Atmosphere by Michael Laimo

checked those out too, really thinking all along that I had lucked out and found our man on the first try."
    Martin clicked the mouse a few times. "You won't believe this."  
    An amazing sight appeared on the screen before them.  
    Sixteen miniature police sketches, four rows and four columns, all bald men wearing sunglasses. All creepily similar to one another—like the sketch of Harold Gross.
    Frank's mouth dropped, Hector saying "holy shit" a moment before it escaped his own tongue.
    Martin said, "My sentiments exactly, only I repeated myself a dozen times as I checked each one out. I'm sure you could imagine my eagerness as I went through them." He turned a page in the notebook, then looked up at Hector. "You might want to sit down for this, Captain."
    "Try me," Hector challenged. Both he and Frank leaned forward, reading along with Martin as he ran down his findings.
    "Out of the remaining sixteen sketches, three were armed robbery suspects, one of which wore a bandana on his head." He pointed to the third sketch down in the first column. "Two were mugging suspects, one a rapist. The rapist is in jail, as are two of the armed bandits. The other three are out on parole." He placed a small piece of Post-it note paper over the faces of the six criminals.
    "That leaves us with ten bad boys," he said, hesitating.
    "Yes?" Hector urged.
    Martin tapped the monitor screen with the eraser end of his pencil. "These sketches were drawn up from eyewitness accounts during a series of supposed kidnappings that ran from all the way from Eastern Long Island to Manhattan, Jersey, and Rockland."
    Frank wiped a film of sweat forming on his brow. "Jesus."
    Martin looked at Frank. "Wait, it gets even weirder." He gripped his left cheek with his thumb and index finger. "Each case dealt with the disappearance of a male adolescent ranging in age from fifteen to nineteen years. Every report had been filed by at least one parent, and on all of them there were claims of the named victim growing suddenly reclusive, careless with their appearance just weeks before their disappearance, each and every one leaving home for long lengths only to return home at night for a few hours sleep and perhaps a meal."
    Frank raised an eyebrow in Hector's direction. "Sound familiar?"
    Hector nodded. "Knowles."
    "Yep," Martin added. "And these sketches? Six were given by parents, the other four by friends of the youths..."
    "Reliable sources," Hector finished.
    Frank asked, "Is it possible that Gross could be solely responsible for the disappearance of all those kids?"
    Martin spun his chair around, faced Frank and Hector. "I've always felt that if it seems too obvious at first glance, then it probably is. Given these glaring circumstances, I had to check it out." He leaned forward. "You know what I found? It's too obvious."
    Hector finally pulled up a chair, sat to Martin's right. He rubbed his eyes, clearly growing weary. Frank shifted in his chair, allowed the blood to flow more freely to his legs, which had started to grow numb. Being wholly absorbed in this unfolding of clues, he hadn't changed his position since he’d sat down nearly twenty minutes ago.  
    Martin spun back to face the monitor. "The first thing I wondered was how on earth could there not have been some real intense public investigation on this guy. Recurrent similarities in ten diverse descriptions of a supposed kidnapper that's making teenage boys vanish would demand a huge manhunt. And it would be a big time media event, not unlike your Lindsay case, Frank." He took a sip of coffee, grimaced. "Well, there isn't anything remotely close to an investigation on file. You know why? Because the FBI led the investigation and kept the whole damn thing under wraps. And they had not one, but two guys under scrutiny. Neither of whom were Gross."
    Again, Martin turned a page in his notebook. He must have been up all night with this, Frank thought, knowing exactly how it feels to obsess