Search for Her

by Rick Mofina

  “Can you pull them aside? We’re on our way to you.”

  “Will do.”

  As they walked through the complex, McDowell, phone to her ear, had reached dispatch with a request to run Frayer Ront Rykhirt’s name through law enforcement databases for any criminal history or outstanding warrants. They were in the lobby when McDowell’s tablet pinged with the first piece of information.

  It was from the California DMV. Rykhirt’s driver’s license loaded onto her screen. She stopped, copied his photo and cropped it, making a separate image of his headshot, along with a cropped headshot of him from Margot Winton’s video.

  “We’ll go with these, Dan.”

  They continued walking across the Sagebrush’s parking lot to the command center and vehicles where the Silver Sky people were clustered.

  At the command center, the detectives had Grace, John and Blake take turns individually looking at the photos. Not knowing which way their investigation would go, and needing to protect its integrity, Jackson, McDowell and Elsen provided no name or details about Rykhirt.

  They watched the family’s reactions, starting with Blake’s.

  “Do you know this man? Is he familiar in any way?” Elsen said.

  After examining the man’s face, Blake shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

  “Take a good look, son.”

  “I did. I don’t know him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. Why’re you asking me?”

  “That’s all we need for now.”

  Blake left and they brought John inside to see the photos.

  “No idea,” John said. “Why’re you asking if we know him?”

  “We’d like to talk to him. That’s all we can say,” McDowell said.

  “Seriously?” John said. “Tell me what you know.”

  “John, we’ll keep you posted.”

  John left, barely masking his frustration, which Grace noticed when she entered to view the photo. Fear stood in her bloodshot eyes as she scrutinized the man’s face.

  “I’ve never seen him before. Who is he? Why’re you showing us these pictures? Does he have something to do with Riley? What’s happened?”

  “Grace, take it easy.” McDowell and Jackson helped her to a seat inside the vehicle while Elsen brought in John and Blake so they could now speak to all of them.

  “We showed you this man’s pictures,” Elsen said, “because we have to know if he has any connection to Riley or your family.”

  “Why?” John asked. “Does he have Riley? One of those photos looked like it was taken in the Sagebrush. Who is he?”

  Elsen held up his palms. “We think he may have information we need.”

  “What kind of information?” Grace asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “Why would he have information about Riley?” Grace’s voice rose. “Was he in the truck stop?”

  Elsen waited a moment. “We’re going to issue an appeal to locate him. He’s what we call a person of interest.”

  “What? Oh God!” Grace groaned. “You think he has Riley!”

  McDowell’s phone, then Elsen’s vibrated but they continued with the family.

  “We’ve confirmed nothing. We need to keep investigating,” Elsen said, nodding to Jackson who then opened the door.

  “Folks,” Jackson said. “Your friends from San Diego are arriving. Let’s go back to the search and rescue van and let the detectives work.”

  Grace stood and stepped closer to Elsen and McDowell.

  “You asked me about the girl who was murdered near here a year ago. Now you’re asking me about this stranger.” Grace’s voice broke. “You tell me the truth right now. Is my daughter dead? You tell me!”

  In that moment, McDowell’s armor as a detective was pierced. Her professional distance evaporated and she was a mother meeting pain in another mother’s eyes.

  “Grace,” McDowell said, “we have no evidence to suggest Riley’s been hurt. All we know right now is that she’s missing and we want to talk to this man who may or may not have information to help us.”

  Grace searched McDowell’s face until she was satisfied she had heard the truth—or as much of it as they were going to tell her. Then John put his arm around his wife and after a long moment the family left.

  * * *

  In the time that followed, Elsen and McDowell remained in the command center checking messages and making calls.

  Within minutes more crucial information reached them, including key facts that put a knot in McDowell’s stomach.

  Frayer Ront Rykhirt, aged forty-eight, of Riverside, California, was a convicted sex offender whose crimes and acts involved young girls.

  Twenty-Nine

  Nevada

  A thirteen-year-old girl had been riding her bicycle through a park in Riverside, California, when she fell and hurt her knee and hand.

  Frayer Ront Rykhirt, who was in the park taking pictures of birds, came to her aid, offering to drive her home a few blocks away. Bleeding and upset, the girl agreed. But Rykhirt didn’t drive her home. He drove out of the neighborhood, taking the girl to an abandoned shed at the edge of the city where he touched her inappropriately while trying to remove her jeans.

  The girl struck him with a piece of brick, escaped and flagged down a car, driven by a retired judge and her husband who got a description and partial plate of Rykhirt’s vehicle when he tried to leave the area.

  He was arrested and charged.

  Riverside detectives investigating Rykhirt also linked him to another complaint from six months earlier. In that case, a man had lured a twelve-year-old girl from a suburban Riverside mall to the parking lot and into his car where he touched her inappropriately before she escaped. Packing tape, rope and a pillowcase were found under the front passenger seat of his car.

  Rykhirt was convicted and served eight years in prison for his crimes. He’d now been free for nearly three years and worked at odd jobs.

  McDowell shook her head as she finished reading Rykhirt’s history, while Elsen’s poker face twisted into the beginnings of a scowl.

