Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Disney security guard drove us inside the Magic Kingdom in a golf cart. I sat behind Tram and watched him jerk his head at every infant we passed. He was crazy with worry and called out his daughter's name several times.

The guard parked near the “It's a Small World” exhibit, and we hopped out. This had been my daughter's favorite ride when she was little. If prompted, Jessie would sing the entire song from memory, although it had been years since I'd asked. I hummed the chorus and saw Tram stiffen.

“You trying to be funny?” he asked.

“No, just trying to stay calm. Mind my asking you a question?”

Tram didn't answer me.

“What are you on?” I asked.

Tram swallowed his Adam's apple.

“I ain't on nothing.”

“Stick to telling the truth. You're better at it.”

“I am telling the truth,” he said defensively.

I was close enough to him to smell his breath. It was mint flavored with a hint of something acidic: The smell was one I'd encountered countless times before. He'd been drinking, and I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

“Stop lying to me, you stupid little son of a bitch,” I said. “You've been hitting the sauce, haven't you?”

His defiant attitude melted away. “I had a couple of beers for breakfast, that's all.”

“Then what was the bullshit line about you quitting?”

“I slipped.”

“How many is a couple?”

“A six-pack.”

“Does your wife know that?”

Tram shook his head.

“So you were drunk when your daughter got snatched.”

Tram's face twisted with agony. With many missing children cases, there was often another crime behind the abduction. Sometimes the crime was excusable, like a parent bowing to a child's demand to go inside a store alone. Other times, the crime was so damning that it could never be excused. In this case, Tram Dockery was not a fit parent, and didn't deserve the second chance the world had given him.

“God damn you, son,” I said.

I made Tram take me to the last place he'd seen Shannon. The guard tagged along and stood dutifully to one side. He was an older black man with wispy hair and watery eyes. His expression said he'd seen many like Tram before.

“Shannon was right here the last time I saw her,” Tram said.

We were standing by an enormous bush carved to look like Mickey Mouse. Tram pointed at a concession stand thirty feet away.

“Peggy Sue was over there carrying two cardboard trays, and I went to help her,” he said. “When I came back, my baby was gone.”

I did a three-sixty revolution and looked for places where a person could have taken Shannon without being spotted. I was suspicious about the fact that Shannon wasn't heard during her abduction, until the doors to the “It's a Small World” exhibit opened. Then, five hundred noisy kids and their parents poured out, and I realized that Shannon could have been screaming her head off and not been heard.

“What's your name?” I asked the guard.

“Vernon,” the guard replied. “People call me Vern.”

“Vern, where's the closest restroom?”

“There are several,” he said.

“Do they all have family restrooms?”

“No, only the restroom around the corner has that.”

“Show me,” I said.

Vern led us to a small redbrick building right off the main drag. It had three doors-His, Hers, and Family-and was a perfect place to bring a child to. I banged on the door for Family. Getting no answer, I went inside.

Like everything at Disney, the bathroom's interior was spotlessly clean. In the corner sat a metal trash can, and I dragged it outside onto the grass. Pulling off the top, I rummaged through the smelly diapers and other garbage stuffed inside.

“What you doing?” Tram asked.

“Looking for your daughter's clothes.”

“You think they changed her, huh?”

“Yes, I do.”

Tram started to help. His face was milk white, and he was sucking down air. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was having an epiphany and going through a life-altering experience. But more than likely, it was all the beer he'd drunk burning through his system. I held up a child's ripped T-shirt.

“This look familiar?”

Tram squinted at the piece of clothing and shook his head.

“No, that ain't hers.”

We kept searching. Vern was a step ahead of us and pulled trash containers out of the two other lavatories, dumping their contents onto the grass as well. By the time we were done, garbage was strewn everywhere. Vern made a call on his walkie-talkie and told someone to send people to clean up our mess.

“There's another place we should check,” Vern said.

“Lead the way,” I told him.

We followed Vern a hundred feet down a path. He stopped at a trash container designed to look like a Chinese pagoda. Yanking open a metal door, Vern removed an enormous garbage bag and dumped the contents onto the walkway. We started to sift through the pile.

Mostly it contained wrappers with half-eaten food or juice containers. Near the bottom, Tram found a plastic bag with its mouth tied in rabbit ears. Tearing the bag open, he let out a shout. Stuffed inside were a child's pink shorts and matching pink shirt.

“Those are my baby's clothes,” he said tearfully.

“You're sure?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

I examined the clothes and found several long red hairs stuck in the fabric of the shirt. Shannon's abductor had given her a haircut.

“Let me see the bag,” I said.

Tram handed me the bag. I turned it upside down, and a metal can fell out. It made a funny sound as it rolled down the pavement.

Tram ran after the can and snatched it off the ground. He tossed it to me, and I grabbed it out of the air and stared at the label. Blue spray paint.

“They must have changed her hair color,” Tram said.

I continued to stare at the label. Blue hair would have made Shannon stand out like a sore thumb. There was another reason for the spray paint, something as devious as the people behind the abduction, only I didn't have a clue what it was.

I found myself thinking of the little girl who'd disappeared at the theme park in Fort Lauderdale. Her abductors had changed her appearance so that even her parents, who'd been standing by the turnstiles as the crowds left, couldn't identify her. Her clothes and a can of blue spray paint were later found in the trash, yet I was never able to make a connection between them.

I have a maxim that has served me well. I always assume that the criminals I'm chasing are as smart as I am, or smarter. It may not always be true, but it keeps me on my toes. Driving toward the Magic Kingdom's main entrance in the golf cart, I suddenly realized what the can of blue spray paint was for.