They Disappeared

15

Manhattan, New York City

Jeff Griffin was placed in a stark interview room at One Police Plaza.

He’d waived his right to an attorney.

Left alone to contend with the agony of no one confirming that Sarah and Cole were dead, all he could do was pray.

Please, tell me it’s not them in the SUV, I’m begging you.

Adrenaline rippled through him.

He flattened his hands on the wooden table in front of him while memories strobed, snapshots of standing near Times Square with Sarah and feeling her arm around him. Tight. We have to hang on and work this out. Snapshots of the joy in Cole’s face as he marveled at the skyscrapers.

They can’t be dead.

By degrees Jeff regained the strength to keep from losing control. He had to hang on. He had to keep hoping, he told himself as events after the fire came into focus. Upon his arrest, Cordelli had rushed to the car, confronting the bald detective, demanding answers.

“Hey, Brewer! Where the hell are you taking him?”

Brewer had flashed his palm to Cordelli while he ended a cell phone call with “-okay, so we’re good at Steeldown Road in the Bronx.” Then he’d turned to Cordelli. “Step back, Vic. He’s mine now. We’ve got two homicides, this is our operation.”

“He’s got nothing to do with this the way you think, Brewer.”

“You don’t know squat. Just get your notes to me or it’s your ass!”

Brewer had gotten into the passenger seat of the unmarked Ford and closed the door. His partner, Klaver, was behind the wheel. The motor roared and its siren yelped as the Crown Vic left for the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan and NYPD headquarters downtown. They took Jeff up the elevator to a cell-like room where he waited.

Time swept by and he’d stared at the cinder-block walls and at his own reflection in the two-way mirror where he saw a man struggling not to fall into the abyss.

Sarah. Cole.

A click. The door opened. Brewer and Klaver entered.

They dropped file folders and notebooks on the table, dragged and positioned the two empty chairs opposite Jeff, then filled them.

“Are my wife and my son dead?”

The room went cold.

The detectives stared at Jeff.

Klaver was fair-skinned and wore the somber, pointed face of an undertaker. Brewer’s expression burned with the intensity of an embittered cop bereft of compassion.

“The medical examiner and our people are still processing,” Brewer said.

“You can tell me the presumed age and gender,” Jeff said.

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The remains are in bad shape. We’re awaiting confirmation.”

“Bull. You have an idea who’s in that SUV.”

“I know this is a horrible time,” Brewer said. “We’ll let you know as soon as we can. We’ve been reading your report and statement to Detectives Cordelli and Ortiz. We’ve made a lot of calls here and in Montana and right now we need to ask you a few questions.”

“About what? I’ve been through this with Cordelli, he knows everything.”

“The vehicle is linked to our operation.”

“What operation?”

“We can’t disclose details. A lot is in play right now.”

“What does that mean? What the hell is this? My wife and son were abducted, they could be dead and you don’t give a damn!”

“It doesn’t get any more serious than this and we’ll get through it faster if you help us to help you.”

Blinking back his anger Jeff looked away, shaking his head in disgust.

“This won’t take long, Jeff.” Klaver spoke in the softer voice of the “good cop” and opened a folder. “There are a few things we need your help on.”

Jeff’s silence invited Klaver’s first question.

“Take us back, step by step, to your arrival in New York, up to and immediately after you reported Sarah and Cole had been abducted.”

Jeff inhaled and recounted every detail for the detectives. Afterward, he answered Klaver’s follow-up questions, then Brewer weighed in.

“You and Sarah had lost a child. It took a toll on your marriage. You were planning to separate and were arguing about it at the time of Sarah and Cole’s disappearance, is that correct?”

“What is this?”

“Is that correct?” Brewer said.

“Yes, I told Cordelli everything.”

“Not quite everything,” Brewer said.

“Did you accuse Neil Larson of having an affair with your wife?” Klaver continued.

Jeff was stunned at how they’d found out and how they were using it.

“Jeff?”

What was happening?

“Did you accuse Neil Larson of having an affair with your wife?”

Brewer watched Jeff swallow hard before answering. “Yes.”

“And did you confront him in a school parking lot where he worked with your wife, to the point others had to restrain you?” Brewer asked.

Jeff hesitated at the twisting of the truth.

“Yes.”

“And did that form part of your argument with Sarah just before you reported that she and Cole had been abducted?”

“Yes.”

“So you confirm these facts?” Brewer said.

“Yes.”

“What’s your relationship with Donnie and Sheri Dalfini?” Brewer asked.

“Relationship? I don’t know them. It’s their SUV.”

“How did you get their address in the Bronx?”

“I went to a store, Metro Gifts or something, and got them to let me look at their security camera. It was pointed at where Sarah and Cole were standing and I got the plate. Then I searched the plate online and took a cab to the address.”

