Bitter Remains

by Diane Fanning

  Then she wrote to her church friend and mentor, Barbara Patty, thanking her for all she got from their Monday night Bible study and asking Barbara if she would be a witness at the hearing.

  She called Randy Jenkins at Bill’s Grill, five miles southeast of Wilson, to let him know she wouldn’t be on time for their two o’clock appointment. When she arrived at three, they sat at the front of the restaurant and discussed menus and getting area businesses to advertise on them.

  Randy was interrupted from time to time to fix orders for customers. But when he sat down across the table from Laura, he found her very persuasive, professional and pleasant to deal with—in no time, he signed a contract.

  They talked briefly about their children as they wrapped up the meeting. Laura was excited to learn that Randy had nine children. Randy was struck by Laura’s enthusiasm for and pride in her kids. As she was leaving, she mentioned having another appointment in Raleigh. Randy explained the quickest way to get there, but told her, “It’s a bad time to leave because of the heavy traffic right now. You might want to reschedule.”

  “No,” she said with a smile, “I really have to go to this appointment.” Laura was obviously very upbeat and excited when she shifted gears and headed to Raleigh.

  At 4:08, Grant sent Laura a text message: “Would you like to keep the boys for the week until Sunday the twenty-fourth?” At 4:12, she responded: “Okay. I’m leaving Wilson now. I’ll call when I get past the traffic. Where will you be in an hour or so?”

  Oksana received a call from Laura at 4:19 P.M., but she was in her study group at the time, so she let it go to voice mail. After she was finished there, she listened to the message:

  “Hey, lady. It’s Laura. I am heading into Raleigh. I’ll be there in about an hour but—um—I’m gonna go visit with my boys. Don’t know what’s gonna happen as far as that’s concerned. So—uh—I’ll just give you a call when I’m done. And I just wanted to let you know, too, I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you before seven, but just wanted to find out if you’re gonna be available after that at any point. Give me a call. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

  Oksana never spoke to Laura again.

  —

  CHEVON knew about Laura’s planned meeting with Oksana, but not that Laura planned to stop at Grant and Amanda’s apartment. Laura had said she’d phone Chevon as soon as she got back home in Kinston, probably around nine that night.

  But Chevon never got that call.

  —

  SHORTLY after she left the message for Oksana, Laura arrived at the apartment complex where Grant and Amanda Hayes lived, to pick up her boys for the weekend.

  No one else ever saw her again after she walked through their door.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JUST after two A.M. on Thursday, July 14, 2011, Grant Hayes entered the Brier Creek Wal-Mart, grabbed an empty cart and made his way to the hardware department. He studied the aisle with power saws and blades for a bit before going off to look for assistance. He asked the assistant manager, Susan Dufur, “What’s the longest blade that will fit in a jigsaw?” he asked.

  Susan went back to the aisle with him and showed it to him.

  “What about those longer ones?” he asked, pointing to a blade hanging farther down the row.

  “No,” she said, “that won’t fit a jigsaw. It’s for a reciprocating saw.” She explained that on a reciprocating saw the blade goes in and out to cut objects like drywall and used longer, sturdier blades for that purpose; but a jigsaw worked on a flat surface to cut, so its blades are shorter and thinner.

  Grant asked about the reciprocating saws but then balked at the price. Susan left him to his decision and went back to her work. Eventually, Grant dropped a box with a reciprocating saw into his cart along with a couple of blades.

  He approached Susan again and asked where he could find large industrial trash bags. She escorted him to that spot, and then he wanted plastic tarps. She pointed him to the aisle. After picking up those up, Grant returned to Susan inquiring about goggles. After picking out a pair, he headed to the front counter and checked out.

  —

  IN Kinston, Chevon Mathes woke up on Thursday morning wondering why Laura hadn’t called the night before as she’d said she would. When she telephoned Laura, her call went straight to voice mail. Now Chevon was concerned. She knew that Laura never turned off her phone and always had it near her in case the kids ever tried to call.

