The Chillicothe Interlude

by

 Philip Marks & Eliot Moore

(gayadult49 at gmail dot com) / (eliot.moore.writer at gmail dot com)

A parallel story of Fourteen By Eliot Moore

December 7

North Platte, Nebraska

9 a.m.

A day which will live in infamy for somebody

The strange car was gone now.

Cameron had been peering out the window all morning, at first idly, then seriously puzzled; why would two men sit in a car at the neighbor's curb across the way since early morning? They were gone now but there was a white van, one he'd never seen on the block before, five houses away. And again across the street. Just parked.

Noah was in the backyard shooting hoops and Cameron, bored, thought about joining him but didn't want his older brother to lord it over him again since Cam sucked at athletics generally. Besides it was icy cold this morning. Maybe Fortnite...?

After, Cameron would think this the most awful and eventful day of his life.

After, he felt guilty about not telling them everything, but it was too personal. He sure didn't want Noah or his parents to know. And he didn't see how it could really matter.

He already told them so much more than he wanted to.

Chillicothe, Ohio

3 a.m.

It's early morning, early winter, early gloom; silent sleeping sadness in a once warm Craftsman bungalow gone Chillicothe cold, and not warmed one bit by the three a.m. ringing of the phone, jarring, foreboding. Remy Gates, hyper-vigilant, jerks gasping from sleep to awareness, heart pounding, takes not even one full ring to reach-grasp-answer hand curled white-knuckling handset from the nightstand.

“Hello?!” Breathless chest-aching reflex. The hot ball in the pit of her stomach blares, “I'm here.”

“Remy, Wilson Jameson, FBI.”  Calm, measured, almost lethargic voice.

She remembered. He'd been here for a week or so back in early September but mostly she had been spending time with other agents. A tall, fiftyish man, serious, driven. She remembered them all; not a detail but she had gone over and over and over in the long long months after.

“I'm sorry to call you so early.”

Heart sinks.

They don't start with apologizing if it's good news. This cannot be good news. Calls at 3 a.m. are never going to be good news. Have they found another body? Oh God, I can't go through that again. Please not that.

Strawberry blonde hair, just showing edges of gray, roots of gray; not so much her fortyish due as it is stress induced.

They are all gone now. FBI. Ohio BCI. Ross County Sheriff's Office. Chillicothe Police. The street is no longer clogged with LEO vehicles, the driveway empty, the lawn and the broad front porch long since cleared as they picked up their empty paper coffee cups and sandwich wrappers and rode into the sunset.

Sorry Ms. Gates. We did what we could. We have to get on to our robbery-murder-kidnapping-rape-jaywalking cases. Nothing to see here. Move on folks. It's all over. Oh they said “we won't stop looking” but she knew better. The news reporters (“Tell us how you feel Remy! Do you miss him? Do you have a message for him? What would you say to his kidnappers?”) are gone too, thank God.

Then after three endless months, come six enigmatic words on dormant Facebook page.

I’m okay, don’t worry, love you.

Not reassuring no matter his intent, if in fact it was him. No explanation, no location, not even a promise to return.

“It's okay, Wilson.”

They had been so hopeful. The police had returned, albeit in smaller numbers.

Only to leave again.

They call every week now, to tell her they have nothing to tell her.

They say when a child is lost-dies-abducted- (not) murdered (please!) -  it destroys the family. That may yet happen but she feels they have had nothing but each other to cling to, it has in fact driven them more together, at least for now.

“Is your husband there? I think if possible it would be good to fill both of you in on things together.”

Pressing the speakerphone button she shakily lays the handset down, speaks dully. The Klonopin has slowed her a bit especially when she wakes up, but it does help with the panic attacks and that lets her sleep more.

“Yes, Wilson; Greyson is here.”

We are both here, what did you think?

“Grey it's Wilson from the FBI.”

Warm and chilled in equal parts, he rises, fear and strength transparent to her, neither obvious to a casual observer.  She feels the arm, strong about her, back straight; body warm; they move to the edge of the bed.

“I don't want to promise, but we may be closing in on a location.”

He speaks lazily but he might as well shoved a taser between her breasts. The hot hard ball in the pit of her stomach releases a little. She is suddenly dizzy.

“It took a while because the message was posted using a secure browser set up to make it look like it was from Argentina – which we didn't believe of course, It has taken a month but OT – sorry, our Operational Tech Division has now been able to track it to the real origin. It was posted from North Platte, Nebraska. So I need to ask if either of you know anyone in North Platte; or does he?”

Puzzled, tense, fearful, confused. Glances exchanged, wordless.

