Noah's Rainy Day (12 page)

“This … this is police brutality,” Benson stuttered, leaning away from Gates’s snarl as far as humanly possible.

From my angle behind Benson, I could see the angry expression on the chief ’s face—a live and in-person image of someone “spitting nails”—and my knees almost started knocking.

Gates breathed out a long, low growl, pulling Benson’s face so close that I imagined he could tell what flavor toothpaste the chief used. “You’ve already wasted precious time in our recovery of the boy. His safety, not yours, is my primary concern. I really don’t give a rat’s ass if we toss you out on the tarmac this very second and let a 747 use your ass crack as a parking guide.”

I muffled my laughter and stepped back to my post at the door.

Up to this point, I’d been scared to death to utter a peep. I really had no clue what to do since this was my first official case. Given Streeter’s initial expression when I had slipped into the room, I could tell tensions were already over the top and if I didn’t know better, I would swear he was pissed at me for some reason. Especially from his clipped tone on the call I had received an hour ago. But this is my first time on a case with him, and I really can’t tell if this is just how he responds in interviews. Thanks to Chief Gates, I could speak vicariously through him to this nut job since he was saying what I was thinking. And I appreciated Gates’s unfiltered candor.

“And I promise you that if one hair on the boy’s head has been harmed, you’ll lose a helluva lot more than your job, Benson.” The man begged for Gates to let him go, openly and quite pitifully, if you ask me. Gates pushed Benson back down into his chair and pointed a finger at him. “If you so much as think about lying or whining again, I’ll have you removed from this room and thrown in a cell downtown until I’m good and ready to talk with you again. Hurry it up, nancy,” Gates said to Benson. “We don’t have time for blubbering. Talk. About the boy. Not about you.”

In his unique gargled-with-a-chainsaw voice, Streeter added, “Try starting from the beginning and explaining step by step what happened.”

Through stutters and sputters, Benson told his story. “The first time I met the boy was at the gate at LaGuardia in New York City, after we’d prepared the plane for our return trip to Denver. He was sitting near the gate attendant, who had somehow managed to make the kid appear to be well behaved. Which he was not. But I didn’t know that at the time. My first impression was wrong. I thought he looked adorable. Once she turned him over to me, I situated the boy in the front row of the airplane near the galley so I could keep an eye on him during the flight.”

Benson drew in a deep breath and cleared his throat, swiping at his face in an effort to regain his composure, eyeing Gates each time he mentioned the boy’s bad behavior.

“Our plane left New York on time.”

I was trying to memorize the order and wording of every question Streeter asked. With over fifteen years of experience with the FBI, Streeter
Pierce was one of the best field agents who hadn’t either taken a promotion or retired from the Denver-based branch. Streeter had been appointed as case agent on so many critical and high-profile cases that it was no surprise when he was named case agent of the Williams disappearance. And even though he might not be as thrilled to work with me, based on his curt call, I was thrilled by the honor and opportunity to work with him.

“And what did the boy look like?” Streeter asked, his words reminding me of brandy—smooth and warm but with a bite.

“He had thick, blond hair. Long, but cut in a page-boy style.”

I couldn’t help but notice Streeter brushing his hand over his buzz haircut at the mention of the boy’s hair, which made his white hair stand at attention. I wondered if Streeter had been blond as a boy.

Benson added, “He was dressed in green velvet knickers and a matching vest and beret.”

“Tell me about the boy during the flight. Anything out of the ordinary happen?” Streeter asked, settling back in his chair across the table from Benson.

I caught Streeter’s eye and I knew I needed to pay attention to what was being said because he wanted to talk about it later. Streeter was signaling me.

“I don’t remember.”

“Try,” Gates pressed.

Benson’s lips pursed. I could tell he did not like Chief Gates. Not one bit. The way he pursed his lips meant resentment. I had learned a lot about body language in Quantico.

“BlueSky hates it when our planes are late. Our jobs as attendants are to do anything to keep the planes on schedule. I was in the galley talking to the girls, who were clearing up and preparing the passengers for landing. I had the mic and was going through my routine about leaving items stowed and seat belts fastened until the plane came to a complete stop when Brat Boy unbuckled his seat belt and walked right up to me, taking the mic away.”

