by Kendel Lynn
“Right, you called me. I dove right in.”
“You answered my question.”
“Which was?”
“Is it time to pick a side?”
He paused. The faint sound of papers shuffling filtered through the phone. “I reckon it’s time to pick a side. We could still be wrong. A good chance we will be wrong. She could be rolling into Sedona when the sun goes down.”
I nodded, knowing full well he couldn’t see me. “Thanks for taking my call.”
“Any time, Elliott. Any time.”
I wrapped up my Big House business, stuck my notes inside my faded jean messenger bag, and trotted out to the Mini. I’d barely fastened my seatbelt when my phone rang.
“Elliott, honey, you on your way over to the Cake & Shake?” Millie Poppy asked.
“I am. What’s up?” Ready to hear her question the Sheriff’s search party plan and what it really meant for Daphne’s disappearance.
“We called the Sheriff,” she said. “Farrah Something, I don’t know her family, is here raising holy hell over Daphne’s beads.”
“I’ll be speeding over the bridge in five,” I said.
“I’m not sure what you can do for us, but other than the Sheriff, you’re the only person I thought to call.”
“Of course. I’m here for you, Millie Poppy.”
The Cake & Shake occupied a refurbished Victorian house on Cabana about a mile north of Juliette’s apartment complex in Summerton. Its black shutters popped against the toasted almond clapboard siding. A sign with the hand-painted logo hung over the railing of a wraparound porch.
The inside décor was whimsy meets diner. Turquoise vinyl enveloped booth bottoms and stool tops. Bright yellow ceramic pendant lamps hung from the beadboard ceiling, and the most luscious cakes formed a decadent parade in a wide glass case. A chalkboard menu covered the entire right entry wall, detailing coordinating shakes properly paired with each cake flavor.
It was mid-afternoon and it was packed. Two college-aged kids in aprons worked the front, while two more worked the shake machines behind them on the counter. Every table, booth, and square foot of floor space held people. Most in Find Daphne t-shirts. Millie Poppy, Sam, and Tucker were talking to a group near the front window with Alex standing off to the side.
A woman, six feet tall with a mile of flowing dark brown hair, blocked the swinging door to the kitchen. Her voice was loud and her pitch high.
“Tess, you better get back out here, I’m not even close to being done,” she yelled. “You’re a witness. Stop being such a coward.”
Millie Poppy grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the woman. “That’s Farrah,” she said. “She was on Isle with the girls. She’s hotter than a wet cat been sprayed by the hose. Though I can barely keep up as to why.”
Farrah turned toward us. “I’ll tell you why. Juliette and Daphne knocked off my beading technique and my braiding technique, and chickenshit Tess knows it. And if she doesn’t come clean, I will sue her and Juliette and the Cake & Shake and anyone else I can think of.”
The kitchen door opened into Farrah, and Juliette pushed through. “Well, get out of the way if you want someone to come out.” She held a two-tiered pink cake topped with strawberries and glaze. “We didn’t knock anything off, and you know it. It’s my dress and her beads and you can’t sue.”
“Her beads?” she said. “Your dress? No. Just no. Tess, stop hiding in the kitchen. Tell her it’s my design. If you think I’ll let you leave me out of this, Juliette, you’re as dumb as you are blind. I’ve spoken to Jona. My name will be listed in that magazine whether you like it or not.”
“Does your drama have an intermission?” Juliette said. “I’m losing interest and can’t follow along.”
“Oh really? Follow this: Your bridal gown is a rip off. I’ll sue for damages if I’m not named as the designer. You and Daphne used my technique without permission. I’m getting the credit.”
“You can’t own a technique,” Juliette said. “There aren’t that many ways to bead something.”
“What? You think baking is complicated? Anyone can bake a cake. I mean, seriously, they sell boxes of your stale ass mix at the 7-11. You’re nothing special.”
A woman in line gestured to the cash register. “Are you going to order?”
“Are you under the impression I’m speaking to you?” Farrah said. “Because I am not.”
