Of Guilt and Innocence Read online

  of GUILT and

  INNOCENCE

  JOHN SCANLAN

  of GUILT and INNOCENCE

  Copyright © 2012, by John Scanlan.

  Cover Copyright © 2012 by Lawrence von Knorr & Sunbury Press, Inc.

  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information contact Sunbury Press, Inc., Subsidiary Rights Dept., 50-A West Main St., Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 USA or [email protected].

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Sunbury Press, Inc. Wholesale Dept. at (855) 338-8359 or [email protected].

  To request one of our authors for speaking engagements or book signings, please contact Sunbury Press, Inc. Publicity Dept. at [email protected].

  FIRST SUNBURY PRESS EDITION

  Printed in the United States of America

  December 2012

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62006-178-7

  Mobipocket format (Kindle) ISBN: 978-1- 62006-179-4

  ePub format (Nook) ISBN: 978-1-62006-180-0

  Published by:

  Sunbury Press

  Mechanicsburg, PA

  www.sunburypress.com

  Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania USA

  Author’s Note

  It should be noted that while I used the names of actual police departments I did take some liberties with the layouts of those departments (size, number of investigators, etc.). The policy and procedures I depicted came from my own personal experience or knowledge of procedures I am to follow, rather than the procedures in place by those specific departments depicted. Despite these small changes I tried to remain true to the emotions of the investigators and first responders and the actions they would take.

  For my lovely wife, Jessica, whose support and faith has never wavered; and my beautiful daughters Alexandra and Taylor, who provided me with the intimate, first-hand knowledge of a father’s love for his daughter. Without that I never would have been able to do this novel justice. This is dedicated to the three of you with all of my love.

  Acknowledgments

  As the idea of writing a novel finally struck me as “not impossible” and I began down this path, I decided I would keep this plan and subsequent workings a secret to all. But as my undertaking progressed, my secret endeavor gradually grew less covert. And as more people learned of what I was doing or had done more people helped in ways I can’t even begin to express profound gratitude for. But I will try.

  First and foremost, I am beyond fortunate to have had guidance from accomplished author Bill Kauffman. He was always willing to promptly and kindly answer all of my menial questions and respond to every single one of my emails, all of which began “Hey Bill, quick question for you” (which of course was followed by neither a quick nor singular question). His advice and encouragement provided me the desire to continue. Thanks Bill, and go Muckdogs!

  Gratitude must also be expressed to my publisher Lawrence Knorr, who saw it fit to take a chance on a police officer whose only previously published works were seen in the booking blotter of the local newspaper.

  A very special thank you should be extended to the Palm Beach Police Department’s Director of Public Safety Kirk Blouin, Detective Larry Menniti, and all the men and women of the Palm Beach Police Department for their support.

  I wish I could mention everyone here who has encouraged or helped me along the way, but unfortunately I cannot. To anyone I missed, forgive me and please accept my heartfelt gratitude.

  --John Scanlan

  CHAPTER 1

  She should have come inside by now. Lisa’s brow furrowed as the house’s silence seemed to indicate she had not. Thinking perhaps she had missed Ashley’s entrance, Lisa called out to her daughter from her position in the living room but got no response. Frustration built as she pulled herself up off the couch and walked to the back sliding glass door she had unlocked for Ashley. She was not really concerned, just angry that her daughter had not obeyed her wishes.

  “If she’s ruined those new shoes already I am going to be pissed,” she said aloud to herself. That was her main concern when she had granted the anxious five year old permission to retrieve the mail from the mailbox as they had pulled into the garage. She feared Ashley would play with her toys in the yard rather than pick them up, another condition of her mail retrieval request being granted, and would get the very new, very white patent leather shoes dirty. They weren’t expensive really, but they were the only purchase of the three hour mall excursion from which they had just returned and she wanted them to last slightly longer than most of her daughter’s footwear.

  Lisa opened the door and stepped out onto the large wooden deck, scanning the backyard and surrounding horizon. There was no strawberry blonde girl in patent leather shoes anywhere, and the toys she had been tasked to recover still sat in the same places. Lisa again called out to Ashley, and once again she got no response. She walked down the deck steps into the backyard and checked the side of the house, calling to Ashley the entire time. The side of the house soon became the front of the house, and still, there was no sign of her daughter. Lisa’s barefooted steps now matched the frantic pace being set by the beating of her heart. She had soon made an entire revolution around the house with nothing to show for her efforts.

  The anger she initially felt at what she believed was wrongdoing by her daughter was quickly replaced with panic and confusion. She ran back to the front of the house, frantically calling for Ashley, pleading with every scream for her daughter to show herself and end this nightmare before it truly started. She continued down the street until she reached the main gate of the housing community in which they lived; still her efforts were unsuccessful.

  Fear consumed Lisa and she ran back to the house to retrieve her cell phone from the kitchen counter. She hurried back outside as she dialed her husband’s cell phone number, which went straight to his voicemail. She tried him again and again, the call going to his voicemail every time.

