The day after my last exam, I took a bus over to Stateville to visit with Len’s mother. Mrs. Johnson lived in a two-story house at the end of a dead-end street. Train tracks ran past the back of the house, but everything was quiet now. The mid-autumn air was only starting to cool and the leaves were changing colors. Looking around the neighborhood, I couldn’t believe that such a sleaze like Len had grown up in a beautiful place like this. I’d expected that his childhood was filled with horrors and that he’d been brought up in a home that would match his actions. I guess that I was looking for some sort of explanation as to how someone could become a kidnapper and a slaver, but nothing could ever justify doing that to other people.

Steeling my nerves, I walked up the porch steps and rang the bell. As I waited for someone to answer the door, I noticed that the house was in fairly good repair and I wondered if Mrs. Johnson was handy with a tool or if she had a handyman take care of the house. I heard footsteps approach the door and an older woman’s voice called out through the closed door, “Hello. Can I help you?”

“Hello Mrs. Johnson. My name is Abigail Smith. I was hoping that I could speak with you for a few minutes about your son Len.” I knew that Mrs. Johnson was looking me over through the door-viewer and I tried to look as innocent as possible.

“Are you a reporter, Ms. Smith?”, she asked.

“No, Ma’am. Twelve years ago, Len and his friend Karl kidnapped me and my mother.”

The door opened immediately, and Mrs. Johnson stood there staring at me. She looked to be in her mid-to-late sixties and reasonably fit for her age. Her shoulders weren’t stooped or hunched over like I’d seen in so many people her age and her shoulder-length gray hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail.

“You’re Abby.”, she said in wonder, “I didn’t think that I’d ever meet you. John told me all about you.”

Now I was just as surprised as she was. “John Buckler? He told you about me?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Yes. John and I are good friends. Would you like to come in? It’s warmer in the house and we can sit and talk.” She held the door for me and led me into the kitchen where she offered me a drink. I accepted some water and she brought out some social tea biscuits and sat down at the table next to me.

“I met John right after Lenny ended up in the hospital. He came over here to tell me about the accident and to ask me what I knew about Lenny’s activities. He told me that a woman was still missing and that he needed to go through Lenny’s things to see if there was anything there that would help him find her. I showed him to Lenny’s room and helped him search it. We turned that room upside down but didn’t find anything useful. Afterwards, he drove me to the hospital to see Lenny. Over the years, he’s kept in touch with updates on the case and we became friends.”

Something clicked in my head and I asked, “Is he the one taking such good care of your house?”

Mrs. Johnson blushed and gave a crooked smile. That was all the confirmation I needed. If John liked Mrs. Johnson, then I knew she was a good person.

“Mrs. Johnson, what..?”.

She interrupted me with, “Please call me Shannon, Abby. After all the stories that John’s told me about you, I feel like I know you already. A few weeks ago, he even showed me the video of you saving that boy from the fire. That was very brave of you. He ranted for quite a while about that, saying that you had no business running into a burning house and he kept asking what the hell you were thinking about. I could tell that the whole time he was cursing your thoughtlessness, he was immensely proud of you. Watching the video, when you didn’t come back out of the house for a few minutes, I thought you’d burned up. That fire was eating up the house so quickly. But then you came around the house with that boy over your shoulder and I wanted to cheer. I couldn’t believe that you’d lived through that and now you’re here, sitting in my kitchen.” Shannon was almost star-struck.

To change the topic and get back on track, I asked her, “Shannon, what was Len like as a child?”

Gathering herself in, she responded, “You want to know if he was always bad or if something happened to make him bad. You’re looking for a reason. You’re not the first. I can understand that, but the answer won’t ease your mind much. He wasn’t a monster and he never fell in with the wrong crowd. He was just a very quiet boy. He kept most of his thoughts to himself. He never got in trouble at school and I never caught him abusing animals or other kids. He did as he was asked and never complained. Some parents would say that made him a good child, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t good or bad. He was just there. He didn’t connect with anyone, including me. He’d return a hug, but never initiate it. It was that way with most things, even a simple greeting. I could tell that there was a movie playing in his head, but he never talked about it. John says that he may be autistic, but I don’t think so. Lenny could interact with the world around him and with people, he just didn’t want to. Whatever was going on in his mind was more interesting.”

“So how did he get started in human trafficking?”

“I have no idea. He got a job at a warehouse and moved out when he graduated from high school. I thought that he might go to university, but he said that he wasn’t interested in that. I didn’t hear much from him for around five years. Then one day he shows up at the house and asks if he can stay for awhile. He stayed for two years before he took you. Before you ask, no, I never saw him with anyone. He had a car and he would drive out some days and not return for weeks. Other times, he would be up in his room for days before going out again. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.”

We talked about Len for awhile longer and when my questions finally dried up, she asked if I’d like to see his room.

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“You’ve kept his things all this time?”

“It’s all that I have left of him. Sometimes I find myself sitting in there and I don’t know where the afternoon has gone to. He never connected to me, but I am his mother and I connected to him. I tried to visit him in prison once. He refused to see me. Memories are all I have left now. I’ve thought about boxing his things up, but it’s easier to just close the door, since I don’t need the room for anything. Besides, there…well, you’ll see.” She sounded sad and resigned.

“When he gets out, will you let him move back?”

“I doubt that I’ll still be alive, but no. He’s never coming back here. Some things just can’t be forgiven. I won’t even leave him the house in my will. It’s going to be sold and the proceeds will go to charity.”

