Philadelphia police search the field where the box, and boy, were found.

Recently, another reader took exception to the first reader’s assumption. According to Katie Sneeds, the complete and baffling anonymity of the child wouldn’t have to be the result of homelessness. It could easily be the collusion of several guilty consciences.

I think both writers have a point (and please don’t accuse me of trying to agree with everyone, or I’ll have to agree with you.) The child may have come from a family of immigrants or displaced persons who had entered the country without papers or official notice. He certainly might have become separated from his family. But he must have come from a home at some time. It’s difficult to imagine someone betraying the boy, selling him, or giving him away to be abused and discarded. But then, what other explanations can there be?

Ms. Sneeds adds:

“Someone knows who he is. Most likely more than one someone. They’re just not talking. Either bc they still don’t want to get invovled or bc they were involved and don’t want to get caught.

Some wife out there kept quiet bc she feared her abusive husband that did this or some husband remained quiet bc he wanted to protect his disturbed and abusive wife that did this. What a shame.”

Each day, the chance of finding a living witness becomes less probable. But 55 years is still within range of living memory for someone who knew about the betrayal of this child.

Just last week, a post by “Rutt” added this intriguing point:

“If the Lord wills, I MAY BE ABLE to help someday. My family rented our Phila home to some ‘out-of-towners’ who made my parents think they may be responsible. My parents died long ago, and this case came to my attention recently. I don’t know for sure, but I feel it is worth checking into.”

I urge the writer to pass along any information to a group of people who are trying to keep the case open. You can find them at America’s Unknown Child.

Regarding “The Boy In The Box” The Saturday Evening Post

Illustration by James Yang

But, as consumers finally learned to be wary of out-of-the-blue offers of untold riches, clever Nigerian letter scammers found ways to adapt. These days, instead of just masquerading as monarchs, some also pose as wealthy foreign businessmen on dating websites, asking cyber sweethearts for money for a plane ticket to meet them or help them out of a jam. Others claim to be bank lenders who “approved” two percent loans in a tough economy—after the requested application fee is paid. Still others have been known to pose as FBI director Robert Mueller or even Hillary Clinton, threatening arrest or offering political help to get a hidden inheritance (depending on the letter) unless upfront fees are paid to keep you out of jail or put you on Easy Street.

The very latest spin on all of the above scams has been to abandon email (too common, too much competing spam) in favor of the old-fashioned fax. As with email, faxes also can be sent en masse, with “predictive dialers” that call thousands of random phone numbers per day; if a fax tone is reached, the transmission goes through.

Sigh! Just goes to show you, some old scams never die. Instead (and often after well-publicized warnings), they just get tweaked. So be aware—and beware—of these creatively sinister newly rewritten rip-offs, hustles, and cons:

Telephone Scams

Misleading telephone offers date back almost to Edison. Here are the most common and their newest incarnations:

1. Fake Lotteries. The classic approach is to say “you have already won” a lottery that, in fact, you never entered. (One tip-off: they’ll ask you to pay advance fees­—never part of legitimate winnings—in order to claim your prize.) Or, they call to ask for donations for phony charities (often in the wake of recent disaster) or to promise government grants, low-cost medication, or a “free” vacation (any of which they claim requires your personal information and credit card).

The New Twist. Now fraudsters who work the phone try to get you to call them. For example, you receive a mailed letter for any of the reasons above, or stating there’s a UPS package that cannot be delivered, or that you’re entitled to cash from a special (secret) government program. You’ll call what seems like an American area code, but is actually the number for a Caribbean country. Dialing that number may cost as much as $5 or more per minute. So, the scam is actually two-pronged: As an operator tries to weasel your personal or financial information for identity theft, you’re simultaneously running up sky-high phone bills—thanks to a series of transfers, long holds, and lengthy small talk to keep you on the line as long as possible.

2. Distress Calls. Another classic phone scam is the call to targeted grandparents. Scammers pretend to be a grandchild in need of money after being arrested or hospitalized while vacationing abroad. They often try a generic greeting such as “Hi, Grandma, it’s me, your favorite grandson!” with hopes you will reply, “Billy? Is that you?”

The New Twist. Now, scammers are increasingly identifying themselves with the specific names of grandchildren—as in “Hi, Grandma, it’s Billy, and I need your help!” They get grandkids’ names from Internet searches on ancestry websites, Facebook accounts, online telephone directories, or reading recent obituaries of the target’s spouse.

3. Timeshare Resale Agents. Timeshares have a tendency to lose value. For years, distraught timeshare owners have been barraged with offers to help unload their unwanted units by self-described “resellers.” These sleazy profiteers promise they already have an interested buyer. All they need is their fee—upfront, please—to make the transaction occur. (Of course, the buyer is nothing more than a figment of the scammer’s imagination.)

The New Twist. Timeshare owners who’ve been swindled of upfront fees by phony resellers are now being re-contacted by so-called “fraud recovery” specialists. Guess what they’re being offered? Help with recouping that lost money—for another upfront fee, of course. Sometimes, it’s the same “resellers” now calling as “recovery” specialists, according to FBI reports. At best, pay a “recoverer” and you’ll get little more than forms or instructions to file complaints with investigating government watchdogs—all of which you can get for free at websites for the Federal Trade Commission or your state Attorney General. At worst, you get nothing but a smaller checking account.

Protect Yourself from Phone Scams. Hang up on any unsolicited phone call seeking personal or financial information. To avoid the phone bill trap, be cautious about calling back anyone with an area code you don’t immediately recognize. The most commonly used Caribbean area codes are 876, 809, or 284 (Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the British Virgin Islands). Also be wary of Canadian area codes, which are also three digits long.

Illustration by James Yang

Debit Card Scams

The invention of the ATM machine has not just made banking a greater convenience: It’s been a source of unlimited inspiration to the criminal mind. Top scams include:

1. ATM Skimming. Portable “skimming” devices—sold online for as little as $100—are placed over or behind the card slot to record information encoded in the magnetic strip of debit cards. With miniature spy cameras placed nearby to record PIN numbers used to make cash withdrawals, crooks are able to make duplicate cards and score fast cash from multiple machines. Without a PIN, they can make fraudulent online purchases.

