He came in at about seven thirty in the morning, looking restless and unwashed, but dressed like some kind of movie star. Like he could buy the whole town. And he didn’t act like any kid his age. He was distant and confident. Someone used to telling people what to do—or at least getting what he asked for.

He had a laptop computer with him and he said he had something to show me. Something that might help people find Brian Phillips.

I knew about this kid. I got a buddy in Virginia sent me a juvenile file on him. And I know he had been in some serious trouble. I guess you’d call it serious trouble. It was either trouble or tragedy—so I was ready for something screwy the minute he opened his mouth.

I had him come into the interrogation room, fully expecting him to confess to something I did not want to hear. In a case like a missing child you have no time to spare. You get answers as fast as you can and you make sure you get the details. He wasn’t with his parents or a lawyer, so I was pretty sure we could get him talking. We’d had two days of dead ends and hell looking for Brian, and his mother’s worry was weighing on everyone. Heartbreaking.

He opened the little computer and then clicked on a file and a movie of Brian came up.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

“I’m making a documentary about the town and I have footage of Brian talking. I posted this online and I think someone may have seen it and used it to kidnap him.”

The words were like a punch to the gut. I was infuriated with this rich little prick, and at the same time I knew this was the strongest lead we had on the case.

“Do you know who’s seen it?” I asked.

“A lot of people,” he said. “I have these names, but I don’t know if they’re the people’s real names or not.” He handed me a piece of paper with a list of names on them.

And I straightaway handed it to Evans. “Check these names against the sex offender registry,” I told him. And I could see the kid cringe even as I said it.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” he said. I looked at him. I don’t know if I believed him or not. I’d read his file and I knew what he’d said to the judge back in Virginia and I saw how his parents’ money and connections made that case just disappear quietly. But he was still a kid. He thought like a kid—no sense of any consequences.

I said, “Graham, I’m going to need to see the website where you’ve got this stuff posted.”

“Of course,” he said. He called it up on his computer and he also wrote down the web address.

Just as I was bending down to look at it, Evans yelled, “We got a hit!”

Everyone in the office stood as if they were shocked into motion.

I told Evans, “Get me a location on that right away.” And I told Graham, “You sit tight for a minute, you might be able to help us out. Was there a credit card used to buy the movie? Or a phone number? If there is, we can track him.”

“Not that I could see,” he said. “He got the movie in exchange for buying me something on my Amazon wish list as a gift—so I couldn’t see any of his information except the name. He wrote his name and then just the word thanks. Once the Amazon sale is shipped the movie uploads. I set it all up automatically and I almost never see a name or real information.”

I shook my head, disgusted at the way kids lived today. What ever happened to playing ball in the park or getting a job after school?

“What did he buy you?” I asked, assuming it would be some books or music.

When he told me, my jaw dropped. It was a six-hundred-dollar camera with an optical zoom lens. I don’t need to tell you how much trouble a kid could be in for selling a movie to a registered pedophile, who in turn bought him a sophisticated surveillance camera.

“Graham,” I said. “I think you should wait right here and we’ll call your parents.” As I was picking up the phone to call them, Evans shouted, “We got a location!”

We didn’t have enough men on staff to babysit rich boy while we tried to take down the scumbag that kidnapped Brian Phillips. The fact that he’d bought the movie and that he was on the registry was enough for a search warrant. Talking to Graham would have to wait. Rockland was a small force and we had no excuse to hold a kid who had just brought us this information voluntarily.

“Go!” I shouted. “Get moving.” I grabbed my jacket and headed out to the lot with the unmarked cars. “Graham, you go home and stay home. We’ll contact you later to ask you some questions.”

He looked astonished. “Did you find him? You found him already?” He laughed a little to himself.

I ushered him out the door. And ducked into the car. “We don’t know if we’ve found him or not. We’ll call you,” I said. We sped out and left him standing there.

I was, of course, terrified that we would be too late. It had been two days and the name we had was of a man who had already served time for taking a little girl down in Portland on a ten-day drive. Usually people like this feel they got nothing to lose if they’re going to do it again.

The house was way out by Chickawaukie Pond, near Achorn Cemetery, and I had to stop myself from thinking the worst. From thinking that little boy was already in the pond or dumped in Glen Cove.

We surrounded the house with the full force and backup from Waldoboro. I could feel him standing on the other side of the door when we rang the bell. I could feel him waiting, thinking we’d go away if he waited. He was trapped.

We pounded again and he opened the door. The place was neat and orderly—too orderly, like a hotel room.

I said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about Brian Phillips, the boy who disappeared in Rockland last week. We understand you bought a movie that was made of him.”

His eyes darted just briefly toward a door off the kitchen when I said Brian’s name, and I motioned to Evans to check it out.

He took two uniforms with him, tramping down a flight of stairs while I questioned the scumbag about where he’d been the last four days. And soon I heard them calling up to us, telling us to call in an ambulance. Then they came rushing upstairs, Evans carrying Brian. He was unconscious and his hands and feet were tied.

I had the uniforms handcuff the scumbag and take him out to the car. I wanted to kick the living shit out of him right there but I knew he’d be getting plenty of that in prison.

Evans sat in a chair at the kitchen table and I cut away the ropes that tied Brian. From the way he was breathing, I was certain that he had been drugged. His pulse was slow and steady, and apart from some bruises and chapped lips, he looked okay. He must have been terrified and dehydrated, and clearly other things had happened to him or were about to happen to him before we arrived.

It was one of the quickest recoveries of an abducted child in the history of the state. We called Brian’s mother right there from the house and told her that her boy was found and seemed fine but needed to go to the hospital. And I’ll never forget the way she exhaled and started crying and laughing on the phone. As if she’d been holding her breath for days.

Evans held the boy close to his chest and we all felt like we had won the lottery.

On the way back to the car one of the uniforms said, “If that kid Graham hadn’t come in we might not have found him.”

I shook my head. “If that kid Graham wasn’t out making his movies, Brian would have been home with his mom and baby sister this whole time.”

But what he said was true. It took guts for a teenager with his history to come in and turn that information over to us. And thank God he did.

At least one tragedy was averted that year. At least one.