Off the Grid

Jodie Reyes slapped the alarm clock, wanting it to shut up and when it didn’t, she opened an eye and considered beating the damn thing with a hammer. Her phone was vibrating on the bedside table and she understood why assaulting her alarm clock had not stopped the racket. She answered her phone and twenty minutes later with her hair still wet from the shower, got into her car and sped for the home of the missing child.

She arrived in forty-seven minutes and not the hour her boss thought it would take her to drive there. Jodie had a heavy foot and applied it when it mattered. In abducted children investigations, a speedy response always mattered. All the major case police courses she passed and conferences she participated in taught her the bleak statistical fact that eighty-eight percent of abducted children were killed within the first twenty-four hours. Knowing that, she knew she didn’t have a lot of time. She stepped out of her car, patted the gun on her hip and picked up her backpack with her notebook, cell phone and all other investigative essentials inside from the seat beside her. She slammed the car door and walked to a big RV parked outside of the missing child’s home with Ontario Provincial Police Command Vehicle printed on the side. Antenna’s, like metallic fingers, pointed at the sky from the roof.

Officers in uniform stood outside the RV arranging people into search parties. TV vans with talking heads standing in front of cameras spoke into microphones while gesturing towards the house behind them. Jodie didn’t mind the media. They could be self-serving, insensitive, egotistical jerks, but she used them as much they used her. And she would use them today.

She stepped up to the trailer, reaching for the handle when from behind her she heard, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

She turned to see a young officer, swimming in his uniform, jutting his chin out and stepping towards her with his hand out to grab her. The type of officer who lacked the confidence to be polite. The kind who preferred to bark fearing if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get the respect they craved. Jodie disliked him immediately. Before he could touch her, she said, “You touch me and you’ll be directing traffic in the smallest town in this province.”

He pulled his hand back as though he’d dunked it in hot water and Jodie thought she might have been too harsh. Softening her tone, she said, “I’m Detective Reyes. I was called to come here. Who’s the supervisor on scene?”

He sniffed, scowled and said, “You the detective, huh? Took you long enough to get here.”

She wasn’t sure if the guy had a problem with her being a woman a higher rank than him or being a black woman in a higher rank than him. Maybe she hadn’t been too harsh. Seems like her initial instinct about his level of jerk-ness was accurate. She ignored his statement. She learned long ago to respond rudely usually tended to reinforce a biased person’s view. She heard it described as confirmation bias. Besides, being polite always seemed to piss them off. She shouldn’t take pleasure in that, but she did. Jodie asked again, “Who is the supervisor?”

“Staff Sergeant Marks.”

Turning her back on him, she said, “Thank you.”

She opened the door and stepped into the RV. Staff Sergeant Marks, Reggie to his friends, smiled when Jodie stepped up and said, “Am I glad to see you.”

“I bet you are, Staff. How are things? How’s Brenda and the three brats?”

Reggie was the proud, but tired, father of triplet daughters. He and Brenda went the in-vitro fertilization route after years of natural attempts at conception resulted in years of disappointment. They ended up with three kids. All at once. Reggie complained about them, but anyone listening to him talk understood he adored them.

“Staff huh? C’mon now, Jodie. To you, I’m Reggie. The kids? Brats are right. Coming to work gave me a break from their constant crying, but after this I think I’d rather be at home with them.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it seems to be looking like it might be.”

Police attended for missing children reports routinely. Almost all of the time, the child would be found somewhere close to home. They’d be at a friend’s house or the park and like just about anybody, young or old, the time would get away from them. Sometimes the missing child never even left the house. They’d fall asleep in the closet or under the bed, for reasons only a kid would know. Because of that, the first thing any officer did when they went to a missing child call was to thoroughly check the house. If the child wasn’t in the home, that’s when they would reach out to friends and visit local parks or places the kid would be known to visit.

In this case, the house had been checked and the friends had been called. Every available officer in a patrol car drove down the streets near Francine’s home and cruised past all the parks even though no one expected to find her in a park playing. For one reason, it was winter and it was cold. The second reason, the more concerning one, was that all of her winter clothing was hanging in the front closet and Francine’s boots were still on the mat by the front door. The whole situation had an ominous feel to it and it was reflected in the serious countenances of all the officers searching. Still, the police followed the established routine and Staff Marks, directing it all, made the call to bring in Detective Reyes sooner rather than later because of the ominous feel. This didn’t seem like a runaway or a misplaced child. This felt more and more like an abduction. He got the media involved early too for the same reason. Staff Marks explained to Jodie all that had been done so far and nodding, she said, “Good call on the media. If this is an abduction, and I’m operating as though it is, we gotta keep pressure on this guy.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a woman?”

Raising her eyebrows, she said, “It’s always a guy. Well, almost always. Anyway, you have a media officer handy? I’d like them to hold an impromptu press conference. I want to get video of all the volunteers working to show that the whole community is out looking for Francine. Hopefully, that will make the bad guy keep his head down and thinking about how worse all of this could be if he kills her. Like going to jail for life kind of worse.”

“Yeah, I have already called in our media guy. She can deal with the vultures circling out there.”

“Who is that officer out there? Skinny guy? Always hitching up his gun belt?”

“Paul? What about him?”

“He’s going to be a problem.”

“He likes the authority. He’s either going to hurt someone who doesn’t listen to him or get hurt by someone who doesn’t care he’s in a uniform. And I think he has some prejudices he’s not hiding too well.”

Reggie had known Jodie for a long time. He knew her to be a smart cop with good instincts. When she said he was going to have a problem with an officer, he believed her.

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Good. Now, where is the swamp water you’re trying to pass off as coffee around here?”

Jodie listened to the chatter on the radio while studying a map of the town using Google Earth. With the search and rescue software developed by the Ontario Provincial Police, she drew circles on the map with Francine’s home in the centre. Using GPS trackers synced with the software, each officer leading a group of volunteers would track, real-time their location and progress. The idea was to have people on the ground searching and moving outwards while other investigators were called in to canvass for witnesses at the surrounding homes and collect available video at plazas and residences with anti-theft cameras hanging above their garage or side door. The trick was to do multiple tasks simultaneously while not diminishing the quality of the work. You had to rush without rushing. While drawing the circles, Reggie stood beside her talking to another detective who had just walked in. Jodie listened to them while completing her task.

Reggie said, “They say if they noticed anyone watching them? Maybe the same car driving by more than once or the same car parked on the street? Anything?”

“Nothing. We got nothing on this Staff. It’s like she stepped into another world or something. She just vanished.”

Jodie said, “Bullshit.”

The detective said, “I know it’s bullshit. But we got nothing.”

Jodie said, “There’s always something. The how is the most interesting. He walked into a house, into a little girl’s bedroom and took her? Why didn’t Francine scream? How did he get her out of there without waking anyone up? I checked the weather report for here last night and I have to say, he did pick a good night for it. The falling snow covered any tracks he might have left which indicates some planning. Only the front door had been left unlocked, which it normally wasn’t. That was luck, not planning. That indicates impulsivity. What does that say about the guy? An impulsive planner? I would say the guy knows Francine. To have a complete stranger in town checking houses for unlocked doors doesn’t fit. He randomly picked a home with a small child in it? I don’t think so. So if he knows Francine, someone around here knows him. We gotta figure this out and quick. I know the search is helpful, we need to do it but I don’t think we’ll find Francine outside. Someone took her and has her and we gotta keep the pressure on him so he stops to think before he does anything that can’t be undone. We need something. Anything that will point us somewhere. You know? What we need is an old-fashioned clue.”