Missing Daughter

by Rick Mofina

  Drops of sweat appeared on Kane’s face. He said nothing.

  “Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”

  A metallic jangle, a clink and click as handcuffs were snapped onto Kane’s wrists. As a deputy led Kane to the door, relief washed over Gatt.

  But it died.

  The dog yelped, turned and grew interested in something across the room, something on the floor.

  He led the deputies to a grilled floor register for the center’s heating and cooling system.

  Again, a deputy got on his knees.

  With gloved hands he pried up the metal register, which opened to the tin ductwork of the building’s heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. Getting flat on his stomach, the deputy searched the system with a flashlight. The center was an older building, and the ductwork was about a foot wide and six inches deep.

  Seconds ticked by and it appeared he was about to abandon the effort when, there, nearly lost among the dust balls, the deputy discerned a piece of cord about two feet from the mouth of the vent. The cord was straight, and its end disappeared into the darkness.

  He tugged gently on it.

  Something of weight was tied to the far end.

  He began pulling the object toward him.

  Gatt’s heart slammed against his chest.

  36

  At that time, across the city at police headquarters, heads turned from desks as Cole Lane walked through the Criminal Investigations Division.

  Investigators stood to shake Cole’s hand; he got the subtle head-to-toe look, smiles and back slaps. The new guys who knew only his story and the old-timers who’d known him from his days on the force greeted him with a mixture of reverence and condolence. A few commented about that god-awful false alarm out of Buffalo underscoring how intense the investigation was.

  “Good to see you, Cole.”

  “Honor to meet you.”

  “We’re going flat-out to find your niece.”

  “It’s been a long time, pal.”

  After Cole introduced Jill and Dalton, he glimpsed Asher and Zubik waiting near the interview rooms. Their faces were taut; they held no time for heroes. They had work to do. Asher nodded to Cole and indicated an open door.

  They’d start with him.

  He entered the stark white-walled room and took a seat across from the detectives at the lone table.

  “Is that chair going to be okay for you, Cole? I mean—will you be comfortable?” Asher acknowledged his prosthetic legs.

  “I’m fine, Fran,” Cole said.

  Asher passed him forms to sign, consenting to volunteering his family’s fingerprints, phones and volunteering their property to be searched as part of the investigation. He signed them all.

  “Before we start, Cole, I want to make one thing clear,” Zubik said. “We know you’re running your own investigation, but this is our case. Is that understood?”

  “She’s my niece, Stan.”

  “I get that. I know all you’ve been through and what you’re going through. But you better not interfere, or do anything to jeopardize or obstruct us. Do we understand each other here?”

  Zubik’s gaze drilled into him, and the muscles under Cole’s jaw pulsed.

  “Understood.”

  “Good. Now, we’ve got your informal statements,” Zubik said, “and the questionnaire we’d sent you. Let’s start with you taking us through a time line of the night Maddison disappeared, and how you heard.”

  Asher’s pen was poised over her pad.

  “Jill and I went out to dinner at the Inn on the Lake. We got home about ten thirty, ten-forty-five. I was beat, so I turned in. She stayed up to wait for Dalton to get home.”

  “Where was Dalton that evening?”

  “He’d gone to a friend’s birthday party. He got picked up and was getting a ride home.”

  Asher took notes.

  “What time did Dalton get home?”

  “I don’t know the exact time, but it was late, after his curfew. There was car trouble.”

  “Who was driving him home?”

  “He got a ride with the older brother of his friend Donnie Slade. I think his name’s Lennie Slade. I provided this information earlier.”

  “Where was the party?”

  “On the far east side. It was supposed to be a big event. The friend was turning sixteen.”

  “Do you have the friend’s name?”

  “Jill knows it, but I think it’s Jenna Guthrie. Her mom works in the mayor’s office.”

  “And did you ask him how he got those tiny scratches on his face?”

  “No, because I never noticed them, with the way his hair is.”

  “How did you learn about Maddison?”

  “Ryan called me in the morning, and we rushed over to help.”

  “Do you know anyone who holds any ill will toward your brother or his family?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think your brother or anyone in his family could’ve hurt Maddison?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Do you think anyone in your family could’ve hurt Maddison or be involved in her disappearance?”

  “No.”

  “How would you describe your relationship with your brother?”

  Cole thought before he said, “Complicated.”

  “How?”

  “When we were younger, he wanted me to join him in our father’s drywall business. I wanted to take a different road in life, and he resented me a little for it. We both acknowledged that and we still deal with it. We get along. When I got back home after being blown apart in Afghanistan, I went through some very rough times.”

  “I’ve read your book,” Zubik said.

  “Me too,” Asher said. “You overcame so much.”

  Cole nodded slowly and looked away, for suddenly it all came back, and for a few seconds he was in the unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan with a fifteen-member team, following new intel to a remote Taliban camp...

  Trekking to it, we near a small village. We’re crossing a flat expanse when the air whips with the sound of bullets. The crack of gunfire. We’re under attack. Exposed. Three of our guys go down. I find cover in a ditch behind a line of rocks with our medic and two other guys, and return fire.

