Cold Case Disappearance
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Shirley Jump
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15
ONE
Brady Johnson rolled into Crestville on his first day as the new sheriff of Franklin County, Colorado, a little less bright and shiny and up to speed than he would have liked because he’d spent the last thirty minutes arguing with his fifteen-year-old nephew. Hunter had sent his uncle one last parting shot about how unfair it was to start over in a new school before he slammed the door and stomped toward the brick building of Crestville High. Clearly, not everyone was happy about the move and change of scenery. Brady wanted to pull Hunter aside and tell him that this was for his own good, that all of this upheaval was for one reason and one reason only—so that Hunter wasn’t lost to the streets like his mother had been. But Hunter wasn’t in a mood for listening, so that was a conversation for another day.
Brady parked his Explorer in the spot designated for the sheriff, grabbed his white cowboy hat from the seat beside him and climbed out of the cranky SUV he’d been given yesterday, when he met with the mayor and formally accepted the sheriff’s position. One of these days, the county was going to need to buy the department something newer, but that day was not today.
A clear, cloudless sky and a higher elevation made for a warmer, sunnier late August morning than he was used to back in Indiana. Deep oranges and purples shadowed the mountain range in the distance, the peaks kissed by golden sunlight that danced off the lingering Rocky Mountain snow, despite the late summer date. He drew in a deep breath of fresh, sweet air, and felt, for at least a second, like he had finally landed where he was supposed to be.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office was a beehive of activity this Monday morning, as the shifts changed and the day shift walked into the building. Almost the entire force was here, about fifty people who filled the three shifts for the county, both because the meeting this morning was mandatory and because they were curious about the new sheriff. The men and women in this room would be assessing him, weighing whether he had what it took to pass muster. Brady had worked for three different departments before coming to Crestville, so he knew the drill. He also knew the stakes in this job, a temporary position that had the potential to lead to a more permanent post, something both Brady and Hunter needed more than anyone knew.
He was grateful to Mason Clark, an old high school buddy who had moved to nearby Crooked Valley years ago and become one of the Franklin County commissioners. When a slot opened up because of the sudden death of the previous sheriff, Mason called and asked if Brady was interested in the job. The chief deputy, Mason had told him, was going out on maternity leave in a few weeks, which was what had led Mason to think of Brady. The appointment was only for a year, just long enough for the county to elect someone new to replace Sheriff Goldsboro, who had died after what Brady was told had been a pretty bad heart attack.
The job opening had been a blessing for Brady, and he only wished it hadn’t come at the cost of the Goldsboro family’s grief. Brady prayed they would find comfort after their sudden loss.
The slot had opened up at the same time Brady became desperate to change the situation for his nephew, and just before his friend Mason stepped down from the board of commissioners. Mason had told Brady he’d done his research and knew that Brady was tough on crime. “That’s something this county needs,” Mason had said. When Brady asked him why, Mason had changed the subject.
Yes, Brady had built a reputation for nabbing criminals and putting them behind bars, doing his best to improve the lives of the people in the community where he lived. He’d been able to save so many—but not the one person who mattered most, his sister. At least this was an opportunity for Hunter to change his path. Brady thanked God for that. One chance conversation, and before Brady knew it, he was loading a U-Haul and setting out for Colorado with a reluctant Hunter in the passenger seat.
As he walked through the squad room, a few people greeted him, but most just watched him pass, silent and guarded. He’d expected a little of that, being the outsider. He poured a cup of coffee from the small station set up just inside the break room door, added a splash of creamer and then headed into the conference room. The coffee was more to give his hands something to do than to wire him up any more than he already was. The last thing Brady needed to do on his first day was let the guys in his department see the new sheriff’s hands shaking with nerves.
As the clock inched closer to 8:00 a.m., the officers began to file in and drop into the hard, black plastic seats. There was little conversation, just the screech of chairs against the scuffed pea-green tile floor.
