‘That’s my son-in-law,’ said Dad. ‘I’m Danny Franklin. That’s David.’
I stepped in. My Spanish isn’t great, but I do know a few words. I said: ‘No, that is us. I’m sorry. My dad’s tired. Wynne-Estes. Yes. Thank you.’
The driver said: ‘Your lady is missing from the ship?’
‘Yes, that’s right. My sister. Missing. We’re here to see Gail Perlot.’
The name worked. ‘Yes, Gail, we go, we go to Gail,’ the driver said.
We stepped out of the airport into the heat. Drops of perspiration popped instantly onto Dad’s forehead. The driver said: ‘Come, come, come …’ His car was typical of embassy cars – it was an SUV with tinted windows and air-conditioning – but the ride was not smooth. The traffic out towards Gail’s office was bumper-to-bumper, with mostly old cars that liked to honk and brake, on terrible roads.
‘Bad traffic,’ the driver kept saying. ‘Bad traffic.’
‘No kidding,’ said Dad. He was holding onto the passenger strap.
Gail’s office was in a building adjacent to the largest of the lavish hotels on the beach at Cabo, all of which are positioned to take advantage of views of the sea arch. Security inside the building was tight. We passed through a metal detector and had our digital fingerprints taken, before being allowed in.
Gail stood to greet us. She was an officious woman with a wide butt that made the vents at the back of her jacket flare. The centrepiece of her desk was a small, steel model of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.
‘I am so, so sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances,’ she said, extending a hand with an old-fashioned engagement-and-wedding-ring combination. ‘I can’t imagine how this feels.’
‘I’ll tell you how it feels,’ said Dad, wiping sweat from his brow, ‘it feels like we’re being given the run-around. It seems like nobody wants to tell us what’s going on. Twenty-four hours we’ve been trying to reach David. No luck, but don’t worry because I’ve got plenty of questions for him now.’
Gail’s expression switched from empathy to something like anxiety. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but David has left Mexico.’
‘He’s left?’ Dad was wide-eyed. ‘What do you mean he’s left? Didn’t you tell him we were coming?’
‘I did tell him, but I know he flew out this morning. I was thinking that you might even run into him at the airport.’
So David knew that Dad and I were making a dash to Mexico yet he’d still upped and left?
‘I’m so sorry,’ Gail said. ‘He got the nine am flight out. It’s not a direct flight, but it’s the first flight into the US. He’d have to go via San Francisco, and I don’t know, can he drive from there? Down to Bienveneda?’
‘Well, he can,’ I said, ‘but why would he? Didn’t he leave his car at LAX? And why leave when he knew we were coming? You told him we were coming; I texted him. I’ve texted him a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. I gave him our flight number. I said we’d see him. This sounds like he’s avoiding us.’
Gail put her hands down on the desk. ‘Well, I guess I don’t know for certain, because I spoke to David only briefly this morning. He said the police here in Cabo had no further questions for him at this point, and he told me he wanted to get home to the girls, because the girls need to be told. Provided they don’t know already. He was dreading the idea of them finding out from the television, although I gather his sister is keeping them away from the news.’
Dad looked astounded. ‘But what is he going to tell them? That’s a tricky conversation to have with five-year-olds, isn’t it: “I killed your mother.” I mean, what else is he going to say?’
‘Dad, please,’ I said, appealing for calm. ‘We can’t waste any more time on David. Can you tell us how the search is going, Gail? Who is out there? What can we do?’
‘I know how agonising this must be,’ she sighed, ‘because any minute now, you’re going to read online that the search has been called off. And I want you to know that’s not quite right. There are still plenty of vessels out there. There’s another cruise ship, and several yachts, plus the coast-guard cutter. They’re under instructions to keep a lookout. But I do think, at this point, that we need to accept the likelihood that Loren will not be found.’
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ said Dad, rising from his chair, ‘I think it’s a bit early for that conclusion, don’t you?’