  She kept trying to get an answer from Laura’s cell without success. Worried, she walked up to Laura’s apartment complex. Since it was gated and locked, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get inside but she could see into the garage from the outside. She was even more dismayed when she saw that Laura’s car wasn’t parked there.

  —

  EIGHTY miles away in Raleigh, Amanda Hayes called her daughter, Sha Elmer, and asked her to pick up little Grant and Gentle and take them out somewhere. Sha said, “I’ll get over when I can—I might be able to leave in half an hour.”

  “No, I need you now,” Amanda said and reminded her of the urgency of their move to Kinston.

  Sha arrived around ten and took the kids to Monkey Joe’s. Lauren Harris, the manager, gave the boys iced tea and pizza. By three o’clock, little Grant and Gentle were getting into trouble for hitting other kids, and Sha could tell that the boys were getting tired and needed their naps. But when she called her mother, Amanda said, “We need about two more hours. We’re looking for a moving truck.”

  Sha and the boys left Monkey Joe’s at four o’clock and went to Lynnwood Grill, where a friend of hers worked. She ordered brownies and ice cream for the kids. When she brought them home, Amanda put them down for a nap.

  Amanda told Sha that her vacuum cleaner was broken and she needed to borrow Sha’s. Sha—who had recently moved in with her boyfriend, Matt Guddat, on the other side of Raleigh—balked at driving across town and back in rush hour traffic, but Amanda insisted that she needed it right away. She also wanted Sha to pick up some food for them on her return trip. Sha huffed out a sigh. To complicate matters, the vacuum actually belonged to Matt—not her. She called and got Matt’s permission before begrudgingly battling through heavy rush hour traffic and grabbing meals from Wendy’s on her return trip.

  As she neared the apartment, Sha called and asked her mom to send Grant down to the parking lot to help her carry everything upstairs. It was nearly six when Sha walked into the apartment and handed over the food. Grant followed right behind her with the yellow vacuum. Sha hugged her mom, and Amanda said, “I love you so much. Thank you.” For the few minutes Sha was there, Grant was busy snapping photos of the sofa and love seat to post on Craigslist for sale.

  —

  AT 4:08 A.M. on Friday, July 15, Grant sent an e-mail to Laura, exactly like the message he texted to her on Wednesday. “Would you like to keep the boys for a week until Sunday the twenty-fourth?”

  A little later that morning, Amanda called Sha and told her that the move to Kinston was on for the next day and that they sure could use her help. She mentioned that they had to get a trailer hitch put on their Durango to haul a rental trailer to transport their belongings. “Can Matt install one for us tomorrow morning?”

  Initially, Matt was willing, but after a barrage of questions from Amanda and Grant about his experience, Matt reconsidered. He thought about the difficulty of getting use of the lift at work on his day off and obtaining the needed parts. He finally said, “Tell them I’ve never installed a hitch on that year Durango. I think they’d be better off getting Raleigh Hitch or U-Haul to install one for them.”

  —

  JUST after noon on Friday, July 15, Chevon sent Laura an e-mail with a subject line that read, “You okay?” In the body of the message, she wrote: “Hey, been trying to call you since yesterday. Let me know that you’re okay. Did you lose your phone? A sister’s getting worrie
d.”

  —

  AROUND that same time, Grant was back shopping at Wal-Mart, where he paid cash for three black and three red duffle bags. Minutes before two P.M., Grant sent a message to Laura’s e-mail complaining about not being able to reach her on her cell. “This is not cool,” he wrote. He griped about Laura’s attorney going away on vacation for a week, and then reverted to his problems reaching her: “You’re not holding up your end of things and that’s REAL fucked up. . . . We’re trying to reach a settlement and then go dark on me after agreeing to shall I say ‘certain terms.’ Yes, REAL FUCKED UP. I’m moving my family to Kinston, yet again to accommodate you, not our kids, but you.” He reiterated that he needed her to keep the kids this coming week. Then he warned: “DO NOT try to talk to me about anything at the exchange today. I have NOTHING more to say to you until I hear from your attorney . . .”

