Chapter 7
Ray Vecchio still had that just-out-of-bed taste in his mouth as he stumbled into the
27th precincts bullpen. He had gotten this spooky call around five thirty from Fraser. The Mountie blubbered something about Thatcher in his bed, but had on the whole been indecipherable. Of course, part of that might have been that Ray was barely awake. In any event, he had heard the urgency, the fear, and the panic in his friends voice, and he had gotten to the station as quickly as he could. As a result of his urgency he had forgotten to brush his teeth an action which he sorely regretted, and he hadn't had time to grab a cup of coffee to wash the bad flavor out. He was almost sick to his stomach from the bitterness by the time he got too work, thankfully they had a pot of coffee in there, waiting for him. He promptly took advantage of it. Granted the coffee was old, and strong and in a word horrible, but he was a cop and used to it.
Ray was still standing by the coffee machine when he saw Fraser enter the room, carrying a sleeping Elly Thatcher in his arms. "Hay Benny!" The detective called, as he pored his friend a cup of coffee. The Mountie looked like he needed it.
"Ray," Fraser's countenance brightened noticeably. "You got here fast."
"Lets go to the lunch room, there's a couch in there she can sleep on."
"Good idea," Fraser said. Dief was with him, so Ray had to assume that the Mountie had walked all the way from his apartment with the girl in his arms. That was nearly ten miles, Benny might be strong, and he might be fit, but still that was a long way to carry a sixty pound kid who probably wiggled a lot. He laid the girl down on the couch. She had been wrapped in his plaid jacket, Fraser was wearing his leather one, along with the majority of his brown uniform. The belt, the jacket, and the tie had been lost somewhere along the way, but he still was wearing those wired striped pants and the stupid little blue name tag.
"Here," he handed his friend the styraphome cup of coffee once his hands were free. "Now what's this about Thatcher in you're bed?"
"I was out walking nearly all night. When I got home she was just there, sleeping in my bed. I suppose Diefenbaker lead her there."
"What the Dragon lady needs the wolf to find your apartment."
"What?"
"I'm just saying even I give the inspector enough credit to find you're apartment without the help of a wolf. And I'm not in love with her."
Fraser was so preoccupied with Ray's misunderstanding, that he didn't bother commenting on the detective's second remark. "It wasn't inspector Thatcher. It was Elly."
He turned around to look at the still sleeping child. Suddenly, about twenty questions that he was going to ask were answered. But a new, unfortunate, question was formed. "If Elly was in you're bed, than what happened to the inspector?"
Fraser looked at his coffee, "Elly's testimony is shaky at best. But she says that a man came and strangled her."
"That it?"
"She was very frightened Ray."
"Can't blame her, how old is she? Seven?"
"Six."
"And she found her way to you're apartment."
"Like I said, she must have followed Diefenbaker."
"Smart kid."
"Indeed." Fraser took a deep breath and looked into his coffee. "What are we going to do?"
"What you want to do?"
"Find her."
"Well, yha," Ray shrugged, considering that too obvious to mention. "But there are a couple of leads we need to follow. Like we gotta get the kid's description of the assailant, then we have . . ."
"About this much shorter than the Inspector." He head his hands up, to show the approximate size Elly had shown him.
"Tha'd make him about five and a half feet."
"Caucasian, with no hair."
"Buzz cut?"
"Possibly, And big hands."
"Big hands?"
"That's what she said."
"Anything eles? Anything about the face?"
"Crazy eyes."
"That helps." Ray muttered sarcastically.
"She was really much too frightened to notice details. But . . ." He trailed of. In a way he was begging Ray to finish his thought for him, because he knew Ray could, and he felt guilty finishing it himself. If Ray finished it, it wouldn't be biased by the past. It would be pure, well mostly pure, deductive reasoning concerning only immediate facts.
"But that sounds like a descent description of Bear Collins." Ray said, finishing Fraser's thought. "Lets put an APB out on the guy and pick him up."
"We have no proof Ray."
"What'cha talking about, the kid just gave a description."
"An incredibly vague description from a frightened, young witness. Furthermore, he has no obvious motive. What judge would give us a warrant?"
