Where the Lost Girls Go

by R. J. Noonan

  A heavy sigh rasped over the phone, a clear signal that Martha was put out. “Is that really necessary? This is a terrible time for us. My husband is on a seesaw of emotion between crippling guilt and hope of finding out that Lucy is alive. At the moment we’re organizing a search party to go into Stafford Woods.”

  With more than three thousand acres to search, the task would be daunting, though I understood the Jamesons’ need to try to find their daughter. “Maybe we can help,” I said. “I’ll talk to my boss to see if we can assign some officers to assist.”

  “We’d appreciate that. But we’ve got our hands full with this. Kent is overwrought, and I don’t have a single minute to meet with you right now.”

  “I’m sorry, but time is of the essence in this sort of investigation.” I told her I would talk to Omak about the search party and asked her to alert the staff that we would be there within the hour. She signed off with a growl of annoyance.

  When I hung up, Omak was no longer in his office. I found him in the community meeting room upstairs, dealing with a malfunctioning audio system that no one seemed to know how to operate. I brought him up to speed and told him about the search being organized by the Jamesons. “We’ve got Garcia and Brown sitting out there. I’ll let them know to join the search.”

  “Better coming from you than me,” I said, well aware that no one wanted to hear a change in orders from a rookie cop. “I was just about to head over to the Jamesons for interviews.”

  He looked at his watch. “I wanted to go with you, but I can’t get away right now.”

  “I don’t mind flying solo.”

  “Do you feel like you’re on solid footing?” he asked. “This is a delicate matter. Do you want to take someone along?”

  “I got this,” I said, confident in my interviewing skills. “I’m a polite person, and people seem to like talking with me. It’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  Police officers have little love for the media. Cops portray reporters as vultures, swooping down on innocent prey to steal a juicy story. And maybe the mistrust there is fueled by fear of being portrayed in the media as a bad cop, an abuser of authority.

  I know this. But I cannot deny the tingle of excitement I feel when I come across a news van with its antenna and camera unit and lights and famous on-air personality standing by in a crisp Columbia Sportswear jacket. A TV news crew makes you feel that fame is only a few words away, with a ticker-tape parade and presidential award to follow.

  Which is miles away from reality. I know this, too. Still, the glittery feeling prevailed as I slowed beside the “Five Alive!” news van on the main road, with its thirty-foot antenna pointed into the glum October sky in the clearing. This was probably the closest spot to the ranch for transmission, as once you turned off the road, tall trees blocked the sky from sight.

  I gave the crew a look, not unfriendly. They seemed to hold their breath as I rolled by. In the morning gloom, the woods seemed nearly as dark as night, and I had to pay close attention to make the proper turns. How had the Ghia made it out of here last night, navigating these twists and turns without the ability to slow down? That was assuming that the brakes had been cut before the car left the compound. If Lucy had left soon after the argument with her father, she would have had time to drive off the ranch, where anyone might have had a chance to cut the brake lines before the crash. I still needed to know more about that forty-five minutes.

  Just in front of the Jamesons’ sign was a van from channel seven, its bright-orange logo boasting “News Twenty-Four on Seven!” A cameraman was taking shots of the Jamesons’ wooden sign while a reporter spoke with him. Don Juan. Yep. His real name. Behind the van, a young woman with acorn-brown hair paced along the roadside weeds, her cell phone to her ear. I pulled up alongside her and rolled down the window.

  “Nat.” I smiled. “How’s it going?” My friend Natalie had been given the job of assistant producer as a reward for her two-year internship with channel seven last year.

  “I’ll call you back,” Natalie said into the phone. “The cops are here.” She clicked off and leaned into the car to give me a hug. “Oh, my God, you look so smart in that uniform. How are you?”

  I gave her a squeeze. “Good.” I was dying to spill about my first case as well as my two—yes, two!—encounters with Randy Shapiro in the last two days. Natalie would understand how hard it was for me to ask him to meet for coffee sometime. Natalie would also have invaluable insight into the meaning of his answer: “Yeah. I guess we could do that.” His lack of enthusiasm had been a concern.