Brady set his coffee on the lectern, then gripped both sides of the wooden stand. “Good morning, everyone. In case you don’t already know, I am the new sheriff, Brady Johnson.”
A few people said “good morning” back. A few others sat there with their arms crossed, clearly not impressed yet. There was a definite air of mistrust in the room, and a touch of outright hostility. Had the last sheriff been so beloved that an outsider was automatically rejected? Or was this county as bad off as Mason had implied? Brady had done some preliminary research on the crime statistics, and they didn’t seem to be much higher than the rest of the counties around here. Maybe the rest of the force simply didn’t like change.
“Thank you for your warm welcome to Crestville.” Brady waited a beat for the irony to settle in. It didn’t. “This place is beautiful and very different from Bloomington, Indiana, which was where I was before I came here.”
“A lot different,” one of the men muttered under his breath. He was tall and thin, with dark hair and a darker attitude. Wilkins, said the shiny name badge on his shirt.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know the entire department. To that end, I asked Carl to schedule one-on-one meetings with each of you so that we can build a little rapport, see where you’re at.”
The front desk officer had been none too happy to take on the task of Brady’s calendar. Brady figured if anyone would know who was happiest coming into the office at what time, it would be the guy who saw them every single day. He’d also hoped the meetings would feel less forced and more friendly if they were set by a fellow deputy. Apparently not.
“I want to hear it all—the good, the bad, the ugly. I want to know if you’re happy with your job or if you think there are some things that we could change.”
Someone in the back scoffed, “Nothing changes around here.”
“Well, I’m the kind of guy who thinks change is a good thing. Just because something worked for the last few years doesn’t mean it’s the best plan going forward for everyone.” He took care not to disparage the previous sheriff’s name, because he sounded like he had been a good guy. Got along well with his deputies, ran a tight ship, but hadn’t exactly been a meticulous record keeper. The files in the office were a mess when Brady had stopped in Sunday afternoon to take a look at what awaited him this morning and to pick up the county-issued SUV. “I welcome your suggestions and feedback.”
The looks he got in return were still wary, doubting, unfriendly. Not an easy crowd to win over. Not that he’d expected to walk in and be everyone’s best friend, but he had hoped for a little more enthusiasm. He pulled out his trump card, the one thing he knew could change those doubts into at least guarded optimism. “And as a way to say thank-you for welcoming me to Crestville, Maria’s Bakery will be by in a few minutes with some breakfast treats for the morning shift. The Bluebird Diner will be dropping off a selection of sandwiches for the afternoon shift. Overnight shift—it was a little harder to find a place open that late in a town this small...” He waited, but no one laughed. “So I ordered some pizzas from the Crooked Valley Late-Night Craving pizza shop.”
Murmurs that sounded largely positive rolled through the room. The deputies looked at one another, then back at Brady. They were still not certain about him, that much he could see in their eyes, but there seemed to be a slight reduction in the palpable wall he’d hit when he walked into the building. It was a start.
Despite the minimal uptick of the warmth in the room, Brady still had that feeling of being an intruder, as if he’d walked in on something no one wanted him to see. He shook it off. First-day nerves, he told himself.
Through the glass in the door, he saw an older woman carrying a tower of bright white boxes toward the break room. Yes, Brady was bribing his deputies to like him through their stomachs, but he figured there was nothing wrong with that.
“While Maria is setting up in the break room, let’s walk through this morning’s reports. Get me up to speed on where we’re at with any ongoing investigations.” He waved up Chief Deputy Tonya Sanders and then took a seat in the front row.
Wilkins, who had been seated by the chair designated for Brady, shifted to the right, sending a clear message that there was no amount of pastries and pizzas that would change his mind.
Annie Linscott walked into Three Sisters Grindhouse in Crooked Valley and prayed she looked a lot more confident than she felt. And that the anxiety knotting in her stomach would somehow miraculously pass and she’d get through this meeting without making a fool of herself. She had to make this job work out. Not for the money, but for the answers that she so desperately needed.
