Walsh told Portland police and Castle County Sheriff’s deputies earlier today that the suspect said he was visiting Joseph Carlton, a name that is apparently fictitious. The suspected babynapper was driving a blue Ford sedan, and Walsh said there was a ladder in the back. Walsh is being held as a material witness, and there is speculation about his failure to question the driver more closely on his intentions, given the lateness of the hour (approximately 2 AM).
A source close to the investigation has suggested that the Joseph Carlton “mystery apartment” may have ties to organized crime, raising the possibility that the infant kidnapping could have been a well-organized criminal “caper.” Neither FBI agents (now on scene) nor local police would comment on this possibility.
There are other leads at the present time, although no ransom letter or call has been announced. One of the kidnappers may have left blood at the crime scene, possibly from a cut received in his scramble over the Oakwood parking lot fence, which is of the chain-link type. Sheriff John D. Kellahar called it “one more strand in the rope that will eventually hang this man or gang of men.”
In other developments, Norma Gerard, the kidnapped boy’s great-great-aunt, succumbed during an operation at Maine Medical Center to relieve pressure on her (go to Page 2, Col 5)
Blaze turned to page two, but there wasn’t much there. If the cops had other stuff, they were holding it back. There was a picture of “The Kidnap House,” and another of “Where the Babynappers Entered.” There was a small box that said
Also, the car was hot.
Walsh, that miserable bastard. Blaze almost hoped the organization whacked the miserable bastard for blowing their apartment. Meantime, though —
Meantime, he would just have to take his chances. Maybe he could get back okay. Things would be a lot worse if he just left the car. It had his fingerprints all over it — what George called “dabs.” Maybe they had the license plate number, though; maybe Walsh had written it down. He turned this over slowly and carefully and decided Walsh wouldn’t have written it down. Probably. Still, they knew it was a Ford, and blue…but of course it had been green originally. Before he painted it. Maybe that would make a difference. Maybe it would still be okay. Maybe not. It was hard to know.
He approached the parking lot carefully, lurking his way up to it, but he saw no cops and the attendant was reading a magazine. That was good. Blaze got in, started the Ford up, and waited for cops to descend from a hundred hiding places. None did. When he drove out, the attendant took the yellow ticket from under his windshield wiper with hardly a glance.
Getting clear of Portland, and then Westbrook, seemed to take forever. It was a little bit like driving with an open jug of wine between your legs, only worse. He was sure that every car that pulled up close behind him was an unmarked police car. He actually saw only one copmobile on his trip out of the city, crossing the intersection of Routes 1 and 25, breaking trail for an ambulance with its siren howling and its lights flashing. Seeing that actually comforted him. A police car like that, you knew what it was.
After Westbrook dropped behind, he swung off onto a secondary road, then onto two-lane blacktop that turned to frozen dirt and wound cross-country through the woods to Apex. He did not feel entirely safe even there, and when he turned into the long driveway leading to the shack, he felt as if great weights were dropping off his body.
He drove the Ford into the shed and told himself it could stay there until hell was a skating rink. He had known that kidnapping was big, and that things would be hot, but this was scorching. The picture, the blood he’d left behind, the quick and painless way that glorified doorman had given up the organization’s private playpen…
But all those thoughts faded as soon as he got out of the car. Joe was screaming. Blaze could hear him even outside. He ran across the dooryard and burst into the house. George had done something, George had —
But George hadn’t done anything. George wasn’t anywhere around. George was dead and he, Blaze, had left the baby all alone.
The cradle was rocking with the force of the baby’s anger, and when Blaze got to Joe, he saw why. The kid had thrown up most of his ten o’clock bottle, and rancid, reeking milk, half-dry, was lathered on his face and soaking into his pajama top. His face was an awful plum color. Sweat stood out on it in beads.
In a kind of shutter-frame, Blaze saw his own father, a hulking giant with red eyes and big hurting hands. The picture left him agonized with guilt and horror; he had not thought of his father in years.
He snatched the baby out of the cradle with such suddenness that Joe’s head rolled on his neck. He stopped crying out of surprise as much as anything.
“There,” Blaze crooned, beginning to walk around the room with the baby on his shoulder. “There, there. I’m back. Yes I am. There, there. Don’t cry no more. I’m right here. Right here.”
The baby fell asleep before Blaze had made three full turns around the room. Blaze changed him, doing the diapers faster than before, buttoned him up, and popped him back in the cradle.
Then he sat down to think. To really think, this time. What came next? A ransom note, right?
“Right,” he said.
Make it out of letters from magazines; that was how they did it in the movies. He got a stack of newspapers, girly magazines, and comic-books. Then he began to cut out letters.
I HAVE THE BABY.
There. That was a good start. He went over to the window and turned on the radio and got Ferlin Husky singing “Wings of a Dove.” That was a good one. An oldie but a goodie. He rummaged around until he found a tablet of Hytone paper George had bought in Renny’s and then mixed up some flour-and-water paste. He hummed along with the music as he worked. It was a rusted, grating sound like an old gate swinging on bad hinges.
He went back to the table and pasted on the letters he had so far. A thought struck him: did paper take fingerprints? He didn’t know, but it didn’t seem very possible. Better not to take chances, though. He crumpled up the paper with the letters pasted on it and found George’s leather gloves. They were too small for him, but he stretched them on. Then he hunted out the same letters all over again and pasted them up:
I HAVE THE BABY.
