A Just Kidnapping

A JUST KIDNAPPING

"Come out with your hands up. Let the boy come out first. Don't do anything rash."

I bet our neighbors were having a real treat with all the free entertainment we were responsible for. Police cars everywhere, all pointing at the house where my son and I were living in secrecy, until now. Guns, assault rifles and one man in a suit with a bullhorn trying to tell me what to do. I thought back to how it had all started.

*****

THE BETRAYAL

Trudy, Darren and I had been friends for a long time -- all the way back to high school. Usually, it was me with Trudy and Darren with the flavor of the month on double dates. It was not unusual for Darren and his date to leave us early in order for him to take his girl to go parking. Darren was a charmer with a penis that made the guys in the showers envious. I kidded him that he could fuck a guy's wife in front of him, convince the husband that he was saving his wife's life, and get the husband to thank him. And I wouldn't have put it past him to actually try it one day. Of course, he tried to put the moves on Trudy several times despite our friendship and loved to dirty dance with her. Trudy would laugh when I asked about his hitting on her and she would say, "I can't see how any girl could be so stupid not to realize that he is only interested in getting into her panties. Believe me Andy, Darren is the last person you need to worry about seducing me."

We remained mutual close friends for years. Darren and I went to college and majored in business. Trudy majored in accounting. Being able to produce a balanced spreadsheet gave her pleasure, she said. To each his own. My father got me started in the wine business and Darren and Trudy bought in. Based on the amount of money each invested, I had 40% of the business, Darren had 40% and Trudy 20%. I was head of operations, Darren was the sales and marketing person, and Trudy kept books. It took us several years to become profitable and a few more to become very profitable as the wine fad hit. Trudy and I had postponed having children until we were financially set. I told her that we were close to the time when she could stop taking the pill. She didn't seem as thrilled as I thought she would.

There was a knock on our front door one night. I looked through the peep hole. It was the police. When I opened the door, the male officer asked, "Are you Andrew Miller?"

"Yes."

"Andrew Miller, you are under arrest for embezzlement. You have the right to remain silent... "

"Embezzlement? I own part of the business. How could I embezzle from myself?" I turned to Trudy whose face signaled betrayal.

"Andy, how could you? Darren and I didn't want to believe it, but an independent audit proved it to us. I can't believe you would take advantage of your wife and best friend. You and I are over and done with. You will be served with divorce papers in jail."

My life went to Hell in a hand basket in two minutes. I was speechless. Then I figured it out. I started laughing. "Trudy, you and Darren had me really believing this. Damn Darren and his practical jokes."

The police officer spoke, "I assure you sir that this is no joke. Now, put your hands behind your back." He handled me kind of roughly, so I pulled away from him. Bad move on my part.

Before I knew it, I was on the floor and having handcuffs put on without any regard to my comfort. He jerked me up and finished reading me my rights. Trudy was standing there with crocodile tears running down her face. The enormity of her betrayal was just now hitting me full force. I realized that she and Darren had collaborated to get rid of me for more reasons than one.

I barely got in a cell before I was served with divorce papers. Since I had supposedly embezzled funds from the business, she wanted my whole 40% of the business instead of just half that in the divorce. In exchange, she would not ask for alimony and would take over payments on the house. When and if it were sold, I would get half the equity as the mortgage stood today. I wasn't surprised when Darren came to visit me.

"Andy, Andy, Andy. You stupid trusting son-of-a-bitch. Trudy and I have been lovers for a long time. It doesn't matter that you didn't embezzle the money, we have the evidence to put you in jail for a long, long time. Even if you were to get out, you don't have a job at the company. Trudy and I control 60% now and will get 100% if you sign the papers. Even if you don't agree, we will have 80% after the divorce if the 50/50 rule is applied. As head of one of the leading companies in this area, I have influence to make things easier or harder for you in prison. It's up to you. By the way, Trudy sends her love." He laughed as he left.