“I’m only asking—”
“Worry about yourself right now,” Farrah said.
Zanna Fischer pushed into the room, ignoring the shouting Farrah. She zoomed in on Alex, raising her voice above Farrah’s. “Hey, what the hell? I been calling you for two days.”
“I haven’t had my phone—”
“You don’t have a phone?” Zanna said. “Your girlfriend is missing and you don’t have a phone?”
“I didn’t say that,” Alex said. “I just don’t have it with me. But she obviously left town.”
“Not without telling me,” Zanna said.
“She didn’t tell you everything,” Alex said.
“Well, she sure as shinola didn’t tell you everything,” Zanna said. “How could you let her get caught up in this wedding?”
Alex turned away from Zanna to face the counter. “Daphne was happy for you, Juliette.”
“Daphne would’ve rather been in Iraq than at your wedding,” Zanna snapped at Juliette.
“So no word from Bo?” I interjected.
“Wait, I’m not done,” Farrah yelled over Zanna’s head. “Juliette, I’m calling the magazine.”
“Don’t you yell at me,” Zanna replied. “If you’re not here to hang flyers for Daphne, then you can get out.”
Farrah glanced at the crowd, perhaps noticing the folks in Daphne t-shirts outnumbered her, limiting her sympathetic appeal, and whipped her hair around like a professional. Luckily, all cakes were covered. “You know what? I can’t. Nope. This is so not over,” she called over her shoulder and stormed out.
“It’s been almost three days,” Zanna said. Her eyes were painted in shadows and highlighted with worry lines. “She should’ve been to Sedona by now. She would’ve called by now. I’d think she’da called someone by now. We should be doing more by now.”
“We are,” I said. “Let’s take this to the parking lot.”
“Yes, agreed,” Juliette said. “Everyone, please, stay inside only if you need to place an order. We’ll run shakes out to you.”
The Sheriff had just pulled open the door when he heard her announcement. He held it wide as people streamed onto the porch.
“I’ll call the women’s league, get them and their grandkids over here,” Millie Poppy said. “We need the help.”
“What was that about?” I pulled Juliette to a corner of the porch. “With Farrah?”
“My dress, her beads, she’s jealous, I’m exhausted.”
“And the magazine? She sounds pretty upset with you and Daphne.”
“Me and my wedding dress will be featured in a magazine, and she can’t stand that she’s not included. On the Isle, she wanted to be in every shot. Every conversation, every date. Watch, by the end of today, she’ll be Daphne’s best friend crying on the news devasted over her disappearance.”
“Do you have her number?” I asked. “I should talk to her about Daphne.”
“She’s a liar and an opportunist. Talk to Jona first. Though take that with a tub of salt, too.”
Zanna’s phone rang and she answered it in a rush, hurrying down the porch steps. “Bob, I can’t hear you, hold on a sec.”
“Noted,” I said to Juliette, then followed Zanna to the sidewalk.
She put the call on speaker. “Okay, I’m here, is she there? Is Daph with Bo?”
“Zanna, daggummit, calm down,” he said, his gruff voice filled with the exasperation on
e only used with an ex. “You’re getting all hot and bothered over nothing.”
“Nothing!” Zanna screamed. “Your daughter is missing, you old fool. I need your half of the reward money.”
“Reward money? Zanna, it’s embarrassing enough that Daph’s love life was splashed all over the tv. This is just making it worse. The girl’s humiliated. Now it’s time to give her some space.”
“Space? Have you lost your damn mind? No one has heard from her. She’s missing. You’re supposed to be tracing her route to Sedona. We’re trying everything to find her.”
“Don’t I know it. Daggum news keeps re-running the story of her getting jilted at the altar. Girl’s spirit is as fine as frog’s hair split four ways after that. You leave it be. She only wanted to get away.”
“Not from me!” Zanna hit the red hangup button with so much force, I thought she might crack the screen.
“Zanna, don’t worry about the reward money,” I said. “We’re putting it up.”
