Abduction! (10 page)

“Even getting kidnapped probably hasn’t dulled Matt’s sweet tooth,” Mrs. Sholter said. “If he were here, he’d be trying to see how much cake he could eat before I made him stop.”

Bonnie smiled, a bittersweet smile. She remembered scolding Matt only a week ago, because when she
went to the freezer for some strawberry ice cream, it was all gone. Mom didn’t buy ice cream often, and Bonnie was furious when she discovered Matt had eaten the whole quart.

“You little pig,” she told him. “Other people like ice cream, too, you know.”

For a few seconds, Matt looked ashamed and pulled on his earlobe, the way he always did when he was anxious. Then he dropped to all fours and grunted and snuffled like a pig until Bonnie had to laugh and couldn’t stay mad at him.

Oh Matt, she thought. I’d gladly let you eat all the ice cream, if only you were home again.

A
re you going to take me to school today?” Matt asked.

“School?” Denny looked blank.

“It’s Monday. I go to school on Mondays. I’m supposed to be there by eight-fifteen.”

“Not today. You won’t be going to school for a while.”

“I’m almost done with kindergarten. I have to finish so I can graduate to first grade.”

“You don’t have to go back. You’ve already graduated. You’ll start first grade in September.”

Denny hadn’t thought that far ahead—he hadn’t thought beyond the weekend visit with Winston and Celia—but he knew he couldn’t enroll the kid in
school anywhere in the Northwest. He wished he could. It would get the boy out of the apartment every day.

Denny’s nerves jangled when Matt sat around with those big, sad eyes watching everything Denny did. The only thing worse was when the kid pretended to throw a baseball. He actually held an imaginary ball, then pretended to throw it as hard as he could. It was weird.

“What am I going to do until September?” Matt asked. “It’s boring here. All you do is watch boxing and horse racing on television and talk on your telephone. I don’t have anyone to play with. You should have kept Pookie.”

“Boxing and racing are not boring, kid. I make big bucks on the boxers and the horses.”

Denny’s phone rang, ending the discussion.

On Saturday and Sunday, Matt had listened carefully to all Denny’s conversations because each time the phone rang, he had hoped it would be his grandparents. Now he didn’t bother to eavesdrop because Denny only talked about numbers and money. Sometimes the calls made Denny excited; often they made him angry. Once he threw the phone across the room, then kicked the refrigerator so hard that the grille fell off the bottom.

Matt wished he could see Mrs. Jules and his classmates. He wanted to tell Mrs. Jules how sad he felt about Mom and Bonnie. Mrs. Jules would be sad, too. He wanted to sit in the story circle and finish his project about windmills and play on the monkey bars with Stanley. Even if he had to go to a different school, it would be better than being cooped up in this dumb apartment all the time. He couldn’t even practice his pitching. He didn’t have a ball.

“You could buy me a ball,” he suggested, “and we could play catch.”

“Forget it,” Denny said.

“I could throw a tennis ball against the back of the carport.”

“I said, forget it! You aren’t going outside.”

Matt remembered all the times after school when Bonnie had caught balls for him. “Zinger!” she would call, which meant Matt should throw as hard as he could. Matt would take aim at Bonnie’s mitt, then throw with all his might.

Matt’s throat felt tight. Bonnie would never again be the catcher while Matt practiced pitching.

Stanley’s dad played catch with Stanley all the time. Why wouldn’t Matt’s dad play with him?

Matt recalled once last year when he had asked Mom about his father.

“Your dad and I made a mistake when we got married,” she had said. “We thought we loved each other, but we didn’t. We didn’t know each other well enough.”

“Why doesn’t my dad ever come to see me? Stanley’s parents got a divorce, but he stays with his dad lots of times. Is it because my dad doesn’t like me?”

“Of course not,” Mom had said. “He doesn’t even know you. If he did, he’d love you to pieces, the same as I do, and Grandma and Grandpa do, and Bonnie, and Mrs. Jules and everyone else who knows you.”

At the time, Matt had believed her, but now he thought she had been wrong. His dad didn’t love him to pieces. His dad didn’t even like him.

Matt closed his eyes and silently recited the list he’d made of all the fun things he’d done with Bonnie. Remembering good times helped get him through this bad time.

Bonnie stayed home from school on Monday, and her mom stayed home from work. They talked to reporters, trying to say something different to keep the story in print and on the air even though there was nothing to report.

Bonnie spent an hour at the grocery store handing out flyers. A light drizzle dripped from the gray sky,
matching Bonnie’s gloomy mood. She wished it would either rain hard or clear up. It was as if the clouds had cried all their tears and now could squeeze out only this faint mist.

At noon, the Office of Emergency Management called off the Amber Alert.

“Why?” Bonnie asked.

“The Amber Alert is most helpful when we have a vehicle description,” Detective Morrison said. “By now Matt’s photo is on TV and in the newspapers; the public is aware of his disappearance, so using the emergency services is no longer necessary.”

Detective Morrison had other disappointing news. The search of Marymoor Park had found no evidence that either Matt or Pookie had been there.

“A crew cleaned that restroom on Saturday,” she said. “They emptied the trash cans and picked up any litter from the ground before they mowed the grass. It was a long shot there would be anything linked to Matt, but still it seems incredibly bad luck for the cleaning crew to go there that particular day.”

Ever since the report that Pookie had been seen at Marymoor Park, Bonnie had hoped Matt had been there, too, and that he would have left a clue. Matt was smart; he knew how to print his name and he knew his numbers.

