Bitter Remains

by Diane Fanning

  First, she got a call from Laura’s former supervisor, Mike Rivera. As soon as she hung up, the phone rang again. It was Chevon. After talking to her, Heidi fell to her knees and bawled. She knew Laura wasn’t missing—she knew it was much worse. She went to another friend’s house and sat on her front porch for twelve hours wrapped in her misery as she tried to absorb the horrible reality.

  —

  IN Kinston, Detective James Gwartney placed a call to Grant Hayes and left a voice mail. Grant returned the call later when the detective was back at HealtHabit speaking to Chevon. Grant left a voice mail saying he got a message from his mom that Laura Ackerson was missing.

  Gwartney called Grant back while he was driving from the health food store to the police station. “Mr. Hayes, this is a missing persons case and I’m trying to track down Laura’s last known location.”

  Grant said, “I haven’t seen her since the evening of Wednesday the thirteenth. She came to my apartment to pick up the boys to take them to Monkey Joe’s.”

  “Did you have any other communication with her?”

  “We usually e-mail a couple of times a week on Mondays and Tuesdays. I can forward them to you. And I called her that Wednesday around three. She said she was in Wilson. Then I talked to her later and she said she was on Glenwood Avenue but I don’t know if she was on that road in Raleigh or Wilson. But she said she was coming to pick up the boys and take them to Monkey Joe’s.”

  Grant then told him about the custody case between him and Laura that was going through the courts. “It’s ongoing and heated at times.”

  “When did she bring the boys back?”

  “Sometime between nine and nine thirty that night, but she must not have gone to Monkey Joe’s because when they got back, the kids were all sweaty and hadn’t eaten. My wife Amanda had to take them to Chick-fil-A to get something to eat.”

  “When did Laura leave your place?”

  “About ten o’clock that night.”

  When Gwartney asked if Grant could forward the e-mail to him right away, Grant said, “I can’t do it right away because I’m in the boonies and have bad reception. I’ll have to get closer to Raleigh for a decent Wi-Fi signal.” Grant certainly was out in the sticks, but he was in Texas, more than twelve hundred miles away from Raleigh.

  “I didn’t realize Raleigh had boonies,” Gwartney joked.

  “I’m driving—on my way to Kinston,” Grant lied.

  “What was Laura wearing?”

  “She had heels on but I don’t remember the clothes she was wearing because I wasn’t really checking her out, if you know what I mean.”

  “I need you to come see me in Kinston so we can sit down and talk. I need to get a written statement from you about Laura’s last day’s activities.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Grant said, “I’ll e-mail a statement to you when I forward those other e-mails.”

  “Who was at your apartment when Laura came over?”

  “Me and Amanda and the boys were there. But Amanda took them into the other room and they didn’t know she was there at first. Me and Laura were going to talk about me signing an agreement for her to keep the boys.”

  “Did Laura usually pick them up at your apartment?”

  “Nah, we always met in public places like Monkey Joe’s if not at the Sheetz in Wilson to avoid ugliness.”

  “Did she always pick them up on Wednesdays?”

  “No, Fridays, not usually in the middle of the week. But Amanda and me are going to meet her family in New Jersey.” As Amanda did not have any known family in that state, one can only assume that Grant was attempting to direct law enforcement away from their real vicinity.

  “What happened last Friday? Did Laura get the boys then?”

  “I went to Sheetz but she never came. I waited for quite a while and called my mom in Kinston and ask her to go by Laura’s apartment and see why she didn’t come pick up the kids. I left Laura some pretty nasty e-mails while I was waiting for her at Sheetz.”

  When Gwartney asked about where he lived in Raleigh, Grant said, “We’re in the process of moving to my mom’s house in Kinston.” He then spoke off the phone to someone else. “Watch him. The last time, he pulled the cat’s tail.” Then to the detective he said, “Hold on for a second. I need to walk away, my boys are near me.”