Shannon led me upstairs to Lenny’s room. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be out back in the garden working with my vegetables. Come on by when you’re done.” With that, she left, and I was alone in Len’s room.

I immediately saw what Shannon had been getting at. The room was neat and orderly and lacked any personality whatsoever. There were no posters on the wall, no framed pictures of family, no personal achievement or objects of any sort, besides a set of weights along the wall. I’d seen hotel rooms with more character. A queen-sized bed, a desk, some weights, a half empty bookcase with old schoolbooks in it. That it. There was a closet to one side and a private bathroom to the other.

Knowing that John had searched the room didn’t give me much hope that I’d find anything, but I had nothing else to do and I was already here. I started with the bed. There was nothing under it and nothing under the mattress. I was trying to figure out how I could check if he’s hidden something in the mattress, when I realized that I could use my field to check. I put the field around the mattress and found nothing extra in it. The same thing happened with the box-spring.

The desk was the next obvious place and all I found in it were some basic office supplies. A scan showed me that there were no hidden compartments in the desk, or any envelopes taped on the back of a drawer. Using the field really simplified the entire search process and within a few minutes, I’d finished examining the bookcase, the weights, and the closet without having found anything.

There didn’t seem to be many places to hide things in the bathroom, but I’d seen a lot of movies and so I knew to check behind the toilet tank, in the toilet tank, and behind the bathtub panels. More nothing. The medicine cabinet was almost empty and the cabinet under the sink only held spare toilet paper and some cleaning products. My scans of the bathroom also showed nothing hidden and I was about to leave when I saw that the ceiling over the mirror was angled. The rest of the bathroom ceiling didn’t have this angle.

I left the bedroom and looked around. Across the hall I could see another room, Shannon’s I guessed and to my left there was a narrow staircase. Given that I was on the upper floor of a two-story house, I assumed that the staircase led to an attic. I found it strange that the area under the staircase wasn’t accessible. I supposed that it could have simply been closed off, as the narrow staircase wouldn’t give you much storage space, but I decided to check it with my field.

The field projected into the wall and I found a hidden alcove under the stairs. Sweet success! Now I just needed to get in. I sent the field out further until I detected a doorway set in Len’s bathroom. The word doorway was a bit of an exaggeration. It was more like a small opening the size of a large doggy doorway, and it was set in back of the cabinet under the sink. I went back into the bathroom and tried to figure out how Len got into his secret room.

Over the next several minutes, I understood why John and the police hadn’t found this room before. It wasn’t any easy space to get into. You had to know how to open the back section of the cabinet and once you did, you had to wiggle your body in through the small space under the pipes. Of course, I didn’t have to figure out the entry mechanism. I just shifted to R2, where the door and the sink didn’t exist, and I scooted through the tiny opening.

The secret room was dark and once I shifted back into R1, I used my phone’s flashlight to see. The room started off with enough height for me to stand upright, but quickly tapered down to nothing as the stairs got lower. Except for one banker’s storage box and a duffle bag, the room was empty.

Feeling excitement build up within me, I lifted the lid on the box and saw a ledger book and a stack of pictures. Every picture was of a woman or a child, with one arm shackled to a metal siding structure and the other arm holding a number. With growing horror, I realized that the numbers were in the thousands. Holy shit. The room suddenly felt too small and I had to get out and get fresh air. I tried backing out of the doggy doorway, but I was still in R1 and I banged up against the plumbing. The panic notched up a step or two as I struggled, and I was suddenly falling through the floor.

I’d overshifted and ended up in R3! The house didn’t exist in R3, but the ground did. If I stayed in R3, I’d fall through the ground floor and into the basement. A two-storey fall was very likely going to break something.

I shifted back to R2 and tried to twist myself so that I would land on my legs and roll as I landed. I was only partially successful in that I got my legs under me, but I fell backwards instead of forwards and didn’t roll so much as fall on my ass. It wasn’t my best landing, but any landing you can walk away from, is a good landing. The question now was, could I walk?

Carefully, I moved each of my limbs and felt no breaks. My legs were sore and my butt hurt, but I was able to stand up after a few tries. Trying to calm my racing heart, I shifted to R1, sat down in a sofa chair nearby, and took a few minutes to relax. That was scarier than running into a burning building.

I never wanted to do that again, even on purpose. I’d need to put practicing to shift to R3 on my to do list. High up on the list. Having made that decision, I went back upstairs and headed back to the secret room. I didn’t feel so panicky now and I was able to think about the whole situation more objectively. These pictures were at least 12 years old and there was nothing that I could do for those women and children. At least not right now. I would have to find a way to get the pictures to the police. For now, I needed to get all of Len’s stuff away from here.

I shifted the bag and the box to R2 and pushed them out of the secret room, before crawling out myself. On the other side, I picked them up and made my way out of the house. I left the bag and box on the porch, in R1, and went back upstairs. Shifting back to reality, I made sure that everything in the room was as I’d found it and went to the backyard to find Shannon.

I thanked her for her time and for letting me search Len’s room and suggested that next time John came over to our house for dinner, she should join him. It might bring up some questions from dad, but that was a problem for another time. Getting home was my current primary focus.

Shannon was still gardening when I left, so as soon as I was out of sight, I shifted to R1. Back on her porch, I slung the duffle over my shoulder, picked up the box in one hand and walked back to the bus that would take me home. The box was very light, while the duffle wasn’t. Without looking inside, I knew what was in the duffle. I just didn’t know how much.