Blaze

the prime suspect in the kidnapping at 4:30 PM on that same gray January afternoon, about an hour and a half after he dropped his letter into the mailbox in front of the Giant Kleen Kloze U-Wash-It. There was “a break in the case,” as law enforcement officials like to say. But even before the phone call that came to the FBI number listed in that day’s story about the snatch, ID had become only a matter of time.

The police had a wealth of information. There was the description given by Morton Walsh (whose ass would be canned by his Boston employers as soon as the furor died down). There were a number of blue threads plucked from the top of the chainlink fence surrounding the Oakwood visitors’ parking lot, identified as being from D-Boy jeans, a discount brand. There were photos and casts of boot-treads with distinctive wear-patterns. There was a blood sample, type AB, Rh-negative. There were photos and casts of the feet of an extendable ladder, now identified as a Craftwork Lightweight Supreme. There were photographs of boot-prints inside the house, featuring those same distinctive wear-patterns. And there was a dying declaration by Norma Gerard, identifying the police artist’s sketch as a reasonable likeness of the man who had assaulted her.

Before lapsing into a coma, she had added one detail that Walsh had left out: the man had a massive dent in his forehead, as if he had once been hit there with a brick or a length of pipe.

Very little of this information had been given to the press.

Other than the dent in the forehead, investigators were particularly interested in two facts. First, D-Boy jeans were sold at only a few dozen outlets in northern New England. Second, and even better, Craftwork Ladders was a small Vermont company that wholesaled only to independent hardware stores. No Ames, no Mammoth Mart, no Kmart. A small army of officers began visiting these independent dealers. They had not reached Apex Hardware (“The Helpful Place!”) on the day Blaze mailed his letter, but it was now only a matter of hours before they did.

At the Gerard home, traceback equipment had been installed. Joseph Gerard IV’s father had been carefully coached on how to handle the inevitable call when it came. Joe’s mother was upstairs, stuffed with tranks.

None of the law enforcement officials were under any orders to take the kidnapper or kidnappers alive. Forensic experts estimated that one of the men they were after (maybe the only man) stood at least six feet, four inches tall and weighed in the two-fifty range. The fractured skull of Norma Gerard offered testimony, if any were needed, of his strength and brutality.

Then, at 4:30 PM on that gray day, SAC Albert Sterling got a call from Nancy Moldow.

As soon as Sterling and his partner, Bruce Granger, stepped into the Baby Shoppe, Nancy Moldow said: “There’s something wrong with your picture. The man you want has a big hole in the middle of his forehead.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sterling said. “We’re holding that back.”

Her eyes got round. “So he won’t know that you know.”

“That’s correct.”

She gestured to the young fellow standing next to her. He was wearing a blue nylon duster, a red bowtie, and a thrilled look. “This is Brant. He helped that…that…him out with the things he bought.”

“Full name?” Agent Granger asked the kid in the blue duster. He opened his notebook.

The stockboy’s adam’s apple went up and down like a monkey on a stick. “Brant Romano. Sir. That guy was driving a Ford.” He named the year with what Sterling deemed to be a high degree of confidence. “Only it wasn’t blue, like it says in the paper. It was green.”

Sterling turned to Moldow. “What did this man buy, ma’am?”

She actually laughed a little. “My laws, what didn’t he. All baby things, of course, that’s what we sell here. A crib, a cradle, a changing table, clothes…the works. He even bought a single place serving.”

“Do you have a complete list?” Granger asked.

“Of course. I never suspected he was up to something awful. He actually seemed like a nice enough man, although that dented place in his forehead…that hole…”

Granger nodded sympathetically.

“And he didn’t seem terribly bright. But bright enough to fool me, I guess. He said he was buying things for a little nephew, and silly Nan believed him.”

“And he was big.”

“My laws, a giant! It was like being with a…a…” She trilled nervous laughter. “A bull in a baby shop!”

“How big?”

She shrugged. “I’m five-feet-four, and I only came up to his ribs. That would make him —”

“You probably won’t believe this,” said Brant the stockboy, “but I thought he had to be, like, six-seven. Maybe even six-eight.”

Sterling prepared to ask a final question. He had saved it for last because he was almost sure it would lead to a dead end.

“Mrs. Moldow, how did this man pay for his purchases?”

“Cash,” she said promptly.

“I see.” He looked at Granger. It was the answer they had expected.

“You should have seen all the cash he had in his wallet!”

“Spent most of it,” Brant said. “He tipped me five, but by then the cupboard was mostly, like, bare.”

Sterling ignored this. “And since it was a cash purchase, you don’t have any record of the man’s name.”