I refused to sign, but somehow Darren got the divorce speed tracked and I was divorced about the same time as the trial began. Although I was innocent and knew who had cooked the books, Darren's, Trudy's and the so-called independent auditor all said that I had embezzled over $500,000. I had no way to prove I hadn't. Darren or Trudy had established a bank account in my name in the Caymans where I supposedly stashed the money. Darren pretended to forgive me by asking for leniency since the money was recovered. I stayed in jail and sentenced to 8 -- 10 years. Darren and Trudy got married a week after our divorce.

Six months later, I heard that Trudy had delivered a baby boy, supposedly two months prematurely. It weighed seven pounds, five ounces. I remembered enough of my Developmental Psychology class to smell something fishy. If the child was not really premature, that means he was conceived while Trudy and I were still having sex. He could be my son! I was in no position to demand a DNA test, but I quickly realized why Darren could have been in such a rush to get me divorced and he and Trudy get married. What the heck could I do about it from prison? I tried to figure out a way to tolerate prison life.

Then Covid hit. Thank the Lord, not that I wanted anyone to die from it. Well, maybe Darren and Trudy. With the risk to individuals living in congregate settings, our governor commuted the sentences of all non-violent criminals. I was free, but I was afraid of what Darren might do to me the instant I walked out of prison. Instead of taking the prison van to the halfway house, I called a taxi. When they opened the door to the cab, I sprinted to the taxi and told him to hightail it as fast as possible. We went in circles, back tracked and went down a narrow alley before I was certain we were not followed. I bought the clothes off some bum and headed for the homeless tent village that had sprung up on the main streets downtown. The conditions were horrid and unsanitary, therefore, no one dared to bother me there. I had to learn to breathe through my mouth though.

During the day, I would keep my beard but clean up and put on better clothes while I searched for a place to stay where I could stay hidden. I found a nice elderly lady who rented a room, mostly to have someone around for safety. It was not a nice neighborhood but after living there for 40 years, she was not about to move. Her son took part in interviewing me. I passed his test. In addition, he owned a lawn cutting and leaf raking business and was hiring. Soon I had a job in clothes I didn't usually wear, in a body that had shed over 30 pounds in prison, and with facial hair I had never had before which was dyed along with the hair on my head. I doubted many people who knew me from before prison would recognize me.

After a couple of months on the job, I asked my boss if I could go hunt for new business on rainy days. He said, "Sure." I headed for my old neighborhood. I went to the houses that were close enough to my old house that I could determine the comings and goings. I offered to mow the yards for free one time in order to get the person's business. I got lucky. Our longtime neighbor, Mrs. Atwater didn't recognize me. Mostly we had just waved to each other when I lived there, plus she had poor eyesight -- macular degeneration. The Jarvis' were new to the neighborhood and had never met me anyway. From these two houses, I managed to find out the basic household schedule of Darren and Trudy. Trudy was staying home with her son instead of working at the winery. I mentioned to Mrs. Atwater that I wanted to approach the people next door about mowing their lawn, but since they had a small child, I wanted to make sure I wasn't disturbing the baby's nap time. She told me that Trudy had said that Brian, their son, always took a nap after his 10:00 am feeding time. She also mentioned that Trudy took a nap then too. That would be a bad time to bother them, according to her. It would, however, be the perfect time for me to do what I wanted to.

When Trudy and the baby were away from the house one day, I cased the house and yard as if I were doing an estimate on lawn cutting services. Although I had lived in the house for years, I wanted to see what had changed. Since I was a familiar sight in the neighborhood now, so no one said anything. I was aware of some faults with the house. One fault was the security of the sliding doors to the patio. They had to be closed carefully or they wouldn't lock properly. If I could fix it so no one would notice, I could sneak in that way at a later time. The next day, I put my plan for revenge in action.

I was happy to see that no one had discovered my tinkering with the sliding doors. I went into the house and over to the baby's room. I checked Trudy's room first and heard her snoring. It gave me a twinge of nostalgia to see my wife lying peacefully in bed. I went to the baby's room and turned off the baby monitor. I had brought a bag to put the baby's things in. I put the baby in a special backpack that basically provided a swaddling carrier so it wouldn't wake him. It worked. I headed for the truck I was driving. It was a cheap truck I got unregistered from a junk dealer. Putting the baby in a baby carrier, I headed for a motel in the next town over. I did an immediate DNA test and paid for an expedited report. There was no way I was going to kidnap someone else's baby. It was an agonizing wait. The results made me ecstatic. The boy was mine! I renamed him Jason. I didn't wait long to head to parts unknown.

