No Second Chance

I said, “Uh-huh,” because I didn’t really care.

“I also have your will drawn up. You need to sign it.”

Neither Monica nor I had made up a will. For years, Lenny had warned me about that. You need to put in writing who gets your money, he’d remind me, who is going to raise your daughter, who is going to care for your parents, yadda, yadda, yadda. But we didn’t listen. We were going to live forever. Last wills and testaments were for, well, the dead.

Lenny changed subjects on the fly. “You want to come back to the house for a game of foosball?”

Foosball, for those of you who lack a basic education, is that tabletop bar game with the soccer-type men skewered on sticks. “I’m already champion of the world,” I reminded him.

“That was yesterday.”

“Can’t a man revel in his title for little while? I’m not yet ready to let go of the feeling.”

“Understood.” Lenny headed back to his family. I watched his daughter, Marianne, corner him. She was gesturing like mad. Lenny slumped his shoulders, took out his wallet, peeled out a bill. Marianne took it, kissed him on the cheek, ran off. Lenny watched her disappear, shaking his head. There was a smile on his face. I turned away.

The worst part—or should I say the best part—was that I have hope.

Here was what we found that night at Grandpa’s cabin: my sister’s corpse, hairs belonging to Tara in the Pack ’N Play (DNA confirmed), and a pink one-piece with black penguins that matched Tara’s.

Here was what we did not find and, in fact, still have not found: the ransom money, the identity, if any, of Stacy’s accomplices—and Tara.

That’s right. We never found my daughter.

The forest is big and sprawling, I know. The grave would be small and easily hidden. There could be rocks over it. An animal might have found it and dragged the contents deeper into the thicket. The contents could be miles from my grandfather’s cabin. They could be somewhere else entirely.

Or—though I keep this thought to myself—maybe there is no grave at all.

So you see, the hope is there. Like grief, hope hides and pounces and taunts and never leaves. I am not sure which of the two is the crueler mistress.

The police and FBI theorize that my sister acted in conjunction with some very bad people. While no one is quite sure if their original intention was kidnapping or robbery, most everyone agrees that someone panicked. Maybe they thought that Monica and I would not be home. Maybe they thought that they would just have to contend with a baby-sitter. Whatever, they saw us, and acting in some drugged or crazed state, someone fired a shot. Then someone else fired a shot, ergo the ballistic tests showing Monica and I were shot by different .38’s. They then kidnapped the baby. Eventually they double-crossed Stacy and killed her with an overdose of heroin.

I keep saying “they” because the authorities also believe that Stacy had at least two accomplices. One would be the professional, the cool head who knew how to work the drop and weld the license plates and disappear without a trace. The other accomplice would be the “panicker,” if you will, the one who shot us and probably caused the death of Tara.

Some, of course, don’t buy that theory. Some believe that there was only one accomplice—the cool professional—and that the one who panicked was Stacy. She, this theory goes, was the one who fired the first bullet, probably at me since I don’t remember any shots, and then the professional killed Monica to cover the mistake. This theory is backed up by one of the few leads we had following that night in the cabin: a drug dealer who, in some bizarre plea bargain on another charge, told authorities that Stacy had purchased a gun from him, a .38, a week before the murder-kidnapping. This theory is further backed up by the fact that the only unexplained hairs and fingerprints found at the murder scene were Stacy’s. While the cool pro would know to wear gloves and be careful, a drugged-out accomplice would probably not.

Still others do not embrace that theory either, which is why certain members of the police department and FBI cling to and support a more obvious third scenario:

I was the mastermind.

The theory goes something like this: first caveat, the husband is always suspect number one. Second, my Smith & Wesson .38 is still missing. They press me on this question all the time. I wish I had an answer. Third, I never wanted a child. Tara’s birth forced me into a loveless marriage. They believe that they have evidence that I was considering divorce (something that yes, I did indeed contemplate) and so I planned the whole thing, top to bottom. I invited my sister over to my house and perhaps enlisted her help so that she would take the fall. I have the ransom money hidden away. I killed and buried my own daughter.

Awful, yes, but I am past anger. I am past exhaustion. I am not sure where I am anymore.

The main problem with their hypothesis is, of course, that it is hard to finesse my being left for dead. Did I kill Stacy? Did she shoot me? Or—drum roll here—is there a third possibility out there, a blending of the two different theories into one? Some believe that yes, I was behind it, but I had another accomplice besides Stacy. That accomplice killed Stacy, perhaps against my wishes, perhaps as part of my grand scheme to deflect my guilt and avenge my own shooting. Or something like that.

And round and round we go.

In sum, when you cut through it all, they—and I—have nothing. No ransom money. No idea who did it. No idea why. And most important: no small corpse.

That is where we are today—a year and a half after the abduction. The file is still technically open, but Regan and Tickner have moved on to new cases. I haven’t heard a word from either in nearly six months. The media gnawed on us for a few weeks, but with nothing new to feed on, they too, slithered toward juicier troughs.

The Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins were gone. Everyone started heading to a parking lot overloaded with minivans. After the game we coaches take our budding athletes to Schrafft’s Ice Cream Parlor, a tradition in our town. Every coach in every other league in every other age group follows the same tradition. The place was packed. Nothing like an ice cream cone in the autumn frost to burrow the chill into the bone.

I stood with my Cookies-n-Cream cone and surveyed the scene. Children and fathers. It was getting to be too much for me. I checked my watch. Time for me to leave anyway. I met Lenny’s eye and motioned that I was going. He mouthed the wordsYour will at me. In case I didn’t get the drift, he even made a signing motion with his hand. I waved that I understood. I got back into my car and flipped on the radio.