  But I was on duty. “I’m fine. I wish I could talk, but I’m on the clock.”

  “So you’re working on this one?”

  “Yes. But I can’t say a single word.”

  “I know, I know. But no one is getting anywhere with Kent Jameson. One of our producers used to have a solid connection to the wife, but she’s not answering calls. No one on the estate is.”

  “They must have a loyal staff.” In high-profile cases there always seemed to be one employee or friend who was so enamored of the media that they leaked information under the label of an “anonymous source.”

  Natalie looked down the road behind me. “Are more cops behind you? The big brass?”

  “They’re back at the precinct, setting up for a press conference.” Omak had described the impromptu briefing as “a hot mess” and unnecessary since we hadn’t yet identified the victim, and at this early stage, he wasn’t going to release any information on the investigation. Still, Chief Cribben wanted to appear in control, and the mayor needed a chance to appear on camera with his signature sad puppy expression of sympathy. The whole thing had burned Omak, who knew his time would have been better spent here at the ranch, interviewing and observing. “I’m surprised you’re not there,” I told Natalie.

  “Another team is covering it.” She glanced past the mailbox, toward the ranch. “We’re looking for the family’s reaction. The personal angle.”

  Drama, grief, tears, and sorrow that would play on an endless Internet loop or on the evening news as people were sorting through mail or adding butter to the mashed turnips. In some ways, Natalie’s job was more difficult than mine.

  “Plus we’re following up on reports of some indigents living in Stafford Woods,” Natalie said. “Some off-grid hippies who’ve been squatting for months now. Some of the neighbors are concerned. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Not on my radar,” I admitted. “But I’d better get going.” I wished my friend luck and headed up the road again.

  Inside the compound, I parked the patrol car beside a tree off to the side of the house and emerged from to car to the silence of the crisp October morning. The door of the mansion was answered by a short Hispanic woman wearing a full green apron. Fiftyish, I guessed, she had soft dark eyes and dark hair streaked with gray, which was pulled back into a braid. Her bold brows were lifted, her movements tense. I felt she was afraid of me.

  “Are you Juana?” When she nodded, I added, “I’m Officer Laura Mori.”

  Her fingers twisted and coiled the string of her apron. “Is there news?”

  “No, nothing yet. I’m here to interview you and the rest of the staff.”

  “Right now? Are you kidding me?” Disappointment shadowed her eyes. “This is not going to be good. I don’t think they slept at all last night, and Mr. J, he’s giving up. Right now, they’re over in the office with an undertaker. I never expected this.” She pressed her folded hands to her lips, as if in momentary prayer. “Such a terrible thing. First the mother and then little Lucy. I don’t know how Mr. J will bear it.”

  I glanced through the window at the quiet village across the way. Best to let the meeting run its course and use the time to interview the housekeeper.

  “It might be best for us to talk now,” I said, nodding toward the great room. “Do you want to sit down for a bit?”

  Her frown indicated that she wasn’t comfortable with that,
but she deferred. “Let’s go to the dining room. This way, if they come, they don’t look through the window and see me sitting like a queen in their home.”

  Juana paused to pick up a bag of linens to take with her. She gestured for me to sit as she took a seat at the back of the table with a view of the door.

  From my seat, I could see the view that made this hill so valuable—beyond a swath of green, the vista gave way to the river below, valleys, rooftops, and, in the distance, the magnificent white peak of Mt. Hood.

  “Are you going to tell Mrs. Martha the things I tell you?” she asked, drawing my attention back to the moment.

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t.” She worked as she spoke, folding and stacking napkins. “I can’t lose my job after all these years. Thirteen years with Mr. J—since he divorced Mrs. Candy. And now I’m too old to go from house to house.”

  “Do you think Mr. Jameson would fire you after thirteen years?”