  Lisa was becoming desperate; she checked the garage, under the deck, inside the house, everywhere she could think of, but still no sign of Ashley. Twenty minutes had now passed since Ashley had jumped out of the car to fetch the mail and her toys and Lisa knew something was wrong. It was unlike Ashley to wander off. Never once had she left the yard on her own, or even asked if she could other than to ride her bicycle in front of their house, and Lisa had seen the princess bicycle with streamered handles still propped up on its kickstand in the garage.

  Something was most definitely wrong, she was certain of it, but she was frozen, not knowing what to do about it. She hesitated to call the police. In the back of her mind there was that thought that she was overreacting, that she wanted to speak with her husband, Tom, first to see if he had a better idea of where she could be or how to go about looking for her. She didn’t want to be “that mom”; the one who freaks out over any minor misunderstanding. She tried to call Tom’s cell phone again, but again it went straight to voicemail.

  Lisa went back inside, trying to remain calm. She looked up the phone numbers of the parents of Ashley’s friends within the gated community on the chance that her daughter had ventured out on her own for the first time to meet them. As she called them, three in all, she tried to sound as if nothing was wrong and it wasn’t a big deal. But one by one each parent told Lisa that Ashley was not with their child, and she fell into despair. She couldn’t focus; too many thoughts fluttered
through her mind.

  She strained to think of anywhere else Ashley could be, but she drew a blank. Tears began streaming down her cheeks. Twenty five minutes had now passed since she last saw her little girl. Something had to be wrong, something horrible had happened—but it couldn’t have; not to her, not to her family. Not in her part of Boca Raton, the only part that mattered. She’d lived in Boca Raton all her life and could never imagine such a thing happening there. She knew full well that bad things did occasionally happen in Boca Raton, but not in the part of town in which she was born and raised. And definitely not in the picturesque gated community in which they now lived. Kidnappings only happened on TV, to people you don’t know who live in trailer parks or communities of extreme wealth in California or the Midwest. It couldn’t happen here, the place she felt was safe.

  She struggled with these thoughts, becoming more and more anxious. Finally, unable to wait for her husband to answer his phone any longer, she dialed 9-1-1 and pleaded with the voice on the other end of the line for some help.

  Two squad cars pulled up to Lisa, who stood in the driveway, after what seemed like a lifetime of waiting. Still sobbing, she struggled to compose herself enough to tell the officers what had happened. One requested that Lisa go back inside with him so the two of them could check for Ashley there. The other got a description of Ashley and what she was wearing—a white short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and, of course, a pair of white patent leather shoes—and began driving around the neighborhood looking for her. An exhaustive check under every bed and in every closet of the house failed to turn up any new information, and Lisa plummeted further into hopelessness. She was finally able to get through to Tom, who had turned off his phone while he golfed, just as he always did. His Saturdays were generally spent at the local country club, of which he was a member. Lisa struggled to find the words to describe what was happening and simply blurted out, “Get home now, something happened to Ashley.”

  Tom’s heart was racing; he tried to remain calm as he drove, but that proved to be impossible. When he finally arrived the sight of four police cars greeted him. He jumped out of his Lexus as quickly as he could and ran inside to put together the rest of the partial story he had been told. He saw Lisa sitting on the couch, crying, her shoulder being gently rubbed by the female police officer sitting beside her. A male officer was also in the living room, standing beside the couch, writing something on a clipboard. Lisa sprang up when she saw Tom and embraced him, sobbing uncontrollably. “What happened?” he asked in a soft tone, worry projecting from his eyes. Lisa couldn’t stop crying long enough to explain. She tried several times but couldn’t calm herself in order to get the words out. Tom felt tears well up in his eyes as he hugged her. Was his daughter dead? Had there been an accident? The officer with the clipboard slowly walked over to him and looked into his eyes, trying to give a comforting half smile.

  “Mr. Wooten, my name is Sergeant Mike Stokes; this is the information we have so far.” He said in a practiced soft, gentle tone. “At approximately one-twenty this afternoon your wife and daughter returned from the mall. Your daughter wanted to get the mail, and so your wife allowed her to. While your daughter was getting the mail, your wife went inside your house, got changed and waited for her to come in, but apparently she never did. Your wife went outside to check on her and discovered her missing—that’s when she called us. Right now we have two officers in patrol cars checking the area. We have two officers on foot going door to door. Her description has been broadcast all over the county and officers have been told to be on the lookout for her. Detectives will be here soon to start their investigation just in case this turns out to be something more than she just wandered off. A crime scene unit will be here as well. So far your daughter has been missing for forty-five minutes.” Though he tried to maintain the calming tone, his words came out sounding very matter of fact and robotic.

