STOLEN (11 page)

The
minute Marty got into the city, the world looked colorless to him. The bridges,
the roads, the buildings had been void of color and were all just different
shades of gray and depressing. Even the children playing on the street seemed
to be dressed in clothes that lacked vibrant colors. He wondered why anyone
would want to live here.

A media circus still surrounded Michaelah Sandberg’s Astoria
apartment building. Every major station, and a few cable stations, had taken up
residence on the little girl’s block, each one vying to get an exclusive
interview with the family. NYPD was out in full force trying to keep things
under control and directing traffic around the mayhem. Marty pulled up to an
NYPD car and showed his badge and asked where he could park. The guy looked at him
as if he was crazy, and then pointed in the direction of a small, once vacant
lot across the way. “Just pull in there and find something and place this on
your windshield.” He said, gruffly and bored, as he handed Marty a placard, which
said OFFICIAL CITY VEHICLE. “Hey,” he hollered, as if he suddenly remembered
something. “You related to the NYPD Keals?” Marty nodded a reply of yes, and it
was as if a light bulb went off, his expression changed, his attitude
friendlier. “Yeah, just pull in there. I’ll watch your ride.”

Marty did as he was instructed and waited until Jean got out
before he headed across the street to Michaelah’s home. The apartment was what Marty’s
dad used to refer to as a railroad apartment. Making their way through the
camped out Press, and a few dozen spectators, they walked up a half dozen
concrete steps and walked through a heavy brown door desperately in need of a
paint job. Just as he pushed it open, he was overwhelmed by a somewhat familiar
odor. Someone in the building was cooking, and the smell of garlic and other
spices were permeating through the thin walls. A woman, probably no more than
thirty-five but looking older, wore a gray sweater that stopped at her midriff
and showed every roll on her stomach, was exiting the building. What they
didn’t see, because of her enormous girth, was the young boy she was towing
behind her. The kid was as skinny as a rail and was virtually hidden behind the
woman’s thigh. She rudely squeezed passed Jean and made no attempt at
apologizing for making bodily contact. It was obvious that she was not too
happy with the kid and she was on a mission. Apparently, she wasn’t interested
in who they were or why they were in the building. Marty looked over at Jean;
her expression puzzled him. Instead of being annoyed, she broke out in a wide
grin.

“It’s a good day, someone stole Dylan’s motorcycle.” She chuckled,
and then verbalized something Marty was thinking himself. “Let’s talk to
Michaelah and let’s get back home.’’

They walked a few feet down a long foyer that was dimly lit,
probably because one of the overhead lamps was missing a bulb. On Marty’s right
was an apartment with the name Sandberg etched in a brass plate just above a
small brass-trimmed peephole. He knocked on the door, and moments later, a man he
recognized from television interviews after the abduction as Michaelah’s father
appeared. The man opened the door wider so they could enter the apartment. Marty
had called ahead and explained to Mr. Sandberg how they would like Michaelah to
try and identify the man in the hospital. Mr.Sandberg was extremely hesitant,
expressing his concern over Michaelah’s emotional state, but Marty got a
feeling there was something more. After Marty introduced Jean and himself, it
didn’t take long for Mr. Sandberg to relay to them exactly what it was Marty was
sensing, in no uncertain terms.

“You guys put me and my wife through hell. Treated us like
criminals, making all sorts of accusations. Accusing us of doing horrific
things to my little girl. People witnessed that bastard taking my baby and all you
cops were so damn ineffective in finding them. So instead of looking for the
real son of a bitch, you just kept on trying to make my family and me the
villains here. Insinuating that we were lying and we knew where she was and we
were the ones that hurt her. One of you actually had the balls to tell me that
I killed my little girl and dumped her body somewhere. I was your favorite suspect.”
His voice quivered even though he tried, desperately, to keep his emotions in
check. His eyes welled up with tears, but stubbornly, he refused to let a teardrop
loose. He must have lost control for a second, because he abruptly turned his
head, making out as if something behind him caught his attention.

Marty felt his anger. He was aware of the fact that the
parents had been through quite an ordeal when the little girl first
disappeared. Whenever a child disappears, the parents or other family members
are usually the first suspects and are usually put through intense scrutiny,
especially more so ever since the Susan Smith case. Susan Smith, a young mother
in North Carolina, had claimed that while she stopped at a traffic light, a
black man accosted her and forced her out of her vehicle at gunpoint. She cried,
hysterically, as she told her tale, to the investigators and anyone else who
would listen of the violent carjacking. She then added that her two little boys
were in the backseat, strapped in their car seats, when it happened. After a
massive search by police and volunteers looking for the black subject of the
carjacking, Susan Smith eventually admitted to driving the vehicle into the
lake in an attempt to commit suicide, but had a change of heart at the last
minute allowing her to escape the car, leaving the two little boys still
strapped into their car seats to drown.

Marty waited until Mr. Sandberg composed himself and turned
back in his direction.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sandberg. I can’t imagine how that was for
you. I know it’s hard to believe, but the investigators were doing the only
thing that they knew to do; their only objective was finding your daughter. I’m
afraid sometimes that makes it very uncomfortable for the parents.”

“Well, that’s a first.” He spoke this time with his tone sounding
a little less guarded. “You’re the first cop to actually apologize.” With a
great deal of reluctance, he stepped aside and allowed them further access into
the apartment.

Looking around, Marty now understood what his father meant
when he called it a railroad apartment. It was just a long, narrow apartment
with the rooms placed one after another in a straight line, like railroad cars.
Marty and Jean immediately found themselves in the living area and to his left there
was a small eat-in kitchen. To his right was the entrance to one bedroom, which
led to another, and then another.

