“What’d she say? How’d she act?”
“We didn’t speak, but she acted fine. Like her same old self. Like she had gotten over what had happened to Chelsea.”
“How’d that make you feel?” I ask.
“Not great, but . . . I was feeling bad anyway. Chelsea had not come out to her parents. They didn’t know anything about me. Treated me like shit at the funeral. I was . . . I had had enough that day, I can tell you that.”
“What’d you do about it?”
“Turned within. It was around that time I started meditating and using aromatherapy and getting in touch with my inner goddess.”
“We were going through Randa’s things and found a pair of shoes that weren’t hers,” I say. “Do you know if her boyfriend—”
“Which one?”
“Josh. Do you know if Josh had a pair of black Pumas with flaps on top?”
She nods. “He did. I know he did because . . . I had some too. It’s the only thing we ever talked about. Literally. The only thing.”
140
“You okay?” I ask Jerry Raffield when he opens his front door.
He frowns and shrugs, then eventually nods, but I can tell he’s not. All the color has drained from his face and his pale skin is clammy.
Seeing him reminds me that I still need to follow up on the lead he gave me the last time I was here—Bill Lee, Randa’s alleged molester—and I decide that Scarlett George, Randa’s aunt and Bill’s girlfriend, will probably be the best way to do it. Besides, I need to talk to her anyway.
“This is Chris,” I say as we walk into the study of his Seaside home. “He’s gonna help us track the person who sent it.”
The two men exchange greetings and Chris rushes over to the computer and begins to click and bang around on the keyboard.
We are here because earlier in the evening Jerry received an email from his daughter—well, someone claiming to be his daughter.
From: Randa Raffield
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2016, 5:37 PM
To: Jerry Raffield
Subject: Leave Me Alone
Message: What if I don’t want to be found?
Not only was the message emailed to Jerry, but it was posted on a few different Randa Raffield missing persons forums.
Jerry’s phone vibrates and he pulls it out of his pocket.
“I keep getting calls and emails and messages,” he says. “Everybody is freaking out over this. I . . . I’m just not sure what to say. Hell, I don’t know what to think.”
I nod. “Sorry this is happening.”
“It’s . . . all this new activity on the case has it . . . all stirred up again. It’s like it just happened.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just hope it’s worth it. I hope it means we’re getting closer to finding the truth.”
“It’s not the same sender emailing you,” Chris says.
“It’s not?” I say. “You sure?”
“Nowhere near the level of technical sophistication,” he says. “I think we just might be able to trace this one.” He looks at Jerry. “Mind if I take your computer?”
“What if she emails me again?” he says.
Chris frowns, then looks heartbroken for the sad, daughterless dad. “If that happens, I’ll let you know the moment it does. I’ll take good care of . . . everything . . . and . . . find whoever sent this.”
That night, after just a few minutes of sleep, I wake startled, heart pounding, my head sweating.
Easing out of bed, trying not to wake Anna, I walk through the dim house to the back patio and sit on one of the old, unpainted wooden chairs.
Beyond the craggy cypress trees at its edge, a three-quarters moon looms above Lake Julia, its reflection floating on the dark, shimmering surface below.
My mind is racing, thoughts and questions about Randa flying at me too quick to contemplate or answer.
I attempt to use my breathing to slow my heart and mind, but my efforts are mostly ineffectual.
“You okay?” Anna asks.
I turn to see her standing at the partially open French doors.
I nod.
“What is it?”
“Woke up startled.”
She steps down onto the cement pad and over to me, sitting on the arm of the chair as she puts her arms around me.
“You should’ve woke me up.”
“You’re not getting enough sleep as it is,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter. Is it the case?”
I nod again. “I’ve got no traction, just spinning, flailing about. Not getting anywhere. Not sure I will.”
Her touch is tender, her caress calming.
“You’ve been here before,” she says. “Many times.”
“This one seems different. I’m not sure I can close it.”
“My money’s on you,” she says, “but what if you can’t? You have other unsolved cases.”
“Not like this. I just can’t get my bearings, there’s nothing to grab on to. I’m down the rabbit hole and I just keep falling.”
“Why?” she asks. “What’s different about this case?”
“Too many unknowns, too much information, too many suspects, too many possibilities,” I say.
“Is it the emails, the taunting?”
“It’s all of it. The picture sent to Daniel, the email sent to Jerry.”
“But what about the one sent to you?” she says. “Are you worried about us? Are you . . . Is it what’s upsetting you the most?”
I shake my head.
“I’ve seen you find peace before,” she says. “Even in the midst of uncertainty and loss. You can do it again—even if you don’t solve it, even if you have to live with not knowing what really happened to Randa and who’s behind it. What do you have to do to get to that point?”
I shake my head again. “Not ready to go there yet. Not ready to give up, to . . . let go.”
“Fine, but you’ve got to be able to function, to sleep, to have some sort of peace so your mind can . . . do what it does.”
“You’re helping with that,” I say. “So is the moon and the lake.”
