Missing & Gone Read online

  MISSING & GONE

  A Whispering Pines Short Mystery

  Shawn McGuire

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  MISSING & GONE

  Bonus Material | FAMILY SECRETS

  CHAPTER 1

  Books by Shawn McGuire

  MISSING & GONE

  I climbed the composite, woodgrain-imprinted ladder, crossed the five-foot extension bridge to the play structure’s tower, and crouched down next to the body. The dead woman appeared to be twenty or twenty-one, and from her UW Madison T-shirt, I guessed she was a student. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Every other person in this town wore something Badgers . . . or Packers. Her shoulder length, stringy, dark-blonde hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. Her skin had the pale complexion of someone who rarely went into the sun. That could mean she either studied a lot, was a junkie, or a self-proclaimed creature of the night.

  With gloved hands, I inspected the inside of the victim’s arms. Three, small red dots there formed a sort of triangle. More red dots covered her ankles. Those marks, plus the dark purple circles beneath her partially opened blue eyes, led me to mentally check the box next to ‘junkie.’

  “Jayne, you got a pulse?” Randy asked.

  Seemed obvious from the way she was slumped there, with her eyes partially open, that this girl’s heart had beat its last a while ago. I checked anyway, pressing my fingers to her neck.

  “No pulse,” I called down to my partner. “Guessing overdose. She’s got track marks.”

  “China White?” Randy asked.

  “Safe bet,” I answered.

  Overall, Madison, Wisconsin was a great place to live, almost idyllic. The violent crime rate wasn’t bad, especially for a city this size. During my time as a patrol officer, most of my calls had been for thefts and burglaries. However, Fentanyl laced heroin—street name China White, Apache, Goodfella, Tango and Cash, among various other tags—had become a problem.

  “Why did we get this call?” I asked.

  “I guess a 9-1-1 came in,” Randy said. “Caller claims homicide.”

  While the uniformed officer kept the curious neighborhood residents away from the playground, and I took pictures of the victim from every angle, Randy scoured the area immediately around the play structure.

  “You find anything?” I asked.

  “Matchbox cars . . . Barbie doll shoes . . . Used condoms . . .”

  I grimaced. “Lovely.”

  “Lookie here, got a syringe.” Brilliant flashes from Randy’s camera lit up the four-in-the-morning darkness.

  We took pictures of everything, noted locations on a sketch of the scene, and bagged it all as evidence. The toys wouldn’t lead to anything, but DNA off one of the condoms could be significant, so off to the lab with them.

  The medical examiner arrived a few minutes later and estimated that the victim had been dead for an hour or two. They had just started bringing her down from the tower to place her in a body bag when my phone rang.

  “O’Shea,” I answered.

  “Price,” my boyfriend Jonah responded. He was trying to joke, but his tone betrayed him. Jonah hadn’t liked my job when I was a patrol officer. My new position as detective, with its sporadic hours, displeased him even more.

  “Hey, babe. What’s up?”

  “Where are you? It’s not even five in the morning.”

  Glad to know my roll-out-of-bed and dress-in-the-bathroom method of not waking him worked. I’d been finetuning the process for weeks.

  “A woman was found dead in a park. Randy and I got the call.”

  “You can’t leave a note? Something so I don’t have to wonder?”

  He didn’t report in to me with status updates. He was going to have to get used to this.

  “This could take a while,” I said. “Don’t count on me for dinner tonight.”

  “Are you serious? You know we had plans tonight.”

  Plans meant dinner in, probably Chinese takeout since Jonah was responsible this week, and a movie on Netflix followed by special alone time. I’d been looking forward to it as much is Jonah had. Between him working sixty to seventy hours a week on his political career, and me working anything but normal hours, the most we saw of each other lately was when one of us woke up the other to give a kiss goodbye. Unfortunately, life tended to happen at inconvenient moments.

  “I’m sorry, babe. We’re going to have to reschedule.”

