Blood and Sand

by Michael Lister

  Vic looks at me and shakes his head, then over to Roderick, “If y’all drag this out any longer I’m gonna confess just to get it over with.”

  “We’ll come back to motive in a minute,” I say. “Let’s talk about how Magdalene’s body could’ve been removed from the house without being noticed. If we go just by the security footage, then the most obvious way is in Hal Raphael’s suitcase that he left with the following morning. It was big enough.”

  “I didn’t kill that little girl,” Raphael says. “Accidentally or otherwise, and I didn’t put her body in my suitcase and carry it out of here.”

  My phone vibrates and I pull it out. It’s a text from Merrill.

  You were right. Her body was definitely in the freezer here.

  “Okay,” I say, “let’s say you didn’t. If that’s not how Magdalene was removed from the house, then how was she? Because the security footage doesn’t show another way it could’ve been done. But . . . what the security footage does show is how the abductor become killer entered the house. And it was right through the front door.”

  “You’ve already said that,” Sarah Samuelson says.

  “It just wasn’t when it appeared to be,” I say. “It wasn’t when you all came back for the party but earlier in the day—a good deal earlier. The security footage shows everyone entering the house and later leaving except for one person. One person entered the house and didn’t leave—never left again according to the footage.” I turn to Charis Tremblay. “The video shows you coming in like so many others that day, carrying Christmas presents, which are still unopened in Magdalene’s room. But it doesn’t show you leave. It has been right there all along but must have been overlooked during the first investigation.”

  She freezes in the doorway between the dining room and parlor, a pitcher of coffee dangling from her hand.

  Everyone turns toward her.

  “You snatched the key card at some point—though I’m not sure you ever used it—and when no one noticed, you found a place to hide. You hid until everyone left for the candlelight service, and while they were there, you made your preparations and put the sleep meds in the punch and then went and hid in Magdalene’s room. You were her mother and you just couldn’t abide the thought of two men—two gay men—raising your little girl. So you were just going to put everyone to sleep, including her, and take her back. Only when you gave her a dose of sleep aid there was already a good bit in her little body, which meant you killed the very little girl you were, in your mind, trying to protect.”

  “Oh God,” Christopher says. “Is it true? Did you pretend to accept us just so you could steal our—”

  “My,” she says. “She was my daughter, not yours. A little girl needs a mother, not two sodomites.”

  “I will kill you with my bare hands,” Keith says, rising from the couch.

  Jake steps between him and Charis as Roderick walks over and puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder and gently pushes him back down on the couch.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” she says. “It was an accident. I would gladly trade places with her. I would never do anything to harm her. I loved that child. Loved her in a way only a godly mother can. I’ve grieved for her every single day since y’all took her from me—doubly since she died.”

  “Not since she died—since you killed her,” Christopher says.

  “You evil bitch,” Keith says. “What the fuck was organizing the searches in the woods about? Pretending to care about us and help us?”

  “It was all to deflect suspicion,” I say, “and to bide her time until she could frame you two for Magdalene’s death. I think she figured out what happened and froze the body so she could eventually use it to set you guys up. My guess is she was the source close to the investigation who started the rumor about you two accidentally overdosing her. She figured if she froze the body, spread that rumor, then eventually put her back in your house it’d look like you really did it.”

  “It wasn’t enough to take her from us, you had to set us up for killing her?”

  “You took her from me,” she says, her voice rising. “She’d still be alive if you hadn’t taken her away from me. God is punishing you for your abominations.”

  “The whole time you’re out there searching for her in those woods with the rest of us,” Derinda says, “you knew she was dead, knew we wouldn’t find anything.”

  “As recently as last night, even after she had snuck Magdalene’s dead body back into her bed,” I say, “she was telling me how if we found Magdalene alive she was going to try to get custody back.”

  “A liar until the very end,” Keith says. “A thief, a murderer, a liar. How can you break like every one of the commandments and still believe you’re the good guy and we’re the bad guys?”

  “Because she’s certifiable,” Christopher says. “Fuckin’ nuts.”

  “But,” Henrique says, “how did she leave the house with Magdalene without being seen that night?”

  “While you were all passed out,” I say. “And the security cameras didn’t capture her because she went through the pet door on the side of the house—she and Magdalene were about the only ones small enough to fit through it.”

  “How did she get the body back in the house?” Rake asks.

  “And what was that business with the pajamas?” Vic asks.

  “The pajamas were a distraction,” I say. “And while everyone was over at the search site trying to see what was going on, she came back here, supposedly to make tea and coffee for everyone, but it was really to return Magdalene to her bed. My guess is that she brought the body back into the house inside of a box or suitcase—just walked right in the front door with her while everyone else was over at the search site. We’ll have to check the security camera footage to be sure, but she got her body back into the house without being observed. And I knew when I saw the care with which Magdalene had been treated—the bathing and cleaning—that it had to be done by someone who not only knew her but loved her. And the white gown and headband and candles was so ritualistic that I thought it was likely to have been done by a religious person.”

