James Conway - In Cold Blonde

So the Stevens still lived in the same house. Good.

Next Travis Googled Jay Stevens + Kansas City, Missouri. There were a few hits about a boy named Jay Stevens who was the star of his little league team, but then a slew of hits from the Kansas City Star about Dr. Jay Stevens. More specifically about his tragic death when he fell asleep in his car after closing the garage door, but left the engine running.

The police ruled the death an accident. Dr. Stevens was an emergency room physician and kept very long hours. His tearful wife told officers it wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep in the garage, but it was the first time he’d forgotten to turn off the car.

Travis found the date of the accident,

The same year Syd dropped out of school.

Interesting.

On a hunch Travis ran Syd Curtis’s name through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website and got a hit. Syd Curtis was reported missing by her mother, Amanda, on February 18, 2001. There was also a picture of a cute sixteen-year-old red head, undoubtedly Syd Curtis.

So Travis had a few questions. Syd left home just one week after her stepfather died. Why?

Syd Curtis is alive and well in Los Angeles but is still listed as missing on the database. Why?

Does Syd’s mother even know she’s alive? And if not, why?

One way to find out, Travis thought. He used the FBI’s Reverse Directory to input 1876 Tracy Avenue and get the home’s phone number. He dialed, heard the ring, then a tentative, “Hello?”

“Yes, hello, my name is Don Wofford, I’m a writer for the Kansas City Star and I’m doing a Sunday feature on runaway kids.” Travis decided it wasn’t his place to tell Amanda Stevens that her daughter was alive. At least, not yet. And he replaced his natural Texas twang with a flat Midwestern accent.

There was a long pause, then, “And why, exactly, would you be calling me?” She pronounced her words very carefully but Travis could tell she’d been drinking.

“I’ll be honest with you, Mrs. Stevens. I was in school with Syd, and we were friends. I remember that terrible accident, when Dr. Stevens was killed, and I remember how upset Syd was. A bunch of us tried to be there for her, but I guess we let her down, because just a few days later…” He trailed off, letting her fill in the obvious blanks. “Did you ever hear from her, Mrs. Stevens? Do you know where she is now?”

A long pause, Travis was afraid she’d hang up, but then, finally he heard, “No.” Amanda Stevens’ voice was brittle, she was fighting back tears. “I never heard from Syd. To be honest, I wasn’t that worried at first; I was sure she’d get scared or run out of money and come running home. Every time the phone rang, I was sure it would be Syd. But the days stretched to weeks, then months, then… Did anyone at school ever hear from her? A phone call, an email?”

“No ma’am. It was like she dropped off the face of the earth.”

“I think about her all the time, you know. Wondering how she is. What she looks like. Praying that she’s even alive.” The tears were flowing now. “If God would just give me a second chance with Syd, I would do things so differently.”

She blames herself, Travis thought. Interesting. “That’s actually the point of my piece,” Travis said. “How parents handle the child’s disappearance. How much blame the parents place on themselves; what, if anything, they think they could have done to keep their child home.”

“I could have listened more,” Amanda Stevens said. “I could have chosen better.”

“Chosen better, I don’t understand.”

“My husband was a… demanding man. He was an emergency room doctor, under enormous stress, kept terrible hours. Syd’s real father deserted us and it was real hard on Syd and me until Dr. Jay came along. Real hard.” Travis could hear ice rattle as she took a drink of something. “I couldn’t risk losing Jay. No matter what…” she trailed off, leaving the phrase unfinished. Then she hurriedly added, “It was best for both of us.”

But the unfinished phrase stuck with Travis. No matter what…

No matter what he did to her, Travis wondered. Travis knew better than to come right out and ask, so he tread carefully. “So you chose Jay over Syd?”

A long silent pause then, “Yes.” And then the dam broke. Amanda Stevens was sobbing now, years of guilt and shame pouring out of her. “She tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t afford to listen. You understand that, don’t you? If Jay had gone to jail, what would we have done?”

And then Travis knew. The stepfather was abusing Syd. He’d heard different versions of the same story so many heartbreaking times before. Abused by one parent, betrayed by the other, the only choice the child sees is escape. Some place different, any place different, no matter what the risk.

There was nothing more Travis needed from Amanda Stevens at the moment so he thanked her for her time and promised to let her know when the article would run.

Part one of the Syd Curtis mystery was solved. Syd ran away from home when she was seventeen years old and ended up in Los Angeles. Now most kids with the same resume end up on the streets or doing porn, drug addicted and all too often, dead.

But Syd Curtis ended up a cop. How did that happen?

The only lead Travis had was the woman Syd was living with when she applied to the Police Academy, Andrea Templeton. How did Syd and Andrea meet?

Travis went online and Googled Andrea Templeton. He wanted to review the articles written about Andrea after her death. And he found a clue in a Daily News piece about Iraq war vets killed on the streets of Los Angeles after surviving war in the Middle East. It mentioned that a brother and sister, both Iraq vets, were killed three years apart. Amanda Templeton, a cop, shot in the line of duty. And her brother, Eric, a paramedic, killed in a drug deal gone bad.

Interesting. So Travis Googled Eric Templeton, and found three pages of articles on Eric’s murder. Templeton was stationed at Fire Station 82 in Hollywood, and lived in an apartment nearby. He was found stabbed to death in that apartment along with another man, Ernesto Sian, who had been shot once through the head. No weapons were found in the apartment. The articles described Sian as a known pimp who had two prior arrests but no convictions. Eric Templeton had no police record. And as far as Travis could tell from the articles, no one was ever arrested for the crime.

Something didn’t sound right. What was Eric Templeton doing in the same room with a scumbag like Ernesto Sian?

So Travis called a friend of his, LAPD Deputy Chief Randy Tuttle. Tuttle worked Vice for a decade before moving up to head Robbery Homicide. Travis asked him if he remembered a pimp named Ernesto Sian.

“Sure, he ran a string of young girls out of Hollywood about ten years ago. Used to pick them up at the bus station, get them hooked and put them on the street.”

“You remember anything about his murder?”

“He was murdered?”

Travis laughed. “Guess that’s a no.”

“I could pull the file, take a look if you like.”

Travis told him he wasn’t sure it was necessary at this point, but would get back to Randy if he needed more help.

Travis didn’t believe in coincidences. And Andrea Templeton’s brother being found dead in the same room with a pimp who preyed on runaways seemed like a big coincidence. Travis went back to the Internet and checked the date of the murders; November 16, 2003. Just over eighteen months after Syd ran away from Kansas City.

Was Ernesto Sian waiting at the bus station the night Syd Curtis arrived? Could this decorated cop have actually been a hooker?