The Abducted Super Boxset: A Small Town Kidnapping Mystery

by Roger Hayden

  The two detectives walked over to the ambulance where Kim Forester rested on a wheeled gurney with the cord from an IV bag lodged in her wrist. A slight bruise showed on her forehead. The paramedics explained that she had likely suffered from a panic attack, and they strongly advised that she rest and hydrate herself. Kim, however, found it impossible to stay put with her daughter missing. The last thing she could do was to relax.

  Her husband, Doug, sat by Kim's side, clutching her hand as a mustached officer talked to them from outside the ambulance.

  “We have to consider all possibilities,” he said, pen and clipboard in hand. “She could have simply wandered off.”

  Kim shook her head, her face flushed and her damp hair clinging to the side. “That's not what happened.”

  Doug rubbed her arm to calm her. “It does sound unlikely, Officer. Something isn't right.”

  Kim cut in with a shaky voice full of anguish. “I was only in the store for a few minutes. The windows were rolled up, and the doors were locked. I don't know what could possibly have happened.”

  The officer scribbled onto his clipboard, eyes down. “We're looking into it, Mrs. Forester. Your daughter couldn’t have gotten too far. We just have to find her.”

  Doug released Kim's hand and stepped closer to the officer, crouching within the close confines of the ambulance. “Have you talked to any witnesses? Someone had to have seen something.”

  The officer nodded. “We’ve spoken with many people, yes. So far, no one has anything to provide us.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Doug shouted.

  Officers outside the ambulance turned their heads. The situation was getting more intense by the moment. Doug and Kim were obviously upset and at the mercy of the police, who could only do so much at the moment to provide them immediate comfort.

  Senior Detective Hayes and Detective Shelton turned from the ambulance and approached their police captain, who had just arrived. Their ties blew in the winds as their pistols shifted from the holsters on their belts.

  Captain Elian Vasquez surveyed the scene with a handheld radio to his ear and then turned to his approaching detectives, eager for answers.

  “Tell me something good, gentlemen.”

  The captain’s dark blue police uniform stretched slightly at his stomach. He had gained some weight over the past few months, which he had attributed to stress, but his clean-shaven face remained boyish. He’d been sporting a thin mustache lately, and no one could really understand why.

  Detective Hayes shook his head. “We’re taking it all in, sir. Looks like she may have been pulled right from the vehicle.” In his mid-thirties with graying hair and light stubble on his cheeks, Hayes had worked many cases in his five years with the Ector County PD, but a girl disappearing from a parking lot was a first.

  His partner, Detective Shelton, a former police officer, was relatively new in town. As a black man from Chicago, he couldn’t have been farther from home. How he had ended up with the Ector County PD, Hayes didn’t know for sure. He had considered his partner quiet, resourceful, and eager when the situation called for it. Having worked together for two years, he believed that they made a good team.

  Detective Hayes had a wife and two children. His partner, on the other hand, appeared to be a drifter of sorts, a quiet loner whose detective work was as impeccable as that of any seasoned veteran on the force. He remained somewhat of an enigma to Hayes.

  Shelton paced around Kim Forester’s Cherokee and then turned to address the police captain. “Either this girl ran off and left her sandal and iPad, which doesn’t seem likely, or we’re dealing with a second kidnapping in one week.”

  “Always assume the worst,” Captain Vasquez said, with his eyes piercing and serious. “We just issued an AMBER alert. Now I want an APB out on this girl. Find her.” He paused and pointed toward the end of the parking lot, where a local news vans now sat. “Provide no comment until we figure out what happened here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hayes said. He then turned back to the ambulance where he heard Kim Forester sobbing.

  “How’s the mother?” Vasquez asked.

  “Distraught,” Hayes replied. “She ran inside for a bucket of chicken and came back to find her daughter missing.” He glanced at the Cherokee as Detective Shelton took a series of pictures with a digital camera. “Just tragic…”

  A police helicopter hovered overhead. There were at least a dozen police officers on the scene with their radios chattering as a wide search of the area was being conducted. Natalie’s age, height, and physical description were being passed through the channels.