  “Not Mr.,” she said. “Mrs.”

  “You mentioned the mother dying,” I said. “Did you mean Lucy’s mother?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Candy.”

  “Did you know her?”

  “I met her when she visited Lucy, but I don’t know her. I work only for Mr. Jameson, but I know Lucy since she was a little thing.” She stopped folding to press a palm to her chest. “My heart, inside, it’s breaking.”

  “I can’t imagine. Were you close to Lucy?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Nobody’s close to Lucy. But I take care of her. Like a grandmother.”

  I reached into the pile of linens. “Mind if I help?”

  She seemed skeptical. “Mrs. Martha, she likes them just so. You know?”

  “I’ve worked in my father’s restaurant,” I said, imitating her moves, folding on the diagonal and then rolling. “I’ve folded a lot of napkins. Were you here at dinnertime last night when Lucy argued with her father?”

  “No. I went home. But I see them fight before. Lucy, she’s like the sky through the window. Sometimes bright and sunny, sometimes dark and very stormy.”

  I continued folding, following Juana’s technique. “Was she always that way?”

  “She was a sweet little girl. But Lucy and Mrs. Martha . . .” She formed fists and pressed her knuckles together. “They’re like this. Very stubborn and very mean to each other.”

  It wasn’t unusual for kids to reject a stepparent, but Juana seemed to think that Martha was just as obnoxious as Lucy. Clearly Juana had no love for the boss’s wife.

  “In the last few months, do you think Lucy was depressed?”

  “Not happy, but not so depressed.” She pointed out toward the road. “This accident? It was not suicide, if that’s what you’re thinking. Lucy, she likes to laugh and be with her friends too much for that.” Juana’s face grew tense, holding back tears. “I remember when she learned to ride her little pink bike. She loved to pedal her bike round and round the lane. She would be going all day, swimming and riding horses. She was a very happy girl.”

  “Growing up can change a person’s perspective. Especially for teenagers. That’s such a roller coaster ride.” I thought of my own adolescence, the adrenaline surge of a job well done juxtaposed with a feeling of failure so acute that I could not breathe. The joy of saving someone and the panic because I could not save myself. Even with two supportive parents, I had struggled; it sounded like Lucy wasn’t so lucky.

  “Did she have friends?”

  “Many friends, but one at a time. Mrs. Martha, she don’t like them. There was always a girl staying here.”

  “I was wondering, how did she meet kids if she didn’t go to school?”

  Juana wasn’t sure. With the pride of a grandmother, she told me that Lucy had many friends in grade school. Her disapproval was obvious when she talked about Lucy leaving school. Juana had two children in college, and she believed education was important in America.

  “And now, we are done.” She pointed to the empty basket and rose from the table. “You see? Many hands make light work. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And you won’t tell?”

  “My lips are sealed,” I said. Martha Jameson did not need to know that the woman serving as her housekeeper viewed her as stubborn and mean-spirited. “And I want to make sure you know that the woman killed in the crash might not be Lucy. We haven’t been able to identify the body yet.”

  “Not Lucy?”

  “We don’t know yet. The Jamesons seem to be assuming their daughter is dead, but we don’t know for sure.”

  “Mmm.” She made the sign of the cross. “Even though it’s selfish, I pray it’s not her.”

  I nodded, knowing that one family’s good news would be another’s tragedy.

  Juana saw me to the door and pointed me toward Martha’s office. She told me that I would find Mr. and Mrs. there, along with the undertaker and Martha’s assistant, Talitha Rahimi. Andy would be over at the barn, and Carlos would be here and there. She gave me his cell phone number in case I couldn’t find him on the compound.

  When the door closed, I took out my notebook and jotted down details of my interview with Juana Lopez. I hadn’t wanted to distract her by taking notes, and I didn’t think I would forget any of the details or nuances of our conversation. Juana was clearly in Kent Jameson’s camp and a supporter of Lucy.

