Vanished

“So she disappeared some time between five-thirty and six-thirty. We can start building a time frame.”

J.T. headed for the front door. “Let’s go around to the back this way. If Susan has finally managed to get Kim to eat something, I don’t want us to interfere by going through the kitchen.”

Madison stepped out onto the small porch first. “Any evidence at the scene?”

“We found one of Ashley’s shoes in the grass under a swing.” When he followed her, he saw a news crew from Central City setting up in the street behind the barricade his deputies had erected to keep people away from the scene. He had been to hundreds of crime scenes in his career as a law enforcement officer, but never at his own home.

“A tennis shoe? They don’t come off easily.” Madison strode toward the wooden gate at the side of the house and pushed aside the yellow tape slashed across it.

“No, a slip-on, so in a struggle it could have come off.”

“But Kim didn’t hear anything?”

“No. She said she checked on Ashley when she first went outside to play, then she moved back to the couch across the room to talk on the phone.”

Madison stared into space, a good minute of silence passing. “Still, if there had been much of a struggle, she should have heard something.”

“I particularly asked Kim about that. There wasn’t anything unusual. All she heard was a dog barking two houses down.”

“Which way.”

J.T. pointed east. “That way. The Morgans. They have an American Eskimo.”

“Maybe the abductor came that way and stirred up the dog. I’ll check on that when I interview them.”

“I already did. Or rather, I discovered neither Jill nor Ross Morgan were home at that time. Some of the people on the street work in Central City and hadn’t gotten home yet.”

“Convenient time to take someone.”

He massaged the taut muscles in his neck. “Yes, my thinking exactly.”

“Do you mind if I interview Kim later? Maybe she’ll remember something she’s forgotten in the trauma of finding out her sister is missing.”

“Sure. I know the drill. We’ll do anything to bring Ashley back.”

“Has the scene been processed?” She hung back, not going more than a few feet inside the gate.

J.T. came up behind her. “Yes, the crime scene unit from Central City finished about an hour ago.”

“That was fast.”

“I know the police chief, and I wanted them to start when they at least had some daylight. There wasn’t much we found except the shoe and a set of footprints behind there.” He indicated the group of trees and bushes along the chain-link fence at the back of the yard. “Most of the area is grassy except for a small spot.”

“What size?”

“Cowboy boots, size ten. It rained enough earlier today that it would have washed away any previous prints.”

“Did you take a casting?”

He nodded, then realized she couldn’t see his answer because she was facing away from him, surveying the yard. “Yes. Ashley had a fort in the bushes. She played there a lot. In fact, when I first came out that was where I thought she was hiding.” He gestured toward the largest one that served as Ashley’s fort, then toward a chain-link gate not five feet away from it. “There are two ways into the yard.”

“So if someone took Ashley, he probably used the back one.”

“That’s what I’d do. Less chance of being seen since the woods are directly behind my property.” A few raindrops spattered him. “Great, more rain.”

“Which doesn’t help.” Madison held her hand out flat as if gauging the intensity of the rain.

J.T. took a step toward the gate. “We fingerprinted the swing set and anything else we could.”

“Both gate handles?”

“Yes,” he answered in a tight voice as she walked past him. “I know my job. My deputies know their job.”

She turned then and stared up at him. “I know, but I still need to ask. You don’t want any mistakes in this case. Especially this one. You know how important the crime scene can be.” She again scanned the yard. “Even with the lights on, it’ll be hard to see anything tonight, especially if it starts raining harder. I’ll come back tomorrow. Did your next-door neighbors see anything?” Madison headed back around front, her short brown hair beginning to get wet.

J.T. hurried his steps. “Nothing. One wasn’t even home at the time and the other one is an older lady with a hearing problem. She was watching TV on the far side of the house from four until I knocked on her door at a little before seven.”

“So you interviewed all the neighbors on your street?”

J.T. opened his front door and let Madison go into his house first. “There was only one neighbor I didn’t talk to. I figured if anyone saw something it would be a neighbor, but no one did.”

“Not even an unusual car?”

He shook his head. “Not that anyone can recall. I’ll get you copies of the interviews.”

“Which neighbor did you not talk to?”

The muscles in his neck ached, pain radiating from his shoulder blades down his back. He again kneaded his nape, but nothing relieved the tightness. “Mrs. Goldsmith left for Central City a little before six to do some shopping and won’t be back until probably ten, according to her husband.”

“Mr. Goldsmith can’t reach her on her cell?”

“She doesn’t have a cell.”

“Oh.” Madison walked through the living room toward the kitchen. “We’ll need to talk to her as soon as she returns. She might have seen something and not realized its importance.”

“Yeah, I told Bob that. He’ll call when she comes home, which should be anytime now.”

While Madison went into the kitchen, J.T. hung back, watching her introduce herself again to Kirk and Rachel, even though they had all worked on last year’s murder case together. His daughter sat at the table, a couple of bites taken out of the ham sandwich sitting on a plate before her. Her pale features, too-shiny eyes and hunched shoulders revealed the strain the past few hours had taken on her. Unless Ashley was found soon, he knew the stress had only just begun.

“Besides canvasing the neighborhood, what other searches have been done?”

Although Madison had asked Kirk the question, J.T. moved into the room and said, “We have searched the usual places kids like to hang out and any place Ashley is familiar with. We have checked with all her friends and classmates.”

Madison turned toward him as a flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder, rocked the house. “How about the area behind your yard?”

With a box in his hands, Kirk skirted around Madison and headed toward the front of the house. “I’m in charge of organizing a search of that area all the way to the lake and the lake itself first thing tomorrow morning. The terrain is rough and would be difficult to search properly in the dark even with lights. We’ve got some firefighters and police coming from Central City to help us. We’ll be using Central City’s K-9 unit along with some search-and-rescue teams. They should be here an hour or so before dawn. Hopefully the rain will let up by then. That’s what the weather report says.”

“Isn’t it likely if there was a kidnapper, that he took her out that way since none of the neighbors saw anything unusual?” Madison asked Kirk as she trailed after him.