Tobi was out of breath for being athletic. By the time she reached the water’s edge her friends were coming up right behind her, Lissa, Arianne, and Rebecca. All were star varsity basketball players at the local high school in a quaint little town where not much ever really happened. To people anyways. Picturesque Pine Hills is what they called it, sitting against the forest edge in eastern Tennessee.
Pine Hills was the type of place where most people were on a first name basis. Men, father’s uncles, grandfather’s and boys usually carried out various jobs or careers at the local Mill. Mother’s, aunt’s daughters were usually fortunate enough to work part time at the little trendy shops dotting Main St. A grocery store and post office and not much else was needed. Farms filled landscape outside of town which mostly still consisted of dirt roads. And if anyone stayed after church on Sunday for the Baked Pie Club, they got clued in on what was happening.
So, when Tobi Peterson could not be found after going missing that crisp autumn afternoon, not many skipped after church Pie Club the following day.
Tobi’s father, Mathis took it the hardest. She was his buddy. He married into 5 daughters, but she alone was his. Since the time she could walk he had her out on the ball fields and basketball courts. There was a picture on his desk at the house, his favorite, of her still growing into a baseball cap. Maybe he raised her a bit too tomboyish he guilted himself sometimes for because by the time she got into 9th grade he was meeting her girlfriend for Homecoming. It wasn’t serious and the girl moved away shortly after. Ever since Tobi did not show much interest in women, or men. She was all about her sport trophies.
Sure, the date was the talk of Pie Club for some time until Susanne was rumored to be pregnant at fourteen by the Mexican farm hand. He was working old Bartholomew’s ranch that winter and soon everyone forgot about Tobi wearing a tuxedo to the school dance.
But now Tobi was the excuse for blueberry, pumpkin, and apple filled whispers and her mother and father wished it was over something silly like what she wore and who she dated.
By mid-week Tobi’s older sisters flew in from out of state once they heard the news. One sister was in Med school living the high-rise New York life. Two others, twins, married brothers and owned together a construction company building beach homes in Florida. MaryAnne was touring Europe and had no desire to settle down anytime soon. Beth, the closest to Tobi in age by 2 years juggled being a single parent with a full-time good career and a part time boyfriend in Alabama.
Violent crime was unheard of in this small town and people came from counties away to search for Tobi by foot and horse before the FBI stepped in. The only lead was to the water’s edge.
Gold Creek river flowed down from the great mountains as a mighty force before branching out south of town. Canoes and fishing rafts transported divers up and down the deep parts while dogs and folks searched the shallow water. There was no sign of her. “Were there any suspicious vehicles?”
“No.”
“Any out of area license plates?”
“No.”
“Did Tobi have a desire to run away?”
“No.”
“Was she on drugs or suicidal?”
“No.”
The same questions were met with the same answer by friends and family and anyone that knew her.
A couple of weeks went by, and Tobi had still not been found. Investigators had no choice but to turn their attention back on the friends, Lissa, Rebecca and Arianne who said they last saw her that day. It was not uncommon for the trio to hang out and walk around town or the forest on a Saturday for something to do. None of the girls drove or had a job for everything was within distance and being seniors, all their focus was on graduating and gaining a few scholarships.
Questioned a few times over by different investigating teams from local to federal level, the story of what happened that day held firm. That was until sheriff Riley talked with Rebecca a third time. It was a game hide-and-seek they liked to replay from childhood she said. Each friend admitted playing it since elementary school. After they would find each other, they would normally head to the city center and enjoy the same old fashioned chocolate shakes as they did as kids. Pine Hills was frozen in time for being 1999.
Now, after stern warning for the whole truth, Rebecca put it on record it was more than a game that day. They were scared. She was scared.
“Of what?” Riley asked. “Last time you told me it was just a bit of fun and now you go and say you were scared? Scared you couldn’t find her or of something else?”
“Tobi was scared. There was this boy sending threatening messages to her computer at school from Jackson, talking about how she couldn’t be a girl for being so tall and playing so well. He teased her, I guess. Said he would find her alone one day to find out.”
