“Rose Harrelson,” he read slowly the girl’s name off the screen. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but this was way before my time.”
“Mine too,” she replied quietly, her gaze riveted on the three-year-old girl’s photo. She had a sweet smile, dimples in her cheeks and chin, long, brown hair in wavy curls, and hazelnut eyes that would melt a heart of stone.
The case of Rose’s disappearance was cold, unsolved, fueling a pile of disappointing statistics that marked one of the most difficult types of cases to solve in law enforcement, regardless of state or county. Once the first twenty-four hours passed and no ransom call was received, the chances of ever finding a kidnapped child, dead or alive, plummeted to nearly zero. In Rose’s case, the chances had been in line with the national statistic, at least for the past fourteen years.
If the girl behind the waterfall was indeed Rose, where had she been all this time?
The detective who had investigated the child’s kidnapping had done an amazingly poor job, or maybe the digitizing of the case files had missed a few critical pages. He’d conducted some interviews, talked to some people, and gathered some evidence, but there was no follow-through, no conclusions drawn, and the sparse evidence had yielded no answers.
“Amazing that Dr. Whitmore remembered this case,” Elliot said, whistling quietly between his teeth. “One heck of a hooty owl. Didn’t he used to be a medical examiner in San Francisco when you were a fed?”
“Correct,” she replied, while her mind wandered. There were thousands of missing children, teenagers, and young adults. Why had Dr. Whitmore remembered this one in particular? Kay wondered if it was because he’d bought his cabin about that time; she still recalled when the doc had shared his retirement plans with her, which included the plan to buy that piece of real estate. Many law enforcement people researched local crime records before investing in property.
Running a quick search to sate her relentless curiosity, she confirmed that Dr. Whitmore had acquired his cabin a few months after Rose had vanished. She let out a frustrated sigh; sometimes she went down dozens of rabbit holes. Those rabbit holes had the gift of offering fresh perspectives and interesting points of view, but not this time, and not where Dr. Whitmore was concerned. The man was an absolute saint, dedicated to his profession, passionate about crime solving, about giving victims a voice from beyond the grave.
A chime broke her chain of thought, followed immediately by another, coming from Elliot’s phone. The message, from none other than the subject of her thoughts, was simple.
DNA confirms victim identity as Rose Harrelson.
“Yeah, we got that,” she mumbled, starting to review the case notes in detail.
Elliot pulled up a nearby chair and sat by her side. “Want to do next of kin?”
She was dreading that part. She’d done it often as a federal agent, and it didn’t get any easier, no matter how many times she’d banged on people’s doors to tell them a loved one was never coming home again. As a psychologist, she was able to say the right things under the circumstances, and keep herself shielded emotionally as much as possible, but it still took a toll. Because she’d failed. The FBI, the sheriff’s office, law enforcement as a whole had failed when people lost their lives, leaving their families heartbroken and unsettled, some never to find closure or the answer to the haunting question, why?
“One moment,” she whispered, quickly reading the sparse notes on the file, scribbled by hand in a barely legible chicken scratch. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a badly worked kidnapping case. Why weren’t the feds called? The girl was three years old,” she added, frustration taking the pitch of her voice higher. “They should’ve been called in. They never were. They have resources, specialized teams, you know? They could’ve found her before she ended—”
Elliot touched her elbow gently. “Just a cop doing a bad job, that’s all. You’ve seen it before.” His voice was calm and supportive, understanding yet pacifying. She looked toward him for a beat, her gaze meeting Sheriff Logan’s in passing. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d raised her voice, and that everyone in the bullpen was staring at her.
Lips pressed firmly together, she redirected her attention back to the screen. She needed her mind to be clear and focused, factual, analytical, rid of all feeling, of all resentment. Still somewhat choked, she cleared her throat before starting to read what little information the case file held. “Rose Harrelson, age three, was taken from the house of her parents, Shelley and Elroy Harrelson, fourteen years ago.” She flipped to the next screen and started scrolling though handwritten logs from what seemed to be the detective’s notebook, scanned into the system. “Forensics found no fingerprints, and the kidnapper had gained access to the house without breaking in, seemingly familiar with the property, the family and their routine. Therefore, the investigator was quick to deduct the father, Elroy Harrelson, was somehow responsible for her abduction, although the parents were not separated. It goes on,” Kay added, skipping forward over endless yet unsubstantial notes documenting the interviews with both parents. “Oh…” she whispered, not realizing her hand had left the keyboard and had covered her mouth. “Rose’s father killed himself a few months later.”
“Does it say why?” Elliot asked, squinting at the screen and drawing closer.
“He was exonerated in Rose’s kidnapping, says here,” Kay added, speaking slowly, as she perused the almost illegible notes in the endless pages. “The same detective was assigned to the suicide case, and some of the notes were crossed over. Seems Elroy’s life was destroyed by the suspicion, although he was cleared. He lost his job, couldn’t find another.” She looked briefly at Elliot, then back at the screen. “He hung himself in the garage, seven months after Rose was taken.”
“Who was that detective?”
“I
