Without a Whisper

"Glove up," I say. I packed some gloves in a zip lock baggie, and hand a pair to Yvonne. I forgot she has man hands, and I nearly laugh at her struggle. The mouth of the glove is above her wrist and nearly to her thumb.

"Do you shop at Baby Gap?" Yvonne jokes while showing me how silly her hand looks.

"As a matter of..."

"...for yourself, smart ass," she interrupts. "Why would a barista tell us to come here? What does she think we'll find?"

"Not sure yet, but Chase needs to learn to turn off the flash. I'm thinking the car. Big enough to house one. You saw that lock," I say.

"They moved it then," Yvonne says, and closes her eyes to smell the air. She's smelling for oil, gas, fumes, anything car related. There are too many natural scents to isolate it if it was here.

I lower myself into a catcher's squat in the only space where a car could fit comfortably. I run my gloved finger over the wood, feeling for any inconsistency. Several times I feel a splinter nearly puncture the glove. I walk toward the doors, and then do the same thing. It's smoother.

"What's up?" Yvonne asks.

"The back of the room was scrubbed, but the front wasn't," I say. "The wood is smoother toward the front. Not sanded smooth, but smoother. Like someone did it in a hurry. They scrubbed with a brush, and it made the wood fray and splinter."

"Someone cleaned something up. Blood?"

"I'd say oil," I say. "Engine oil. No matter how hard you try, you always leak a little bit," I say, then stand upright again. I push my toes, then heels, against the boards. The house is built on a raised platform. At its highest, maybe half a foot. I search to find the most heavily splintered space. I find my flashlight and shine it down the space between the boards. Not much of a gap, but I'm looking for something reflective. I see what looks like wilted flower petals. It takes nearly a minute, but I do eventually see a shimmer.

"Yvonne," I say, then direct her to my light beam. I run it back and forth over so she can see it as well.

"They cleaned up an oil spill?" she asks.

"Let's get a warrant to tear up the floor for starters," I say. "Has it rained in the last five days?" I do a quick look on my phone, but I need to walk out of the house for reception. "No rain. Might be able to get some tracks."

"Big if," Yvonne says, and steps out to immediately see tire tracks. "Son of a bitch. Could be a boat tow?"

"Do you see a boat tow?" I ask, and immediately realize I just proved her point. It's possible they towed the one boat they have out to a dry dock, just like Lance said. Regardless, we follow the tracks. The wheels appear too wide for a tow or a trailer, those tires are normally narrower. Not long after leaving the boathouse, something did a three point turn around, and travelled along the side of it. I see a consistent tire trail, so I rule a trailer out of the equation. I see the broken window from the outside and keep walking. Now on the backside, I see there is a service road. I'd bet it goes up to the main road.

"It went to the main road," I say.

"Check this out," Yvonne says, now leaning over a bush along the path. I walk over and she is pointing to a piece of fabric caught in the brush. Same color shirt Chase was wearing when he left. "Breadcrumbs?"

"Get pictures from multiple angles, then we'll bag it," I say. She does just that, getting close ups, distance, angles in relation to the boathouse and the road, and one last picture holding her chap stick to it for scale. I place it into a baggy as footsteps start coming from the other side of the boathouse.

"Ladies," we hear, and both turn to Sheriff Knight. He must have parked toward the top of the hill. The last person I want to see us doing this right now. Mighty suspicious he knows we're here.

"Sheriff," Yvonne says, already assigning herself the role of diplomat. I couldn't do it.

"I hope that door was already open," Sheriff says.

"It was," I lie, and Yvonne doesn't blink. I love my wing woman. "Lance gave us free reign. Told us if it's unlocked, we had his permission."

"Property line ends two hundred meters that way," he says, pointing in the direction we walked from. "This ain't his property to give you that permission."

"Who owns it? We'll go talk to him," I say.

"Some New Yorker who uses it as a vacation home. See that trail? Goes up to a house that would cost a good million in New York," he says. I rather like my downtown townhouse. The mortgage I pay there would buy me a five bedroom out in the sticks. "I'll find you the number."

"He just leaves it unlocked?" I ask.

"Greatest myth about living in the country is that we leave our doors unlocked. We don't, but the city folks who come here in the summer seem to believe that," he says. "What you two doing out here?"

"No disrespect, but I'm doing my job," I say.

"Fill me in," he says. How do I play this, so he doesn't suspect I suspect him?