Bonnie had fantasized that the police would find
MATT
and a license number scratched in the dirt with a stick or written in soap on the restroom mirror.

As she listened to Detective Morrison, Bonnie’s hope was erased by disappointment. Matt might have been too scared to think about leaving a clue. Maybe his abductor hadn’t left him alone long enough for Matt to write his name. Perhaps Matt had never been near Marymoor Park. It might have been some other dog who looked like Pookie.

On Tuesday, Bonnie’s grandma and grandpa arrived from Arizona. Usually Bonnie loved it when her grandparents came to visit, but this time was different. Grandma cried a lot; Grandpa looked old and tired. Instead of playing gin rummy and working a new jigsaw puzzle together—as they usually did when Grandma and Grandpa visited—Bonnie put up posters, checked all the animal-shelter Web sites for Pookie, and tried to think of new ways to find Matt.

Since Matt had twin beds in his room, Grandma and Grandpa always slept there while Matt used an inflatable mattress on the floor in Bonnie’s room. This time the extra mattress stayed rolled up in its bag, making Bonnie’s room seem empty.

The days blurred together like scenery viewed from a fast-moving car. Each day, Bonnie and her mom and
grandparents traveled farther from home with their stack of posters, hanging them as far south as Centralia and as far north as Bellingham.

Detective Morrison called or came by every day. One day she said, “I heard from a truck driver who says he saw Pookie tied to a post at Marymoor Park last Friday.”

“What about the old couple?” Bonnie asked.

“He didn’t see them, just the dog. He described the same area we’ve already searched, so the report doesn’t help.”

Another day she said, “We traced Denny Thurman to California. He’s been married and divorced twice since you left him.”

Mrs. Sholter shook her head. “I wish I could have warned those women,” she said.

“We talked to his most recent ex-wife. She said Denny had no kids and no job. From the sound of it, he’s still a compulsive gambler. He was convicted once for assault and served six months in prison. The court-appointed psychiatrist called him an antisocial personality who doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets what he wants. His last known address was in Los Angeles, but he isn’t there now.”

ASSAULT! PRISON!
The words sent ripples of horror down Bonnie’s spine. She had once lived in the same
house with Denny Thurman. He was Matt’s father!

“When he wins, he rents a nice place,” Mrs. Sholter said. “He eats in good restaurants and buys an expensive car. When he loses, the car gets repossessed. He stays in the nice house or apartment without paying rent until he gets evicted, and then he moves on.”

“His fingerprints are in the system. Too bad the only prints we got from your house, gate, and Pookie’s collar were the two of you. Does he have any family?”

“An older sister, Celia. I never met her, but Denny talked about her a couple of times. They weren’t close, and Denny disliked her husband. His first name was Woodson or Weston or something like that, but I don’t remember their last name and I don’t know where they lived.”

Mrs. Sholter watched Detective Morrison write this information down, then added, “I really think you’re wasting your time trying to find Denny. He had absolutely no interest in his child.”

“People change,” Detective Morrison said, “and we don’t have a whole lot of other folks to look for in this case.”

No suspects, Bonnie thought, and no clues. How would they ever find Matt?

Bonnie and her family watched the local newscasts and read the papers, hoping there would be articles
reminding people to look for Matt, but there weren’t. Since there were no new developments in the case, it had been replaced by more recent events.

“It’s as if nobody cares anymore,” Bonnie said. “We’re the only ones who talk about Matt.”

“They care,” Mrs. Sholter said, “but when there’s nothing new to say, the story isn’t going to get media attention.”

On Thursday afternoon Bonnie said, “Tomorrow is one week since we saw Matt. It seems more like a month.”

“Or a year,” Mrs. Sholter said.

“Maybe the TV station could make a story out of the fact he’s been gone a week,” Bonnie suggested. “That would get people looking for Matt again.”

“Great idea!”

Mrs. Sholter called the reporter who had broadcast the first story about Matt and asked if she would show the pictures of Matt and Pookie again, on the one-week anniversary.

The reporter agreed.

F
red Faulkner pounded the last nail into the fence board. He straightened, rubbing his aching back. The old terrier plodded toward him, tail wagging.

“All done, Monty,” Fred said. “No more missing boards. You can go outside whenever you want without being on the leash.”

The dog wagged his tail and followed Fred into the house.

“The fence is fixed,” Fred said.

“Good,” Ruth said. “Now when Monty needs to go out after dark, he’ll be safe and we won’t have to go with him.”

Fred eased into his favorite chair. “I’m worn out,” he
said. “I’m going to sit here awhile, and watch the news.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Are there any cookies to go with it?”

“Dinner will be ready soon.”

“A man gets hungry, working outside. A cookie won’t spoil my appetite.”

Ruth disappeared into the kitchen, then returned with a mug of coffee and a chocolate-chip cookie.

“Only one?” Fred said.

“I’m fixing spaghetti. You can eat cookies after dinner.”

She went back to the kitchen.

The dog sat next to Fred’s chair, laid his head on Fred’s knee, and stared at the cookie. Yawning, Fred clicked on the TV and pressed
MUTE
until the commercials ended. He yawned again. Maybe he’d close his eyes and take a little snooze before dinner.

He pointed the remote at the TV to turn it off, and then froze. The screen showed a picture of the dog who sat beside him.

“Ruth!” Fred yelled as he turned the sound back on again.