  They were in the mobile command center, working fast, continuing their pursuit of Rykhirt on several fronts.

  He was five feet ten inches tall, weighed 175 pounds had brown hair, brown eyes and a small scar on his left temple where he was struck with the brick. His vehicle was a 2015 Nissan Versa, four-door hatchback, metallic blue with a valid California plate.

  They’d submitted the new information, including photos and a description of Rykhirt’s clothing, to all databases, including NCIC. They alerted California Highway Patrol, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, and Nevada Highway Patrol that Rykhirt was wanted as a person of interest in the case of Riley Jarrett. They’d requested Riverside PD pick him up at his address if they located him there, or sit on it with unmarked cars.

  Elsen also alerted Homicide to the new information concerning Rykhirt to run against what they had about Eva Marie Garcia’s unsolved murder.

  McDowell got a text advising that police efforts to locate Rykhirt through his cell phone GPS had so far been fruitless.

  “Let’s huddle up,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “I’ve been on the line with the AMBER coordinator to issue an updated alert, as well.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” McDowell said.

  “Once it’s out, we’ll manage calls to the tip lines and determine leads,” Jackson said. “We’ll keep our search and canvass operations going full bore here now that we have more volunteers. And we’ll give the heads-up to our public info people to manage the expected increase in media inquiries and coverage.”

  As they continued working, the detectives checked with the security people at the credit card companies and bank Rykhirt used for the most recent activity. It was a lucky break that Rykhirt had
used the card instead of cash when he did, the detectives thought, because it enabled them to identify him as the suspect in Riley’s disappearance.

  But now there was no new activity showing for his cards, nothing since he purchased duct tape and scissors at the Silverado.

  Duct tape and scissors.

  Now, staring at Rykhirt’s photos, rereading his criminal history, McDowell could only imagine why he bought those items at the time he saw Riley.

  And the fact he’d ceased using his plastic.

  He’s stopped leaving a trail.

  She looked at his face, knowing what he did, or tried to do, to those other girls.

  Then she swiped to the photos of Riley Jarrett.

  We’ve got to find you before it’s too late.

  Thirty

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  At that time, some thirty miles north of the command center, Metro patrol officers George Sike and Renee Bonnar wheeled into a Rebel Oil gas station near the south end of the Strip.

  They’d already responded to the new ATL/BOLO on their car’s terminal. It was an alert to “Be On The Lookout” and “Attempt To Locate” Frayer Ront Rykhirt, believed to be driving a blue 2015 Nissan Versa. They’d searched for the Nissan at several hotels in their zone while responding to other calls.

  Now, taking a break, they stepped into the Rebel outlet.

  “Lock into your vacation yet?” Bonnar secured the lid after refilling her reusable coffee mug.

  “Yup, I’m going fishing in British Columbia.” Sike got a can of Diet Coke and a chicken chipotle wrap from the cooler. “What about you, Ren?”

  “Going to my girlfriend’s wedding in Dallas.”

  “You might meet a fella there.” Sike winked.

  “No chance. I’m a bridesmaid and the dresses are hideous, a cowgirl theme with boots.”

  “Yeehaw.” Sike grinned, shaking his head.

  “I’m not joking, George. Cowgirl.”

  They returned to their car.

  Sike had bit into his wrap and opened his soda. Bonnar got behind the wheel and took another look at the BOLO on their terminal. She stared at photos of Rykhirt, descriptions of him and his car, a summary of his link to Riley Jarrett’s case and his criminal history.

  The officers already had two new calls waiting; someone had smashed the windshield of a Ferrari GTB at the Excalibur. The other call was a report of a stolen commercial dumpster from the Hooters off Duke Ellington Way.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” Bonnar said.

  “You don’t want to be a cowgirl bridesmaid.” Sike took a sip of soda.

  “Ha ha.” She nodded to the place across the street.

  Their marked patrol car was parked in the gas station’s lot at the busy intersection of Koval Lane and Tropicana Avenue, in the shadow of the MGM Grand. Across the street was the Dreamy Breeze Motor Inn.

  “On the way to our calls we can scan the Dreamy lot for the Nissan Versa and the subject.”

  Sike crumpled his wrapper and downed his Coke. “One more won’t hurt. Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  The Dreamy Breeze was a low-budget motel with five hundred units in two large two-story structures shaped like the letter E. The motel stretched across a quarter of a block and had eight zones that all looked the same. In each zone, most vehicles were parked a few feet from the doors to the rooms.

  For tourists the Dreamy Breeze was relatively clean. Occasionally guests found spiders, used towels in the sink, cigarette burns in the floor, gum smeared on the wall, hair in the shower, and some claimed they could see outside through the cracks in the door frame. But it had a nice pool in a palm-shaded courtyard, and without resort fees and other charges, it was affordable and a short walk from the Strip.

  Police were familiar with the inn for other reasons.

  Bonnar and Sike started in Zone 8. They slow-rolled by sedans, vans, pickups and motorcycles, searching for the blue Versa from California. They found a white one from Utah that was the wrong year. Moving on to the next zone, they saw a man and woman with towels, morning swimmers, heading to the pool.