The New Twist. Automated card machines at gas pumps have become an even more desirable target. Reason: With only a couple of manufacturers of gas pumps, a single key—in the hands of a scammer who gains employment at one gas station—can open pumps at multiple stations to install the sinister skimmers.

2. Fake “Out of Order” Signs. In bank vestibules with several ATMs, crooks place “Out of Service” signs on non-tampered ATMs in order to get customers to use a neighboring ATM on which they already placed a skimmer. Such was one recent case that resulted in $390,000 in skimmed withdrawals—until the Secret Service nabbed the culprits.

The New Twist. In a newer spin, no skimmer is even needed. Instead, crooks apply adhesive to certain buttons—“enter,” “cancel,” and “clear”—to prevent keypad-using consumers from completing their cash withdrawals after they’ve already inserted their card and typed PIN codes. As frustrated customers leave the machine to report the problem (tin foil is sometimes used to prevent cards from being returned), lie-in-wait crooks use a screwdriver to release the keys to complete the transaction—and get cash.

Protect Yourself from Debit Card Scams. Before using an ATM, wiggle the card slot—if it’s loose, avoid that machine. Also ensure a light emits from the card slot; if obscured, that’s a sign of tampering. Inspect keypads to ensure buttons aren’t stuck and always cover the keypad as you enter your PIN. At gas pumps and checkout counters, a credit card is safer—federal laws limit your liability against credit card fraud to no more than $50 (it varies with debit cards, depending on when the fraud is reported). When using a debit card to buy gas or anything else, it’s safer to choose the “credit” screen prompt instead of “debit” so you don’t have to enter your PIN. The purchase amount will still be deducted directly from your bank account, but it’s processed through a credit-card network—providing greater protection in the event of fraud.

Sneakiest New Scams The Saturday Evening Post

“You doing okay?” I asked.

He grinned, his teeth showing nicely through his puffy lips. “Like I’ve been saying, as well as could be expected.”

I kissed his forehead. “You okay moving around by yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” I said. “But you be careful. You go and break your other leg, that means you’re stuck in bed. And I don’t think this whole ‘in sickness and in health’ covers bedpan duty.”

He moved up against the pillows, winced. “You could have warned me earlier.”

“But you wouldn’t have listened.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re madly, hopelessly, and dopily in love with me, that’s why.”

As I headed out Peter said, “Erica? Be careful.”

I hoisted my heavy purse on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I will.”

And then his face darkened. “One more thing. Sorry I got dinged up.”

I shook my head. “No time to talk about that.”

I blew him a kiss, which he pretended to catch and slap against his heart with his free hand.

My sweetie.

Cooper, Massachusetts, is one of the largest and poorest communities in the commonwealth, and I drove this warm May evening to one of its three police precinct stations. In the station’s lobby were hard orange plastic chairs filled with residents, most of whom didn’t speak English and were busily arguing with each other or with the suffering on-duty officer behind a thick glass window. When it was my turn I said, “Erica Kramer, I have an appointment to see Captain Miller.”

The harried officer looked happy to confront an easy issue, and in a manner of minutes, I was brought into the rear of the precinct station. Captain Terrence Miller sat me down at his desk and passed over a clipboard with a sheet of paper.

“Look that over, sign at the bottom, and you’ll be on your way,” he said. Miller looked to be on the upside of 50, with an old-fashioned buzz cut and a scarlet face.

The paper was a release form stating that one ERICA KRAMER was going to accompany OFFICER ROLAND PIPER as part of a civilian ridealong program, and that by signing said release form, myself and my heirs promised never, ever to sue the city of Cooper if I was shot, knifed, killed, mutilated, or dismembered. I scrawled my signature on the bottom and passed it back.

He checked the form and then he checked me. I knew the look. I had on black nylons, heels, short denim skirt, and a one-size too-tight yellow top. He seemed to consider what he was doing and said, “Well, I guess I’ll bring you over to Roland.”

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing my purse.

Officer Roland Piper was even older than his Captain, and in his crinkly eyes and worn face, saw what I knew: a cop satisfied with being a cop who didn’t want the burdens of command and was happy to be in his own niche. In the tiny roll call room Roland looked me up and down and said, “All right then, come along.”

We went out to the rear of the station where a high fence surrounded the parking area for the police cruisers. I followed Roland, him holding a soft leather carrying case in one hand and a metal clipboard in the other. He was whistling some tune I couldn’t recognize and he unlocked the trunk of a cruiser. There were flares in there, chains, a wooden box, a fire extinguisher, and Roland dropped his leather case in and slammed the trunk down. He went to the near rear door and opened it up, then lifted the seat cushion, looking carefully in the space behind the seat. He pushed the seat cushion down and closed the door.

He looked over at me. “If you’re ready, get aboard.”

I went around to the side and got in.

Roland ignored me as he opened up his clipboard, wrote down some notes, and then turned on the ignition. Then he flipped on the headlights, then the strobe bar over the roof of the cruiser—the lights reflecting on the rear brick wall of the police station—and then flipped on the siren, quickly going through four different siren sounds. Next to the siren console was a pump-action shotgun, bolted upright.

“Everything looks good, sounds good,” he said, backing up the cruiser. “Thing is, you test this stuff, every night. Don’t want to find out the sirens or lights don’t work when you need them.”

I opened up my notebook pad, scribbled a few lines. “Why did you open up the rear seat?”

He nudged the cruiser out into traffic. “Checking things over. Sometimes perps, they get arrested, even with their hands cuffed, they can dump stuff back there. I don’t like stuff dumped in my cruiser. Don’t like surprises.”

We were now out in traffic. He picked up the radio microphone, keyed it and brought it up to his mouth, and said, “Dispatch, 19 out and available.”

He looked over to me. “Got that? I don’t like surprises.”

I made another note.

“I got that,” I said.

I looked at the dashboard clock. It was 8:02 p.m.

We went through about a half-dozen blocks before he spoke up. “All right. Why me?”

“Excuse me?”

