Gone (27 page)

“How did Columbia PD get it?”

“The parents of one of the boys found it, knew it didn’t belong to their son. Got the story of how the boy came to have the phone, and turned it in at one of the cop shops.”

Jake released an audible breath. “Where it sat a while longer, no doubt, since tracing the owner of a lost cell phone wouldn’t be a priority in a busy law enforcement office.”

Clare nodded. “Once the phone was linked to the missing Sara, law enforcement went over the area where the boys had found the purse. But, if she’d been there, and abducted from there, it would have been far too late to establish a crime scene.” Clare rolled her shoulders to relieve a knot of tension. “Here we are four years later and Sara is still missing. There’s no sign of her and no body’s turned up.”

“When was she reported missing?”

“Three days after she left to carry out her surprise, her friends became concerned, tried her on her cell. When they got no response, they eventually went to the police.”

“Three days,” Jake repeated.

“According to the friends, it was not uncommon for Sara’s dates to carry over for a day or two. They didn’t think anything of it, at first.” Clare tapped her finger on the statements taken from the Farley locals who’d seen Sara. “We’re going to want to talk with the Farley people again.”

“It was concluded, I take it, that Sara’s disappearance was believed to have happened in Columbia, not Farley?” Jake asked.

“Yes, but no one saw Sara leave. The investigators weren’t able to determine how she got out of town.” Clare fixed Jake with a hard stare. “No mention of her taking a cab again. Is that because she didn’t and someone confirmed that, or because no one checked it out?

“It’s also possible,” Clare went on, “that she got a ride back to Columbia with her lover. Who no one’s been able to identify, and who didn’t come forward when Sara was reported missing.” Clare waved her hand at copies of newspaper clippings. “Sara’s face was all over the media at that time, yet her mystery man never came forward to offer help. He may be the last person to have seen Sara. Why didn’t he come forward? Because he was married and wanted to protect his reputation, even at the cost of finding her? Or, because he knew exactly how she disappeared because he made it happen?

“The last place anyone actually
saw
Sara was in Farley,” Clare said. “No one saw Sara in Columbia since the day she left to surprise her lover. It was her purse and contents that were seen.” Clare felt a chill go through her. “The last place anyone saw Beth was also in Farley. I don’t want to think what may have happened to Sara McCowan also happened to Beth. Four years later, and that woman still hasn’t been found.”

“We’re a long way from linking that disappearance to Beth. That said, I’ll call Frank Nobleton.” Jake glanced at his watch. “He was the sheriff here four years ago. I’ll see if I can set up a meeting for today.”

* * * * *

Former Sheriff Nobleton agreed to speak with them that morning. Nobleton lived in a red brick single-story house in town with potted plants thriving on the porch. Jake pulled into the driveway, alongside a pickup truck. The cab had a sticker in the window which read: “Gone Fishin’.”

Jake knew Nobleton casually from town functions. By the time Jake had moved to town and been assigned to the Bureau resident office, Nobleton had retired.

A man wearing a wide-brimmed canvas hat decorated with fishing lures opened the door.

Jake extended his hand. “Hello, Frank.”

Nobleton shook Jake’s hand and nodded, making the lures on his hat jiggle. “Jake.”

“Frank, this is Special Agent Clare Marshall.” Jake turned to Clare. “Clare, Sheriff Frank Nobleton.”

Nobleton accepted her handshake.

“Well, come on in,” Nobleton said. “I want to get this over with while the catfish are still biting.”

He stepped back from the door and led them a few steps through a hall and into a dark wood paneled living room. A glass pitcher of what appeared to be iced tea with a crocheted doily over the top had been placed on a tray, in the center of three glasses.

Nobleton did the honors without asking if anyone would like to partake of the refreshment. A plate of sliced lemon cake sat on a polished coffee table.

“Help yourselves,” Nobleton said, gesturing to the plate. “My wife won the prize for her lemon cake three years running at the Farley Fall Fair.”

Clare joined Jake on a burlap couch. She left the cake and the tea untouched, anxious to learn what Nobleton had to offer about the investigation. Jake appeared to be of the same mind.

Nobleton took his glass of iced tea and settled onto an arm chair that matched the couch. “Okay, Jake, you said you wanted to talk with me about the girl who was reported missing a few years back. Something going on with the case?”

“We’re looking to see if there’s any connection with another disappearance,” Jake said. “That’s all at this point.”

Nobleton nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“Walk us through the investigation, Frank,” Jake said.

Nobleton drank from his glass then passed the back of his hand across his lips. He nodded somberly. “I’d been Sheriff here for going on fifteen years when this happened. In all that time, the biggest crime we’d ever had was kids taking cars for joyriding and the odd disagreement that got out of hand at Charley’s Bar. I was on my way out, going to retire, but no way that little girl was going to go missing on my watch. I made sure that we were in the clear here.”

