Child Killer
Story by Bobby Willowby McAllister
Part 1
Somehow my heart weighed five hundred pounds when I sat down in my desk chair. Five hundred pounds of despair, desperation, and exhaustion. The media microphones and cameras in my face weren't intimidating. I'd given press conferences before. Pleaded with criminals before on air, to turn themselves in, in order to save a life, close a case, put a nightmare to rest.
The camera was my friend. A helper in the cases, if you will. A link to the truth, and resolution.
This press conference was different.
It was an update, yes. I gave one daily, because the parents deserved it. Even if just to say, "No new leads". At least it was something. It let them know we were still trying.
But today my brain could barely push the words through my mouth and into the microphones. It was my little girl Rosie that was missing now; the fourth one-my baby that hadn't gotten off the school bus three days earlier.
I was beyond fatigue. Edith and I hadn't slept or eaten much. And Cal…well, our son Cal had taken off to find the kidnapper himself, so we prayed for him too.
I couldn't call the culprit a killer yet. Not yet. He was still a kidnapper. Because there were no bodies. Empty child beds, yes. Empty chairs at the breakfast tables, yes. Empty arms with no little-girl-hugs. Dear God, yes. No bodies meant hope. Kidnapping meant chance, and there's always a chance.
"Four missing children in two weeks," I said quietly into the microphone. "My daughter is the latest. Unfortunately, we still have no leads."
Reporters were of course on hand doing their job-edging in for comments at the latest development: The disappearance of our Rosie.
They may have asked questions, but I don't recall answering them. By then I was running on automatic, like the new coffee maker I got Edith for a wedding anniversary present six months ago. You just set it and forget it. It does the work for you. Practically runs by itself. It's programmed to start, stop, pause. Press a button and it does its thing.
Starsky and Hutch were on it day and night. I saw the way they telegraphed across their desks to each other-Hutch's wet eyes. Starsky's tense body. They felt it, but they were professional enough and determined enough to work the case regardless of the personal aspects. Yes, they were devastated, but they were positive, and determined. I didn't want it any other way. The other cops helped, but I wanted Starsky and Hutch as the leads. I couldn't trust my baby to just anyone. They wouldn't quit until we found her.
The negatives kept nagging: After 48 hours, chances of finding them alive get slimmer and slimmer. If a traditional kidnapping, the kidnapper would have called by now with demands. Chances are good it was never a kidnapping at all. Just your garden variety pervert picking up small children and savaging them, then killing them. All in a day's work, leaving behind a wake of grief, rage, and pain so bright and bad it burst your guts apart for the rest of your life.
That night as I got into bed and held my numb wife close to me, one of the reporter's questions seeped through my twilight sludge just as I sank into the deep sleep that my fear and anguish had denied me for days: "How do you do it, Captain? How do you continue to do your job with your own little girl missing too?"
(I have to), my exhausted mind echoed in a long, slow sigh. (I have to).
Part 2
They came into my office. I knew their body language by now, because I felt it too: Tired, edgy, but completely present.
Starsky put a file folder on my desk.
"Robert Clarkson. Suspected pedophile teacher fired three years ago at Rosie's school. DA said not enough evidence to bring charges. Clarkson says he has a thing for kids but would never kill one. But he knows a few who would. They're next on our list."
I nodded. They didn't even give me time to comment. They were out the door again.
I shifted down into my desk chair and leaned my head back, closing my eyes, willing information and leads to come to me, searching my memory banks for old enemies who'd want to steal not just Rosie, but other children too, just for kicks.
It was ground Starsky and Hutch had already covered, and they'd investigated and ruled out anyone we could think of.
My mind went from old to new; old to young. A hunch that it was someone new to the game. A young guy who was just cutting his teeth in the child killing business, who wasn't in the system yet.
(No, don't say that. You can't say "killing" because there are no bodies. Until then, you have to call it "abduction" business).
Edith stopped by my office just after three o'clock that day. She waited until after the school bus drove past our house, hoping, somehow, Rosie would supernaturally get off of it and run into her arms as if nothing at all had happened.
"Cal called," she said. "He's still out looking. Harold, I'm worried. I don't want to lose both of-"
Taking her hands in mine stopped her. "He's young, Edie, but he can take care of himself. He has this notion of being a cop like me, remember? And you know how much he loves his little sister. He'll be all right."