“No,” said Grey, speaking for both of them, “I don't think so. He certainly never mentioned that.”

“We've conclusively tracked it to an IP address and that to a particular home.” A monotone-clipped-hypnotic-remote-professional, unreal voice speaking an incomprehensible situation. “We wanted to talk to you before we take action on the place, in the hopes that this might be someone you know, a benign situation.”

Jameson paused for a response. Remy shook her head silently and glanced at Greyson. His eyes met hers.

“We have had the house under surveillance since midnight and haven't seen anyone in or out. We've done some checking and a family lives there, nothing unusual that we see so far. One promising thing is that the family has two teenage boys, one is fifteen or sixteen, close to his age, one older about nineteen. That makes us wonder if somehow he met a boy online and went to see him”

Time is split, there is before; there is after. The knife-sharp demarcation, a line that glows in inky dark August night. Mountain bike overturned on pavement, wheel rim cruelly-shining, Kleig-light-glaring, crime-scene-taped August night.

Burned in her memory; a night she can never go past.

I don't know what to say. I don't know how to react, how to feel. Could Jeremy really run away to meet some boy in Nebraska? Run away? Never. Why would he do that? Would he not realize the terror-dread-horror-slow-dying she has had every waking, and most sleeping moments since he disappeared? How could this account for that bike; unused county fair tokens scattered in the street, half a block away?

“Jeremy did not run away. He did not leave. He was taken.”

She doesn't raise her voice, she doesn't have to. It is a measured hot-iron-hard strip, needs anvil but she's got the hammer.

“I'm so sorry, Remy, I didn't mean to suggest that, just, it's something we have to consider. That perhaps he was enticed to meet someone maybe nearby, maybe expecting to return in a few minutes perhaps, but then taken. We agree there's (something) nothing to suggest anything but his being taken.”

Continuing quickly, forestalling further response; his job is to gently manage devastated men and women as much as to find their missing children.

“We're waiting for eight a.m. to talk to Shane Andrews again in the hope he knows something about this. We won't tell him what it's about, just 'following up on some leads, did Jeremy ever talk to you about Nebraska that you can remember?'”  Slowly, carefully. “You know sometimes teenagers will keep secrets for each other; though I think Shane has told us everything he knows, this could be something Jeremy mentioned that Shane just didn't attach significance to so he hasn't thought about it. So we'll ask him.”

“We may wait to move in, we're going to see what we can learn especially if we find evidence that Jeremy is there. That will require caution. If he's not, then we need to press for information; we got warrants to tap the phones and put GPS on the cars and if we don't get good answers we will do that. I can't tell you everything. I can't tell you the exact location in North Platte at this point, we have to keep this tightly held just to be sure it doesn't jeopardize the...”  he stumbles – “your boy. If he is there.”

One slow tear rolls down a cheek, a choking sob suppressed, tightness revisits her chest. The ball flares.

The boy.

Your boy.

The victim he means.

“I understa – understand. I appreciate you letting us know what is going on.”

She is choking on her words even though she means them.

“I don't want to raise hopes too much. Remy, Grey, this could be the break we need; it's the only real lead we've had so far; but it is also possible that message was a hoax or prank; he hasn't posted  anything since. It's still possible he wasn't even there. Heck someone could have parked at the curb nearby and gotten onto the internet through the family wifi. But there is at least a chance Jeremy is there and safe or they may know where he is. I frankly wondered if I shouldn't wait to let you know, but I felt it wasn't fair to keep it from you. Anyway, depending on how things move it could be a day or two or just a few hours before we know something.”

“Thank you, Wilson.”

 I might rather not know. Ah, I must know.

North Platte

10:30 a.m.

It started out pretty simple, a knock at the door from the JW's, they didn't want to talk to a teenager they wanted his parents. But Kreugers are Baptists, he thinks; well sort of, just, it's not like we go to church or anything. But Baptists, yeah. Dad was sleeping in and Cam knew better than to wake him up for this.

“I'm sorry my Dad and Mom are sleeping in...”

“Oh,” said the pretty blonde, all cheerleader enthusiastic; her male companion politely bored. “That's fine we don't want to bother them. Can we leave a newsletter with you for them?”

“Um yaaah, sure...” slowly. “I don't have any money.”

“Oh no, sweetheart, we don't want money! What's your name, dear?”

“Cameron.”

“Oh that's a nice name. Cameron. How old are you?”

“Sixteen. (Fifteen. Soon sixteen).”

“Oh that's great! You go to North Platte High? A sophomore? My daughter is going there next year.”