  Our radio’s gone. We use the sat phone to call for help. It’s an ambush. We count sixty Taliban firing on us. Our guys are down everywhere, wounded, bleeding, still returning fire, crawling toward us for cover. The Taliban bring out a machine gun and our rock cover begins chipping away, stone and shrapnel slicing into our guys, chewing up the ones who’re exposed and can’t make it to our cover.

  We’re reloading, returning fire, holding them off for as long as we can. Air support’s coming fast. Three of our guys are dying yards away. I get our team to unleash cover fire and I crawl to them, dragging them to our cover, feeling bullets slice by. I get one, then two guys to safety and go for the third when I hear the choppers coming, see them fire from the sky as the Taliban bring out rocket-propelled grenades.

  One RPG misses the chopper, but the Taliban aims the second at me. I see it come, everything slows, the flash-explosion, the heat. My body heaves into the air, I can’t hear, breathe. One leg below my knee is hanging by charred skin; the other below my knee is gone. My world goes black.

  I remember blue sky, being airlifted, medics working on me, the hospital, doctors telling me I had lost my legs below the knee but saved three lives. The hospital in Germany, the Purple Heart, surgery after surgery, my life changed...my life...gone.

  Coming home to Walter Reed, getting new legs, therapy, struggling with mountains to climb...so hard. I can’t do it, but Ryan and Karen are there, supporting me, pushing me. One person who is not there: my girlfriend, Brittany. She’s devastated, they tell me.

 
She’s devastated?

  When I get back to Syracuse for more therapy, Brittany tells me she met someone new, but in my heart I know—it’s a lie. She can’t deal with me. The life she envisioned does not include a man who’d been blown apart. I’m not in that picture. She leaves me alone with a third amputation, an emotional one. I sink fast into the abyss. Ryan and Karen come to help me...you’ve got to hang in there, they tell me...but I can’t...what’s the point, look at me. I don’t blame Britt for leaving me, I mean look at me...who could love me like this? I’m gone... I quit. Then Karen...taking my hand...don’t ever say that...we love you, Cole...we need you...holding my hand...

  “Yeah, well, Ryan and Karen got me through my darkest moments for which I’m indebted to them. They’d do anything for me. I’d do anything for them.”

  “Would you say Ryan is prone to violence?”

  “No. I know he has a short fuse, but he’s a gentle soul, a good man.”

  “How does your wife get along with your brother’s family?”

  “Good. She and Karen are good sisters-in-law.”

  “How would you describe Dalton’s relationship with Maddison and Tyler?”

  “All right. They’re cousins. He’s a little older. They don’t see each other that much but when they do, they get along fine.”

  “What do you think happened to Maddison?”

  “I think someone abducted her.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “Maybe a predatory offender, or someone she met online, or someone from the halfway house. Do you have any strong leads? I understand you’re going hard on the halfway house and some other people?”

  “We’re looking everywhere,” Zubik said. “What’re your people doing?”

  Asher was poised to take note.

  “We’re going through the publically posted sex offender registry,” Cole said, “cross-referencing names and addresses, creating a map and list of offenders residing near Maddie’s home.”

  “I think you should leave that to us. What else are you doing?”

  “I’ve got my guys running down all their sources for any word on the street. And we’re looking online with other sources to see if she surfaces on the dark web or porn sites. We’re searching for any cyber predators, and we’re helping coordinate the search and tips.”

  Asher took notes.

  “You know you’re required to give us anything you uncover,” Zubik said.

  “I’m aware of that, Stan.”

  Before they concluded, Cole asked Zubik a final question.

  “Are you focusing on anyone in particular?”

  Zubik considered Cole’s question, his face betraying nothing.

  “No one’s been ruled out yet.”

  37

  Jill twisted the tissue in her hands.

  “It was around ten thirty when we got home from dinner at the Inn on the Lake.” Her eyes glistened as she related the events to Asher and Zubik. “Cole went to bed. I stayed up and read while I waited for Dalton.”

  “Where was Dalton?” Zubik asked, not sharing what Cole had said.

  “He went to a friend’s birthday party.”

  “Who was the friend? Where was the party?”

  “Jenna Guthrie, her sixteenth. Her mom is Celeste. She works for the mayor. They live on Republic Drive. I can get you the address.”

  “We can get it but sure, thanks.”

  “How did Dalton get there?”

  “His friend Donnie Slade’s older brother drove them there and back.”

  “What time was Dalton supposed to return?”

  “Well, his curfew on Friday nights is midnight, but when it got late, I got a bit worried. He wasn’t answering my texts, which frustrated me, so I got in my car and went out looking for him. He wasn’t at the party, so I drove around looking for him to an all-night diner I knew he liked, but I couldn’t find him and went home.”

  “Why not tell Cole, let him go looking or go together?”

