Chapter One
Taken
I fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic not long before her body was discovered lying facedown in an Ashland County wheat field. I fell for her the first time I saw that school photo Northeast Ohio TV stations flashed at the beginning of every newscast in the weeks following her kidnapping in the autumn of 1989the photo with the side-saddle ponytail. First love in the heart of an eleven-year-old boy is consuming. One look at that brown-eyed girl and I knew that, if she had gone to my school, she would have been the one I passed notes to behind Miss Klines back.
But Amy didnt go to my school. She went to Bay Middle, which was somewhere on another planet, far from the sub-suburban cow town where I lived with my father. I had a vague notion, though, that Bay Village was somewhere near my mothers apartment in Rocky River. When I visited Mom every other weekend, I looked for Amys face in the crowds at Westgate Mall, hoping to find her wandering the aisles at Waldenbooksas if shed simply been lost there the whole time. I would be the one to lead her home.
Throughout the last part of October and the whole of November 1989, local newscasts began their six oclock coverage with updates on the investigation. It was my routine to come home from school and turn on the TV to see if there were any new developments, to see if shed finally been found. I watched closely. I learned to pronounce that difficult last nameMah-hal-leh-vick. I memorized the face of her abductor from the police-artist sketches and searched for him in crowds.
With time, the reports became less frequent. A brief news segment in December covered her eleventh birthday party, which her family celebrated without her. Then the reports dropped off altogether. But I knew she was alive. She had to be. I was supposed to meet the girl in that photo. Maybe at a high-school football game five years in the future. Or in college. She would be found, and I would get to tell her that I never stopped looking for her.
On Thursday, February 8, 1990, I came home and flipped on the television. I sat cross-legged in front of it, and when the tube finally warmed up, her face was on the screen. It was that fifth-grade class picture again. I turned the volume up and listened as my innocence died.
Dead.
Murdered.
Dumped.
The news anchors cut to aerial pictures of County Road 1181 in Ashland County. Men in dark trench coats milled about a wheat field, tiny black specs in a sea of brown. The image was strangely corporeal, like the final glimpse of earth seen by a detached soul. It was here, they said, that Amys body had been found. A jogger had spotted what looked like a large doll lying on the frozen ground during a morning run. That patch of road they kept showing looked as far from the civilized cul-de-sacs of Bay Village as anyone could get. I didnt see a single house in the background. Just a ragged field stretching to the horizon. It looked desolate. It looked unkind.
Police and FBI were guarded with information, but there were some details. We learned Amy was stabbed in the neck and hit on the head with a blunt instrument. No word on time of death. She was found fully clothed, but no one was sure what exactly that meant, yet. The composite sketches of her abductor appeared again, under an urgent voice-over. The news anchor couldnt stress one fact enoughfurther tests were being conducted to determine if she had been sexually assaulted.
I swallowed the information like a diluted poison, feeling it burn away a kind of protective inner coating that had once made me feel safe. Years later, when I tried my first cigarette at Seven Ranges Boy Scout Camp, I would remember this feelinglike healthy tissue being singed by flames. Still, I couldnt stop listening to the details. I couldnt stop the words from forming scenarios in my headsilent films that obeyed all the new facts and ended with Amys body in that field.
I would not be the one who would find her and bring her back to her mother. That was a fantasy I could no longer indulge. Sitting there, staring into the smiling eyes of a girl now dead, I began to entertain a different dream. Adrenaline lit up my senses, making them detailed and fine. Now I pictured myself tracking down her killer, following him back to his lair. I saw myself knocking on his door, a snub-nosed revolver tucked under the waistband of my raggedy jeans. When he answered, I filled him with hot lead. Id become an eleven-year-old vigilante.
Jimmy?
My dad, home from work, interrupted this macabre daydream.
Shes dead, I offered as a greeting.
I know, I heard it on the radio, he said. He came and sat next to me. He was bulky with muscle, a bushy beard shadowing his face, towering over me at five feet, eight inches. Most days, I didnt see him until just before bedtime. He owned a fledgling construction business with his brother and often worked late pounding -two-by-fours or laying shingle after the crew had already gone home. That day, he was home very early.
I quickly noted the affable expression on his face. His eyes were open wide and he was forcing a smile. I knew better than to trust that mock casualness. Then, as now, when my father adopts a look of non-concern it can only mean theres some trouble that hes still riddling out a way to break to me.
At first, I interpreted this as concern for my emotional state. He must have noticed how closely I had followed the case since -October. But there was another reason he was home early, and what he said next linked me to Amy in a way that, as the coming years would reveal, not even her death could sever. Her death was about to become a part of me.
I need you to know something, my dad said. Ive been getting . . . some death threats.
Inside a scrawny chest, my heart skipped a beat. What? Somebody wants to kill you?
My dad snapped off the television. Amys image shrank away to a speck of white in the center of the screen.
No. Somebody wants to kill you.
I didnt know what to say. Was he joking? The fear in his eyes told me he definitely was not.
Remember that guy I fired a couple months ago?
Yeah.
My dad nodded his head.
Why is he mad at me?
Hes not, my dad said. Hes mad at me. Hes really, really mad at me. And hes crazy. Thats why I fired him. Hes not all there in the head. He left a note for me the other day. It said he was going to come after you. You or your sister.
I thought of Joline, only four years old. I thought of Amy. I thought of two men I could hate.
Hes all talk, my dad continued. Hes a coward, really. Okay? I dont think hes really going to try anything.
Liar, I thought. I know youre lying. Why else would you be telling me this?
He looked at me with a mixture of caution and shame. Do you know what to do if youre ever abducted?
I hadnt watched three months of reports on a kidnapping without learning a little. Make a lot of noise, I said. I should scream for help and try to get away. I should kick him in the nuts?
My dad laughed a little at that, which was good. It washed away some of the fear from his eyes. But he had reason to worryespecially as his business grew. There would be nights, years later, when we faced off against other enemies as they broke into our house. On those nights my dad carried a baseball bat. I carried a bowling pin. This was only the first day I realized such danger was possible. He wanted me to be prepared, as if he could sense the future.
Good, he said. But what about if you find yourself back at their house and they tie you up or handcuff you to a couch?
I tried to imagine such a thing.
They said on the radio that they were going to do an autopsy on that girl, Amy, my dad said. I tried to think why they would want to do that after three months. I tried to think what kind of clues they were hoping to find. And then I thought if she was real smart they might find everything they needed.
What do you mean? I asked.
My dad paused, perhaps searching for a way to put into words the idea hed been running through his mind on the way home. Finally, he looked me directly in the eyes. No sign of fear anymore, only cold resolve. If you ever find yourself in that situation, heres what I want you to do. I want you to put everything you can into your mouth. Pull out pieces of the carpet. Bits of the couch. Hairs you might find lying on the floor. Knickknacks that you can reach. Anything. I want you to swallow it all down. As much as you can. That way, if this happensif what happened to Amy Mihaljevic happens to youwhen they do the autopsy, we can find out who did it. He leaned forward. I smelled a hint of Old Spice.
And then Ill know who I should kill.