Captain words. Husband words. Father words. Not that I didn't mean them. But I said them as much for myself as I did for her.
Are you going to make it through this, Harold C? a small voice inside my head asked.
Her arms wrapping around my bulk answered the question, as did one word that appeared like a small, simple, white neon sign on a dark street on the insides of my eyelids: Faith.
Faith is sometimes all you have left.
Part 3
My men were too distracted with their cases, and Rosie's, to notice just who left the package propped up against my office door, sometime when I was out to lunch with Starsky and Hutch we assume.
Starsky and I met at Huggy Bear Brown's to discuss the rundown of the leads the fired pedophile teacher had given them. Dead ends. I think they just wanted me out of the office for a few minutes so they could put a cheeseburger or two into me.
Brown's was a good place for that. He could try my patience once in a while, and we didn't always see eye to eye. But he was a good guy, and had a heart for Starsky and Hutch and what they did. He'd risked his life for us more than once. Over the years I learned to trust his instincts.
"Sorry about your little girl, Captain," he said as he brought a big lunch platter over to our table. "On the house. I'm keepin' my ear to the ground."
"Appreciate that, Huggy."
After lunch, the three of us went back to my office.
It was a nondescript package. A big padded manila envelope (vanilla as Rosie liked to say whenever I asked her to go fetch one from my desk in the den), with a cigar box inside.
Hutch looked a little nervous, and Starsky suggested we get the bomb squad. They'd had their share of bomb encounters-up close and personal thanks to Arthur Solkin and a few other chartbusters who'd made our top ten list-but I had a hunch it was okay.
I carried the cigar box over to my desk while Hutch got Minnie to send the envelope to the lab for analysis. She was always kind of hovering around my boys, being the kind of friend they needed-from referee, to advice columnist, to colleague.
Starsky closed the door, then both of them came up to the chairs in front of my desk and sat down.
I glanced from one of them to the other, my fingertips on the lid. What if Starsky is right and the box is rigged? What if we're blown to pieces?
As I slowly lifted the lid, it was an explosion all right. Of emotions: Anger (I want to murder this person who has stolen my little girl and ripped my family apart). Helplessness (what can I do, where are you, Rosie, why can't we find you?). Guilt (why couldn't I have protected her, helped her, found her sooner?).
The cigar box was full of Polaroids the sick bastard had taken of Rosie and the other three grade-schoolers.
I thought I was good at masking my emotions, but something on my face or in my demeanor brought Starsky and Hutch around to stand on either side of my chair to look at the photos too.
With tweezers, we picked through the photos with investigative eyes: The kids were clothed, looked a little dirt-smudged, not smiling. Scared. Their little eyes seeming to be calling out, crying out for their mamas and daddies. Rosie's: "Please, Daddy. Please find me", hers said.
My mind was shutting down. I couldn't think. The tweezers were slipping through my fingers.
Hutch's hand on my shoulder. Starsky's voice as he leaned over close and took the tweezers. They wouldn't let me give up. They wouldn't let me give in, or allow it to get the best of me.
"Look, here," Starsky said gently. "Lot of trees. Dusty ground. Can you make out that red sign in the background? Yellow behind it?"
Hutch's voice now: "She's alive, Captain. He wants you to see that she is. He wants you to see…"
"How 'well' he's taking care of them," Starsky finished. "To show how much he 'loves' them. That he isn't the monster everyone thinks he is. What he does requires seclusion. Privacy. He wouldn't be doing this in a park or anywhere public."
My upper lip trembled a little. Perspiration. I swiped at my mustache.
Hutch suggested, "Let's look at the rest."
We did. Sorting through the pictures. One by one. A line of trees high above them. Nothing that looked like it was on a city block. More like… on the outskirts of town, toward the rural areas. The woods, a farm. Private property.
"No visible injuries," Hutch said.
Not yet, my mind replied.
"I won't air them," I said. "I'll mention them, to ease the parents' minds a little, but I won't air them. I won't give him the satisfaction."
The two began talking over my head.
"Prints," Hutch said.
"Photos and box," Starsky added. "That red sign needs enlarged and sharpened."
I nodded, signaling them to take the photos and have them analyzed for anything and everything.