“Why didn’t you check with the police first?” Brewer asked.

“I had the feeling that no one was looking for my family.”

Brewer and Klaver paused to consider Jeff’s answer.

“Jeff,” Brewer said, “as a firefighter you’ve been to death scenes. You probably know a lot of people in law enforcement back home in Montana. You probably know something of investigative procedures.”

Jeff said nothing, uneasy at the picture being drawn around him.

“You seemed to get out to Steeldown Road very fast to talk to Sheri Dalfini about her stolen SUV. Almost as if you wanted to get to the Dalfini residence before police but immediately after you’d reported Sarah and Cole’s abduction. And then you got to the fire at the speed of light.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It just doesn’t look right to us at this stage,” Brewer said. “It just doesn’t add up.”

The floor shifted under Jeff as realization rolled over him with seismic force.

“I don’t like what you’re implying.”

Brewer shifted his lower jaw. In all his time and over all the cases he’d worked he’d come to respect one abiding rule: at the outset of an investigation everyone lies, and when the facts and pieces of evidence emerge, the lies melt like dirty snow in the rain.

“Jeff, I want you to be straight with me here,” Brewer said. “When you believed your wife was maybe fucking Neil Larson and going to leave you I bet it hurt, what with just losing your baby and all. And I’m thinking that maybe you fantasized about making sure Sarah never left you, that maybe you came up with an elaborate foolproof plan. You take her to a location, step away, the cameras record it-”

“What! That’s crazy!”

“Maybe something went wrong, or you didn’t know who you were dealing with.”

“This is insane! Tell me who was in that SUV!”

Glaring at Jeff, Brewer reached for his BlackBerry, entered a command.

“This was in the SUV, Jeff. It matches the description in your report.”

He slid the device to Jeff, carefully studying his reaction as Jeff looked at the crisp photograph of what remained of a New York Jets ball cap. Only a ball cap. Half consumed by fire, half scorched, but clearly identifiable, small, white with the green jet patch on white, familiar to Jeff as the one they bought for Cole.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Christ, no.

Jeff looked at it until it blurred.

They’re gone.

Jeff ached to pull Cole and Sarah from the darkness.

Sitting there in that small police room, the shock of seeing Cole’s burned ball cap propelled him back to Montana and the morning he’d found Lee Ann.

Her little face all blue, her mouth a tiny O.

His futile efforts to save her.

He thought of his baby daughter with Sarah and Cole and that moment he saw the three of them through the window from his pickup in the driveway.

That perfect moment.

He struggled to hang on to those images but they were gone.

Jeff put his face in his hands and in that cold, hard room he never felt the heat of Brewer’s and Klaver’s stares as Brewer slowly slid back his BlackBerry. Chairs scraped; the detectives gathered their files.

“We’ll leave you alone to consider matters,” Brewer said.

The door opened to ringing phones, conversations and the squawk of walkie-talkies. Above the din Jeff recognized Cordelli’s voice in a fragment of conversation. “Brewer! Did you get my message? My supervisor called yours and-”

The door closed, leaving Jeff alone, adrift in a sea of torment. Minutes passed with the same questions hammering against his skull: Who would steal his wife and son? Who? Why? His confusion and grief coiled into anger.

He would find them.

Whoever did this, he would hunt them down.

The door handle clicked.

This time Brewer entered with Cordelli.

“You can go now. Cordelli will take you out,” Brewer said.

“What?” Jeff threw his question to Cordelli, then back to Brewer.

“Thank you for your help. We’ll be in touch,” Brewer said.

Jeff swallowed.

“What about my wife and son? Can I see them?”

“It’s not them,” Brewer said.

“It’s not them?” Jeff absorbed the news.

“The medical examiner just confirmed the remains belong to two adult males. We’re still working on identifying them.”

“What the hell is this? You show me my son’s cap, you lead me to believe my family’s dead, you accuse me of planning this whole thing. What is this?”

“It’s part of an investigation,” Brewer said.

Jeff pulled himself up to face Brewer.

“This some kind of sick joke for you, you prick?” Jeff said.

Brewer stood his ground and Cordelli inserted himself between them to dial down the tension.

“Come on, Jeff.” Cordelli put his hand on his shoulder. “Let’s grab a coffee and I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

In midtown Manhattan, not far from the Long Island Rail Road maintenance yards, where Thirty-third Street rolled down an industrial no-man’s-land to the Hudson, there was a twenty-four-hour diner called the Terminal Cafe.

Cops liked it because it was quiet and out of the way, Cordelli told Jeff after they’d taken a booth.

The soft clink of cutlery floated on air thick with the aroma of onions and fried bacon. A bullnecked man with a brush cut and white apron came to their table. Cordelli got a coffee.