  There had been no suspect description or vehicle reported—that was, until an older woman with a red perm and wearing a summer dress approached the detectives with two police officers at her side.

  Sergeant Kline, the tall officer to her left, began by introducing her. “This is Evelyn McDougal. She says she might have some useful information.”

  “Of course,” Captain Vasquez said, his cheekbones rising in a smile. “What can you tell us, ma’am?”

  Detective Hayes pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket as the woman stepped forward. She adjusted her glasses and looked around nervously at all the sudden attention. Detective Shelton stopped taking pictures near the car and walked toward her, interested in what the woman had to say.

  “I didn’t see anything actually happen,” she said with her hands out. “I just want to make that clear.”

  “Understood,” Detective Hayes said. “Please. Just tell us whatever you can.”

  She nodded, with her arm linked to Sergeant Kline’s for balance. “It’s just… I guess you could call it a hunch. I was parked over there,” she said, pointing one parking lane over. “And I saw a man wearing sunglasses sitting in a blue van. At first, I didn’t find anything suspicious about him. He could have been waiting for someone for all I know, but he was still there when I finished my shopping. Not in the same parking spot, mind you. He had moved somewhere else, like he was scoping out the place, changed parking spots. Isn’t that weird?”

  Hayes and Shelton exchanged glances as they listened with heightened anticipation.

  “What did he look like?” Shelton asked. “Any distinctive features?”

  The woman thought to herself. “He had on big sunglasses and hat, I think. He looked young.”

  “Caucasian man?” Shelton asked as both detectives scribbled.

  “Yes, he was white,” she said.

  “Did you notice the make of the van? A license plate, perhaps?” Hayes asked.

  Mrs. McDougal shook her head. “I didn’t pay him any special attention. He just looked odd sitting there after a while.”

  “Yes, but think about the van,” Hayes continued. “Any detail at all.”

  “It was old, ten, fifteen years. Slightly rusted. Think it was a GMC. There was a NASA plate on the front. I think,” she said. The detectives nodded while jotting down their notes as she continued. “I’m sorry, that’s all I can really say. I heard that a girl was taken, and my gut told me that the man I saw might have had something to do with it.”

  “That’s fine, ma’am,” Hayes said. “What you’ve told us so far is of great assistance.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Captain Vasquez added.

  Detective Shelton looked to the officers, his eyes concealed behind sunglasses. “Please get a written statement from her before she leaves.”

  The officers nodded as Detective Hayes handed the woman his card and told her to call them if she could think of anything else. It wasn’t the most specific of information, but they had a potential suspect and a vehicle, which was a big step forward.

  Sergeant Kline escorted Mrs. McDougal away, leaving the detectives deep in thought. Captain Vasquez then signaled his second in command, Lieutenant Alex Van Hise, over from the crime scene. “I want an APB on every blue van within a fifty-mile radius. Every block. Every parking lot. Every intersection,” he told the lieutenant with soft intensity. “He
couldn’t have gotten far, and I’m inclined to trust Mrs. McDougal’s instincts.”

  Lieutenant Van Hise, a fresh-faced, by-the-book type in his early thirties, held up an evidence bag up with an envelope in it. “We found this resting on the passenger seat.”

  “A letter?” Hayes asked, curious. There was no writing on the envelope itself, but as Van Hise held it under the sunlight, they could see a message showing from inside the envelope.

  “Figured we’d take it to the crime lab first,” Van Hise said. “Could be from the kidnapper or junk mail for all we know.”

  Had Natalie’s kidnapper actually left a note? Such a turn of events would be a huge development and could quite possibly lead them right to the girl before it was too late.

  “Get that into evidence,” the captain said, “along with anything out of the ordinary, inside or outside the vehicle.”

