33. Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Doug
A s Beth showered, I started re-watching the last hour of footage around the park. I had nodded off while reviewing it last night and was afraid I’d missed something.
Don’t let your guilt distract you.
Thank God I did. About ten minutes in, I saw Chase. A woman had her hand on his neck and was leading him away from the park. A few seconds later she turned.
Gotcha!
I didn’t. Her hat and sunglasses obscured her face, so I couldn’t make out any identifying features. And I can’t run facial recognition . I grabbed a screenshot and emailed it to everyone at SSI. I summed up what I’d seen and told them Beth and I were heading to the office. I’d go back and look for the woman entering the park after we got there. If we were lucky, I’d find her car.
Beth had just come down, so I called her over to look at my screen. I asked, “does anything about this woman look familiar?”
She gasped and put her hand over her mouth when she saw Chase. Beth brushed away her tears as she shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before. At least I don’t think I have. It’s hard to tell because I can’t really see her face.”
Hope bloomed in Beth’s eyes. I wanted to encourage it, but wouldn’t give her false hope. “I already emailed SSI her photo. Give me two minutes to shower and then we’ll head out.”
“Okay. Should I bring anything?” she asked, clearly needing to do something.
“Maybe some clean clothes for Chase, and his favorite stuffed toy.”
She nodded and headed up to Chase’s room to pack while I showered.
On the ride to the office, I told Beth my plans to look for the woman entering the park, hoping to see her face more clearly and maybe find her car and get a license plate. I stressed that it was a long shot, but worth trying.
Beth picked at her nails and nodded. She was desperately clinging to what little hope I could offer. I wish I could offer more . I reached over and held her hand. I couldn’t offer hope, but I could offer support.
We weren’t the first ones in the office. John was already there and brewing coffee. While he greeted Beth, I pulled up the section of video for him to watch. Then I poured three cups of coffee.
“Do you recognize her?” I asked as I handed him a mug.
“No, but then again it’s hard to tell.”
He said he’d round everyone up as soon as they were in, and we’d create a game plan.
That settled, I went to my office and got back to work. Beth came with me, hoping she might recognize the woman if we got a clear shot of her face.
It didn’t take me long to find her entering the park. Unfortunately, her face wasn’t visible, and there was not footage of her getting into or out of a car.
By that time, everyone else from SSI was in. When we gathered in the lobby for an update, Meg told us Agent Jones was on his way and he was bringing a profiler.
Once again, I saw Beth struggle to control her panic when she heard the FBI was coming to help us. I pulled her into a hug and reminded her we were asking for a favor, not involving the FBI on a professional level. I held her face and forced her to look at me.
“Beth, please tell me you understand?”
She nodded, but I could still see fear in her eyes. Which makes sense, her son is still missing. At least it wasn’t panic.
Jamie, Jack, and AJ had checked all their BOLOs but there was nothing new to report.
While we waited for Agent Jones, Meg printed pictures of Chase for everyone. We’d go to the local businesses around the park, asking if they’d seen him. We’d also ask to see the tapes from any cameras they had.
John called WPD to let them know what we’d found and fill them in on our plans. We didn’t need their permission to run our investigation, but it helped if we all played nice and shared information.
WPD wasn’t happy to hear the FBI was getting involved, so John had to smooth their ruffled feathers by explaining Jones was a friend of the family and helping us out as a personal favor. He promised the FBI wouldn’t take over or interfere with their investigation.
When Agent Jones arrived a few minutes later, he introduced Agent Maxwell as he greeted everyone.
Agent Maxwell was a short, serious woman with thick, curly red hair and piercing blue eyes. She was nice enough as she shook each of our hands, but I had the feeling she was a take-no-shit kind of woman. She was a profiler, and a member of the special victims unit, so we asked her to look at the tapes to see if anything stood out to her.
She watched the grainy videos over my shoulder, then gave us her assessment.
“There isn’t much to go on. Despite the fact she hid her face, I don’t get the feeling she’s a criminal mastermind. I can’t quite put my finger on it…” she trailed off, tapping her chin.
“I trust your gut,” Jones said to her, then addressed the rest of us. “We’ll keep working with the worst-case scenario as we plan.”
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
I checked on Beth to make sure she was still doing okay. Or as okay as she could be while searching for her missing son. While Maxwell watched the footage of the mystery woman again.
John wanted lists of every gas station and home security camera, as well as the license plate number of every vehicle at the park. It’d take a while, but once we had the plates, we could use them to pull the owner’s driver’s licenses and look for a match to our mystery woman.