Jeff wanted nothing.

The man left and Cordelli looked at Jeff.

“You have every right to be pissed off.”

“Don’t tell me how I should feel.”

Cordelli’s coffee came; he dripped some cream in it.

“About ten years ago in East Harlem, a mother reported her five-year-old son abducted. Brewer caught the case. She gave a description of a suspect. She had everybody going in a million directions for four days until a janitor found the kid’s body bound under a storage room staircase.

“The M.E. said the boy had been abused and was actually alive for two days bound under those stairs. Ultimately, evidence pointed to the mother but Brewer never, ever forgave himself for not going harder on her because he could’ve saved the boy.

“That’s Brewer. Since then he doesn’t trust anyone. That’s all of us, really. Everyone’s a suspect. People lie all the time. We see horrible things, it hardens you.”

Jeff gazed out the window, across the Hudson at the lights of New Jersey, his emotions roiling.

“What’s this got to do with me? What are you doing to find my family besides wasting time by dragging me through your police bullshit?”

“We’re working with the FBI and every police jurisdiction in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. And we’re putting out an alert tonight with pictures and information. By morning, everyone in Greater New York will be looking for Sarah and Cole.”

Cordelli’s response gave Jeff a measure of assurance, but disbelief and fear twisted in his gut.

“There’s a double homicide in the SUV, my wife and son are missing-I deserve to know more. What else do you know?”

“We think Cole’s ball cap came off when they moved to a switch vehicle.”

“But why take Cole and Sarah? They’re from Montana. How is this connected to Brewer’s operation and his task force, what is it?”

“The investigation is tight.”

“Meaning?”

“No one will tell me much yet but that will change.”

“This is bureaucratic bullshit! Is Brewer’s operation more important than my family’s life?”

“No, it’s not like that. We’re sorting everything out but our case will get rolled into his. Brewer is the lead on a major undercover operation that’s been ongoing with about twelve local, state, federal and international agencies looking into organized crime.”

“What kind? Drugs, human trafficking? I told you guys I haven’t gotten any ransom demands. Sarah would’ve given them my cell number.”

“The task force is investigating organized crime and ties to global networks. That’s all I’ve got so far.”

“So Sarah and Cole’s abduction could be connected to anything. I read a news story about people in South America being abducted for their organs. Christ.” Jeff ran his hand over his face, shaking his head.

“Don’t do that. You’ll make yourself crazy imagining the worst scenarios.”

“The worst? It can’t get much worse than it is now!”

“Look, Jeff, we’ll concentrate on what we know. We’ll do all we can to build on it and work with Brewer because we need one another’s help on this. We’ve got the alert, we’re processing the SUV. We’re going flat out.”

Jeff took in a long breath.

“I’ll update you on everything that I can tell you.”

Jeff nodded.

“Meantime, promise me no more amateur detective work.”

“I’ll keep looking for them. That’s my promise. You would do the same and you know it.”

Cordelli’s pause confirmed Jeff’s point.

“I’ll drive you back to your hotel.” Cordelli reached for his phone. “I’ll have one of our people bunk with you and put uniforms at your hotel.”

“Why?”

“It’s what we do.”

“No, I don’t want that. I’m not afraid of these assholes. Don’t waste people on me. Put them on the street looking for Sarah and Cole. You’ve got the phone clone thing, so if I get a call, you guys get it at the same time.”

Cordelli considered the need to man Jeff’s hotel at this stage.

“You want me to set up anything with our support services? Want a shrink?”

Jeff shook his head.

“I don’t need anything like that.”

As they drove across midtown at night, a marked NYPD patrol unit stopped them at an intersection that was being blocked off. Cordelli tapped his horn and a uniform came to their car. Cordelli showed his detective’s badge.

“Sorry, Detective, you gotta wait. Rules are rules.”

Several minutes later the wail of sirens, the growl of police motorcycles, preceded the gleaming escort units of a VIP motorcade streaking by.

“Freakin’ UN meeting,” Cordelli muttered, waving to the cop who let him pass. “Yeah, yeah.” Cordelli maneuvered through the intersection. They went another ten blocks before they stopped in front of the Central Suites Inn on West Twenty-ninth.

Jeff didn’t move.

“You okay to go in?” Cordelli asked.

“No, but I’m going in.”

“Just take it easy. Keep your cell phone charged. You can call me at any hour. Try to get some rest. I’ll see you soon.”

After Jeff got out and Cordelli drove off he stood alone in the street.

He stared at the hotel’s entrance for a long, difficult moment as if watching a part of his life replay itself. It was only hours earlier that he’d walked through that lobby with Cole and Sarah, never dreaming that he would be walking back through it without them.