Harbor Cove Murders, page 5
The door to the conference room was open. When we stepped inside, we were met with even more volunteers than the night before. I pulled Luke back. “What’s the plan for all of them?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, shaking his head as if he were as overwhelmed as I felt. There had to be at least twenty people in the room with Ava and Bill. “It’s good to see so many people this morning. Before we start, it would be helpful to know what the volunteers have planned for the day.”
That was as good a start as any. I went over to Laurie’s parents and put my hand on Ava’s back. She smiled up at me, but it was clear she hadn’t slept the night before or maybe even the night before that.
One of the volunteers stepped forward. “We are going out to hand out flyers and talk to people to see if anyone has seen Laurie or has any information about that night at the bar.”
Luke took a seat near one end of the table. “I’m having some new flyers made up. I’d like to speak to Bill and Ava though before you head out.” He turned to them and said he had information and wanted to know if they wanted privacy.
“No,” Bill said. “These volunteers have been here every day and are waiting for information. They can hear anything you have for us. We wouldn’t have been able to accomplish as much as we have without them.”
Luke took the photos out of the file and laid them on the table. “Last night, before we went up to our room, I spoke with security and was able to get copies of the videos of the other doors at the hotel. I have an image of Laurie from that night.” Luke went on to explain what he had found on the surveillance video including the man who approached her.
Ava and Bill looked over the photos. She sucked back a sob and then groaned when she got to the photo of the man grabbing her daughter by the arm.
She turned to me. “That man took my daughter.”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Luke cautioned. “This might have been someone passing by. He might have seen that she was swaying and couldn’t get in the door. For all we know, he escorted her around to the front of the building. This hotel does not have surveillance cameras outside other than at the doors. The only other surveillance is interior so we have no idea what he did after he approached.”
With uncertainty on his face, Bill said, “He’s considered a suspect, right? If this man was the last person to see my daughter, he must be questioned.”
I sat down next to Bill. “We have to find him first. That’s why we included an up-close photo of the man’s hands and the ring.” I pointed to the photo. “Someone might recognize the ring or even his hands. The goal is to get this out there, but we have to be careful about the language we use. If we label him a suspect and he hasn’t done anything wrong, he might not come forward. His friends or family might not identify him for us. The goal is to sound like we want to talk to him because he might know something – no more, no less.”
“I don’t have a choice but to agree with you,” Bill conceded.
Luke addressed Bill directly. “I share your frustration. When I saw the video, my first instinct was to assume he had something to do with Laurie’s disappearance. Cooler heads have to prevail though. The goal is to get this flyer to as many people as possible. We know Laurie made it back to the hotel, so we need to focus on where she went.”
“Okay,” Bill said, his face stiff. He didn’t look happy about what Luke said, but Ava seemed to understand.
Luke gave them a rundown of the plan for today. “I figured Riley might be better at interviewing Laurie’s friends. She might be able to build rapport faster with them than I could. We also want Riley to be able to interview them alone.”
“Why is that?” Ava asked.
I put my hand on her arm. “I’ve found that when interviewing young women in this situation, they can hold back in front of parents for fear of getting in trouble or getting your daughter in trouble. I’m not saying the girls did anything wrong or have held anything back, but it’s a precaution.”
Bill looked over at Ava. “I told you that before when we talked to them the first time.”
“My daughter doesn’t hide things from me.”
The last thing I wanted was for them to argue. “Ava, I’m not suggesting your daughter hid anything from you. But they were out drinking at a bar and who knows what happened that night. If I interview them alone and their stories are exactly as they were the last time someone spoke to them, great. That’s what we hope for. At least, if I interview them alone, I allow them an opportunity to say things they might not otherwise be comfortable saying. It’s no reflection on you or your husband or Laurie.”
Ava nodded once in understanding. “What do you want us to do?”
I gestured toward the laptop on the table. “Is everything set up for me to call them?”
Ava gave me each of the girl’s screennames and clicked a button on the laptop. “The video chat program is open. I’m logged in so you can just click their name. They are available all morning.” She and Bill got up from the table, looking to Luke for further instruction.
“Come with me and we can start distributing the flyers.” Luke gave the volunteers some instructions and then had them follow him out of the room so they could make enough copies and help Vic distribute the flyers within the hotel before they hit the streets and started talking to people.
Once they were gone, I clicked the button Ava indicated and the video chat program came to life. I called Megan, the first of Laurie’s friends. I was a bit surprised by how quickly she answered. I don’t know why, but I had assumed the process might be more complicated.
“Hi, Megan,” I introduced myself and told her about how we were helping to find Laurie. “Ava and Bill are with my husband, Luke. I thought it might be better if we spoke alone. I know sometimes it can be uncomfortable talking in front of someone’s parents.”
Megan had short blond hair and a pretty smile. “There isn’t anything I’m hiding if that’s what you mean.”