  “I want that letter,” Hayes said, taking it from the lieutenant. “This is our scene. Detective Shelton and I will take it from here.”

  “Easy there, Detective,” Lieutenant Van Hise said. “We’re all on the same team here.” He then backed away with his radio in hand as he issued an alert for a blue GMC van. The police helicopter jetted into the horizon, presumably in search for it.

  Sirens wailed in the distance as a small crowd neared a pair of barriers, approaching the scene. Odessa hadn’t seen such commotion in some time, but the story was already picking up steam: two missing girls in a small town within the same week.

  Captain Vasquez pointed at Detective Hayes and Detective Shelton with unflinching eyes. “Keep this thing quiet. Work fast, and find the girl.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hayes said with confidence.

  The captain hurried off without another word, approaching a shiny cruiser with its lights flashing. It looked as though he was headed back to the station, prepared to report the latest developments to the higher-ups. Nothing could get a town riled up like a potential kidnapping.

  Hayes knew that the captain had the responsibility of controlling the panic, while their responsibility was to find the girl. However, he and Shelton were also tasked with solving the April Johnson disappearance and had made little headway throughout the week.

  “You see anything yet?” Hayes asked his partner as they neared the ambulance.

  “Found a candy wrapper on the ground,” Shelton said. “Right outside the passenger door. Could be nothing, but I had ‘em bag it for evidence.”

  “Good.”

  They arrived at the back of the ambulance in which Kim Forester rested, sitting up in a wheeled gurney with her husband at her side. The paramedics stood nearby, looking ready to leave.

  Kim Forester’s face was puffy, red, and drenched in tears. Doug Forester looked up at the detectives, his pale face stricken with fear and his eyes watering. “Our daughter’s really gone, isn’t she?” he asked in a vacant tone.

  “We don’t know for sure, Mr. Forester,” Detective Hayes said. “But we’re putting all of our resources into finding her.”

  Doug suddenly rose, angered, yet still clutching Kim’s hand. “It’s not good enough,” he said, pointing beyond them to the busy road in the distance. “She was taken. I’m sure of it. Now you find that bastard before he does anything to her, or so help me God—”

  “We will, sir,” Detective Shelton said. “Rest assured. We will find her.”

  Hayes glared at his partner as though he couldn’t believe what he had just said.

  Shelton leaned inside the ambulance and then held up the sealed bag with the envelope inside for Kim to see. “This was found on your passenger seat, ma’am. Does it belong to you?”

  Kim leaned forward, squinting. “No. I don’t believe so.”

  Hayes cut in. “We believe it might have been placed there by our suspect.”

  Doug’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? Like some kind of ransom note?” He stumbled forward, beside himself with frustration. “Well, open it already. What are you waiting for?”

  Shelton lowered the bag from view. “I’m sorry, but it’s evidence now. It could contain fingerprints or DNA, and we don’t want to compromise that.”

  Doug sat down, flustered and exhausted. He was noticeably on edge and conflicted between staying calm or going crazy. Hayes could relate, having a daughter of his own, but as with anything else, there were protocols and procedures. Nothing happened instantly, though in cases involving kidnappings, every second was crucial.

  “Just find her, please,” Doug said, wiping his tears. “It’s all we ask…”

  “We will,” Shelton said, receiving another perturbed glare from his partner.

  “Is there anything you can tell us, Mrs. Forester?” Hayes said, notepad out. “It’s our understanding that you were in the grocery store for approximately six minutes. Your daughter was waiting in the car with the doors locked and engine running.”

  “I’d like to think that the doors were locked, but I just can’t remember,” she said in a strained voice. “When I returned to the car, I found the door open…” her eyes clenched shut as tears fell. “Her little sandal was on the ground. I knew someone took her. I just didn’t want to believe it at first.”

  “That’s enough, honey,” Doug said, rubbing her back. He then looked at the detectives with a stern expression. “Don’t you think so, Detectives?”