He made a right-hand turn past a row of old three-decker homes, the last one on the end a burnt-out shell. “You heard me. There’s about 60 or so cops on the department. Why me?”

“Because you’ve been here the longest,” I said. “With a half-dozen citations for bravery and excellent police work. I thought you’d be an interesting human feature story.”

“You writing for The Cooper Chronicle, then?”

“No,” I said. “I’m freelance. I’ve done articles before for other papers in the valley, but I thought maybe I could interest Boston magazine or even the Sunday Globe about your story.”

“Hah,” he said. “That’ll be the day.”

We went on for another couple of blocks and he said, “You want to know the deal?”

“Sure,” I said. “What kind of deal is that?”

“Deal is, I didn’t have to have you with me tonight. Captain couldn’t force me. And if he did, I could tell you nothing at all. But you see, the department’s getting a new allotment of cruisers next month. I made the deal with the Captain. I put up with you and your dumb questions, I get the best cruiser. No more riding along in this six-year-old deathtrap.”

“I don’t do dumb questions,” I said, my hands clasping the notebook tight.

“Hunh? What’s that?”

Now it was my turn. I said sweetly, “Officer, you heard me the first time. I don’t do dumb questions. You’re good at what you do, and I’m good at what I do.”

He looked at me, scanned my legs, and offered me a thin smile. “All right. Point taken. Just so there’s no misunderstandings, there’s two rules.”

“Go ahead.”

We stopped at a traffic light. A group of kids in Red Sox jerseys were on the street corner. When they spotted the cruiser, they faded into the shadows and were gone.

“Rule one. You don’t get in my way. You stay behind me, and if I tell you to stay in the cruiser, by God, you stay in the cruiser. Rule two. No questions about my personal life. I owe you and the taxpayers of Cooper eight hours a shift, 40 hours a week. What I do on my own time, what hobbies I got, hell, who or what I like to date, none of your damn business. Got that?”

Illustration by Jonathan Bartlett.

The light changed and we moved ahead. And he looked at my legs one more time and said, “You really thought dressing up like that was a good thing for a night like this?”

I flipped a page of my notebook. “Here’s a rule for you, officer. No comments on how I’m dressed. You got that?”

Another thin smile. “Gotten.”

We rode around Cooper for a while in an aimless pattern that I was sure was anything but. The radio crackled with different calls for other units, and I said, “Why have you always been a patrolman? Why not try for a promotion?”

He waited a few seconds and said, “Why put up with the aggravation? Same streets, same crime. You’re a patrolman, you’re responsible for yourself. You become a sergeant or a detective, then you got to manage people. Ugh. I have enough problems keeping myself in line. Hate to think of doing that with other people.”

“Then why this part of town?” I asked. “There are three precincts in Cooper. Hillside, Tremont Avenue, and here, the Canal Zone. Why are you here?”

I noticed that while he drove his eyes were rarely on the road. They were always scanning the sidewalks and the intersections, like a hunter searching for the ever-elusive prey.

“Describe them for me,” he said. “The precincts.”

“Hillside … well, that’s a bunch of nice neighborhoods and the outer suburbs. And Tremont Avenue covers the business district. And the Canal Zone … everything else, I guess.”

Roland raised a worn hand to the old brick mill buildings built along the banks of the Micmac River. He said, “That’s what powered central Massachusetts last century. These mills, making shoes, making leather, making woolens, shipping them out on the canals. And in the space of a decade, it was all gone.”

Most of the tall brick buildings were empty of light, empty of life. I shivered. “There’s squatters over there, drug dealers, pimps, all sorts of action,” he went on. “Oh, some of the mill buildings have been rehabbed with businesses, but it’s slow going. And this is where the action is, Erica. And that’s what I like. Action means the time passes quick, means I get home in a good mood.”

I made a point of taking some notes in my fresh reporter’s notebook. I looked at the dashboard clock. It was now 9:05 p.m.

Something chattered on the police radio, and Roland braked, made a U-turn on an empty street, and flicked on the overhead lights.

Our first call of the night.

We sped for several blocks and came up behind another police cruiser parked right up against a polished black pickup truck with oversized tires. Roland put the cruiser in park and with one smooth motion grabbed the radio microphone. “Unit 19 off at Tucker and Broadway.” He put the microphone back into the cradle and said, “You can come out, but stay behind me, all right?”

“Sure,” I said, and I stepped out with him.

We walked up to the truck and there were two young men wearing baggy clothes and backward baseball caps standing with their hands on the hood. A young female officer looked relieved at seeing Roland, and he talked to her, and then she watched as Roland went through the men’s pockets. Coins, cigarette lighters, and then plastic baggies full of white powder were distributed onto the hood, and within moments the men were handcuffed and placed in the rear of the first cruiser.

More chitchat with the younger officer, and Roland laughed and got back into the cruiser, and I followed.

He put us out on the street and, with microphone in hand, he said, “Unit 19 clear.”

“What was that about?”

“Just a traffic stop, that’s all. Clown driving that pickup truck blew through a stop sign, and Officer Perkins there pulled him over. She sensed something screwy was going on and asked for back-up.”

I said, “I read somewhere that some cops, they don’t like women cops out there on the streets. Think they’re too weak, they’re—”

“That’s a load of crap,” he said. “They’re tough when they have to be, and they’re great to be at your side during a domestic dispute. Man, I hate domestics. And anyone who can help me out here on the streets, I don’t care if they’re male, female, or any combination thereof.”

A few more notes made in my notebook. Roland said, “You surprised me with that comment. I thought you’d stick up for your fellow sisters on the force, something like that.”

I smiled. “Guess I’m full of surprises.”

The dashboard clock said it was 10:12 in the evening.

The rest of the night went on with more aimless cruising, and I eventually learned that Roland was ex-Army military police, received an honorable discharge, and started working on the Cooper force. And as for his citations for bravery, he shrugged them off. “Most of that stuff was just being in the wrong place at the right time, and having the chief wanting to make a big deal out of it, ’cause it made for good newspaper headlines around budget time.”