“We looked at all her school emails, FBI didn’t find anything like that.”
That’s because she erased them.”
“Did you ever see them? Know the boy’s name?”
“No, she never mentioned that and that’s why I didn’t say anything before because that’s all I know. And we never saw anyone else that day or heard anything.”
“You are going to stay right here.”
Angrier than he’d been in a long time Sheriff Riley slammed the office door behind him to go and confirm the new information given with the other two girls separately.
Both denied knowing anything about the emails or the boy.
“I don’t get it. You three were best friends, correct?”
“Yes, but if we only shared a secret with one other friend that secret was kept until it was shared with all. It was our pact.”
Riley had no choice but to let them go and start from scratch. He made a call to forensics to see if anything had been uncovered. Forensics team member Calhan asked why he had not gotten the message. She said they found shoes, a wallet, and jewelry hours earlier. The strange part it was nowhere near where Tobi disappeared. “Well, who found it and where?”
“This lady says here Maybelle. She was out walking her dog this afternoon to the post office along Hwy 34. Wait, Maybelle is the dog, Clancy is her last name.”
“Who the dog or the lady?”
She sighed. “Just get down here.”
“On my way.”
Pulling off the shoulder on Hwy 34 Riley took a minute to recognize Ms. Clancy. It had been years since he last saw her. She answered for her absence stating that she started spending winters with her daughter after she turned 75, in Florida, only to return home this summer to sell off her things. Shortly after getting home in June, she broke her foot and was just able to walk again without a cane, so she wanted to stay and see the leaves change one last time.
“I came across the shoes right along the road there under some brush and didn’t think anything of it until I saw the little brown wallet a few steps later. The keyring caught my eye in the sun. I opened it to mail back to the owner and seen the ID of that missing girl.”
Riley pulled a camping chair out of the trunk of the squad car and opened it up for her to take a seat. Stay right here Ms. Clancy and let me check we don’t have any more questions and I’ll take you home. He caught up with Calhan who was finished with taking pictures and putting the items in a shoe box.
“No clothing?”
She shook her head no.
“Says here she was wearing a black pair of athletic pants, white tank top, and pink Nike pullover sweater?” Riley said.
“I’ll walk the road a few miles both directions and report back before dark.”
Riley drove Miss Calhan home with her dog Maybelle on her lap.
When he got back to the station, he pulled down the wall map and collected a few push pins from his crooked desk drawer. Taking a spool of cord from supply, he measured the distance from Tobi’s house where the girls began walking north on the frontage road before turning off past the dairy farm. From there, a popular hole in the cattle fence kids was used as a short cut to the river, about two miles from the ranch. Her belongings were found several miles from town which was about 15 miles from where the girls said they last saw her in the forest. It did not add up. If she was last seen in the pines how did her shoes end up on the highway?
Riley’s head turned side to side on his pillow that night wondering how to find the name of this boy Rebecca claimed had a spite towards Tobi. He would have to go visit Jackson High’s next basketball game.
A week later a funeral was held. Not for Tobi but her father. Mathias’s old, worried heart couldn’t take it. Poor man collapsed coming out of the hardware store seeing Tobi’s face on paper stapled all over town.
The news drove Riley to become obsessed to find out with what happened to Tobi. Feds seemed to treat it just as their job. No compassion, dot the I’s cross the T’s type but Riley wanted to not only find answers for the family, but himself, and settle the whole town in which this case had turned upside down. He needed to find out if there was foul play involved and began withholding Rebecca’s confessions until he had a solid lead.
Sitting near the exit row on the bleachers at the following basketball game in Jackson, Riley nervously rubbed together a folded picture of Tobi in his pocket. After the game ended, he followed the boys into the locker room, flashed his badge, after getting permission from the coach of course, and questioned each boy. It really wasn’t just about listening as much as Riley was watching each boy’s instant reaction after seeing her picture. Some boys had instant grief and general knowledge of her missing from the news. Others apologetically said they did not know her well. But it was one boy in particular who had a strange reaction. He denied even knowing who she was which struck Riley odd as Jackson sat northeast about an hour and half away and was a regular rival in sports. To not hear of her was unheard of he thought. With the way these small towns gossip and Tobi’s prestigious reputation through sports he asked if the boy was new.
