The man quickly looked away, probably forever traumatized by the sight of the terrifying mouse mask.
The car sped off.
3
I chased after the silver car, but didn’t even come close to catching up.
I decided to ride my bicycle to Todd’s house instead of going back and waking up my parents. Maybe the man was a family friend. Maybe he was driving Todd to the hospital right now. I knew something bad had happened to make Todd burst into tears, but hopefully it was a temporary problem—perhaps his dad had a heart attack scare that turned out to be a false alarm.
The silver car was not in Todd’s driveway. His mom’s car and his dad’s car were both there, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t left in an ambulance.
I removed the mask and pounded on the door.
It took a couple of minutes for somebody to answer. Finally Todd’s dad opened the door, wearing only briefs. His look of annoyance disappeared when he saw that it was me, replaced by sudden concern.
“Curtis, what’s wrong?” he asked.
I told him everything. By the time I was finished, his mom had joined us at the front door. His dad worked with a couple of people who owned silver cars, but nobody who would have had any reason to deliver bad news to his son.
It felt like it took forever for the state trooper to arrive, though it was probably a completely reasonable timeframe. While we waited, I had tried and failed to remember the license plate, though I knew there was a B and a 7. Not enough to trace it, but if we found a car with a B and a 7 in the license plate, that should be enough to prove it was the same vehicle.
I quickly repeated the story, while the state trooper—who looked a lot like Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie, which I took as a good sign—nodded and jotted down notes. He told Todd’s parents to wait at home in case Todd called or came back home, and then I got into the front seat of the patrol car to show the state trooper where the man lived.
Or, where I thought he lived. I suddenly doubted my ability to take him straight to the correct house. I’d only seen the man a couple of times, and he hadn’t made enough of an impression for me to recall important details like the color of his home. I could get us to the right street for sure. After that, I had to pray that I’d immediately recognize the place.
“Which house?” the state trooper asked.
None of them looked familiar. And I suddenly questioned whether Clerk Street was even the right street. All I’d ever done is walk past the man. We’d never even exchanged a friendly greeting. How was I supposed to remember where he lived?
There was a one-story tan house with a nice yard. That could be it.
“I think it’s that one,” I said, pointing.
“But you’re not positive?”
“No.”
He pulled up in front of the house. “I’m going to have you scoot way down,” he said. “There’s no reason for anybody to know that you’re the one who brought me here. Just in case you’re wrong. Stay in the car until I get back.”
I nodded and bent down underneath the window. The state trooper got out of the car.
Please let this be the right house.
Please let Todd be okay.
I hoped my parents hadn’t noticed that I was gone. They might be worried. Although I supposed their first step would be to call Todd’s house...which would be cruel to his parents, since they’d think the ringing phone would bring news about their son.
I was feeling dizzy and wanted to throw up.
I shouldn’t have made that joke about his mom. This was all my fault.
A few minutes later, the door opened and the state trooper got back into the car. “It wasn’t the right house,” he told me. “But I described the man and they told me where he lives. You were close.”
He drove three houses down. Yes, this was definitely the right place. I now remembered him, trimming some bushes, glaring at me as I walked past.
The state trooper told me to duck down again. I did.
I didn’t pop my head up to look out the window, even when this seemed to be taking a long time. In the rearview mirror I saw another state trooper patrol car pull up in front of the house, and two more men got out.
Please don’t let us be too late.
It felt like I was waiting in the car for hours before the state trooper came back.
“Did you find Todd?” I asked.
“No. Stay down.” He started the car’s engine. “I’m going to take you home. We’ll get your story one more time, and then we’re going to do everything we can to find your friend, I promise.”
When we drove around the corner, he told me it was okay to sit up.
“Was the man home?”
The state trooper nodded.
“Are you going to make him tell you where Todd is?”
“Not quite that simple.”
What happened, as I found out later, is that the man was home. I had the right guy—they showed me pictures of several men close to his description, and I picked the correct one. Gerald Martin. Fifty-three years old. Single. Never married. Construction worker.
He was cooperative. Allowed them to search his home without a warrant, as long as they promised not to make too big of a mess. He was, I’m told, more concerned about the missing boy than maintaining his own innocence. He did not own a silver car.
Mr. Martin did not have an alibi beyond, “I was sleeping.” It was one in the morning. That was perfectly reasonable.
None of the neighbors had heard anything. Again, it was one in the morning. How often are people awoken from a sound sleep by their neighbor leaving the house or coming home? Especially if he was being discreet about it?
About half an hour had passed between the car driving off with Todd and us arriving at Mr. Martin’s house. Thirty minutes for him to get rid of the silver car and get back home. In that thirty minutes he’d also have to subdue—or kill—my best friend.
The math didn’t seem that far-fetched to me, but even as a not-quite-fourteen year-old I understood that it would be a hard sell to a jury unless they found evidence directly linking him to the abduction. I was one hundred percent positive that he’d been the one to drive off with Todd. I’d seen him. It was not a trick of my imagination or simply me not seeing him clearly through the car window. Gerald Martin was the one who did it.
Unfortunately, I was a thirteen-year-old kid with a below average behavior record at school. A solid B-student. Me swearing that it was him wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that he did not own a silver car, that he’d graciously allowed his home to be searched that very night, and that my eyewitness testimony was literally the only thing connecting him to Todd’s disappearance. Plus, I’d been wearing a mask. I knew that I could see perfectly fine with it on, but it was one more way somebody could tear apart my story.
Oh, they took my accusation seriously, and they kept investigating him. Nobody tried to claim that Todd had run away from home. Mr. Martin had covered his tracks very well, apart from not anticipating that his victim’s best friend had been hiding in the woods at the time of the abduction.
He was not arrested.
Residents were asked to call with any information they might have. A couple of people did, but the leads went nowhere.
As a minor, I was not part of any of the publicity for the case. I was “an anonymous eyewitness,” with no hint given about my age.