Savannah Law

by William Eleazer

  Scott drove back to Jennifer’s place. Her car was still there. He rang the door bell. No answer. He went back to his apartment and called Nicole. No, she had not heard from Jennifer. He called Jennifer’s house phone and cell phone every ten minutes, but there was no response.

  At six o’clock, Scott called information and asked to be connected with the Savannah Police Department. He did not call 911 because he wasn’t sure what he should say. Was it an emergency? To him it was; to a 911 operator, he was not sure.

  He was connected to someone who identified herself as Sergeant Miriam Fisher. Scott said he wanted to report someone missing under strange circumstances.

  “Is this a child or an adult?”

  “An adult. Female.”

  “How long has she been missing?”

  “Since this morning, at least.”

  There was a long pause. “I’ll take the information. However, most people who are reported missing return safely in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Are you the husband or a relative?”

  “No. A friend.”

  “We prefer to take the information from a relative. Do you have the name of her husband or parents?”

  “She’s not married. And her parents are not available. They left two days ago for a cruise. I’m a close friend. She missed an important appointment with a female friend this morning, and she didn’t show for a date I had with her at six. She’s not in her apartment, and her car is parked and hasn’t been driven all day.”

  Scott reflected on what he had just said and could see that it was not impressive. No busy police department is going to take action based on what he just reported. So he added what he hoped would be persuasive. “I believe she’s been abducted.”

  “Abducted? What do you base that on?”

  “A guy abducted her four weeks ago. I think it’s the same guy. He’s been stalking her.”

  “Who was he? Was he arrested? Was it in Savannah?”

  “I only know his first name—Craig. It was in Savannah, but he wasn’t arrested. It was not reported.”

  “Was Craig her boyfriend?”

  “No, he was a tow-truck driver. He picked up her stalled automobile, and she went with him.”

  “And that was the abduction?”

  Scott realized this was probably the most inane missing-persons report the sergeant had ever taken. He was desperate to make her understand that this was a critical situation that demanded swift action, but every response he was making made it sound like he was a loon.

  “What can I do or say to make you believe me?” The desperation in his voice was evident.

  “I believe you. And if you were reporting a missing child, I would issue an Amber Alert immediately. But you state this is an adult. There is no law that says an adult has to be where someone else says they should be. They can leave and disappear for any reason, or no reason. We have to respect everyone’s right to privacy. However, I want you to give me the person’s name and description, her address, phone number, nearest relative, and the last time she was seen. And any evidence you have that a crime was involved. We’ll take whatever action is appropriate. You do understand that we have limited manpower, and the department has to set priorities.”

  Scott did not appreciate the mini-lecture but understood he probably deserved it. He supplied all the information he had, and then he drove to the Library. He was anxious, concerned, frightened—and helpless. He hoped Jaak would be at the Library; he would understand.

  The Library was noisy and busy, but he saw Jaak as soon as he entered. Finally, some luck.

  “Jaak, do you have a minute? I need to talk to you.”

  “Why sure, Counselor. We wondered where you’ve been. Jennifer was in with a couple of ladies last night. Let’s go into the lounge.”

  Jaak led him into his lounge, and they took a seat at the poker table. “What’s on your mind, Scott?”

  “It’s Jennifer. We had a date tonight. She didn’t show. I’m really concerned.”

  “Did you two have a falling out?”

  “No, no, Jaak; it’s nothing like that. She hasn’t been seen by anyone since last night.” Scott then proceeded to explain all he and Nicole knew, as well as all he feared, and the mysterious calls that Jennifer had received on her cell phone.

  Neither Scott nor Jennifer had ever mentioned to Jaak the two harrowing escapes Jennifer had experienced with Craig, nor the bloody headscarf left in her doorway. Jaak was hearing it all for the first time. He listened carefully, and his concern was evident.

  “You did the right thing, filing that report with the police department, Scott. But I agree with you; they aren’t likely to put that at the top of their priorities, especially on a Saturday night. They probably won’t even take another look at it until Monday. Let’s just hope she shows up by then. She has a lot of friends still over at SCAD. Maybe she just needed a breather for a few days and went to visit them. You tell me now, Scott, even if it embarrasses you, did you and Jennifer have a small spat—maybe you said something that hurt her feelings? Not intentionally, of course, but think hard.” Jaak gave Scott “the look.”

  He couldn’t have lied even if he tried. But of course, there was nothing to hide. “No, Jaak. I love that girl. I believe she loves me, too. She would have told me if she was not going to be there for our date. And she would have told Nicole. Her car is still there. I just know she did not leave of her own accord.”

  “You say you tried to find who was behind those nightly phone calls but couldn’t. There was no listing that you could pull up on the Internet?”

  “No, Jaak, and I’m pretty good at research on the Internet. Cell phones and unlisted numbers are still hard to find. There are businesses that specialize in collecting them now, paying big money for phone files, and in a year or so, those numbers will be searchable. But right now, they are mostly unavailable.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You said you saw Jennifer’s cell phone in her apartment? Do you have it?”

  “No, I left it there.”

  “I want you to get it and bring it to me. Right away.”

