by Rick Mofina
“We’re just a family. My daughter’s missing, and all you do is keep asking me horrible questions!”
“We’re doing all we can to find Riley,” McDowell said.
“But we need you to tell us the truth,” Elsen said.
“I’m telling you the truth!”
“Are you?” he said.
Her nerves tightening, Grace brushed at the tears trickling down her face as McDowell and Elsen stared at her.
* * *
The detectives finished talking to Grace then entered John’s room and dismissed the observing officer.
“This is nuts!” John stood with his handcuffed hands before him. “I want lawyers for all of us!”
“Please sit down,” McDowell said. “You don’t need a lawyer.”
“You’ve read us our rights.”
“John,” Elsen said, “you haven’t been formally charged with anything. Sit down. Please.”
Hesitating, trying in vain to discern deceit, John sat.
“Why were drugs in your RV?” Elsen asked.
“I don’t know anything about that. It’s not our RV, it’s a rental. Maybe you should question the rental agency in San Diego, or the people who rented the thing before we did.”
“Are you transporting drugs for someone?” McDowell said. “Are they holding Riley? Who’re you delivering to in Pittsburgh? Or are there drop-offs along the way across the country?”
“Now is the time to tell us the truth, John,” Elsen said. “So we can find Riley.”
John shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell this is. We told you the truth. We made a mistake. We accidentally left Riley behind and now we can’t find her.”
“Do you owe drug people a debt?” Elsen asked.
“Are you listening to me?” John took a breath and shook his head. “I know nothing about drugs in the RV. We stopped in Fontana, we parked here. A lot of people could have had access to the RV.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I’ve told you the truth.” He struggled to keep from breaking down, shaking his head. “Our daughter’s missing and you waste time with this BS.”
John stared at the wall for a long moment before turning to the detectives.
“If she ends up dead, it’ll be your fault!”
* * *
“Do you think we’ll find Riley?”
Blake waited for McDowell and Elsen to answer.
“We find nearly everyone we look for, son,” Elsen said.
“What about the people you don’t find?”
“Some people don’t want to be found,” Elsen said. “Not every case ends happily, like in the movies.”
“But how do you know Riley’s not dead?”
Elsen and McDowell traded a glance.
“Because we’ve found no evidence to even suggest she’s been hurt,” McDowell said. “What we need is the truth about why drugs were in the RV.”
Blake nodded.
“Will you tell us the truth?” Elsen said. “Because if you don’t, you could be spending the night in the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.”
“It’s not a nice place,” McDowell said. “Tell us about the drugs, Blake.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I don’t know anything about that.”
“This is not the time to lie, son,” Elsen said.
“I’m not lying. The RV’s a rental. I don’t know anything about drugs.”
“Blake—” McDowell moved closer to him “—is someone holding Riley? Are they threatening to hurt her if you tell us your family is shipping drugs?”
Blake looked at his handcuffs.
“No.” His voice was teary and he sniffed. “We just need to find her.”
* * *
After the detectives had finished questioning Grace, John and Blake, they removed their handcuffs. No drugs had been found; they were not being charged.
“You’re free to go,” Elsen said. “Carl Aldrich will make arrangements for you to stay here, if you like. Get some rest. People will be searching through the night. We’ll update you as soon as new information arises.”
John glared at them in stunned silence as Grace wiped at her tears. Blake looked at his parents then the detectives.
Twenty-One
Nevada
The warm night air carried the drone of interstate traffic across the parking lot as McDowell and Elsen walked to the mobile command center.
Lieutenant Shanice Jackson was waiting outside for them. “There’s coffee; we’ve got drinks and sandwiches in the fridge.”
Inside, the other officers continued coordinating the investigation at their workstations to the clicking of keyboards and soft, static-filled radio dispatches, undistracted as the detectives selected refreshments and left.
“Anything on the Amber?” McDowell asked.
“A lot of tips that went nowhere, like a woman arguing with a teenage girl at a mall in Henderson. Not even close to being Riley Jarrett. Then someone spotted a girl with a Friends T-shirt at McCarran but she was twenty years old and from Peru.”
McDowell and Elsen nodded wearily.
“So what’s your lead?” Jackson asked.
“Our dog picked up the smell of narcotics in the RV’s undercarriage, but we found no drugs.” Elsen bit into his ham and cheese sandwich.
“What’s the family say?” Jackson said.
“They deny it. We couldn’t hold them on anything, never really intended to. We released them.” McDowell started on a bagel and egg salad. “But we don’t think we’re getting the full story from them.”
“You think they’re covering up?” Jackson said.
“Could be a drugs-ransom thing.” Elsen took another bite. “Could be a runaway, an abduction. Could be anything at this stage.”
“What else you got?”
“Not much. We’ll keep digging into their background. We’ll get the Digital Forensic Lab to work on the girl’s phone. It could be the most valuable piece of the puzzle.” Elsen took the last few bites. His water bottle swished as he drank.
