Jason Pinter - The Stolen

The precinct was up a short flight of stairs. It had a red brick facade and an arched entryway, bracketed by two green lamps, above which hung a yellow banner that read

"Thank you for your support." The banner was bookended by two images: the American flag and the badge of the NYPD.

Curt led Amanda and me through the precinct, though not nearly as fast as I would have liked. I could feel eyeballs boring holes through me as we snaked through the corridors, and knew that many of these men had worked with, probably known, John Fredrickson. A few years back, I defended two people Fredrickson was beating to death, and in the struggle the man's gun went off, killing him. I didn't know he was a cop, and his death was the result of choices made long before I came along. Yet perception was reality, and the feeling was if I hadn't stuck my nose in, he'd still be alive.

"Just this way," Curt said. We followed him down the hall into a row of cubicles, each one set up with large, likely obsolete computers. We entered a larger cubicle which was set up in a U-shape, two computers at either end. The walls were covered with crime-scene photos, mug shots, business cards. Curt pulled up a pair of chairs, then sat in a larger one. He shifted around a few times, then leaned forward and scratched his ass.

"That's lovely," Amanda said.

"Hey, if you can convince Chief Carruthers to spend an extra nickel on chairs that don't make your ass feel like it's the wrong side of a Velcro strip, you'd be spared seeing illicit activities such as these."

"Is it really that bad?" I asked.

"Man, come around here during lunchtime when the detectives are all eating at their desks. You'd think a family

of porcupines must have made a nest in every seat. Like a messed-up orchestra, all scratching at the time same."

I said, "Think I'll file that under 'visual imagery I hope to file away and never see again.' So what is this here?"

"Here is where we find out about the criminal record for this guy Benjamin, the dude listed on the property deed on Huntley Terrace. You're sure this Ray Benjamin is the same cat who hung you out to dry in that tinderbox out on Huntley?"

"I can't be sure, but that's what we're here to find out."

"Now, you said this guy made a comment about serving time up at Attica, right?"

"That's right."

"Then our boy's damn sure got a record. Which means he's just a mouse click away from being ours."

Curt logged in to a database, then proceeded to enter first name "Raymond," last name "Benjamin," into the fields. He plugged the years 1968 and 1972 into another field marked "date range." He clicked a box marked "Caucasian" and pressed the search key. One of those helpful little hourglass icons appeared on the screen. On my computer, the sand fell through the hourglass at roughly the same speed as cars cruising Fifth Avenue during the

Puerto Rican Day parade.

A few minutes and ass scratches later, the hourglass disappeared and a file appeared on the screen. A mug shot appeared in the top-right corner of the page. I recognized the man in the image at once.

"That's him," I said, pointing to the screen like I was picking him out of a lineup. "Holy shit, that's the guy."

"From the other night?" Curt said. "This is Raymond

Benjamin."

I nodded. "No doubt."

Despite the picture being at least twenty years old, it was easy to tell this was the same man. The man in this photo had a fuller head of hair, fewer lines cutting across his face, but the look in his eye was the same. Defiance. Anger.

"There's no scar," I said. "When I saw Benjamin that night, there was a faint scar on his right cheek. There's nothing like that in this picture."

"Let's see here," Curt said. He clicked a button, then the photo enlarged. Curt highlighted a line below the photo.

"Mug shot, dated 1969."

"Probably the last shot taken before he was sent to

Attica," I said.

Amanda traced her finger down the man's cheek on the screen. "So if this photo was taken before he went to prison, there's certainly a chance he either got that scar in jail or afterward."

"Yeah, the scar actually did zigzag a little bit, like it had been stitched up by someone who got their medical license at the local butcher shop." I looked at Curt. "This is the only photo on record for this guy?"

"Afraid so," he said. "So what I want to know is how a dude who got busted for armed robbery in the sixties ended up buying a house that got burned down over thirty years later?"

"After he almost barbecued my balls," I added. "And if the house is owned by a three-time loser, why did the inside look fit for the Huxtables?"

"Obviously the house was in his name, but that was to hide whoever actually lived there," Amanda said.

"What I think happened," I said, "is that this guy

Benjamin bought the house as a front. I'm not quite sure what the catalyst was, but a husband and wife named Robert and

Elaine Reed have actually been the ones living on Huntley."

"They weren't in the fire though," Amanda said.

"No, no bodies found. Not that Russian doctor or anyone else," Curt said.

"So the papers are in this guy Benjamin's name, but he sublets it to the Reeds. Only there's no paperwork or documentation. The Reeds have a young son, Patrick, but according to receipts from a local toy store they'd been purchasing gifts for a young girl within the past month. I think very recently, the Reeds added a young girl to their family. Only I don't think they did it through conception or adoption."

"In vitro?" Curt said.

"No."

"Adopted a kid from Zaire?"

"Uh-uh. I think they kidnapped a child, and until that house burned down they'd been holding the girl just like whoever took Daniel Linwood and Michelle Oliveira had done. Amanda, you saw all the toys in the room you were held in. This wasn't some medieval torture chamber, this was a home. A place for a family to live."

Amanda reluctantly nodded. "Actually reminded me a little of my room when I went to live with Lawrence and

Harriet Stein," she said. She turned to Curt. "I was adopted. My parents died when I was young, then I went from orphanage to orphanage until the Steins took me home. I remember my room feeling not really like an actual room a young girl would live in, but the kind of room parents thought a girl would want to live in. Too many floral patterns, too many dolls. Just overkill to the extreme."

"That's why the Reeds racked up a hefty bill at Toyz 4

Fun," I said. "They were pampering this kid like she was their own."

Curt said, "So why kidnap a kid if you're not holding her for a ransom? What, you just pamper her for a few years and then let her go? I mean, you're comparing this

Girl X to Danny Linwood and Michelle Oliveira. Both those kids wound up returning home unharmed. If what you're saying is true, the Reeds planned to eventually let this kid go. Why go through all that trouble?"

"So she'd feel like a part of their family," I said. "When

I interviewed Danny Linwood, he made a brief reference to his 'brothers.' I didn't think much of it at first, but combined with this, I think all three of these kids were taken with the intent of ingratiating them into their 'new' families."

"But why?" Amanda said. "If the kidnappers knew they were going to let them go, why bother?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "But what scares me is that the

Reeds somehow knew Raymond Benjamin. He owned the house they used. So how did a supposedly regular family, a loving father and mother with a young son, wind up in bed with a career criminal, and end up stealing someone else's child?"

None of us had the answer.

"So what else can I do?" Curt said.

"We need to confirm that the Reeds did in fact kidnap another child. And if we do that, and we can find out who that child is, hopefully we can find the Reeds and they can answer all these questions."