After Party
By: Michelle Elizabeth
Tags: Writing, Creativity, Fiction, Hidden Lake, Novel

“The devil is in the details,” Pete Murphy said to his deputy before they exited the cruiser.

It was that odd time of day between late afternoon and evening when the light turned hazy and made your eyes go fuzzy. At any moment, the sky threatened to open up and let the darkness ooze to the surface.

By the time the police cruisers pulled up, night had taken over. The orange glow of the fire pits played counterpoint with the flash of the red and blue lights making a vain attempt at penetrating the woods at the other end of the beach and failing.

Pete did a glance over the crowd before settling on his family, Zach and Ann were with Mrs. Taylor trying to calm her down. She looked frantic, her otherwise perfectly pinned up hair was tousled about her shoulders. He had never seen her in such disarray since she came into the police station trying to get someone to find her husband.

She was frantic then too. But what can you do when a forty-three-year-old man disappears, and you don’t find anything. Not even a hair to suggest anything other than the truth she didn’t want to admit, he just left. But now, with the daughter missing, it gave Pete the goosebumps, and he hated when he had the goosebumps.

It was also a training day, and he had of all people, O. Reilly with him. The O stood for Oliver, but he liked calling him O’Reilly, it made him laugh to think he was named after a restaurant. Considering where he lived, it was quite possible his Momma named him that because he was either conceived or born in the back of one.

O’Reilly was from Antler Lake, lived there all his life. It was a mess of trailer park communities and Meth labs that Pete had been trying to clean up since he started with the Sherriff’s department. But the labs were like Hydra, every time he closed one down, three more sprang up in its place.

His Division Chief told him when he made Sergeant that he had put in a valiant effort but that now it was time to focus his energy in other areas. He was a detective now and charged with not only investigation but the training of those deputies that showed promise in that area. How he wound up with O’Reilly was a mystery to him and yet here they were, working a case that he hoped would result in just a misunderstanding.

“Hey Mallory,” Pete said, taking her hands and leading her over to a set of tables and chairs that they cleared. “So, when was the last time you saw Susie?”

Mallory was already crying before she could get he words out, her entire face red and swollen from her hysterics. “She had come back to the party to get something to eat. We ate over there,” Mallory pointed to the tent with the long picnic tables under it, “Then I saw her out on the diving block with the some of the other kids. That was the last time I saw her.”

“When did you notice she was missing?” Pete asked. He looked over at O’Reilly, frantically transcribing every word that was said. He made a mental note to tell him later to record everything and transcribe it later. His scribbles were distracting.

“I called her phone at around seven to tell her to grab a sweater out of the car because it was getting chilly and I knew she had been swimming. I didn’t want her to catch a cold.”

“Did you get a response?”

“No.”

“Are you sure she’s just not off somewhere, hanging out with some friends?”

“She would have answered me when I called. She’s never just run off like this.”

“And you’re sure she just not home asleep?”

“Well I don’t know, I didn’t check,” Mallory said, feeling pretty stupid that she hadn’t thought to do that first.

“Well let’s go, we’ll take you up in the cruiser.”

The Taylor house was completely dark when they pulled into the driveway. Pete had the sneaking suspicion that they were not going to find Susie at home. It was highly unlikely that a twelve-year-old girl would come home and not turn any lights on, not even the outside lights. But they went inside anyway. Pete and O’Reilly checked all of the rooms, closet, and bathrooms for any clue as to where she might have gone before meeting Mallory back in the living room.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. It’s too dark now to search the lake. We’re going to go back up to the beach. I have deputies up there now getting people to go home and make a preliminary search of the area. Those woods are too dense to search well at night even with flashlights. So what we’re going to do is, meet up at the beach at first light. I’ll have divers out to search the lake, and we’ll start looking in the woods.”

“Okay,” Mallory said, resigned in the fact that she was not going to find her daughter tonight.”

“Let’s hope she’s just somewhere blowing off steam, and she comes home tonight. If she does, give me a call. I’ll see you up at the lake, first light, okay Mrs. Taylor,” Pete said and patted her shoulder before getting up to leave.

“Pete,” Mallory said, stopping him at the door, “That new family, the wife’s name is Lauren, Laurel, something like that. She said she saw Susie up on Myrtle before the party talking with Teegan.”

“Does she normally talk to him?”

Mallory declared, “No, why would she?” sounding offended that he even dared to ask such a question.

“I’ll look into that too,” Pete said, and O’Reilly followed him closing the door behind them.

In the front yard, Pete looked around and lit a cigarette. He took a long drag before he offered his thoughts up to O’Reilly.

“I hope I don’t have to pick Teegan up.”

“Why, who’s Teegan?”

“He’s been in trouble with the Police since he was eight years old if you can believe it. Shoplifting, drugs, prostitution, and finally the capper on his illustrious career, child pornography. He was selling it. He claimed he didn’t make it and we could never prove it.”

“So, a real douchebag.”

“Pretty much.”

“Are we going to pay him a visit tonight, maybe he has her?”

“I doubt it,” Pete said as he dropped his cigarette into the grass, he’s been laying low for years, he’s not going to poke his head out now, and I don’t think he was entirely to blame for the child porn charge, but he took the blame for it.”