  “I loved that little girl more than any of you can imagine,” she says. “I’m not a—I just did what any good mother would do.”

  “How much was your husband involved?” I ask.

  She lets out a harsh laugh. “Brent’s as clueless as the rest of y’all. Always traveling. This past year do you know how many days a month he’s been home on average? Three. Three days a month. And when he is . . . he never pays any mind to me or my kids. That’s what he calls my foster children. My kids. I knew he would never even come into my little craft shed let alone look in the freezer, but I kept a lock on it anyway. Buying that lock was a waste of money. He’s the most incurious man you ever met—especially about his wife and what she gets up to. He helped with the grid for the search and showed up a time or two, but Magdalene was never his and his heart was never in it.”

  My phone vibrates again. I pull it out and see I have another text from Merrill.

  She’s not here. I’ve searched the entire house and property.

  “Where is she?” I ask Charis.

  She looks confused. “Who?”

  “Taylor,” I say. “Where is Taylor?”

  She shakes her head and shrugs. “I have no idea. I’m not a kidnapper, not some sort of monster who steals children. I was a desperate mother trying to get her daughter back from these filthy faggots. I didn’t take your child. I had no reason to. And think about it—I was with you when it happened.”

  She’s right and I know it. I can tell she’s telling the truth.

  “I’ll take a lie detector test,” she says. “But I’m telling you I didn’t take your daughter. I wouldn’t. And I’m telling you for two reasons . . . I want you to keep looking for her because I don’t have her. And because of the way all y’all are looking at me. I feel all your judgement and disdain, but think about this . . . if I didn’t take her that means one of y
’all did.”

  47

  “She could be lying,” Roderick says.

  I shake my head. “She’s not.”

  I’m in shock, can feel myself going numb, part of me growing distant from other parts of me.

  I keep shaking my head in stunned wonder. “What did I miss? How did I not see that she had only taken Magdalene?”

  Roderick, Reggie, Merrill, Dad, Jake, and I are standing in the dining room. A deputy has just taken Charis away in handcuffs and the others—apart from Keith, Christopher, and Derinda—have disassembled and wandered off, some to sleep, others to resume searching for the daughter I thought I had found.

  “The most important case of my life and I blew it,” I say.

  “We gonna find her,” Merrill says. “We just need to regroup. Keep searching. Keep investigating.”

  They all nod.

  Dad says, “He’s right. We just get back out there and keep knocking on doors, keep looking, keep following up leads. Simple shoe leather. Good old-fashioned police work. We will find her, Son.”

  “We’ve got to look at everyone again,” Roderick says. “Our prime suspects have to be Rake Sabin and Hal Raphael.”

  Reggie nods.

  “I . . . can’t believe I . . . just missed completely that it could be two different criminals. I’m . . . It was a rookie mistake.”

  “Listen,” Jake says, “you just got justice for that family in there. They went from knowing nothing to knowing everything thanks to you—and the bitch who did it is in jail. Now we’ll do the same thing for Taylor.”

  “I don’t want justice,” I say. “I want her back.”

  “That’s what I meant,” he says. “You know I ain’t no good at this shit. All I’m sayin’ is don’t give up. We got this. We’re all gonna help you and we’re gonna find her.”

  “I wish y’all’d stop saying that,” I say. “Every time you do it makes it more certain that we won’t.”

  Day 328

  Day 328

  I thought knowing would make things better. And I guess it does take away some of the anxiety that not knowing brings—some of the torment your imagination subjects you to—but it also crushes even the smallest fragments of hope.

  Whatever percentage of dread and anxiety and hope I had has now been replaced by overwhelming, unabating agony.

  Sadness is all now. Unforgiving, unrelenting anguish.

  My little girl is gone and she’s never coming back to me.

  48

  Days go by.

  We continue to search.

  We continue to investigate.

  I go through everything over and over again, frantically searching for what I missed.

  I run through every scenario I can come up with, search every possible location I can conceive of.

  But ultimately nothing we try does any good.

  Taylor is gone.

  I failed to protect her.

  I’m failing to find her.

  The only feeling that comes anywhere close to the devastating pain and emptiness I feel is the overwhelming and near debilitating guilt.

  This is my fault. I am responsible. I put Taylor in this situation. I didn’t keep her safe. And now I am unable to find her, unable to figure out who took her and how, unable to get her and return her safely home.

  I now know what so many people I’ve worked with over the years have known—just how excruciating the pain is, just how huge a hole it leaves in your soul, just how relentless the torment of not knowing is.

  I feel absolutely numb and in acute agony all the time.

  I am frustrated and agitated, irritable and overly sensitive, in many ways a stranger to myself.

  All my experience as an investigator, all my study and research, all my decades of practice going back to adolescence—everything I have used over and over for others in crisis I am unable to use for my child, my wife, myself.

  Physician heal thyself. He saved others, himself he cannot save.