  No Versa was parked in the zone’s lot.

  It was tedious work as they cruised through the next zone and struck out. They cut through a laneway to the other zones.

  Crawling along, checking vehicles, they saw an older woman walking a leashed white poodle. Bending to pick up her dog, she waved to them and came to Bonnar’s window.

  “There are so many discarded needles around here,” she said, cradling her dog. “It’s not safe for pets, or children.”

  “We know, ma’am,” Bonnar said.

  “Can’t you arrest somebody?”

  “We’re looking into it, ma’am.”

  “I’m on my way to complain to the manager.”

  “Have a good day, ma’am.”

  They moved on to the next zone and struck out again. As they continued on to the next zone, Sike began humming, “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” until Bonnar punched his shoulder.

  Turning into the second-last zone, it appeared no blue 2015 Nissan Versas were parked in the lot. They were leaving the zone when Sike glimpsed something blue.

  “Hold up, Renee.”

  “What?”

  “That big Ford F-150. Look, something blue’s parked on the other side of it. Get us closer.”

  Bonnar pulled up their patrol car, stopping broadside at the rear bumper of the small blue car, blocking it.

  “A metallic blue Nissan Versa,” Sike said. “Looks like a 2015, four-door hatch with a California tag.”

  Bonnar tapped on the keyboard, checked the ATL/BOLO. “That’s the plate. That’s him,” she said.

  With a surge of adrenaline, Sike took up the radio microphone, alerted dispatch that they’d located the subject’s vehicle.

  “How do you want to do this?” Bonnar asked.

  “Wait for backup, take things from there.”

  “But he could have her in there with him.”

  Sike considered this.

  “George, we need to grab him now.” Bonnar was calling the front desk on her phone.

  “What’re you doing, Ren? We should wait.”

  After a quick conversation with the manager, Bonnar confirmed Rykhirt’s room number.

  “He’s got one-forty-nine.”

  Sike absorbed the information as time ticked by.

  “George,” Bonnar said, “could you live with yourself if you knew he was in there hurting her while we’re sitting here?”

  Sike rubbed his chin hard, reached for the radio, updated dispatch.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They went to 149, taking tactical positions at the side of the door, weapons drawn. They could hear voices inside. Bonnar knocked on the door. No answer.

  An older man in the next room opened his door, eyes widening when he saw the officers.

  “Get back in your room, sir and get on the floor,” Sike said.

  The man’s door closed.

  Waiting a long moment, Bonnar knocked again louder. “Las Vegas Police! Open the door now!”

  No response.

  Sike and Bonnar exchanged glances, tightened their grips on their guns.

  They heard a girl’s scream from inside—facing an emergency situation, Sike kicked the door, splintering the frame, rushing in with Bonnar, their guns sweeping an empty room. Two empty beds, one unmade as if recently slept in—nothing under them. The bathroom and shower were empty, save for an open suitcase, clothing on chairs and toiletries on shelves.

  The TV was on, tuned to a horror movie.

  Take-out food wrappers and cups were on the small table next to an open laptop.

  Sike took his pen and tapped the space bar; the screen came to life.

  “Cripes.”

&nbs
p; The monitor filled with a gallery of images of naked young girls, some blindfolded and in bondage. Among the photos were frames of Riley Jarrett, taken of her in the lobby at the Silver Sagebrush complex.

  “My God, George!” Bonnar said from behind him. She was looking at the pictures.

  “All right,” Sike said. “We need to seal this room for processing and alert our sergeant.”

  Closing the damaged door behind them, the officers stepped outside and holstered their weapons.

  While catching their breath, preparing to make calls and get crime scene tape from their car, glass smashed to the ground nearby. Sike’s and Bonnar’s heads snapped toward the sound.

  A man had just rounded the corner of the zone and dropped a bag from a liquor store where it had shattered on the sidewalk.

  It was an instant of recognition.

  Frayer Ront Rykhirt stood there, mouth open, shocked at the sight of police.

  “Stay right there!” Sike shouted.

  Rykhirt vanished around the corner with Bonnar running after him, followed by Sike, who’d reached for his radio to alert dispatch.

  Rykhirt fled down the lane with Bonnar gaining. Ahead, Bonnar saw the woman walking toward them with her white poodle in her arms and in the direct path of Rykhirt just as approaching sirens could be heard.

  Despite being weighed down by her utility belt, her vest and gun, Bonnar was closing the gap on Rykhirt but she was too late. Striking like a cobra, he seized the woman, sliding an arm around her chest, another around her neck, sending her dog squealing to the ground. Metal flashed as he twisted so Bonnar could see the knife pressed against her throat.

  “No, please!” the woman screamed.

  “Back off, bitch!” Rykhirt shouted.

  Bonnar stopped, held up her palms. “Let her go. Don’t do this.” She took slow steps toward him. “Don’t make this worse.”

  The little dog yipped at Rykhirt’s ankles, and the woman sobbed as Rykhirt continued moving backward, keeping her locked in front of him as a shield, keeping the knife at her throat.

  “Please! You’re hurting me!”