Three women turned to look at Annie as the door swung shut. They were close in age, similar in features and were, Annie figured, the eponymous three sisters. Right away, Annie recognized Mia Beaumont—technically, Mia Westfield, after she got married last year—and figured the other two dark blonde women were Mia’s younger sisters, Chloe and Julia. Annie had heard all about them on Mia’s YouTube investigation channel, when their older sister was solving a crime that had directly impacted her family last year.
“Hi. Um... Mia?” Annie forced herself to add a little more confidence to her voice. “I’m Annie. We talked on the phone last week?”
“Annie! Of course. Thanks for coming here to meet. I appreciate you being on time, too.” Mia smiled and came out from behind the counter. She pressed a hand to her back and placed another on the swell of her abdomen. “Sorry. Pregnancy makes me move a lot slower than I’d like and makes me insanely tired, so I’m happy to get this meeting in before the baby needs me to take a nap.”
Annie wasn’t sure how to reply to that. Should she say congratulations or somehow find a way to commiserate, even though she’d never had kids or been pregnant?
“Okay,” Annie said, and then immediately regretted the stilted response. Every time she got around groups of people, her tongue seemed to freeze, and any kind of sensible thinking flew right out of her mind. It was part of why she loved her job as an online journalist—very little in-person interaction, just a lot of phone calls and video meetings where the pressure to be socially dazzling was lower.
Mia didn’t even seem to notice. She crossed the shop, heading for one of the black wrought iron bistro-style tables, talking as she walked. “The channel has exploded in growth since we solved that murder that happened here in town thirty years ago. Just in time, too, because the cops were so sure my grandfather did it.”
“I saw that story. It’s what got me hooked on your channel.” And had brought her here, full of crazy hope that maybe Mia could succeed where others had not. Mia’s grandfather had long been a suspect in the disappearance of his business partner—and the money the partner stole from the company. Despite a few close calls with a gunman, Mia and her now-husband, Raylan, had solved the crime and put the vengeful son of the murdered man behind bars. “You never gave up, and I think the world needs more people like you so that innocent people aren’t put in jail. And so the lost can be found.”
The bucket of words poured out of her so fast, she was tripping over her tongue as she spoke, which meant she had passed the point of nervousness and was now just filling every moment of silence with speech. Her cheeks burned. Monopolizing the conversation already, Annie? Her mother would have scolded her and called her selfish.
Deep down inside, Annie knew that talking too much didn’t make her a selfish person, but she couldn’t stop those decades-old criticisms from echoing in her head whenever she was nervous or under pressure. Always leaving her feeling like she didn’t fit in with the job she was doing or the people she was with. Her mother’s constant critique of Annie’s every move had caused her to grow up shy and introverted, terrified of making a mistake. Those were great traits for a journalist, but not so good for in-person situations. “Sorry. I, uh, just get really excited about the whole concept of solving crimes.”
“Don’t apologize for being excited to see wrongs made right or answers brought home to worried families.” Mia put a hand over Annie’s and gave her fingers a squeeze. “I think everyone should care about those things, and if your enthusiasm comes through on camera, they will.”
“On...on camera?” Annie thought back to the job description she’d seen on Mia’s website. Research assistant... Help catalog evidence... Develop story ideas. None of that involved a video camera, which was a thousand percent why Annie had applied. She preferred to be behind the scenes, gathering data and facts, not front-facing with sources and the audience. The internet magazine she’d worked for before she came here had operated almost entirely through email interviews, which had kept Annie securely in her introverted box. But an on-camera job? That was so far removed from her comfort zone, it might as well be another continent. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
“You’re right. But I’m sure you’d have a good video presence, because you’re earnest and likable. That comes through on camera, and people engage with that kind of rawness. Honestly, I had no intention of having anyone else host the show, but then—” Mia put a hand on her stomach “—the doctor said I had to start taking it easy. I had a few early labor pains—”
“More than a few, and you should be at home with your feet up,” Julia interjected from across the room.