‘I am so sorry,’ said Gail, for what seemed like the thousandth time. ‘I wish there was something else I could say. I wish I could help. I really do. But I think we have to accept that Loren …’
‘Don’t even say it. This is impossible to accept,’ Dad said. ‘Could you just accept this? Could you just walk away, if this was your daughter? You say you’ve talked to David, but you’ve let him walk out of here without talking to us. You say the Mexican police have no further questions for him, but how can that be?’
Gail chewed on her bottom lip. Her brow was furrowed. She seemed to be weighing up whether to let us in on something that she knew, that perhaps we didn’t.
‘What do you believe happened?’ I asked. ‘Do you think my sister jumped? I mean, did she leave a note?’
Gail shook her head, like no, that wasn’t it. She paused a while longer, then said: ‘As I tried to explain on the telephone, we – meaning the staff here, the embassy staff – wouldn’t be in any position to hold David. Do you understand what I’m saying? We couldn’t hold him even if we wanted to. This is Mexico. And the ship from which Loren disappeared, the Silver Lining, is Dutch. And those waters out the window there’ – she pointed – ‘that’s the Pacific Ocean. It’s not US waters. It may not even be Mexican waters. It could well be international waters that Loren went missing in. So it’s a complicated situation, and my understanding is that the police in your home state – in California, and even in Bienveneda – do know about this case, and they will be making a statement.’
‘They will? But when?’ I demanded. ‘And what will they be saying?’
From her pained expression, it was clear that Gail knew more than she was saying. Dad could feel it, too. He kept trying to press Gail, asking: ‘Did they search Loren’s cabin? Have you talked to other passengers? Maybe we could see the surveillance tapes. Maybe we would notice something that the investigators don’t even realise is important.’
Gail nodded. ‘Well, when you say “we” … there is the question of jurisdiction.’
Dad exploded. ‘So, what, David answers to nobody?’
Now it was my turn to try to calm the situation. I put my hand on Dad’s big knee. ‘Please, Dad, please.’
Then, to Gail, I said: ‘Okay, I get the feeling from what you’re saying that there are things you’re not telling us, and while I don’t understand why you simply can’t fill us in, no doubt there are reasons, and I’m prepared to accept that for now. But what can you tell us? When was the last time anyone saw Loren on the ship? Surely you can tell us that?’
‘Yes. I think I can tell you that,’ she said, visibly relieved, ‘if you could just wait for a moment …’
She picked up the phone on her desk and spoke into it. ‘Carlos? Can you bring the USB? Yes, that one. Yes, please. Also, some coffee? Three cups. Thank you.’
She hung up and turned back to me. ‘I can tell you this: on their last night on the ship, your sister and David attended the Captain’s Dinner in the main dining hall. The Captain’s Dinner is a special event – a gala evening, formal attire – and by all accounts, it’s the highlight of the cruise.’
I had seen photographs of the Captain’s Dinner on the Silver Lining website. It was black tie for men, and to-the-floor for women, with tiaras if you had them.
‘According to the statement David has given to the Federales here – that’s the Federal police – it was a lovely evening,’ said Gail, moving her spectacles to better study the notes on her desk. ‘There was dancing by candlelight. There was a string quartet. The evening ended around midnight, but David and Loren w
ent back to their cabin early. They hadn’t danced. Loren had eaten almost none of her meal. By David’s account, he opened a bottle of French champagne from the minibar for Loren – at Loren’s request – not because they felt like celebrating but because she was upset and wanted more to drink. They had one of the better cabins – a suite, or a stateroom – and they sat out on the balcony and talked about problems they were having in their marriage. At some point, David coaxed Loren into bed and I guess he must have fallen asleep … and when he woke, Loren was gone.’
‘So he pushed her off the balcony,’ said Dad indignantly. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘No,’ said Gail, shaking her head, ‘no, definitely not, because we do have another sighting of Loren. It’s hours after the dinner, but she is not on her balcony. She is in the corridor outside her stateroom … and David is not with her.’
As Dad and I were processing this, Gail’s assistant, Carlos, came into the room and served coffee.
‘Here, let me show you something,’ she said, before picking up her laptop and moving out from behind her side of the desk.
