James Swain - No Good Deed

The screaming child went ignored by the people in the parking lot as they unloaded their shopping carts and turned a blind eye to the boy’s cries. A horrible crime was taking place in front of them, and they chose to ignore it.

The twisted man had his routine down pat. Inside the store, he’d surreptitiously punched the child in the stomach and knocked the air out of him. Then he dragged his victim out the door by the arm, just the way a parent of a misbehaving toddler might do. When the child regained his voice and started to scream, the man scolded him in a calm voice.

“That’s enough out of you! Now be quiet, or you won’t get any dessert tonight.”

The child kept screaming and kicking the ground. The man came to his vehicle, a ’71 black-over-white Cadillac with a dented bumper, and dug out his keys. He popped the trunk and lifted the child off the ground by the back of his shirt.

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll throw you in,” the man threatened.

The trunk’s interior was lined with carpet. On it lay a collection of rusted tools, including a shovel and a machete. Seeing them, the child stopped crying.

“That’s a good boy,” the man said.

The child was fixated on the machete. He had seen landscape crews in his neighborhood use them to prune trees. They were dangerous, and they scared him. “Please don’t hurt me,” the child whispered.

The man laughed under his breath. He didn’t mean for the child to hear him, the sound born out of the sickest of impulses.

But the child did hear him, and screamed even louder.

The dead woman in the crime scene photograph had gone down swinging. Her mouth was bloody from biting her attacker, and her knuckles were raw from the blows she’d inflicted. She was at an age when most people didn’t fight back, but that wasn’t the case here. She had put up a hell of a battle, and had the wounds to show for it.

Her name was Elsie Tanner, and she was seventy years old. Her granddaughter, Skye Tanner, was now missing, a victim of ruthless kidnappers. Based upon evidence found at the crime scene, Elsie had tried to save Skye, and paid the price. She could have run, but had fought back instead. That made her aces in Jon Lancaster’s book.

He slipped the photograph back into the string envelope and secured it, then climbed out of his vehicle. The American Legion hall was serving as command center for the search for Skye, and was his first stop.

The hall was as quiet as a tomb. On the first few days of a search, the victim’s memory was still fresh, and the energy level was high. There would be frequent police updates, TV trucks parked at the victim’s home, and volunteers plastering phone poles with posters. No stone was left unturned.

That changed after three days. By the end of the third day, the energy had faded, and most of the volunteers had gone home, leaving the victim’s friends and family to fill the void. The ranks of the police thinned, with officers pulled away to handle new cases. The media moved on as well, needing a new story to keep viewers tuned in.

Most people stopped caring after three days. Lancaster was different that way. It was on the fourth day of a search that he started caring. As a cop, he’d learned that if a person wasn’t found in three days, something terrible had usually happened to them. The missing person needed help, and he was willing to give it to them.

The hall was prefab, with a pitched aluminum roof and a concrete floor. A bar took up the right wall. On the opposing wall, two women sat beneath a giant American flag, answering the phones. With any search, it was standard procedure to set up a hotline where tips could be called in. The women’s task was to field these calls and, if the information was important, get the caller’s name and number and pass it on to the police.

He was being stared at. Behind the table stood a nicely attired redhead with a cell phone glued to her ear. He’d been around enough newspaper reporters to peg her as one. He ignored her, and approached the bar.

The bartender nodded politely. He had sad eyes and hadn’t shaved. Lancaster introduced himself as an agent of Team Adam and ordered two coffees. He asked the bartender what the ladies liked in their coffee. The bartender placed two steaming mugs on the bar, then handed him two creamers and several sugar packets.

“My name’s Russ,” the bartender said. “It ain’t none of my business, but what’s Team Adam? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“It’s a special arm of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,” he explained. “We assist in missing kid cases when law enforcement hits a wall.”

“Well, the police sure need your help here. Sheriff’s office can’t get out of its own damn way. An outsider did this, anyone can see that.”

It was common for fingers to be pointed at the police when searches stalled. He’d read the sheriff’s report and thought they were doing a good job.

“Did you know either of the victims?” he asked.

“Elsie was my friend,” Russ said.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Russ pulled out a metal flask and took a swig. He was boiling mad, and the booze soothed his nerves. He offered Lancaster the flask, but he declined.

“Elsie was a fixture in these parts, always helping people out,” Russ said. “My trailer burned down, and Elsie let me stay with her until I got back on my feet. She was into rescuing dogs, kept them at her place. They had to farm them out to families when she got murdered.”

“What can you tell me about the granddaughter?”

“Skye’s a good kid. She moved in with Elsie because of trouble at home. She was a server at G. Peppers and helped out when the lodge had parties. People liked her.”

“You said that an outsider was responsible. Why?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Fort Lauderdale, born and raised.”

“Keystone’s different. We have the lowest crime rate in the state, hasn’t been a murder or a kidnapping that I can remember. People watch each other’s backs.”

“You lived here a long time?”

“My whole life.”

Lancaster placed a Team Adam business card with his private cell number on the bar. “Call me if you hear anything.”

“Be happy to. Coffee’s on the house.”

“Much obliged. Who’s the looker on the cell phone?”

“Be careful. Her name’s Lauren Gamble. She’s a reporter with the local rag.”

“Trouble?”

“With a capital T . Rumor is, she’s trying to break a big story so she can get a job in another city.”

“I thought Tampa was a nice place to live.”

“It is, if you don’t have stars in your eyes.”

Lancaster crossed the hall and placed the steaming mugs on the table along with the condiments and his business card. The card had a catchy hotline — 1-800-THE MISSING — that never failed to get people’s attention.

Their names were Barbara Aderhold and Dawn Thrasher, and they’d been working the phones for twenty-four hours straight. Exhaustion was starting to creep in, their voices cracking. They echoed Russ’s sentiments about Elsie and Skye being good people, and shared his view that an outsider was to blame.

“How are folks dealing with this?” he asked.

“People are staying inside and keeping their doors locked,” Aderhold said. “They’re convinced that what happened to Skye is linked to the other disappearances around the state.”