  Sergeant Stokes had been a patrol supervisor for roughly seven years, but had never supervised the preliminary investigation into a child abduction, which made it hard for him to accept that it could, in fact, be a legitimate abduction. He really believed in his heart that the girl would be located and it would be discovered that she had simply wandered off; he just hoped she would be found alive and well. “We are going to do everything we can to find her,” he added.

  The back of Tom’s neck felt like it was engulfed in flames. His mouth was suddenly overrun with saliva and his eyes lacked focus. He questioned silently how this could have happened. It had to be a mistake. Missing? It just couldn’t be possible. He stood almost paralyzed as he held his still sobbing wife. Just then a tall, heavyset white man and short, muscular black man, both dressed in suits opened the front door and walked into the foyer area, standing there sheepishly. The heavyset one motioned for Sergeant Stokes to approach them, which he did.

  “What do we got here, Sarge?” he asked. The men were the Boca Raton Police Department detectives that Sergeant Stokes had promised would arrive and he repeated to them the information he had just told Tom Wooten.

  When the briefing was finished the shorter detective asked the all-important question, “Do you think this is a legit kidnapping?” Both detectives were well aware that in the typically crime free, wealthy areas of Boca Raton crimes of this magnitude tended to get sensationalized by the people who reported them.

  Sergeant Stokes looked at him and shrugged, “I don’t know Dan. I can tell you the girl is missing, but did she get taken by someone or did she wander off? I don’t know. Either way there is a concern for her safety.” He didn’t want to say what was in his gut because if he gave the indication it was not a legit kidnapping and in any way hindered the initial investigation in doing so, he would surely face the repercussions. The three men approached Tom and Lisa, who were now standing in the kitchen, each drinking a glass of water. The tall, heavyset detective lumbered toward Tom with his right hand extended.

  “I’m Detective Jim Brekenridge, and this is my partner, Detective Dan Jones. We understand this is a very difficult time for you folks right now, but we really need to ask you a few questions so we can find your daughter as quickly as possible.” His tone was not as sympathetic as Sergeant Stokes’ had been and a sense of urgency came through in his words. Jim’s approach to police work, and social interactions in general for that matter, was no nonsense; his bedside manor was less than comforting most of the time. He would not hide his anger when he felt people were wasting his time; however, no case he was given and instructed to solve was ever too small to receive one hundred percent of his attention.

  “Uhh, sure, yeah, ask whatever you need.” The first words out of Tom’s mouth since learning of his daughter’s disappearance sounded odd as they hit his ears. They didn’t sound like they were spoken in his voice, and they seemed reluctant as he moved his lips.

  “If it’s OK, sir, I would like to interview you in the kitchen area here, and my partner can interview your wife outside, maybe? It will be easier and quicker, and that way she can show him the places she looked and take him through everything she did prior to our arrival.” In actuality, the detectives simply wanted Tom and Lisa separated. If there were any pertinent details that may cause trouble between the spouses, they were most likely to come out with the parties out of earshot of each other.

  Tom and Lisa agreed and Lisa exited the residence with Detective Jones following behind. Tom and Jim sat on barstools at the kitchen counter next to one another. Tom explained that he had been golfing with his brother, Mark, from ten that morning until he received the call from Lisa around two p.m. He explained that his Ashley had never wandered off before and, though she did have friends within their community, it seemed highly unlikely she would pay them a visit without telling her mother first.

  “All right, I’m going to ask you this question and I really want you to think about it. Please don’t take offense to it or anything, but also really consider it. Is there anyone, for any reason, you can think of who may hav
e taken your daughter?” Jim studied Tom’s expression as he asked this question. He watched closely for any tells or hesitation.

  “No, no one.” Tom responded after a brief moment to ponder it, nothing discernible in his body language.

  “OK, well here is what I would like to do. First, I would like to get you to sign this form.” Jim produced a piece of paper from the pages of his notebook and put it on the counter in front of Tom. “It gives us permission to search your home and have the Crime Scene Unit process it as a possible crime scene. I don’t think we need to tap your phone lines or anything like that just yet, although we can’t rule out the possibility of some type of ransom.” Jim tried to think of every possible angle to a case from the second he was tasked to resolve it. He was known for going overboard at times: tapping the phone lines, or even requesting the department do it without any indication of a kidnapping for ransom scenario. He was teased for it by the other detectives often. They would ask why the National Guard wasn’t called or other similar remarks. None of it bothered Jim though. He always felt it was better to act too soon than too late, and when his methods worked it made him look like a genius. Which, of course, he constantly reminded everyone of.

  “Ransom? We don’t have that kind of money. Who would possibly try to get ransom from us?” Tom was shocked. Kidnapping Ashley for ransom money seemed absurd to him.

  “Well, you own your own business, you have this beautiful home . . . people might get ideas about your finances.” Tom’s was a small shop in a local strip mall in which he repaired computers, as well as selling individual computer parts or entire computers he had refurbished. The beautiful home, as well as the country club membership, was paid for mainly by the success of that business.