Search for Her

by Rick Mofina

  Not a problem for Margot.

  Waiting patiently, she made use of the time by reviewing the pictures she’d taken of her friend’s visit, smiling at the first one she’d swiped to.

  My goodness, she hasn’t changed a bit.

  As beautiful as ever, Margot thought, admiring her sixty-eight-year-old girlfriend, Julie Frahan, by the pool.

  They’d met when they were in their late twenties, working side by side as copy editors at the now-defunct Los Angeles Morning Post.

  Where did the years go?

  Under impossible deadlines, they turned raw copy into strong, clear news stories, both of them sharp-eyed experts on grammar and the paper’s style. Julie had taped a quote to her work space from Robert Louis Stevenson: “Do not write merely to be understood. Write so you cannot possibly be misunderstood.”

  Eventually, Julie left to join the Boston Globe, where she’d retired. And after the Morning Post folded, Margot found a part-time job at the Desert Dispatch in Barstow before retiring. They remained lifelong friends, visiting each other two or three times a year.

  Their most recent visit ended yesterday, when Margot had driven Julie from her house in Barstow to catch her return flight in Las Vegas, where they squeezed in some fun and took pictures.

  Margot continued swiping.

  Here they were out front of Caesars Palace and here at the fountains of the Bellagio.

  “No, no, that’s not correct! Check again!” The woman ahead of her was stabbing the paper copy of her bill on the counter with her finger as the clerk tapped on his keyboard, maintaining his professional composure.

  That’s when Margot noticed that the flat screen above the reception desk was not only displaying hotel features but the picture and security video of a young girl. A missing teenage girl from California.

  Studying the young girl’s face and scanning the information, Margot recalled the tragic case of another California teen, also missing before her body was found in the region a year ago.

  The name of the young white girl on the screen was Riley Jarrett from San Diego.

  How distressing for her family, Margot thought, wishing a happy reunion for them before going back to her phone, and the video she’d recorded.

  Here were Julie and Margot at the Statue of Liberty, now here they were at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. They were posing at the huge murals of landmarks in the lobby of the Silver Sagebrush, where they’d stopped yesterday on the way to Las Vegas.

  It wasn’t far from Jean.

  Julie had an appetite for kitsch, garish, out-of-this-world stuff, and had insisted they stop at what was billed as one of America’s largest truck plazas. It was mind-bogglingly huge.

  Next, she played a video she’d taken of the Hoover Dam mural, then Julie laughing and waving in front of the Golden Gate Bridge mural among other travelers in the lobby.

  Something caught Margot’s eye.

  Wait a minute. Is that—What was that?

  She replayed her video.

  Then she looked up at the flat screen and the appeal for help finding the missing San Diego girl.

  Margot examined Riley Jarrett’s face and replayed her video.

  Her head snapped back and forth between the screen and the images on her phone.

  Oh my Lord.

  Twenty-Six

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Elsen got little sleep and was up before the sun.

  He fed Daisy. It was still dark when he walked her to the park, and mourned his wife. Some days her death wasn’t real to him; he’d go back home expecting to find her there. But the house was empty, and it took everything he had to keep going, to put one foot in front of the other and step into another day.

  In the twilight, a distant siren evoked memories of the Mandalay Bay shootings as he took Daisy home then drove to headquarters, asking fate to give them a break in Riley Jarrett’s case before he went to the Digital Forensic Lab.

  Fortunately, Officer Sue Watson was an early riser. I bike to work. I’ll be in at 5:30, she’d said in response to his text last night.

  And Watson was there on time this morning. Elsen gave her Riley Jarrett’s phone, along with the password volunteered by Grace Jarrett, a copy of the emailed warrant and other documentation.

  “We need you to pull everything you can, who she contacted, what sites she visited. Everything,” Elsen said.

  Watson gave it all a preliminary inspection.

  “It’ll take time,” she said. “All depends on the technology and if we have to subpoena the creators of the apps she’s used for access to their servers. We’ll work as fast as we can, Dan.”

  Elsen took the elevator to the Missing Persons Unit, went to the kitchen and made fresh coffee. It was 5:45 a.m.

  On his way to his desk he saw that McDowell had arrived and was on the phone. He pointed to his mug, indicating an offer to get her a coffee. She smiled, holding up her Raiders coffee cup. A moment later she ended her call.

  “That was Jackson at the command center,” she said. “Grace Jarrett was near hysterical, wandering in the desert last night before they got her back in her room.”

  Elsen thought. “Maybe we should get eyes on the family.”

  “You’re sure you want to go that way?” McDowell said. “We can’t charge them with anything that will stick.”

  “But have we ruled them out?”

  “No, but—”

  “But we’re not confident they’ve been truthful,” he said. “What if the mom’s hysterics was an act? What if she was hiding evidence or meeting someone out there?”

  “Then we go out and find it. But you said we need to keep an open door with them, and we’ve already played hard on the drug issue.”

  “I’m not talking full-bore surveillance,” Elsen said. “We should just keep an eye on them.”

  “All right. I’ll tell Jackson and Rogan to get a dog team and follow the mom’s path for anything, and to keep a friendly watch on the family.”

