They Disappeared

31

Manhattan, New York City

Sarah’s eyes were ballooned in a silent scream as her face filled the large flat-screen TV in Jeff’s hotel room.

Her mouth was sealed with tape, her hair snaked wildly. Fear creased her face as she struggled between her captors with their gruesome masks and Jeff in the back of the fleeing van.

Detective Lucy Chu, an NYPD forensic artist, typed again on her laptop keypad. The image on the screen shrunk, the focus zoomed out and Chu continued displaying the three photos taken by detectives from the pursuit earlier that morning.

Frame by frame, section by section, Chu enlarged them, examined them intensely with Jeff, striving to pinpoint any identifying details. The photographs were helpful but so far had failed to yield a lead. The kidnappers were silhouetted or in shadow.

And they stayed that way.

The technical experts had already gone full bore to enhance the images but with little success. Chu repositioned her chair so that the TV screen was behind her and Jeff was looking at it while facing her.

Chu picked up her drawing pad, eraser and graphite pencil.

“All right, watch the pictures,” she said, “and take me back inside the van.” She left the three-photo slide show flowing, to keep Jeff’s attention on the interior of the van. She’d already interviewed him at length. Her goal was to use composites, image modification, whatever it took to mine Jeff’s memory for potential evidence.

“Let’s start with hands.”

Again and again Chu asked him about body parts, necks, hair, tattoos, jewelry, scars, clothing, footwear, characteristics of the van and items in the van. Over and over she drew, erased and redrew each time a nugget of detail surfaced.

It was painstaking, exhausting work and they pressed on.

Jeff took brief breaks by glancing around his new room. After his clash with the suspects, the NYPD and FBI moved him to this hotel, near Grand Central, in the shadow of the Chrysler Building. The location was undisclosed, for security reasons, they said, while they processed his old room for evidence and leads to the suspects.

This was a larger, more luxurious hotel. The task force had arranged to have Jeff’s original hotel room number deflected to a phone they’d set up here, and they’d given him a new cell phone that maintained the Griffin family’s cell number, in case Sarah, Cole or the kidnappers called him.

Detectives Cordelli and Ortiz were there observing but revealed nothing whenever Jeff plied them for details.

“What’s so important about the toy plane?” he asked.

“I don’t know. That’s still being analyzed,” Cordelli said. “Everything’s still being processed for any possible trace evidence from Hans Beck.”

Jeff sensed an undercurrent of anger toward him because he had disobeyed police orders and set out on his own to meet the suspects.

They would’ve done the same thing I did. Any man would have.

“Let’s go back to what items you saw in the van,” Chu said.

“There was something in there but I can’t remember.”

“I know it’s hard but you said something about takeout?”

“A bag and a cup, maybe two cups.”

A cell phone rang, breaking Jeff’s concentration.

As Cordelli turned to take the call, Chu frowned and Jeff used the interruption to go the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Inside, he turned on the cold water, letting it fill the sink.

He met himself in the mirror. The tiny veins in his eyes were red with strain. Anguish carved deep into the wounds on his face. He hadn’t slept. He was still shaky from his fall. Adrenaline still rushed through him. His head throbbed and he shook out three aspirin from a new plastic bottle and swallowed them.

Events replayed before him.

Everything.

Holding Sarah. Holding Lee Ann. Losing Lee Ann. Losing Sarah.

Was I wrong? Did I make a horrible mistake not giving the killers their property? But they did not show him Cole. Where was Cole? Oh, God, tell me what to do.

It was all Jeff could think of as he emptied the sink only to refill it again and again.

“Jeff.” Chu was knocking on the door. “Are you well enough to resume?”

“Yes,” he said. “I need a minute.”

He splashed cold water on his face, dried it and returned to his chair.

“Good. Now, you were recalling details of items in the van.”

Jeff took a moment as his thoughts veered.

“There was something about the shoes. One man had a fine, bright red line where the top was stitched to the sole.”

Chu flipped to a new page. She knew to go with the flow of her witness’s recollection, to not disturb it but guide it, coax it along. Her hand whisked over the paper, working fast as Jeff described the dark round-toed boot with the bright red stitching.

“Like this?” Chu flipped a sketch.

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Anything more on the boots?”

Jeff shook his head.

Chu made notes, then went back to her pad and flipped to a new page.

“What about the items in the van, the take-out bag and cups?”

“They were coffee cups, like paper or Styrofoam coffee cups.”

“Were they from one of the big fast-food chains, or coffee chains?”

Jeff concentrated, slowly shaking his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“Anything distinctive you can remember?”

“An L, a stylized L.”

“Printed or cursive?”

“I think cursive.”

“Any other letters, symbols, colors?”

“I’m thinking a word, a partial word, like Lasa, or Laksa. Blue lettering or black letters in a white or yellow-colored cup, I think. I can’t be sure.”

“Okay, what was the attitude of the cups and the bag? Standing up, on the side, crushed? Were there lids?”

“Black lids, they were on their sides, like they were empty and the bag was tossed on its side, a used white napkin at the top. I think that’s it. Everything happened so fast.”

“I understand.” Chu nodded, concentrating as she drew.

She and Jeff worked that way for the next ninety minutes, going over detail after detail, and one by one, Chu’s images piled up.