Mia scowled. “Bossy sister,” she whispered to Annie.
“I heard that!” Julia said.
Annie envied their relationship. The familial connections, the light teasing, the obvious love in their eyes. She’d grown up an only child, with a father who was gone most of the time and a mother who had been stoic and harsh, not the kind who dispensed hugs with abandon or made her a mug of cocoa just because. Annie suspected these three, with their close family bond, one reflected even in the name of their business, had grown up with plenty of hot cocoa moments and bedtime stories and many, many hugs.
She shook off the thoughts. She wasn’t here to find a family; she was here to find Jenny, and to do that, she needed to convince Mia that she—the biggest scaredy-cat of all scaredy-cats—could have good “video presence,” whatever that meant. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even been on video, never mind filmed one. The journalism degree she had meant she could research a story, but talking about it on camera was a whole other terrifying thing.
But if she didn’t, where would that leave Jenny’s story? Forgotten again, one more unanswered question in a country full of missing women. No one else had the drive that Annie had to solve this crime. No one else would care like Annie did; that much was evident by the way the police and media had kicked this story to the back page before the ink was even dry. Jenny wasn’t even a footnote in history—she was a few forgotten paragraphs.
Twelve hours ago, Annie had knelt beside the hospital bed that dwarfed the skinny frame of Jenny’s mother, frail, weak and so pale. She had prayed with Helen Bennett and sworn that she would find out what happened to Jenny if it was the last thing she did. When Annie said that, a single tear slid down Helen’s face. A tear full of hope and heartbreak, and a ticking clock that Annie prayed she could beat.
No, there was no could. She had to find her friend before it was too late for Helen.
“Sure, I can do that,” Annie said, pushing the words out of her mouth in a fast rush, like a reluctant rocket. Before she changed her mind or let her anxiety pull her right back into that comfortable corner where she’d spent most of her life. “I mean, I’d...”
“Great!” Mia’s face lit with relief. “I was thinking we could cover the story about...”
“Actually...” Annie warned herself to be calm, not to betray how much she needed Mia to agree to this plan. “I came prepared with a story. Big overachiever here.” She waited, but Mia didn’t laugh at the joke. “I, uh, well, I researched the stories that have done the best on your channel, and it seems that cold cases about missing people, especially missing girls, are the best performers. So I thought we could—should—cover this one.” She fished a copy of a newspaper clipping out of her bag and slid it across the table.
Sitting here, with the image of Jenny mere inches away, sent a wave of sadness through Annie. Her bright smile, wide eyes, long blond hair, all faded in the clipping, almost as if the memory of Jenny was melting away, bit by bit. It had been ten years since Jenny was last seen, and as far as Annie could tell, no one else was looking for her. The sheriff’s office had barely looked for her, and none of the other podcast and vlog hosts Annie had reached out to, hoping they’d take on the story, had been interested. This was, quite literally, Annie’s last chance.
Mia studied the image and began to read the article. To keep herself from fidgeting and betraying her nerves, Annie clasped her hands in her lap. What seemed like hours—but was really only minutes—passed before Mia lifted her head. “This is such a sad story. Teenager with a bright future, goes to meet her sort-of boyfriend in Crestville and is never seen again.”
“There wasn’t any kind of real investigation, either. Her home life was sort of chaotic at the time because she and her stepdad didn’t get along, and the police just assumed she ran away. Her mother tried to keep interest going in the case, but she couldn’t afford to hire a private investigator, especially with so little to go on. As far as I can tell, there was nothing done, nothing except...” Annie shook her head. “Forgetting that Jenny Bennett mattered to someone.”
Mia’s gaze narrowed. “Sounds like you know a lot about this case. Almost like it’s...personal for you.”
Annie swallowed, took a beat and then forced what she hoped was a blank look to her face. One that didn’t say, I’ve spent the last ten years trying to find out what happened to my best friend but couldn’t get anywhere because the cops don’t hand out evidence to private citizens. “No, not really. It just interested me because it seemed so sad.” But as she tried to hold Mia’s gaze and pretend the lie was the truth, a rush of heat filled her face and undid all her careful composure. Lying was no way to start off this job, and not something Annie did. “That’s not the truth. I do know her.”
