'Brothers,' I said. 'Daniel Linwood talks about seeing his family for the first time when he got back home that day. He refers to his sister, Tasha, but then he uses the word brothers. As in plural. Daniel Linwood has one brother,
James. There's no record of Shelly and Randall having any other sons. And then he uses the word several more times.
As though he can't help it. Once is a slip of the tongue.
Twice is a heck of a coincidence. Three times, like Danny says on the tape, that means something's wrong.'
Wallace looked at the transcript, found what I was referring to, stared at it so intently I expected a hole to be seared through it.
'I think Daniel was referring to brothers because there was another brother in his life.'
'But you just said he only has one brother, this James.
I don't follow.'
'I think the other brother, the plural brother, was with
Danny during the years he was missing. I think whoever kidnapped Daniel Linwood had another young boy. I think even though he can't force himself to remember details of the past five years, Danny subconsciously is referring to it. I think whoever took him had another child, and Daniel was made to believe they were brothers. And even though
James is his only biological brother, his memory still retains a stamp of some sort. A footprint of the lost years.'
'Is that even medically possible?' Wallace asked skeptically.
'In 1993,' I said, 'medical records showed that Sang
Min Lee, a thirteen-year-old Korean boy who'd been in a coma for three years, suddenly woke up and claimed to smell flowers. Sang's mother had brought fresh roses to
Sang's hospital room every day for the first year of his hospitalization, then stopped when it became too expensive.
Somehow Sang's brain retained the memory of those smells, despite the fact that the boy himself wasn't even awake.'
Wallace scratched his beard, put the papers down. I could tell he was thinking about this, debating whether my discovery warranted looking into, or was just a dead end that would eat up time and resources.
'Let me dig a bit,' I said. 'I know there's no way to tell right now, but if there is, and we can report exclusively…'
Wallace's head snapped up. I stopped speaking. He knew my engine was running, that if he unleashed the harness I'd be on this like a dog on fresh meat. I was aching to run with this story. It burned to think that nobody else seemed to care where Daniel Linwood had been for five years, why he couldn't remember anything about his disappearance or why the HCPD seemed content to vacuum it all up. I hated that if nobody stepped up, Daniel
Linwood would just be another headline. A child with no past, whose future would always be clouded.
'This is awful thin,' Wallace said. 'You realize it might have been a slip of the tongue. A fault in the recording. My mother used to call me Beth-that was my sister's name, but she was just absentminded. There are a dozen ways to explain what Daniel said, not all of them having anything to do with some Korean boy.'
'But you and I both want to know whether there's more.'
I looked at Wallace, trying to will him to say it. Then he looked up at me, hands folded in front of him.
'Check it out. Report back if you find anything. And if it turns out there's another way to explain it, you stop digging immediately. We promised to treat the Linwood family with respect-the last thing we need is to accidentally hit a nerve that doesn't need to feel pain. There's a family at stake here, not to mention a town trying to rebuild. So use a pipe cleaner to dig instead of a pickax.'
'Gentle is my middle name.'
'That's a goddamned lie,' Wallace said, 'but I'll give you the benefit here. Good luck, Parker.'
With Wallace's blessing, I went back to my desk and took out the Linwoods' phone number. I held the Post-it between my fingers and thought about the promise I'd made to Shelly. Her family had been torn apart, and it would take years before they could even hope to begin the reparations. By giving me access to their home and to their son, the Linwoods trusted me to do what was right.
And I had every intent of doing just that.
First I had to make sure there wasn't a simpler explanation.
I called the Linwood house. It went right to voice mail.
An automated system saying, 'The person you wish to call is not available at this time. Please leave a message at the tone.' I figured they'd disconnected their phone, changed their number to confuse the vultures. Only now I'd become one, too.
At the tone, I said, 'Hi, Shelly, Randall, this is Henry
Parker. I wanted to thank you for the other day. I did have one follow-up question, and I was wondering if one of you could give me a call back at the office. Again, this is Henry
Parker at the New York Gazette. '
Then I hung up. And sat there. Twiddling my thumbs, chewing a number two pencil, praying the wait wouldn't be long.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about being a reporter was waiting for a callback. If I was on deadline, and knew that one transforming piece of information was available yet just beyond reach, the minutes crawled by like hours.
Waiting for that callback could drive you insane. I propped my feet up on the desk, stuck a pencil between my teeth and waited.
Thankfully I didn't have to worry about my sanity, because my phone rang barely a minute after I'd hung up.
'This is Parker.'
'Henry, it's Shelly Linwood.' She sounded apprehensive, a little concerned. She had probably assumed once my story ran I'd be out of her life.
'Shelly, thanks so much for getting back to me.'
'It's no problem. We have to screen our calls, otherwise we'd never get off the line. We're probably going to have to change our number.' She said this with an air of apology. She still saw me as a friend. Unlike the other vultures who wanted to pick the bones.
'I understand that. Again, I appreciate you and Daniel talking to me the other day.'
'It's Danny,' she said, her voice less than enthusiastic.
'That's what he wants to be called now.'
'Right. I remember. Anyway, Mrs. Linwood, Shelly, I was going back over the tape of the interview, and something seemed a little strange to me.'
'Strange? How so?'
'When Danny is talking about reuniting with his family, he says the word brothers. As in more than one.
And he says it several times. I know this is a silly question, but Daniel doesn't have any other siblings besides Tasha and James, right?'
'That's right.' The acceptance was gone. At that moment I knew I was an outsider again.
'Any close friends he might consider a part of the family? A cousin so close he might call him a brother?'
'No.'
'Has he mentioned anything to you about his abduction? Any memories that might offer a clue as to why he said that?'
'I said no, Mr. Parker.' Not Henry. Mr. Parker. 'It's just the five of us. Thank God. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pot roast in the oven.' I checked my watch. It was eleven in the morning. Kind of early for a pot roast.
She didn't wait for me to respond, and I knew when the line went dead Shelly Linwood would no longer be returning any more of my calls. I sent off a quick e-mail to Wallace.
Shelly Linwood doesn't know where 'brothers' came from. Got very defensive. Will update you on progress.