“Um...yah....” Suddenly this seemed.... “Erm...I gotta go.”

“Okay, Cameron it was nice to meet you, I hope I'll see you again soon.”

“Sure.”

He put the Watchtower on the dining room table, after uncharacteristically locking the door.

They've never come by on a Saturday before, at least he doesn't think they have; he shrugs. Yeah, maybe some Fortnite...

It was ten minutes, maybe twenty; the phone rang, Dad picked it up in the bedroom. He came out white faced, in his boxers, the door was pounding; wood splintered; the world crashed in.

“FBI!! Search warrant! Everybody down on the floor! On the floor NOW!!”

Rude knee on his back. Handcuffs. Hands all over his body.

WTF???

FBI??

What the double fuck!!??

Cam was hustled out the door, trying to look backwards to his parents, with his hands shackled behind him and a burly guy in an FBI windbreaker pushing on his arm.

The FBI has no intentions of taking any bullshit. And they want that message sent loud and clear. It comes across like the flash-bang stun grenade they'd decided not to use, for which Mr Kreuger would be (eventually) very happy.

“Mr Kreuger, I'm Supervisory Special Agent Norman Beck of the North Platte FBI office. We have a warrant to search your home and cars, we are going to find evidence in here as to the whereabouts of Jeremy Gates. Please save us all a lot of time and effort by answering now. Is Jeremy here? If not, where is he?”

“Who the hell is Jeremy Gates?”

“That's not a good idea, Mr Kreuger. I'm disappointed in you. We know Jeremy has been in your home. We are going to get the whole story so you might as well drop the pretense.”

Vein-throbbing-red-face.

“Jesus Christ! Who in hell is Jeremy Gates??”

“Okay play it your way, you're just delaying the inevitable. Let's get you some pants and we'll all go to the FBI office.”

While we rip this place apart because if it is here we will find anything that could lead us to Jeremy Gates.

They put Noah, his mom, his dad and him each in separate cars and Cam saw a small army moving into the empty house, the neighbors were all outside, street abuzz, eyes agog; it was out of a movie or TV. He sees police, sheriff's, state trooper's cars, and some that aren't marked must be FBI. Hell one was a fucking SWAT truck!!  Fucking crime scene tape going up all over the block!

And as they pulled off, they passed a TV truck headed the opposite way. His head is sort of pounding. He has no context for this, no way to process it.

Oh fuck! Oh fuck! What the fuck!? What has Noah done, – because that's who it has to be – is he selling pot? Something he did on the internet maybe? Terror plans? Bomb threats? He's not the school-shooter type. Shit they don't send the FBI for sexting do they? Is this some joke, somebody SWATing us?

He'd not heard the exchange, the Jeremy Gates. He would not even remember that name. Maybe Jem would 've kick-started his adrenal system though.

The FBI guy driving was silent but the woman was his Jehovah's Witness and at least that part of the puzzle fell into place.

“Cameron, I'm Melissa Benson, I'm a special agent for the FBI and I apologize that we lied to you earlier.”

“Um. Yeah, ok...” tentatively, plaintively: “Can you tell me what's going on here?”

“When we get to the office I'll explain some things to you. We have to do it there so we can record our conversations plus North Platte and Lincoln County detectives will join us. I don't think you are in any trouble. However we do have to read your rights to you. I'm going to do that now, and again when we are at the office and on camera, so I want you to understand it's really important for you to be honest and to answer our questions. You can tell, I think, how serious this is.”

“Uhhh...” No shit.

Cam hadn't even known there was an FBI office in North Platte.

North Platte is a small city; it wasn't a long ride to the sprawling bleakness of the FBI office on East 3rd St. The Kreuger-caravan pulled into the near empty, icy parking lot. Saturday, the place is closed. Dizzy impressions of multi-story tannish brick building, depressingly modern yet somehow outdated; dark windows, brushed aluminum doors. Past an empty lobby and into the unknown.

They took the cuffs off, gave him a coke and left him in an interview room for an hour. He was shaking, pumping his left leg nervously. Melissa came in with two very taciturn men. As promised she read his rights, it was right out of The First 48. He allowed as how he understood his rights, and didn't want a lawyer. He did, sort of but didn't want to look guilty.  He kinda wanted his mother or dad should be there, but was afraid to ask. He couldn't imagine that he could have done anything to create a spectacle this big. It had to be stupid Noah.

“OK Cameron,” Melissa was patient, soft, “what can you tell us about him?”

She pushed over a picture of a boy, a school photo maybe. This, honestly was about the last thing he expected to see, the last person he expected to be asked about; suddenly he felt outed-naked. He couldn't, he just couldn't... the leg went into overdrive.