  Scott did not question why. He called Nicole and asked her if she could meet him at Jennifer’s apartment with the key.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  As soon as Scott left, Jaak called his friend Malcolm. There was no answer, so Jaak left a message for Malcolm to call him ASAP.

  Scott was soon back at the Library with the phone and the same worried look he had been wearing when he left.

  Jaak took the phone from Scott and ushered him back to his lounge. “Did Nicole have anything new?” asked Jaak.

  “No. She said she had called all of Jennifer’s friends that she knew, and none of them had heard from her.

  “While you were gone, Scott, I called a friend, Malcolm Zitralph. He’s a retired detective now working for Verizon Wireless. If anyone can help now, it’s Malcolm. Now you go home, and let me do the worrying. I’ll call you when I have something. And if you hear from Jennifer, you let me know right away.” He gave Scott his home phone number.

  Scott went home, but he didn’t leave the worrying to Jaak. He felt somewhat better after sharing his concern, but the length of time since Jennifer had been heard from was more troubling by the hour. He called her house phone several times, hoping to hear her voice, but the receiver was never picked up. And Jaak did not call. At midnight he went to bed, but he knew sleep would not be easy. It wasn’t. After a couple of hours, he got up and started to read from a book that Daniel had loaned him, The Innocent Man. It was the latest from John Grisham. Unlike Grisham’s other books, all novels, this one was a true story—of rape and murder. It wasn’t something Scott found appealing at the moment. He put it away and tried again to sleep. His cell phone was next to him. He lay there for the rest of the night and early morning, dozing occasionally, his mind remaining alert for the phone to ring.

  CHAPTER 47

  Sunday, Septem
ber 17

  It was 8:30 a.m., and Scott had been up for over two hours hoping to hear from Jaak—or better, from Jennifer. He was making an unsuccessful attempt at studying when his phone rang for the first time that morning. It was a text message:

  Scott -- It’s over. I’m with my parents at Hilton Head. I won’t be back in school. Please don’t come looking for me. Jennifer

  Scott sat motionless and staring at the screen for several minutes. His mind was jumbled with images of Jennifer, both good and bad from the past four weeks: the terrifying tow-truck ride, Tybee volleyball, the visit to Hilton Head to meet her family, her warm body pressing against his as they lay in her bed just thirty-six hours before. As devastated as he was when he read the message, he took solace in knowing that she was alive and apparently well. He had feared the worst.

  He would have to inform Jaak and Sergeant Fisher at the Savannah Police Department. But he hesitated. Something was wrong with that message. He had missed it when he first read it. He read it again. The first thing wrong was that Jennifer could not be with her parents. They were on a cruise and would be gone for ten days. And the second thing wrong was everything else—especially the words “It’s over.” It may have been sent by Jennifer, but it was not composed by Jennifer.

  He looked at his phone to find the originating phone number. He knew it could not have come from Jennifer’s phone because Jaak had it. The call came from the same mysterious number that he had tried to trace. He returned the call immediately. After four rings, he heard, “Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system. 912-811-3160 is not available. At the prompt you may record your message or hang up. Press 1 for....” It was the same message he had heard Friday night. He called Jaak at his home.

  “Jaak, I just got a text message on my cell. It says it’s from Jennifer, but I don’t believe it. Claims she’s with her parents at Hilton Head, but her parents are off on a cruise. It’s from that same mysterious number I told you about.”

  “Scott, I want you to take your cell phone to Malcolm Zitralph. He’s working this weekend and didn’t get my message until this morning. But there’s good news. He has access to all the telephone records he will need to locate that number. I took Jennifer’s cell phone to him a half hour ago. His workplace is on Abercorn Street. He says he can find the number and the cell phone tower that made the call. I’ll call him and tell him to expect you. Meet me back at the Library, and we’ll wait there for Malcolm’s report.”

  Jaak gave Scott the Abercorn street address, and Scott left immediately. Sunday morning traffic was light, and he was there in minutes. The Verizon office was in a large multistory building. On weekends, its front doors were manned by a private security service. Scott stated his purpose, and the guard called Malcolm down to the entrance foyer. Scott introduced himself and gave his cell phone to Malcolm.

  “I should have something soon,” said Malcolm.

  “Jaak said he would be at the Library. I’m going to meet him there,” said Scott.

  “I have his number. I’ll call him there when I have what I’m looking for.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Jennifer’s wrists were still hurting, but the bleeding had mostly stopped. She could feel pain in her legs and back, and blood was still seeping from the gash on her right cheek, but she was alive. This was the second day of her ordeal. Despite the savageness of her abduction, she had survived, and she was determined to remain a survivor. But she did not underestimate the evil that she was facing. It was only one man, but he was delusional. Apparently, he had been planning this for many days. She had been thrown into the trunk of his car soon after being bound and gagged in her apartment. The ride in the trunk was half an hour or more. She had no idea where she was, or what roads were taken to get there. But she could recall clearly the sudden invasion into her apartment and the fierce struggle that followed. She did not go without a fight.