We also made two traffic stops, one coffee-and-doughnut stop (“And if this gets in the paper, make sure you write that I got a bran muffin, okay? No doughnuts for me,” Roland said), and a fight outside the Sloppy Cow Pub & Grub that resulted in one woman being arrested, two men being put into ambulances, and a good half-hour of paperwork and note-taking on Roland’s behalf.

“You having fun?” he had said after we left the Sloppy Cow Pub & Grub, where the owner was taking a hose to wash off the blood stains on the sidewalk.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “A real blast.”

Now it was the start of a new day, and my legs were getting cold. I watched the light blue numerals of the dashboard clock flip, and with each change of the number it seemed like the air in the cruiser was getting thicker and harder to breathe.

Then it clicked over to one in the morning. I yawned. Roland said, “You want to go back to the precinct, head on home?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

“Whatever,” Roland said. We were driving past another burnt-out collection of tenements and Roland said, “There’s a story for you. Someone should trace the deeds of those properties, see who owns what. Bet you dig enough, you’ll find that somebody’s making a lot of money off those arsons—”

The radio crackled to life. “Unit 19.”

Roland picked up the handset. “Unit 19 go.”

“Unit 19, 14 Venice Avenue, the Gold Club. Robbery in progress. Other units responding. Caller said robbers appear to be armed.”

Roland said, “Unit 19 responding.”

He replaced the hand mike, brought the cruiser to a shuddering halt, and then made a U-turn and flipped on the overhead lights. He punched the accelerator and I felt myself thrust back against the seat as we roared down the center of Market Street.

“What’s the Gold Club?”

“Jewelry store. Only one in this area. I know them … got a large inventory.”

“No siren?” I said.

“Nope,” he said. “Sirens just let them know we’re coming.”

Roland braked again and we slewed into a turn, and he said quickly, “Deal is, you stay in the cruiser. All right? Other back-ups will be here in a bit.”

I clenched my purse and notebook tight in my hands. “Right. I’ll stay behind. No problem.”

The cruiser roared down a deserted stretch of roadway flanked on either side by empty brick mill buildings and the still water of the canals, and with a slap of his hand Roland switched off the overhead lights. He slowed and then dimmed the headlights.

My voice shook. “Do … do you know what you’re doing?

“Yeah,” he said. “Alleyway up here will put us right across the street from the Gold Club. You just stay put.”

Another turn and Roland eased his way up a narrow alleyway and then switched off the headlights. He slowly inched his way forward. Up ahead was an overflowing dumpster, and he parked the cruiser. The handset was in his hand. “Unit 19 off at the scene.”

“Ten-four, unit 19. Be advised, other units about ten minutes in-bound.”

The handset went back and with a rattle of keys he unlocked the pump action shotgun and got it out. My heart was racing right along and I knew my face was pale and my eyes were wide.
Roland opened the cruiser door and said, “Erica …”

“I’m not moving. You just be careful.”

“Just my job, that’s all,” and he got out and closed the door behind him.

I saw his shadow move in front of the cruiser to the side of the dumpster. I watched for a minute or two and then, with shaking hands, reached down and took off my shoes.

I picked up my purse and got out of the cruiser.

The pavement was cold on my bare feet and I prayed for no broken glass or discarded syringes to be in my way. I reached into my purse and found a comforting object, which I withdrew and then extended. A collapsible police baton. The definition of irony, I guess one could say.

I whispered my way up to Roland. He was kneeling on one knee, shotgun in hand, looking out across Venice Avenue and the shuttered doors of the Gold Club and some construction supplies and the footbridges that went over one of the canals. I raised up the collapsible baton and brought it down hard against the base of his neck.

Three hours later I was home, tired, thirsty. The light was on in the bedroom so I walked in, and my sweetie pie was sitting there, face expectant, looking up at me.

“Well?”

I pulled a few strands of hair away from my face. “Gee, I missed you too, honey. Did it go all right? How are you feeling? What happened?”

His face flushed. “Sorry, Erica.” He moved about on the bed some. “I missed you. Didn’t sleep a wink. Did it go all right? How are you feeling? What happened?”

I dropped my heavy purse on the floor. “It went just fine.”

“So. Where have you been?”

I gave him the dear-why-didn’t-you-empty-the-trash-like-you-said-you-would look. “Where do you think?”

He tossed the cellphone over to me. “Talk to me, then.”

So an hour earlier I was in an interrogation room of the Cooper Police Department, facing an unhappy Captain Miller and a blank-faced detective named Stephens. The interrogation room was stuffy and I was twisting and re-twisting a paper napkin in my hands, which I used sometimes to dab at my eyes.

Captain Miller looked to me and then Detective Stephens, a young hard-faced man with close-cropped black hair going to gray. “Any more questions?” he asked the detective.

The detective stared right at me like he was trying to look through me and beyond. He had a cheap pen that he fluttered through his fingers like a magician.

“No,” the detective said slowly. “No questions. Just want to make sure we have it straight, what happened. Do you mind?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

He looked down at his legal pad, read from his notes. “So when you got to the scene, you said Officer Piper told you to stay in the cruiser, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And after he left … what happened then?”

“What I told you. I saw him go up the alleyway to a dumpster. I saw him crouching … and then … I got scared.”

Detective Stephens said, “And what happened when you said you were scared?”

“I … I scrunched down in the front seat. I didn’t want anybody to see me. And then …”

I wiped my eyes again with the paper napkin. “It was so quick. A man ran by carrying something in his hands. He … he hit Officer Piper on the back of his head and then ran around the corner. I panicked. I got on the floor of the cruiser.”

“You didn’t get out to see what was going on?” Detective Stephens asked.

Snot was running down my nose. “I was so scared … and he told me to stay … and I knew that other policemen were coming ….”

“Mmm.” Detective Stephens said. “But then you had the presence of mind to grab the radio microphone and call for help.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice soft. “I … I knew I had to do something, and I pulled the microphone off the radio and called it in. Officer down.”

Both Miller and Stephens were quiet, and I said, “What … what happened at the Gold Club?”

Stephens looked to Miller. “It’s still under investigation. Looks like a burglary. Sorry I can’t tell you any more at the moment. Later today … if you wish to check in again, we can probably tell you more.”
I nodded, wiped at my eyes. “And … Officer Piper. How’s he doing?”