Danny shook his head no, “No I been here most my life.”
Riley just looked at him a moment then folded the picture of Tobi back up and tucked it in his back pocket. “Thank you for all your cooperation here boys. Good game. Maybe we’ll see you at state.” And he walked out.
When he got inside the squad car, he picked up the CB and called the station. “Yeah, get me the last name of a boy name Danny over here at Jackson High, senior, basketball player, and anything you can find on him.”
“Sure, thing Sheriff deputy Smith replied. Also, we got a strange walk-in case tonight. Rebecca Long’s mom Donna came in, asked to file charges against Tobi’s mother for credit card fraud. Said Tobi racked up a bunch of unauthorized charges on Rebecca’s credit card and wanted to wait until after Mathis’s funeral before bringing it up. She said she felt really bad, but the credit card company is not reimbursing the charges as they say they were authorized and signed for by Rebecca.”
“Jesus. Did Rebecca admit to the charges?”
“No that’s the weird thing. Rebecca said the card was lost.”
“Why didn’t she tell her mom that the signature was forged then or call it in at the time?”
“They forgot with everything going on at first. Well, that’s what they said.”
“So how do they know Tobi used the card?”
“Rebecca admitted giving Tobi the card to carry in her wallet. She said she often did that. And we have Tobi on camera at the ice cream parlor using it the week before, when all the girls were last there together.”
“So where is the card now, we have her wallet?”
“It’s not in the wallet Sir.”
“I’m on my way.”
Tossing his sheriffs hat across the desk, Riley looked down at the stack of memos waiting for his return to the office. It was late and the coffee machine was cold.
He picked up the report about the credit card charges. There was a photocopy of charges with Rebecca’s signature, and he wondered even if they were forged how would it get proved. Pine Hills was not up to date on every store having security cameras and the signatures did look like a match. An exact match as if it was traced from the original. He then combed through Tobi’s belongings. Nothing out of the ordinary, no blood stains he thought as he pulled a gold charm bracelet out of the wallet Looking closely, he observed two charms dangling one was R, the other L. Rebecca Long. He could not draw a conclusion what that meant if anything as he could only speculate Tobi held on to Rebecca’s things sometimes. But why. Calling Rebecca and her mom in the office the next morning became a routine it would seem.
The sun was bright, but the day was bitter cold. Rebecca Long and her mother Donna were leaving the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Riley was red with frustration Rebecca changed her tune again when he mentioned Danny’s name and she said she knew him. She denied any knowledge if he may have been the boy, she previously stated was sending Tobi emails. She did acknowledge her items were left in Tobi’s wallet as she had no pockets sometimes when they played in the forest.
Calhan called early afternoon and said she found tire tracks a quarter mile from where Tobi’s shoes were found in the bushes. “That is suspicious and not. Lots of critters jump onto that highway. It is hard not to draw conclusions in this matter, but it is justifiable. Can we get a match before I bring the Feds in on this?”
By 4pm Lissa and Arianne walked in his office had he had a hunch if he interviewed the two friends together someone would fumble with words. As he suspected, neither girl could pinpoint the last location in the forest they saw Tobi and argued over the direction she went. After the girls left, he got a strange call from Rebecca. She wanted to go on record to say that she saw Danny’s brown sedan near a fishing spot on the river where the girls looked for Tobi. She never saw him she stated but that now she recalled his name she remembered what he drove from being at the same games sometimes.
“Look Rebecca, you have to tell me everything. I understand through trauma and whatnot the mind can be a bit tricky in remembering so this time let’s get everything down. Every detail is a step closer to bringing her back.”
“Yes Sir,” she replied.
A breakthrough he thought tying the boy to the scene, but he was hesitant to believe Rebecca her. Evidence does not lie he thought and called Calhan to have Danny’s tires compared to the brake tracks.