_ Ray hated to admit it, but Fraser was right. They had no real case against Bear, all they had was a hunch, and as good as those usually proved to be, they were never strong enough to show Welsh, not to mention St.Laurant. There was a ray of hope, however, and Fraser was about to tell Ray what he had learned about Bear the other day in the art museum, when the Inspector's parents burst into the lunchroom.
"Constable!" William Thacher the first practically yelled. "What's this about Margaret? What's going on?"
"Sir, I suggest you just calm down and . . ." Fraser said taking a step closer.
"Calm, calm! We get a cryptic message about our daughter and you want us to be calm. What's happened?" Mrs. Thatcher was in near tears. She was almost an exact opposite of the woman who had told him to leave merely twelve hours ago.
"We don't know." Ray said bluntly.
"What?" Elizabeth wasn't calming down.
"Who is this?" William demanded.
"Ray Vecchio, Detective First-grade, Chicago PD." Ray said, taking a step forward, "I assure you that I'm giving full priority to this case, and I'm not going to rest until I find you're daughter." It was obvious to everyone in the room that Ray was in total earnest. And that surprised the Thachers and encouraged Benny.
With that assurance they were allowed to shift their panic to other matters, "Elly," Will demanded. "Where is she? No one said anything about Elly."
"She's here." Fraser said, Moving slightly to the side so that they could see the bundle on the couch. "She's sleeping."
"What happened?" Mrs. Thatcher asked again, this time she was much calmer. "Pleas."
Ray took a deep breath and looked at his friend, "Benny?" He prompted.
The Mountie licked his lips. "From what Elly's told me we can safely deduce that She and the Inspector were in some sort of car-park. The Inspector got out of the car, for some reason, and that's when she was attacked by a man approximately one point eight meters tall with extremely short hair and big hands." He paused, unsure how much detail he should go into, Elly believed that her aunt was dead, and of course Fraser believed that this was just the start of Garret's predictions, and that somewhere she was siting, bound and gagged, watching. "Elly saw everything," he continued, not going into details about what that entailed. "It would seem that she screamed until she lost her voice. Then Diefenbaker led her to my apartment. I found her asleep in my bed this morning at dawn."
"Oh, my God," mer mother started to sob. Mr. Thatcher put his arm around his wife's shoulder, and tried to set his trembling jaw, without succeeding. Xerxes and Leo were utterly still and silent. This was too big, to scary, too weird for them to comprehend. Will and Cimon both had a determination in there eyes, that very much mirrored the determination in Fraser's eyes.
Fraser saw it when he looked at Will and said, "I'm sorry." Ray thought it was wired that his Friend was apologizing to her nephew, not her parents, but he assumed that there was a good reason.
"You're gonna find her," Will said.
"Yes."
"You'd better." Again there was that threat in his voice.
"Ah," Ray said, cutting through the tension like a plastic knife through frozen butter. "We've got a lot of work too do, and it's really hard working with family members continually under foot, so . . ."
"Oh, yes," Mr. Thatcher nodded, uncertainly. He started to turn when Will stepped forward.
"What about Elly?" The young man demanded.
"We're going to need to go over a few things with her --" Ray started.
Fraser interrupted him. "No, we won't."
"We won't?"
"No."
"Ah, well then, in that case, you can take her." Ray shrugged, looking at the Mountie, not the boy. Fraser had no jurisdiction to question a witness, to attain a statement, None. Well, Ray thought, maybe some. This was after all a Canadian, a Mountie to boot, who had been kidnapped.
Will scooped up the sleeping child, and was about to carry her out the door when the door was suddenly blocked by Elaine. "Ray," she said sweetly. "You vagabond is here again."
"Thank's Elaine." Ray said, curtly.
"Yes Elaine, thank you kindly." Fraser added.
Elaine smiled at them and then turned around. Garret was right behind her and walked into the room, obviously very troubled. "It happened." He stuttered. "It happened didn't it."
"Yes." Frasre managed to say.
Garret shook his head. "You should have stopped it."
"I tried." Fraser's voice almost cracked, but he managed to catch himself.