  Her closet imprisonment began as soon as she arrived and had continued. She had been given only a single twelve-ounce bottle of water and two packets of cheese crackers. She remained bound at the wrists and locked in a small closet. The wrist binding, which included wire and tape, was removed only occasionally, when she was allowed to go to a small bathroom that opened only into the room with the closet. She was given a time limit for each break, and it was enforced by her captor, who was still wearing a mask.

  She spent her second night in the same small closet, still tightly bound at the wrists. But she had been given a pillow and blanket for the first time. She had been warned not to attempt to leave the closet. The warning was unnecessary; she did not have the strength to attempt to leave. She had not been raped, which was about the last indignity left to be inflicted.

  Even in her bound and painful condition, she was able to maintain some sense of time, aided in part by the fact that she had seen light coming through the louvered closet doors for several hours. She knew it was Sunday morning, perhaps nine or ten o’clock. Suddenly, the closet door opened, and there stood her captor. He held a sharp hunting knife in his hand—and for the first time, he was not wearing a mask.

  CHAPTER 49

  After delivering his cell phone to Malcolm, Scott arrived at the Library a little after 9 a.m. Jaak opened the door and greeted him.

  “I’m making some hash browns and scrambling some eggs. How about joining me?” Jaak was holding a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

  “Thanks. My body could use that. Especially coffee.”

  The breakfast was ready in less than ten minutes. As they sat in the lounge eating, Jaak’s phone rang. It was Malcolm, and he had some news. And some maps. He was leaving for the Library immediately.

  As soon as he arrived, Malcolm spread a large map on the poker table. Jaak and Scott leaned over the map as Malcolm began a rapid explanation of cell phones and cell towers.

  “This map pinpoints the cell phone towers within forty miles of downtown Savannah. I’m going to show you the movement of that cell phone, 912-811-3160, during the past couple of days. Late Friday afternoon and in the early evening, it was in this cell.” He pointed to one of the many circled areas on the map. “Here’s the cell tower, right off Victory Drive. Then beginning at 8:13 p.m., Friday, it was in this cell. The cell tower is right here, between East Gaston and Abercorn. Jaak says the young lady who’s missing lived on West Taylor. So this is the closest tower. That phone remained stationary, in the same cell, until 12:09 a.m., Saturday.”

  “A call was made at that time?” asked Scott.

  “No, no. We are tracing this phone without any calls being made. If cell phones are on, we can trace them. They are in constant contact with the nearest cell towers, and they emit signals—we call them pings—every few minutes, letting the network know where they are. We keep records not only of calls but also of the pings. Not all of them, but some of them. This phone was moving pretty fast for the next half hour or so. Look, I’ve traced the path on the map by circling the location of cell phone towers as they picked up the signals. See, it’s moving northeast, and it appears to be on State Road 21 going into Effingham County. First, it’s picked up by the West Gwinnett Tower, then Chatham City, then Dean Forest Road, then the tower here on Augusta Road, near I-95.”

  Malcolm was pointing with a table knife. Scott followed the path of the cell phone as Malcolm spoke, but the names of roads and places along its path were of no interest to him; he wanted to know where the phone was now.

  “Next, we see activity at two towers along State 21. Then, after it passes through Rincon, the vehicle apparently turned right, onto State 275. That’s Ebenezer Road. The next tower is here, just past the railroad, and the final tower is here, near the intersection of the road that leads to McIntosh Power Plant on the Savannah River. The phone has been in that cell, stationary, ever since it stopped traveling. That was around 1 a.m., Saturday morning.”

  “So you know the location of the phone from those pings?” asked Jaak.

  “Not the exact locati
on, no. That cell has almost a two-mile radius, and without some triangulation data to other towers, which I don’t have, I can’t pinpoint its location, except it’s somewhere in the radius of that cell. I’ve worked out there a couple of times. It’s a rural, sparsely populated area. That’s where the phone was when Scott got his text message, and it hasn’t moved. At least it hadn’t moved when I left the office. And if it stays there, we can eventually find it. But it might take a search party.”

  “Do you know the owner? Whose cell phone is it?” asked Scott.

  “I can tell you, but I want you to be aware of something important. Very important. What I’ve done is a violation of Verizon’s company policies. Privacy rights and all that stuff. The correct way to do this is for law enforcement to get a warrant. That would take hours, maybe days. I can and probably will get fired for this. Pretty hard to keep secret someone rummaging through Verizon customer records. That’s OK; I can handle it. But you should also know, it’s criminal. I don’t know offhand whether it’s a state or federal crime— probably both. And if you guys know about it and take action on it, you’re going to be just as guilty as I am. So, do you really want to know?”

  “Yes, I want to know. But, Scott, cover your ears,” said Jaak.

  “Not on your life, Jaak. I’m in this, too.”

  “OK,” said Malcolm. “You may be as surprised as I am, but the phone is in the name of Denis Nolan.”

  “Professor Denis Nolan?” both Jaak and Scott asked at the same time.

  “The one and only. Our poker chump. And last week’s inept TV star. I checked the data carefully. His phone. No question. And that explains the cell tower over on Victory Drive Friday afternoon. He has a big home on Victory Drive.”