  I feel like a fraud.

  I feel like a failure.

  I’m experiencing feelings of impotency and uselessness that I could never have even imagined before now.

  And yet I don’t care how I feel. I’d gladly live in this total torment for the rest of my life if we could just get Taylor back.

  It’s all I care about. It’s all that matters. It’s everything—and the one thing I am unable to do anything about.

  49

  On the eighth day of Taylor being missing, I arrive home late from investigating and searching in Sandcastle to find Anna packing.

  It’s in no way surprising, not in the least unexpected, but the blow is still staggering.

  Unable to speak, I sit on the bed that until a few weeks ago I thought would always be ours, and try my best not to cry or put my hand through the wall.

  Anna is looking down as she goes about her tasks, but as her hair moves I can see that she is quietly crying.

  “I . . . I’m not sure what to say,” she says. “I just need to be alone right now. Everything’s murky right now, but . . . this has more to do with grief than anger, more about me than you.”

  I have no words, no outward response except a sad little nod.

  “I’m sorry for how I treated you when my thyroid was . . . wasn’t working properly. I’ll regret that the rest of my life.”

  I shake my head and try to wave her apology off, but she isn’t looking at me.

  Though the chainsaws and generators can no longer be heard through the night, the increased truck traffic and night crews working around town still can be, and I think about how my hurricane-ravaged region looks like I feel.

  “I know this doesn’t matter,” she says. “Nothing does, does it? But I’m not leaving to punish you. I’m really not. If I could stay I would.”

  I nod but she doesn’t see it.

  “I need to be alone right now,” she says. “Have to be. In many ways I already have been, but I . . . I just can’t be here—not in this house, not in this life . . . or whatever it is.”

  With all we’ve been through we’ve never known brokenness like this before. And to be experiencing it at the same time, each unable to help the other . . . is a hopelessness like none other I’ve ever known.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from breaking down and I can taste the blood in my mouth.

  “I should’ve never taken us over there,” I say. “And the moment I had even an inkling that it might not be safe I should have grabbed y’all and left.”

  “I . . . I wasn’t going to say anything,” she says. “It doesn’t help and . . . But . . . I am going to say this and then I won’t ever say it or anything else about this ever again.”

  I brace myself for what she’s about to say, though I have no idea what it is.

  “The night . . . the night she was taken . . . you wanted us to leave then . . . before it happened. And I realize I’m the one who said we could protect her until the next morning and leave then, but . . . you knew something was wrong with me. You could tell by my behavior that I was . . . unwell . . . irrational . . . incapable of making reasoned decisions . . . So why did you let me decide? Why didn’t . . . when I needed you to most . . . why didn’t you make the right decision for us, for our family, for your child?”

  50

  The late-evening sun is low and soft, its deep red rays like blood on the beach.

  Following a particularly difficult day of searching for Taylor and investigating what happened to her, I’m standing barefooted before the gentle green tide of the Gulf in nearly the exact spot Taylor and I had the day we first arrived at Sandcastle for my lecture series and our vacation.

  It has been two weeks since Taylor was taken, and I’m no closer to finding her now than when she first vanished.

  On either side of me the beach is mostly empty—only the occasional lone sun-tinged figure in the distance—as is much of the town of Sandcastle behind me
.

  I think about what a solitary sun-tinged figure I am.

  Over the course of a lifetime of loneliness, I’ve never felt more isolated, more utterly and completely alone.

  I tried bringing Johanna here on one of our recent days together—my fear and paranoia wouldn’t let me take her into town—but like most of the times I’m with her these days, I couldn’t stop crying and holding and hugging her.

  I am haunted by Anna’s final words to me, that I am ultimately responsible for Taylor’s abduction, that not preventing it when Anna was essentially incapacitated rests squarely on my bent shoulders.

  I am even more haunted by how every cell that makes up me is in complete agreement with her.

  I am tormented every second of every day—both waking and sleeping—wondering and worrying about where Taylor is and what horrific experiences she could be going through.

  The acute affliction of my anguish is incessant, and I feel as though I’m losing the moorings of my mind.

  The insidiousness of this particular torture is that the very thing I need to find her—my mind—is under continuous assault.

  Despite all this, I will not stop, cannot stop my search, my relentless pursuit of her.

  The only respite of any kind at all that I get these days is coming here—to this place where she and I had kicked off our shoes and enjoyed the morning sun-warmed sand together.

  I feel her here, her sweet, kind, carefree presence, and I am buoyed up by it—at least to the extent that I can be.

  At a time when I have little to hold on to, little to be thankful for, I’m so, so glad I brought her here when she asked me to, when I was only minutes away from giving my first talk and could have used those same minutes in final preparations.

  We shared a moment here that, though everything else has been taken from me, remains fixed and firm in my wounded heart and embattled mind.

  And as the last of the setting sun sinks into the green-gold Gulf, I say to her what I always say to her before leaving this now sacred spot.