The Abduction (22 page)

“Nice name.” Paul Ryan wanted a grandchild, but his son-in-law the proctologist wanted a Porsche. “Gary never left the apartment that night?”

“No.”

“And you never left the apartment?”

“No.”

“Are there any other witnesses?”

“We usually don’t have sleepovers, Chief. Can anyone other than your wife confirm where you were last night?”

She had a point.

“And your cops found nothing when they ransacked our apartment—they went through my underwear drawer, for God’s sake!”

“Mrs. Jennings, do you know anything about Gracie’s jersey, how it might have gotten into Gary’s truck?”

“No. I’ve told him a hundred times to lock his truck, but he always says that’s why we moved out of the city, because there’s no crime out here. Anyone could have put it in his truck.”

“Not anyone, Mrs. Jennings. Only the abductor. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the phone calls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Gary ever talk about Gracie?”

“No. The only time he’s ever spoken to Mr. Brice was at the vigil.”

“What about when he hired on?”

She shook her head. “Gary’s only been there six months. Mr. Brice has been in New York most of the time, on the IPO.”

“Why’d Gary go to the vigil?”

“She was his boss’s daughter. The whole town went.”

“Has Gary’s behavior changed in any way since Friday night?”

“Yes, at two this morning when the police kicked our door down and pointed guns at us. He freaked.”

“Did he dispose of any clothing recently?”

“No.”

“Did he clean his truck over the weekend?”

“No.”

“Has Gary ever displayed an unusual interest in children?”

“No. Kids drive him nuts.”

“Has he ever referred to children as ‘pure’ or ‘innocent’?”

“No. He thinks my sister’s kids were sent by Satan. Chief, where are you getting these questions, out of a child molester manual?”

He was, in fact.

“Does he have any friends you would describe as deviants or weird?”

“Have you been to his workplace? People there have rings in their ears, noses, tongues, navels, nipples, and genitals. That’s weird.”

He had to agree with her.

“Mrs. Jennings, do you and Gary have a, uh, normal marital relationship?”

“Do we have sex?”

He nodded.

“Yes, Chief, we have sex. Gary likes sex with his wife, not little girls.”

Ryan hesitated. He wasn’t getting very far with her. Of course, he hadn’t told her about the child pornography. He debated whether he should, but he decided that it would come out at trial anyway, probably sooner. So it wasn’t as if he would be intentionally upsetting her. And maybe she would then realize that her husband was guilty and she could pressure him into confessing. Paul Ryan needed a confession to keep his job. So he retrieved the picture from the desk drawer and held it in his lap.

“Mrs. Jennings, does your husband practice pornography?”

“Oh, no, he’s never asked me to do anything like that … well, one time he asked me to put it in my mouth, but I told him that was sinful. He’s never asked again.”

“No, uh, I mean, does he have pornography around the apartment, you know, magazines or movies?”

“No, he doesn’t even get
Playboy
since he accepted God into his life.”

“Has he ever possessed child pornography?”

“No!”

“Mrs. Jennings, we found this in Gary’s truck.”

Ryan placed the picture on the desk and slowly pushed it toward her. Her eyes locked on the image, her mouth came open, as if she was about to speak, but no words came out. She looked up at Ryan then back at the picture. Finally, she spoke.

“This was in Gary’s truck?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was.”

Her face went pale. She put her palms on the desk and pushed herself up out of the chair. Halfway up, she suddenly groaned and grabbed at her round belly, down low. She bent over and cried out in pain. She collapsed.

Jesus Christ!

Ryan vaulted to her side of the desk. Blood was on her bare legs.

“Call the paramedics!” he yelled to his secretary.

A risk level 3 offender is defined as an offender for whom there is no basis for concern that the person poses a serious danger to the community or will continue to engage in criminal sexual conduct.

Gary Jennings was a risk level 3 offender.

Elizabeth had logged onto the Texas Department of Public Safety’s online Sex Offender Database. She entered
Jennings
, Gary
in the search box and clicked. Jennings’s photo came up along with his record
.

JENNINGS, GARY MICHAEL

DPS NO.: 156870021

DOB: 3/10/78

RISK LEVEL: 3

SEX: male

RACE: white

HT: 510

WT: 155

EYE COLOR: blu

HAIR COLOR: bln

SHOE SIZE: 085

ALIAS NAMES: Jennings, Gary

CURRENT ADDRESS

1100 Interstate 45

Oakville Apartments

Apt. 121

Post Oak, Texas 78901

OFFENSE DATA

OFFENSE: Indecency w/child sexual contact

COUNTS: 1

VICTIM’S SEX: Female

VICTIM’S AGE: 16.11

DISPOSITION DATE: 07/08/1998

TIME: 1Y PROBATED

STATUS: DISCHARGED

Forty-two thousand registered sex offenders resided in the State of Texas. And one of them had abducted and murdered her daughter.

BriceWare.com Incorporated occupied an abandoned grocery store in a nondescript strip shopping center across the interstate from the affluence of Briarwyck Farms. FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux followed the father through the automatic sliding-glass doors and into the store along with Agents Stevens and Jorgenson. They had come to check Gary Jennings’s workspace and personnel records.