It didn’t take us long to compile a list of the businesses in a six-block radius around the park.
John made sure we all had pictures of Chase before assigning each team a portion of the list. I’d be working with Jack, AJ with John, and Jaime with one of our part-timers, Dean, a retired Dallas police officer. Eric and Campbell would be in later and help where needed.
We went from station to station, starting with the ones closest to the location where she'd entered and left the park. She hadn’t used the same street to leave the park as she had to enter it, but they were close enough for us to triangulate where she might have parked.
We focused on that quadrant, and would work our way out from there.
It wasn’t always easy getting shop owners to cooperate, but the threat of FBI involvement was enough to convince them.
Less than two hours later, Jamie and Dean got lucky. A station, a few blocks from the park, had hidden outdoor cameras. While review the video, they recognized her hat as she gassed up. We now had a clear image of her license plate.
Not her face though. We wouldn’t need it if the owner of the vehicle matched the general description of the woman in the video.
When they called it in, we all raced back to the office, eager to start looking.
By the time we got back to the office, Jones had already used the license plate number to identify the woman and was doing a deep dive into her background. This is why we wanted their help . I had to hack into a secure government site to get information he had legal access to.
It wasn’t hard for Maxwell to build a profile based on the information they’d found. Jill Smith, thirty-two, had lost her husband and her son in a car accident seven months ago. “She’s been treated for mental illness most of her adult life. It’s likely the loss sent her over the edge.”
“That poor woman.” Beth whispered as she wiped away tears.
That was why I loved her; despite the pain and fear Smith had caused her, Beth sympathized with her. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Beth was a remarkable woman: caring, passionate, compassionate, and so much stronger than she realized.
Maxwell showed us a picture of Smith’s son. There was a collective gasp in the room; his resemblance to Chase was uncanny.
Beth covered her heart with her hands, sympathy and fear written all over her face. “My God, they could be brothers,” she whispered.
“Given what I read, I believe Mrs. Smith is trying to replace her late son with Chase.” Maxwell looked around the room, hesitation written all over her face.
“Go on.” John encouraged her.
“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” she addressed Beth, “but I don’t think she’ll hurt him. There’s no indication she was a bad mother. And while we can’t rule it out altogether, I don’t think she’ll harm him. The evidence suggests she’s had a psychotic break and believes Chase is her son.”
Beth wobbled as Maxwell’s words sunk in, so I put my arm around her to steady her. She turned in my arms, buried her face against my chest and cried in relief. I could hear her thanking God Chase would be okay.
Looking over her head, I made eye contact with Maxwell, trying to judge her confidence in the profile. She was looking at Beth with compassion in her eyes, and there was nothing there to make me doubt her faith in her skills. For my peace of mind, I looked at Jones for confirmation. It felt like he was reading my mind as he held eye contact.
“I’ll say it again, I trust Maxwell’s instincts and her skill set,” Jones answered my unasked question.
“That’s good enough for me,” John said, looking around the room. If any of us had questions, doubts, or something to add— now was the time to do it. “Bring your laptops to the conference room.” He gave the order, then took Beth aside.
I waited as he talked to Beth, offering what little support I could.
“Beth, I need you to stay here with Meg.”
“But I need-”
“I know it’s frustrating, but we need to focus on the job at hand and that’ll be easier if we don’t have to censor ourselves.” He hugged her and laughed as he added, “You know how heartless we cops can be when we’re working.”
His attempt to lighten the mood didn’t work. Beth nodded her understanding but didn’t laugh.
She hated being left out while we made our plans, but John was right. It was for the best. We had to plan for every possibility, including not finding Chase or finding him dead. Worrying about being gentle or censoring ourselves would be a distraction.
I felt a bit out of place as we settled down to work. It was weird watching Jones and Maxwell do the tech things I normally did. They ran her personal history, tracked her phone, and checked her credit card and bank accounts for activity.
I shook it off. They could do a faster, more thorough, job than I ever could. And it’s legal .
After a few minutes, Jones spoke up. “Smith might not be a criminal mastermind, but she knows enough to turn off her phone and not use her credit cards. The last purchase was at a grocery store just after Chase went missing, and her last bank activity was at the ATM in the same store.”
We hoped to find evidence Smith had taken Chase to her home, but hearing Jones deflated it. If she was smart enough to avoid using her phones and cards, she was smart enough to avoid returning home.
“No point in waiting. Gear up. We’ll check her home first. We go in armed, but remember, we’re dealing with a distraught woman, not a violent criminal here. We aren’t barging in with guns blazing.”
We said, “yes, sir,” as we stood.