.”

Colleen looks quickly to Potocki. He gets it too. “What was the reason for the visit?”

“I don't know … just to see me. He just came. We watched TV.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Nothing. Very quiet.”

“What car was he driving?”

“His Pontiac. He likes it.”

“Did you know he sold it?”

“No, I didn't know.”

“Did he do anything unusual when he visited you, anything to make you suspicious that something was wrong?”

“He washed his clothes.” She begins to weep. “Please tell me. Please.”

But what can she say to comfort the woman? Potocki gives her a quick shake of the head. “It's all right. It's hard, I know, but I just have a few more questions. What is your relationship to Margaret Brown of Pittsburgh?”

“This is the woman who died? Who was killed?”

“Yes.”

“I saw about it on the news. It … made me sad.”

“Was she a relative?”

“No. I never saw her before. She had our name, but she was not a relative.”

“Did your son Nadal ever mention her?”

“Only when I said about the news on TV.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘It's a common name.' And he said, ‘What will happen to the son?' ”

A shiver goes through Colleen. “He mentioned the boy?”

“I think. Yes.”

“Did he ever tell you he had a son?” Or believed he did.

“No.” Brown looks toward her friend, clearly distressed. “Please tell me what is happening? Are you saying … Is this his wife? His son?”

“Mrs. Brown. It's important that we have your cooperation if your son gets in touch with you. Do you understand?”

“Yes … but tell me … ”

“He may be in trouble. We believe he has this boy now. He's disappeared and the boy has, too.”

“He has a son… . I didn't know.”

“We are almost certain this is not his son. He may, however, think it is. And so we need to ask: Has he ever done anything like this before?”

“No.”

“Has he ever been accused of hurting a child?”

“No.”

“Clearly you know things about him that would help us. Can you tell us where you think he would go, who his friends are?”

“I don't know any friends.”

“Why is that? Did he keep friends away from you?”

Mala Brown cries openly. “No. No.”

“Did he seem to be alone a lot?”

“He had roommates. I was happy he had roommates. I thought they would be his friends. I wanted to meet them when I came to the airport. But he said we didn't have time.”

“Do you know where he would go if he needed to be alone or, say, with the young boy, for a while. Where would he go?”

“My house? The police here told me my house.”

“Yes, other than that. After that?”

“I don't know.”

“Tell me, what kind of trouble he has ever been in? Anything about him, anything about why … he has no friends.”

“He is sad. Always. From when he was a little boy.” Her friend Violetta hands her a fresh tissue and puts an arm around her, then half on camera herself and half off, Violetta says, “She took good care of him. She was wonderful with him. It's not her fault.”

“We're not talking about fault at all. Believe me. We think he's a man in trouble. And we're worried about the boy he believes is his son.”

“I know he was always hurt,” says Mala Brown. “Always worried, wishing to make friends.”

“Just a moment, Mrs. Brown. Anything else, Commander?” Colleen asks Christie.

“Ask her if she'll help us. For her son's sake.”

But Nadal's mother can hear the question before it's asked. “I will help. Please don't hurt him.”

“He may contact you. It's important that you let us know immediately.”

“Yes.”

“And if you think of anything, a place he might go … let us know that.”

When Colleen ends the Skype call, Christie asks, “What did you see?”

“Clean, neat, takes pride in herself. Speaks clearly. Good grammar. Truly broken up. Doesn't appear to be lying.”

“So where is he?” Christie groans.

He could be anywhere eight or ten hours from State College or still in the town. He could be on the move or hiding out somewhere. They just don't know.

NADAL FINALLY FINDS
a parking space outside the library in Bradford. He reaches back and touches his son's leg. No reaction. Then he panics again and gets out of the car, putting his hand in front of Matt's face. There is breathing. Yeah, there is breathing.

He climbs back in the front seat and opens his laptop. He is able to log on. Man, it feels good to see the computer working. He googles “Pittsburgh news.” And he chooses WTAE news again.

Police report that the child abduction in Oakland last night …

He clicks. He reads quickly. The story is different from last night. They have his name. They know about the car. He reads again more slowly.

Police are searching for information about Nadal Brown, a person of interest, in the abduction of the child Matthew Brown, who is not believed to be a relation. Information about the relationship is still forthcoming. Police believe the man and boy may be using a red VW Bug and that they may be in the State College area. For a video of the suspect and the boy, go to …

It's their pictures. Somebody took their pictures as they were walking in Oakland.

Not believed to be a relation. What do they know?

Slowly, as if in a dream, as if walking naked in a dream and hoping not to be noticed, Nadal closes his laptop, starts up the car, and begins driving back to the woods.

He is still so tired he can hardly think. If they know about the car … they will be able to trace the car to his mother. How long will that take?

Once more he's shaking badly. He can't keep dosing his son to sleep. He has to get Matt's cooperation. He reaches back to touch his son's leg. No response.

He must get them further south, where nobody will be looking.

He can hardly steer the car though. Nothing looks quite right. Perhaps he missed the path to the cabin. He backs up in a small patch of brush, and backtracks. Still nothing looks … He turns again and drives more slowly, so slowly he can hardly touch the gas pedal. And then he sees the clearing that signals the way in. Even with his errors, it's only been under an hour getting back to the cabin. He lets his head drop against the headrest and goes to sleep in the car.