“And the family?” Jackson asked. “After you released them, where’d they go?”
“They’ll stay at the Sagebrush motel,” McDowell said. “Rogan and Aldrich are helping them.”
“You got any intel or video for us?” Elsen asked.
“Nothing yet. A couple of unfounded sightings that went nowhere. But the canvass continues. Ready?”
Jackson logged into the case file through the exterior forty-inch LED TV and point by point she updated the detectives on all that had been done, was being done, and was going to be done before wrapping up.
“So in addition to all of that, we’ve blasted her info everywhere on social media, coordinated with the FBI’s task force,” Jackson said. “We’re making a full-court press. We’ll keep going through the night. Silver Sky Search and Rescue will be here at dawn. We’ve already had media calls. By morning this search will get a whole lot bigger.”
* * *
As Elsen and McDowell drove back to Las Vegas on Interstate 15, the night sky thudded.
They looked up to the array of low-flying colored lights of the Metro Police Search and Rescue helicopter heading to the truck stop to resume combing the desert with its infrared camera and powerful searchlight.
McDowell’s face then glowed in the light of her tablet as she cued up files, reports and statements.
“Let’s run things down,” she said.
Elsen sipped coffee, concentrating on the highway. “Go.”
“We’ll get the girl’s phone to our people in the digital lab.”
“That’s key,” Elsen said.
“I’ll try contacting her friends to see who she was talking to, what she was saying before this happened.”
“Good,” Elsen said.
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“We’ll follow up with Narcotics and the RV rental agency, and keep in touch with the Nugget in case she went there, and San Diego in case she went home.”
“And, we’ve got to go deeper on the family’s background, see if John’s got anything more than a speeding ticket,” Elsen said. “He lost his wife and daughter in a boating accident and Grace’s first husband was a traffic fatality. We need to keep that stuff in mind.”
“Yes, and we’ll reach out to San Diego, to Child Protective Services.” McDowell swiped and typed. “We’ll look at their jobs, financial situation and their history, coworkers, friends, neighbors.”
“We need to get the family to give us a list of everyone who was at their farewell party,” Elsen said. “Some of that can’t be done until tomorrow. What about the traffic cameras posted along here? They capture anything?” Elsen nodded to the highway.
“Zip. Jackson confirmed with DOT.”
“What about Fontana?”
“The log says Fontana PD’s taken action on the Chevron to interview staff and check for video of the family. That’s still pending. Nothing from California Highway Patrol, San Bernardino or Riverside.”
McDowell’s tablet pinged.
“Just got a message from security at the Nugget. No sightings of Riley Jarrett there. They’ll remain on alert for her.”
“What about the casinos, McCarran, all of that?”
McDowell swiped and shook her head. “Other than the Amber stuff, nothing from them, or any of the transportation services.” She reached for her coffee. “This drug angle complicates things, Dan.”
“I know. It could be the critical factor. Maybe Narcotics will have something.” Elsen thought for a moment. “Let’s assume the family’s truthful and we look at the situation leading up to Riley’s disappearance.”
“She’s having a fit about the move, about missing the love of her life,” McDowell said.
Elsen continued. “So when she finds out they’ve left her at the truck stop, she’s furious. Maybe she had some sort of plan to run away and join her boyfriend?”
“Even though he’s out of the country?” McDowell said.
Elsen rubbed his chin. “Yeah, we’ll look into that.”
“Then we’ve got Garcia, unsolved,” McDowell said. “And look at the size of the Silver Sagebrush, the volume of people in an out of the place. It’s perfect for human traffickers and she’s a perfect target—she’s upset, someone notices, agrees to help, maybe offers her a ride.”
“I know.” Elsen turned to the darkness for a moment. “I know.”
The next few miles passed in silence.
They’d planned to return to headquarters. As they neared the city’s edge, McDowell made a phone call.
“Hi, Cathy,” she said. “Is he still awake? No, no, don’t wake him. Listen, it looks like I’ll be working late then up early in the morning...can you keep him for a bit longer? I’m really sorry... Okay thanks so much.” She ended her call.
“You’re lucky to have someone like that,” Elsen said.
“I am. She’s a good friend.”
“Forgive me for prying, partner, but how’s custody working with your ex—what’s his name again? Cheating Bastard?”
McDowell smiled and shook her head. “He consistently breaches the terms, and I think he’s going to marry Lolita and she’ll want to adopt Jack.”
“Oh no.”
“I anticipate future court appearances,” McDowell said. “And what about you? It’s been two years. You seeing anyone?”
“Me? Naw. I’m happy with Daisy. She’s a good listener.”
“Just you and your retriever?”
“And memories of my wife.”
“That’s sweet, but you can’t live like that forever. You gotta find a girl, reconnect with the world.”
“The world.” Elsen dipped the word in bitterness. “I’ve got issues with the world.”
He stared ahead at the emerging skyline, the interstate elevated as it paralleled the Strip, offering a view of the casinos. The forty-three-story Mandalay Bay hotel rose to the right.
