Noah's Rainy Day (18 page)

Benson’s face grew white. “He really did? What’s wrong with him? You’re serious.”

“I am,” Streeter said.

I hadn’t seen this side of Streeter. He was growing as impatient as Gates and neither man would hesitate to cross the line if it meant getting to the boy sooner.

“We are,” Gates added, commanding Benson to look his way.

“Talk,” Streeter growled.

The man blew out a long breath, a prelude to a decision he hadn’t wanted to make. “You’re right. I lied. I didn’t argue with my girlfriend on the cell phone. We argued in person.”

“You met up with her?”

He nodded.

“The same woman who kicked you out of your apartment?” Gates asked.

He nodded. “Threw me out. I didn’t lie about that.”

“Then what did you lie about? And be quick about it,” Gates snapped.

“She sent me a text. She told me to meet her. At a bar on the main concourse.”

“The Buckhorn Bar and Grill,” Streeter said.

Benson’s eyes widened. I saw recognition on his face, which meant he finally fully believed the FBI and Denver Police knew the truth and that he’d better come clean.

“How did you …” Benson alternated looks from Streeter’s face to Gates’s, both too stony for him to find purchase in his climb out of the deep hole he was in. “You saw the text messages. Well, then you know. She gave me no choice. I had to meet her.” I knew Streeter and Gates probably hadn’t received any records from the cell phone company yet, but every text message would eventually be ours to review. “I had a decision to make. She left me no choice. I had to take the boy with me and meet her.”

“So the boy was with you.”

He nodded.

“Start over,” Streeter commanded. “Tell us what happened step by step, from the moment you and the boy stepped off the plane from New York City here at DIA.”

“Be specific this time. Were you holding his hand? Carrying his backpack? Buying him ice cream cones?” I thought Gates’s tone was far calmer than his body language would suggest. But I’d only met him today.

Benson was shaking his head. “We arrived on time. Normally, we would wait until all other passengers got off the plane, but I told my fellow flight attendants that the boy had a tight connection and I wanted to get him some food. So they let us off first.

“Within minutes of landing, I’d say no later than 12:45 p.m., we were
off the jetway and in the concourse. I was carrying the backpack and told him to hurry. At first he was running beside me, but when he started to fall back, I grabbed his hand. We went straight from the gate to the escalators.”

“Which one?” I asked, wanting to know if Beulah had tracked it correctly.

“The one on the left.”

“And which door of the train?” I asked.

“I can’t remember.”

Gates stood up and Benson leaned back with his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. The one in the middle because it’s the least crowded.”

“And you were carrying the backpack?” I asked.

“And the boy.” With everyone staring at him, Benson asked, “What?”

“When did you go from holding his hand to carrying him?” asked Streeter.

“I left that part out by accident,” Benson whined. “You guys are freaking me out with all these questions. It’s not like I’m lying. I just forget steps.”

“You get off the plane first, you tell the boy you’re in a hurry and that he should keep up, and you’re carrying his backpack for him. Take it from there,” Gates instructed.

Streeter walked around the table and sat by Gates, which made Benson relax.

“I told him to hurry, but he couldn’t keep up. His legs were tiny. He was running. I grabbed his hand, but people started staring at us because I was practically dragging the kid. My legs were so much longer than his and we didn’t have a lot of time. I knew we’d have to go back through security.”

“So you picked the kid up at what point?”

“By the newsstand, where they sell magazines, books, candy, that stuff. Just before the escalator. I remember because Brat Boy—I mean, the boy—stopped and asked me for candy. I picked him up and told him if he behaved, I’d buy him candy in a few minutes but that I had to meet a lady first.”

“Before you reached the escalator down to the trains,” I confirmed. Streeter shot me a look that told me not to interrupt again. I was only trying to confirm Beulah’s results.

Benson nodded. “Once I started carrying the boy, we made it through the crowd onto the train and then to the main terminal and the Buckhorn Bar quickly. And people stopped giving me dirty looks for dragging him. My girlfriend was waiting at the bar. Her arms were crossed and she looked pissed.”