Looking wildly fearful and equally bewildered the boy took in a couple of sharp breaths an explosive exhalation, then started to speak.

“Yeah. I, I, I mean, that's Jeremy, he was here about a month ago... with his grandpa. They were visiting our neighbors. He hung out with me for a couple hours that's all. I mean, I don't know what to tell you...is- is he OK?”

Cameron’s voice cracked and the final words trailed off to a whisper.

“How did it happen that you met him? Who was he visiting next door?”

And slowly Cam let it come out, a bit at a time, stringing out suitable facts, deferring the less suitable; sifting carefully before he spoke: the Jardines, how the boy had come to visit after dinner over there; the sad story of his parents' death and his grandfather's illness and and how they were going to San Francisco then fly back to Boston. He didn't know the grandfather's name, didn't remember it.

Cam has neither inclination nor intention to talk about the more personal events of a November evening.

“So he told you his name is Jeremy Euler, then?”

“Yeah, well he said Kale Euler at first; his gramps is old and sick, his memory is kind of going Jeremy said his dad's name was Kale and that his grandpa gets confused and called Jeremy Kale, so he sorta used the name himself sometimes or let his gramps tell people and he didn't correct him. But yeah. Jeremy.”

When he said it out loud it sounded stupid. He should have known.

The shocking thing was, Jeremy had lied to him, but the tears were real – he didn't tell the agents about the tears.

Or the kissing.

Or the other stuff.

“Jeremy said his grampa was dying. I think he was afraid what would happen to him with his parents dead too.” (“He is sick. He is dying... he needs me along right now. Sometimes, sometimes he thinks I’m someone else.”)

Somehow the fact they had been in an RV took forever to wend its way out but it wasn't Cam's fault, they didn't hang in the RV but a few minutes really. No one asked about a car or anything. He couldn't remember the question, but his answer was, “Well I guess Jeremy did drive the RV that night because his grandpa wasn't in any shape to do it.”

“RV? What RV?”

“Uh they had this big RV, the kind with a pilot seat, and it was green. It was kind of old.”

“Make? Model? Class?” One of the men. Demanding, urgent.

“Big. Green. RV.” Meekly.

“Big? Was it the kind you tow or the kind you drive? Did it have a shower and bedroom? How long was it?”

“Well it had to be the kind you drive didn't it, or Jeremy couldn't drive it! I told you!”  Perplexed. “Um. It had like a kitchen and TV and yeah I think there was a bathroom and bedroom I didn't go there. We sat in the front a little bit a couple minutes, maybe a little more late that evening. Then we got out.”

A lot more RV questions he couldn't answer. He stuck to his comforting (honest) mantra.

“Big. Green. RV.”

He felt a little bit empowered by that. He liked seeing the cop get pissed at him and not able to do anything about it.

Hours and hours later after talking some more about the Big. Green. RV. and not knowing where the plates were from, remembering to tell the dicks about the yelling next door and again late that night and Jeremy running down the street, the old man following. The leaving (not the final kissing), and they honed in on the computer, he had let Jeremy – if that was his name – he had let him use the computer to set up his iPod. So of course, they now knew Jeremy had an iPod.

Cameron lets the latest lie-omission hang there. Jeremy (not Euller) Gates, he had known that in the first-kiss, first-tangle after.

I’m okay, don’t worry, love you. Could the FBI tease that out of his computer?

Finally he couldn't stand it, got angry.

“I'm done answering questions until you tell me what is going on!”

It was quiet for a minute then Melissa spoke gently.

“Cameron I understand how you feel, really I do. But we are investigating serious crimes right now, this boy's life may be at risk; and the thing is, if we tell you things, it may affect what you remember or what you tell us, completely unintentionally, it could affect what we learn, so we need to know these things without telling you anything; I promise when we are done I'll tell you everything that I can.”

They went over it and over it. He told them he had left the room for a little bit and yes, he supposed Jeremy might have gone to Facebook.

“But I don't think he uses Facebook.”

Cameron lets this latest omission (lie) hang there.

“And he hasn't answered any of my emails.”

“Emails?”

That set off another round of questioning. Another round of careful (tired) answers. So of course, they learned Jeremy had a Gmail account.

They had his laptop on the table now. They demanded his password. (Oh god, they're gonna see my porn! But not the browsing history at least...he had taken precautions in case his folks checked...or his brother, or his friends.) Melisa was asking most of the questions, he found when she spoke she put him at ease.

