Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I wrestled with what to do with Melinda's message. It exonerated me, only I wasn't sure anyone else would interpret it that way. She sounded too messed up. If I called Russo or Cheever and played it for them, they might accuse me of doping her up and forcing her to talk. I decided to hold on to it and hope she called back.

As I drove away from the FBI building my cell phone rang. It made my heart race, and I answered without bothering to look at the Caller ID.

“Carpenter here.”

“Jack, this is Sally McDermitt. I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time.”

Sally was a former investigator with the Broward County Police Department who had worked in my department. I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice.

“Not at all. What's up?”

“I'm in a bind and need some advice,” she said. “A little girl disappeared inside the Magic Kingdom this morning, and we can't find her.”

Sally had left the force to take a great-paying job running internal security for the Walt Disney World theme parks in Or lando. The last time we'd spoken, she'd had over a thousand people working for her, was driving a BMW convertible, and lived in a gated community whose other residents included a bunch of well-known professional golfers.

“How old?” I asked.

“Just turned three, a little red-haired cutie named Shannon Dockery. She's a roamer, so her parents didn't immediately notice she was missing.”

“Where was she last seen?”

“Right outside the ‘It's a Small World’ exhibit.”

I had worked with Disney on child abductions before. This exhibit was a favorite among toddlers and their parents.

“A pro,” I said.

“That's what we think,” Sally replied. “The park's exits have been closed. We're only letting people out through the main parking area. That way we can get a good look at everyone who leaves.”

“You think the abductor is still inside the park?”

“I sure do. We looked at the videos at all the entrances right after this happened. No kids fitting Shannon's physical description have left the park today.”

Sally had caught a live one. It was rare, and I'd compare it to catching a giant marlin on a fifty-pound reel. She didn't want him to break the line and get away, and for her sake, neither did I. I could drive home by way of Orlando, and I decided to offer my services.

“Want me to help you catch him?”

“But you're four hours away,” she said.

“Actually I'm in Tampa, working on another case. I can give you a couple hours of my time, if you think it will do any good.”

“Oh yes, please come. You were always the champ when it came to finding little kids.”

I could hear the desperation in Sally's voice.

“I'm leaving right now,” I said.

“See you in an hour,” Sally said.

“You've never seen me drive,” I told her.

An elevated section of I-275 ran over the city of Tampa, and I found an entrance ramp without trouble and headed east. Within minutes I was merging onto I-4, which dissected central Florida and led directly to the forty thousand acres owned by the Walt Disney World Corporation. I pushed the Legend up to eighty and kept it there.

Children had disappeared at Disney since the theme park opened over thirty years before, and many of those abductions had become case studies for people who made their living looking for missing kids. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the abductor was a parent who'd lost custody in a bitter divorce battle and decided to take the child back and go judge shopping. But every once in a while, a stranger stole a child.

The folks who ran Disney did everything imaginable to stop this from happening, and employed a small army of well-trained security people to keep the place safe. Public areas were outfitted with the latest in high-tech surveillance monitoring equipment, including a special magnetic bar code in every ticket that allowed Disney to monitor the flow of people around various attractions. But in the end, they couldn't protect every child who passed through the turnstiles, and the unthinkable happened.

Disney was not really in Orlando, despite what the television and magazine advertisements said. It was located in the tourist town of Kissimmee, ten miles due south. Forty minutes later I took the exit and followed the signs for the MGM Theme Park, one of five theme parks that Disney owned in Orlando. Buster's window was at half-mast and his ears were standing straight up.

I drove down the twisting road to MGM, then hung a right at the employees only sign and EMPLOYEES ONLY sign and spotted Sally standing in the parking lot. She wore chinos and a blue sports shirt with the Disney logo embroidered on the breast. Her hair was a natural gold, her eyes the color of the ocean. Like me, she was a native Floridian, and she lived for the outdoors. I once joined her for a run after work, and she nearly killed me. As I got out I offered her my hand, but she hugged me instead.

“It's good to see you, Jack,” she said.

“It's good to see you, too,” I said.

“I'm scared about this one.”

“I know. That's why I came.”cSally led me into a four-story glass-and-concrete building with no markings. It was painted an earthy green and blended into the lush landscaping that towered around it. The security for Disney's theme parks happened here, though few people knew it. At Disney, buildings were either part of the experience or invisible.

A basement hallway echoed our footsteps, and we entered a small carpeted room with a one-way mirror covering one wall. On the other side of the mirror sat a young couple crying their eyes out. The girl was pleasantly plain and covered with freckles, while the boy had a pinched face and an old-fashioned crew cut. Both were small of stature and dressed in simple country clothes.

“Meet Peggy Sue and Tram Dockery,” Sally said. “We kept them apart and interrogated them. Their stories are consistent.”

My breath fogged the mirror. “That his real name?”

“Yes. Hails from Douglas, Georgia, which is about two hundred and fifty miles from here as the crow flies. He manages a barbecue restaurant that his father owns. First thing he told me was he'd done a stint in prison for selling weed, and had been on the straight and narrow ever since.”

“Believe him?”

“He offered up the information. Yes, I believed him.”

“His wife looks young,” I said.

“Her driver's license says she's nineteen.”

“How old is their little girl?”

“Nearly three.”

“So he got her pregnant when she was sixteen.”

Sally didn't respond. She'd already looked at the facts and decided the Dockerys hadn't orchestrated their daughter's disappearance and sold her for money to buy crack, or to pay off a loan shark, or put a down payment on a new car, or any of the other insane reasons that couples give when they get caught selling their children.

I continued to stare through the glass. Something about Tram's behavior didn't feel right, and after a few moments I realized what it was. Parents who lose kids do nothing but worry, and worrying is a manufactured fear. Tram's fear wasn't manufactured. It was real, and it told me that he knew something the rest of us didn't.