I was an immediate suspect in the kidnapping as you would imagine. The problem is that Andy Miller didn't exist anymore thanks to some contacts I had made in prison. I even had a birth certificate with my son's and my name as well as my wife, Leila's. I bought me a Leila. The girl I contracted with to be my wife was once a teenage runaway who went to jail numerous times and drug rehabilitation two times. She had just gotten out of rehab and was once again turning to prostitution to make a living. She jumped at the chance for a new start. Sharing a bed with me was no big deal to her. She said she looked forward to only fucking one man for a change.

We drove in a car with a fake registration and 'borrowed' license plate until we found a town where the people didn't seem to mess in each other's business. Maybe they got a lot of people from the Witness Protection Program. The WPP was supposed to be our cover story if we felt someone was getting too nosey or discovered something wrong with our IDs. I found out that there was not a large lawn cutting business in town, so I started up the business. Leila ran the office and the repair part of the business. She knew about engines from her brothers, so it didn't take me long to teach her the most likely problems in lawn mowers and how to fix them. That job allowed her to take care of Jason at the shop. We became an integral part of a tight community. In a few years, we began to relax although we never totally dropped our guard.

Occasionally, we heard about the kidnapping of the small child from the poor Edwards' family, Darren and Trudy. A large reward was offered for his safe return. The reward was so much that there was one couple who after over a year of no one finding the boy tried to pass off their own son in order to get the money. Although Darren and Trudy didn't think it was their son, they had a DNA test done to prove it for sure. The DNA of the boy didn't match either Darren or Trudy. Trudy was upset at getting her hopes up just to have them dashed. Some TV news channels showed interviews with the distraught parents. Seeing Trudy crying on television and begging for her son to be returned unharmed was difficult for me to see -- for two seconds. The bitch and the bastard got what they justly deserved. Of course, they would probably disagree.

Gradually over the years, we heard less and less about the Edwards' kidnapped baby boy. In our town, Jason looked so much like me that no one doubted he was my son. Every once in a while, someone would say he had Leila's eyes or ears, but mostly I was the one he took after. I was proud of my fugitive family. Leila had stayed sober and had gained good weight. She was very attractive. Leila was no longer the emaciated ex-junkie I had rescued. With her job and motherhood, she gained confidence and pride in herself. She admitted to me one night after putting Jason to bed that being Jason's mother had saved her life. Whenever she was tempted to stray, she would realize that would jeopardize her being Jason's mother. The temptation would go away. Leila absolutely doted on Jason. It became hard for me to believe she wasn't his real mother. They certainly bonded. I was a little jealous, but Jason and I were becoming buds as he got into sports. Although Leila and I weren't married, the love-making between us was every bit as good as when I was married to my so-called true love. I thought at the time, "I hope this goes on forever." I think I jinxed myself.

*****

SHIT HITS THE FAN

Jason was going on 13 when the shit hit the fan. We were in the house getting ready to eat supper one night when I heard a bullhorn from outside telling us to come out with our hands up in the air. I peeked out from the curtains. Every police car in town, a couple of state troopers, and a car that looked like it might be FBI were parked in front of our house with the lights on the cars flashing and men with guns pointed at the house. Jason asked what was going on. That's when I told him our story. He refused to believe Leila wasn't his mother. I told him she was his mother in reality, but there was another woman that had given him birth.

The FBI had called my cell phone and I told them we needed a few minutes to talk among ourselves. He tried to get me to send the boy out first, but I refused. I didn't want some trigger- happy cop deciding to make a name for himself. He gave me a deadline. When the deadline was up, I told him we had one demand: They were to send a nurse in to take a DNA sample from me and the boy. We would come out peacefully when they had the results. He said it would take too long to get the results. I replied, "Tough shit. If you're the FBI, you can do better than that." The idiot asked if I had a gun. I described in detail a snub-nosed 38 special that I used to fire at the range that belonged to my father. I just didn't tell them that it was still at my father's house. They agreed to my conditions.

