“Did anyone witness him leaving the building?”
“No,” she sighed, “but the police searched the building and we did too, me and my brother and a few neighbors. His basketball was gone.”
“And no one in the neighborhood found the ball?”
“No.”
MAX TURNED ONTO HOWARD STREET, the street where Chris Rowe lived in an apartment with his mother. According to his mom, his father had died when Chris was only a baby, and she’d never remarried.
As he drove down the street, he immediately noticed the state of disrepair. The apartment buildings were not only out of date, they were grubby and unkempt. A crumbling abandoned building stood next to the apartment. Max wondered if anyone had searched that.
The park that Chris had been walking to that day looked equally haggard. Knee-high weeds were the only vegetation in sight. A rusted swing set offered a single swing dangling by two chains. A paved parking lot of spider web cracks and two netless hoops served as the basketball court.
It was a far cry from the picturesque parks Max had played in as a boy.
Several boys played a basketball game. They looked around twelve or thirteen, the same age as Chris, maybe even his friends.
Max parked his motorcycle and watched the kids, gazing at more derelict houses, buildings with faded paint and parking lots. He waited until the boys took a break and then walked over.
“Hey guys,” he said.
They looked at him, but didn’t speak. One of them glanced at his motorcycle and nodded approvingly.
“Sweet ride,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks. Listen, do any of you guys know Chris Rowe?”
Two of the boys frowned. They glanced at each other. The third nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Were you here playing ball the day he went missing?”
“I was out of town,” one boy answered. He was the tallest of the three with hair buzzed close to his head and beady brown eyes.
The second boy, likely awaiting a growth spurt, shook his head.
The third nodded. He stood in between the other two, lanky with shaggy brown hair and so many freckles they nearly obscured the features of his face. Max had to study him to make out his nose and mouth in the sea of freckles.
“I came here to meet him, but he never showed up.”
“Did you see anything that day? Cars you didn’t ordinarily see in the neighborhood? That kind of thing?”
Freckles shrugged and glanced at his buddies. “Nah, not really.”
“Not really?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know, I saw a black van. It seemed normal enough, but later on, after Chris disappeared, kids started calling it the boogeyman van.”
“Why?”
The boy who’d been out of town piped up. “Because the driver offered Ethan Becker some candy. Ethan’s Jewish, like real Jewish, you know? He only eats Jewish stuff.”
“It’s called kosher, dufus,” the third boy told him, bouncing the basketball at his face.
The boy swatted it away.
“Yeah, that. Anyway, the guy gave him the creeps, and that’s the day Chris went missing.”
“Would Chris have taken the candy?” Max asked, disturbed by the story of a man in a van offering candy.
“Oh yeah, for sure. He ate candy like a fat kid even though he was skinnier than most girls. He’d have definitely taken it,” Freckles admitted.
“Does anyone know if the police spoke with Ethan about the man in the black van?”
“The police didn’t talk to nobody,” the first kid said. “We live in the same building as Chris, and the police never came to our place.”
Freckles nodded.
Max frowned.
“How about Ms. Rowe? Anyone tell her the story?”
Freckles nodded.
“I did. About a week after he went missing. I told her and Chris’s uncle when they were out putting up flyers. Mrs. Rowe and my ma drove me to the police station. The cops left us sittin’ for two hours before they finally wrote down what I said. But I swear the guy wrote it on the back of a menu for that barbecue joint over on ninth street.” He snatched the basketball from his friend and lobbed it at one of the basketball rims. It missed by a good five feet.
“Air ball,” the first boy called.
“Where can I find Ethan Becker?” Max asked.
“He works at his dad’s shoe store after school. Go about three blocks that way. It’s called Becker’s.”
The store was empty when Max arrived.
He spotted a boy, close to the same age as the other boys, standing on the sidewalk, a spray bottle and a rag in his hand, washing the windows.
The kid turned when Max pulled the motorcycle up to the curb.
“Ethan Becker?”
The boy frowned and leaned close to the window as if searching for someone inside the store. He took a step toward the door.
Max held up his hands.
“I’m a teacher. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”
The boy’s eyes darted inside the store again, but he turned to face Max, clutching the spray bottle tight in his right hand. Max suspected if he moved on the kid too fast, he’d get a face full of window cleaner.
“My name’s Max,” Max offered. “I’m helping Ms. Rowe find out what happened to Chris.”
It was only a small lie, but he suspected mentioning Ms. Rowe’s name would ease the kid’s suspicions. “I met some kids at the basketball court who said you saw a black van the day Chris Rowe disappeared.” Max figured he’d better get right down to it. The kid looked uneasy, and he doubted the parent in the store would leave him talking to a strange man for long.
Ethan looked in the direction of the basketball court. “I already told Ms. Rowe everything I know.”
“Can you tell me too? Just what you remember?”
Ethan fidgeted, shifting from one foot to another and glancing up at the sky as if trying to jog his memory.
“I was walking to the store, and a guy in a black van pulled up. I’d never seen the van, and it didn’t have any windows except in the front. A guy rolled down his window and held up a Twix bar. He said he was trying to find a gas station. If I’d get in and show him the way, he’d give me the candy bar.”
Max recoiled. The story was even more disturbing hearing it firsthand.
“He wanted you to get in the van?”
Ethan nodded. “I don’t eat store candy. Plus the guy creeped me out.”
“What did he look like?”
Ethan shrugged. “Normal, I guess. Dark eyes, kind of dimmed glasses, you know like guys wore in the sixties and seventies.”
“Clean?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah, no beard or nothing.”
“Why did he creep you out?”
Ethan blinked at his feet. “He umm…. he seemed like he was pretending. He had this real high voice. Ever seen Animal House?” Ethan looked up at him, then glanced toward the store window.
“The movie?” Max asked, not following.
“Yeah, yeah. Dean Wormer’s that real uppity guy who runs the school. The guy in the van sounded like Dean Wormer, but he dressed like a hippie.”
Max nodded, though he wondered if the man in the black van had been playing at sounding sophisticated to lure the young man into his van.
The door opened and a man not much taller than Ethan stepped out. He wore a crisp white shirt tucked into black trousers.
“Can I help you, sir?” the man stepped in front of Ethan blocking him from view.
“No, thank you,” Max said, taking a step back. “I’m a teacher. Max Wolfenstein.” He held out his hand, and the man shook it, though wearily.
“He’s helping Ms. Rowe find Chris,” Ethan blurted.
The man nodded and nudged Ethan toward the door.