“Cameron, we know you’re a teenager, you probably have some porn or other things that would be embarrassing on here. I promise if it is not relevant to this case we won’t tell your family or anyone not directly involved. And we can put it low priority so we can look for things that do have to do with this boy. I hope you can shorten our efforts to find anything we need. To find him. And really, you don't need to be embarrassed, we deal with teens all the time, it's nothing new to us.”

“But... I can tell you we are deeply concerned for Jeremy's well being; we can't find him. Anything you say might help shorten our search, let us find him. Let us protect him.”

Silence. Struggling for breath.

“Oh…Um….Ah— ”

Shoulders slump in defeat.

“I do have you know some…stuff. It’s not illegal. I don't think it is. But. But. I mean… I don’t want you to tell my parents. Because ….some of it is gay stuff. I don’t think there’s anything else, like; what do you mean?”

“Conversations with strangers. People who might seem to be teens but aren’t; anyone you haven’t seen live or who talked sex with you and especially anyone who tried to get you to meet them someplace…emails, texts, DM's, Dick pics, requests for nudes; anything like that. And of course any communications from Jeremy.”

“Oh wow I’m not stupid I know all about Catfishing. If somebody like that was talking  I see them on cam, or I wouldn’t let it ride I’d block them. I'm not gonna send anything at all if they look fishy...um, I never talked to anybody about gay stuff. I just like – was curious about the porn.”

“Okay that doesn't sound like a problem. Is there anything that involves Jeremy beside the emails you sent? Also have you shared anything like that with Jeremy or showed it to him or anything? Again we aren’t trying to charge you with anything, or embarrass you; but it might be important to why he's where he is or who took him. We need to know as much as we can about this Jeremy and about his visit.”

“No. no. No I didn’t show him that stuff and well, I dunno anything about Jeremy’s sex life."

That was an actual real lie. But. It was just a little one.

The two men, he wondered which of them was the good cop, and which was the bad cop. And he decided that even if his dream boy/friend had lied about something or other, or pretty much everything, it was looking like, Cam wasn't going to betray him any more than necessary. His first kiss was not  going to be shared with anyone else. Anyone.

And he was looking out for himself too he admitted it...

They wouldn't tell him anything until they'd finished asking him and asking him and asking him. And by then they knew he was innocent, believed his explanations, had the story from his mom and his brother too, he hadn't left that much out but the really important stuff, he just wasn't going to tell. He didn't tell them that personal stuff.

They brought in some Burger King, god he was starving, he wolfed it, drank shakily, thirsty in spite of the earlier coke; it was evening now. He was tired, the food was starting to make him sleepy. It has been tense and draining.

“His real name is Jeremy. It's Jeremy Gates. He was kidnapped from his neighborhood in Ohio in August, Cameron.”

What the fuck do I say to that? The burger-bite took an extra swallow to get it down.

“You think his grandpa kidnapped him?”

“Well at this point we aren't sure who that man is, but we know he is not Jeremy's grandfather. We need to find Jeremy, we aren't sure whether he's doing this voluntarily but we don't really think so. His bike, his cell, his wallet, everything in his pockets was lying in the street a half block from his home as he was returning from a county fair at midnight. Doesn't sound like a boy who ran away or left voluntarily does it? It doesn't sound planned does it?”

Eyes can't get wider than Cameron's were.

That's when Cameron decided to tell them; at least part of it. It might matter.

“Um. There's a couple things...I should tell you about. I didn't think they mattered but maybe they do...”

After, Melissa thanked him, “Thank you Cameron. I know that was not easy to do.  I want you to know Jeremy's parents are alive and well and very frightened as I'm sure you can understand. They miss him too, very much. So we want to ask you to keep thinking even after you leave here, to see if you remember anything more, and call us if anything pops up. And if you hear from Jeremy, it's vital that you let us know.”

So he had told them (almost) everything but was feeling pretty good he hadn't got to the kisses, and well, the other stuff. He had not really outed Jeremy, just they knew he was thinking he might be gay... and they weren't going to tell Cam's folks about the gay porn.

When he finally got home it was after dark, the Jardines were gone, probably also at the FBI by that time he figured. Dad hammered a board across the front door inside for the moment. They'd use the back door until it was fixed. And he shoved a NO TRESPASSING sign in the lawn.

A couple of cops were parked at the curb (“to make sure you have privacy”).

Everybody was freaking exhausted, so the whole family turned in, but Cam knew they'd be grinding on him tomorrow. He figured play it cool. “Jeremy and he just played some computer games, I dunno what that was all about. Ask the Fibbies, ask the fucking Jardines.”