The DNA samples were taken. Soon after, the FBI man said there was a problem. The boy's mother and father had arrived and refused to let a DNA sample from their son to be tested although it had already been taken. He said that he could not test it without his mother and father's approval. I told him that his father, me, had given his permission. I made another call to get leverage.

Suddenly, the news reporters got wind of this turn of events in the kidnapping story. They began asking Darren and Trudy if I was the boy's biological father. Although they denied it vigorously, it was too scandalous a story to avoid publishing and broadcasting. Then I called out on my cell phone until I got one of the reporters on the phone. I gave him more background as to what had happened to me. I told them about the fake charges, the stealing of my business and my wife, my time in prison and the kidnapping or, as I put it, returning my son to his father. I informed them that I had tested the DNA before I ever took my son away. I said I would have returned the boy if he had been Darren and Trudy's.

Once the story got out, it exploded even though it was told as "the kidnapper alleges." There was a groundswell of support from the local community who had known us for about 12 years. They were shouting to the police to let the DNA be tested. A local lawyer agreed to file a motion in front of a judge to do the testing -- a judge whose lawn I cut.

A deal was made. The FBI would do the testing if I released the boy and surrendered to them. Given the high emotions and the danger it posed to Jason and Leila, I took the deal. Jason went out first. Trudy came from behind a police car and ran to take him in her arms. She was shouting, "Brian, Brian" his birth name. He stiff armed her when she got close and yelled, "You're not my mother!" Trudy crumbled on the ground in despair. A doctor began checking Jason out for injuries. He didn't cooperate and yelled to the police, "Please don't hurt my parents!"

Leila came out next. No one knew what to think of her. Jason broke loose and ran to Leila and held on to her for dear life. Trudy sobbed even more deeply at the sight. I guess she thought those were supposed to be her hugs. Everyone seemed to be crying including people in the crowd.

I waited for things to calm down. I came out slowly with my hands held high shouting that I had no weapon. I was ordered to stop and drop down on my knees with my hands behind my head. Suddenly, I was realized that something did not make sense: where was Darren? He should be here comforting Trudy right now. The realization of my danger and the bullet from his rifle hit at the same time. I was down and out.

*****

HOSPITAL

When I came to, I raised my hand and rattled the hand cuffs attached to my bed rail. The nurse called for the doctor. He came in and said, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

I wasn't happy about that and told him so. I didn't want to go back to prison and be away from my son and my common-law wife. He said that I should wait and talk to some other people.

A lawyer I knew came into my room. He said that he was the one who volunteered to represent me. "You're not going to believe what all has happened." He was right.

Darren had been caught trying to leave the state and was arrested for attempted murder. He and Trudy were being investigated for the false charges of embezzlement against me. The company was in the hands of a Caretaker Trust until clear ownership was established. Leila had taken the lead in getting Jason/Brian to meet his bio-mom and act civil towards her. I was so proud of her. Trudy had conceded that she and Darren knew I was probably the father, especially after he was born. Darren and I do not look much alike. The quick divorce and marriage by Trudy was partially to convince others that the baby was Darren's child.

The lawyer kept smiling. "The best news is that the governor has changed your commutation to a full pardon for the embezzlement conviction. You are no longer a convicted felon. I am trying to get the kidnapping charge dismissed. I think I can get it down to parental interference. In addition, I have prepared a lawsuit against Darren, Trudy and the state for false charges, arrest and imprisonment." I could see the dollar signs in his eyes.

"Hold off on that. I need to talk to Leila and Jason first."

"Okay. Just let me know when you want me to file."

Leila had spent some time in jail for aiding and abetting a kidnapping. When it was decided that I had taken my child without the other parent's permission, the kidnapping charge was dropped on me, and Leila's charges were dropped. Trudy allowed her to visit Jason. I was glad she did that. When Leila found out that I was awake, she came to the hospital. She was crying for joy when she saw me. It started me going.