  Dread weighed me down as I approached the little village. It was a terrible thing to interrupt a family’s meeting with their funeral director, and if last night was any indication, I could expect a dramatic reaction from Kent Jameson. High emotion was not something I had much experience with. Although my father poured on the animation for his customers, when bad tidings rolled in, both my parents hid sorrow behind a gentle smile. In Japanese culture, a smile might be expressing happiness or hiding confusion or sorrow. A smile was a thing of mystery.

  With my face fixed in a neutral, respectful expression, I knocked on the door of the building containing Martha’s office.

  The door was opened by a short woman with an emerald-colored scarf covering her face and neck. Her dark eyes grew round at the sight of the police uniform—a reaction I’ve noticed in many law-abiding citizens who respect police officers and have a flash of worry that they’ve been caught doing something wrong.

  “Officer, can I help you?”

  When I explained that I was here to interview the Jamesons and their staff, she stepped back and ushered me in. “Are you Martha’s assistant?” I asked as I stepped inside.

  She gave a brisk nod. “Talitha Rahimi. They’re quite busy, organizing the search. Please wait here and I’ll check with her.” I stepped into a lovely reception area with twin loveseats and a velvet couch set in a U shape to face the greenery beyond the windows. The space gave me the impression of elegance and professionalism, and I sensed that this building was where most of the Jamesons’ business was transacted, leaving their home to be a home.

  A moment later, I was escorted into a posh conference room with walnut paneling, leather chairs, and a long, shiny wood table. The meeting was in progress, but most participants seemed to take a breath, assessing as I entered.

  Pale and wild haired, Kent sat in a chair staring up at a large drop-down screen showing a map of Stafford Woods; he seemed so dazed and distraught that I doubted he noticed me at all. Martha stood behind him massaging his shoulders.

  The two men who sat opposite the Jamesons were familiar to me. One wore a khaki-colored jacket with a Sunrise Lake emblem on the shoulder that identified him as an employee of the parks department. I recognized the other man, bald with a full white Santa beard, as the owner of Mac’s Diner, an offbeat restaurant that was half diner, half Mexican cantina.

  “Hi, Mac.” I introduced myself, and the man with the parks department identified himself as Chad Hunter.

  “Are you going to be helping us with our search?” Mac asked.

  “Officers Brown and Garcia should be here
soon to work with you.” I nodded at the map on the screen, the miles of dark green indicating dense, isolated forest. This was a tangent from my task at hand, but I’d had some training in search and rescue. “Are you planning to go out as one group or split up?”

  Chad talked me through the plan to separate into smaller groups that would enter the woods at various trailheads and check the paths for signs of trampled brush or any indication Lucy went off trail. It seemed like a sound approach for the thirty or so volunteers as well as rescue dogs from the mountain recovery team.

  “Are these search teams assembling here?” I asked, concerned that they would disturb a potential crime scene at the ranch.

  “Martha here has asked for privacy during this difficult time,” Mac explained. “The volunteers will meet at a staging area near the barn. We’ll start setting up around noon.”

  That gave me a few hours to check out the barn area before it got trampled by invaders.

  “It’s important that you contact me or one of the other officers if you find anything.” I gave the men my cell number as Talitha came in to announce the arrival of the other officers.

  Brown worked the men, shaking hands and making small talk about hunting while Garcia hung back with her usual lemon-sour expression. Something about those two made me feel that we were working on opposing teams.

  We exchanged information, and they decided to head over to Mac’s Diner to “talk with the volunteers.” I suspected Brown saw a free breakfast in the deal, but I was relieved to get them away from the Jameson compound for now.

  After they left, I took a seat adjacent to Kent at the head of the conference table, wanting to be on Jameson’s level but not opposing him. Sometimes body language was everything.

  “It’s good that they’re searching the woods,” I said. “We need to do everything we can right now to find your girl.”

  Kent’s head snapped over to me, as if he’d just noticed my presence. “I fear it’s an exercise in futility.”