  “Right. Did Jackson have anything new for us?” Elsen asked.

  “Not much. What’ve you got?”

  “The phone’s with the lab, I’ve updated the DA and I talked to Narcotics. They’ll reach out to their sources for any leads,” Elsen said.

  “I started working on warrants on the rental history of the RV.”

  “We keep coming back to the drugs.” Elsen took a hit of coffee. “She could’ve been taken if the family failed to deliver drugs, you know, a cartel-ransom-for-debt thing.”

  “That’s still a possibility, but what if this Caleb Clarke, the boyfriend, is in a gang?” McDowell said. “Or ran up a debt, or was approached to offer Riley up for trafficking?”

  Elsen nodded at her theory. “Something he might do, if she dumped him and was moving away.”

  “An act of vengeance against the mom. And, being out of the country makes him look clean,” McDowell said.

  “I’ll reach out to the FBI, get their legal attaché office that covers Algeria to locate Caleb Clarke for a phone interview and we’ll run down his background.”

  McDowell made a note. “It’s chilling. When I was on the task force, I worked some trafficking cases. Girls Riley’s age are never on the Strip. They’re in the back rooms of massage parlors. Traffickers change their appearance radically and so fast, they almost vanish.”

  Elsen shook his head.

  “And we’ve got the unsolved Garcia case not far from the Sagebrush. Homicide is looking for any connection to ours,” he said. “And since we have the warrants we’ll get CSI to process the RV.”

  As time passed, the detectives worked solidly, going back over everything again, rechecking the tip lines, checking with security at McCarran, the Golden Nugget, other casinos, all transportation outlets. They checked with police in California, in San Bernardino and in Riverside for
updates, and the status of the request for security video from the Chevron in Fontana where the family stopped.

  McDowell called the twenty-four-hour hotline for San Diego County’s Child Protective Services and was put in touch with an investigator to handle her inquiry for any reports of abuse, any investigations concerning Riley Jarrett. The investigator said she would get back to McDowell.

  At the same time, Elsen continued querying law enforcement databases for any criminal history for Riley Jarrett, Grace Jarrett, John Marshall, Blake Marshall and Caleb Clarke.

  All he could find was a speeding ticket for John.

  They called the San Diego hospital where Grace had worked and the clothing chain in San Diego where John had worked, SoCal SoYou, to inquire about their background or any issues that may have a bearing on the case. They also made calls to Riley’s and Blake’s schools.

  Between calls, McDowell turned to Elsen. “I’m going back,” she said, “to her breakup with Caleb, the move, being pissed at her mom, who grabbed her phone. She could’ve simply run off.”

  Elsen, studying his phone, nodded. “We’ve seen cases like that. Her friends might know.”

  McDowell flipped through her notebook. “I called the parents of her friends last night and spoke with some of the girls—Claire, Ashley and Dakota. They’ve not had contact with Riley since her disappearance. All said she was upset about her breakup and the move and were sure she was texting with Caleb before disappearing.”

  “Her phone is key,” Elsen said.

  “Then there’s the farewell party,” she said. “We still need the family to give us a list of everyone who attended.” McDowell’s cup was empty. “I need more coffee, how about you?”

  Elsen was concentrating on his phone.

  “What is it?” McDowell came over to him.

  “Well, John and Grace each lost someone tragically before they married.”

  “Are you saying that’s a consideration?”

  Elsen slid his phone into his pocket, got his cup and stood. “I don’t know.”

  They started for the kitchen when McDowell’s phone rang.

  “Michelle, this is Shanice Jackson at the command center. We need you down here. We’ve got something.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Jean, Nevada

  Some forty minutes later, Elsen and McDowell entered the lobby of the Cholla Sun Trail Hotel.

  “This way,” Tracy Harris said upon greeting them.

  Harris, a former US Marshal, now hotel security manager, was all business leading them through the main floor.

  “One of our guests alerted us to information potentially significant to your case,” Harris said.

  She brought them to the Gold Miner, a small, dark-paneled, white-tablecloth restaurant, now empty because it only served dinner. They came to a booth occupied by a woman and Metro Police Officer Nate Rogan, who had briefed the detectives over the phone during their drive down.

  “This is Margot Winton of Barstow,” Rogan said, making introductions.

  Then Harris said: “Anybody want anything, coffee?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Margot said.

  “We’re good.” McDowell smiled.

  “We’ll leave you to it.” Harris left with Rogan.

  Even though they’d received Rogan’s summary concerning Margot Winton’s report, Elsen and McDowell requested her account. As she related the circumstances, Elsen took in her white cropped hair, high cheekbones and blue eyes behind her glasses. She struck him as a strong, credible witness as she cued up the video she’d recorded on her phone.

  Margot sent it to McDowell, who pulled it up on her tablet, giving them an enlarged view. Angling the screen, she played the video in slow motion.

  It began with Margot and her friend Julie at the huge murals in the busy Silver Sagebrush, where they’d stopped on their way to Las Vegas the previous day. They were standing before the Golden Gate Bridge mural when in the far left corner there was a glimpse of a girl in a white T-shirt.