“About you bringing the boy? Being late? What?” Gates asked.

“No, nothing like that. She was still pissed over a text message another flight attendant sent me. She said she saw it on my cell, broke into my Facebook account, and said I was flirting with her, which I wasn’t. Anyway, I told her I didn’t have much time because I had to get the boy to his next flight, and she told me what she had to say wouldn’t take much time.”

“And did it? Take much time?” Gates asked.

“Five, ten minutes tops.” Benson’s mind was working the timeline. “She told me our relationship was over and shoved a piece of paper in my hand that I later saw was an application for a restraining order to be served on me here at work, which would mean I’d lose my job. We started arguing. She said she threw all my stuff out the apartment window and that I better go get it before the snow buried it; that is, what was left after neighbors had picked through the good stuff. I was so angry at her I could have …”

We all stared at him, wondering.

“You could have what? Killed somebody?” asked Gates, the calmness in his voice more unsettling to me than his earlier gruffness.

“No, I didn’t mean … I wouldn’t … I didn’t touch that kid.”

“Where was he? While you and your girlfriend where fighting?” asked Gates.

“Arguing, not fighting.”

Streeter reminded, “Step by step, as you arrived at the bar carrying the boy.”

Benson drew a breath. “As soon as I got there I put the kid down right next to me. All three of us were standing near the empty chairs at the bar, kind of not really in the bar but more like in the main concourse. The bartender was busy helping the waitress serve the people at the tables and the kid started watching the TV hanging above the bar. I told him to stay there and I’d get him some candy if he did.”

“And when did you notice he wasn’t standing there anymore?” Streeter pressed.

“After my girlfriend and I finished arguing. Like I said, maybe five or ten minutes after that.” Benson drew in a deep breath and admitted, “By the time my girlfriend stomped off, the boy was gone.”

THE ODOR THAT WAFTED
from the refrigerator as he opened the door reminded him of how neglectful he’d become in the past few months. His spirits buoyed now by a renewed sense of purpose, he was motivated and eager to scrub every square inch of his home. To cleanse himself of the past and prepare for a better future. He wanted to get started immediately. But first, he wanted a bite to eat.

So many choices.

He had bought turkey and ham and hot dogs and apples and carrots—he hated vegetables, but the boy had asked specifically for them—and cookies and bread and peanut butter and lots and lots of boxes of macaroni and cheese. His refrigerator was packed with goodies and his mind filled with memories of shopping for groceries and the joy of seeing the world again through a child’s eyes.

“Beautiful daughter, you have,” one shopper had commented to him as the child ran about the store, pulling item after item from the shelves.

The compliment made his chest swell with pride, and the memories of such a simple moment tasted sweet on his tongue.

It would be the best Christmas ever.

He pushed aside the box filled with packages of peanut M&M’s so
he could reach the deli sandwich and the jar of dill pickles that had been shoved to the back of the refrigerator. He bumped the door closed with his hip, feeling his buttocks jiggle from the motion, bringing another smile. It had been too long since he felt like moving again, dancing again, living again, which only confirmed that his decision this morning had been right.

Without the light from the refrigerator, he was standing in the darkness of his kitchen, not wanting his neighbors to study his movements. He moved toward the cupboard, felt for a plate, unwrapped the meatball sandwich, and slipped the meal into the microwave. As the light shone over the food turning in the oven, his mind floated back to the lightbulb in the closet and the voice of his father demanding that he think about what he had done wrong. He recalled the terror of knowing what would follow his answer and the feeling that he would never measure up to whatever it was his parents wanted of him. Snap! The sound of his father’s leather belt sounded in his childhood’s mind. And he remembered screaming.

The beep of the microwave yanked him from his long-ago nightmarish life and alerted him to the seconds remaining before he was once again left in his pitch-black kitchen.

Wrapping his hands around the warm bread of the sandwich, he leaned against the tile counter and took a bite. As he chewed, he fished out a spear of pickle and munched it to a nub. The food was satisfying, necessary.

