Page 58 of Protecting Silver
“Oh.”
“Did you find anything?” Ellie asked.
“As the crime unit dusted for prints, I had your parents and grandparents go down to the local police station, and give their prints for elimination purposes. I even had them take Bruce’s. We tried to do a heavy concentration in the room the boys shared, however, it didn’t work out as planned.”
“Why not?” Ellie asked again.
“Whatever prints we were able to pull were smudged, and not by us, it was like someone went through the room and wiped every surface. We were able to only get two unidentified prints. One was very, very small, and we didn’t learn until Anna came home that they were Mikey’s. The other print we ran through every law-enforcement database known to man. Even Interpol and Scotland Yard. I know it was overkill, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“How did you know the print was Mikey’s?” Daniel asked as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, and laid it on the table beside him.
“When Anna returned home, she told us that just three months before Mikey’s disappearance, they were at a county fair, and the state police were taking fingerprints and DNA samples of children for parents to have on file. In case something happened. She was able to produce what they had done. I took that and again, entered all the information I could into every database. It’s been thirty-three years, and not once has anyone contacted me.” John paused and looked around the table. “DNA was in its infancy back then, as the technology improved, I would update the files. At one point, I was so desperate that I had written into the file that if anyone ran his DNA, then to contact me, and I added my personal phone number. Not once have I ever received a call.”
“Did you ever find the woman who babysat me and Mikey?” Bruce asked.
“No, but I went through the chain as to how your father was able to get her to come. And at every step, I had those families investigated. Nothing. One week after Mikey’s disappearance, the case went cold. It took another four months to find out where the babysitter was living, and after getting a warrant, we kicked down her door to serve it, and I knew the instant the door opened that we wouldn’t find anything.”
“Why not?” Several people asked as one.
“Because, the smell of bleach and disinfectant hit us in the face. The apartment was completely bare. Hell, even the carpets had been ripped up. No furniture, no personal belongings, and we later realized that the walls and even the ceiling had been scrubbed with that industrial strength concoction. The only break we had was that the crime lab was able to break down the components in the solution used, and we found three people in the state that used it.” Decker paused and looked around the table. “It was the stuff that companies that come in and clean up after a fire use. At one location we thought we had a break in the case, but realized it didn’t pan out. There was a break-in at their facility, and they didn’t find anything missing, other than only a gallon of the solution. Nothing too big to report.” He shook his head and sighed heavily. “Because it had been months since the break-in, there were no usable prints. By the six-month anniversary of Mikey’s kidnapping, we had absolutely nothing to go on. It was like he and the babysitter dropped off the face of the earth.
“As I mentioned earlier, it’s been thirty-three years. During the course of my career, on the anniversary of Mikey’s disappearance, I revisited the file, and updated what I could. Ran new leads if anything became available, which I don’t have to tell you that nothing did, and I made sure to bump his DNA to the top of all the databases. Still after all that time, nothing. Like Anna and Douglas, in my heart, he’s out there somewhere living his life to the fullest, totally clueless to your existence, but in my head, I fear he will forever be the twenty-six-month-old that was taken from this house thirty-three years ago.” Decker wouldn’t look at anyone for a long time, Douglas stood and began clearing the dirty dishes, and Dan helped him. After the bulk of them were cleared, and the leftover food put away, he came back to the table with cups and the coffee pot. He poured coffee for the people who wanted it, then settled back in his seat.
Waiting until his father joined him with the pie and dessert plates, Douglas looked at his son, and asked, “Daniel, now that you know the entire story, why did you ask if your mother and I gave a child up for adoption?”
Daniel leaned forward, and gripped his hands together before him. He picked up his phone, looked at it, then looked directly at his parents. “I’m sure you all know that at work I’m SSA Atwater.”
“Congratulations,” Decker said as he nodded to him.
“What’s that?” Nancy asked.
“The initials are my title, Supervisory Special Agent, then my last name. People who work beneath me call me director, or SSA Atwater. Anyway, for the last six months, I had two agents working a case, without getting into too much detail, it was a man, who would hunt down his former girlfriends and beat them to a pulp, leaving them for dead, because they left him. He blamed it all on the first woman that left him over four years ago. My agents did the job correctly and just yesterday they were able to apprehend the suspect at the first girlfriend’s home. The suspect had already beat the crap out of her and threw her in a dumpster, hoping no one would find her. She was out with friends and was found within thirty minutes of being beaten.”
“Damn,” Ellie said. “And you apprehend people like that?”
“I used to, but now I ride a desk and supervise my team of agents. Anyway, Babcock and Mann returned yesterday with the suspect in cuffs. It wasn’t until this morning that I received the entire written report, and Agent Babcock joked with me that if it wasn’t for my brother, then they never would have caught the suspect.”
“I wasn’t there,” Bruce said with a frown. Then he stared at Daniel in shock. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah, that was the first thing I asked was if Bruce was there. When my agents said no, Babcock showed me a photo of the guy who’d punched the suspect when he tried to attack the victim again.” Daniel reached over and picked up his phone. After swiping several times, he looked up and stared at everyone around the table. “I don’t know who to show this to first?”
“Decker,” all the older adults said, and nodded toward him. John reached his hand out and took the phone from Daniel. Before Daniel released it, he looked John Decker in the eye, and said, “There are six photos. These are the ones Agent Babcock took of the man who punched their suspect to stop him from beating on his girlfriend, who had already been beaten by the suspect weeks earlier.” Without saying another word, Daniel released the phone. Everyone watched as Decker took it, turned it over and looked down.
“Holy fucking shit!” Decker yelled, and lifted his head to glare at Daniel. “Are you shitting me?”
“No.” They all watched as Decker flipped through the photos several times before he looked up, and everyone saw he had tears streaming down his face. Because he was close to Douglas, he passed the phone to him. The entire family jumped to their feet and looked over his shoulder as he turned the phone to look. It was thirty seconds before anyone said a word, and no one noticed Daniel leave the room, and return with a framed photo.
“That’s Dad,” Ellie waved it away and sat back down. As did the other siblings.
“That’s what I thought, until I compared it to this,” Daniel said as he turned the photo he’d retrieved, and put it beside his phone.
“Do you have a name?” Anna asked as she rested her hand over her mouth, with tears streaming down her face.
“Dr. Douglas Michael Atwal. I didn’t do a deep search yet, I wanted to come home and talk to you guys first.” Daniel looked at the older adults, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that they believed the man in the photo on his phone was their kidnapped son, Michael. Decker was the first to speak.
“I’d like to help you investigating Dr. Atwal.” He held up his hand at any protest Daniel might have given him. “I’m retired, you know you have to retire from the Bureau around the age of fifty-seven. Because I worked for them for over thirty years, I don’t really need to do any work. I was thinking of starting my own consulting business. Give me the closure I need to bring Mikey home.” He paused for several heartbeats before he looked Daniel in the eye, and asked, “Do you have the time to investigate this personal matter without assigning one of your agents to it?”
Daniel didn’t hesitate to answer. “No, okay, if my supervisors start asking questions about your presence, I’ll read them in, but until that, you can set up a work area in the corner of my office.” Daniel frowned at him, “You do realize I’m based out of Chicago, right?”
