Page 39 of The Sister's Curse
“Michael Allan Renfelter went to the local college twenty years ago, which was about the right time for Drema and Jeff to be there. Never graduated. He worked in information technology for a handful of years, then wound up in federal prison on RICO charges.”
“Interesting. What did he do?”
“Looks like electronic money laundering for some drug lords. He’s been cooling his heels at Edgefield, South Carolina, this whole time. No furloughs, either.”
“Damn. I was so hoping for a slam dunk. Writing him off the list of suspects means that the Sumners have more enemies than we thought.”
Monica shook her head. “More money, more problems, I guess. Do you need me to take the trash up to the road or anything?”
“No. I really appreciate you doing this for me.” I had a lump inmy throat. Monica had always been a good friend and mentor to me. I could really count on her in a pinch.
“No worries, girl.” She cracked her gum and gave me a hug. “Let’s touch base in the morning.”
I watched from the window as she drove up the driveway out onto the main road. I locked the door. I’d installed double-keyed dead bolts at every place I’d lived in that had glass in the front doors. I’d seen too many cases where burglars just broke the windows in the doors, flipped the dead bolt latch, and let themselves in. When I was home, I normally left the key in the inside face of the lock in case I needed to get out quickly.
But I didn’t tonight. If I went sleepwalking again, I wanted to stay home. Walking barefoot in the dirt sounded like an excellent way to get an infection in my leg, and I was not wanting to tempt fate…or whatever the hell might be out there.
No,I told myself. This was just my own mind churning, wobbling out of orbit once more. I had to get control.
After I locked the door, I put the key on top of the fridge.
I opened a can of dog food for Gibby, who devoured it in two bites. He launched himself onto Nick’s side of the bed and glanced over his shoulder at me with a come-hither look.
I hauled the case file for the Dana Carson disappearance to my nightstand and began reading. I flipped to the picture of Dana from her yearbook. It was always strange for me that someone tangible enough to appear in a photograph could disappear without a trace. I hoped to gain some insight into who she was, who she might be if she was still alive. I got the impression that she was outgoing and confident, searching for something.
My gaze fell on her necklace, the crescent moon resting on her collarbone. I squinted at it. That necklace looked as if it had a stone in it. A pearl.
I looked at the river pearl on my nightstand, compared it to Dana’s. Dana’s pearl and the pearl from the pond were different shapes, but they looked pretty similar in sheen and color.
Coincidence, right? Maybe Dana was wearing some kind of freshwater pearl she’d bought on a vacation.
Maybe.
I stayed up reading the file. The original investigators’ frustration was palpable. They had a witness who’d seen Dana with three boys at the gas station on the Fourth of July. The witness was an upperclassman working a summer job as a clerk, and she recognized them. Before Dana’s arrival, the boys were trying to convince the clerk to close early and go watch fireworks with them, but she refused. When Dana arrived to buy a Coke, the boys invited Dana to go with them. Dana declined; she was supposed to meet her sister. The boys said they would go with her, and crowded her out the door.
Dana’s older sister, Vivian, reported that she was waiting for Dana to meet her at the burger joint down the street. I knew that place well; it overlooked the river and had an ancient burial mound in the parking lot. The parking lot had been entirely paved except for the mound, on which was planted a tulip tree with a picnic bench perched beneath it. Vivian waited at the picnic bench until the sun went down, and Dana never showed. As the fireworks started, she went into the restaurant to call their mother, who hadn’t seen Dana, either.
Records showed that the girls’ mother contacted the sheriff’s office. The office sent a car, but didn’t have any luck finding her that night. The hope was that Dana would return of her own accord in the morning.
But she never did.
An APB was put out, and Dana’s face was televised on the news channels for weeks afterward. No trace of her was ever found.
Detectives did the rounds, eyeballing the three boys who had seen her last. The boys’ wealthy parents refused to allow their sons to be interrogated, and lawyered up. The statements given through lawyers all corroborated one another: the boys had walked Dana down to the beach, where a crowd was assembled to watch the fireworks. Dana voluntarily left with a man none of them knew. A sketch of the man was included: a generic-looking guy in his twenties, with brown hair and blue eyes. He was reported to be five feet eleven inches, wearing shorts and a white T-shirt.
The case stalled. The sketch was circulated, and a number of men who met that description attended the fireworks. The boys pointed the finger at a college guy who was back home, visiting his girlfriend. But the girlfriend and her family gave him an alibi—he was seen grilling for an extended family of fourteen people—and that went nowhere.
The detectives had shaken the tree of people in Dana’s life who might’ve had motive. Her estranged dad was in prison for forgery; her mom wasn’t dating anyone currently. Dana had an ex-boyfriend, though, a Rick Smitz. They’d broken up three weeks before she went missing, but he was a hundred miles away at the time of the disappearance. Smitz had a bulletproof alibi: he’d gotten a speeding ticket on the way to a concert.
Dana had dated several guys. If she were a boy, she would’ve been called “popular”; the lawyers for the Kings of Warsaw Creek called her a slut. In addition to Rick Smitz’s, there were three boyfriends’ names in the file: Jason Williams, Luke Peterson, and Wally Westerville. Jason had been grounded for bad grades and was home with his parents. Luke was out riding motorcycles with some other boys. And Wally claimed to have been at the library. A librarian vouched for him.
I exhaled.
Nothing.
It was a whole lot of nothing that I had to find something in.
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