He needed to clean, needed to scrub the house. Needed to erase any memories of the horrid past and prepare for the beautiful future that he had always deserved.

Although his intentions of bringing joy to a sad child’s life were pure and good, his execution had always fallen short of his goals. That, he knew, was his parents’ fault for not providing him with better role models on proper parenting. But unlike his parents, he refused to throw the children in a closet until they complied. Instead, he was more kind and benevolent. When any of his kids violated rules, disobeyed, or fell short of his expectations, he chose instead to free the little creatures in the woods, turn them back to the wild lives they insisted on living rather than to tame them by forcing them into a closet for days at a time. What good was it to cage the poor creatures when they were born to run wild?

But this child was different. The wildness had been tamed almost the instant he’d held out the package of peanut M&M’s.

This time, it would work.

He wouldn’t cry, or scream, or bite, or run away.

This time, he had chosen wisely.

With his sandwich gone, he reached under the sink, snapped on the rubber gloves, and grabbed the bucket and bottle of bleach.

“HE’S NOT IN ON
the abduction in any way?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Gates. “You?”

Streeter shook his head. “Not knowingly. But he may have been used as a pawn by the girlfriend. Or someone else. The distraction of the argument he had with his girlfriend may have been calculated.”

Gates leaned back, lacing his long, dark fingers behind his head. “Good thought. And makes sense. He insists the text was real, but the rumor she’d heard about him having an affair with another flight attendant was untrue and the girlfriend refused to tell Benson where she heard it. Could play either way. She set up the distraction or whoever told her about the alleged affair did.”

“A stretch, but it’s worth pursuing,” Streeter added. “Let’s get the girl-friend in here. Did your officers pick her up yet?”

“Done. Let me see where they are,” Gates said, unfolding himself from the tiny plastic chair and punching in numbers on his cell phone.

“And before Benson came in, you guys started to tell me about a witness to the boy’s disappearance?” I asked.

Streeter answered, “I wanted to see if Benson’s story matched up. A
guy with a long layover was in the bar at the main terminal where Benson stopped with the kid.”

“The Buckhorn?”

Streeter nodded. “The guy says he was having a beer, said the BlueSky employee was in some kind of quarrel with his girlfriend and the kid took off, unnoticed. The guy said it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes from when the child was there. Then he was gone. He didn’t think anything of it. Thought the mother or someone had him. But when he got home and saw the news, he called it in.”

“That corroborates Benson’s version,” Gates said, returning from his quick call.

“So little Max ran away,” I concluded. “To where? He’s five.”

“To the bathroom, according to you,” Streeter said.

“Maybe little Max walked in on someone in there. Saw something,” I imagined.

“Since the guy says it was shortly after the two started arguing, it makes some sense that the distraction was set up, that someone was waiting for that specific moment to nab the child,” Gates speculated. “Which is why we need to grill the girlfriend. They have Bonita Smith but she’s making every excuse under the sun not to come back to the airport. I told the officer to look around the apartment for signs of the boy, ask to use the bathroom, and make note of her reactions for us but to bring her here in cuffs if he had to.”

“If little Max was targeted for who he is,” I concluded, “it would be some serious set of coincidences that Benson received a text, broke all the airline rules by taking the child out of the secure area, and then decided to risk losing his job just to see his girlfriend.”

“Which would suggest either one or the other is involved, knowingly or as a pawn in a planned abduction of this particular boy,” Gates said.

“Or that it was simply coincidence. That this was a random abduction,” Streeter added.

“And if it was a planned abduction, this file of ticketed passengers with minors may not do us any good,” Gates said, picking up the file from the table and riffling through the pages.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

Gates said, “Because if this abduction of this particular boy was
planned that far in advance, then the abductors would buy tickets under assumed names, not risk drawing more attention to themselves by buying last-minute tickets on Christmas Eve when the police are searching for a missing child in the airport.”

“Unless a last-minute purchase was done as a misdirect,” Streeter added.