  “I really want to speak with you in person. Would you meet me in Kinston for an interview?”

  Grant agreed and said, “In the meantime, I’m going to go ahead and try to e-mail you these conversations.”

  Gwartney assumed that Grant would be on his way shortly. But the detective did not receive the e-mails, and saw no sign of Grant.

  Grant called back later and said, “I’m still trying to send those e-mails but I keep getting an error message.”

  Gwartney called Raleigh and told them that Laura Ackerson had last been seen in their city.

  —

  BARBARA Patty was expecting Laura at her house on Monday evening for their weekly Bible study and prayer get-together. Usually Laura sent her a text on Monday afternoon to make sure that they were still on for that night. When Barbara didn’t get a message, she sent one to Laura, but never got a response.

  Later she got a call from the house church leader, Rob MacArthur. He said that he’d heard from Heidi Schumacher, wanting to know if he’d talked to Laura. He hadn’t, and wanted to check with Barbara.

  —

  THAT evening, sitting in the living room in Richmond, Texas, Amanda said, “We’re worried ’cause we brought the kids across the state line and there was a court order in the custody battle saying we can’t do that.”

  “From what I know,” Karen said, “and I don’t really know anything, but when there’s a court order and you take them across state lines then I’m pretty sure they would consider it kidnapping, even if he is the parent.”

  “What would happen?” Amanda asked.

  “Well, they would arrest Grant and Child Protective Services would probably take the kids.”

  “I do not want to go to jail,” Grant said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JUST after two A.M. on Tuesday, July 19, 2011, Karen Berry’s younger son, Shelton Berry, left his house with some friends to go to Denny’s. He got back two hours later and found Grant and Amanda sitting on the tailgate of his truck. Shelton asked for a cigarette.

  Amanda gave him one and said that they’d unloaded the piece of furniture from the U-Haul. Shelton joined them on the tailgate, where they had a couple of beers and talked.

  Amanda asked, “Do alligators eat people?”

  “Yeah, they’re alligators,” Shelton said.

  “Where are most of them?”

  “Well, you need to go further down the creek where there aren’t any houses. But if you want to see lots of them, you need to go to the Brazos River.”

  “You hunt them?” Grant asked.

  “Yeah. You hang a chicken from a hook in a tree. The alligator jumps up to get it and it gets caught. You lower it down and shoot it in the soft spot on the top of its head.”

  Amanda knew that Shelton operated a business rounding up problem feral hogs for a fee, so she asked, “What about the hogs? Will they eat people?”

  “Yes, they will. They’re carnivores,” Shelton said, thinking these were city folk scared of the wildlife.

  Then the conversation turned to the beach and shark fishing. Grant said, “I’d like to catch some sharks to take back to my dad in North Carolina. Where are they?”

  “All over, but mainly we fish for them in Matagorda, past Baytown. Takes about an hour, hour and a half to get there.”

  “Would you take me?”

  “If I get time before you go, but I have to work and all.”

  —

  BACK in Raleigh, Heidi Schumacher went to her computer ea
rly Tuesday morning and loaded up a month’s worth of e-mails from the last of May to the end of June on a CD and a flash drive. She drove down to Kinston and left the CD with Detective James Gwartney, who explained to her that the Raleigh police, led by Detective Jerry Faulk, were now running an investigation into Laura’s disappearance. When she returned to Raleigh, she gave the flash drive to Faulk and told him she thought Laura had been murdered.

  —

  LATER that morning, Amanda approached her sister Karen in the kitchen and said, “I need to speak to you alone—it’s serious.”

  “Can I get a cup of coffee first?”

  “Sure,” Amanda said, but then continued, “I hurt Laura and I hurt her bad.”

  Karen looked at her little sister’s face, seeking answers but afraid to find them.

  Amanda said, “Laura is dead.”

  The two sisters went outside to the swing. Amanda pointed over to Grant who was in the yard, “Could Grant come over with us?”

