True Crime Fiction

by Michael Lister

  “By the time I got out to the scene, Andy had it taped off and everybody out,” he continues. “The parents and their staff and family and friends were at a neighbor’s house next door. It’s funny to think of them as neighbors—they’re all just renting these places for the holiday, but . . . you know what I mean. It was the house of Mariah and Brett’s little friend, Caden. Andy hands me both notes—the runaway and the ransom. I read them both. And I was just . . . overwhelmed. Honestly, I was like . . . this is beyond me. Thankfully, the K-9 unit got there just before me and were already at work. I knew I needed to get with the dad, Trace . . . and make sure he had his phone, get the recording device attached to it, see who his wireless provider was so I could contact them about a trace on the call when it came. As I walked over to the house next door to talk to him and do that, I started to call Reggie, but I got a call and then I was there and talking to the dad and . . . it was a while before I called her.”

  “Was Trace cooperative?” I ask.

  “Extremely,” he says. “Respectful. Helpful. Anxious to do anything he could to get his daughter back.”

  “That’s interesting,” I say. “Think Andy had a very different experience with him.”

  “He was upset and intense, but . . . just what you’d expect.”

  “So you get the recording device hooked up and contact the cell provider,” I say.

  He nods. “And there was no call,” he says. “For a ransom, I mean. He got other calls, of course. Some of them . . . You should listen to them. Some sounded pretty suspicious to me, but . . . no ransom call.”

  He pauses a moment to eat the final bite of the container he’s working on, close the lids, and open the final one—some type of cobbler with a crunchy top layer on it.

  Dark storm clouds gather out over the Gulf to our west reminding us that this briefest of respites from the rain can’t last much longer.

  “I wait with the family for a while,” he says after a few bites of the dessert, “but there’s no timeframe on the note, so we have no idea how long before the call will come, so I go back outside to check on Andy and the K-9 unit and to call Reggie. But once again . . . things happen fast and I don’t call Reggie right away, so even more time passes. Nearly the moment I walked out, the correctional officer in charge of the dogs—I forget his name—”

  “Ronnie Wyrick?” I say.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Ronnie. He comes over to me and says there’s no scent outside. He doesn’t think the little girl ever left the house.”

  “What was he using for scent?” I ask.

  “Pair of shorts and a t-shirt she had worn just the day before,” he says. “The stepmom—Ashley, I mean, picked it right up off the floor of Mariah’s bedroom. It was fresh. Ronnie said the dogs . . . I don’t know . . . he could tell by the way they reacted that there was plenty of her scent on it.”

  I nod and think about it.

  “He said his dog keeps going to the back door—the one on the first floor that leads out to the pool deck and he wanted to know was it okay for him to let the dog go inside. On the lead, of course, he’d be right there with him. I said sure. And he said he wanted me to go with him . . . in case . . . he found something. I said sure, okay. And instead of calling Reggie, I went back in the damn house with Ronnie and the dog. But letting the dog go in the house and not calling Reggie were the least of my mistakes at this point. See, with Andy over at the entrance guarding the perimeter and me going with Ronnie . . . there was no one with the family over at the neighbors’. And evidently Trace was watching us from a window ’cause . . . I didn’t know it at the time, but . . . he must’ve seen us around the back door and then go in. Like I say, I didn’t know it at the time. So we go in and . . . and remember we’re talking a big ass house. It’s built up on stilts with parking underneath like most houses that close to the water and then there are three levels above that. Hell, the pool isn’t in the ground. It’s on a platform so that it’s level with the first story deck. Anyway . . . huge house, but the dog doesn’t spend much time in the living room or kitchen—a little, but then he’s off, climbing the stairs, Ronnie on the lead behind him and me behind him. There’s a guest bedroom on the first floor with the living room and kitchen and game room and all. The manager was staying in it. The second floor held the master suite. Trace and Ashley were staying in it. The third floor had three rooms—a kids room and two guest rooms. Mariah was in the kids room, Brett was in one of the guest rooms and Nadine the nanny was in the other. You could tell the dog was alerting on her scent sort of all over the house, but it went straight up to her room. Which, I mean, that’s what you’d expect, right? So I didn’t think much of it. I . . . I searched the house personally. Every room. I knew the . . . I knew she wasn’t in the house. I just figured her scent was the strongest in her room so that’s why he was going there. But when he got in there . . . he alerted on her bed. The bed she slept on. There was her bed—just sort of a regular bed with a big pink comforter on it with pillows beneath it and a set of bunk beds on the other wall. The bunk beds were made up, looked like no one had been on them at all, but her bed was unmade, the comforter hanging half off down to the floor. This is the bed where both notes were found—the runaway note on her pillow and then the ransom note in the fold of the comforter.”

  “According to Ashley and Nadine,” I say.

  “Yeah. Ashley said she found the runaway note on her pillow that morning and Nadine said she found the ransom note in the comforter when she was making up the bed.”

  “Sounds like she didn’t get very far in making up the bed,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Not at all. I assumed she saw the note and just dropped the covers, but I shouldn’t be assuming anything, should I?”

  “We all do it,” I say. “That’s why it’s so helpful to talk it through and ask and answer questions.”