"Lance has Chase on video leaving at night, and he's not on film coming back," I say.

"Maybe he went to get his car," Sheriff says.

"His car wasn't ready until the next morning. Chase received a call from Mort on the ninth, and shortly later sent his wife a text saying his car would be ready on the morning of the tenth. Mort tells us he came and got his car, but I can punch holes in his story like wet toilet paper. He's not getting his car by walking at eight in the evening with a fake leg. He also texted his wife saying he was getting rides by a Deputy named Lionel. One of your boys?"

"He is."

"I'd love to talk to him," I say.

"He's on duty, but I can get him out here," he says, and pulls the radio off his hip to make the call. Rather convenient that the Sheriff neglects to tell me his own Deputy was Ubering my missing person. "He'll be here in twenty."

With the Sheriff babysitting us, we hold off on following the tracks while we wait for Deputy Lionel to arrive. To keep him from looking at our progress, I recommend he walk us back to the Lodge, and have Lionel meet us there. We'll have to come back in there with flashlights later. I spread out the binder on the table in the foyer, taking the pictures and documents out, but I'm careful to not pull out the picture Chase took into the boathouse. I move the vase of white lilies out of the way, placing it on the mantel of the fireplace.

"What do you have so far?" Sheriff asks. He sinks into a leather armchair, placing his cane against the armrest. Is there a way to withhold information, without looking incompetent and justify his belief in female law enforcement officers?

"Midge," Yvonne says to me. She just took a call from her ASAC and is now gesturing me over to the other side of the room. I excuse myself and join her near the large stone fireplace. "Chase's car turned up two hours ago."

"Where?"

"Abandoned in a parking garage in Philly. It got towed, which gets reported to the police who ran the plate. Techs are going though it right now. The preliminary I just got, is that someone tried wiping it clean, but forgot to clean the door handle to the driver's side. They rushed a print check, it's not Chase's."

"Do it discrete, but have them run the print against our host. He should already be in the system," I say quietly. Anyone number of people could have touched that car, but we have to start somewhere.

"Something wrong?" the Sheriff asks.

"Chase's car was just found," I say.

"Where?"

"Philly," I reply, and return to my seat. "They're doing the usual workup on it. We'll probably get something else in a few hours.

"For what we have right now..." I say, and scan over the documents, "...is Chase going missing under suspicious circumstances. He was investigating a missing person, who also disappeared in a similar fashion."

"Ms. Grossman?" he asks, and I nod.

"Lance told me Katie got stuck in town for a full month. You sure you don't remember her?" I ask.

"It's over a decade ago," he says.

"Answer the question please," I say. His forehead wrinkles in aggravation. He's not a man who is often challenged.

"No, I don't remember her."

"Would you mind letting us look at your logs? You guys file every report, right. Send them up to county I assume?" Yvonne asks, having returned from her phone call.

"I don't know what good it'll do, but you can pick them up tomorrow."

"We have a missing person, time is of the essence. We need them now," I say, and his forehead gets old again.

"I'll have my secretary bring them over tonight then," he says, hardly masking his irritation. Small town Sheriff does not like being pushed around by outside jurisdictions. Certainly not two women.

"Sheriff," a man says as he walks in. Deputy Lionel. Lionel Portman, seeing how he's clearly Lance's twin. Same imposing muscular structure, but different hairstyles. This man doesn't have a ponytail. "Ladies."

"Special Agent," Yvonne corrects him. My ice queen is back.

"What's this all about?" Lionel asks.

"You drove Mr. Kramner around when he was here?" I ask.

"I did."

"Where did you take him?"

"To the Lodge the first day. Didn't talk much. Second day I drove him to town, he did some interviews. Stephanie and her mother at the coffee place. He did a lot of walking on his own, impressive, considering. Showing that girl's photo around town. He seemed frustrated he wasn't making progress. Drove him back on the, ninth, I want to say."

"Did you pick him up the next morning so he could get his car?" I ask.

"Come to think of it, no. He never called, but I swung by my uncles, Mort, found out he picked it up," Lionel explains.

"Did you guys talk about anything else?" Yvonne asks.

"We talked about guns. Busted his nuts a little because he's carrying a .22," he replies.

"Did he happen to mention the make and model?" I ask. Back to round robin question peppering. He's much better at composure than Mort is.

"Glock. Glock44," he says. That's the gun Jenn said he took, so that edge is squaring off.

"Anything else?" I ask.