  He then got on her case about leaving a bag of the kids’ clothes at the house when she was bugging him about returning clothes. He ended with another subtle dig: “I will ask my mom to braid little Grant’s hair this week while you have them, he needs it.”

  At three thirty that afternoon, the usual established time for them to exchange the boys for the weekend, Grant strapped little Grant and Gentle into car seats in his Durango and made the drive down to the Sheetz in Wilson. At about four thirty that afternoon, he entered the convenience store and purchased a pack of American Spirit menthol cigarettes, then exited through the back door.

  A few minutes later, Grant came back inside through the front door and made another purchase, then went back outside once more. At 4:58, he came in again, this time holding Gentle with little Grant walking by his side. After a visit to the restroom, all three walked out and stood around in the shade of one of the covered tables.

  Grant smoked a cigarette and talked on the phone. At 5:16, he went inside for the fourth time, using the side door, and bought drinks for the kids. Four minutes later, he was back at the tables. They got in the car and pulled out of the parking lot at 5:46 P.M. Five minutes into the drive, Grant called Laura. Immediately after that he phoned his mother.

  —

  AROUND seven thirty that night, Amanda called Sha again and said, “We’re not moving tomorrow. We’re thinking about going to Texas.”

  “I want to go with you. I haven’t seen Aunt Karen and my cousins for a long time,” Sha said.

  That idea angered Amanda. “Stop being selfish. I just lost my mother and gave birth to a new daughter. I need my big sister.” She added that no one out there had ever met Grant and it was about time they did.

  In the background, Sha heard Grant loudly complaining that Laura hadn’t come to get the kids even though he’d waited for her at Sheetz for an hour.

  Amanda continued, “So I won’t need you. I have to go now—Grant just came in with the boys.”

  —

  GRANT shopped at Wal-Mart again Saturday morning, July 16, 2011. At 6:56 A.M., he bought a 120-quart cooler and three bags of ice. After loading them into the Durango, he went back inside and returned three of the six duffle bags he’d purchased the day before. Then he bought a seventy-five-quart cooler, and made a stop at the in-store McDonald’s.

  At 10:59 A.M., Grant walked into a U-Haul facility in Raleigh. He did not look the least bit worried, hurried or alarmed. Under the name Grant Haze, he rented a trailer for $159. He also bought boxes, a sofa cover, a lock and a ball mount and ball for his Durango to enable him to haul the trailer for an additional charge of $102.70.

  That night, pulling the rental behind his car, he made a trip to the Target a mile from his apartment. At 8:10, he purchased two Igloo MaxCold wheeled coolers, one seventy-five quarts, the other fifty quarts. He put them into the trailer and went back into the store, where he bought a toilet brush and paper towels.

  —

  THAT Saturday night at midnight, Amanda, Grant and the three children set out for Texas—a journey of twelve hundred miles, an arduous undertaking with three little kids on board. About eight hours later, the Durango pulled into a Motel 6 in Montgomery, Alabama, not quite halfway through their cross-country trek. Amanda paid $44.24 in cash for a room and registered as Amanda Smith. She and Grant grabbed a few hours of sleep before heading west to Texas.

  —

  CHEVON waited and fretted all Friday and Saturday and into Sunday, July 17. She labeled an e-mail “worried” and sent it off to Laura. “L, I’ve been calling you since Thursday, sent you an e-mail and went by your house. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, I am calling the cops. So please get in contact with me because I am really worried about you. If you lost your phone again,” she wrote inserting her number, “or just come to my house so that I know you’re good. You’re scaring me.”

  —

  ON Sunday in Richmond, Texas, Amanda’s sister, Karen Berry, told her son, Dalton, to mow the path down to the johnboat they had tied up at the edge of Oyster Creek. She told him his aunt Amanda was on her way and her husband wanted to take his boys fishing while they were there.

  That day, Grant exchanged messages with a friend he hadn’t seen in a while. She complimented his kids and asked it the woman in the photos with them was a different wife than the one she’d met in the Virgin Islands. Grant wrote back, “I wasn’t married to their mom. She was just a hanger-on. I had to do like Mimi and shake her off. I met Amanda in St. John.”