She tries unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m okay. Go back to bed. I’ll be back in there beside you in just a few.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Taylor will be up before you know it. And I’ll be in there beside you before you know it.”
But I wasn’t. Instead I went for a drive. I returned to the scene of the crime, the place where Randa Raffield vanished from the face of the earth.
141
Overstreet is dark and damp, and a moist fog hovers just above the road.
It’s difficult to see and I’m driving far faster than is safe.
The way I feel, I want to drive even faster, but images of Anna and the girls arrive unbidden and I back off the accelerator.
I tell myself I’m just driving, that I have no agenda, no destination, but I know when I’m being lied to, know where I’ll wind up and why I’ll be there.
It’s the gravitational pull Brenda Young spoke about. I’m being drawn to the mystery, attracted to the place where in one way it all began and in another it all ended.
Images from the investigation float toward me like oncoming headlights, bits of information, insights, and impossibilities.
Lost in thought about the case and operating on autopilot, I lose time, and only come out of the state I’m in as I park in the exact spot Randa had.
I get out.
It’s late, the highway empty.
I check my phone. I’m on the edge of the continent. Service is spotty here. At the moment I have none. I have to figure that it was far worse at the beginning of 2005. Could Randa have even used her phone if she wanted to?
I walk in the direction the dogs traced her scent, stumbling in the darkness along the uneven shoulder of the road.
To my left, the nocturnal noises of the swamp are soft and muted. To my right, beyond
the breeze, a hint of the incessant tide rolling in and rolling out. Rolling in and rolling out.
I have to walk around the small popup tent being used as the water and coordination station for the search of the swamp behind it.
On the other side, I nearly trip over the pile of pictures, flowers, candles, cards, balloons, posters, and ribbons that constitute the Randa Raffield shrine. The candles are unlit, long since extinguished by the breeze blowing in off the bay and rain from earlier in the evening.
I pause for a moment and look down at the expressions of love and concern, hope and solidarity. White teddy bears with big red hearts. Swim caps and goggles. UWF attire. Notes. Signs. Drawings.
We Love You Randa. Come Home Soon. RIP Randa Raffield. Thoughts and Prayers. We will find your killer. I am Randa Raffield and so are You!
I continue walking, somehow more melancholy now, an even greater heaviness resting upon me.
Each step labored, each stumble nearly a fall.
Eventually, I reach the spot where the dogs stopped because her scent ended, and pause to look around.
“RANDA,” I yell into the dark void of empty night. “RANDA. WHERE’D YOU GO? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED? WHO TOOK YOU? WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?”
The clouds above me part, letting marginally more moonlight through, but no answers or insight of illumination pierces the dark veil of my benightedness.
What are you doing here? You should be at home in bed beside your beautiful wife. What’s wrong with you? Who’s this helping? What good is it doing? Is this more useful than sleep and the perchance to dream a solution, an insight, an answer?
Ignoring the questions, I cross the street, walk a short ways, and enter Windmark.
A few lights dot the darkness but it remains mostly a ghost town.
A whistling wind whines through the empty buildings and through the trees.
I continue farther into what looks like a small, abandoned seaside town.
Beneath the pale, diffuse moonlight, the deserted development is eerie and unsettling, and only adds to my disorientation and disquietude.
There in the distance, I see Randa, her auburn hair flowing in the bay breeze, its tips streaked with moonlight, her green eyes glowing, her pale skin translucent.
I blink and she is gone.
And though I know what I’ve just witnessed is a figment, a fiction, a fragment of memory and imagination, I still find it unsettling—and a troubling sign of my altered state.
A noise coming up behind me startles me out of my dissociative state and I whip around, bringing up my weapon and pointing it at the tall figure in the dark.
“Steady there, mate,” the man says. “I’m just walking my dog, aren’t I?”
He’s old, tall, and lean, with longish, fine white-blond hair and a much and deeply lined face. His hands are up. A leash extends from his right one to a large dog on the ground below.
“Sorry,” I say, holstering my firearm.
“Mate, are you okay?”
I nod.
“You want me to telly a . . . ambulance for you?”
I shake my head. “I’m okay. Sorry I startled you.”
“Think I’m the one what startled you. You sure you’re okay? Want some tea and a biscuit or something? Get you right as rain. Drink a little tea, have a little biscuit, and Bob’s your uncle you’ll be fit again in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“You British Bob?” I ask.
“I sometimes answer to that name. How the hell’d you know that?”
“I’m John Jordan with the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department,” I say. “Left a card on your door. Been trying to reach you.”
“Oh, right, well, I’ve been meaning to ring you, but been . . .”
“Busy walking your dog?”
He smiles. “Among other things. Intended to call you though, I swear it, mate.”
“Did your neighbor tell you what I wanted to talk to you about?”
He nods.
“Is that why you were hesitant to return my calls?”
“Really have been busy, but . . . that’s a bad business, ain’t it, and I must admit I weren’t too keen on gettin’ involved.”
“Why exactly?”