Well of course he couldn't say it that way to his parents. But still....

Cam was glad he didn't have to see Emma Jardine who wanted  to think she was his girlfriend and was getting awkward. Well this might help solidify that split. Hell Cam should be pissed, it was old man Jardine who made all this happen!

The old man Jardine had moved weeks ago – right after that visit, to some nursing home or something.

Cam wondered if they'd get raided too. He cracked up thinking about all those old people prone out on the carpet. “FBI! Get on the floor! Use your cane and walker! Don't drool on me!!”

Later, much later, he learned the old man had told the FBI to go to hell, (“Go Fuck yourselves!”) and he lawyered up and wouldn't talk one word.

It's hard to budge a man who sees death in the close view mirror. Nothing else matters.

The Jardine grandkids told the FBI all about their grandfather's “Army buddy, Doc” who had visited towing along a teenager that one night, and a stormy visit it was with lots of yelling, though they couldn't understand what it was about, some war shit they were arguing about, some war, who knows what one?  They were a little used to that from the old bastard anyway...

Of course being a Marine one of the agents quickly corrected it.

“Army, they're usually called 'Medics' or 'Whiskeys'; 'Doc' is what Marines call the Navy medical corpsman that serve with them in combat. Find Jardine's service records, his unit, we should be able to find his 'Doc'...”

December 8.

Sunday

10 a.m.

December 7, Saturday

Chillicothe, Ohio

Gates Living Room

8:17 p.m.

“Grey, Remy I'm going to fill you in on what we have found over the past eighteen hours; and I apologize this is going to be one hell of a lot to take in.”

“First, sadly, he was not in North Platte when we moved in, he's been gone since he posted the message in fact. And we know he did post the message. But I want to assure you while it's confusing, there is good reason to feel Jeremy is not in immediate danger. He is likely alive and well, at least he was seen so, within the past three days. No mistake, we are absolutely certain.”

She is frozen by his words. Remy softly weeps, internally. She does not allow tears to trickle.

“When Jeremy was in Nebraska, he used the names Jeremy Euler and Kale Euler. I assume you have no knowledge of those names? No I didn't think so. And does the name Levi Fisher, Doctor Levi Fisher, ring a bell? Ah, it's as I thought but I needed to ask to be sure.”

“We know Jeremy is or was traveling with a man we've identified as Levi James Fisher, a surgeon, aged seventy-one, from Boston, and we cannot really say how or why he came to be with that person. Both your son and Doctor Fisher identified Jeremy to others as his grandson, and told a tale that the parents had just died in an accident and Jeremy, or Kale, was traveling on an extended trip with his grandfather and would be living with him in Boston. None of that is true of course.”

Remy was bewildered. It has been an eternal four months since golden Jeremy, beautiful, fourteen- middle-class-sweet-privileged-Jeremy has disappeared. There will never be a Gates day at a county fair again. The summer fun permanently departed with his tangerine sweetness and won't ever return. Remy tried to override fear, deny knowing. Even recovered, if they should be so unlikely-lucky, Remy and Grey know their boy will be injured-damaged-broken-lost. Twisted-transformed? Drug addicted? Raped?

This person’s grandson.

Even thinking the very words leaves a bitter copper tang in her mouth; she has no idea what to think.

A long pause.

“We're not sure what is going on.  We've discovered Doctor Fisher has a brain tumor that is likely terminal fairly soon. It does seem that Fisher appears to be on a sort of bucket list trip, a last hurrah; he's been looking up and meeting with men he served with in Vietnam, in various locations across the country. We are sure he was in Bull Shoals, Arkansas with Jeremy for some time , a large recreational lake and tourist area, visiting one of his former Marine comrades.”

“Don't let that be too scary it may mean nothing more than somehow Jeremy came to meet this man, and possibly offered or decided or was asked or possibly coerced, to help him on this trip. But it's one reason why we don't think he's going to end up in Boston.”

They had tracked down a couple who had visited with the pair. The agent saw no reason to discuss the report of one of the sons who had spent some time boating with Jeremy. The young man said Jeremy revealed he was gay. Nor was he going to talk about the other boy, in Nebraska, who had heard the same thing from the same source. Plenty of time for that later, if Jeremy returned.

Still, a motive for Jeremy's departure, however accomplished, was starting to come into (maybe) focus. Finally.

A little hesitation here but the parents deserved to know this part.