ALL AROUND POLICE
HEADQUARTERS
the detectives move through the space with an insect-like, constant buzz. When the two civilians appear at the door, everything stops. Jan Gabriel and Arthur Morris.

Potocki goes to them, and although Colleen can't hear what he says, she can guess it's something like, “We have plenty to go on. The car. The … general location. We'll find him.”

Colleen, knowing the profs need something to do, has decided to put them on television. They have language—and dignity. The news team will be here, ready to go in twenty minutes.

Colleen joins Potocki, Jan, and Arthur, and they all walk into the conference room. “Do you need to write anything down or practice?”

“No,” Jan says. “I know what I want to say.”

They don't rush to the restrooms to comb their hair. Colleen can understand why Boss wanted to help them have a child. They're straightforward, decent. They spend their twenty minutes asking each other. “Okay?” They are very much in love still after how many years?

Then the cameras come in. A mike is set up on the table.

“I thought those little clip-on … ” Arthur murmurs.

“Sometimes. We had the table mike handy and we're at a table,” one reporter explains.

“We're rolling,” says the guy on camera. “We can edit out. Just speak normally. About how you want—you know—the boy to be safe and all that.”

Jan is not wearing her reading glasses. Her eyes show her fatigue and sorrow. Even so she appears quick-witted—she's the person you would go to in an airport if you thought you were going to faint or if something terrible happened and you needed someone to understand right away and do something sensible.

She says, “We're Arthur Morris and Janet Gabriel. A couple of weeks ago we began the adoption process for Matthew Brown. This child has already suffered one trauma with the death of his mother. He is now missing. We are pleading with the person who has taken him to keep him safe, to calm him, and to return him to us. It's our wish to take good care of him for the rest of his life.” She turns to her husband.

Arthur says, “Please keep him safe. We hope anyone who has knowledge of where he is will come forward. Matthew is a wonderful child who … deserves to be cared for.”

Jan breaks her gaze from the camera to ask, “Do we need anything else?”

“I think that will be fine,” says the reporter. “By the way, where's the big guy? Christie?”

“He's on the way back from State College.”

“What's in State College?”

Colleen explains. Everything they know is on the news now anyway. No secrets.

NADAL WAKES IN
THE CAR
after only an hour because his neck is cramped. He lifts the boy in his blanket and carries him inside the log cabin to the bunk bed he used before. Then he drops himself onto another bed in the room and falls asleep. When he wakes three hours later, it's four in the afternoon.

His son lies in the position he put him in, mouth open. Nadal gets up noisily but nothing budges the boy. No more pills. He has to win him another way.

Nadal shakes himself awake and goes to the kitchen leaving the door to the bedroom open. Again, the noise doesn't wake Matt.

Abruptly Nadal begins to pack the food, anything that doesn't need to be cooked. Right in front of him is the answer to what he will do next—a long string on a nail behind the microwave. He remembers. The string leads to the key for the truck that's parked out back, the same truck that was here nine years ago. First he searches the two narrow kitchen drawers for anything that will help him. He finds a hunting license from 2003. He folds it into his pocket.

Then he fetches up the key and goes out to the truck. It's an old thing, but somehow not terribly noticeable. It's black with scratches in the paint from all the trees and bushes it's rubbed up against. On country roads, there are plenty of old trucks like this.

The old monster starts up. He searches around inside it, finding bits and pieces of everything—rope, wire. There is a kind of backseat area without an actual seat, a small and narrow area, but big enough for a kid. So that's where the kid will be. The rest of the truck is a pickup, open bed.

The glove compartment opens so easily it's as if it wants to yawn on its hinges. There are papers: Bill of sale for tires. Hunting license 2012. Truck registration for Stanton Adams with an address in State College. A map.

He should have thought of this right away. Nobody will be looking for the truck.

Two days to get to Florida. One if he doesn't sleep.

He goes inside and peeks at the boy, who remains in the same position.

He packs the remaining cereals and crackers and in spite of his hurry, puts the TV dinners of burritos he got from his mother's kitchen in the microwave so they'll be cooked.

Once he has everything in the truck, he drives his mother's car into the woods where there is plenty of tree cover; then he goes back for the boy, who continues to sleep soundly. He carries his son to the truck and puts him on the chipped rubber floor behind the driver's seat, not comfortable surely, but it's the best he can do right now. He covers his son with the gray wool blanket, and grinds the engine into life.

Up in the truck's cab, he feels like a different person, more rugged and practical. He drives a hundred feet and studies the map. Back roads. Old back roads all the way.

IT'S SATURDAY. FIVE
O'CLOCK.
They've been at this for under twenty-four hours and it feels more like two weeks.

Colleen cannot remember her life before Potocki.

He's now doing Internet searches for Mala Brown, her husband Arne Brown, and her maiden name, Mala Rodriguez, but all he finds is a clean slate. And he can't get anybody at Nadal's schools to check on behavior problems. It's the weekend. Sometimes it feels like they are the only people in the world working.

The way Potocki keeps at it, she loves that about him. Just as she's trying to figure out what to order them to eat, Christie, who is just back, comes up to her cubicle. “Go home. Get some rest. I'll call you if there is anything more we can do. Right now it's a matter of keeping all the other troopers and police aware. He could be holed up. He could be on the road. We don't know. All guesswork now.”

“I hate guesswork.”

“It's odd about the names, isn't it?”

“Totally. Totally. Browns everywhere.”