“No offense to you, I’m sure, but . . . I ain’t had the best of experiences with coppers in my past, I can tell you that.”
“Were you here the night Randa Raffield went missing?”
He shakes his head. “Came in the next day. Had nowhere to stay back then. We was just beginning construction, wasn’t we?”
“Anyone or anything suspicious or out of the ordinary when you arrived?”
He frowns and shakes his head. “Bloody hell, man,” he says. “I . . . I . . . This is why I . . . didn’t want to . . . It didn’t even occur to me to be suspicious of it until recently, did it? I swear, mate. But . . . they were late pouring my foundation because they had to fix and re-level the dirt beneath it where it had been disturbed the night before. They had to adjust the rebar and grade pins. It’s probably nothing, most likely an animal, but . . . there it is. I was going to tell you, wasn’t I? I just . . . But . . . you can’t tear down a one-point-six-million-dollar home because something might be buried beneath it.”
142
“We can’t just dig under a man’s house because some dirt was disturbed before he poured his foundation,” Reggie is saying.
“But—”
“Not any house, but especially a million-dollar Windmark mansion.”
“It’s not just a little disturbed dirt,” I say. “It was enough to make him question whether or not she could be under there. And it happened the night she went missing—just a few hundred yards from where her car was found.”
“It’s probably more like a mile, but . . . I understand what you’re saying. I do.”
“I did some research,” I say. “There are non-destructive ways to at least see if she’s buried there. We could use a ground-penetrating radar to—”
“If and when we decide to do it, we can get FDLE to do it.”
“If?” I say, my voice rising. “If?”
“Yes, if. We have to tread very carefully—and not just from a—”
“Tread carefully? This could be—”
“John, no judge is going to give us a warrant with what we’ve got. We’ve got nothing. Some innuendo and disturbed dirt. That’s it.”
“What if I can get the homeowner to sign a Permission to Search?”
“That might be a direction we can go at some point, but . . . do you know how many Permission to Searches get suppressed at trial? All the homeowner has to claim is that he signed it under duress, that you forced him, threatened him, and it could get tossed—along with anything we might find.”
“But, listen to me . . . if I’m—”
“You okay, John? You sleeping?”
“Not lately, no. Why? I’m okay.”
“You seem a little strung out,” she says. “Is this case getting to you?”
I hesitate a moment, sigh, and nod. “Yeah. They all do. But this one more than most. I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep last night.”
“You’ve got to take care of yourself,” she says. “You won’t be any good for anybody—including Randa—if you come apart at the seams. Now, listen to me. Get some rest. Take care of yourself. I’m not saying no to going the Permission to Search route, but a court order would be far better, a search warrant when we have probable cause. So let’s work on getting that. Okay? Find me that. Then we’ll do the sonar scans. Let’s exhaust every other possibility. Okay? See if we can find probable cause. If not, we’ll revisit the Permission to Search. Seem reasonable?”
I nod.
“So get some rest. Get yourself together. Once you’re not exhausted, exhaust all the other possibilities, and if you still haven’t found her, we’ll look under British Bob’s McMansion.”
“Okay.”
“And if you find her without us having to look under his foundation, I don’t tell anybody you
wanted us to.”
I smile. “Thanks.”
“Now—”
She stops as both our phones begin to vibrate—an occurrence that never brings good news.
Merrick is calling her and Chris is calling me—both about the same thing.
A man claiming to be Randa’s killer has just posted a video online.
“Take a look at it,” Chris says, “while I work on tracking down where it came from.”
After we disconnect our calls, Reggie opens her laptop on her desk and I walk around to her, and we watch the video together.
The In Search of Randa Raffield website has been hacked. All that is on it now is an image of her abandoned car on the side of the road, beneath it the words I confess.
Clicking on the image takes us to a site called IKilledRandaRaffield.com. On it, an average-size man is sitting in a dark room. He’s wearing a black hoodie and his face has been blacked out and his voice digitally distorted.
“Who I am is not important,” he says, his altered voice deep and demented. “What I did is. I am a man with a demon inside me. I’m a slave to his desires. I wish I could control him better, but I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can no more control him than you can the tide. Be clear about this. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I neither want it or deserve it. I only want to bring closure to Randa’s family. Mr. and Mrs. Raffield, I am sorry for killing your daughter. I truly am. Please know it was quick. She didn’t suffer. In a way, her death was like a baptism into her new life. I drowned her in the bay and gave her body back to the sea, from whence all life proceeded. I had no idea her body wouldn’t be discovered or that that fact would lead to so much fanciful speculation. For that too I am sorry. And I’m sorry for not contacting you sooner. I should have. Just know Randa is at peace and I hope now you can be too.”
Without saying a word, Reggie clicks for the video to replay.
The room the man is in is so dark nothing is clearly visible—part of a dark curtain, his hoodie. A dark figure in front of a darker background. That is it.
“Think it’s real?” she asks.
I shrug.
“Gut?” she says.
True Crime Fiction Page 56