“Not what I mean at all. I’ve done enough of these interviews to know that details sometimes get forgotten or things happened that night you might not want to share because of how Laurie might be perceived. It would be helpful if you could start at the beginning and tell me about that night.”
Megan sat back in her chair and sniffled. “We had been having a great trip and that night we did what we had been doing. We went to dinner at a restaurant down the street and then we went out for drinks. We had been to the Sunshine Bar before and had a great time so we chose to go there again.”
“Is it fair to say that you felt comfortable there?”
Megan nodded. “It had a chill vibe. The drinks weren’t expensive and the people were friendly. It was a mix of locals and tourists. They always had good music, and yeah, we felt comfortable there.”
“Was there anything unusual about that night?” There were several questions I needed to run through for background before getting up to the point where Laurie went missing. Sometimes witnesses tired of telling the story over and over again and I hoped this wouldn’t be the case.
“Nothing unusual. We had met some locals a few nights before and they were there, so we hung out with them on the back deck until the band started playing. Then we went inside to the dance floor.”
“Can you tell me about the locals you met?”
Megan shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal. There were a few guys who frequent the bar who were always there. I believe they were friends with one of the bartenders.”
“Did you feel comfortable with them?”
“There wasn’t a reason not to. Our friend Mackenzie liked one of the guys, but she never went off with him or anything like that. We aren’t stupid.” Megan had a defensive tone that made me curious.
“I wasn’t suggesting you were being stupid,” I assured her. “I’m well into my thirties now, but trust me, when I was in my twenties, I did my fair share of drinking. I probably did more stupid things than anyone on the planet. There’s no judgment, trust me on that. I’m just trying to sort out where Laurie might be.”
Megan relaxed in the chair. “We searched everywhere that night.”
“I’m sure you did. It sounds like there was only a short window of time between when Laurie went missing and you started searching. It’s remarkable to have such a short window of time to narrow things down.”
Megan locked eyes with me through the screen. “We made a pact before we left for vacation that we had to look out for each other. It didn’t matter if one of us met a guy or anything, we weren’t going to do anything stupid. I feel terrible, like I did something wrong. Laurie said she was walking over to the bar to get us more drinks and the next thing I knew she was gone.”
“Did she go to the bar alone?”
“No,” Megan said. “She walked over with one of the guys from the group of locals we met. His name is Dylan. I don’t remember his last name, but they walked to the bar together. We found Dylan outside when we realized Laurie wasn’t in the bar. He said that Laurie had walked outside after they ordered drinks, but that he couldn’t find her.”
I made a note on a notepad next to me. “Did he help you look for Laurie?”
“Yeah, he and all of his friends did. No one could find her though.”
“Did anyone go back to the hotel with you?”
“No. We hadn’t told anyone where we were staying.”
If Megan was telling the truth, and I thought she was credible, I was impressed that they had a safety plan and stuck to it. “I assume you didn’t see Laurie again or find anyone who saw her?”
“There was no one. All we know is Dylan said she went outside for some fresh air and that he lost track of her.”
“Had Laurie done that before?”
Megan considered the question for a moment. “She hadn’t left like that before. There were a handful of times that she had asked one of us to go outside with her. Most of the bars we went to were warm inside even with air conditioning. St. Thomas is muggy and the places were packed. All of us were warm. Some nights were hotter than others.”
I made another note. “It’s reasonable then that Laurie walked out front to get some air.”
“Not really,” Megan said, surprising me. “Laurie had been going to the back deck and she always asked one of us to go with her. She had never gone out the front of the bar alone before.”
“Did you believe Dylan?”
Megan seemed to consider it. “I believe that’s what he believed. I don’t have any reason not to believe him.”
We talked for several more minutes about that evening. I could tell there was something that Megan wasn’t telling me. I urged her to tell me anything even if it seemed minor.
After several minutes of convincing her, Megan relented. “There were some guys who hit on us and some of them didn’t really take rejection well. No one stands out, but it happened to us more than once.”
I assured her we’d be looking into everything. The last question I asked was about the man we saw at the hotel. I showed Megan one of the photos of the man’s hands but she didn’t recognize him. By the time we ended the call, I felt like I had a decent handle on the night Laurie disappeared.
CHAPTER 8
Cooper worried about Adele. She had assured him that she wanted to be involved with the case, she had pushed for it even. Now, Cooper wasn’t so sure. A worry line creased her forehead and he worried that she’d be upset later that they hadn’t had a proper honeymoon.
They were seated at a table in their hotel suite. Adele had pulled out her laptop and seemed to be concentrating on an article she had found. Cooper watched her across the table as she worked. He didn’t want to ask if she was okay because he had already done that at least five times. She had grown annoyed with his concern.
Instead of asking, he simply inquired about what she was reading. “Find anything interesting?”
Adele didn’t respond at first. Cooper asked again and she finally raised her head to acknowledge him. “Not really. I was searching about the risk of going missing on Caribbean islands. It seems to be low.”
