“The parks are meant to be places of escape and freedom, away from the stresses and pressures of regular life. Few things manage to take more relaxation and simple joy out of things than constantly seeing police officers."
"What a lovely sentiment," Sam mutters. Seriously, what is with these moody men in my life?
I purse my lips at him. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I love you and clearly, I am pro-law enforcement. It's kind of an ongoing thread through my life. But you have to admit, some people act and feel differently when they know they are around the police. They tense up and get nervous. Or they get cocky and rebellious. It doesn't matter. The point is, the police aren't there all the time. Funding for them to have a constant presence just isn't available, and since the instance of crime in these parks is actually really low, they wouldn't be doing much most of the time. Their resources would be more valuable somewhere else."
Xavier stares at me, and I watch him slowly bring a scoop of rice toward his mouth with his chopsticks. His eyes don't move away from me and most of the rice doesn't actually make it all the way to his mouth. The few grains that do disappear into a slow chew.
"I still don't understand," he says a few seconds later as if he was waiting for me to continue the thought.
"The campground is closed. It can't be reserved and is not for use. But since the surveillance ended years ago, there's little stopping people from going into it. Apparently, there is a group of frequent campers and hikers who stake the area out around the anniversary each year to stop people from going thrill-seeking," I say.
"And no one has disappeared or died since they started doing that," Sam adds.
"Not until Elsie," I point out. "Anyway, I read through the information and ended up getting deeper into the page about Violet Montgomery. It turns out the theory that her death was an accident doesn't sit well with any of these people. They all agree that when the police say it was an accident, it's a cover-up. The police started saying that and repeating it as a way to get the heat off them. They didn’t want to have people look at them as if they’re failures at their jobs, or as if the area is dangerous.
“But then it happened again the next year with the two kids, and the people on the forum say there should have been an official statement made then that Violet did not die of exposure or dehydration. It's so obvious she was gone well before the time it would have taken for her to die that way."
"Why?" Xavier asks. "They couldn't determine the cause of death due to the decomposition, and the weather skewed the time of death. It was very hot that summer and extremely rainy in the days following Violet's disappearance."
"Right. The day she disappeared was hot and muggy. It would have been unpleasant to walk around in the woods much for anyone, but especially a small child wearing shorts and sandals. Without any water, especially, it's unlikely she would have gotten very far in the woods in the time it took for her mother to notice she was gone," I say. "Yet, she went completely unnoticed for two months?"
"I'm not following you," Sam says.
"All of them are different, but no matter which one you're talking about, a national park is going to be two things. Large and quiet. The quiet is the big part, here. Yes, a campground can be kind of a noisy place. But once you get out onto the trails, it's birds and wind and not a whole lot else. It's why many people love going to them so much. It can be an extremely loud world out there. It's nice sometimes to be able to hear yourself think," I say.
Xavier pounds his fist in the middle of his chest and holds it up toward the sky in what I can only imagine is a gesture of solidarity. He goes right back to his food, and I look over at Dean. My cousin stands and picks up his glass.
"He found a ‘greatest moments’ compilation of Celine Dion in Vegas," he explains, walking back toward the kitchen.
"Oh. Well, my point is, it was quiet. How could that child not have heard her parents calling for her? And then the people searching for her?" I ask. "Even assuming that their calling her name inside the cabin or around the area in the campground got muffled by the other sounds of the campground, once the search party got into the woods, wouldn't she be able to hear them calling for her? And wouldn't they be able to hear her?"
"The police took awhile to get there, remember? Her parents went to the neighbors in the surrounding cabins first. Then once they weren't able to find her, they called the police. Then the police had to get there and then send people out into the woods. By then, she could have gotten a good distance away," Sam says.
"She might have also thought she was in trouble," Xavier says. "So, she hid."
"And just sat there until she died?" I ask. I shake my head. "No. That's not going to happen. A little child isn't going to crawl up into a cavern and then just sit there untilshe dies. I guess it's possible it took long enough for the team to get assembled and organize their search that she got pretty far into the woods. She could have gotten turned around and then encountered whoever killed her. The killer might have even offered to help her, which could have earned her trust before the actual search began, or before it got into the area where