"Short drive...wait, we did. He asked me about that detective who came by, when the car was reported stolen," he says.

"What was the name of the detective?" I ask. I know the answer, but first rule.

"Blanchard, I want to say," he replies, but didn't pause to think. He's rehearsed this conversation. Him suddenly remembering didn't sound genuine either.

"Do you remember Katie?"

"Who?" he asks, but in a manner suggesting I just took him off script. He was ready to answer for Chase, not Katie.

"Katie Grossman, or Rodgers. You remember her? The girl who stole the car."

"I don't," he says.

"You don't remember a girl staying at the lodge for a month? The lodge operated by your family?" I ask.

"I barely come here as it is. You'd better off asking my brother."

"I'm asking you," I say firmly.

"Anyone want a beverage?" a woman asks from the entrance of the room. We all turn, and see an older woman standing with her hands politely folded.

"Not now mom," Lionel says.

"Lionel, when did you get in?" she asks.

"Mom, we're working," he snaps, barely keeping it down. That was one step removed from a child yelling up the basement stairs. "Go help Lance with something."

"I haven't seen your father all day..."

"...dad's dead mom," Lionel says. His mother seems to snap into a brief moment of lucidity, and quietly leaves. "That's why I don't come here often. I don't remember the last time she actually got our names right."

"In her defense, you're twins," Yvonne says.

"Lance is in a fucking wheelchair," he says harshly. He looks at his feet for a moment, then tilts his head upright again.

"Anyway, I don't remember Katie. Lance came here to take care of mom. We literally rock paper scissored to see who'd have to turn in their badge. I remember Lance being pissed about mom letting her stay for nothing, but that's all I remember."

"Does anyone want something to drink?" She's back, already having forgotten she asked us.

"Sure mom, water is fine," Lionel says into his palms.

"Okay. I'll have Lionel bring it in."

"How the fuck does Lance deal with that. It's painful, I couldn't do it," Lionel says. That's real emotion. That woman isn't really his mother anymore, and he doesn't like to be reminded.

She forgot she would ask someone else to bring them in and comes back with four glasses of water. I politely thank her and take a sip, and Yvonne places her glass on a side table. While she was handing them off, she sees the documents, and notices the picture of Katie.

"What a sweet girl she was," she says, and I look toward her. "I'm Morgan."

"Katie?" I ask, and she slowly nods.

"We'd sit here, some nights, and talk for hours. The lilies were her idea, and I've kept them fresh ever since," she says, pointing to the vase I moved onto the mantel. "Poor girl had to deal with me likely asking the same question a thousand times because I didn't realize she answered it already," she says with a heartwarming smile. I smile a little myself. "Do you know why she hasn't called? She promised she would."

"That's one of the things I'm trying to figure out," I say.

"Tell her to call me when you find her," she requests. I say I will before she departs again. You'd think her not remembering this conversation in a minute would make that lie easier, but it doesn't.

Yvonne and I continue to pepper them with questions, and they hold their own. Being police officers gives them an edge, even being small town cops. Chase's car was being fixed, so the Sheriff had Lionel drive him around. My guess is that Lionel was given this assignment to keep an eye on Chase, so they knew what he knew. I think Chase found out something he shouldn't have. I think Chase found the car, but they moved it before we could also find it.

Lionel talks with us for over an hour before the Sheriff's secretary arrives. She brought with her two weeks of patrol reports. Citizen A made call, officer responded, results, follow up, closure. Mostly innocuous reports about noise, teenagers blaring music down main street, and dogs shitting on the sidewalk but the owner leaving the steaming turd for a victim to step in.

Around midnight on the tenth, the Sheriff was called because teenagers were heard jumping off Callie's Cliff in violation of posted signage. The person who made the call, Rochelle Anderson, who lives just down the lake from it, heard splashing. She described it as the biggest she'd ever heard. She called back later, because one of those kids even stole her son's bike. The Sheriff sent a deputy Randall, who didn't see anything, and then reported his lack of findings. The 'adolescents' were already gone when he arrived. He noted teenagers because he knew they drove there. Tire tracks for two vehicles were found.

"What's Callie's Cliff exactly?" I ask the Sheriff. Lance told me to check it out only a few hours ago.

"You should check it out when you get a chance, pretty interesting," Lionel says, the Sheriff tilting his eyes toward him in a manner suggesting he wasn't please with that recommendation.

"A rock face, some thirty, maybe forty feet above the lake. Halfway around the lake from the lodge if you travel north. Not much to see there," he replies.

