lives.
“I’m sorry we have to invade your home for a few days, ma’am,” Mark continued as they all entered the brownstone. “But we have to get to work to get your boy back, and time is of the essence. I’m particularly interested in getting our technicians to work on your phone line to wire it up and make both tracking incoming calls and listening in easy. We’re also going to put in our own entirely new additional phone line.”
“Please,” Laurie said, gesturing that the house was theirs. “We appreciate all of you being here. Do whatever is necessary.” She and Jack began taking coats and hanging them up in the closet when the phone suddenly rang. Instantly, all conversation stopped. Everyone turned to stare at the phone perched on its little mahogany console table.
“Mrs. Stapleton,” Mark said. “Answer it!”
With some hesitation, Laurie approached the phone. She grabbed onto it and looked at the detective for encouragement. Mark nodded and motioned for her to pick it up. When she did, she said a faltering hello.
“Is this Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton?” Brennan questioned. He tried to sound angry and impatient, as Louie had ordered. To his chagrin, his voice quavered. He was nervous.
“Yes,” Laurie said, requiring her to clear her throat. She was suddenly terrified and needed to reach out and lean against the wall to maintain her balance. She instinctively knew it was JJ’s abductor.
“We have your kid.”
“Who is this?” Laurie asked, struggling to sound authoritative but failing miserably.
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” Brennan said. He was now more successful in modulating his tone. “What’s important is that we have your kid. Would you like to talk with him?”
Laurie tried to respond but couldn’t, not with the force of tears that had suddenly threatened to burst forth.
“Are you still there, Mrs. Stapleton? I need you to speak. I cannot be on the line for more than a moment.”
“I’m still here,” Laurie managed. “I want my child back. Why did you take my child?”
“I want you to start to mobilize some cash, and I want you to do it quickly. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Do you want to talk to your child? I’m trying to be patient.”
“Yes, I do.” Laurie wiped tears from her eyes.
“Okay, you little brat,” Brennan said off-line. “Say hello to your mommy.”
There was silence.
“Maybe you’d better say hello to him,” Brennan said, coming back on the line. “I’ll put him on again.”
“Hello, sweetheart,” Laurie said, assuming the phone was being pressed against his ear. She was desperately trying to avoid crying. “It’s Mommy here. Are you all right?”
“Well, he’s smiling,” Brennan reported. “Whatever you said, he’s smiling. Should I shake him up a bit and get him to cry?”
“I want my child back immediately,” Laurie demanded. “Don’t shake him!”
“Getting your child back isn’t going to happen immediately, Mrs. Stapleton, but it could happen soon. It will be up to you if you are to get him back at all. You have to mobilize cash. Am I clear on that? We’re not going to require cash, but you’ll need cash to get what we’ll be demanding. You’ll be needing a lot of cash.”
“Yes,” Laurie managed with a shiver.
“And another thing. We don’t want you to work with the police. We know they are there at your home right this minute. Get rid of them. We will know if you don’t listen to us, and it will be your son who’ll suffer. We’ll send him to you a piece at a time.”
There was a pause. “I hope you’re taking this all in,” Brennan said, not waiting for Laurie to respond, “because I’m going to have to hang up. But there’s one more demand. I’ll be calling you back tomorrow, so I want you to be available at any time, day or night. Until then, have a nice evening.”
There was a final click. For a moment Laurie continued to hold the phone to her ear as she tried to get herself under control. She was afraid if she did anything, even move, she would break out in tears.
Mark stepped over, took the phone from her hand, and placed it back on its base. “I’m sure you don’t feel it this minute, but hearing from the abductors is a very positive development. We are truly relieved. It confirms what we had hoped: that this case is about kidnapping for ransom and not something else. When the kidnapping is for ransom, it is in the kidnappers’ best interest that the victim stays alive and healthy.”
36
MARCH 26, 2010
FRIDAY, 10:41 p.m.
As the hour closed in on eleven o’clock, Laurie and Jack accompanied Detective Mark Bennett down the stairs to say good-bye when the detective declared that everything they needed to do had been accomplished. The most important thing was the Stapleton phone. It was now being monitored twenty-four-seven, and incoming calls could be traced from a bank of equipment in a small makeshift office set up in a guest room on the first floor.
“I’ll be checking in by phone in the morning,” Mark said, pausing at the front door. Except for the officer manning the communications equipment, who was going to stay all night, Mark was the last person from the NYPD to leave.
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” Laurie said. Not only had he supervised everyone else’s work, he’d taken the time to explain to Laurie and Jack everything that had been done up to that point. It started with the 911 dispatch of the first responders from Central Park Precinct Twenty-two, and the Manhattan North Patrol Borough, who had secured the crime scene, interviewed the only witness, initiated the process of declaring the Amber Alert, prepared the BOLO (Be On the LOokout) for a white van with six adult men and one infant, and established a leads- management folder at the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center.
Mark had gone on to explain that after the first responders’ work had been done, an initial supervisory officer had dispatched an evidence collection unit as well as a crime scene unit while also reviewing the sex offenders registry in the area of the kidnapping and entering the case into the National Crime Information Center’s Missing Person File.
“It had been then that I got involved,” Mark had explained. “After both the police commissioner and the mayor’s office were briefed, the case was referred by the chief of detectives to the Major Case Squad, as well as the FBI, and Team Adam. As I’m part of the Major Case Squad and was available, I was assigned to run it. What I’ve managed to do with my staff so far is to debrief the first responders and the only witness, and review all the information that’s currently in the leads-management system at the Real Time Crime Center at One Police Plaza.”
Jack opened the front door. A cool nighttime breeze wafted in off the street. A few yells from an intense basketball game on the neighborhood court were borne on the wind. “Looks like a real neighborhood around here,” Mark noted. “It’s almost eleven and the kids are still playing hoops. I’m glad to see it, and not just because it helps keep them out of trouble. I like it because it means it is a community.”
“It is a great neighborhood. Warren, whom you met upstairs, is one of the local leaders. He and I play hoops all the time, particularly on Friday nights. We’d be out there now if it weren’t for this ongoing tragedy.”
“Earlier I told you what had been accomplished so far in this case. All that pales to your cooperation and having a name and a description to apply to the victim. I’m sorry you are having to go through this, but you and your wife are, by necessity, key players. We need your help. In return, I give you my word that I, and everyone I command, will do everything in our power to get your boy back healthy.”
“Thank you,” Laurie and Jack said in unison.
With a quick parting salute, Mark bounded down the steps and entered a waiting unmarked official car. Both Jack and Laurie silently watched the vehicle head up to Central Park West and turn right on West Side Drive.
“I have a lot of confidence in him,” Laurie said, in an attempt to buoy up her spirits. “I’m exhausted, but I