  He grumbled a goodbye and an I love you and hung up.

  Randy motioned for me to come over to him.

  “What have you got?” I asked, shoving my phone into my jacket pocket.

  “They’re going to do a grid search of the area,” Randy said. “Let’s go grab some breakfast and head over to the station to listen to that 9-1-1.”

  Breakfast consisted of breakfast burritos from a Mexican diner a few blocks away, coffee from a café on a corner a few blocks past that, and a donut for dessert at a shop also in the neighborhood. At each location, we asked questions and showed the picture of the victim in my phone.

  “Pretty sure her name is Beth.” The worker at the donut shop chuckled. “She had a thing for the vanilla iced cake donuts topped with Fruity Pebbles. We’re open twenty-four hours on Sunday and Monday, college students like sweets when they’re studying. It was pretty much a guarantee that she would come in both of those nights.”

  That gave us a lead on the victim’s identity. I showed her picture to the other customers in the shop. Most didn’t know her, but two others agreed that her name was either Beth or Bethany. One even said that he’d seen her at a party last night.

  “She was with some guy named Berg or Burns . . . No, Birke.” He grinned like he just aced a final. “That’s it.”

  “Thanks for the input,” I said as we left.

  We walked back to the park to retrieve our vehicles, and I followed Randy to the police station in my nine-year-old Jeep Cherokee. Randy had phoned ahead to get access to the 9-1-1 call, so it was waiting for us when we got there. We grabbed a private interview room so we could listen on speakerphone.

  9-1-1 what’s your emergency?

  It’s my roommate. Something’s wrong, I know it. I told her to come with me.

  Ma’am, what’s your name? What’s going on? Is someone hurt?

  My roommate.

  She’s hurt? Do I need to send help?

  No. I don’t know where she is. I just know something’s wrong.

  Ma’am, why do you feel this is an emergency?

  Bethany has a drug problem. Opioids. We’ve been trying to help her get sober. She had a bad week. I was afraid she was going to use again. I thought blowing off a little steam might help.

  Ma’am, I’m going to need more information from you.

  She had surgery over the summer . . . Got addicted to OxyContin . . . Damn, she’d been clean for weeks.

  I understand you’re upset, ma’am, but if you can’t tell me where to send help, I don’t think there’s much I can do for you. You can try contacting the police if you really feel she’s missing.

  The line went silent for a few seconds.

  What’s your name? Do you need assistance?

  No. I just need to . . . get myself together.

  We heard her inhaling and exhaling deeply.

  You’re right, I’ll call the police. I took a video. I’ll download it and send it to them.

  A video? What did you take a video of? Ma’am?

  That’s where the call ended.

  “She said her roommate’s name was Bethany,” Randy said. “That’s the name folks at the donut shop gave us.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Did you hear what I heard? The caller has a video?”

  “
I heard. But a video of what?” Randy stood and headed toward the interview room door. “Listen to that call again. I’m going to see if anything came in.”

  I listen to the 9-1-1 call two more times. I verified that the caller was the roommate of someone named Bethany, and that Bethany had an opioid addiction. That was a lot of similarities to the girl we just found in the park.

  Randy burst into the room. “Nobody got a video in the last few hours. We need to find that caller.”

  ***

  We were about to head over to the UW registrar’s office, to get addresses for any students named Bethany, when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and was shocked to see my grandmother’s number.

  “Gran? Is everything okay?”

  My grandmother and I communicated often but rarely over the telephone. She had discovered the joys of emailing and sent me messages often, which I loved. She lived in a tiny village in the Northwoods of Wisconsin called Whispering Pines, a five-hour drive from Madison. I hadn’t been to Whispering Pines in fifteen years. I kept telling myself that getting up there to visit her was a priority, and then another year would pass.

  “Oh, everything is fine,” she assured. “I’ve just come across some information that I thought you might be able to use.”

  “Information? What’s going on, Gran?”

