She Once Vanished, page 8
“But they did put their hands on each other. Both of them.”
“Yeah, they both did. So they deserved what they got.”
“Did it ever go further? Not just a slap or a shove? A closed fist? A weapon?”
“I don’t know. Not that I ever saw.”
“Did you ever see anything else? Hear about it from someone else?”
“There were rumors, but I don’t give those any credit.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“If I didn’t believe them, I’m not going to share them with you. That would be slander.”
“You can tell me a rumor without saying it was true.”
“No. I’m not telling you anything I didn’t see with my own eyes.”
“Okay.” Zachary thought, considering what else he could ask her about. There weren’t very many people with the insider view like Kristy. She was a valuable resource.
“Did you ever see anyone hanging around? Someone you didn’t know? Someone who shouldn’t have been there?”
“We were out in public. I couldn’t stop anyone from being there. We weren’t going to pack it in because there was someone else around. We would just go ahead with the planned shoot.”
“So there had been people around.”
“Sure. People hung around. Got in the way. Asked questions. Decided that they wanted autographs or selfies or something else that slowed our progress.”
“Any stalkers? Groupies? Fans who followed you or preceded you from one place to another? Always there, underfoot?”
“Uh… sometimes. People were always showing up, popping up and getting into shots, asking endless questions. But a stalker…? I don’t know. I can’t think of any one person.”
“It could be important.”
“The cops asked whether anyone had been hanging around, and I told them no.”
It wasn’t exactly an assertion that she hadn’t seen anyone.
“Maybe you’ve had a chance to think about it since then and realized there was someone,” Zachary suggested.
“Well, there was this one guy. I don’t know his name, and I don’t know what sites I saw him at. He might have been a friend or just someone interested in what they were doing and wanted to be at the next scene.”
“What did he look like?” Zachary sat with his fingers poised over the computer’s keyboard, waiting.
“Big guy. Bushy beard. But there are so many people like that these days. I’m not big on the beard craze.”
“Let’s stay focused on him for a minute. How big is big?”
“I don’t know. Over six feet tall. Broad. Overweight.”
“Okay, good. And did he say anything to anyone in your group? Did he approach Elysse? Talk to Dain? I don’t know what other… uh… workers they had helping them out. Dain said there was sort of a convoy, with all their equipment and the people who were involved with the shoots.”
“He might have talked to Elysse. I don’t think he was interested in Dain.”
“Was she uncomfortable having him around? Ask anyone to get rid of him or to stay around so she wasn’t alone with him?”
“Nothing like that. Elysse would just move on and do the next shot. He kept watching. Might show up at another shoot after we left. I don’t know if he knew the itinerary or was just guessing where we would go next. Or maybe it was being leaked by someone who worked with them.”
“Was anybody worried about this guy?”
“No. I don’t think so. There were always fans. Some of them are more persistent than others. But it wasn’t like he was breaking into her hotel room or threatening her. Just showing up on the tour.”
Zachary would look into it further. “Do you have any pictures of him? Did he show up in any of Elysse’s shots?”
“I’d have to check. Sometimes, fans do get into the shots. Or they take selfies of their own. You might want to check fan feeds and see if he shows up somewhere with her over his shoulder.”
“It would be helpful if you could look and see if you recognize him. I won’t know him.”
“He wears a baseball cap. Knicks, I think.”
Zachary shook his head. Why hadn’t she started with that? He typed this addition to her description. “That will help. If I find someone I think is him, can I send it to you? Get you to confirm that it’s him?”
“Sure, I guess. I don’t want to get the guy in trouble. I don’t think he did anything to hurt Elysse.”
“No, not likely. But if he hangs around her, he may be aware of someone else who was stalking her that you didn’t know about. He might have seen things go on that you didn’t, whether it was with a fan, or Dain, or a family member.”
“Okay. Well, I hope you find something.”
“Before you go—” Zachary could tell she was winding up the conversation, “I just had a couple more questions about how she was. Did she seem extra stressed? Depressed? Jittery? What was her emotional state like before she disappeared?”
Kristy let her breath out slowly. “I don’t know. I try not to get wrapped up in my clients emotionally. I just focus on the pictures and postings and let them worry about taking care of the crap in their lives. Elysse was better than a lot of them. She wasn’t on drugs, as far as I could tell. Didn’t spend a lot of time drinking. She and Dain had a needy relationship, but whatever. It takes time to sort relationships out. At least neither of them had helicopter parents buzzing around trying to control everything.”
Zachary had never had that problem himself, but he knew that many of the younger generation had parents who were unwilling to let their little fledglings take flight. Neither Elysse nor Dain seemed to have that problem. Their working-class parents were probably too busy taking care of themselves and any younger siblings to try to hold on to the older ones. Probably single moms or divorcees who never made their child support payments.