“Is that important?”
Adele closed the lid of her laptop and folded her hands on the table. “I was trying to see if having this many missing young women was normal or not for this area. Certainly, somewhere like Los Angeles or New York City, it would be normal to have this many missing women in a year. Those areas eclipse this number with runaways and missing girls. Five in a year seems high to us because of the circumstances, but I wanted some solid research on tourists running away or going missing. It is abnormal.”
Cooper clasped his fingers through hers. “I hadn’t even thought to search for something like that. Do you want me to call the families alone? You had that spa appointment for later today. You can still make it if you’d like.”
Adele smiled over at him. “It was for a couple’s massage. If we split the list and both call the families, we can make our appointment this afternoon. There’s no reason we can’t enjoy ourselves a little and still help out.”
There was no way Cooper was going to argue with that. He readily agreed and then wrote down two names and their respective phone numbers and slid the main list over to Adele. “You take two and I’ll take two. Remember to find out who the girls were with on their trips and any contact information for them.”
Cooper got up from the table and went into the bedroom and closed the door so they’d not be talking over each other. Thankfully, the suite was big enough to accommodate them both.
For the next two hours, Cooper spoke to the families of Gia Tibbitts from Colorado and Ruby Wallis from Toronto. He hadn’t had any trouble reaching their families and they were saddened to hear that another young woman had gone missing. Gia Tibbitts’ mother had no idea that after her daughter disappeared, four young women had also gone missing under similar circumstances.
Sharon Tibbitts asked, “Did the police tell their families that the girls ran off with men? That’s what they told me and there’s no way that happened.”
“That seems to be the common response. Have you watched the news lately? This most recent case – Laurie Presley – has been garnering some international news coverage. We are hoping that this will help find answers.”
“I haven’t watched the news. I haven’t done much of anything in the last year since my daughter disappeared.” She sighed heavily into the phone. “We didn’t have the money to stay in St. Thomas and continue to search for Gia. We went down for a month and then her brother stayed for three months. He returned for another month, but there’s no information. The police didn’t help us even at the start and the media didn’t care.”
Cooper felt a lot of empathy for Sharon and her family. He asked about the details surrounding Gia’s disappearance and what Sharon described sounded a lot like Laurie. Gia had gone on a trip with three girlfriends. After a night of drinking, Gia disappeared. The friends said that Gia got up from the table where they were sitting and went to the bathroom. A few minutes later, when she didn’t return, her friends went in search, thinking she was sick. They couldn’t find Gia in the bathroom or outside. She never returned to the hotel that night. It was like she was there one moment and gone the next, leaving no clue as to what had happened to her.
Cooper made notes as Sharon talked. When there was a pause in the conversation, he asked, “Earlier you said that there was no way Gia went off with a man. How can you be sure of that?”
Sharon let out a sarcastic wry laugh. “Well, besides the fact that none of her friends said that she had been talking to any men on the trip, my daughter was a lesbian. She had only told me a short time before the trip and I supported my daughter fully. When I told the detective that, he responded that maybe Gia changed her mind – like that was something one did.”
In his head, Cooper cursed Det. Hanley’s stupidity. “Do you know if anyone was bothering your daughter or her friends on the trip?”
“Not that any of them said. I’ve spoken to them a few times. Gia’s brother spoke to them a few times and none of them indicated that. She vanished from that bar.”
Cooper knew based on what Luke had found that Laurie didn’t disappear from the Sunshine Bar. He didn’t know if Gia had ever made it back to the hotel and would likely never know. Hotels didn’t keep their security footage that long. He thought he’d ask anyway. “What hotel was your daughter staying in on her trip?”
Sharon told him the name of the place, about a block away from their hotel. “The security cameras have all been checked if that’s what you’re thinking. Gia never used her keycard and never made it back to her room. Call her brother, Steven, if you’d like. I’m sure he has much more information than I have given. He was there for a few months.”
Cooper thanked her for the information and wrote down Steven’s name and number. Sharon told him that he should be home now. Cooper hung up with her, promising to call back with any news and then punched Steven’s number into his cellphone. It rang a few times and then a man answered. Cooper confirmed it was him and then introduced himself.
Steven groaned when Cooper told him other women had gone missing like his sister. “I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. The detective was no help at all. I’m sure my mom told you he insisted Gia ran off with a man. Even if my sister was interested in men, there was no way she was running off with one. Gia was a smart kid. She excelled in school and was about to graduate. She already got into graduate school. She was going places. She didn’t abandon her life and take off. Besides, she didn’t even have her purse with her. Her money and identification were at the table where they were sitting.”
Cooper noted that. “What did you find while you were here looking into her disappearance?”
“You mean other than the cops being worthless,” he said sarcastically. He paused for Cooper to respond and when he didn’t, Steven went on. “Nothing much, man. There were no sightings of Gia after that night. I didn’t find one person who had seen her.”