  “He’s your husband,” Karen said. “If you want him to come over, it’s up to you.”

  Amanda asked, “Is there any property that has a big hole in it?”

  Grant followed up with, “Does your well have a big hole in it?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Karen said. “It’s not that kind of well.” Karen was confused by the progress of the conversation. She kept waiting for Amanda to explain her comment about hurting Laura—she sensed something was very wrong. “If this is bad,” she said, “really bad, it’s best to tell the truth. I know an attorney you can go talk to if you need to talk to an attorney.”

  Grant and Amanda kept asking a bewildered Karen about deep places, and finally she said, “There’s a septic tank in the back.”

  But as Karen and Amanda headed that way, suspicion smacked up against Karen’s denial. “I don’t think this is a good idea. One day this house might belong to one of my kids—it’s not a good idea at all,” she said and headed back to the house.

  Grant told Karen he needed some acid, and asked if there was a Home Depot nearby. Karen gave him directions and let Amanda borrow a vehicle to drive there.

  At 9:37 that morning, Amanda Hayes walked to a drive-up ATM in a strip shopping center and made a withdrawal. A little after ten, in that same shopping center, Grant entered the Home Depot wearing a dark shirt and pants. Employee Raymond Boyer had been at work for about an hour when another associate pointed him in Grant’s direction saying that the customer needed assistance.

  As Raymond approached, Grant said, “I have an odor I’m trying to get rid of.”

  The two talked for a while about available products. When Raymond inquired about the nature of the problem, Grant said, “I’m here visiting relatives and one of the sons captured a wild hog and put it in a pen. He’s released it now and I volunteered to clean the area up.”

  “None of the odor removers we sell here at Home Depot would do that job. They’ll only mask it for a bit but that’s it.” Raymond explained that he’d raised a son and daughter who were both in the Future Farmers of America, and “the way we used to do it is, a couple of times a week, we would go in and dig the dirt out of the pens and replace it with new soil. That’s the only way I know to get rid of that odor. Do you have a shovel to do that?”

  “No. I need something to take care of that odor,” Grant insisted. “Do you have any kind of acid?”

  “Well, we’ve got muriatic acid but that’s not going to do the job,” Raymond said.

  Nonetheless, Grant was adamant. He wanted to see the muriatic acid. It was kept in the open garden area of the store because it was most commonly used by bricklayers, swimming pool people, and contractors who needed to clean concrete. Raymond led Grant out to it but then spent about fifteen minutes trying to talk him out of buying any. “It’s not going to do the job for you—it’s not going to remove the odor.”

  Finally, Raymond gave up and helped Grant load four boxes into his basket. “You ought to get some gloves—black neoprene or other chemical gloves.”

  Grant purchased the recommended gloves, a thirty-two-gallon plastic trash can, and the muriatic acid for a total expenditure of $69.49.

  —

  DALTON Berry got up while Grant and Amanda were gone and saw the dresser sitting out in the front yard wrapped in a gray U-Haul wrapper. When he noticed ants were getting all over it, he and a friend moved it up onto the porch.

  —

  SHA Elmer talked to her mother that morning. Amanda needed her to go over to the apartment to meet a man who wanted to look at, and possibly purchase, the furniture they’d listed on Craigslist. Sha walked in and was surprised to notice that the home reeked of bleach.

  It was notable, because bleach fumes had always tended to give her and her mother migraines, so Amanda always cleaned with white vinegar instead. Sha called her mother and told her about the smell. She also mentioned a huge bleach stain by the front door.

  “Oh, that was the boys. They kicked over a bucket of bleach that Grant was about to take out and dump on the parking lot.”

  “But, Mom, I thought . . .”

  Amanda cut her off. “Just air the place out and call me if you sell the furniture.”

  Sha opened the sliding glass door to the balcony as well as a window in each bedroom. She spotted a damp towel lying on the stain and picked it up and put it in the linen closet on top of the washing machine.