Inside, the cavernous space was, in fact, an empty grocery store. Big neon signs—DAIRY … MEATS … BAKERY … PHARMACY … VIDEOS … PRODUCE—still lit up the walls. Hanging from the ceiling were grocery store fluorescent lights and grocery store aisle markers with product listings. But where the aisles of groceries used to stand were now aisles of low cubicles; heads bobbed up and down. Young men and women, boys and girls really, glided by on rollerblades or personal scooters, headphones wrapped around their skulls, their ears and noses adorned with rings, their arms and ankles with tattoos, their hair representing all the colors of the rainbow; some pushed grocery carts filled with mail or boxes; they were dressed like they were at a rock concert instead of a business. If there was anyone over the age of twenty-five, Devereaux had yet to see him or her. The workplace of this high-tech company looked more like the cafeteria during lunch at his daughter’s high school. And the father looked more like a skinny teenager than the chief executive officer of a company worth billions.

At the CUSTOMER SERVICE desk a young receptionist with purple hair and narrow black-framed glasses stood abruptly when she saw the father; her neon-red shirt did not cover her navel, which was pierced with a silver ring. She stepped to the father and put her head in his chest, then she wrapped her arms around him. The father patted her stiffly.

“Oh, Kahuna,” she said softly. She released the father and wiped her eyes. “How could he hurt her? He seemed like a righteous dude. I mean, he was here yesterday, like he hadn’t done anything.” She shook her head. “The real world is too random.” She bit her pierced lower lip. “I’ll really miss her.”

The father nodded and said in almost a whisper, “Terri, tell everyone the IPO will go forward tomorrow. They deserve it.”

Terri nodded. “Okay, Boss. But just so you know—the IPO’s cool and all, but we’re here because of you. You’re the man.”

The father sighed and stared off into space for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah … I’m the man. Where’s Jennings’s cube?”

The young woman checked her computer screen. “Cookies and Crackers, cube twenty-three.”

Devereaux and his agents followed the father toward the PHARMACY sign and past the VIDEO section where a collection of foosball, air hockey tables, and road racing simulators stood, an exercise room, a coffee stand, an open area with a regulation basketball hoop, and a dozen soda and snack machines standing along the wall like suspects in a lineup. A young Hispanic male with platinum-blond hair was banging on the side of a Red Bull vending machine. The father stopped so they stopped.

“The dang thing stole my money again!” He glanced up at the father. “Oh, sorry, Boss. I mean, not about this, but, uh, you know, about …”

The father eyed the young man, then he stared down the machine like Devereaux’s daughter stared down the goal before attempting a free throw. Then he suddenly swung his right foot up in some kind of karate kick and drove the heel of his shoe into the side of the machine:
BAMM
!
The machine rocked back and forth, settled, and spat out two cans of Red Bull.

The Hispanic man grinned broadly, grabbed the two cans, and said, “Cool. A freebie.” Then to the father: “You da man.”

He held his fist out to the father. They bumped fists like the pro athletes do, then the Hispanic man walked off in one direction and they walked off in the opposite direction. They turned up an aisle marked
Cookies and Crackers
. Chairs in the cubicles swiveled away from computer screens as they walked past; behind them, heads poked out from the cubicles.

They arrived at cubicle twenty-three, a small crowded space, maybe six feet by six feet; two adults could not occupy the cubicle simultaneously because most of the space was taken up by a computer perched on a slim table, a few drawers, and boxes stacked on the floor. The walls of the cubicle were covered with yellow stickums, company memos, and pictures of Jennings and his wife smiling, kissing, and hugging—and one of Jennings patting her swollen belly. He did not appear to be a psychological time bomb. He was wearing a black baseball cap in one photo.

“Stevens,” Devereaux said, “you take the cubicle. Find out if Jennings contacted Gracie through his computer or accessed child porn sites from here, then box up his personal belongings.” To the father: “Personnel files.”

The father silently led Devereaux and Jorgenson toward the DAIRY section of the company.

Elizabeth pointed the remote at the TV and increased the volume. The reporter was saying, “A convicted sex offender sits in jail this Tuesday night, arrested in the early morning hours for the abduction of Gracie Ann Brice last Friday. Gary Jennings worked for the victim’s father, where he apparently became acquainted with Gracie. He made nine calls to Gracie in the week preceding her abduction. Gracie’s jersey was found in his truck, along with child pornography. Although not confirmed, sources tell us that traces of blood were also found in his truck. DNA tests are underway to determine if it is in fact Gracie’s. Jennings will be charged with kidnapping, murder, and possession of child pornography. While this community holds out hope, authorities concede privately that Gracie Ann Brice is presumed dead.”

She’s alive.

Their bond was unbroken.

She had come to him. She was showing him the way. She’s up north, where it’s cold. Where there’s snow on the ground. Where the trees stand tall.

But where up north?

Ben had found the weather channel on the pool house TV. The entire northern part of the country was under a blanket of snow from a late spring snowstorm. Was Gracie in Washington or Montana or Minnesota or Michigan or Maine? He didn’t have time to cover three thousand miles. He needed to be pointed in the right direction.

Ben was hoping the FBI’s computer printout of leads would do just that. After returning from the police station, he had spent the rest of the day reading 3,316 lead sheets for sightings of blonde girls. None sounded promising. All were in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New and Old Mexico, where there was no snow on the ground in early April and nowhere near timber country. Ben turned the page to sighting number 3,317: Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Clayton Lee Tucker had just about gotten the wheel bearings back in when the phone rang. Well, it was just going to have to ring. It did. Ten, fifteen, twenty times—whoever it was, they weren’t going away.

He was working late, as usual. Since the wife had died, he didn’t have much else to do. The phone kept ringing. Hell, some old lady might be broken down somewhere. Clayton Lee Tucker had never failed to help a little old lady broken down in his part of Idaho.