Dead River (3 page)

“Sara Ann!” he screamed.

Only far-off rumbles of rolling thunder could be heard. With his face flushed and sweat pouring into his eyes, he struggled back up the slippery embankment to the driveway. He ran toward the house. He had to call someone.

From the kitchen phone Adam dialed 911, pulling a barstool toward him as it rang. He dropped onto the seat and then immediately stood up. His legs felt weak and rubbery, but he couldn’t sit. His stomach echoed the distant thunder.

After the first ring a man answered.

“May I have your name, please?”

“Adam Riley.”

“What’s the emergency?”

“My daughter’s missing.”

“What’s her name?”

“Sara Ann Riley.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

“And how long has she been gone?”

“Oh God, I’m not sure, maybe thirty-five minutes.”

“Sir—thirty-five minutes?” the operator asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes, it’s been about a half hour. She stopped by the mailbox to get the mail and left her car running with the door open. I never actually saw her, just the car with the door left open. My daughter’s diabetic and could need medical attention.”

“Sir, did you check with your neighbors?”

“Yes, I’ve been to the Clevelands’ and the Alcotts’. They haven’t seen her.”

“Did you check the house?”

“Yes, damn it! I checked the house and I checked outside! Look, she wouldn’t just walk off and leave her car running.”

“Mr. Riley, you need to check outside again. Maybe—”

“I told you I searched outside! I checked the front yard, the side yards, the backyard, the bushes around the driveway! Are you going to send someone out here? My girl’s missing and you’re wasting time!”

“We usually don’t consider someone missing unless they’ve been gone for at least twenty-four hours.”

“Goddamn it, I don’t care about some time limit! I told you my daughter’s diabetic, she could be in a coma somewhere!”

“Okay, Mr. Riley, settle down.”

“I’m sorry, but something isn’t right here.”

“All right. I’ll send an officer by. You’re at 1225 Boca Tigre Drive, correct?”

“That’s right. Please tell them to hurry.”

Adam slammed the receiver into the wall cradle. He ran out the front door and down the driveway toward the street. As he passed by Sara Ann’s car he heard a feeble attempt at the William Tell Overture through the half-open passenger-side window. It was Sara Ann’s phone. He threw open the passenger door and grabbed the phone. Unknown appeared on the display. He pressed Talk.

“Hello?”

There was only silence, and then the phone went dead.

He shoved the phone into the back pocket of his shorts, slammed the car door shut, and started down the driveway. Suddenly the phone rang again. He stopped and pulled it from his back pocket. Again, Unknown appeared on the display.

He pressed the phone to his ear. “Who the hell’s this?” he shouted.

Again there was silence, and then a dead phone.

 3 

ADAM PACED the width of his driveway’s entrance again and again. His hands aimlessly slipped in and out of the pockets of his shorts. As he was about to turn one more time, he spotted a police cruiser approaching. It pulled over near the edge of the driveway, and a burly officer leisurely stepped out, flipping the door shut with a thud. Off in the distance the thunder continued to rumble.

“Mr. Adam Riley?” the officer asked.

Adam watched the officer’s eyes take in his sweat-drenched shirt, then the scratches on his arms. “Yes,” he answered.

“I’m Officer Roger Atkins, Cocoa Beach Police. I understand you can’t find your daughter—Sara Ann.”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Atkins jotted notes in a small spiral-bound pad as Adam quickly ran through what little he knew. He stressed Sara Ann’s diabetes and that she could be in need of medical attention.

“I don’t understand what’s happened, Officer. How could she just suddenly disappear?”

“I’m going to need some specific information about your daughter, sir.”

“Of course.”

“Her full name?”

“Sara Ann Riley.”

“How old is she?”

“She just turned seventeen.”

“Does she go to Roosevelt High?”

“Yes, she’ll be a senior there this year.”

“How are her grades?”

“Her grades are fine, she’s an honor student.”

“Any partying? Drinking or drug use?”

“What? Of course not!”

Atkins lowered his pen and notepad and raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Riley, I’m sure you know the kids at Roosevelt High have quite a reputation.”

“That may be, but Sara Ann doesn’t drink or use drugs.”

Atkins clicked his pen and concentrated again on the spiral notepad. “Height and weight?”

“She’s five-four and weighs about a hundred and five pounds.”

Adam watched as Atkins scratched more notes at a maddeningly slow pace.

“Hair color? Eye color?”

“Blond, blue.”

“Has Sara Ann had any arguments with you or your wife recently?”

“No, absolutely none.” Adam took a deep breath and exhaled hard.

“Has she ever run away from home before?”

“Run away? Wait a minute, Officer. You think she ran away? Look over there. You see the red Ford Escort?” Atkins slowly turned his head following Adam’s outstretched arm pointing toward the car. “That’s her car. Why’d she leave her car if she’s trying to run away?”

Atkins formed a neat knot with his arms. “Look, Mr. Riley, I have to ask these questions.”

“I know, I know—but they don’t make any sense.”

“We need all the information we can get. It could help locate your daughter. Do you have any other children?”

Adam again took a long breath and pushed the air out through pursed lips. “Yes, a nineteen-year-old daughter, Dawn. She’s out shopping with my wife.”

“She go to college?”

“Yes, FSU. She starts back in a couple of weeks.”

“Does she get along with Sara Ann?”

“Fine. They get along fine.”

“How about a boyfriend?”

“Yes, she has a boyfriend, Brad Richards.”

“Could she be with him,” Atkins asked, as he lifted his right hand and twirled his pen, “out driving around in his car?”

