The Vanished (3 page)

After a long debate with himself, David decided to wait a few days before telling his parents about Annie’s disappearance. They weren’t going to hear about it on the news because they lived in Florida.

He arrived at the police department at a quarter to one. After they greeted each other, Detective Barton asked David if he had heard from the kidnappers. David said that he hadn’t.

The detective looked calm and unconcerned. He surely wouldn’t have been so calm if it were his child who had been abducted. David wished he could grab Barton by the lapels and instill a sense of urgency in him.

“Have you finished searching the pond in the park?” he asked.

“Yes. We didn’t find your daughter there.”

David felt a sense of relief.

Barton took David to the polygraph room, introduced him to the examiner, and left. After David signed a Miranda rights waiver form and a polygraph consent form, the examiner inquired if he was taking any medication.

“No.”

“Are you under the care of a physician?”

“No.”

After each response, the examiner checked the appropriate box on the form in front of him.

“Do you have any pain or discomfort right now?”

“No, I don’t.”

“How many hours did you sleep last night?”

“Five.”

After the pre-test interview, the examiner explained the procedure and reviewed the test questions with David. Then he began to place sensors on David’s body.

“Are you comfortable, Mister Miller?” the examiner asked when he attached the last sensor.

“Yes.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“No.”

“The test is about to begin. Answer only yes or no.”

The first question was: Is your name David Miller?

“Yes,” David replied.

“Are you forty-two years old?”

“Yes.”

“Are you completely convinced that I will not ask you a question on this test that has not already been reviewed?”

“Yes.”

“Did you deliberately cause your daughter Annie’s disappearance?”

“No.”

“Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?”

“No.”

“Did you kill your daughter Annie?”

“No.”

“Do you live in Plano, Texas?”

“Yes.”

“During the first twenty-six years of your life, did you ever deliberately hurt another person?”

When they reviewed the test questions, David had asked the examiner if hurting someone in self-defense counted as deliberately hurting another person, and the examiner said that it didn’t.

“No.”

“Did you have a plan to cause your daughter Annie’s disappearance?”

“No.”

“Have you ever deliberately hurt another person?”

“No.”

“Do you know who caused the disappearance of your daughter Annie?”

“No.”

“Can you drive a car?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where Annie is?”

“No.”

“Did you deliberately do anything to try and beat this test?"

“No.”

The examiner said that the test was over, and began to remove the sensors.

6

Carol was at the Plano Police Department when David came home. He changed clothes and then visited the websites of the local affiliate stations of ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. He was pleased to see that all four of them had a story about the reward he was offering for finding Annie. David hoped they would mention the reward on the air. A few minutes after his closed his laptop, the phone rang, and David dashed to it, hoping it was the kidnapper.

The caller was Susan Yasbeck, an assistant news producer at NBC’s Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate. She asked David if he would like to give an interview to her channel. David agreed to do an interview without hesitation.

NBC’s TV crew arrived forty minutes later. David didn’t recognize the reporter, which was to be expected because he rarely watched the news. After they went over the questions he was going to ask, the reporter inquired if David’s wife was home. David said that she was taking care of some things.

“When is she coming back?” the reporter asked.

“Around five.”

The reporter glanced at his watch. “We’ll do the interview without her, if you don’t mind.”

“When are you going to air the interview?”

“It will be on the six pm news.”

The interview was shot in the backyard of David’s house and was eight minutes long. When the reporter asked the last question—Do you have anything to say to our viewers?—David cleared his throat and said, looking into the camera, “I’d like to say a few words to the person who has my daughter. If you bring Annie back to me, alive and unharmed, I’ll pay you two hundred thousand dollars, no questions asked. You will not be arrested or prosecuted, I give you my word. I don’t care how you came across my daughter. I just want to get her back, that’s all. I won’t ask Annie what happened to her and who was holding her. I’m not interested in revenge. Bring Annie back to me, and you’ll receive two hundred thousand in cash, or diamonds, or whatever you prefer.” He turned his face to the reporter. “That’s all I have to say.”

“David, as I understand, you’ve just doubled the reward you’re offering for finding your daughter.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Thank you for the interview, David.” The reporter signaled the cameraman to stop filming.

“You’re welcome,” David said. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure.”

“I’d appreciate it if you aired what I said to the kidnapper in full. Can you do that?”

“I think we can.”

“That’s the reason I agreed to do this interview.”

“Don’t worry, David. I’ll make it happen.”

His interview was aired in the first half of the 6 pm newscast. It had been cut down to a little over a minute, but fortunately his message to Annie’s abductor had been left intact. When the segment about Annie was over, David asked Carol what she thought about it.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she said.

“Did I sound trustworthy?”

Carol nodded. “Yes, you did.”

That was the crucial part: David needed Annie’s abductor to trust him.

Since their phones were tapped by the police, he and the kidnapper would have to use email to arrange the exchange. He would give the kidnapper his email address when the kidnapper called him.