Part 4
At the microphone again. Another update. This time in the lobby of the police station, and a little more hopeful than the others had been.
"I received photos," I said to the press, the public, and parents. "From the kidnapper, obviously. The children look unharmed, physically, which is a good sign. My men are working on it, and I'll have more to tell you as things develop. But now…if you'll indulge me…I'd like to speak directly to the kidnapper." I looked around at the reporters, the small crowd of officers who'd gathered inside, and outside my door.
Starsky and Hutch were nowhere in sight. Off investigating.
Into the microphone, and into the camera I said, "I want to make a trade, Mister Kidnapper, whatever your name may be. If the pictures are anything to go by, you haven't killed yet. You have a chance to return our children. A chance of being a hero. And if that isn't enough…if you still feel the need to take your anger out and hurt someone…to take a life… I offer to trade mine for theirs. I'm willing to meet you anywhere you want. I'll bring money, if you want that too, and no weapon. I'll give myself over to you if you let them go. Just drop a note at my door, telling me where and when. I'll be there."
After the press conference, I turned and walked to the elevator, then went back to my office, where Starsky and Hutch were pacing inside.
Starsky handed me one of the photos that had been enlarged-the one of the red sign with yellow behind it. It looked like a red stop sign on the outside of a yellow school bus.
Hutch handed me another, this one also blown up. Of half a license plate, but clearly California.
Not much to go on, but something.
"I gave it to DMV," he said. "They're running-"
We were interrupted by a knock at my door. I started to say, "Come in," but the door opened and a teenage girl wearing a dirty white undershirt two sizes too big stood there. Baggy pants, smudged face. Tangled hair. She looked like…Rosie…the haunted look Rosie wore in the picture. Like the other three kids looked. Except this kid was older. A teenager.
"I escaped," she said in a dry, faint voice as she took a shuffling step forward. Then collapsed.
Starsky caught her, easing her into a chair.
Hutch got a drink of water for her from my dispenser.
"Here," he said holding the paper cup to her lips. "Who are you? What happened to you?"
"Escaped," she gasped as she looked up at us. She looked frightened and relieved. "I was cooking. It was my job every day. Cooking for them. I was in the kitchen. The TV was on. His girlfriend. She was pregnant. Fainted or something. I…" She started to cry. "I should have called an ambulance for her, but I didn't. I couldn't. I just got her handcuff key, unlocked myself, and ran. I had to get out of there. To help the kids. They-they're still there."
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I saw you on TV. Your little girl-"
I knelt next to her and took her arms, careful not to hurt her. She was matchstick thin already.
"My little girl? You were with Rosie? And the others? Were they all right when you left?"
She nodded.
I looked up at Starsky and Hutch, who looked at each other, putting voice to my question: "You were kidnapped too?" Starsky asked her. "Why didn't we hear about you?"
"You wouldn't," she said. "I ran away from home three years ago. No dad. Just a drunk mom, who never wanted me anyway, who's probably dead by now. I lived on the streets. Do you know Sunny?"
Starsky and Hutch nodded. A young prostitute they'd tried to help, but couldn't.
"We were best friends," she said. "I'm Alma. But the guy and his girlfriend promised me a place to stay, food, anything. I believed them. But they wouldn't let me leave. They kept bringing kids in. And…killing them I think. Or selling them. Or something. I don't really know. Kids come, but…I don't know what happens to them. I just cook for them. I have to. Do you see? They make me. Do you see?"
She lifted the cuff of her baggy jeans and showed us the old scars around both ankles.
"Yes," Hutch said softly. "We see."
"Who is he?" I asked as I pulled her carefully to her feet and sat her on the edge of my desk. "We need his name, and the address, if you know it."
"I don't know the address," she told us. "But I can show you where it is. And his name is Anson Stewart."
Part 5
The Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Not every father is as lucky as I was, that faith can bring an answer in the form of a runaway street slave who can lead you to a child abductor's front door.
It's also as much fate as it is faith. Or the luck of the draw. Or whatever you want to call it. I've held grieving fathers in my arms as they cried on my shoulder for their missing or dead children. I've wiped the tears of countless women whose arms ached to hold their babies again but never, ever would. Held the hands of little kids who still watch out windows for their big brothers and sisters to come home.
Not every father gets a miracle.