“Brat Boy?” Gates asked, exchanging a glance with Streeter.

“The Williams boy,” Benson answered. As the men stared, Benson explained, “The other flight attendants and I nicknamed him Brat Boy
before we ever took off from LaGuardia. I am sick that he’s missing, but that kid was a brat. Totally out of control. Didn’t listen to anyone. Spoiled rotten.”

“He’s a five-year-old, Mr. Benson,” Streeter said.

Gates added, “And if you call him Brat Boy one more time, I’m going to rip your lips off your face. Got it?”

Benson’s eyes widened. “You told me to tell you the details from the beginning. I was trying to explain the trip with this kid.”

Streeter asked, “Where do you live, Mr. Benson?”

“Excuse me?” I could see that Streeter’s line of questioning had taken Kevin Benson completely off guard, which is clearly what Streeter wanted.

“You said you lost your apartment. Where is it? The address?”

“Well, I … I don’t know where I live at the moment. Out of my car, I guess. It’s why I resorted to drinking at the bar. I don’t have a place to live after today.”

“And why is that?” Streeter pressed.

Benson actually curled his lip. “I told you that. That’s why I lost the boy. My girlfriend and I were arguing.” His eyes widened at his own mistake. Then he swallowed hard as the room went still. Streeter and the chief were waiting for his explanations.

When it didn’t come, Streeter said, “Actually, you never told us that. Mind filling us in on that little detail?”

“She … she said she had to talk with me about something.” He was fidgeting with his long fingers in his lap.

“This was after you landed? Did she call you or something?”

Benson smoothed his forehead with the pads of his fingers, his eyes darting upward to the right. “She’d sent me a text. I saw it when we landed at DIA. She wanted to meet me in between flights.”

He looked down at his hands, his fingers working a crease in his uniform pants.

“I returned a text telling her that I was escorting a child and couldn’t meet her. So we talked on the phone.”

I noticed Streeter’s attempt to hold his gaze, but Benson kept looking down at his hands. I could tell he was lying and that Streeter and Gates knew it, too. I wondered why they didn’t just tell him that we could subpoena the cell phone records, see what calls had been made, what texts
were exchanged, so we could get to the bottom of this quickly. I figured they must have a plan that included seeing how far he spun the story, letting him trap himself in his own web of lies.

“She … she broke up with me and told me she dumped all my stuff on the lawn. She said she changed the locks and that I better not call her or she’d file for a restraining order.”

He blew out a long breath and stared at the ceiling.

“Get to the part about the child.”

“I don’t know exactly when the Bra—” Benson’s gaze slid toward Gates. “The boy. I don’t know when the boy slipped away from me. I was only on the phone for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”

“You were never in the bathroom. Never went back for ice cream.” Streeter speculated.

Benson slowly shook his head.

“So where were you? When you were on the phone? And don’t lie this time.”

“At gate 51 on Concourse B. Right below where we are right now.” Again, his eyes shot skyward to his right. He bit his lip. He was still lying.

“And this was when?” Streeter asked.

He shrugged and unfolded his arms. “I told you, we landed around 12:40 p.m. at B31 and we were only minutes from walking down to B51. Probably around 1:00 p.m. or so? I don’t know precisely to the minute because time wasn’t exactly the most important thing on my mind at the moment.”

“And you never took the boy anywhere else. To the bathroom? To a store, a restaurant, the bar, out of security to the main terminal or out of the airport?” Streeter leaned forward in his chair and I knew he was studying every single twitching muscle in Benson’s eyes and on his face.

Benson shook his head and lowered his eyes.

“Nowhere except straight from B31 to B51?”

He shook his head again. “That’s it.”

“Did you see anyone suspicious following you? Anything at all out of the ordinary?” Gates asked.

“Just a lot of holiday travelers. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”

“What’s your girlfriend’s name and what’s the address of the apartment?” Gates asked.

“I told you, I don’t live there anymore.” Benson cradled his head, clearly frustrated by Gates.