  As a young, single woman, Sha was smart enough to know that being alone, meeting a stranger she didn’t know in a far-from-public spot was a risky proposition. For her protection, she plucked a couple of knives from the block in the kitchen and placed one in the top drawer of each of the nightstands on either side of Amanda and Grant’s bed.

  She laughed at herself when she looked down from the balcony and saw the man arrive—it was someone she knew, a musician named John Williams, who frequently performed at the bar across the street from where she worked.

  After looking over the pieces for sale, John got on the phone with Grant and negotiated a price for the sofa and love seat. He gave Sha a deposit of $350 in cash and then left to grab some lunch and wait for the arrival of friend, David Soto, who had a van spacious enough to move the furniture.

  Sha called her mother and told her that she had half of the money and was waiting for John’s return.

  “Take it to the bank and deposit it,” Amanda ordered.

  “As soon as I get the other half, I’ll go straight to the bank and make a deposit,” she assured her mother.

  “No,” Amanda insisted, “I need you to deposit that money right now.”

  Sha grumbled to herself but did as she was instructed. When she returned, she roamed around the apartment while she waited for John’s return, but she never noticed anything amiss besides the bleachy smell.

  —

  DETECTIVE James Gwartney went to Laura’s bank, BB&T, that same Tuesday, July 19, and asked if there had been any activity on her account.

  A bank officer checked and said, “Not since the tenth of this month.”

  On that ominous note, Gwartney drove to Raleigh and briefed the homicide unit there. They put out a BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for Laura Ackerson and her vehicle through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system.

  When Gwartney returned to Kinston, he; his supervisor, Commander Canady; and State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Special Agent Lolita Chapman, met with the manager of Laura’s apartment complex and learned that her lease had both of her boys listed as residents. Then they did a walk-through of Laura’s place, looking for any signs of the missing woman and collecting anything that might point to her whereabouts.

  Canady secured Laura’s laptop from a desk in Laura’s bedroom and what at first appeared to be a planner on the bedside table. When they flipped through it, they realized it was more like a diary. The last entry was on July 12 and it was quickly
apparent that Laura had been having problems with Grant Hayes. Her notations about interactions with others, including her children, were also very detailed.

  There was a planner page for July 11 lying on the dining table. The plants all appeared dead as if it had been a while since they’d been watered. The chances that something bad had happened to Laura seemed increasingly likely.

  The detective assisted the Raleigh Police Department in obtaining a search warrant.

  —

  THAT evening, just after five thirty, Amanda’s niece, Kandice Rowland, stopped by her mother’s house after work to see Amanda. Because Kandice was due to deliver her first baby in two months and Lily was then just over a month old, the women spent an hour in conversation about being pregnant, giving birth and taking care of an infant. Kandice handed Amanda a check for $425 in payment for a loan her aunt had previously made to her.

  Amanda said, “We need money for the trip back—could you pay me in cash instead?”

  “I don’t have it on me but I could get some from the ATM tonight and write a check for the rest,” Kandice offered.

  Then Grant and Amanda went outside. Amanda came back in a few minutes later to get bottles of water and to borrow a pair of black sweats and a thermal T-shirt from her sister Karen. She said, “We’re going to take the boat out and go fishing. Will you be here for a while?”

  “No,” Kandice said, “if you’re going across the street, I’ll head on home.”

  The two hugged and said good-bye.

  Kandice went to the ATM and withdrew $300. She came back to her mother’s house and dropped off the cash and a new check for $125. After chatting a little with her mother, Kandice left at about nine that night.

  Karen was impatiently waiting for Grant and Amanda to return. She saw the couple take something out of the U-Haul but was too busy watching the children to notice what it was. She was running late to pick up one of her sons from work at ten o’clock but she hadn’t wanted to go and leave the kids alone. She left as soon as Amanda entered the house.