Michaelah was sitting on a brown tweed sofa securely tucked
in between her mother and an older, gray-haired woman, who they recognized from
television appearances to be her grandmother. The minute the little girl saw them,
she let out a soft whimper and pushed herself deeper into the crevice of her grandmother’s
large breasts.

Mrs. Sandberg whispered something softly into Michaelah’s
ear, and the child seemed to relax. She brought her thumb to up to her face and
inserted it into her mouth. She seemed to take some comfort in the repetitive
sucking action.

It was Jean who approached the little girl first.

“Hi, Michaelah, do you remember me?” Jean asked, as she
slowly approached the child.

The little girl’s eyes drifted over to her mother who had shifted
positions with the grandmother. Mom was now cradling Michaelah’s head and her
fingers were gently running through the little girl’s hair. If Marty had seen
Michaelah on the street, he probably wouldn’t have recognized her. She looked
dramatically different, someone had spent a lot of time and effort restoring
the little girl’s long blonde hair, which was recently washed and combed,
falling into soft waves. Long gone was the dirty and matted hair she was
subjected to living with while being held captive these past few months.

“Michaelah?” Her mother adjusted her body so Michaelah was
sitting in a more upright position.

“Michaelah,” Jean repeated the child’s name.

Suddenly, without any further prompting, the little girl
started to talk and began to relate to us the story of her kidnapping.

“I was at the playground and my mommy wasn’t watching and he
took me. Sometimes I had to stay in the closet and not move and be very, very
quiet. He would make me play the naked movie star game. If I was a good movie
star, he would give me strawberry ice cream. I tried to be good cause I liked
the strawberry.” She looked up at Jean, her eyelids partially closed and
fluttered slightly, as if she could still taste the cold reward on her tongue.
“Sometimes, I wasn’t a very good movie star, but he gave me ice cream anyway.”

Her beautiful blue eyes rose up and hid under her top lids,
so only the white of her eyes was showing. They stayed that way for a brief
moment before she continued. “He hurt me and made me cry, and then he would be
really, really nice. I told him I wanted to go home.”

The memory of the sweet reward must have worn off and a
different memory seemed to replace it, because she started to shake
uncontrollably as if she was having a seizure, digging her body further into
her mother’s lap, her pink lips turning down into a pout.

Mrs. Sandberg suddenly jerked as if she had seen a snake.
She looked down and the only way to describe her expression was broken.

“Excuse us for a moment,” she said, her mouth turning into a
polite smile. She got up and lifted her daughter up in her arms, and it became
apparent now why the abrupt move, the little girl’s pants were now soaked with
urine. She didn’t need to explain to the detectives where she was headed.

“That’s the third time she’s done that since she has been
back,” her grandmother told them.

“She never ever had an accident before, not since she was
potty-trained. Never even wet the bed.” she told them, pride and disgust mixed
in her words.

It took quite a bit of maneuvering, but the older woman
managed, with great effort, to get herself up from the soft cushions that made
up the sofa. She grabbed a roll of paper towels that seemed to be conveniently placed
there for just such an occasion and made an attempt to soak up the wetness on
the cushion that Michaelah had just left.

A loud crash broke the silence. Mr. Sandberg, who remained
in the kitchen, was standing in front of the kitchen window. The crash was actually
the sound of the thrust of his fist pushing through the glass. He stood there,
motionless, blood dripping down his arm and then onto the floor. Jean ran over
and grabbed a towel that was hanging on the handle of the refrigerator, and
wrapped it around his hand.

“Hold it up, over your head.” She ordered him, as she
actually forced his arm up. It was as if he didn’t even realize what he had
done.

“Mr. Sandberg?” Jean said his name while still holding his
arm in an upright position.

“Mr. Sandberg!” She said, louder, trying to snap him out of
some sort of trance.

It took a second, or two, but he finally acknowledged her
and his arm. The next thing Marty heard must have been the loud gasp that came
from his wife as she walked back into the room.

“Mama, can you take Michaelah upstairs?” Mrs. Sandberg was
talking to the grandmother, but her eyes were steady on her husband.

Marty stopped her.

“Ma’am, please, before Michaelah goes anywhere, can I show
her a few photos? I need to know if she can identify these men.” He pulled out his
phone with the photos that Sanders, from the Oregon State Police, had faxed
over and Frank forwarded to his phone.

Marty could tell the woman was torn between attending to her
husband’s injury and making sure justice was served in her daughter’s
abduction. She knew the man that Michaelah said took her was dead, but no one
knew for sure if he had acted alone; and the possibility of an accomplice was
still something that had to be investigated.

She looked at the picture on Marty’s phone and turned to her
daughter, who was now back on the couch, a large white bath towel under her,
clutching a small pastel and very worn and tattered quilt.

“Is this really necessary? Hasn’t she been through enough?”
She questioned Marty, her eyes still targeted in her husband’s direction. He
assumed that Mrs. Sandberg was torn between which one required her attention
more; the bleeding husband or the distressed child. She stayed in a protective
stance over the child and it became obvious the little girl was the victor. Marty
didn’t know if it gave the woman any sense of relief, but whatever Jean was
doing seemed to be working and the bleeding seemed to have slowed up and was no
longer saturating the towel. However, the man was ashen, his face pale.

Marty overheard Jean tell him he had to go to the hospital,
but Marty didn’t think she had him convinced. He turned his attention back to
Michaelah and her mother. “I’m afraid so,” Marty answered “Please.”