Dr. Karen Shelton: And what happened to the nice man once you left the woods?
Christopher: I don’t know. He must have run away.
The sheriff pressed STOP on the tape and stared at the Mission Street Woods. He had been parked outside of them most of the afternoon. Watching through the windshield. Listening to the recording. Over and over. He actually didn’t know what he was listening for anymore. Something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He had worked a double already. He didn’t know if the budget could stand any more overtime from him or his men (and two women). Especially considering there wasn’t money in the budget to replace the old tape system. But it didn’t matter. They had to find this “nice man.”
That is, of course, if he existed.
The sheriff had his suspicions. It didn’t take a lot to imagine being a seven-year-old boy, dehydrated, hungry, scared. Needing someone to hold you and convincing yourself that tree branches looked like arms.
But he had to be sure that there wasn’t a nice man.
Not to thank this Good Samaritan.
But to see if he took Christopher in the first place.
Dr. Karen Shelton: What did the nice man look like, Christopher?
Christopher: I don’t know. I never saw his face.
Dr. Karen Shelton: Do you remember anything about him?
Christopher: He had white hair. Like a cloud.
The sheriff had seen it enough in his old job. In the worst neighborhoods in the Hill District. He had seen bad things done to children. He saw them lie to protect the guilty out of fear. Or even worse…loyalty. But the doctor said that Christopher looked to be in good health. Nothing happened to the boy that left any physical marks.
But the sheriff had seen from experience that not all wounds leave marks.
Dr. Karen Shelton: Can you think of anything else?
Christopher: He walked with a limp. Like his leg was broken.
The sheriff stopped the tape and looked at the sketch artist’s rendition. Dr. Shelton tried every trick in the book, but Christopher could never remember seeing the nice man’s face. The rest of his description was consistent. Tall. Walked with a limp. And white hair.
Like a cloud.
The sheriff took a swallow from his old Dunkin’ Donuts cup and let the cold, bitter coffee slosh in his teeth. He studied the sketch for another minute. Something was wrong. He knew it in his guts.
The sheriff opened the door.
He got out.
And walked into the Mission Street Woods.
He didn’t know the woods very well. He wasn’t from around here. After that last case in the Hill District, he put in for a transfer. He chose Mill Grove for the quiet. And other than a small-time meth lab run by a couple of science fair judges, he got what he wanted. No crimes but underaged drinking and the occasional naked teenager in the back of Daddy’s leased sports car. No guns. No killing. No gangs.
It was heaven.
A heaven that barely lasted a year. That’s when he got the call that a boy named Christopher Reese had gone missing, and the mother wanted to speak to the sheriff right away. So, he got himself out of bed and threw stale coffee into the microwave. He added three pinches of salt to cut the bitterness and drank it all the way to the station. When he arrived, he was fully prepared to take the mother’s statement, mobilize his department, and offer her a trained, uniformed shoulder to cry on.
But there were no tears with Christopher’s mother.
She was fully prepared with a recent photo. A list of friends. Activities. And his normal daily routine. When the sheriff asked if there was anyone who would wish the mother or child harm, she mentioned one name. An ex-boyfriend named Jerry Davis back in Michigan.
The sheriff only needed one click of the mouse to see that Jerry was a potential suspect. It was a petty sheet. But there was enough violence. Bar fights. An ex-wife with some bruises. He hit Christopher’s mother after he got drunk. He passed out. She left him that night. The sheriff respected her for not waiting to verify his promise to “never do it again.” Most women he knew didn’t make that call until it was too late.
“Do you think Jerry could have taken Christopher, Mrs. Reese?”
“No. I covered our tracks. He’ll never find us.”
But the sheriff wanted to make sure. He used the landline with the blocked caller ID. He spoke to Jerry’s foreman, who told him Jerry had been at the plant all week. And if he didn’t believe him, there was security video to back it up. The foreman asked what this was all about, but the sheriff figured he better not give Jerry a trail to find Christopher or his mother. So, he lied and said he was calling from California. Then, he thanked the man and hung up.
After Jerry Davis was cleared, the sheriff did his due diligence. He questioned teachers and classmates while his deputies combed all of the security footage and traffic cameras in a ten-mile radius. But there was no trace of the boy. No signs of abduction. Not even a footprint left by the rain.
The only fact he was able to establish was that Christopher had been outside waiting to be picked up from school. Christopher’s mother said the rain was terrible. There was no visibility. Fender benders everywhere. She said it almost felt like the weather was trying to keep her from getting to her son.
Dr. Karen Shelton: Why did you leave school, Christopher?
Christopher: I don’t know.
Dr. Karen Shelton: But you knew your mother was coming to pick you up. So, why did you leave school?
Christopher: I can’t remember.
Dr. Karen Shelton: Try.
Christopher: My head hurts.
By the end of the sixth day, the sheriff had this ache in his gut that someone in a car had simply grabbed the boy. He would keep searching, of course, but with no new leads, clues, or potential suspects, the case was threatening to go cold. And the last thing he wanted to do was give bad news to a good woman.
So, when word came in that Mary Katherine MacNeil found Christopher on the north side of the Mission Street Woods, no one in the sheriff’s department could believe it. How the hell did a seven-year-old wander all the way from Mill Grove Elementary School to the other side of those massive woods without being seen? The sheriff was too much of a city mouse to understand just how big 1,225 acres really was, but suffice it to say the woods made South Hills Village Mall seem like a hot dog cart by comparison. The locals joked that the woods were like New York’s Central Park (if Central Park were big). It seemed impossible. But somehow, that’s what happened.
It was a miracle.
When the sheriff rushed to the hospital to question the boy, he saw Mary Katherine MacNeil with her parents in the reception area. She was crying.
“Dad, I swear to God I was going to be home early when I saw the little boy. I would never drive after midnight! Don’t take my license! Please!”
The sheriff’s aunt, who’d raised him after his mother passed, had been something of a Bible-thumper herself. So, he took a little pity on the girl and approached with a big smile and a bigger handshake.
“Mr. and Mrs. MacNeil, I’m Sheriff Thompson. I can’t imagine how proud of your daughter you must be.”
Then, he looked at his clipboard to make the next part feel very official.
“My men told me Mary Katherine called the sheriff’s department at five minutes to midnight. Lucky it happened then. It was right before shift change. So, next parking ticket, you just bring it to my office, and I’ll tear it up personally. Your girl is a hero. The town is in your debt.”