“No. Why would she leave her car running in the driveway and go off with him?” Adam rubbed the back of his neck and then wiped his sweaty palm on his shorts. “Look, I told you, Sara Ann’s diabetic. She’s insulin dependent. If she’s in a hypoglycemic state, she could be in a coma somewhere. She needs to be found immediately.”

“According to what you’ve told me she’s only been unaccounted-for for about an hour,” Atkins grunted.

Adam glanced down thumbing his temples, then looked up at the officer. “Unaccounted for? What do you mean ‘unaccounted’ for? My daughter’s missing. She’s gone. Something’s happened. Please, do something about it.”

“Right now we don’t consider her to be a missing person, Mr. Riley. She’s simply not accounted for. There is a difference.”

“This isn’t a game of semantics! My girl’s missing and you’re quibbling over what to call it? Why aren’t you out there looking for her?”

“Hold on, don’t tell me how to do my job,” Atkins replied, as he pointed to the badge on his chest.

“Please, I’m not telling you how to do your job. I’m simply saying you should be out there looking for her instead of asking all these questions.” The sweat pouring from his brow ran into his eyes. “I just want my daughter back. That’s all.”

Atkins shook his head, and his eyes became thin slits. “Hold on,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”

Adam could hear Atkins mumbling as he ambled toward his cruiser. “This’ll cost me an hour and a half of paperwork.”

Atkins sat in his patrol car and talked on the radio. Adam resumed pacing across the driveway. His mind raced through one possibility after another as he desperately tried to ignore the worst-case scenario. He paced and turned, and paced and turned. He recalled the last time he saw his daughter. It was earlier that morning as she was getting ready to leave the house. She was going to watch Brad play soccer. God, where is she?

After a few minutes that seemed like hours, Atkins rolled out of the driver’s seat. “Mr. Riley, I need to see you over here,” Atkins said, leaning back against his cruiser.

Without losing a beat, Adam turned to his left and marched toward the black-and-white. “What’s going on?”

“I have a crime investigation team on its way, and a few officers will be here soon to comb the area.”

“Thank you, Officer. Oh God, thank you. What happens next?”

“We wait.”

“Wait?”

“Yes, we wait for the forensics team to show up—and the search team.”

“Then what?”

“Then we wait for them to do their job.”

Adam shook his head in silence.

Masses of swirling black and gray clouds approached from the northwest. Atkins’s brown hair stood in tufts as the wind gusted around the two men. The hot, heavy air was temporarily swept away by a brisk cool breeze, and the familiar acrid scents that precede a thunderstorm hung thick in the air. When the wind dropped, the air was once again a humid blanket.

Adam panned the sky and then looked at Atkins. “Do you think we should wait inside?”

“No, we need to wait here.” Atkins folded his arms as he continued to lean against his cruiser. “We shouldn’t move around much, could destroy evidence.”

Adam glanced up at the whirling dark clouds. “But … it looks bad.”

“I think there’s enough time for the forensic team to do their work before the storm gets here.”

Adam changed the subject. “So, is Sara Ann considered to be a missing person?”

“That’s not my call.”

“Can’t you make a recommendation?”

“It’s not my call.”

Adam again shook his head, not uttering another word.

Fifteen minutes later Adam spotted a truck marked Brevard County Sheriff Criminalistics and an unmarked dark blue police car rolling down his street. Both vehicles parked on the shoulder behind Atkins’s cruiser.

A group of four men emerged and headed toward Adam. In the lead was the driver of the unmarked car. He was thin and wore a crisp, light gray suit and sunglasses. His dark hair was short-cropped. The others had come in the crime scene unit truck. They were dressed in short-sleeve white shirts and black slacks, and carried various pieces of equipment, including a camera.

Adam watched the forensic team march past him toward Sara Ann’s car, but the man in the gray suit stopped on the gravel shoulder and motioned with his right arm.

“Hey, Atkins. I need to see you.” Then he gestured with his index finger. “Over here, now.”

“Who’s that?” Adam asked.

“Glenn Wilkerson, he’s one of our detectives,” Atkins answered with a quick rise and fall of his eyebrows. “He wants me to brief him.”

Atkins pushed himself off his patrol car and sauntered over to where Wilkerson stood chewing indifferently on a toothpick. Adam watched them talk but couldn’t hear their conversation. The forensic team went about their business with efficient precision. They dusted for fingerprints and examined the driveway, concentrating on an area in the vicinity of Sara Ann’s car.

Adam walked to the end of the driveway, his attention divided between the technicians and what appeared to be an argument building between Atkins and Wilkerson. Now and again the two men would raise their voices, but Adam couldn’t tell over what. Wilkerson stood at least a head shorter than Atkins and weighed at least forty pounds less. There they stood, David and Goliath, one thin and springy, the other broad and thick, slinging words at each other. Fingers pointed and arms waved, but neither man backed away.

As Atkins and Wilkerson continued their exchange, two more police cars veered off Boca Tigre Drive onto the shoulder. Five officers filed out of the two cars and moved toward Atkins and Wilkerson. It was clear from Atkins’s posture that he had had enough of whatever it was Wilkerson was giving him, and he broke away and headed for his cruiser.

The five police officers proceeded up the driveway, led by Detective Wilkerson. They stopped by Sara Ann’s car. Wilkerson loosened his necktie and unbuttoned the top button on his shirt. He pointed into the woods on either side of the driveway and barked orders. The five police officers split into two teams. Three headed into the thick woods on the south side of the driveway, and the other two braved the north-side embankment that Adam had clambered down earlier. Wilkerson walked back to the end of the driveway.

He rotated his toothpick, exposing the soggy frayed end, and extended his arm. “Mr. Riley?”

The two shook hands. “Yes.” Adam wondered why this man, a detective, had such a weak handshake.