“At this point we don't have any evidence that Jeremy has been abused at all. He seems to have been taking care of Levi Fisher in fact. Just as a dutiful grandson might. It may not matter but Doctor Fisher is a gay man, one who has a good reputation in Boston. That may have no relevance at all, we just don't know for sure. He certainly has never been arrested. We are of course looking deeply into his background. We're compiling a record of veterans from his time there but so far it appears his unit suffered extraordinarily high casualties, almost every one in the unit died in Vietnam. We don't know if that might have affected Fisher who was the unit's medic, he became an M.D. after the war.”

“If we discover more survivors we'll have their places staked out in case (not Levi) Jeremy shows up at one of them. As I say we are looking hard at every bit of information.”

Of course, there has been a lot of tentative putting together of those bits. Possibly gay boy, traveling with an old sick gay man, farewell tour, the band is not too Gratefully Dead. The confluence seems far-less-than-coincidence. But, still too early to know. Motives are unclear. Facts are unclear. They tantalize beg speculation but it's not enough.

“It's been a bit of a slog but we finally traced the RV they were traveling in. Doctor Fisher bought it new some twenty years ago in New Hampshire and kept it registered there, didn't bother to reregister it in Massachusetts just renewed it in New Hampshire every year and kept it stored at an RV storage lot there. That made it a bit difficult to find since it was registered in the wrong state and used the lot address, not his.”

“After North Platte, they spent several weeks at the KOA near Albuquerque and Fisher went into the hospital.”

Now, walking delicately on these eggs, studiously neutral, picking his words with deliberate care, not making accusations or inferences that will upset the couple. Just the facts, ma'am.

“We interviewed a police officer who made friends with Jeremy in Albuquerque, he has been able to make a positive ID, he was concerned that Jeremy was not being supervised, was alone, but in fact several different couples had offered to be available for him if he needed help at the KOA, keep an eye on him. That's why he didn't notify Children's Services. Jeremy identified himself to the officer as Kale Euler, which we have learned is the real name of Fisher's grand-nephew who is seventeen.”

 Picking a path through all this was excruciating-demanding.

“We infer from that Fisher is aware Jeremy is somehow separated from his family. But to be honest, it's a bit of a guess as to whether Levi Fisher even knows the boy's real name. We think so but we can't be sure.”

“After twenty-five days it appears that Jeremy simply drove the RV to the hospital and got Fisher to discharge himself against medical advice. We've surveillance cam footage from the hospital which we can let you see; we need you to confirm that it is Jeremy though we have little doubt.”

“And then we know they went to Arizona, they were sighted at the KOA near Flagstaff. Then they disappeared along with the RV.” He held up his hand to ward them off. “There's a lot more so don't get worked up.”

“When he was in Nebraska Jeremy visited with a boy whose computer he used for part of the day. He's a neighbor of the man Fisher went to visit. We're convinced that is when he posted the message. That boy tells us at one point Jeremy broke down crying, saying he missed his parents, and he didn't know what to do. The boy assumed he was speaking of the parents who were supposed to have recently died so he didn't have any reason to see anything sinister, just a boy who had lost his parents and naturally enough was feeling heartbroken and lost. I would suggest you take heart in that, he was clearly speaking of you and how he felt, and it was in that frame of mind he left his message. There's no doubt of that. I don't know why Jeremy doesn't return, who or what is keeping him away, but it's clear it's not because he doesn't want to see you or is in some type of rebellion. Let me be clear that we are not saying he ran away. (But it's hard to think anything else.)”

“So I know this is a pretty perplexing and mixed bag. We may have a lot of different things happening, some normal teenage uncertainty about life, adventure seeking, maybe a desire to do a good deed for this Doctor Fisher, though it's disconcerting we can't figure out how or where they met. Or why. Nevertheless there is nothing actually ominous, nor suggesting he's in danger as I said. It could just be that Jeremy is doing that classic thing, trying to find himself on the road, figure out who he is. And if that's it, hopefully he will be home soon.”

“Now, the next thing, it's pretty important. And again we aren't sure what to make of it. It is – a complication.”

“There's a second reason we don't think Boston is where he'll go.”

“We have established Doctor Fisher boarded a plane two days ago at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix  for Tan Sohn Nhut Airport, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – what we used to call Saigon. He was alone.”

Slight emphasis on the last three words.

“Fisher had a flight transfer, which he made, at San Francisco Airport to Narita Airport in Tokyo, we have a lot of surveillance cam footage. In Japan he made another to Tan Sohn Nhut. And we are expecting their footage soon. I have to say that Fisher is looking a lot worse for wear.”

“He arrived in Saigon on schedule and we have no track of him from that point. Vietnamese officials are, at the FBI's request, looking for him. If he seeks medical care we'll find him for sure and we don't think from what we learned in Albuquerque that he can go very long without a doctor.”