Chapter 2

1

“Is there a more private place where we can talk?” Barton asked when they went into the great room.

He did not bring good news, David thought as he led the detective to the study.

The detective had called at ten in the morning and said that there was something he wanted to show David. They had agreed to meet at David’s house in an hour.

It was Sunday, and David wondered if Barton was working on his day off.

In the study, Barton shut the door before sitting down on the settee, which stood against the wall to the right of the desk.

“I saw you on the news last night.” The detective took out his notebook. “Has anyone contacted you?”

“No.”

“You’ve got to be very careful. There are a lot of scammers out there, who would do anything for two hundred grand.” Barton opened his notebook. “Here’s what I want to talk to you about, David. Yesterday you took a polygraph test. According to the examiner, you gave deceptive responses to the following questions: ‘Did you deliberately cause your daughter Annie’s disappearance?’, ‘Did you have a plan to cause your daughter Annie’s disappearance?’, ‘Do you know who caused the disappearance of your daughter Annie?’, and ‘Did you kill your daughter Annie?’” He raised his eyes from his notebook and looked at David. “This means that you lied when you said no to all these questions.”

David’s heart skipped a beat. Although he knew that a significant number of people telling the truth failed lie detector tests (because of nervousness, a medical condition, or other factors), this news stunned him.

“It doesn’t mean that I lied,” David said. “It only means I failed the test.”

Why had he failed the test?

Had he been nervous when he underwent it? Yes, he supposed he had been nervous. He’d been on edge since Annie’s abduction.

Had Carol passed her test?

“Well, you’re right. I apologize,” Barton said.

A long silence followed, during which the detective looked at David curiously, waiting for him to say something.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” David asked at last.

“Why do you think you failed the test?”

“I was nervous when I took it.”

David had a hunch that the detective wouldn’t buy this explanation.

Was he a suspect now? He might very well be. There could be no doubt he had become a person of interest.

“You were nervous?”

“I didn’t fail it because I lied, I assure you.”

Barton glanced at his notes and said, “I’ve been told that Annie’s adopted.”

“Yes, she’s adopted.”

He thinks that, because she’s adopted, I don’t care about Annie.

Cops had no trouble assuming that the person in front of them was a scumbag. Barton probably thought that the reward would have been a million dollars if Annie were David’s biological child.

“When did Annie start having seizures?”

Had the police chief spoken to Barton about Annie’s case? Was the detective pissed off that David had used his connections to get special treatment?

“Five months ago.”

“When did you adopt her?”

“She started living with us in April of last year.”

“So you didn’t know she had epilepsy when you adopted her?”

“No, we didn’t.”

Barton leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and asked, “Were you upset when you found out that Annie has epilepsy?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Would you say it’s hard to be a parent of a child with epilepsy?”

“It’s not easy to be a parent, whether a child has epilepsy or not.”

“Is it more stressful than being a parent of a healthy child?”

“I’d say it is. But the stress Carol and I experience is nothing compared to what Annie has to go through.”

“How often does Annie have seizures?”

“Before she started treatment she had three to four seizures a week. Now she has one seizure a month on the average. Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to learn more about your relationship with your daughter.”

He’s setting up a trap.

“We love Annie more than anything in the world,” David said firmly.

“Of course. Annie’s an adorable child. It’s a shame she has this terrible, incurable illness.” The detective was silent for a while, and then continued, “Do any of your friends have children with disabilities?”

“No.”

“Do you think parents of healthy children are happier than parents of children with disabilities?”

“It’s an odd question. What does it have to do with Annie’s abduction?”

David was irked that he hadn’t yet figured out what kind of trap Barton was setting up for him.

“Okay, let me ask you this: would you have adopted Annie if you had known she’d develop epilepsy?”

“Yes.”

The detective seemed to be trying to prove David had stopped loving Annie because of her epilepsy.

Did Barton think that he had murdered Annie because she had epilepsy? What an idiot! Police detectives were known to concoct bizarre theories, but there was a limit to everything.

David glanced at the door, wondering if Carol was eavesdropping on their conversation. He would prefer she not know that he had failed the lie detector test.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I were in your shoes,” Barton said. “I would have adopted a healthy child, instead.”

David had no idea if Barton meant what he said—and he didn’t really care.

“Well, you’re free to do whatever you wish, Detective.”

“Yes, I am. And let me tell you this: choosing a healthy child doesn’t make me a terrible person. I only have one life, and I believe it’s reasonable to want to maximize happiness.”

David conspicuously looked at his watch. “Do you have any leads yet?”

He was mad at Barton for wasting time on him instead of looking for Annie.

“Right now all we have is your polygraph test. I really want to know why you failed it.”

“I was nervous.”

“Your wife passed her test. I bet she was nervous, too.”

“Can you please tell me where you’re going with this?”

“Okay. Have you ever heard of Occam’s razor?”

“Yes.”

“According to Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In this case the simplest explanation is that you lied.”

“Do you think I killed my daughter?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think.”

Of course you do.

