Bringing Adam Home The Abduction That Changed America Les Standiford with Detective Sergeant Joe Matthews Dedication This book is dedicated to the memory of Alexander Standiford, 1991–2009; to Mama Margaret Matthews, 1914–2008; and, of course, to Adam Walsh, 1974–1981, as well as all the other sons and daughters taken long before their time. After the first death, there is no other. —DYLAN THOMAS Map of Florida Contents Dedication Epigraph Map of Florida Chapter One In the Beginning Chapter Two Blood of the Lamb Chapter Three World of Hurt Photo Insert Chapter Four Through the Boneyard Chapter Five As Evil Does Chapter Six Thunder from Heaven Acknowledgments Cast of Characters About the Author Also by Les Standiford Credits Copyright About the Publisher Chapter One In the Beginning Hollywood, Florida—July 27, 1981 S hortly after lunch on what seemed an ordinary summer afternoon, a young South Florida housewife set out on a shopping trip with her six-year-old son in tow. It was the sort of outing that millions of other mothers all across the country might have taken on any given day. Her husband, a sales and marketing manager for a local hotel company, had noticed an ad in that morning’s newspaper and called home to say that the brass barrel lamps they had been looking for had just gone on sale at the local Sears store. Maybe she ought to run over and take a look. She was happy to do it—they’d been wanting the lamps, and the chance to save a few dollars seemed too good to pass up. She freshened herself up, dressed her son in shorts, a polo shirt, flip-flops, and his favorite way-big boat captain’s hat, and set out for the store. It was a Monday, typical ninety-degree weather with humidity just as high, but that was July in South Florida for you. Come January, when the rest of the country was in a deep freeze, Floridians would have payback. Besides, traffic in their suburban town of Hollywood was light that early afternoon, and it was less than a two-mile drive to the Sears Mall. As a bonus, the parking space she liked to use—near the receiving dock, on the building’s north side, where the whole family could remember it—was open. Just inside the doors, at the entrance to the toy department, her son spotted a video display with a demo of the new Asteroids game running, and he begged his mother to let him play. She hesitated, but home furnishings was just a couple of aisles away, and besides, the world had not yet turned upside down. She pointed out to her son where she was going and told him she’d be back in a few minutes to pick him up. She gave her son a kiss, then, and hurried off to see about those lamps. She would relive the moment a hundred—perhaps a million—times. Had she just said no to him, “Stay with me”; had she simply returned to the game display a minute sooner; had any one of a thousand things happened differently in the slightest—as it is said that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazon can form a tsunami in a distant time and place—perhaps what occurred might not have occurred at all. But there is no changing what did happen that day. The mother found a salesperson in home furnishings easily, but there was a bit of a problem: they searched up and down the bright aisles but could find none of the barrel lamps on display. The clerk was happy to check in the back, of course—it would only take a moment. Which turned into something more. When the clerk finally returned, her downcast expression said it all. The store had not received any of the advertised lamps, but they would be happy to call the moment they came in. The mother quickly gave her name and number and hurried back to where she’d left her son. She could hear the clamor of spaceships and cannon fire tearing the air as she hurried down the aisle, and smiled at her son’s passion for such games. But when she rounded the corner, she stopped short. The game was running, but its stations were deserted, the sounds issuing mechanically from the demo loop. She glanced about, puzzled, hoping she would see her son browsing in the nearby toy department, or ambling toward her from where she had been. But she did not. She fought the surge of panic that every mother feels when she turns and finds her child suddenly lost from sight. The ripples on the surface of the nearby pond are all menace. The sounds of distant traffic suggest catastrophe and grief and guilt. But she would not panic foolishly, this mother. She would retrace her steps. She would have the store announce her son’s name, and that he should find a clerk and report himself. While store personnel stood ready, she would return to the place she had left her car. He would be waiting there, or he would come to her, or she would find him. She would not panic. She would find her son. Surely, she would find her son.