The wait was interminable. We forbade ourselves to even discuss our impetuous actions for fear of disturbing Howie so all we could do is cross our fingers and pray. It took fifty minutes before the door burst open and Howie dashed out and up the stairs with Martha close on his heels. The rest of us followed and we could hear Howie retching in the bathroom.
We all looked questioningly to Martha who stood at the open doorway. She mouthed, he watched it happen!
As soon as Howie emerged from the basement we all hurried into the living room and stood around, expectantly.
"We have to tell them," he said, pointing to the tape recorder Betsy had retrieved from the basement. She turned on the play button.
What we heard shocked us as Howie began to speak. The street he was on looked as it had on the television he said, but the houses were absent numbers so it took him a few moments to locate the correct place. Once he did, he moved to the back yard where mother was pushing her gleeful young son on a large wooden swing set.
"Move the tape ahead, about five or ten minutes," Howie pleaded. Betsy did so. Shortly after he said he heard a phone ringing.
Howie described a car parked with an open trunk on the far side of the fence. A man stood next to it, peeking through a slit in the vertical slats. He held a phone to his ear. Howie described the car, license plate, and man in exacting detail. As soon as the mother entered the house, he pocketed the phone, scaled the fence at a low corner, crossed to the surprised boy in a few steps, and placed a rag over his face. He grabbed the child under his arm and after dropping the now limp boy on the other side, climbed back over. He let the child fall into the trunk, slammed it and quickly drove away just as the mother was emerging from the house.
By the time the tape stopped both Martha and Betsy were in tears. Howie was a total wreck and I'm sure neither Quinn nor I was much better.
"We have to tell them," I said. "Immediately."
"How?" Quinn asked.
"Telephone someone," Betsy said between sobs. "It's already been hours!"
"Who do we call?" Martha asked.
"We can't call from here!" Howie said. "They can trace it!"
"Call a tip line, or the Warwick police," I said. "Say we saw it happen but we want to remain anonymous. We can use a pay phone."
"That's lying to the police," Quinn cautioned but no one paid him heed.