“He’s at Cooper General Hospital,” Miller said.

“Will he be okay?”

Miller smiled for the first time. “That guy’s got a thick head. He’ll be just fine.”

So about 12 hours after I got home from my ridealong my sweetie Peter was in the passenger’s side of our Toyota Camry, bags packed, the disposable cellphone having been disposed of, and I was heading over to the driver’s side when a black Ford F-150 pickup truck came into the short driveway, blocking us. The door opened up and Roland Piper gingerly stepped out dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved black denim shirt.

I opened the door and said to my sweetie, “I’ll be just a minute.”

“You going to be all right?”

“Trust me,” I smiled. “I’ll be just fine.”

I went over to the truck and said, “Officer Piper.”

“Erica.”

“How are you feeling?”

He turned so I could see a bulky bandage around the base of his head and then turned back. “Not bad. Out for a week, and docs said I should be ready to go back on duty then.”

“Good.”

We stood there for a moment, waiting, and he made the first move, for which I was thankful.

“I’m just a cop with seniority but no command,” he said, “but you didn’t question me or insult me last night about being just a cop. So don’t start insulting me now. All right?”

I folded my arms. “Fine. I won’t start insulting you now.”

He leaned against the fender of his pickup truck. “After I was attacked and brought to the hospital I got to thinking. And questioning. And I decided to do some quick digging. You’re not much of a writer, Erica. Three articles in the space of eight years.”

“Good writing takes time,” I said.

“I’m sure,” Roland said. “And your husband … he’s a ghost. Not much of a payroll record, not much of anything. And the two of you … no criminal record at all. Which means the two of you are either simple and dumb or complicated and very smart. And since you’ve had a rental agreement on this apartment for just a month, I’m not thinking simple and dumb.”

I said nothing, waited. He cocked his head and said, “It was no coincidence you were with me last night. You wanted to be on that ridealong because you knew something was going to happen at the Gold Club. Not a bad set-up. Me being knocked out, leaving the scene deserted. Available for whatever. So you’d think … not a bad deal.”

“A deal,” I said.

“So,” he said. “Here’s my deal. A cut of whatever was taken there, and I go away, and you go away, and nothing more is said.”

I kept silent and he said, “Erica, no insults now. It’s a good deal. I won’t even ask you who else was involved.”

I still kept silent, and then he added, “If I got all of that in just a few hours, imagine what the detectives can do in a few days.”

I nodded. “How much?”

“I’ll trust your judgment. Just know you should be fair, or I’ll be insulted, and—”

I jangled the keys in my hand, went to the rear trunk of the Camry, and Roland moved around and said politely, “Just so there’s no misunderstanding. Just want to see your hands. Professional courtesy, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

I snapped open the trunk, went into a side pocket of a knapsack, unzippered it, and pulled out a plain brown paper-wrapped package. I tossed it to Roland, who caught it easily.

“Quick question?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“What tipped it for you?”

He hefted the package in his hand. “You said you were doing a profile on me, you asked me all those questions, and then after I got whacked on the back of the head—according to the detectives, most likely by one of the gang serving as a look-out—you didn’t come to see me at the hospital. That would make your story even better … if you were planning on writing a story. But you weren’t.”

I closed the trunk of the Camry. “So what are you planning now?”

He smiled. “Early retirement.”

“To do what?”

He went back to his truck. “You seem to like stories. So here’s two stories for your consideration. Story one. A grumpy, embittered cop, working long hours, little pay, no advancement … sees his chance to score and leaves for sunnier places.”

“And the second story?”

“A cop with a wife in home healthcare with a long-term degenerative nerve disease who needs lots of money, who realized long ago that if he just stays as a cop and works lots of overtime he can barely make it go … sees his chance to score and be settled for a long time.”

He got into the truck, rolled down the window. I called out to him. “So which story is true?”

“None, both,” he said. “You’re the writer. You figure it out. And Erica … go far and don’t come back. The detectives still have a lot of questions about what happened last night. Don’t be around … you’re a cold one and you might get by, but don’t tempt it.”

I started walking to the driver’s side of the Camry. “We won’t.”

Inside the Camry I started up the car. Peter put his hand on my arm. “Had to make a payoff?”

“Yep.”

“Things okay?”

“So far, so good.”

I backed us out onto the street, thinking, less than a week. We’ll be in California in less than a week.

And I thought again about last night.

So about 15 hours earlier, after Officer Roland Piper fell to the ground with a moan, I put my shoes back on and continued to work. I slid the collapsed police baton back into my purse and then sprinted across the street to the entrance of the Gold Club. I ducked in a brick alcove near some construction supplies, knowing in a few seconds what was going to happen.

There was a creaking sound.

The door to the Gold Club opened up.

A head poked out. Took a quick scan. Missed me. Ducked back inside.

Hurry up, I thought, hurry up. The cops are coming.

The head poked out again. A whisper.

My unzippered purse was in my hand. I put my free hand inside, curved it around a familiar and comfortable object.

Movement. Two men ducked out carrying small black knapsacks in their hands. They started sprinting up the sidewalk, away from me, and—

I stepped out, dropped the purse, hands now cradling a Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol, and I shot them both in the back.

They dropped to the ground, the knapsacks tumbling next to them. I stepped up and fired again, finishing off the one on the left. The one on the right was moaning, curled over on his side, and I kicked him over on his back, so he was looking up at me.

I said, “Tsk, tsk, Tommy, do you think I’d let this go? After my hubbie planned it, scoped it, and brought you and your brother in? It would have been fine … but you were too greedy, you twit.”

He grimaced. “Sonny … should have listened to Sonny … he wanted to kill your Peter … and I just wanted him out … by tuning him up …”

“Yes, Tommy, you should have listened to your brother.” And then I shot him again, finishing him off.

I picked up both knapsacks, went back to the construction gear, pulled out lengths of chain and some pre-positioned cinder blocks, and, in a few minutes, Tommy and Sonny were dumped into the canal along with my baton and pistol.

