Moritat
“I assure you, Mrs. Crane, we’ll do everything in our power to find your little boy,” FBI Special Agent Miller told the distraught mother. “Speaking bluntly, you understand,” the tall man with the lantern jaw and de rigueur dark sunglasses continued, “the good news is that we didn’t find him hurt, unconscious… or worse… in the pool.”
With that, Mary Crane began sobbing uncontrollably. She tried to respond but, in the place of coherent words, all that emerged was an inarticulate, almost animal-like keening. Her husband, more or less successfully fighting back tears of his own, put his arm around his wife and pulled her in close.
“Robbie was swimming, just like we said,” Mr. Crane offered for the hundredth time. “We looked away for a moment or two, no more, to turn the chops on the grill. The next thing you know, he was gone. We spent almost two hours scouring the neighborhood–knocking on doors, making phone calls–before we notified the police. I can’t understand it. There’s a fence around the yard and the gate was still latched. There’s no way anyone could have gotten in here to take him. Please, please, find our little boy. He’s only five years old!”
“First of all,” Miller replied, “and I know it’s difficult, but you have to calm down. Calling the authorities as quickly as you did makes everything much easier. I’ve been investigating this kind of thing for nearly twenty years. Chances are very good that your son heard or saw something interesting and simply wandered off to check it out and got lost. There are woods behind your house and he’s probably hiding back there now as we speak, afraid that he’s going to get in trouble. You certainly know how children think.”
Miller spoke briefly into his phone and then turned back toward the anguished parents. “Mrs. Crane, I’d like you to stay in the house near your telephone. Agent Benning will keep you company. Use your cell if you want to continue calling the neighbors or any relatives that live nearby. Mr. Crane, it would be best if you came with us while we searched the area. You can call Robbie’s name and try to convince him that everything’s okay.”
Agent Benning, a fit young woman with stylishly short blond hair, led Mrs. Crane gently toward the house. Mr. Crane accompanied the search party out of the yard and into the woods that abutted the rear of his property. Before disappearing from view he glanced back over his shoulder and gave his wife what he hoped was a reassuring wave. She barely noticed.
Meanwhile, late afternoon sunlight turned the Crane’s in-ground pool a scintillating, eye-straining blue. Little Robbie’s inflatable shark bobbed with a gentle poignancy on the ripples that spread across the deep end. If anyone had thought to examine the carcharian float more closely they might have detected an especially contented and well-fed look playing across the exaggerated features of its toothy, smiling face.