“So did you think Elysse and Dain’s relationship was pretty solid? Or could you tell it was coming apart? Dain said that they’d had breakups before. Did you expect them to get back together after that last argument?”
“I didn’t see the argument, so I don’t have any opinion on it. Yeah, they fought often enough, and sometimes, one or the other would take off for a few days or say that they were done for good. But they were always back together again afterward. I don’t think they ever made it to a week away from each other. They were always back for more.”
16
When Heather called, Zachary was on his way to the medical examiner’s office to pick Kenzie up from work. He answered the call over his Bluetooth earbuds.
“Hi, Feathers.”
“Hey, Zachy. How’s the investigation going?”
“I’m not sure I’m much farther ahead,” he admitted while rubbing his forehead in frustration. “But I’m gathering bits here and there. It will add up and, eventually… something will break.”
“How much do you know about Dain’s past?” Heather asked, skipping over any further pleasantries.
“Not much yet. I was more focused on Elysse’s. They’re both from rural Oregon. Grew up together, went to school together, and were childhood sweethearts. I don’t know if he has any family, but no one who is trailing him on his road trip across America or that he has mentioned in our conversations.”
“Yeah, that all fits together. But this relationship that has been going on since childhood…?”
Zachary glanced at the phone with interest, even though Heather had not connected with a video call. “I take it you are skeptical about that part?”
“I can see about getting a librarian to pull his yearbook pictures and any mentions of them being a couple during school, but there seems to have been a period of time when they were not together.”
“From what I understand, their relationship has been rocky. They have had breakups. A few days here and there. Was there a longer break that I haven’t been told about?”
“He was charged with sexual assault a few years ago. Sounds like date rape, from what I was able to find. I’ve ordered court records.”
“Was he convicted? Pled down?”
“Convicted, served a year, and was released. That’s all I know so far. But if it was date rape, then he was seeing someone other than Elysse at the time. Or if it was not date rape, then…” Heather trailed off, unable to find anywhere to go with that.
“Either way, Elysse knows that he was convicted of sexual assault. He didn’t just go away on an exchange program for a year.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how I would feel about being with somebody with that on his record. Actually…” she amended her statement, saying what Zachary had already been thinking. “There’s no way I would be with someone who had been convicted of sexual assault. Period. No way.”
“I know,” Zachary agreed. “It’s hard to believe that anyone would. But people do make that choice. Elysse was young and had known him since they were little; she might have just believed he was innocent, even though he was convicted. He might have given her some kind of story about it being a false accusation. Maybe that the woman had regrets after getting together with him. You hear that quite a bit from accused rapists.”
“Even so—that would mean that he had been together with another woman, even if it was consensual. If he and Elysse were together since childhood, then he was cheating on her.”
“Or got together with this woman when they were on a break.”
“If they were only ever on a break for two or three days at a time… that’s pretty quick to be jumping into bed with someone else.”
“Yeah. But Dain might have said he didn’t even know the woman. Or maybe Elysse just didn’t care.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know. Would you believe Dain never bothered to tell me about this?”
Heather snorted. “I’m shocked.”
“Anything else?”
“Not yet. Waiting for searches to come in from a few different sources. Anything else you need?”
“If you feel like scrolling through social media channels, you can look for an Elysse fan who wears a Knicks cap. Big guy, bushy beard, Knicks cap.”
“Yeah? I can do that while I’m watching TV with Grant. He won’t mind.”
“Okay, let me know if you find him. And if anything seems off about him.”
“Who is he?”
“Possible stalker. Possibly just a fan who saw something. Maybe nothing.”
“Got it.”
“Not high priority. But you never know. He might be an important piece of the puzzle.”
After disconnecting from Heather, Zachary pulled in to the curb in front of the police station. Kenzie wasn’t there yet, but would be in a couple of minutes. He didn’t always pick her up, but it was nice when he did, because she then had to get off at a predictable time, instead of letting herself be pulled into doing just one more thing as it gradually got later and later. If he were picking her up, they usually had dinner in good time and had some time to spend together during the evening.
He scrolled through his emails on his phone and then switched over to his social networks. He didn’t spend much time on social networking, and it seemed strange to him that it would be the center of anyone’s life. But for both Elysse and Dain, it had been what they focused all their time and energy on. It had been their livelihood, and any ups and downs and the vagaries of the algorithms of each one would have been a huge cause for concern.
Likewise, the people who watched Elysse’s feed had considered themselves part of her life. Every little thing she did, every post she posted, was of vital importance to them. She was more important than the characters in any book or movie fandom. Zachary had known foster kids in some of the homes he had been in who inhabited fictional worlds, who were so enamored by the literary or movie universe that they refused to live in the real world. For them, everything was hobbits, aliens, superheroes, or some other fictional race. They spent every waking moment immersed in their chosen fandom’s legends, reading or watching it on TV.