“Can I talk to him without the wife?” I asked.

“Be my guest,” Sally said.

The couple were separated. I entered the room and introduced myself as park security without giving my name. Tram jumped out of his chair and pumped my hand. He was small and wiry, maybe one-forty soaking wet, with dozens of tiny black moles visible beneath his crew cut. The words Jimbo's Homestyle BBQ were stitched in flaming red over the pocket of his denim shirt. He didn't look old enough to shave.

I told him to sit down and gave him my best no-nonsense look.

“I need to ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Dockery.”

“It's Tram,” he said.

“Mine's Jack. Let me get right to the point. We think the person who nabbed your daughter is a pro. More than likely, he'll try to leave the park when it closes and tens of thousands of people are going home. That gives us time to figure out a strategy.”

“Great,” he said.

“That's the good news,” I said. “The bad new is, it won't be easy figuring out which child is yours. Your daughter's appearance will be drastically altered, and she may not look like a little girl anymore.”

“I'll do whatever you want,” Tram said.

“Good. Now, I want you to level with me. Did you sell your daughter to someone in the park and not tell your wife about it?”

Tram leaped out of his chair, and I reflexively jumped back. He threw his arms into the air while tears streamed down his face. “No! I'd never do that! You think I'm some kind of criminal-I can see it in your eyes! I'd never sell my daughter, not even to the richest man in the entire world.”

“Sit down,” I said.

“Do you believe me?”

I pointed at his chair.

“Do you?”

“Sit,” I ordered him.

Finally he sat.

“No, I don't believe you,” I said flatly.

“But I'm telling the truth,” he wailed.

“Something's bothering you, son, and I want to know what it is.”

Tram held his head with both his hands and looked down like there wasn't enough floor to stare at.

“Tell me,” I said.

“This was my last chance, and I blew it,” Tram said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I've been straight for six months. No weed, no beer, going to church every Sunday, working eight-to-six in my daddy's restaurant. Peggy Sue told me if I didn't clean up my act, she'd divorce me and get sole custody of my daughter. And I've been doing good, until today.”

“Do you blame yourself for what happened?”

He nodded, still looking down. “I was watching her.”

“Tell me what happened.

From the beginning.”

“We came out of the ‘It's a Small World’ exhibit. Peggy Sue got on line to buy snacks, and me and Shannon went looking for hidden Mickeys.”

“Hidden what?”

“Hidden Mickeys.”

“Is that a game?”

“There's hundreds of hidden images of Mickey Mouse in the park,” he explained. “They're in tables and on buildings and sometimes you see them in shadows at certain times of the day. We're staying at a Disney hotel, and they've got a promotion if you find a certain number of them. Shannon was looking at a hidden Mickey carved in a shrub, and I went to help Peggy Sue with the snacks. When I came back, my baby was gone.”

“How long did you leave your daughter?”

“Half a minute.”

“Do you consider Shannon's disappearance your fault?”

Tram choked up. “Yeah.”

“So you screwed up.”

“I've been doing that my whole life.”

“Answer the question.”

“Yeah, I screwed up.”

“But you didn't sell her to someone.”

Tram shook his head, and tears flowed down his cheeks. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. But I wanted to believe him, and sometimes that's the best emotion to run with. I placed my hand firmly on his shoulder, and he looked up at me hopefully.

“Okay,” I said.

Tram and Peggy Sue were reunited, and Sally drove them to the front entrance of the Magic Kingdom in a golf cart. I followed in a separate cart, watching Tram from a distance. The kid was still bothering me, and I wondered if he was high on something when his daughter disappeared. That would explain his hyped-up behavior.

We reached the entrance, parked, and got out. There were ten turnstiles. A pair of Disney security guards stood at each turnstile, holding a picture of Shannon Dockery while watching people pass through. Characters in Mickey Mouse costumes also stood by the turnstiles. Sally must have heard about Shannon's fascination with hidden Mickeys and decided this would be a good way to draw the child out.

I stood with Tram and his wife and Sally on a patch of grass beside the entrance. Sally asked Peggy Sue what kind of shoes her daughter was wearing. She explained that while the abductors had probably changed Shannon's clothes, they wouldn't know what size shoes she wore and would have to leave those on her feet.

“Pink Reeboks,” Peggy Sue said.

“You sure she wasn't wearing her flip-flops?” Tram asked.

“She wanted to wear her flip-flops, but I wouldn't let her,” Peggy Sue said. “My daughter's wearing pink Reeboks.”

Sally went to each pair of guards and instructed them to be on the lookout for a child wearing pink Reeboks. Ten minutes passed, and hundreds of families walked by. Everything was being done by the book, but there was a problem. Too many small children were walking past to let the guards get a good look at each one. I pulled Sally aside.

“This is only going to get worse as the park starts to clear out,” I said.

“What should I do?” Sally asked.

“Slow the lines down.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Half the people inside the Magic Kingdom are infants,” Sally explained. “These kids have to eat, go to the bathroom, take a nap. If the lines start backing up, they'll start screaming, and we'll have a full-blown catastrophe on our hands.”

Sally was starting to sound desperate. She'd done everything she could, yet knew it wasn't good enough. I stared at the families pouring through the turnstiles. Fort Lauderdale also had theme parks, and I had lost a four-year-old girl on my watch two years earlier that I would forever lose sleep over. Her disappearance was a total mystery until a maintenance man told his bosses about some odd things he'd discovered in the trash.

“Can you get me into the park?” I asked.

“Sure. What do you have in mind?”

“I want to search the area where Shannon was abducted.”

“I'll get one of the guards to drive you,” Sally said.

I pointed at Tram standing nearby, holding his wife's hand.

“I want him to come with me,” I said.