I emptied the contents of the knapsacks into my large purse, ran back to the cruiser and dumped the empty knapsacks into the nearby dumpster, and then made a desperate radio call and waited, shivering on the cruiser’s floor, doing my best to ignore the still figure of Officer Roland Piper on the ground.

As I drove Peter rubbed my leg and said, “Perfect. You were perfect.”

I shook my head and my sweet hubbie said, “What’s wrong?”

“Something not right,” I said.

“What’s that?”

I stopped at a traffic light, noted the exit sign for the Interstate just a block ahead.

“Officer Piper, he said I was cold. Can you believe that? He said I was cold.”

“Wow.”

I turned to Peter. “You don’t think I’m cold, do you?”

He laughed. “Erica … no way. Not cold at all.”

I smiled. “Thanks, hon. I appreciate that.”

My hubbie laughed again. “Of course, if I said anything else, you’d probably kill me.”

I turned, smiled sweetly, and blew him a kiss.

“Honey, you’re absolutely right.”

Ride Along The Saturday Evening Post

He is referred to as “The Boy in the Box,” and his death continues to haunt people because there is so much we still don’t know. Over five decades of inquiry, we still don’t know why this boy was beaten to death. Or why the evidence didn’t offer a single, good lead. Or how a child could disappear without anyone noticing.

As the Post reported it, the case didn’t appear so baffling at first. The crime scene—an empty field beside a country road near Philadelphia—offered several promising pieces of evidence.

Acting on a tip, police drove to a stretch of country road in the countryside near Philadelphia on February 25, 1957. There, just as the informant had described it, was a cardboard packing box that had once contained a bassinet. Inside, wrapped in a blanket, was the body of a young boy, who had died from several blows to the head.

No one believed … identifying the victim would be difficult.

The box not only bore the name of the store it had come from, it also carried a manufacturer’s serial number, so that it could be pinpointed to one specific shipment.

[And] there was yet another hopeful item. Fifteen feet from the box, near the path leading in from the road, searchers found a distinctive cap… with a leather strap and buckle across the back.

Yet, amazingly, none of the evidence—the box, blanket, hat, or boy himself—lead investigators any closer to a solution.

Markings on the cardboard box showed it had been shipped to a J. C. Penney store just 15 miles away from where the body was found.

But Penney’s practice is “Cash”—and although a dozen were sold from that shipment, the store had no records of the purchasers.

With the help of newspaper publicity, the detectives got calls from eight buyers, all of whom said they had either put the box out for trash or still had it in their homes. [Local] trash collectors said they had long since burned their loads of refuse [which might have contained the other boxes]. The four other purchasers of the white bassinets were never found.

The blanket also yielded no information. Investigators could find no identifying marks on it, or anyone who recognized it, or even other blankets of similar make. As for the cap, detectives took it to the shop of Mrs. Hannah Robbins where it had been made.

Certainly, said Mrs. Robbins, she remembered the cap. Several months earlier a man between twenty-six and thirty years old had bought it. She recalled him because he’d asked her to add the leather strap and buckle. He was in working clothes, spoke without an accent and was alone. It was a cash sale, so she hadn’t taken his name. [She had never] seen him before or since.

With the cap and a picture of the boy, detectives then painstakingly visited 143 stores and businesses in the area. Not one person recalled either boy or cap.

Most remarkable was the complete anonymity of the boy. The investigators never found a match for the perfect set of fingerprints they obtained from him.

Detectives printed flyers showing a photo of the boy’s face, and images of him dressed and seated in a chair.

The police sent out 400,000… to  police stations, post offices and courthouses all over the nation. The FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin alerted investigators.

The American Medical Association circulated a complete medical description in the hope that some doctor, somewhere, might recognize the boy.

In a dozen states, from California to Maine, promising leads have developed—and all proved futile.

The police found no witnesses, no identity for the boy, not even any record he had ever existed.

This is a mystery almost without parallel. How is it possible for a murderer not only to escape justice but even to shroud the identity of the victim?

It… would seem impossible for a child to be murdered and have no persons come forward to claim him as their own or, at the very least, identify him.

Somewhere in his life the boy must have been known, not just to his parents, but to their friends. Somewhere he must have had playmates. Somewhere there must have been neighbors who knew he was alive—and now is around no more. Somewhere there must be a person who neatly trimmed the nails on his fingers and toes. Somewhere there must be a barber—professional or amateur—who gave him a bowl-like cut shortly before his death. Somewhere the boy’s fingerprints—or footprints—must be on file.

That is, all these people—and these things—”must be” in the logical course of events.

But this case defies logic.

The investigators couldn’t even determine the day of death.  The young man who found the body waited a day before coming to the police with the information. In fact, he was the second person to find the body; another young man who had seen the boy in the box two days earlier, but preferred not to get involved. With the cold February weather, and these delays, there was no way to determine just how long the body had been lying in the field (or how many other people had seen it and said nothing.)

The case was never closed. Some of the detectives originally assigned to the case continued following leads for years afterward. One detective stayed with the case well into his retirement.

A few people have come to the police claiming to be witnesses.  Ten years ago, a woman told the police her parents were responsible for the boy’s death. She offered a detailed, consistent account, but there is no way to corroborate her facts.

The boy's original tombstone. The body was re-interred at Philadelphia's Ivy Hill Cemetary in 1998.

Hard evidence is still needed. It may come from the sample of DNA that was extracted from the boy’s remains in 2001. But a DNA match will only confirm a relationship between the boy and his parents or siblings. It can’t lead the police toward any suspect.

So the case stays open, and the boy remains the illustration of how Thomas Hobbes described life outside of society: “continual fear and the danger of violent death—solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The Boy in the Box: Still Unsolved After 55 Years The Saturday Evening Post

In 1943, The Post ran an article on a royal pretender who lived from one scam to the next for years, yet kept a wide circle of friends and admirers who knew of his imposture. In “The Downfall of Prince Mike” (March 20, 1942) [PDF], Alva Johnston informed readers that Prince Michael Romanoff, the leading impostor of the twentieth century, had degenerated into a successful businessman.”