  —

  ALL day Sunday, Sha called her mother, alternating her calls between Amanda’s and Grant’s cell phone numbers. Most times, she was sent straight to voice mail or got no answer at all. Once Amanda actually answered but she said she was busy and would call her back. The call never came.

  Sha called her aunt Karen and asked if she knew where her mother was. Karen had no idea where they were on the journey, but told Sha they were keeping the phones off to save the batteries.

  Around five on Monday morning, July 18, 2011, Karen awoke to a knocking on the front door—Amanda and her family had arrived. Karen fixed breakfast for them all, then Grant and Amanda went to bed while Karen stayed up playing with the children.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EARLY Monday morning, July 18, 2011, Sha Elmer called her aunt Karen Berry to ask her if her mother had gotten there yet. “Yes,” Karen said, “she’s here with Grant and the three kids.” She said that they arrived just a little while ago when her son Shelton was still sleeping, and before her other son Dalton came home at five thirty that morning.

  She also told her niece that they’d brought the valued antique that Amanda inherited from Nicky to her place for safekeeping. Sha was irked that her mother had done that without speaking to her first. The piece had been left with her in New York and she had been the one to transport it down to North Carolina the previous October. Sha had been promised the unique piece of furniture for quite some time.

  —

  BY that morning, Chevon Mathes was certain something was seriously wrong. She called Grant’s mother, Patsy Hayes, and asked, “Do you know if Laura picked up her kids up on Friday?”

  “No,” Patsy said. “I’ll find out and give you a call back.”

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Chevon’s phone rang and Patsy said, “Oh, I forgot. Grant asked me to go by Laura’s on Friday because she hadn’t picked up the kids.”

  Chevon headed out her door and went straight to the Kinston police station. She walked in and filed a missing persons report. She told the police about the custody battle Laura Ackerson was having with Grant Hayes, said she was worried about the possibility of foul play and turned over a photograph of Laura.

  Chevon went over to Laura’s apartment building and asked the manager if she would go into the missing woman’s residence to see if Laura was there. Chevon also described Laura’s business notebooks and requested that the manager bring them out if she saw them.

  Then Chevon spoke to the Wilson Police Dep
artment, as well as the police department in Raleigh. She told them all that she was very concerned about her friend because of the many comments Laura had made about Grant and her fear of him.

  Kinston police’s Commander Jennifer Canady handed over the missing persons file to Detective James Gwartney to investigate. He first went to HealtHabit to talk to Chevon at about one thirty that afternoon. She turned Laura’s notebooks over to him, verifying that they were in her missing friend’s handwriting. One page had the appointments she’d set for Wednesday, July 13.

  The detective contacted two of the businesses to verify that Laura had been there and then went to the RadioShack where Chevon said Laura had gotten her prepaid cell phone. They connected him to the service provider T-Mobile.

  While Gwartney talked to that company, Detective Melissa Whittaker overheard him mention Laura’s name. When he disconnected from the call, Whittaker said, “I’m familiar with Laura Ackerson.” She’d investigated an alleged case of child abuse involving her. Grant Hayes had claimed Laura was abusing their kids, but no charges were ever brought because nothing he said was substantiated.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AFTER he woke up Monday, July 18, 2011, in Richmond, Texas, Grant Hayes asked Amanda’s nephew Dalton Berry, “How deep is the creek?”

  “In some places it gets really deep—some areas up to thirteen feet. It varies depending on what part of the creek.”

  “Are there alligators in the creek?”

  “Yes, there are.”

  “How long’s that creek?”

  “It heads a couple of miles upstream. Downstream, it goes about half a mile to a dam and then dumps into another creek.”

  —

  MEANWHILE, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Heidi Schumacher rose that morning oblivious to Chevon’s concerns about Laura. Heidi and Laura had had their weekly telephone chat the previous Tuesday. She hadn’t received any e-mails from Laura since then, but that wasn’t unusual. Heidi remained blissful in her ignorance until her phone started to ring.