"We should go," Mrs. Thatcher said, obviously upset by the transient. "Boys." She prompted, ushering them out. Garret looked at them wide-eyed. "She's yours." He finally said, after Mrs. Thatcher, Xerxes, Leo, and Will carrying Elly were out the door. Only Cimon and her father heard it.
"Excuse me?" The Diplomat asked politely.
Cimon wasn't so polite. "You know." He said, somewhat stunned. "You know about Aunt Meg."
"I'm sorry." Garret said softly.
"He knows!" Cimon practically yelled. "He knows arrest him!"
"Knowing about a crime doesn't make you a criminal." Ray said.
"But, but," Cimon stuttered. He had seemed to take the news well when he first heard, but now that it was sinking in, and he was told there was nothing he could do, every thing became overpowering. "Why else would he know?" Tears were forming in the twelve year olds eyes. "Come on, arrest him."
"Look kid," Ray said softly. "We're gonna find the guy who really did this, and we're going to arrest him. And he's going to wish he'd stayed the hell away from you're aunt. But what kind of cops would we be if we arrested the guy who didn't do it just because we wanted to arrest someone. You gotta know the difference between friend and foe, kiddo."
"Let's go Cimon." His Grandfather said softly, ushering the boy out. Tears were starting to tumble down the boy's cheeks and he was sniffling. Ray just added those tears to the long list of reasons to find Meg Thatcher, fast.
***
Meg was very cold. She had lost her trench coat somewhere along the line and so was in the ungodly cold with only her cotton sweater and jeans on. She knew she wouldn't freezes to death, it wasn't cold enough for that, but still, she was miserable.
Of course the cold was only part of the problem, the ropes on her hands were too tight. The more she struggled at her bonds the tighter they got. She had stopped struggling when her fingers started to tingle. At present her hands were entirely numb.
Her hair was in her eyes, and it was driving her crazy. She thought it was making her eyes itch. It was more annoying than the cold and the numbness combined because it was a simple stupid thing that remedied her that she was a prisoner. Her nose was bleeding too, and she couldn't wipe the blood away. At first she just thought her nose was running, from the cold, but that was before she saw the crimson droplets fall on her numb hand
Her throat hurt too. It was a sort of scratching ache. The schrahyness was due to the fact that her mouth was permanently opened by a thick gag, that was too tight. She couldn't moisten her mouth, or swallow. Needless to say she was extremely thirsty. If she had known how exactly she had been incapacitated by her kidnapper that ache would have made sense. But as it was, she could remember parking the car in front of the consulate and very little else.
One thing that she did remember was that Elly had been with her when whatever had happened happened, and Elly wasn't with her now. Meg didn't know if that was good or bad. She had to assume that it was good. If she allowed herself to think that because if anything bad had happened to her niece she wouldn't have been able to cope. So she continued to tell herself that Elly was fine; that the wolf had somehow taken care of the little girl and right now she was safe with her grandparents. Sort of little-red-riding-hood in reveres. Assured by this thought, Meg was able to forget her physical uncomforted, her overwhelming confusion and disorientation, and concentrate on what she was seeing. She was an inspector, a trained observer, and she knew that as the victim she had a responsibility not to panic, she had to keep a clear mind and remember everything.
They were in a woods, she had no idea why they were there, or how they got there, but there they were. It appeared thick, she couldn't see how any clearings at all. She didn't know how long she had been out, or how far they had gone, but she knew that they couldn't have been anywhere near Chicago. The forest was too thick, and she couldn't hear the cars or the other people sounds that were so comforting. The forest was silent, the only noise came from the man.
She had to assume the man was her kidnapper, or at least an accomplice. He saw her, and heard her, he had to have. He was working within a ten-meter radius of her. Meg couldn't see what exactly he was doing, but she knew she saw knifes, and ropes, and pointed sticks. She carefully noted where he worked, and what he did. She didn't understand it, but she had a feeling that in time she would. Occasionally he looked over to where she was tied under a huge cedar tree. He had laced the rope that bound her hands through one of the tree's roots. She had tried to pull the root out, or brake it, but that only resulted in numb hands. He would smile at her, wistfully almost, and then go back to work.
To Be Continued . . . .