“In fact we're thinking it's possible Doctor Fisher (intends) expects to die in Vietnam. And Jeremy is not there.”

“We checked all other passengers on the plane and each connecting plane, we are completely sure that Jeremy was not on any of them, no one of his description was on any of them. Vietnamese immigration and port of entry officials are reviewing records but don't think there is any boy through their facilities that could be Jeremy. And given his age and race he would stand out quite a bit.” He reflected, “Of course bribery can be an issue, it's a third world country. But we don't think it's possible that Jeremy is there.”

“At this point we are absolutely considering Jeremy the victim of abduction, but given the message, and his apparently voluntary travels with Levi Fisher, his failure to make contact with you or police, his meeting police along the way and not identifying himself, well, we don't think he is unwilling or a captive at this time. Of course we've talked with you before about the Stockholm Syndrome, and it's quite possible that's what is going on. We aren't feeling or saying Jeremy ran away or that he doesn't need to be rescued. So as perplexing as it may seem to you, we think you should just focus on the fact that he seems to be physically well and not suffering in any apparent manner.”

“But you lost him after Flagstaff.” Greyson interrupted. “This Levi Fisher left the country on his own. Flagstaff to Phoenix, our son ...what did he do with our son??” He choked off the next words. His hand groped for Remy’s.

“And we don't have any reason to think he is in danger. Yes we are concerned and aren't taking it for granted, but realize that abduction murders usually happen within the first few days and four months is possible but usually they don't take a child and parade them in public and then kill them! Hold to the indications that your son may have formed some bond with this man, he was taking care of the man, that's not something you usually see with those bad endings.”

“I promise you, Gray, we are anything but complacent about it and won’t give up trying to find him. Perhaps we can't make sense of all this yet but we've had no leads; now we've got dozens of leads.  We will find him soon, I'm (reasonably. hopefully.) confident. He's alive, he's well, we're two or three days behind at most.”

“Now the RV and Jeremy, we don't know where they are,” the agent conceded patiently. “You can be sure we're combing every feasible place for that RV. We appear to have missed them by no more than three days. I'm hopeful we'll find that RV soon.  Officials at Sky Harbor are looking for any passenger to any destination that might be Jeremy but it's a very big airport with thousands of flights, families, and kids on any day. We'll issue an Amber Alert for Arizona and surrounding states by morning. The police in Arizona and the Phoenix FBI office are doing everything possible to find him. We are currently looking to get Doctor Fisher's phone, email, and banking records to further the search. We think he took his laptop and phone with him which isn't ideal. The FBI attache in Hanoi is working hard to see if Doctor Fisher can be found. We are turning over every rock to find out more about him.”

Another long pause, this is news he doesn't want to deliver.

“And since the Amber Alert will be out soon, you can, I'm sorry to say, expect the press to be gathering in front of your home perhaps in minutes. I think it might be best if the FBI did a press conference on your lawn if you agree.”

“It's a mixed blessing, Remy, but press attention can help us a lot in getting leads and turning up the heat on the kidnapper. I don't see a big downside to that here. And...I know how hard it was the last time but perhaps you can make an on-camera plea for his return, because it might really speak to Jeremy if he sees it and is free to respond. And that tends to get people to call in if they know something.”

In the dark of the night, late in the night, in the cover of the night, the fear and passing despair of the night, the hope of the night.... Remy let out her long deep sobs, crying out her truncated-half-aborted relief. Greyson holds her through the long night. He will vent his own pain but not now, Remy needs him. Jeremy needs him.

Her boy is alive. She has seen him, walking, confident, unafraid.

But her nightmare is not over.

Tempe Arizona.

Midday.

The RV was located in a parking lot in Tempe, a few miles from Sky Harbor.

No one had checked this lot sooner because it was not an official lot, the owner ran a bootleg parking operation. Legal, but not approved by the airport. And there were tarps over the RV concealing its color, tags, model.

The title was in an envelope on the dashboard. It had been signed over to “Remy and Greyson Gates, FBO Jeremy Gates.”

And a post-it note was attached:

“Just in case. Tell him there are no explosives in the necklace. Never were.”

The RV was towed to the Arizona Highway Patrol impound for examination. FBI sent the sheets to have the semen stains tested.

 If you are interested in other stories I've written here are some links:

https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/stories-in-the-human-calculus/ 

 https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/a-fathers-love.pdf

 https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/i-can-see-clearly-now.pdf

(Try Eliot Moore's excellent writing, especially his series, Fourteen.)