“The test results are wrong. I didn’t lie. I didn’t kill Annie, Detective. I love my daughter. Don’t waste your time investigating me, because I didn’t kill Annie.”

“I’m not saying you did.”

“Then what’s the point of this conversation?”

“Look, David. You gave a deceptive response not to one or two but to four relevant questions. That’s not insignificant. I can’t ignore that.”

It’s not his fault I failed the test, is it? The man’s just doing his job.

“Am I a suspect?”

Barton shook his head. “No. You’re a witness.”

“Is there anything else you want to talk about?”

“No.” Barton put his notebook in his jacket pocket. “Thanks for meeting me, David.”

“You’re welcome, Detective.”

2

As David watched Barton walk to his car, his mind returned to the lie detector test.

Why had he failed the goddamned test?

Because he had been nervous, that was why.

But why had Carol passed the test? Barton was right, she must have been nervous, too.

If nervousness wasn’t the reason, then what was?

He was as healthy as a horse, so it wasn’t a medical condition.

One thing was for sure: he hadn’t lied during the test.

Maybe he had been subconsciously thinking about Brian during the test? Maybe his feelings of guilt over his son’s death had caused him to have a faster heart rate, higher blood pressure, and increased perspiration—the typical indicators that a person was lying—when he answered those four questions.

Did you kill your daughter Annie?

Did you kill your son Brian?

Yes, Brian’s death was his fault. His negligence had killed his son. If he had locked the pool fence door properly or if he had kept a closer eye on the boy, Brian would not have drowned.

David felt tears prick his eyes. He blinked hard and took two deep breaths.

He missed his son. He thought about him every day, and every day he relived the terror he’d experienced when he found Brian’s small lifeless body in the water.

It had taken them eight months to conceive Brian. When they tried to have another child three years after Brian was born, Carol learned that she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again because of premature ovarian failure. Half a year after Brian’s death David began to think of adoption. He hoped that having a new child would ease their pain. Carol had accepted the idea without hesitation, and he had been extremely grateful to her for that.

When David sat down next to her on the sofa in the great room, Carol asked what he and Barton had talked about.

“He gave me an update on the investigation,” David said.

He hated withholding information from Carol, but he believed that keeping quiet about the results of his lie detector test was a sensible thing to do.

To hell with this stupid test. He wasn’t going to lose sleep over it. Of course it would have been nice if he had passed the test, there was no denying that. However, a failed lie-detector test was not a tragedy. Because polygraph examinations were not reliable, their results were inadmissible in court. The police couldn’t arrest David or charge him with a crime based on his failed test.

He had nothing to worry about because he was innocent.

Was Barton going to tell the press that he had failed a lie detector test? If Barton didn’t do it, sooner or later someone else would. Such information always became public.

An hour after the detective departed, their housekeeper, Alicia Romero, told David that Barton had spoken to her last night. Although he was curious to know what Alicia and the detective had talked about, David didn’t ask her for details.

Had Barton interviewed Annie’s nanny yet? He probably had.

Could the housekeeper or the nanny be involved in Annie’s kidnapping? It was possible, but David didn’t think they had anything to do with this crime.

3

At nine o’clock in the evening, when David was in the great room searching the sex offender registry on the website of the Texas Department of Public Safety (he learned that there were six sex offenders living within two miles of his house and fifteen within two miles of Ardmore Park), his cellphone rang. It was Detective Barton. He said he had an idea.

“Have you ever been under hypnosis?” the detective asked.

“No.”

“Would you like to try?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“You see, David, you’re the main witness in this case. You were there when Annie was abducted. Hypnosis can help you remember everything you saw in the park that day.” Barton paused. “I believe you might have seen the people who took your daughter, or their car. So what do you say?”

Barton was right. The odds were good that he had seen the kidnapper and his vehicle. For example, assuming that the abductor had followed them from their house to Ardmore Park (and David was sure that was the case), David might have seen his car in the rearview mirror, probably several times. What the hypnotist would have to do was make him remember the license plates of the cars that had been behind him when he pulled into the parking lot of Ardmore Park. He couldn’t have gotten a good look at the plates, but that was okay: it only took a glimpse to memorize a license plate in the subconscious mind.

“It’s an interesting idea,” David said. He was glad Barton had decided to do something productive.

He figured the detective wasn’t an idiot, after all.

“Do the Tucson cops use hypnosis?”

“Yes, they do.”

“I’m sure you know it’s a very effective tool.”

David said nothing.

“Should I call the hypnotist?” Barton asked. “He could meet you tomorrow in the afternoon.”

“All right. Let’s do it.”

4

On Monday morning, while he was eating breakfast, it occurred to David that it had been almost three days since Annie’s disappearance, and he had yet to hear from her abductor (or abductors).

Did the fact that the kidnappers had been silent mean that these people weren’t after ransom? Could he completely rule out this possibility now?

If he were a ransom kidnapper, he wouldn’t wait more than two days to make his demands known. What was taking them so long?