She put the laptop down so it was facing Dad and inserted a USB. He remained seated. I stood up and looked over Dad’s shoulder. The image on the screen was grainy, but I only had to look for a half-second to recognise Loren. She was walking away from the camera, getting smaller and smaller as she made her way towards the end of the long corridor outside her room. She was wearing jeans, and she had the four fingers of each hand tucked into her back pockets, palms out.
‘That’s Loren,’ said Dad.
‘That is exactly how she walks,’ I said.
Gail touched the arrow keys to keep the tape rolling. ‘You’ll see that she turns left at the end of the corridor here and, unfortunately, that’s where the tape ends.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Where does the footage go from there?’
‘The next camera is around the next corner, but Loren is not on it,’ said Gail. ‘They have looked at the film a million times but there’s no sign. So all we can say for certain is, Loren went down this corridor, which comes out on the deck, and that’s where we lose her.’
Dad started hitting the keys to bring the image of Loren back again. ‘But what, she just disappears?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Gail, ‘but there’s a black spot right there. The cameras don’t cover every inch of the ship. They couldn’t possibly.’
‘So she went out onto the deck and …’
‘And from there we don’t know,’ said Gail.
‘But what’s the time stamp on that?’ said Dad. ‘It must have a time stamp.’
‘You’re right. It does. The first sighting of Loren is here, at 3.46 am,’ said Gail, replaying the footage, while pointing at the square-shaped numbers in the top right corner, ‘and the last sighting of her, at the end of the same corridor, is at 3.47 am. So it has taken her less than a minute to walk that hall.’
‘But she can’t just disappear,’ I said, ‘she must go somewhere.’
‘She must,’ agreed Gail, ‘but at this stage, that’s the last sighting we have. The ship’s management are going over all the footage from all the other cameras on the ship, from 3.46 am. So far, nothing.’
‘What, nowhere?’ said Dad.
‘Nowhere. But we do see David.’
‘I bet we do!’ cried Dad.
‘David stayed in the cabin until 4.50 am,’ said Gail.
‘How do we know that?’ I demanded.
‘The ship uses the same key-card system they have at hotels,’ said Gail, ‘like swipe keys. So we can see David and Loren go into their cabin well before midnight …’
At this point, she went back a few frames on her laptop to footage that showed David in a tuxedo, guiding Loren, in a stunning halter-neck, through their cabin door.
‘And here Loren comes out,’ she said, showing the Loren-in-the-corridor footage again. ‘And then there is no movement on that door until David comes out, shortly before five am.’
I put my face as close to the laptop as I could. The images were grainy but there’s no question it was David.
‘He says he’s coming out to look for Loren,’ said Gail, ‘and he goes the same way. He disappears at the end of the hallway. So technically, he has followed Loren but he’s a good hour behind her, and we very quickly see him again. Here he is on the lower pool deck, something like two minutes later. Here we see him rushing into the dining hall. He speaks to crew members there. “Has anyone seen Loren?” You can see him gesturing. The crew are shaking their heads, no, and now we see David again, agitated, asking the crew to raise the alarm.’
‘Well, isn’t that convenient,’ said Dad, indignant. ‘He’s seen her on that first deck, pushed her off and then he goes and makes like he doesn’t know what happened.’
I stepped in. ‘There is no footage at all from that deck? But have the police – the Federales – interviewed any other passengers? Maybe somebody heard something? Or saw something? An argument? Because what is David saying: that she’s fallen, or that it must be suicide, or what? Because that’s ridiculous. Loren has young girls. Twins. Never, never, never would she leave them. Never. And if it’s suicide, where’s the note?’
‘Well,’ said Gail, sighing, ‘there were something like three hundred people on the ship, including crew. This was to be their last night. People had gone from the Captain’s Dinner to the disco. The casino was full. We’ve got a lot of people who have had a lot to drink, wandering around, heading to bed, even after Loren was out of her cabin. So far nobody saw her. And no, there was no note.’
