Free A Child Is Missing by David Stout Page B

the microfilm machine, and explained how the rolls of film were filed.
    â€œI think you’ll find this useful,” the Eagle editor said, putting a small metal box of three-by-five index cards on a table. “Ruth, our old librarian, was what you’d call a human-misery buff. She kept her own file of the biggest disasters and most celebrated crimes of the twentieth century. The cards here give the names of the principals, whether we have separate bio files and art on them, and the numbers of the microfilm spools that apply.”
    â€œBeautiful. This has to be better than the public library.”
    â€œThe Long Creek Public Library’s a joke, unfortunately.”
    â€œI know. I stopped on my way over here. They don’t even have complete New York Times microfilm.”
    â€œWe have that, as well as microfilm of the Eagle. ’Course, for national stuff, you’re better off with the Times. One reason we have a better microfilm collection than the public library is that we have more money coming in. It’s one of the few things our publisher’s family isn’t doing on the cheap these days. Listen, if you need anything else, press that buzzer right there. That’ll bring a copy kid.”
    Will didn’t bother to look up the most famous of all American kidnappings, that of the Lindbergh baby in 1932. He had read a couple of books on it.
    He half-remembered another case, from when he himself was a small boy. Yes, that must be it on the index card. A six-year-old boy had been abducted from a school in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1953. His father, a wealthy car dealer, had agreed at once to pay a six-hundred-thousand-dollar ransom. A lot of money back then, Will thought. A lot of money today, for God’s sake.
    Will found the microfilm he wanted and threaded it into the machine without too much trouble. It took him only a few minutes to realize that scanning the microfilm was going to be as draining as it was interesting. He had to squint to read, unless he positioned the film just right on the screen, and to get it just right he had to go so slowly that it tried his patience.
    The Kansas City boy had been killed soon after being taken, it was later found out, and his body buried in a hole filled with lime.
    Will remembered his own parents talking about that case: how terrible it was that the kidnappers had demanded the money after they had already killed the child. That they had meant to kill him all along. His life didn’t matter to them, except as an annoyance.
    Will recalled how horrified he had been to imagine the boy thrown into a lime pit. No matter how many times he had told himself that it didn’t matter—the boy was already dead, his soul gone to heaven—the image had brought him near tears.
    â€œGod Almighty,” Will muttered. “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” Even though he didn’t believe in capital punishment, he was glad that two kidnappers had been caught and executed.
    The case had been a cause célèbre for a long time. But even four decades later, Will was disturbed reading about it. He advanced the microfilm.
    Will picked up his pace. He selected only the most celebrated cases, got the microfilm, scanned it as quickly as he could while still taking accurate notes. He felt the strain in his eyes. Yet while he was eager to be done with the task, he couldn’t help pausing now and then. It was fascinating to see again what had been popular on television, what the clothing styles had been, how much chuck roast and eggs had cost a decade or two or three ago.
    And something else, something he hadn’t expected and most definitely wasn’t ready for: As he rolled the microfilm, he couldn’t help thinking how old he had been back then. I was little Will Shafer, he thought. A shy boy who thought he was doing the best he could, and who was ashamed of his parents sometimes, the way they fought and never had enough