Streeter said, “We need to talk with your girlfriend to corroborate your story so—”

“She’ll lie!” Benson shouted. To Streeter, he said, “He’s not listening to me. She’ll tell some wild story that I took the boy and dumped his body somewhere, that she saw me do it. She’s just that way. The bitch just kicked me out of my home, dumped my sorry ass, and threw all my belongings into a snow bank over a couple of text messages. You don’t need to talk to her. She’ll just lie about everything. She’ll try to get me in more trouble. That’s what she told me she’d do if I ever called her again. She said she’d say anything, do anything, to get a restraining order. Don’t you get it?”

“Oh we get it,” Streeter said, leaning back in his chair. “And we’ll keep that in mind when we talk with her. I think we’re done for now, but we don’t want you leaving the airport for a bit. Are you okay with that?”

“Why not?” Benson threw his hands in the air and let them drop to his sides.

“We might have some more questions.”

“Mind if I ask him a question?” I asked Streeter.

He nodded. “Go ahead, Agent Bergen.”

“What did he say?” I asked Benson.

“Who?” Benson asked.

“The boy. When he grabbed the mic on the plane.”

Benson paused and sat staring at me, as if the air had gone out of his balloon. Resigned he answered, “He … he didn’t say anything. He just . . . started singing.” And his eyes did not flick up and to the right this time.

“Singing what?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Does it matter? Everybody was laughing.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he was … cute. Singing Merry Christmas in Spanish.”

“‘Feliz Navidad’?” I asked, wondering why that song mattered enough to little Max to make him want to sing it to a plane full of people.

“WHAT’S HE LYING ABOUT?”
Gates asked as they replayed the video of Benson’s interview.

The headquarters that Kelleher had constructed above B56 had cleared, leaving only me, Chief Gates, and Streeter. I was still totally in the dark as to my role in all of this and had no clue what the chief or Streeter expected me to do. So I simply did my best, staying fairly quiet and out from under foot.

Unless I thought something had to be said.

“He’s clearly lying here when he was talking about going to the bathroom. Look at how his eyes kept darting up and to the right,” I said, pointing twice at the footage where Benson’s expression clearly showed what I had seen earlier. “Classic tell, according to the behavioral psychologist at Quantico.”

“It’s certainly an indication that he’s lying,” Streeter agreed. “But we can’t really jump to conclusions.”

I arched an eyebrow, definitely detecting the chill in Streeter’s fire-swallowing voice.

“Thanks for providing Mr. Benson with a personal escort, Chief,” Streeter said to Gates.

“My deputy’s still tied up with Freytag, so I put Officer Michaels on Benson and he won’t let him out of his sight until I say so,” Chief Gates explained.

“We’ll need to interview him again. After we talk with the girlfriend. Let him sweat for an hour or so before we do,” Streeter said.

I was still bothered by some of the things Kevin Benson said and did. “He went into great detail about the gates, the flight numbers, the times, everything leading up to the child being missing, but then breezed through the actual disappearance, the search, and everything leading to now. Did you notice that?”

Both men nodded.

“And he used descriptions like ‘the boy’ and not the child’s name. As if to distance himself from being familiar. That concerns me,” I added. “What if Benson kidnapped the boy and stashed him somewhere? He would have had the time. He’s from Denver. He could have left the airport.”

“Right,” Streeter said. “We’ll bring the girlfriend in to corroborate his story.”

“Even though he insisted she’d lie to get him in trouble?” I asked.

“It’s what we would do as a natural next step and we’ll do it
because
of his urgency that we not talk to her. I have a sneaking suspicion that her story will more accurately reflect the truth about what happened than Kevin Benson’s. But I won’t know that until I am face-to-face with her. I think it’s worth flushing out the untruths, don’t you?”

Gates nodded and punched some buttons on his cell phone. “Officers are on their way to the address BlueSky gave us for Benson. His emergency contact on file was listed as Bonita Smith, at the same address. They’ll confirm whether the girlfriend and Bonita are one and the same.”

“In the meanwhile, let’s find Danica,” Streeter said, rising from the computer.

“Who’s Danica?” I asked, feeling a flush of envy.

Her name conjured up the dark-haired, car-racing beauty with the same name. And imagining Streeter alone with a woman like that irked me for some reason.