  “Yes,” Hayes said, beckoning his partner away. “We’ll be here when you feel like talking.”

  They wished the couple well and walked back toward the crime scene as Hayes quietly admonished his partner. “You never promise the parents of a missing child anything. What is wrong with you?”

  Shelton remained composed and not the least bit bothered by Hayes’s anger. “Technically the girl isn’t considered missing until forty-eight hours have passed.”

  “Knock it off,” Hayes said. “You damn well know we’re looking at a kidnapping here.” He then held up two fingers. “We’re looking at two kidnappings here, and what do we have? A man wearing sunglasses? A blue van? A ransom note, maybe?”

  Shelton stopped and pointed down to the greasy fried chicken box at their feet. “What do you think? Should we put that in evidence too?”

  The hunt was on, and the detectives knew that they weren’t getting any closer to finding the kidnapper by standing in a Food Mart parking lot. There were answers that could only be found with a trip back to the Ector County station, ten miles away.

  ***

  The bright and sterile forensics lab offered a satisfactory environment for examining the two most significant pieces of evidence collected at the scene: the sealed envelope and the candy wrapper. Both could carry enough DNA to track down their kidnapper. Their man wouldn’t know what hit him—though anyone foolish enough to leave their DNA behind at a crime scene deserved to be caught in the most expedited fashion.

  Detectives Hayes and Shelton stood aside, wearing mandated lab coats, as Nancy, the lab technician, carefully unsealed the envelope with a heat gun in her latex-gloved hands. She had already swabbed the candy wrapper for traces of DNA, and the results were inconclusive. Despite this first blow to their investigation, Hayes and Shelton felt optimistic that their suspect wasn’t going to get far.

  As they stood in the lab, observing Nancy at work, Hayes’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached inside with his gloved hand and pulled the phone out, sighing as the captain’s number appeared on the screen.

  “What’s going on, sir?”

  “Damn it, Hayes. I want you and Shelton in my office.”

  “We’re in Forensics, examining evidence,” Hayes said.

  “In my office, now!” Vasquez shouted.

  Hayes hung up and looked at his inquisitive partner. “Our presence is requested.”

  Shelton shook his head, frustrated, as Nancy continued working the letter. “We’ll be right back,” Hayes told her.

  “Okay. Don’t take too long,” she said.

  The detectives left in a hurry, discarding
the lab coats in the outside quarantine room. They then left Forensics and moved swiftly down the hall toward the captain’s office in their suits and ties, ID badges dangling from their necks.

  Captain Vasquez’s door was open, and there were many officers gathered around the captain’s television, which was mounted in a high corner of the room.

  From his desk, Vasquez called to Hayes and Shelton, pointing at his screen. “I thought you were going to talk to the parents. What the hell happened?”

  The detectives looked up at the TV to see Doug and Kim Forester holding each other before the cameras as lights flashed all around them. The news alert banner at the bottom of the screen described the event as an “exclusive statement from the parents of the latest kidnapped victim.”

  Hayes’s mouth dropped open. Shelton wasn’t sure what to say. It was hard to think the parents would run to the cameras so quickly, but they understood that fear and desperation often brought out rash, impulsive decisions in people, especially when the life of a loved one was on the line.

  “This isn’t good, ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said, shaking his head. “The parents jumped the gun before we could even release a statement.”

  From the looks of it, the Foresters had simply walked to the camera crews in the parking lot, ready to talk. Doug held a wallet-sized photo of Natalie up to the camera, holding back his tears.

  “This is our beautiful daughter, Natalie. She’s an eleven-year-old honor roll student and the light of our lives. And today she is missing. I urge the community to help find her, please. It’s all we ask, and we couldn’t be more grateful for your assistance.”

  The captain spun around. “We need to take charge of this situation.” He smacked the surface of his desk with both palms. “I want all of you out there doing your part. Lead the search parties. Find this girl!”

  So, officially, more or less, it was a kidnapping.