  Randy scowled, presumably about my personal phone call, and motioned for me to follow him out to his car.

  “You’re working on a new case, aren’t you?” Gran asked.

  “I am. You know I can’t talk about it, though.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was taunting me. That could only mean one thing. Someone had a premonition.

  I sighed. “Gran, you know I don’t—”

  “Yes, yes. I know you don’t believe. Would you like help or not?”

  I sighed and followed Randy out of the building. “Okay. Tell me.”

  “It’s not me,” Gran said. “Hang on, I’m going to put Effie on the phone.”

  “Who’s Effie?” The early summer morning air was chilly enough that I needed to button my jacket as I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder.

  “She’s one of our fortunetellers, of course. This has to do with her granddaughter.”

  To some cops, help from a fortuneteller was welcome. While I didn’t stop in premonitions, they were one of the many quirky things that happened around my grandmother I had come to accept.

  I looked to Randy, my hand covering the phone’s receiver, and whispered, “Sorry. Give me a sec.”

  He opened the driver side door, held up a hand with fingers splayed wide, and mouthed, “You’ve got five minutes,” got into the car.

  “Jayne?”

  I returned my attention to my phone. “Yes, hi. Effie? I understand you have some information for me.”

  “My granddaughter is missing.”

  I closed my eyes, I didn’t have time for this. “Who is your granddaughter, ma’am?”

  “Her name is Jola Crane. She’s a student at the University there.” Effie’s voice had that mystical, dreamy, fortuneteller quality to it. “She hasn’t been kidnapped. She’s simply not where she should be.”

  “Where should she be?” I did my best to sound concerned, but was probably coming across as condescending. We had to move on this Bethany case, the first few hours in a murder investigation were crucial.

  “She should be in her apartment, of course, but she’s not. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I know her friend is in trouble and that Jola is in the woods.”

  “How do you know this, Effie?” I flashed Randy a look of concern, and he narrowed his eyebrows in return.

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  “You saw it.” Whispering Pines woo-woo at work.

  “I did. Like I said, she isn’t being held against her will but for some reason she can’t get home. Would you find her for me, please?”

  “You’d like me to find your granddaughter?”

  “Please.”

  “And you believe she is in the woods near her apartment building. Do you know anything else that might help us find her?”

  It got very quiet on the other end of the line, and I thought the call had dropped. I was just about to ask if she was still there when Effie came back.

  “I keep seeing ducks and a fireplace,” she said. “And I’ve got a twinge in my knee.”

  I pulled out my notebook and jotted down woods, ducks, and fireplace. Then, laughing to myself, added twinge in knee. I had no idea, obviously, what any of it meant, but I wasn’t about to be the cop who dismissed information, no matter what the source, only to find out later that it was something important. As soon as we were off the phone I’d call dispatch to send someone over to check on Jola.

  “Gran said this information could help with a case we just started working on. How—?”

  “The girl you found at the playground, she isn’t okay, is she?”

  How could she know that? We hadn’t released any information yet.

  “No, ma’am, she’s not. How do you feel these two things are linked?”

  “The girl’s name is Bethany,” Effie said in her ethereal way.

  My breath caught in my chest.

  “Bethany Castillo is Jola’s roommate. If you go to Jola’s apartment to look for her, you’ll likely find information about Bethany as well.”

  My hand shook slightly as I wrote down Jola’s Eagle Heights address and phone number. I didn’t for one second believe in premonitions or any of the Wiccan witchcraft stuff that went on in Whispering Pines, but how the hell did Effie know any of this?

  “Thank you for the information,” I said. “I’ve got another question for you. When was the last time you were down here to visit Jola?”

  “I’ve never been to Madison.”

  Of course, she hadn’t. It was rare for someone from Whispering Pines to ever leave the village. Maybe Jola had told her about all the woods surrounding the Eagle Heights apartments.

  “I’ll do my best to find her, ma’am. Would you tell my grandmother that I’ll talk to her later?”