“I’m not taking your money.” She marched over to the crowd gathering on the front lawn, and I thought about Daphne’s Insta post wanting to get away. For a breath, I wanted to get away.
Parker arrived in a Sea Pine Island Police cruiser. Definitely not her jurisdiction here in Summerton, but neither Sheriff Hill nor his two deputies seemed bothered. They nodded briefly in greeting as she joined me at the edge of the pack of mostly twenty-somethings. They leaned against thick tree trunks and painted porch railings, sunglasses perched on heads, phones clutched in hands.
“We need about fifteen volunteers to keep hanging flyers,” Sheriff Hill said. “The rest will split into teams to begin a cursory search.”
“About time we go door to door,” Zanna said.
I didn’t dissuade her of her assumption. We were not going door-to-door. We were going tree to tree, shrub to shrub, grass patch to grass patch. Parker must have agreed with my silence because she led Zanna away from the search group and over to the flyer group to map out new destinations.
The rest of us were divided into teams and handed reflector vests. Juliette, Tucker, Millie Poppy, Sam, and Alex gathered near the front.
“We’ll need a phone tree,” the Sheriff continued.
“I can handle that,” Juliette said. “I’ll put a sign-up sheet on the counter inside for names and numbers.”
“And we’ll need a base,” the Sheriff said. “A place where we can centralize efforts. Needs to have easy access and be able to accommodate, well, a growing amount of people.”
“Why not here?” Alex said. “Everyone already knows to meet at the Cake & Shake.”
“The fire marshal will shut us down we get much larger,” Juliette said. She bit her lip. “Might even today. We’re definitely over capacity.”
“We can use our house,” Millie Poppy said.
“It might be a little tight, honey,” Sam said.
“Yeah, and it’s kind of far away,” Tucker said. “Almost clear at the end of the island.”
As murmurs rumbled through the crowd, talk flitted from library branches and golf course clubhouses. But then I realized I already knew the perfect place. “Let’s use the Big House.”
“Isn’t that kind of far away, too?” Juliette said.
“The Ballantyne is close enough,” Sheriff Hill said. “We’ll consider Daphne’s apartment ground zero. We’ve got a CSI team headed there. I’m meeting them in thirty minutes. You all start with the grids around her apartment. We’ll slowly expand toward the island on one side and the highway to the other.”
“I’ll go to the Big House later and let Tod know to set up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sheriff Hill said. “We’ll get the word out to meet there starting tomorrow morning.”
Parker passed me as the flyer brigade headed to their cars. “All set. I think Zanna knows what y’all are doing, but just didn’t want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway.”
Sheriff Hill told the remaining search teams how to tag evidence and how to call it in. While he did that, I pulled Juliette aside.
“Daphne drives a silver Camry, right?” I asked. “Anything else you can tell me about it? Dents, crack in the windshield, decal on the bumper?”
“No dents, but she has a ‘There Is No Planet B’ sticker in the back window,” Juliette said. “Oh crap, we didn’t put that on the flyer.”
“It’s okay. Call Tod and he’ll add it to the next batch.”
“You want to ride with us to the first search zone?” Juliette asked.
“I’ll catch up with you this afternoon. There’s something I need to do first.”
SIX
(Day #4: Tuesday Afternoon)
Just because everyone thought Daphne drove to Sedona, didn’t mean she did. According to Alex, she often flew to Nashville. Perhaps in wanting to get out of town quick, she flew to Arizona. Or Tahiti or Canada or anywhere but here.
Sea Pine’s airport was located down the road from Oyster Cove Plantation. Like everything else on the island, its relaxed vibe lent an air of vacation even when traveling for business. One waited for arriving flights on white Adirondack rockers inside an unhurried terminal. A counter with a handful of check-in stations to the right, a single security lane in the center, and a baggage claim area to the left, it no bigger than a living room.