During the 1920s, “Michael Romanoff” traveled between New York and Hollywood, posing as the last living member of the Russian royal family. He lived off the generosity of people who were flattered to extend credit to a man claiming to be a cousin of Czar Nicholas. In addition to walking off with these loans, he also pocketed the proceeds from the sale of paintings, which he brokered for an art dealer.

Then, in 1927, while working for movie studios as an expert on Russia, he was denounced by a real Russian emigré. He told the studio executives that the Prince was, in fact, Harry Gerguson, an orphan from New York’s lower East Side.

Harry had been resettled to a small Illinois town, where he had grown up without family or identity. Hungry to be recognized and respected, he noticed how people quickly deferred to anyone they considered their social superior.

Having observed that the Oxford accent was the heaviest social artillery a man could have, he crossed the Atlantic on a cattle boat in order to acquire it. He spent years in England doggedly polishing himself. In 1915 he tried himself out prematurely on English society under the name of Willoughby de Burke and landed in jail. Ordered out of England in 1921 for impersonating and marauding, Mike became a spot of color at the Ritz bar in Paris, where he was taken up by wealthy Americans. Bad-check trouble in France caused him to migrate to the United States.

Arriving at Ellis Island, he made the mistake of overplaying his part of a wandering British noble. He bragged to immigration officials that he had spent eight years in a German prison for killing a German baron in a duel. He was immediately detained and ordered to be deported. Before the officials took action, though, he stowed away on a ferry and slipped into New York.

A few days after his escape, Mike changed into Prince Obolensky. New York newspapers printed a sympathetic interview with Obolensky on the troubles of an impoverished nobleman seeking employment. Everybody thought it a hilarious joke, he said, when he offered himself as a secretary, a clerk or a laborer. The interview won him some gaudy week ends, but no work. From there he went to St. Paul, where he was féted by railroad and lumber kings. One of his rich friends sent him to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.

It was a patten that repeated throughout his life. People continually offered favors and opportunity to this faux noble.

When he felt he had milked the one coast enough, he moved to the other. In time, his charade became public knowledge, but no one seemed genuinely angry with him. Celebrities ‘adopted’ him. He became a pet of the social elite. Some of his victims even forgave his debts.

Harry might have been a con man, but he was a professional. He knew when it was time to give up the game. So, in the 1940s, he opened a restaurant and abandoned his royal scams. He never fully abandoned his persona, but he stopped trying to convince people of his title. In time, he even became something of an expert on impostors.

One day when he was haranguing about the incompetency of the current crop of phonies, the Prince was asked what advice he would give to a young phony just starting out.

“I would advise him to stay out of it,” said Mike. “There’s too much competition.”

Read “The Downfall of Prince Mike” (March 20, 1942) [PDF].

Next: Fake Prince Meets Fake Prince

Royal Deceiver The Saturday Evening Post

As Jack Alexander relates in his 1960 Post article, “He was forty-one years old, and four months earlier he had been appointed to finish the unexpired term of a State Supreme Court justice who had retired. The appointment had been made by Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a  man who seemed to be going places himself. Justice Crater had been promised Tammany’s support in the forthcoming November election, when he was to run for a full fourteen-year term.” (“What Happened to Judge Crater?” September 10, 1960.)

He had, by all signs, a promising future. He had no known enemies. He was neither too moral nor too crooked to pose a threat to organized crime in New York. He threatened no one, it seemed.

“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”

Whatever recognition Judge Joseph Force Crater sought during his life was exceeded by his death. The news of his disappearance was withheld from the police for a month, but when the story broke, newspapers filled their columns with all the details and conjecture they could muster. Crater’s disappearance became the last sensation of the summer. It bumped aside other scandals, including the big story of the day: the continuing decline of the American economy.

A grand jury investigation found no leads that could help locate the missing judge. But it discovered an obscure side to his life, one that involved affairs with actresses and chorus girls on Broadway, and an untraceable flow of campaign funds.

“Crater, the grand jury found, had made two trips that summer from Belgrade Lakes to New York,” the Post article reports. “The first was made toward the end of July. Its highlight was a weekend at an Atlantic City hotel spent with two male cronies and four women. Crater got back to Belgrade Lakes on Saturday, August 2, intending to get a long rest …

“On the afternoon of August 3,1930, a Sunday, Crater had received a long-distance telephone call which seemed to perturb him. He decided to leave for New York immediately by train. Crater was not the kind of husband who confides business details to his wife, and she was content to have it that way. All he said in taking his departure was something about having to ‘straighten those fellows out’, a statement that to this day remains completely enigmatic. Crater promised that he would return on the following Saturday, August 9.

“What Happened to Judge Crater?”
by Jack Alexander
August 10, 1960

“On what proved to be the fateful day of Wednesday, August 6, Crater was in his chambers at the courthouse in the morning, diligently pulling folders out of filing cabinets, examining their contents, and sorting them in piles on his desk…

“At about eleven o’clock, Crater buzzed for Joseph L. Mara, his confidential attendant, who was on duty in the outer office. Crater’s secretary, Frederick A. Johnson, was there too.

“Crater handed him two checks made out to ‘Cash.’ One was drawn against Crater’s account at the Chase National Bank. It was for $3,000. The other, for $2,100, was drawn against his account at the Empire Trust Company. Crater told Mara to cash the checks for bills of large denominations. Mara came back from the banks with the bills in two envelopes. Without bothering to look inside them. Crater stuffed the envelopes in the inside pocket of his coat.”

Seven hours later, Judge Crater and his cash vanished.

“For a long time after Crater’s disappearance, strangers were being mistaken for him all over the United States and in some foreign countries. The newspapers played up the police search, and the New York city fathers put up a $5,000 reward. The desire to find the errant judge grew into a national craze like mah-jongg, and the staff of the Missing Persons Bureau was run ragged chasing down the more promising tips. One detective remarked glumly, ‘You name the place and the judge has been seen there.’”