Elsen looked at it, blinking several times.
They both knew what was churning inside him.
McDowell had been out of town on October 1, 2017. Elsen was in the city that day, off duty when a friend had called him at home.
“My buddy called and said we’ve got an active shooter at Mandalay Bay.” Elsen had recounted the night for McDowell, opening up about it sometime later, over coffee at a Del Taco outlet on Charleston. “I called dispatch, was on hold for nearly a minute. That never happens. I turned on my radio and I could hear guys, the intense emotion in their voices. I could hear bursts of gunfire. I drove down there. All you could see and hear were lights and sirens on the freeway. The sirens going nonstop, like one prolonged scream. Everybody responded. Had to be a thousand cops down there. It was a war zone, the victims, the blood, the sirens. I’ll never forget that night for as long as I live.”
Tonight, as they passed Mandalay Bay, Elsen said nothing as he turned his eyes forward, focusing on their destination a few miles away, the exit that would get them to Martin Luther King Boulevard and headquarters.
They planned to do more work, then go home, grab some sleep then get back on the case.
“Look,” McDowell said.
The FBI-led Child Exploitation Task Force had access to digital billboards across the city and was supporting the investigation. The display was one of the actions they’d taken.
Riley Jarrett’s face smiled down at them from a large billboard.
Staring hard at it as they passed, McDowell prayed that they would find her.
Alive.
Not like Eva Marie Garcia.
Twenty-Two
Nevada
The Desert Cloud Motel took up much of the northeast section of the Silver Sagebrush, evoking an art deco style with its glass brick and ceramic tile face.
Aldrich led Grace, John and Blake to room 157 on the ground floor then swiped the key card through the lock.
The room had two queen beds and was spacious. The interior door was open to an identical connecting room with two more beds.
“You have a suite with adjoining rooms.” Aldrich gestured. “We’re sorry police would not release your luggage from the RV.”
“Why not?” John asked.
“I can’t answer that,” Aldrich said. “But we took the liberty of guessing approximate sizes of each of you and provided these items, donated by some of our outlets.”
T-shirts, sweats, shorts and underwear neatly folded with the tags still on, and toiletries in bags, lay on the bed in four separate piles. Grace touched her hand to the one for Riley.
“Food is on the way. Everything is being taken care of. You’re our guests,” Aldrich said.
He gave them keys, and for a moment held Grace’s hand in his, squeezing it with encouragement.
“We’ll find her,” he said.
A soft knock sounded at the door. Aldrich answered and directed a woman wearing a Sagebrush shirt and carrying a large pizza box and two brown paper bags to set them on the table.
“Thank you, Melinda.” Then to the family, Aldrich said: “Please, eat, get some rest. The search will go through the night. If there’s news, we’ll alert you. You have my numbers. You have everyone’s numbers. If there’s anything you need, call me.”
“Thank you.” Grace managed a teary smile.
Aldrich closed the door behind him, leaving them with their nightmare, finding a degree of comfort in the fact the detectives freed them without charges.
They stood in the quiet without speaking.
Blake’s stomach yowled. They hadn’t eaten a meal all day, and the aroma of baked onions, cheese and pepperoni proved too much for him. He lifted the lid of the pizza box, tu
gged out a slice and bit into it. John did the same.
Grace lowered herself slowly, sitting on the edge of the nearest bed, bandaged hands in her lap, holding her phone, turning the day over and over in her mind. She looked at John and Blake, at their bandages, their scrapes; their heads bowed, eating silently, reverently, like mourners at a funeral reception.
John looked back at Grace, seeing fear in her eyes.
She detected shame and guilt in his for needing to eat. Recognizing her uneasiness, he put a slice of pizza on a paper plate then offered it to her. “You should eat, Grace.”
She refused the plate. John set it on the bed beside her.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “My God—drugs! How could they think we’re involved with drugs?”
“Grace.” John’s voice was soft.
“Do you know anything about drugs?” She glared at them. “Does that have something to do with Riley? You tell me the truth! Blake?”
“Me?” He stopped eating. “No!”
“Why should I believe you?” she said. “None of this would’ve happened if you’d checked on her when I asked you to instead of lying about it!”
Blake set his half-eaten slice on the table and looked away.
“Grace, he made a stupid mistake,” John said. “He’s apologized.”
“And what about you?” she said. “What do you know about drugs?”
“Grace, stop.” John remained calm. “It’s all a mistake. It’s got nothing to do with us. A lot of people rented the RV before us.”
She was breathing fast.
“Please,” John said, “eat something and get some rest.”
“No.” Shaking her head, she said: “I can’t do this. I can’t sit here eating, not knowing where she is. We need to keep looking for her.”
“Yes, but right now you need to eat and rest. You can’t help when you’re exhausted.” John noticed something in his clear plastic toiletry bag. He opened it, took out a vial of over-the-counter sleeping pills, shook out two for Grace. “Take these. Get some sleep, then we’ll look for her in the morning.”