I weighed up in my mind whether to tell Gail what I knew. It would mean breaking bad news in a shocking way to Dad. But it had to be done …
‘Something you won’t know, and David won’t have told you: he had been having an affair, and Loren found out about it. Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?’ I said.
Dad looked thunderstruck. ‘David’s been having an affair!?’
‘I’m sorry, Dad. I was going to tell you. It’s all in her journal. But surely it’s relevant?’
‘He’d been having an affair with who?’ said Dad.
Gail looked uncomfortable. ‘Ah, yes, David did tell me that. He told the police that. I think it explains a lot about what happened, don’t you?’
‘That sounds to me like a motive to throw my daughter off the ship,’ shouted Dad.
‘Except that David did not leave the cabin with Loren. And we do not lose sight of him on the footage.’
‘But you haven’t found a note, have you?’ I asked. ‘A suicide note? Surely Loren would leave a note.’
‘No, we haven’t found a note. Although I did a quick internet search before you came. This year alone, six people have gone missing from cruise ships and in only two cases did people leave a note. And it’s not just cruise ships. Very often in these situations, people don’t leave notes.’
‘No. Stop,’ I said. ‘Did you not hear what I was saying? David was having an affair. Loren has two children. Her girls are everything to her. Not in a million years would she leave them. I cannot believe that you are simply accepting what David is saying. His story reeks to high heaven.’
Gail closed her laptop. Her expression suggested that she did not necessarily disagree with me, and that she was resigned to the idea that nothing she could say would satisfy me. She carried the computer around to her side of the desk.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I know how hard this must be to accept.’
‘Yes, but it’s not only the affair that’s a problem,’ I said. ‘Did David tell you that his business was going under? Did David tell you that this trip was all about trying to prevent Loren from divorcing him?’
‘What’s all this?’ said Dad.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I said, exasperated. ‘I was going to fill you in. I went to Loren’s house yesterday. I found a journal she had written over the last few weeks. He was having an affair but there’s more: D
avid’s business was in trouble. This trip was all about one last chance to try to patch things up. Loren was trying so hard. Really trying. You can tell from what she wrote, her heart was broken but she didn’t want to give in. She didn’t want to hurt her girls. But probably over the course of the five days on the ship, the reality must have dawned on her. Her husband was a liar and a cheat. She could take the girls and get out. And maybe that’s what she finally told him she was going to do.’
Dad looked stunned. Maybe he wasn’t all that surprised by the cheating – that would surprise nobody – but the idea that David’s business was in trouble was astounding.
‘Are you kidding me?’ he said. ‘David gets around town like a Rockefeller.’
‘Please,’ said Gail, putting up her hands for quiet. ‘Some of what you’re saying, David did in fact tell us. And I am not necessarily without sympathy for your position, but right at this moment … This matter is not under our jurisdiction and this is out of our hands.’
* * *
When Dad and I left Gail’s office he was in a white-hot rage. Gail insisted on putting us back into the embassy car, saying: ‘I don’t want you walking. You’re upset. Let my driver take you to your hotel.’
‘But we’re not going straight to our hotel,’ said Dad angrily. ‘We’re going to see the ship. I’m going to look that ship over. I want to speak to the captain. I want to speak to the crew. I’m not having this. My daughter jumped? There is just no way.’
‘And I’ll support you for as long as you’re here,’ Gail said gently, ‘because that’s my job, to support you and every other American citizen who needs my assistance. If you feel the need to visit the ship, my driver will take you. I can introduce you to the staff of the Silver Lining. They have an office down by the port. I am absolutely happy to do that for you.’
‘We can manage on our own,’ said Dad.
His tone was gruff. I could hardly fault him for that. On some level, he understood Gail’s predicament. She was in no position to investigate. It was probably more than her remit to even sit down and talk to David in any detail, let alone Dad and me. Still, Dad wanted to know: had anyone checked David’s phone? What about Loren’s? Was there such a thing as a forensic team in Mexico and, if so, had they been into the cabin? Were there any signs of a disturbance? What about other passengers? What insights could they provide?
The One Who Got Away Page 10