  “Because I had insisted that we try a different approach with Dalton, be more flexible, so I guess I felt a sense of responsibility.” She sighed. “Anyway, he got home very late, after 3:00 a.m., maybe 3:30. I’d fallen asleep.”

  “Did you reprimand him for being late?”

  “Lightly, because he said they’d had some car trouble and his phone wasn’t working. I accepted that, but, well, Dalton’s been having some problems.”

  Zubik and Asher exchanged a quick glance.

  “What sort of problems?”

  Jill considered the question.

  “Over the past six months or so he’s been caught a few times with alcohol on his breath, he got into a scuffle at school and he missed school assignments. After talking with his teachers and counselors, we decided that rather than being hard on him we’d try a period of respect and trust, to give him a chance to develop a degree of maturity and straighten out. Cole was reluctant to go along with that approach, but I supported it.”

  “Is it working?”

  “It’s challenging but we’re hopeful. He’s a teenager.”

  “And what about those little scratches he had on his face? Did you ask him about them?”

  “No. The way he wears his hair, I never saw them until you pointed them out.”

  “Does he spend a lot of time online?”

  “Yes. Like most kids he lives on his phone.”

  “Do you know if he sexts?”

  Jill’s face flushed.

  “No, he doesn’t because I force him to show me his phone under the threat of canceling it.”

  “Do you ever catch him visiting sites he shouldn’t be visiting?”

  “A couple of times I caught him viewing porn and came down hard on him, but he’s a fourteen-year-old.”

  Zubik took a moment then resumed.

  “How does Dalton get along with his cousins, Maddison and Tyler?”

  Jill pondered her crumpled tissue.

  “They look up to him, almost idolize him.”

  “What makes you say that? He’s only a year or so older.”

  “Well, he’s traveled all over the world with us. He’s experienced more of life, I guess. He hangs out with older kids. Sometimes I wonder if Maddie has a little harmless crush on Dalton.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Jill smiled weakly. “Oh, just the way she looked up to him, as older, more like a young man of the world, I guess. I don’t know.” She shrugged.

  “Did Dalton ever say anything about Maddison along those lines, or indicate feelings for her?”

  “God, no. No, they’re cousins.”

  “Does Dalton have a girlfriend?”

  “He’s been out on a few dates, and when we had to go to Paris for Cole’s business, Dalton met the very pretty daughter of a French detective and I guess they had a little romance going. We know they were FaceTiming and texting a lot for months.”

  Zubik paused to let Asher catch up on her note-taking, then resumed.

  “You say that you’ve talked with Dalton’s teachers and counselors about his problems. Is there any thought as to what the source or cause of those problems is? Could you tell us a bit more about that, the atmosphere in your home with you, Cole and Dalton?”

  “Me, Cole and Dalton?” Jill blinked several times and glanced up at the camera, aware she was being recorded. Then she looked into her hands.

  Her thoughts rolled back to when she met Cole, working as an orthopedic physical therapist helping him with his postsurgical care. She liked him. He was a smart, good-looking guy, and she’d grown attracted to him.

  She was heartbroken for him after she’d learned that his girlfriend had abandoned him. She was awed by how his brother and sister-in-law were relentless with their support and encouragement to see that he got through th
e breakup and that he continued his battle. Jill did all she could, too.

  It took a long time and a lot of work, but Cole survived, like he’d found a new purpose. Like he was reborn, had become a new person. During this period, Jill got to know him all over again.

  They fell in love. Got married and set out to start a family, but Jill suffered several miscarriages.

  She was devastated.

  But Cole was strong. He helped her; she leaned on him and they endured together.

  “I guess that life in our home is much like anyone else’s,” Jill said. “Like everyone, we’ve had good times and bad times. I mean, I can’t have children. We adopted Dalton when he was eleven months old. As he got older, he began studying family photos, then he started asking why he didn’t really look like anyone in his family history. Cole and I gave it a lot of thought, then, eight months ago, we told Dalton he was adopted.”

  “How did he react?”

  “Okay at first.” Jill nodded slowly. “But it was after that, that he started having his problems, acting out, rebelling. So we felt a little guilty and wanted to give him some time and space to process everything.”

  “Who else is aware that he’s adopted?”

  “Ryan and Karen had known from the beginning, and my family. After we broke the news to Dalton, we let Ryan and Karen tell Maddie and Tyler. We left it up to Dalton if he wanted to tell people, that no matter how he chose to go, we’d support him.”

  Zubik looked at Jill, thinking for several moments before thanking her.

  “I think that’s it for now. An officer will escort you to where you can provide your fingerprints.”

  38

  Dalton was familiar with police stations.

  Given his dad was an ex-cop who ran his own private investigation agency, Dalton had been in a few with him. They pretty much looked the same.

  But this visit was unlike any other.

  And no matter how much the detectives sitting on the other side of the table smiled and tried to be nice to Dalton, he sensed their warmth was phony and he didn’t like it. And he didn’t like being in this bright, plain room. It gave him the same feeling as when he went to the dentist: the expectation that something unpleasant was about to happen.