un-agitated. I did not suspect the mother.
Dorothy’s boyfriend sobbed in the police station of his undying love for Dorothy and their unborn child. His mother insisted she dropped him at school right before eight-thirty a.m., and the homeroom teacher recalled his prompt arrival, because he shut the door on the ring of the bell. I did not suspect the boyfriend, nor did I suspect his mother of lying. But, I put surveillance on them anyway.
In the course of our site investigation, we uncovered two clues. Police found one black, low-top All-Star Converse sneaker, which had rolled down an embankment and into a bush off the side of the road, about twenty yards from Dorothy’s house. Her parents confirmed the shoe by wailing upon sight of the untied laces. The second clue came from a mother who had, on the morning of the abduction, dropped her daughter off at school. I’ll never forget her exact words: “I remember seeing a maroon vanstop, definitely maroon…Funny. I didn’t think it was odd at the time, but, I did notice the Indiana plate. I noticed only because the frame said ‘Hoosier State,’ and I had talked the night before with my husband about the movie,
Hoosiers
. It’s the only reason I remember. Divine coincidence, I guess.” She crossed herself.
Divine Coincidence
echoed in my mind, so I copied the words in curling cursive along the margins of my typed report.
A day later, after we compiled dozens of pictorial options, this Hoosier woman identified a 1989 G20 Chevy Conversion Sportvan, the TransVista, with two tinted side windows. All of this work, finally notifying me, identifying the shoe, interviewing the parents and the boyfriend, checking their alibis, canvassing the school, interviewing the Hoosier woman, collecting pictures of possible vans, and returning to the Hoosier woman for identification, put us three days post-kidnap, in other words, three days behind.
Dorothy’s parents went to every news source in the tri-state area and appealed to the national media. But, by the third day, the story no longer took top billing. The home office cut my resources for surveillance on the fifth day, and my partner, who remained on the case with me, got pressure to complete a backlog of paperwork on cold cases. The odds were against Dorothy M. Salucci.
CHAPTER THREE
16-17 D AYS IN C APTIVITY
Day 16 and there were the Kitchen People again. I imagined the kitchen a country kitchen, with yellow and green floral fabric tacked as skirts on wood worktables to hide pots and pans on makeshift shelves beneath. I imagined an old white country stove and a classic mixer in apple green. I imagined two women, of different generations, cooking my meals and wiping their flour-caked hands on red aprons lined with pink piping. I imagined very detailed things about their lives. One was the mother, the other her adult daughter. I imagined them doing this cooking routine for others in the area as part of their homespun business. I imagined they loved cooking for me in this kitchen with high ceilings. After all, most kitchens are on the first floor, yet we climbed three flights to get to my penitentiary, and I seemed to be directly above the kitchen. All of these things I imagined, and what was so shocking to me was how right I was about some things, and how wrong about others. I choose now to remember the kitchen and those vaporous chefs as I had imagined, a sweet nursery rhyme, a cat on a braided rug lounging in the sun, cushiony women with wide smiles, holding wooden spoons and tossing the cat scraps. A folk song of acoustic guitar lulling the air into a working happiness. Perhaps even a bird chirping on the top of an opened door.
To recap, as I mentioned, my captor did not detect the subtle change in my room when he came to hurl breakfast at me on Day 5. I had worked all night and had not slept the night before. Since then, I had continued to work my plot to fruition.
As he had on Day 9, on Day 16, he arrived earlier than
Dorothy’s boyfriend sobbed in the police station of his undying love for Dorothy and their unborn child. His mother insisted she dropped him at school right before eight-thirty a.m., and the homeroom teacher recalled his prompt arrival, because he shut the door on the ring of the bell. I did not suspect the boyfriend, nor did I suspect his mother of lying. But, I put surveillance on them anyway.
In the course of our site investigation, we uncovered two clues. Police found one black, low-top All-Star Converse sneaker, which had rolled down an embankment and into a bush off the side of the road, about twenty yards from Dorothy’s house. Her parents confirmed the shoe by wailing upon sight of the untied laces. The second clue came from a mother who had, on the morning of the abduction, dropped her daughter off at school. I’ll never forget her exact words: “I remember seeing a maroon vanstop, definitely maroon…Funny. I didn’t think it was odd at the time, but, I did notice the Indiana plate. I noticed only because the frame said ‘Hoosier State,’ and I had talked the night before with my husband about the movie,
Hoosiers
. It’s the only reason I remember. Divine coincidence, I guess.” She crossed herself.
Divine Coincidence
echoed in my mind, so I copied the words in curling cursive along the margins of my typed report.
A day later, after we compiled dozens of pictorial options, this Hoosier woman identified a 1989 G20 Chevy Conversion Sportvan, the TransVista, with two tinted side windows. All of this work, finally notifying me, identifying the shoe, interviewing the parents and the boyfriend, checking their alibis, canvassing the school, interviewing the Hoosier woman, collecting pictures of possible vans, and returning to the Hoosier woman for identification, put us three days post-kidnap, in other words, three days behind.
Dorothy’s parents went to every news source in the tri-state area and appealed to the national media. But, by the third day, the story no longer took top billing. The home office cut my resources for surveillance on the fifth day, and my partner, who remained on the case with me, got pressure to complete a backlog of paperwork on cold cases. The odds were against Dorothy M. Salucci.
CHAPTER THREE
16-17 D AYS IN C APTIVITY
Day 16 and there were the Kitchen People again. I imagined the kitchen a country kitchen, with yellow and green floral fabric tacked as skirts on wood worktables to hide pots and pans on makeshift shelves beneath. I imagined an old white country stove and a classic mixer in apple green. I imagined two women, of different generations, cooking my meals and wiping their flour-caked hands on red aprons lined with pink piping. I imagined very detailed things about their lives. One was the mother, the other her adult daughter. I imagined them doing this cooking routine for others in the area as part of their homespun business. I imagined they loved cooking for me in this kitchen with high ceilings. After all, most kitchens are on the first floor, yet we climbed three flights to get to my penitentiary, and I seemed to be directly above the kitchen. All of these things I imagined, and what was so shocking to me was how right I was about some things, and how wrong about others. I choose now to remember the kitchen and those vaporous chefs as I had imagined, a sweet nursery rhyme, a cat on a braided rug lounging in the sun, cushiony women with wide smiles, holding wooden spoons and tossing the cat scraps. A folk song of acoustic guitar lulling the air into a working happiness. Perhaps even a bird chirping on the top of an opened door.
To recap, as I mentioned, my captor did not detect the subtle change in my room when he came to hurl breakfast at me on Day 5. I had worked all night and had not slept the night before. Since then, I had continued to work my plot to fruition.
As he had on Day 9, on Day 16, he arrived earlier than
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