Chapter 6
“Come on, J.W.,” Tony reasoned. ”He’s been questioned by at least three different patrol officers and one detective. The day Victoria Winslow was taken; he was interviewed as a possible suspect. He just babbled nonsense and clammed up. You know how it is with some of these homeless vagrants. They get off their meds and get all confused. It’s been nearly a week since the girl disappeared. He probably wants to help, but he doesn’t know anything.”
“He saw something, Tony. I’m sure of it. He put the car exactly where I would have expected it to be. How could he know that? How could he even know we’re looking for a car? We didn’t know ourselves, until a couple of days ago when the photo turned up. No one could have told him.”
Tony sat thoughtfully for a moment.
“You may be right, but flying reindeer and footballs aren’t much help. Are we supposed to put out a BOLO for an unknown make and model of car, a car that might be blue, with some sort of football symbol on it? This is Texas. How many vehicles with football emblems do you think we could find, in about ten minutes?”
“I understand. I’m just letting you know what I’ve learned so far.”
He nodded.
“Appreciate that. I’ll do the same for you.”
“You have something?”
He sighed, “It’s about the little boy in the photo. His name is probably Aaron Horowitz. A little boy by that name appears to have been abducted from his back yard, near Marshall, Texas, four days ago. His parents thought he was playing in their fenced back yard, but when they called him in for dinner, he was gone. They figured he’d left the yard to go play in the woods. They live in a neighborhood that backs up to some deep woods. When they couldn’t find him, they called the Harrison County Sheriff’s department. A search was organized, but they found nothing. There has never been a clue.” Tony continued, “Here’s the thing, J.W. The little boy in the Polaroid matches the description they gave us. I sent a scanned image to the Harrison County Sheriff’s department this morning. Mr. and Mrs. Horowitz were shown the photo. They say it is Aaron, their son.”
“Awwwwhh!” I groaned.
“Yeah, I know. I’m right there with you,” Tony said.
“Marshall is a long way from here. I wonder what the connection is.”
“All we have so far is the boy was abducted from near Marshall, and the girl was abducted from Tyler. Both were seen together in a photo, lying in a car trunk. The photo was found in the same parking lot where the girl was last seen. That’s it, and that’s all. We really don’t have any leads.”
My investigation into Ted Simpson’s life had revealed he had attended a public high school, not a fancy, private prep school. It was a bit unusual for the uber-wealthy, not what I would’ve expected.
At fifteen, he had gotten a “hardship” driving permit, even though his family’s mansion was only about ten blocks from the public high school he attended. It was odd, of course, but it was merely amusing, not scandalous.
When I interviewed some of the locals who had known him in high school, they all said he was just a normal teenager. While he was involved in some of the social activities that were, more or less the exclusive realm of the wealthy he had never seemed to be arrogant or boastful. He always drove a pickup truck. A fancy, lifted and tricked out 4X4 pickup, but a pickup all the same. He enjoyed hunting and fishing, water skiing, and ATV riding. These were all pretty typical interests for teenage boys in Tyler, Texas.
After high school he attended Texas A&M University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering. I had more research to do on his college years.
I was stopped at a red light, talking to Walter on my cell phone about Mr. Simpson’s high school days, when I noticed the chrome on the car ahead of me.
“Walter, something’s come up. I’ll have to call you back.”
I hung up on him and called Tony, as the light changed.
“Detective Escalante here, what can I do for you?” he answered.
“Tony, it could be a Chevy Impala.”
“J.W., how in the world did you find out? I just got an e-mail with photo attachments, from the FBI. They’ve concluded the car trunk is almost certainly that of a late model Chevrolet, probably an Impala. The trunk photos look to be an exact match.”
“I’m driving on Loop 323, right behind a bright red Impala. Do you remember the Impala emblem? There was usually one on the trunk, and one on each side, of older models.”
“Kind of, I guess. Why?”
“It’s a bright silver piece of chrome. It’s a leaping impala, a type of African antelope, but it kind of looks like a reindeer, flying over or through, an oval, shaped more or less like a football.”
“Good grief. You figured it out from a piece of chrome?”
“Tony, this proves Dustin saw the car. He saw the kidnapping!”
“I’ll have him picked up for further questioning.”
“No, don’t do that. If he gets scared, he’ll shutdown.”
“We have to talk to him, J.W., he’s the one, single, and only lead we have.” Tony was adamant.
“Right, locate him, Tony, but don’t interfere with him or try to apprehend him. Call me, and I’ll go wherever he is. He might talk to me, but not if he’s been hauled downtown by policemen.”
“That’s no good, J.W. I’ll have to interview him. This is official police business. I can’t use second-hand information.”
He was right.
“Then we’ll talk to him together, Tony. Just you and I, but we’ll go to him. Don’t have him dragged downtown.”
I could hear the wheels grinding in Detective Anthony Escalante’s head, even over a cell phone. It took a long time for the wheels to grind to a halt.
“OK. I’ll bet several of our patrol officers know his usual haunts. I’ll have him located and I’ll call you. We’ll go interview him together.”
That’s the thing about Tony; he’s pretty regimented in his approach to his work. He tries to do everything by the book, all the time.
Tony believes adherence to the rules and regulations helps to ensure and enforce justice. Without the rules and regulations, those who serve in law enforcement could all too easily abuse their power.
I respect his position on the matter.
It annoys the fire out of me, though.