"Why is called Callie's Cliff?" I ask.

"There isn't an actual name for it, it's a 'known as' kind of thing. Some years ago, a girl named Callie Young died there."

"How many years?" I ask.

"Let's see, I was seventeen when she died, and I'm fifty-six now," he says.

"Call it forty," I say, and he agrees. "Kids like to jump off it?"

"Not often, but it happens. Truth and dare games, things like that. Like I said, not much is there that would interest you," he says. I want to go solely because you don't think I should.

"Take us there."

--

Callie's Cliff is as advertised. Heights do not agree with me, so looking over the ledge is giving me vertigo. The land near it takes a sharp change in elevation when compared to the rest of the lake, so much so, when you walk up to it, you're walking on nearly flat ground.

Yvonne is examining the tracks, but the gravelly surface and hard rocks make it impossible to determine similarities with the ones we already found. It really could just be that kids were fooling around. However, the biggest splash she ever heard has my attention.

I whistle off the edge and listen for the echo. I clap to hear it again. Sound does travel here. I need to talk to Rochelle Anderson next. I walk back toward Yvonne, and notice I'm fighting the hill some. It rolls down toward the cliff. I need to get down there.

"Is there a way directly down? Besides the obvious?" I ask.

"Why?" Sheriff asks.

"I'd like to see what's down there," I say bluntly. He's in a pickle, and I can see him stammering even though his mouth isn't moving. Lionel came along for the ride and is now leaning against the hood of his car. I don't know why I think this, but he looks like he's holding back a smile.

"Yeah, there is. Rochelle has the closest house with her own dock. She's just down the hill from here," he says.

"Yvonne," I say, and she looks over at me. "What sports did you play in college?"

Yvonne played volleyball all four years as an undergrad. In summer, she was on the dive team. "You shitting me?" she asks.

"How deep is the water?" I ask.

"Never taken a stick to measure, but maybe thirty," he says. I look at Yvonne, who sighs.

"Better you than me," I say.

"Fuck," Yvonne says, and pulls off her slip-on shoes.

"What's she doing?"

"Finding out what's down there," I say. Yvonne is now removing her jewelry, and places them in her shoes. Her phone goes in next. She then removes her shirt, folds it neatly, and places it on the hood of our car. You can tell whether a woman is a mother just by the way she folds laundry. Yvonne debates on the pants but does slide them off her legs. Hello exposed female thighs. I need to look away before I'm wetter than she's about to be.

"Did I fail to mention a girl fucking died here once?" he asks. His composure is cracking. Lionel's smile breaks through. Why the hell is he smiling?

"She wasn't a collegiate diver," I say, and Yvonne walks to the ledge to get a sense of her surroundings. It's almost sheer, so not much of a kick-off is needed. Yvonne walks back ten feet and runs.

"She's actually going to..." is all the Sheriff says before she jumps. "Holy shit."

Yvonne doesn't even scream. Her form is so perfect I barely even hear her splash.

"Is she insane?" the Sheriff asks. We walk to the cliff and look down. I see the ripples of her landing, but I don't see her. "She okay?"

"She's fine," I say. I wait a full thirty seconds, and I can see the Sheriff getting anxious. Choices, choices. Call it in and get a salvage team to find her body, but what else would they find down there? A full minute passes. Yvonne has bragged that she can hold breath for over three minutes, so I'm not worried yet. Greg must love that lung capacity.

Yvonne surfaces, and treads water.

"Come on in, it's great," she says with her teeth chattering.

"All you sweetie," I say.

"These kid's games are getting crazy," Yvonne says.

"How's that?"

"Would you push your car off a cliff if someone double dog dared you?"

--

Wednesday -- April 15, 2020: Five Days Gone

This morning I learned how hard it is for a car to be pulled out of the water. It's too deep and too far away from shore for a tow, so they need to improvise. A crew is hastily put together with elements from the Erie station Coast Guard, an FBI dive team, and a contracted salvage company who specializes in recovering sunken ships. The Chief of the Coast Guard unit is swinging his dick at the FBI team leader, and the salvage crew is waiting for someone to tell them to do something.

It's now six in the morning, and I haven't slept. A crowd of people from town slowly begin to trickle in. Word got around that an FBI Agent was looking for someone, and now more people show up. Nothing better to do than stand behind the line the Sheriff has set up to keep onlookers back and to be the local face for the population to answer questions.