  “See?” Margot said. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s the missing girl!”

  McDowell replayed the scene, freezing it on a small but clear image of a teenage girl wearing a shirt with the stylized Friends logo from the TV show. From the photo Grace Jarrett had given them, and footage from the security camera in the Silverado store, there was no doubt.

  “Yes, that’s her,” Elsen said. “Keep going.”

  In slow motion the video continued to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, only now a man had emerged among the people; out of a corner of the frame. When he was in, he could be seen briefly but clearly: a white man in his late forties, early fifties. He was holding a phone, taking photos or making a video of the murals. His other hand was out of the frame, but positioned as if he was holding something.

  “Replay it,” Elsen said. “And stop on every frame.”

  A closer look revealed how the focus of the man’s recording had subtly shifted to Riley Jarrett.

  Margot’s video of the Hoover Dam showed flashes in the corner of Riley and the stranger recording her. Other travelers and Riley were oblivious to what the man was doing and just before Margot’s sequence of the Hoover Dam ended, something happened.

  “Wait!” Elsen said.

  “I got it.”

  McDowell replayed the frames carefully.

  The end of the Hoover Dam sequence showed the man holding a bag with something in it and walking right up to Riley in front of the Golden Gate Bridge mural before they both vanished from the video. Suddenly, Riley and the stranger surfaced again, in the corner.

  McDowell slowed then froze images.

  Riley appeared worried and the man appeared to be talking to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Riley brushed it away before they both vanished from the recording as it ended.

  Elsen and McDowell traded a quick, knowing glance.

  They thanked Margot Winton and after taking her statement and formally initiating a warrant for her video, they thanked Harris and Rogan and set to work in their car.

  Reviewing the video again, they detailed the man’s description, estimating hair color, age, height, weight. He was wearing light khakis, a navy-colored polo shirt with a small yellow crest over his heart. Paging through notes, they aligned the time of the recording, determining it was not long after Riley had left the Silverado store.

  “Let’s start there,” Elsen said. “What’s he got in that bag? Did he buy something from the store?”

  With McDowell on the phone to Carl Aldrich and Elsen at the wheel, they drove to the Silver Sagebrush.

  * * *

  Skylar Brown, the clerk who’d been working when Riley Jarrett was in the Silverado, shook her head after watching the video of Riley and the stranger for the fourth time.

  “No, he doesn’t look familiar.”

  Elsen and McDowell asked her about the bag he was holding.

  “Look at the logo. Is it from here?” McDowell asked.

  “I can’t see it clearly. It could be ours.” Skylar bit her bottom lip. “Oh! I forgot to tell you something yesterday. You gotta check with Bick.”

  “Bick?”

  “Chad Bickerstaff.”

  “What about him?”

  “Yesterday, right after I saw the girl, I stepped away to go to the bathroom for like, five minutes. Bick covered for me before he left for the day. He’s in the back now.” Skylar reached for her phone and texted. “I’ll get him to come out.”

  “Did we miss interviewing him?” Elsen said.

  McDowell checked her notes. “He was one of the staff who’d left before the case broke. He never got back to us,” she said.

  A moment later, a lanky man in his twenties with a mop of curly hair arrived at the counter, his eyes flicking to Skylar and the detectives, who, after explaining, asked if he could identify
the stranger in the video.

  Bick leaned his slim frame into the screen, giving the request his full concentration. McDowell offered to play it a second time but Bick was nodding, keeping his eyes on the images.

  “I remember him,” Bick said. “All smiles but kinda creepy.”

  “Why do you say that?” Elsen said.

  “Just gave me a bad vibe. I remember he bought duct tape and scissors.”

  “Really? Did he pay with cash, or a card?” Elsen asked.

  Bick thought. “Cash.”

  “Cash?”

  “No, wait. I remember, he opened his wallet for cash but had none. He seemed ticked at himself for not having cash and having to pay with plastic.”

  “Can you show us the record of his purchase?”

  “I’ll have to ask because, I mean, I don’t know if that’s legal and all.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll get warrants,” Elsen said.

  “Whoa, am I in some kind of trouble?” Bick said.

  “No, you’re not. Don’t worry.”

  In the next few moments calls were made and emails sent with McDowell informing a judge of the facts in Riley Jarrett’s case, the new exigent circumstances and that more warrants would likely be needed. The judge agreed that probable cause existed to issue the warrant.

  In that time, Aldrich arrived at the Silverado, and management continued cooperating. Receipts were searched and the credit card number used in the purchase was obtained by the detectives.

  They reached out to security at the credit card company.

  The man’s name was Frayer Ront Rykhirt, aged forty-eight, of Riverside, California.

  McDowell looked at Elsen. “Riverside, Dan.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  That was where Eva Marie Garcia was from.

  Twenty-Eight

  Nevada

  Elsen got on the phone to Jackson at the mobile command center.

  “It’s a concrete lead, Lieutenant. Where’s the family now?”

  “Talking with the Silver Sky Search and Rescue people, marshaling beside us.”