In Desperation

67

Phoenix, Arizona

A Maricopa County patrol car blocked the entrance to Virginia Dortman’s property. Cued by an approaching vehicle, the sheriff’s deputy got out, adjusted his hat and went to the driver.

Hackett extended his FBI credentials. The deputy studied them and waved him on. Hackett drove nearly a quarter mile down the lane leading to Virginia’s double-wide trailer, where he counted ten emergency vehicles lining the road. Yellow crime scene tape zigzagged among the trees surrounding Virginia’s house. He heard a yelp and saw a K-9 unit scouring the property. Another deputy stood at the tape.

“Sir, Agent Larson is by the ambulance.” The deputy nodded to a far corner.

Larson was with two county investigators standing at the open rear doors of an ambulance, where a distraught woman in her sixties was being tended to by paramedics. Upon seeing Hackett, Larson stepped away, paged through her notebook and updated him.

“The deceased is Virginia Dortman, the apparent victim of a home invasion. She was discovered by her friend, Olive McKay, the woman in the ambulance.”

“And the link to our kidnapping?”

“When Olive found Virginia, she was alive and talking. Olive is trying to remember her friend’s last words. She insists it was about our case.”

Hackett and Larson joined the other investigators respectfully listening while Olive, contending with her shock, did all she could to decipher Virginia’s last words.

“I’m sorry,” Olive said, “but this is so hard.”

“We understand, ma’am,” Sheriff’s detective Hal Atcher said. “If you could just try for us again, it’s very important.”

“It was something like, the missing girl on TV, and bad please.”

“‘Bad please?’” Atcher repeated.

“That’s what it sounded like.”

“Could it be bad police? ” Hackett offered.

“It could be, but I’m not sure. This is awful, awful, awful!” Olive sobbed.

“Thank you, Olive. Thank you,” Atcher said. “We’ll give you a little break while you wait for your husband to get here.”

Atcher and his partner, Brad Gerard, introduced themselves after stepping aside to give Olive a respite with the paramedics.

“What do you make of this, Earl?” Atcher asked.

“I don’t know. I just got here. Did you find anything that places our people at this scene?”

“Nothing yet. It’s all fresh, like the thing you got going at the rail yards.”

“Right.” Hackett took stock of the area’s isolation and the cluster of buildings dotting the horizon. “What’s that way over there?”

“That is the old Spangler Airfield. Used to service crop dusters until it closed in the 1950s and was abandoned. I believe the family estate is hoping for a mall development but over the years parceled off some of the border property, like this lot that Virginia and her husband bought.”

“What’s the Dortman family situation?”

“No records. Lem is former military. He was a trucker until he died a year ago. Virginia was a librarian. Their son, Clay, is a U.S. Marine posted overseas. We’ve sent word to him. We’re going to start a canvass, but the neighbors are about an eighth of a mile apart on property surrounding the airfield.”

“Excuse me, Agent Hackett?” A deputy nodded to the police tape. “That gentleman there talked his way to the line. He says he needs to speak to you.”

Hackett winced, recognizing Gannon and Cora at the tape. They’d followed him. He signaled that he would speak to them later and returned to the detectives.

“Okay, what I would do-” Hackett nodded toward the abandoned airfield “-is send a few units over there right away because-”

“Hal, we got something!” The radio in Gerard’s hand blurted and they heard a bark. The group turned to a county crime scene tech approaching, gripping a large digital camera in her gloved hands. “Clarkson and Sheba found it. It’s a shoe, child-sized. I flagged it. It’s in the yard out back. Alone. No other items. Have a look.”

The investigators crowded around the screen and examined the photo of a small sneaker. Larson thumbed through her notebook to Tilly’s clothing description, then went back to the photo.

“Earl, that pretty much fits… Earl?”

Hackett waved to the deputy to admit Gannon and Cora to the scene and the group.

“We’ll get an identification from the mother.”

Gannon and Cora, questions written on their faces, hurried to the group and looked at the photo.

“Is that Tilly’s shoe?” Hackett asked.

Two seconds of intense concentration was all Cora needed before her eyes brimmed with tears and she nodded.

A dog yelped and the group’s attention turned to the expanse of shrub and grass stretching beyond them to the airstrip. Sheba, the police dog, was tugging Sheriff’s Deputy Clarkson toward it.