The secured parking lot was unattended. An automated machine spit out a ticket. Once retrieved, the barrier arm lifted and I drove along the drive to the main surface lot. A treed lane divided two public sections, long-term and short-term, each with six rows of spaces. Covered in leafy oaks and tall pines, it would be difficult to see any of the parked cars from a Google satellite map.
I weaved the Mini around cars and planters, circling each aisle. Having the top down made it seem as if I was just passing the time, cruising along with nothing but a seaside breeze on my mind.
With so few cars to inspect, it didn’t take but ten minutes to spot Daphne’s Camry in the second to last row. I double-checked the license plate against the flyer, then found my own parking spot in short-term near the airport entrance.
The recognizable sound of plane engines roared overhead as a jet lowered itself over the ocean and onto the airstrip behind the main building. Several people idly rocked along the window while security personnel unlocked the doors to the ticketed area.
“Excuse me,” I said, approaching one of the security agents. “May I speak to someone about your parking surveillance?”
“You can report damages or lost and found articles to any airline agent,” she replied. “Up at the main counter or at the gate.”
“Thank you, but I’m here regarding a missing person.” I showed her my credentials. A PI permit with the Sea Pine Police seal on one side of a leather bifold and my Ballantyne business card and driver’s license on the other. A quick flash was usually all that was necessary. Quick enough not to read the words “permit” and “training” in red print.
She eyeballed me to the point I figured she’d read the small print, but then told me where to find her supervisor.
I heard her click the mic attached to her shoulder radio and announce me as I walked along a hallway near the secured gate area exit. I passed the vending machines, restrooms, three unmarked doors, one door marked Department of Homeland Security, and finally reached the last on the left. A simple brass plate was screwed to the front with “security” spelled out in block letters. A man answered my knock, his hair long gone, though mostly due to a razor, and his skin tanned from a lifetime of summers in the sun.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said. “I’m Sergeant Whistler.”
“I’m Elliott Lisbon with the Ballantyne Foundation,” I said. “Can we talk inside your office?”
He stepped aside and indicated a worn chair across from his equally worn desk. “How can I help you, Ms. Lisbon? Officer Yates mentioned a missing p
erson?”
“Yes, Daphne Fischer, from Summerton. Her car is parked in your lot.”
He sat up straighter, reaching for his phone. “You sure?”
“It’s the silver Camry in the fifth row of long-term. A ‘There’s No Planet B’ sticker on her bumper.” I pulled a folded flyer from my messenger and placed it on the desk in front of him.
“Bring in the bulletin on that missing girl out of Summerton,” he said into the handset, then replaced the receiver. “Sheriff’s bulletin didn’t say she’d be at the airport. Said something about state highways.”
“Yeah, I think the general consensus has been that she likely left town, but by car. That she drove to Sedona.”
“But her car’s here,” he said. “Well, I’ll be dipped.”
“Can we look at the security footage? She probably arrived Saturday night. After eleven, maybe.”
He hesitated, no doubt considering how much to share with me, a civilian.
“I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the Ballantynes—”
“Course I know Ed and Vivi,” he interrupted. “Their jet is parked here most days. And you can see their Big House ’bout the same time you see the runway overhead. And I know you. Seen you in their Rolls more than a few times.”
“I’m the Foundation Director. Tod Hayes and I usually pick them up. I’m also a consultant with the Sea Pine Island Police under Captain Sullivan.” A slight embellishment, but I held his gaze, letting my confidence win the upper hand in his internal battle.
“I guess I need to look at it anyway,” he finally said. “Can’t hurt to have you in the room. As long as you stay out of the way.”
We used a side door from his office I hadn’t noticed earlier and entered a compact command center. A large oval table with six chairs and three phones overlooked a wide wall with video screens. Just below them was a long metal desk with keyboard/mouse combinations every few feet. Two officers wearing uniforms and handguns watched the video screens as various images blinked and shifted.
Sergeant Whistler spoke to the man sitting closest. “Bring up the feed from Saturday night. Give us three views of parking: Long-term, ticket booth, front entrance.” He turned to me. “You said before midnight, right?”
