Kate James - Home To Stay

“I was just getting to that. I checked the case file. She simply disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Her car was in the club’s parking lot. There was nothing captured on the facility’s security cameras. Subsequent to her disappearance, there was no use of credit cards, accessing of bank accounts or contact with anyone she’d known. Ultimately and on that basis, the detectives concluded she was more than likely deceased. This is where the question of post-partum depression arose. As I said, the case remains open, but since there was no evidence of a struggle or any indication to the contrary, foul play was ruled out.”

He got up to walk around the room. “I spoke to the detective who had the lead. She said Evans hired a private investigator to look for his wife. It was his call, although the detective had cautioned that it was highly unlikely the PI would find anything we hadn’t. She said Evans was highly distraught. Understandably. He had a new kid and had lost his wife. Said they’d been together since high school.” He shrugged. “As expected, the PI didn’t turn up anything new. There were no clues as to where she’d gone or what had happened to her.

“The only thing that kept Evans functioning, according to the detective, was his kid. His son’s welfare became Evans’s priority. He changed jobs to be able to spend as much time with the kid as possible. As is standard procedure in cases like this, Evans was looked at as a possible suspect but cleared.”

Bigelow was known to be a tough cop, but Shannon could see that even he was moved.

“How could the guy have foreseen that taking his son on a family vacation would turn into a parent’s worst nightmare?” He shook his head. “Speaking of nightmares, Evans said his kid had them from the time his mother left, and only now are they becoming less frequent. Let’s get this kid back to his father as soon as we can. Special Agent Leary will cover what we’ve got so far.”

Bigelow switched places with Leary. “Sadly, not much,” Leary began. “Yesterday we went over all the possibilities with Evans. His acquaintances and neighbors, his current and past colleagues and, going further back to his tenure as an assistant district attorney, any and all people he’d prosecuted. The DA’s office is reviewing their files, too. We haven’t hit on anything, but the most likely suspects—operating on the assumption that he or she is known to Evans—are people he’d prosecuted as an assistant DA.”

Leary held up his hands when murmurs broke out across the room. “I know that takes us back three years or more, but we can’t ignore it. We’re paying particular attention to the people who’d been convicted. Especially those who received long sentences, as well as their family members. We also looked at associates—in and out of prison—where applicable. Anyone who’d been recently released. Five made it to the top of our list. First up is Stewart Rankin, whom Detective Bigelow just mentioned. He’s serving twelve years in the George F. Bailey Detention Facility. Next is Donna Thompson, convicted of being a drug mule for one of the Mexican cartels, serving a seven-year sentence. With her, there could be a cartel angle, depending on how integrated she was with the organization.”

“You should talk to Rick Vasquez about that,” Logan interjected. “Rick and his narcotics-detection dog, Sniff, were instrumental in taking her down. Rumor had it she was personally involved with one of the Sinaloa cartel’s lieutenants. Although we didn’t get any of the cartel’s key operatives, the takedown was significant because of the size of the seizure and, perhaps more importantly, the closing down of one of their most lucrative smuggling routes.”

Leary nodded. “If it impacted the cartel and/or there was a personal relationship, that moves her up the list. We’ll talk to Vasquez.”

Shannon glanced over at Logan, but his expression was inscrutable. If the Sinaloa cartel had anything to do with Dylan’s abduction, that was bad news. They wouldn’t have done it for financial gain.

“But before we get too concerned about the cartel,” Leary said, “my opinion is that if it was them, we would’ve heard by now—one way or another. They wouldn’t have taken the kid for money.”

That confirmed Shannon’s belief.

“To them, whatever Evans could pay would be a drop in the bucket. If they took the kid, it would’ve been for revenge. And in Thompson’s case, we’re going back nearly four years. I doubt the cartel bosses would’ve been this patient if they wanted retribution.

“Third on our list is Colin Jansen, serving life for killing a man in a barroom brawl when he hit him on the back of the head with a pool cue. Jansen reportedly has anger issues, and he has associates on the outside. Number four is Nadine Crosby. She was twenty-three at the time she was convicted of the attempted murder of her mother and her mother’s then-boyfriend. Diagnosed as a psychopath, she fits the profile, and the fact that she was released a few months ago moved her up our list to fourth position. However, she’s solidly alibied for the time of the abduction. Rounding out the top five, we have Norman Blackstone, a fifty-six-year-old father of four who defrauded his employer of nearly a million dollars. Evans sent him to prison for five years. That covers the probables.”

Leary nodded at Bigelow. “Anything you want to add?”

Bigelow shook his head. “No, other than to say that the DA’s office is continuing to go through all of Evans’s case files. Anything else?” he asked the room in general.

A hand shot up. “What are the chances that Evans might be behind it?”

Bigelow inclined his head. “That’s a good question. As usual, we’re taking an in-depth look at the family. We haven’t gotten a red flag in our discussions with Evans. We’ve interviewed the other campers in the area and got nothing from them, either.” He scanned the room. “A complexity in this case is that the boy is the second member of Evans’s immediate family to disappear. That’s too coincidental for my liking and warrants closer scrutiny. It would answer the question we’ve been grappling with of why the father didn’t wake up if the boy was abducted from the tent.”

“Is it worth looking at the missing wife again?” someone else asked.

“Yes. We’ll review Jeannette Evans’s file, although as I said, the investigation into her disappearance had ruled out the possibility that Evans played any role in it.” Bigelow frowned at his notes. “On the other hand, if it is Evans, if he was involved in her case, where’s the body? And if he’s responsible for his son’s disappearance, where would he have taken the boy?”

There was murmuring in the room, but Bigelow ignored it and continued.

“We brought in the air support unit with infrared capabilities,” he continued. “Their lack of results, combined with what our search-and-rescue dogs have indicated, leads us to conclude the boy was no longer in the park when Evans sounded the alert. But we know he didn’t leave the place until we escorted him home.”

Shannon realized it was standard procedure to look at family members in child-abduction cases, yet hearing that Sawyer was a possible suspect made her feel defensive. She couldn’t believe it. Yes, she was going on a gut feel, but a lot of good police work depended on well-honed instincts. She’d been the first cop on the scene, the first to speak to Sawyer. He couldn’t have faked the raw grief and distress she’d seen.

“Evans’s parents are retired, and we’ve found no reason to suspect them. The sister, Meghan Evans, is single and a marine biologist working for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in their Marine Biology Research Division. We don’t suspect her, either,” Bigelow said.