A few days went by before Calhan called with the news. A match. And Riley did not wait another moment to call Danny in for questioning. He complied but was in the room alone with him five minutes before his parents arrived with their family attorney. They argued there was no evidence Danny was involved just because he was on the road.
“How about you tell me Danny, why did you slam on your brakes on Hwy 34recently? And what were you doing this far from Jackson?”
“My client does not need to answer this and unless he is being charged, I do not see why he needs to be here.”
“Mr. Ardrite, let me do my job. I am just questioning the kid and when the FBI gets this report, they will be doing the same except not so casually. Now you can sit in here and guide your client, but these questions need answered now or later. We found some of Miss Peterson’s items along the road there you see. So, I ask you again Danny, what were you doing on Hwy 34 that made you stop so sudden?”
“Well. I don’t know anything about Tobi or her stuff,” Danny stated. I was driving home from the North Fork. Was fishing and I think a cat ran across the road. Can’t say for sure what exactly or the day. I haven’t thought of it until now honestly. Things have been so busy with school and the team but once in a while I like to just get away. By myself.”
“A cat?” Riley asked, taking notes. “Let me tell you what is going to happen son. This is a missing person’s case. We have your car tied to a scene. When the FBI gets this information, they are going to come impound your car and search it for DNA. You say you were alone that day, then you have nothing to worry about.”
Visibly startled, wide eyed Danny went to protest but the attorney beat him to it.
“You have no motive here or body or right to search and seizure Sheriff.”
“You are right Mr. Ardrite. This case is being handled by the FBI and now out of my jurisdiction. I am just under their puppet strings so you will be hearing from them shortly.”
For some reason that day, Riley had a feeling forensics would find Tobi’s DNA all over the inside of Danny’s car. He was surprised several days later to hear they not only found Tobi’s and naturally a few of his friends DNA, but her friends too.
Now Riley was pissed. He felt like he was on a rollercoaster ride in the shape of a figure eight. Endlessly starting over and chasing the end. Rubbing the scruff of his chin with his right hand sitting in his office chair worried he was about to lose his job over failed interviews he debated what to do about the friends. They all lied but not a shred of evidence to toss them in jail even temporary as the case continued. As did the search.
He did not want to play bad cop as furious as he was with the teens. He decided on that fairly quickly so he decided his next approach would be to visit each girl at home for a friendlier chat. After all it was their best friend and why wouldn’t they cooperate in every way. Something happened that day none of them were talking about it. Reaching deeper into the truth before the Feds did was their only chance at leniency.
Agents wasted no time putting Danny on a watch list. Considering the girls had no vehicle, of course they would make friends with boys who did. But why lie. And if Danny was a threat to Tobi as Rebecca confided, why would they be hanging out with him. Sheriff Riley had been around a long time and was no stranger to high school romance gone awry. All the pieces were there now he had to make them fit.
Riley became more concerned what happened to the body. He did not suspect Tobi to run away. Each day that passed he had to confront the voice in the back of his mind that there was a breathless body.
Pressing Arianne and Lissa he found out they had no idea Rebecca’s mother was suing Tobi’s mother. Especially after losing Mathis. Both girls felt betrayed by this sudden information and Riley figured a little rife between them might make something surface. It worked. Not long after leaving Lissa’s house Riley got a call from her saying she wanted to meet him the following day at his office. She had things to say out of earshot from her family.
“So now you are telling me Rebecca and Tobi had a disagreement over this boy Danny, that Rebecca liked him, but Tobi did not. Yet Danny had a thing for Tobi? Because the way I heard was this Danny boy despised Tobi? And the plan was to meet Danny at the fishing spot, but Tobi never showed up. And you are saying neither you nor Arianne saw Tobi after splitting to play your game.”
“Correct Sheriff.”
“Why not tell me about Danny to begin with?”
“Because honestly, we did not know if he showed up. When Arianne and I reached the parking area there was no one there and Rebecca was yelling for us by the river, so we ran to catch up with her there.”
“And what did you see when you got to the river’s edge?”