These people were just as involved in Elysse and watching every step she made.
At least, some of them were. Zachary was sure that plenty of regular, everyday people went about their business, going to work, doing chores, and raising children, and only checking their feeds occasionally throughout the day to see what their favorite internet celebrities were up to.
He was so lost in scrolling through his phone and looking at each person who had mentioned Elysse’s name in their posts that he just about jumped out of his skin when Kenzie abruptly opened the door.
He managed to hang on to his phone rather than flinging it across the car, but he did let out a little yelp, and his heart jumped in his chest and started racing like a piston. His body was sure he was in some kind of danger he needed to run away from.
Kenzie bent down and looked at him in amusement. “Are you okay?” she asked through the door.
Zachary cleared his throat and jammed the phone into his pocket. Kenzie got in, settling into the seat next to him.
“You just uh… startled me a bit,” Zachary told her.
“I thought you were going to jump right out through the window. What were you doing?”
“Just looking at my phone. I didn’t see you coming.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. How was your day?”
“Pretty good.” Kenzie’s expression sobered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing about scaring you. I don’t like to be startled. Especially now.”
She didn’t say “since the abduction,” but he knew what she had meant.
17
While Zachary didn’t like to rely too much on social media or rumors, he was waiting for information on other fronts. He had left messages with or sent emails to Elysse’s friends and family members, was waiting for the results of the public information request he had put in with the police department and BCI, and hadn’t yet been able to nail down Elysse’s current location or a way to connect with her. But there was plenty of other information to sift through online.
Many fans shared information and speculation on the mainstream social media platforms Elysse had posted on. It would have taken a cadre of investigators a year to go through everything that had been posted while she was missing, so he had to search, filter, and narrow it down to what was relevant, a nearly impossible task.
Besides social media, mainstream media had also been busy speculating about what might have happened to Elysse or the rumors of where she might have gone or been spotted. It was all anyone had wanted to hear at the time. Everyone had been searching for the one clue that would help the police to track Elysse down and ensure her safety.
Most of the videos posted were just talking heads, reciting the story over and over again, and talking to family or friends or “experts” who were supposed to know something about disappearances like this. The police, of course, had no comment other than requesting anyone who had information on Elysse’s whereabouts to come forward.
Zachary imagined they regretted asking people to come forward. They must have been swamped with calls, emails, texts, and tips of all kinds. At least no monetary award had been offered. He could only imagine what kind of chaos that would have caused.
But beyond what showed up on a quick Google search, there were sites where other information was shared. Posted by the Elysse fandom, the conspiracy theorists, the skeptics, the internet sleuths that had hoped to find something even before the police.
Some of the information might be true and some was clearly wild speculation. Zachary started to collect information, trying to organize it in some way that made sense. He mostly focused on photo and video evidence because he could at least trust that it was closer to the truth than the written opinions, rumors, and speculations. And it was easier for him to consume than walls of text.
He set up several subfolders in the case folder and started saving videos and photos, changing the filenames to descriptive names and tags that he could skim or filter later to keep track of what he would find in each and what he still lacked. He displayed them as large thumbnails so that he could also connect them visually.
Gradually, the various pictures and video snippets started to fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Far from answering the question of what had happened to Elysse during the five days she had been missing, they instead raised additional questions. And so far, Elysse hadn’t made herself available to answer any of them.
He didn’t want to go to Dain without more ammunition. The other person he knew had been with the two of them regularly throughout the social media tour who might be able to answer some questions for him was Kristy Echols, the “caddy” who had been helping with setup, branding, and advice. She had been with them for weeks and had seen Elysse and Dain together and apart. She might not want to speculate on any abuse, but she could report what else she had seen.
“Kristy,” she answered briskly. “Oh, Mr. Goldman, what can I do for you? Decide you need someone to advise you on your social media presence?”
“Well, considering I don’t really have one…” he laughed. “I had some more questions about Elysse’s disappearance, if you don’t mind, Ms. Echols.”
“Kristy.”
“And it’s Zachary.”
“Okay, Zachary, sorry. Don’t you think you had better establish yourself as an internet presence and get good social cred for the future? It is the first place people look for information now. Not in books or directories. You may get some business by word of mouth, but you need an internet platform if you are going to succeed. Even if you don’t want to set up a website, you still need something on the main social networks where people can find you.”
“Well, I guess sooner or later, I’m going to have to catch up with the modern world,” Zachary admitted. “I’m a little resistant.”
“Don’t wait until your business is in the toilet. You need to get established now. It takes time. If you are successful, that is exactly when you need to jump on board and establish your reputation now. If you wait until you’re not getting business from anywhere else, you won’t be able to get any traction.”