  “Of course, I will. And you’ll find her, I know you will. Blessed be, Jayne.”

  I called the phone number Effie had given me and waited for Jola to pick up. A few seconds later, Jola’s digital voice invited me to leave a message.

  “Jola Crane? This is Detective Jayne O’Shea with the Madison police. I just got off the phone with your grandmother. She and my grandmother are friends in Whispering Pines. She felt that you might be in a little trouble and asked me to check on you. Would you give me a call at this number as soon as you get this message, so I know you’re okay? Thanks.”

  I hung up the phone and got into the car to see Randy staring at me. Before he could yell at me about personal calls, I told him what Effie had said, his eyes rolling with every other word.

  “You’re telling me you believe in this stuff?” He pulled over to the parking lot exit and turned the blinker on to go right, to the registrar’s office.

  “No, I don’t believe in it, but this Effie woman knew things that I’m not sure we should ignore. She knew that our victim’s name is Bethany; Jola is the roommate. Which means Jola could be our caller with the video.”

  The look on his face told me he wasn’t buying it.

  I held up my notebook. “I have an address.”

  ***

  On the way to the Eagle Heights apartment complex, I got a call from the uniformed officer who had stayed behind at the park to do the grid search. He had also interviewed a few people in the neighborhood.

  “One of them,” he said, “a woman who calls herself Frisky Fox, told me that we ‘might want to check out a kid named Clive Birke.’ I checked arrest warrants and got a hit for a UW student. He got busted for possession a while back. I’m going to forward his mug shot to you.”

  “That’s the name the guy at the donut shop gave us,” I told Randy as I opened the image on my phone.r />
  Mid-twenties, spiky black hair, a post in his left eyebrow, and nickel-sized discs in both earlobes. Birke had that young, white, privileged look that so many of Jonah’s friends had. Except that Jonah’s friends were young, white, privileged up-and-coming politicians who would never even think of putting posts in their eyebrows or discs in their ears.

  A quick call to the UW Madison registrar’s office confirmed that Bethany Castillo and Jola Crane were indeed roommates. They also confirmed the address that Effie had given me.

  Randy pulled into the parking lot at the apartment complex, and we went in search of Jola’s and Bethany’s apartment. It was on the third floor, at the center of the building. We got there to find the door was unlocked and partially open.

  “Jola Crane?” I called as I knocked on the door jamb and listened for a response. “Ms. Crane, it’s Detective O’Shea with the Madison Police Department. I called a few minutes ago.”

  I listened closely for a whimper, a cry . . . anything. Hearing nothing, I looked up at Randy.

  “Door’s open,” Randy said. “We have reason to believe that the occupant might just be in trouble. Go on in and see if she’s there. I’m going to get a search warrant. I have a feeling we’re going to need one.”

  The apartment was small and spare, neat and tidy. Standard utilitarian cupboards filled the kitchen to my right, a set of dishes sat drying in the drainer next to the sink. The living room directly ahead was outfitted with two comfortable chairs, a side table with a lamp, and across from them a small television on a coffee table. To the far left were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom.

  Bethany’s had to be the messier of the two bedrooms. Piles of dirty clothes littered the floor, stained bedcovers lay twisted at the foot of the mattress. A framed picture on the dresser of a pretty blonde girl at a lake, a man and a woman on either side of her, showed the happier, healthier version of the young woman we found earlier at the park. The man and woman were probably her parents. I shook my head, sad knowing that soon they would receive news that addiction had taken their daughter.

  The second bedroom looked like a gypsy caravan decorated with a bright, jewel toned comforter and wildly patterned tapestry hanging on the wall. A desk with a laptop computer was in the corner across from the door. On the wall over the desk hung a poster of a gleaming full moon against a midnight blue sky, a pentacle filled the center of the moon while a crescent moon sat on each side. The Triple Moon Goddess symbol stopped me cold for a second. I hadn’t seen one of those in probably fifteen years.