Lissa dropped her eyes and started to fidget with her hands.
“Nothing. We saw nothing but Rebecca calling for Tobi.”
“Do you this this Danny guy took Tobi somewhere?”
“No!” She said looking up at him straight in the eye.
“Why is that?”
Lissa started to play with the gold charm bracelet around her wrist that matched the one he found in Tobi’s wallet belonging to Rebecca.
“Do all you girls have gold charm bracelets?”
“Yes.”
“Why would Rebecca’s bracelet be in Tobi’s wallet?”
“She was always afraid of losing hers when we played in the forest. She wears those leggings all the time without pockets, so Tobi held onto it.”
“Just like her credit card?”
“Yes.”
“Rebecca often paid for the milkshakes.”
“So why would her mother be suing if the charges were normal?”
“I think Donna was angry Rebecca let Tobi use her card for other things sometimes. Tobi promised to pay her back. I think that is why Rebecca did not tell us is because we knew Tobi promised to pay her back with a summer job. It was no big deal at the time. Other times Rebecca put gas in Danny’s car to take us for drives.”
“What did you do on these drives?”
“Normal stuff, hang out. Tobi never went for Danny’s flirtations and Rebecca just ignored it, but we knew she was sad.”
‘So, tell me again why you don’t think Danny did something to Tobi? Maybe he was tired of being rejected?”
“No, he wasn’t ever mad about it.”
“How do you know?”
Lissa lost it, standing up she shouted, “he did not do it okay!”
“How do we know!?”
“Because when Arianne and I got to the river’s edge Danny and Rebecca were standing there watching Tobi being raised off of her feet towards this giant bright light that came out of this black hole in the sky, and I know that sounds crazy but that is what happened!”
Taken back Riley starred at her a long moment replaying the words she just said. He wiped his face with his hands in disbelief he was really going to have to write this down and ask her again.
“You are telling me, a black hole opened up in the sky and a light beam came down and sucked Tobi into the sky? Is this what you are really saying?”
“Yes! A million times yes don’t make me say it again. All of them stories about the farmer’s cows going missing without a trace by the river. This explains that too!
“So how Did Danny get her shoes and wallet?”
“I’m telling you that light beam took her right out of her shoes, and she had her wallet in her hand, and it dropped. Danny grabbed them and threw him in his car and got down the highway before realizing no one would believe us and he needed to rid of it. He wasn’t thinking he just threw them right out the window. And I think Rebecca sold you that story of him threatening her to avoid the investigation on us and get him in trouble for not liking her instead.”
Riley had no words. That actually made sense except the part about Tobi being abducted.
“Until we find Tobi, all four of you are suspects are we clear on that? Now get out of my office because I am going to lose my job brining this to the Feds.”
Twenty minutes later Riley was barreling down the dirt road towards the fishing parking area. A good half mile up the trail along the river is where the girls said they last saw Tobi. The sun was bright, sky blue and not a cloud in sight. The air was crisp and the landscape colorful for Fall that was most people’s favorite. Lime green leaves sat at the top of shrubs giving way to darker colors burnt orange, fuchsia, crimson red and dark green near the ground. Leaves were scattered all over the place. Riley walked up to a cluster of trees and stood putting one hand against the trunk to hold himself as he gazed across the bubbling blue water. It looked normal at first then he noticed some charred pieces of wood below his feet. It was the pattern of burn marks that struck his curiosity, so he bent down wiping away the layer of yellow leaves off into the river. They looked like gold on the water. The wood was not set in the normal way for a fire but looked more like lightening hit it leaving distinct diamond shapes. The more leaves he scattered into the river the more shapes he saw, on wood, on rocks, on the ground. He stood up scratching his head and for a moment hesitated to look up. As he did, he suddenly saw a swirl in the blue sky turn black and down came this giant ray of light. It burned his skin and blinded him instantly lifting him off the ground. He tried to scream. He tried to reach out for tree branches to keep him on earth, but he was paralyzed. And in a flash, he was gone.
The End
©ChrisB.
Kommentarer