Crater’s name soon became the most famous missing person in America. Newspapers referred to him as “the Missingest Man in New York,” and used the phrase “to pull a Crater” as synonymous with disappearing. For years, comedians would use the one-liner, “Judge Crater, please call your office.” Warner Brothers Pictures promoted a 1933 movie titled Bureau of Missing Persons by offering to pay Judge Crater $10,000 if he came forward and identified himself at the box office. (Well into the 1960s, the fate of Judge Crater was one of the questions most frequently asked of New York city’s reference librarian.)

Just as its notoriety began to fade, the story was revived by new disclosures. Crater’s wife returned to their home after a lengthy trip in January of 1931. “She opened a secret drawer of her dresser and was astonished to find four unfamiliar envelopes in it. Three of the envelopes contained, separately: $6,690 in currency: some stock certificates and bonds, and several insurance policies on the judge’s life with a combined face value of $30,000. The fourth contained a confidential memorandum to Mrs. Crater that ended with: ‘Am very weary. Love, JOE.’ ”

The police investigation revealed that Crater had been on more than cordial terms with a number of chorus girls, and less glamorous women such as Vivian Gordan, a "madam" later killed by gangland assassins.

The police had examined the dresser before and discovered no envelope. Checking their records, the police determined that, between September 4 and September 10 “someone, either the missing judge or a trusted person acting in his behalf, had gained entrance to the apartment, placed the four envelopes in the secret drawer and got away unnoticed.”

This was the sort of mystery that endlessly fascinates Americans with just enough facts to encourage any theory without ruling out anything but the most fantastic explanation.

“His [Crater’s] sister, Margaret, believes that he was murdered, possibly by a felon who, as he was being taken to Sing Sing for a long term, shouted that he would ‘get’ Crater when he got out of prison—an incident related to Margaret by her brother, Joseph, during the earliest days of his career, when he practiced criminal law briefly.

“The Crater search grew more and more costly, and after two or three years of frustration the city withdrew its $5,000 reward and the Missing Persons Bureau ran down tips only in the metropolitan area.”

Seventy-Five Years Later …
The matter passed from news to folklore over the years, but never fully faded away. So, when new information appeared in 2005, newspapers immediately picked up on the story. The New York papers reported that an elderly woman died, leaving behind a collection of papers that were not to be read until her death. The papers included news clippings about Judge Crater’s disappearance and a handwritten note by the deceased, which declared that her long-dead husband had known the men who had killed Judge Crater.

Expectations ran high. This was the most promising evidence in decades.  Finally, America might learn what happened to the late judge.

The notes were turned over to the police, but nothing conclusive has been reported. The notes stated that the killers were a taxi driver and a city policeman. The driver had picked up Judge Crater outside the restaurant on August 6, picked up “associates” two blocks later, and took him “for a ride” to Coney Island, where his murdered body was buried beneath the Boardwalk near West Eighth Street.

Police have not made any definitive statements about the new evidence, but some details in the woman’s account don’t appear consistent with facts in the case. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Judge Crater has simply been hiding all these years. Any day now, he might emerge from seclusion and prove us all wrong. Of course, he would also be 120 years old.

For the original Post article, click here for the pdf.

Have You Seen Me? The Saturday Evening Post

The piano teacher in our story befriended another player in Maple World. The two became so close that they married each other in a Maple World ceremony. From this point, they were able to acquire greater powers, amass game currency (which is only honored for purchases in Maple World), and engage in adventures together. For a time, all is well … until, without warning or reason, her husband announced, “I divorce you.”

Human relations can be very complex, even when they are not real. She was, once again, a solitary avatar in Maple World. Angry, because her avatar was jilted and left without the credits she had earned with her husband, the teacher entered Maple World using her ex-avatar-husband’s password, which she had obtained when they were married, with the sole intention of killing his avatar. The husband was hit by a Maple World bus. He never saw it coming.

When the ex-husband entered the game the next time, it was his turn to be surprised. Maple World informed him that his avatar alter ego was dead. Road kill. Flattened. Kaput. And, unlike other more forgiving games, he could not revive his game character. His life and his game credits in Maple World, under that character, which he had spent a year to create, were gone.

He called the police to report that the “wife” had illegally accessed his computer and murdered his beloved avatar.

Is the woman guilty of illegally accessing her Maple World husband’s computer? She said that when they were married, he had given her, as his “bride,” the access code for his account. Hence, she maintains she didn’t enter his account illegally.

The teacher was arrested and driven 620 miles across the country to the town where her ex-Maple World husband lived. She is facing charges, not of Maple World homicide, but of computer hacking, i.e., “illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data.” If tried and found guilty, she could receive a sentence of up to five years in prison or a $5,000 fine.

You Be the Judge: Cyber Crime and Punishment The Saturday Evening Post

Unfortunately, the friends of Mr. Stanford prove to be strong advocates of his moral sense. They include one of the top financial regulators and the ex-governor of Antigua, who allowed Mr. Stanford to rewrite the banking laws of their island. They also include an associate at Stanford’s bank who began shredding documents as soon as he heard the Securities and Exchange Commission was launching an investigation.

It’s hard to say what Ben Franklin might tell Mr. Stanford today. If he could have spoken to him earlier in his career, however, he might have repeated what he wrote in the New England Magazine in 1758.

“It is … necessary for every Person who desires to be a wise Man, to take particular Notice of HIS OWN Actions, and of HIS OWN Thoughts and Intentions which are the Original of his Actions; with great Care and Circumspection… And, lest all this Diligence should be insufficient, as Partiality to himself will certainly render it, it is very requisite for him to choose a FRIEND, or MONITOR, who must be allowed the greatest Freedom to advertise and remind him of his Failings, and to point out Remedies.

“Such a One, I mean, as is a discreet and virtuous Person; but especially One that does not creep after the Acquaintance of, or play the Spaniel to, great Men; One who does not covet Employments which are known to be scandalous for Opportunities of Injustice: One who can bridle his Tongue and curb his Wit; One that can converse with himself, and industriously attends upon his Affairs whatever they be.

“Find out such a Man; insinuate yourself into a Confidence with him; and desire him to observe your Conversation and Behavior; entreat him to admonish you of what he thinks amiss, in a serious and friendly Manner; importune his Modesty till he condescends to grant your Request.”

The Need for a Monitor The Saturday Evening Post