“How did you determine that for certain?” Clare asked.

“By the time Sara McCowan’s friends reported her missing, a couple or three days had passed. As I recall, they didn’t think nothing of it when she didn’t show up the first night back at their hotel room. She’d told the girlfriends that she’d met someone and she had a history of staying over with her men friends. She didn’t call the next day or return to the room. The third morning when they’d had no contact, the girls got antsy. Sara, they’d said, was a party girl, but three days without any of them hearing from her while on vacation was unprecedented.

“The girls did a little checking for Sara on their own. Looked around the city. Went back to the places they’d gone to.” Nobleton shrugged. “With no result. That’s when they went to the Columbia PD and filed a report. Girls claimed that Sara was paying a surprise call on her new man who lived in Farley.

“Columbia PD issued an alert,” he said. “We followed up here. Two detectives from the precinct come out here, talked to me. The way I remember it, the girl was confirmed to have found her way to Farley’s Main Street. That’s how Columbia PD ended up in our town. I rode along with them while they went about Main Street, flashing a picture of Sara to our business folks and asking if anyone had seen her. As I recall, we had a few takers.” He scratched the gray stubble on his chin and squinted in thought. “Clem Potter at the drugstore remembered the girl. Earl Lowney, too. I think there were one or two others, though I’d have to check the file in my old office to get the names.”

“You conducted the interviews with the witnesses yourself?” Jake asked.

“I did some of the talking, along with the investigators from Columbia PD. I told the detectives Farley people would talk better with me than with outside cops and hell, Farley was my jurisdiction. No way I was going to step aside and let the two city boys run roughshod over the people in my town.

“Some time after we’d finished the interviews,” Nobleton continued, “word came down that the missing girl’s cell phone had turned up in Columbia. Looked like she had made it back from Farley to the city after all. I never did believe one of our people had anything to do with what happened to that little girl.” Nobleton shrugged. “Case closed in Farley.”

“Except that Sara McCowan was never found,” Clare said.

Nobleton nodded. “Sad thing.”

“From what we read in the reports, it was never concluded that Sara was the one who left the cell phone in Columbia,” Clare went on.

“You’d have to ask the Columbia PD about that,” Nobleton said. “My part ended when the investigation moved out of Farley. I retired six months later and Oz took over for me. You might want to ask him if he received any follow-up after that, though I doubt it. Like I said, the girl’s disappearance was no longer our jurisdiction.”

Nobleton’s eyes widened and he looked from Jake to Clare. “Anything else or is that it?”

“Clare?” Jake asked. She shook her head and Jake added, “Thanks for your time, Frank.”

As they got into his car, Jake said, “Let’s hear what Columbia PD has to say about the investigation.”

Chapter Fifteen
 

Jake had called ahead and arranged an appointment with the Columbia Police Department detectives who’d been assigned to Sara McCowan’s disappearance.

Detective Chad Brownley met them in the precinct lobby. He glanced at their Bureau IDs then shook hands with Jake and Clare in turn. The detective’s gaze lowered, taking in her outfit, Clare figured. Once again, she was wearing the green hospital scrubs, though freshly laundered. Hardly usual attire for the Bureau.

With a friendly instruction to follow him, Brownley wheeled around and strode down the long tiled hall, his unbuttoned suit coat flapping behind him.

He led them to a room used for interviewing witnesses and suspects. The room had a film on the beige walls and ceiling that looked to be caused from smoking, back when smoking was allowed in the building, and an odor that had permeated the cushions in the four chrome chairs. There he introduced his partner, Detective Willie Stokes.

After the preliminaries had been dispensed with, Stokes said, “It’s been a while. Brownley and me have been reviewing the case file since you called, Agent Sutton.”

Stokes was a rail-thin man with dark, curly hair cropped close to his scalp.

“Don’t know what to tell you, here, Agents,” Stokes went on. “Unless you got a break in the case, something new to add, this trail is colder than my mother-in-law’s smile.”

“Was there a connection between the two boys who found the phone and Sara?” Jake asked.

Brownley shook his head. His hair was pulled back in a long ponytail that trailed halfway down his back.

“The two boys who had Sara’s cell phone were just kids, thrilled that they’d found a new toy,” Brownley said. “Both thirteen at the time, I think. It’s in the reports.” He shrugged. “No connection whatsoever to Sara. We asked if they’d seen her or anyone for that matter drop or lose the purse. Hell, we asked them if they’d stolen it from her and told them we wouldn’t prosecute if they had—that they’d be in the clear—that’s how desperate we were to get a lead. The boys said they just found the purse laying on the walkway in front of the club. What really caught their eye was the cell phone tucked into the back compartment. When they tried it, it worked, and they kept using it.