All four of those kids were a miracle. Because Anson Stewart was indeed more than just an abductor or kidnapper. He was a bona fide child killer, with bones in his fruit cellar to prove it. The red stop sign was attached to a school bus, which had housed the kids he'd taken at various times over the last five years, since his sixteenth birthday—Rosie the most recent.
I pushed into that damn school bus like a charging bull, dislodging seats from the floor as I made my hefty way down the aisle. Starsky and Hutch were behind me, stopping to pick up the other three little kids along the way and taking them off to be tended to by waiting ambulance attendants.
I headed for Rosie, who was all the way in the back, in the last seat, crunched in the corner under the grimy window, thumb in her mouth.
She hadn't sucked her thumb in a few years now, but I guess on this day she had a right to.
The thumb came out of her mouth, though, when she heard my voice say, "Sweetheart?"
"DADDY!"
She flew out of her seat and straight into my arms, crying and clinging like she'd never let go.
I broke down and sobbed right there, my back to the rest of the bus.
I squeezed my baby girl so tight, stuffing should've come out of her.
But only love did.
My empty, yearning arms were full of her again. At peace again. My heart back in its place. My brain back on track.
I laughed and cried with joy.
"Daddy, daddy, daddy. Don't cry. It's all right."
She cupped my big cheeks in her tiny hands and squeezed, looking me right in the eyes.
"I'm okay, Daddy. I knew you'd find me."
"Yes," I choked into her pigtails. "I found you. These are happy tears, Rosie. Happy tears."
Safe now, she placed her head on my shoulder as if to go to sleep. Probably as exhausted as I was. And as relieved.
Starsky and Hutch waited with the other kids in their arms, their eyes bright with tears.
It was a good day. For everyone.
"Hi, Rosie," they both said in the same voice.
Without lifting her head from my shoulder, she raised her fingers to them and wiggled a little hello.
"Daddy, I'm hungry. Can I have something to eat?"
"You sure can, baby. Anything you want."
Stewart was twenty one, so he was old enough to answer properly for his adult crimes.
Our sweet little Rosie and her three little friends were given only vegetable soup and crackers in the broken-down, rusted out school bus, but I suppose it could have been worse.
The kids were questioned, and another miracle happened: None of them had been violated in a sexual way. Which isn't to say that the emotional violation wasn't bad. It was, in its own way. But the lack of sexual abuse was just one less trauma to worry about.
Anson seemed a little surprised that Alma had turned on them.
"We thought she was happy here with us," Anson said in a bewildered voice as Starsky and Hutch put him under arrest.
I called an ambulance for Anson's girlfriend, Sudie, who was in and out of consciousness on the kitchen floor and couldn't answer questions. I had the idea that maybe she was there against her will, too. Or at least it had started out that way. As time went on, she probably went along with everything out of survival, like Stockholm Syndrome. She could tell us more during questioning.
Hutch shook the man, hard. "The shackles tell a different story, scum."
Starsky nudged Hutch away from Anson, then escorted the suspect outside to waiting officers.
Alma sat in the back of the Torino the whole time. We didn't want her near Anson and Sudie, or interacting with them, but she wanted to watch what transpired because she still couldn't believe she'd actually escaped. Watching from a distance gave her a detached perspective she needed, and courage.
Another two years in a foster home, or adoptive home, and some psychological help, she'd be okay. Well, as okay as possible, given what had happened.
Starsky and Hutch would steer her in the right direction. She might veer from the right path, but they'd put her on it.
Chapter 6
Edith was overjoyed when I brought Rosie home to her and put her in her arms.
They just cried and cried.
Next day it was Cal's turn to come home. When he and Rosie saw each other, she reached for him, and he held her as tight as a teddy bear.
Chapter 7
Edith is a very fine woman. A good wife. Good mother. A giving person. She loves with food, her time, and with helping, and with giving.
After things had settled down with the case, the media, and the family, she wanted to have Starsky, Hutch, and Huggy over for a quiet family dinner.
We hadn't done that in a long time, probably since Christmas, and Rosie and Cal's homecoming was certainly something to celebrate.
We had a wonderful time together.
As a man and captain of color, I've had my share of ups and downs over the years (most of which had nothing to do with the color of my skin), but family and friends are the ups that outweigh the downs.