  He nods, licks the last of the cobbler from his fork, and replaces the lid.

  “So,” I say, “the dog alerts on the bed . . .”

  “And I think of course because the little girl slept there, spent more time there than any other single place. But then I realize . . . the dog isn’t alerting on the bed so much as under the bed. And I start asking myself did I look under the bed earlier and . . . I know I did, I had to. There’s no way I wouldn’t look under her bed while searching the house, but in that moment I couldn’t remember for sure and started doubting myself. Ronnie turns to me and says, ‘She’s under that bed. I’d bet $250,000.00.’ And I’m . . . just . . . I’m about to tell him to clear the room, take the dog out, and I’d lift the comforter with my gloved hands and look again, this time with a flashlight . . . but before I can do any of that Trace rushes in, slings back the covers, drops to his knees, and pulls the bound body of his lifeless little girl out from beneath the bed.”

  214

  Later that afternoon, as I’m driving home from the prison, I get a call from Randa Raffield’s father, Jerry.

  In addition to being an investigator at the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department, I’m a part-time prison chaplain at Gulf Correctional Institution, and I had an afternoon shift of conducting crisis counseling, facilitating support groups, and attending meetings.

  Though being an investigator with the sheriff’s department gives me plenty to do, I enjoy being a prison chaplain and can’t let it go. Each job is fulfilling and rewarding in a way the other is not, and I’m grateful I have the opportunity to do both.

  “John?” Jerry says. “Can’t believe I got you.”

  He has called several times since Daniel’s return, but this is the first one I answered.

  “I’ve been away,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “I heard you got married. Congratulations.”

  Jerry Raffield, a psychologist living in Seaside, has stayed in touch with me since I first interviewed him about his missing daughter. Though she had vanished and cut off all communication with him, with everyone, he has expressed nothing but love for her and a desire t
o find her and be in her life again.

  “I’m sure you know why I’m calling,” he says.

  “I bet I can guess,” I say, “but why don’t you tell me.”

  “I heard Randa returned Daniel safe and sound,” he says.

  “We got Daniel back,” I say. “It’s not entirely clear how.”

  “Surely she—”

  “I think she drugged him the entire time she had him,” I say.

  “I truly believe she returned him,” he says. “Unharmed. I take her at her word that she only took him for a little insurance. Think about what all she’s been through. I’m sure she was just trying to protect herself.”

  “I can understand why you’d like to interpret all her actions in as favorable light as possible, but—”

  “I’m aware of what I’m doing,” he says. “I just feel so bad for her and what she’s been through and I feel so guilty for not being there for her. She’s my little girl and somehow I let her down.”

  “I understand,” I say. “I do.”

  “I haven’t given up on finding her and getting her the help she needs,” he says. “I don’t think she’s beyond saving.”

  I don’t want to believe anyone is beyond saving, but if Randa is a sociopath or has a borderline personality disorder, which I suspect is at least possible, then what she needs saving from more than anything else is herself.

  “Has Daniel said anything that might help us find her?” he asks.

  “He really doesn’t remember much of anything at all,” I say. “Maybe in time, but . . . I think it’s doubtful.”

  “Has she been in contact with you anymore?” he says.

  For a while, Randa was calling me quite often, but I haven’t heard from her in a while now.

  “Not lately, no,” I say.

  “Will you please let me know if she does or if Daniel remembers anything that might help us?” he says. “Please help me find my little girl and get her home safely.”

  If we ever find her, something we have so far not even come close to, I imagine her home will be prison or a mental institution. Not sure that’s the home he means.

  “I’ll do my best,” I say, and I mean it.

  215

  That night after we’ve put the girls to bed, Anna, Sam, Daniel, and I watch Trace Evers’ music video for the song about and featuring Mariah.

  The song is called Never Leave You Again and opens on a scene with Trace in prison and Mariah coming to visit. The two are separated by glass in a metal visiting booth and talk to each other on old fashion phone receivers.

  “I miss you, Daddy,” Mariah says into the phone as she holds her little hand up to the glass.

  She’s not only a truly beautiful photogenic little girl, but a natural entertainer, her performance relaxed and natural.

  “I can’t believe that energetic little beauty is dead,” Anna says.

  “I . . . want to . . . help . . . you burn . . . the . . . fucker . . . who . . . did it,” Sam says from her hospital bed.

  “I’m counting on all three of you to help,” I say.

  Without taking his eyes off the screen, Daniel nods. “Count on it.”

  “You know I’ll always be your Watson,” Anna says. “Or your huckleberry or whatever you want me to be.”

  While in the midst of an intensely emotional scene that has Trace apologizing to Mariah, guards come and drag him away, his hand yanked away from the glass, leaving only her little hand on the glass as she yells, “No, Daddy, don’t leave me. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Don’t leave me.”

  The music, which is mostly a beat, then comes up and by the time Trace starts to rap, he’s walking out of prison, Mariah running toward him from where she had been waiting with an older woman I believe we’re meant to think is Trace’s mother.

  “I will never leave you again,” Trace raps to a slow beat as Mariah jumps into his arms. “No, not ever. No, no matter what. I will never leave you again. My girl, my girl, my little girl.”

