Page 10 of Little Girls Sleeping
“True. That’s part of it, but…” It was difficult for her to articulate. She took a few moments before continuing. “I wanted to leave here, leave Sacramento; I wanted to get away from my life. Be somewhere else.” It seemed strange for her say it aloud after it had been kept compartmentalized in her mind.
Her uncle listened and waited patiently for her to continue.
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“No, it doesn’t sound crazy. I didn’t know how you felt before you left because it was so abrupt. And you stayed an extra tour before coming back home. It was worrisome.”
“I’m sorry.” She picked at her hamburger bun.
“Don’t be. You did what you thought you needed to do at the time.”
“Uncle Wayne, are you psychoanalyzing me?” She smiled.
“I never divulge my secrets,” he joked.
“I wanted to escape. After Mom and Dad died… that day… how it…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. “It was too much for me, but I managed to finish school and the academy, and begin patrol at Sacramento PD with the help of you and Aunt Claire. Nothing felt quite right. I felt like I was supposed to be a certain person and act a certain way.” Taking a sip of her soda, she said, “I know no one made me do anything I didn’t want to do. I had to find my own peace, I guess.”
“We all do at some point in our lives, some sooner than others,” he reassured her. “You’re doing everything you need to right now. Just recognize it. The more small stuff you accept, the easier it will be with more weighty things.”
“I’m working on that,” she said. “I just wasn’t prepared to lose friends so soon on the battlefield, and it’s difficult to get that straight in my mind.”
“If you need anything, absolutely anything at any time, just ask.”
Katie knew that her uncle was being careful not to push her about her experiences in the army and what she had witnessed. It was the same thing with cops. Many held their feelings close and didn’t want anyone to have a sense of their weakness—which in reality was their strength.
“I will,” she said.
“I’m not just saying that. I mean anything…”
Five
Katie was putting away case files, both recent and old cases. Her mind kept running over the facts of Chelsea Compton’s disappearance and whether to talk to Detective Templeton directly. She didn’t know exactly what to expect, but her gut told her that she needed to ask a couple of pertinent questions. At the very least it might give a gentle push to reopen the case again.
In her mind, this was a case that needed to be solved whether it had a happy ending or not. There was one theme that ran throughout her textbooks and true-crime books: cases need closure no matter the outcome. But she wanted to check a few things first.
Denise was busy in a meeting, while most of the data entry and files were already completed. Katie sat at her desk pondering. The more she thought about the case, the more edgy she became. She glanced around the room; there was only one other administrative person and they were involved in a project and not paying any attention to her. With a few clicks of the keyboard, she searched for cases of missing girls broadly matching Chelsea’s description over the past four years from the surrounding five county areas. She found three that were roughly similar. Three years ago, Amanda Harris and Megan Lee, best friends, nine years old, got off a bus and were never seen again until their bones were discovered in Arizona a year later. That wasn’t going to help the case—two suspects had been arrested and were awaiting trial.
The third girl, Tammie Myers, also nine years old, was last seen three years ago when she walked from her aunt’s house to the small local grocery store, Tango’s Corner Market, to buy ice cream and a dozen eggs. She was visiting her aunt while her parents worked out some type of marital problems. She wasn’t from the area and didn’t know anyone. The case quickly became a cold case. One of the investigating detectives suspected that the aunt was involved but could never prove any evidence of her connection.
Katie frowned. Instinct and knowledge told her that Tammie was already dead and would probably never be found. As numerous textbooks had taught her, the likelihood of a missing child still being alive after forty-eight hours was slim.
She twisted her neck and looked around her. The administrative area was completely quiet. No voices were audible and no one approached her desk. She moved her fingertips adeptly across the keyboard and continued a more detailed search until she finally came to a database where she could enter the parameters of what she was looking for in comparable cases. She also wanted to try and find out if there were similar cases of abductions in neighboring counties—if necessary, in the entire state of California.
It took longer than expected, but after about twenty-five minutes she was able to find two other abductions that resembled Chelsea’s case. Both incidents had happened more than two hundred miles away. She wasn’t getting anywhere, but the searches did show that young girls around the same age as Chelsea were missing.
She took some quick cryptic notes and then cleared the screen and search history and sat staring at the blank monitor. The blinking cursor was like a consistent heartbeat prompting her to do something—anything. She kept staring at it and didn’t want to blink because then she would see the smiling face of her long-ago friend, Jenny.
Find her.
Even the few things Katie had checked so far seemed to point in one direction. The evidence still needed to be sifted through, but it appeared to indicate that Chelsea Compton’s disappearance wasn’t random due to the other girls in the area who were missing without a trace. There was something going on, and she just had to put all the clues together to find out what.
Katie waited patiently for Detective Templeton to finish a phone call. The significance of this missing-persons case still weighed heavy on her—especially because it had to do with a child’s welfare. The more she thought about it, the more determined she was to breathe life back into it.
“Ms. Scott.” The detective addressed her formally, forcing a stale smile.
“Hi, Detective Templeton, nice to meet you.” She shook his hand, instantly noticing his exceptionally calloused palm.
“What can I do for you?” he inquired.