“Then why would you lie to me?”
“Because I really need this job and really want to solve this case, and I figured if I told you that she used to be my friend, you wouldn’t hire me.” Annie sat back and waited for Mia to tell her to get lost.
“I just investigated a case centered on my own family. Do you really think I wouldn’t understand?” Mia’s features softened. “I totally get that need for justice for someone you care about. This case has enough interesting tidbits about it and does fit what my audience tends to like best. You’re right, it is something I would normally tackle. But...”
Everything Annie had hoped and prayed for hung in the space of that but. She needed to say something, anything, to erase any doubts Mia might have. “I promise, I’ll be objective.”
“What I was going to say is that the truth can lead you to a destination you don’t want.” Mia glanced at her sisters, then back at Annie. “I got lucky that my grandfather was innocent of the crime he was accused of committing. I am eternally grateful I was able to clear his name, even if it meant uncovering some history that people didn’t want exposed. Your friend Jenny could have disappeared for a number of reasons or even not want to be found. All I’m saying is that you may not like the answers you find.”
“I’m willing to take that chance, if you’re willing to take a chance on me.” It was the bravest thing Annie had ever said. The drive to find Jenny, not to let another month, never mind years, go by was so strong, it overpowered the anxiety flitting about inside her. Helen had a few months, maybe as little as a few weeks, and Annie refused to go back to Denver empty-handed. “I’ll be impartial, and I’ll find the facts, whatever those facts may be.”
Mia assessed Annie. A long minute passed where the only sound between them was the soft rock radio in the coffee shop and the quiet clanging of the dishwasher in the backroom. “I can see how much this means to you, and that’s the kind of passion that got me to start my channel. I might be foolish to hire someone with no experience in front of the camera, but the rest of your résumé looks good, and if you can bring that passion to the screen, this might just work out. Record a couple episodes, and we’ll see. Okay?”
A mixture of yay-I-got-the-job and oh-no-I-have-to-be-on-camera ran through Annie. She didn’t know whether to whoop or panic. “Thank you, Mia. I will. I promise.”
“I’ll drop off some equipment to you on Wednesday, if you’re staying in town, and send you an email with some tips for recording.”
“I live in Denver but I’ll gladly get a room at the motel while I’m working on the story. Whatever it takes.”
Mia held up a hand. “This is not a guarantee of anything. It’s a chance for you to show me what you’ve got. We’re going to play it by ear and see how the first videos go. I’ll pay you half the going rate for those, and if it works out, I’ll bump you up to the full rate we talked about in our emails last week. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll find someone else. This channel is too important to let it fail.”
“I understand that. Making this work, and getting attention on Jenny’s story, means a lot to me, too.” Annie could barely contain her joy. She’d gotten the job and could finally, hopefully, find out what happened to Jenny, now that she had the credential of a massively popular vlog on her side. She’d reasoned the Crestville law enforcement wouldn’t want the bad publicity and would lean toward helping her, because she was a part of Mia’s channel. She’d hit a thousand roadblocks trying to get information on her own. Maybe now she had some leverage that could break the case open. If she could bring Jenny home, no matter what that meant, she would give Helen the only thing that Jenny’s mother wanted—peace.
Mia got to her feet and pressed a hand to her back. “And with that, I’m going to follow my sisters’ stern advice—”
The other two women laughed at that. “About time,” Chloe said.
“—and go put my feet up at home. Call me if you have any questions, Annie.” She put a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Not all my cases have happy resolutions, you know. I hope you’re emotionally prepared for what you might find out.”
“It’s better than having no answers at all, isn’t it?”
Mia’s gaze took on a faraway look, as if she was thinking back through the cases she’d covered on her channel. “Sometimes it is, Annie. Not every time.”