  After their tearful reunion, the two, father and daughter, take a tour of Atlanta together—zip-lining and rock climbing at SunTrust Park, eating cheeseburgers at the Varsity, climbing Stone Mountain.

  “You, you are my life,” Trace sings. “My reason for rapping, my reason for everything.”

  He sings from the empty stage at Chastain Park Amphitheater, her an audience of one with the best seat in the house.

  They tour the MLK Center and the Georgia Aquarium and eat giant pieces of chocolate cake at the Landmark Diner.

  “The old me is dead and gone. You got me rapping a brand new song.”

  In quick succession, shots of them at CNN, The World of Coca-Cola, The Fox, Underground, Piedmont Park fill the screen.

  “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused. But that’s over and done with now. You will never hurt again. I will never let you down. I will never leave you again. No not ever. No, no matter what.”

  When the video has concluded we all sit in silence for a few moments.

  Eventually I say, “Some of the lines from the song are referenced in the ransom note.”

  “In . . .ter . . . esting,” Sam says.

  “He seems to really love and adore her,” Anna says. “Not a lot of rappers with the image he portrays would write a song about their daughter and make a video of it.”

  I nod. I don’t know much about rap music and rarely listen to it, but I recall a hit Eminem song from maybe a decade ago being about his daughter.

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her,” Daniel says.

  “No it doesn’t,” Anna agrees.

  “It had quite a few views before the murder,” I say, “but since then it’s shot up by six million.”

  “The visibility and media coverage of this case is staggering,” Anna says.

  “And it’s just starting,” Daniel adds.

  As if to punctuate their points, when I exit out of YouTube and the TV returns to the cable feed, a news-as-entertainment talk show panel is discussing Mariah’s case.

  In the brief moments before I am able to turn it off all I hear from the so-called experts are self-serving statements and irresponsible speculation.

  “You don’t want to hear what they have to say?” Daniel asks.

  I shake my head. “Not yet. Not sure if I ever will, but if there comes a time when I feel like I need to know what the public is hearing, I want to know far more of the facts than I do now. And at the moment it’d be hard to imagine knowing less.”

  216

  With Anna asleep beside me, I strain to read the murder book by the narrow, pale light of a battery powered reading lamp on a clip.

  The base of the small light is clipped to the front cover of the binder, the flexible arm bending down to position the lamp just above the area I’m trying to read, but the binder is too big and bulky to be reading in bed and the book light is too small, its illumination too weak to make this entire exercise anything but frustrating.

  Next to me, Anna’s constant, rhythmic breathing is reassuring, her warm, bare leg touching mine both comforting and arousing.

  Both the fan and window unit are on low so the baby monitor, which is turned up to almost max volume, can be easily heard. Every breath and stir, toss and turn, of both girls is amplified, exaggerated, and I’m grateful for every decibel.

  Having Johanna here on the weekends during the school year is nice, but frustrating in its brevity. Having her here with us nearly all the time for nearly all the summer is heaven.

  Beside me on the nightstand are both of the weapons I wear each day, but with Chris in town, acting the way he is, posing the potential threats he does, it’s nice to have Daniel, who is also armed, sleeping in the living room.

  Daniel, the retired college professor who suffers from panic attacks and has never carried a weapon in his life, has said since his return from wherever Randa Raffield had him that he will never be unarmed anywhere anytime again.

  All of this recedes a bit as I read the murder book and am tra
nsported back into Mariah’s rented bedroom as her body is discovered.

  When Trace reaches under the bed and pulls out the broken body of the greatest love in his life he begins to wail in ways Arnie has never heard.

  And even as evidence is being contaminated and destroyed, Arnie finds it nearly impossible to tell the young anguished father to place the body of his daughter on the floor and leave the room.

  Behind him the K-9 dog is yelping and Ronnie Wyrick is saying something he can’t make out.

  Eventually, Ronnie orders the dog out and helps Arnie coax Mariah’s body out of Trace’s arms and Trace out of the room.

  Suddenly alone with the body, Arnie gets his first unimpeded glance at the unimaginable horror of what’s before him.

  Only partially visible because of the fleece throw she’s wrapped in, Mariah’s body tells two different tales. A glance at her flawless young face and she appears to be sleeping, but the black ropes coiling around her cold skin and connecting her wrists and ankles like deadly serpents attempting to consume each other contradict what that first glance seems to say.

  Part of the reason she appears to be asleep is there are no visible signs of violence, no obvious trauma or clear cause of death.

  Wake up, he wants to tell her. Please just wake up.

  But he knows with the certainty of skin that is cold to the touch that this exquisite, innocent child will never wake again in this life.

  “John,” Anna whispers. “John.”

  I open my eyes to see her hovering over me.

  “What’s wrong?” I say, pushing myself up.

  When the bed is harder than it’s supposed to be and doesn’t give when I push up on it, I realize I’m not in our bed at all, but on the floor in the girls’ room.

  The nightlight gives the small room a nice warm glow and Johanna and Taylor’s breathing sounds like the sweetest music I’ve ever heard.