Blood and Sand Read online

  “Do you recall about what time it as when you went to Magdalene’s room?”

  “A little after twelve I believe. Why?”

  “Sounds like you may be the last person to see Magdalene alive and well in her bed.”

  Day 55

  Day 55

  It feels like the whole world has turned on us.

  The investigators have indicated and the media has speculated that the person who took Magdalene had to be in the house that night.

  They say there’s no other explanation. There are no signs of an intruder, no evidence that anyone but us entered the house that night.

  That means two of the suspects are me and Keith, of course, and we’re the prime suspects at this point. The other suspects are among our very closest friends on the planet: Wren Melody, Brooke Wakefield, Clarence and Sarah Samuelson, Vic Frankford, Rake Sabin, Henrique Arango, Scott Haskew, and Jodi North. And, of course, the only stranger in the house that night, our B&B guest Hal Raphael.

  Did one of these people, our chosen family, take our little Magdalene? It’s just unthinkable.

  It’s much more likely to be Raphael, but our own security cameras exonerate him. As do the cameras at the airport and the Uber driver.

  Could it be one of the others? The thing is, there’s no more evidence that one of them did it than Raphael did. There is no evidence that anyone did it. That’s the problem. Yet it was done. Our little girl is gone and somebody did it. Who? How?

  The world, or at least the media covering the case, seems to think that Keith and I did it. They think we accidentally killed her, that we’re covering it up, and that, if our friends are involved at all, it’s in helping us cover it up.

  13

  I find Taylor sitting at a table with Clarence and Sarah Samuelson eating ice cream with sprinkles and whipped cream and chocolate syrup, the mostly untouched bowl of bread pudding pushed to the side.

  “She’s not such a big fan of bread pudding,” Clarence says.

  “Ice cream is another matter,” Sarah says.

  They are a middle-aged couple who have a relaxed manner befitting the beach. Dressed casually, they seem settled and assured and non-needy in that way that only aging and belonging and money seem to bring. They definitely have that ineffable quality that the wealthy have that indicates their lives really are as different from the rest of ours as they seem.

  She is thin with long hair for a woman her age. Her hair, which is down, is thick and course and a light brown that looks too natural to have come out of a bottle. She is wearing khaki shorts, a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and leather sandals that reveal tanned, well-cared-for feet. Tortoiseshell reading glasses dangle from a dark cord around her neck.

  He is dark complected with black hair and eyes, and looks to be of South American descent. He’s thickish but not soft. Like her, he’s wearing a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He also has reading glasses hanging around his neck, but his are bigger and black. He has on designer jeans and leather flip-flops.

  The restaurant, which opens for lunch in about an hour, is empty except for us. The floors are clean and the tables prepped and ready for the lunch crowd, which as I understand it is usually pretty epic—even in the off-season.

  “Hope you don’t mind us indulging her like this,” Sarah says. “We can’t help ourselves.”

  “Not at all,” I say, then to Taylor, “What do you say?”

  “Oh, she’s thanked us several times already,” Clarence says.

  “She’s such a good girl,” Sarah says. “So sweet and cute and mannerly.”

  “Thank you,” Taylor and I say simultaneously.

  We are all quiet a moment as Taylor continues to eat her ice cream.

  “Mind if I ask you a few questions about the solstice party while she finishes her ice cream? Keith and Christopher have asked that I take another look at what happened.”

  They exchange a quick glance then Clarence says, “We really need to get ready to open. We still have a lot of prep work left to be done and now we’re way behind.”

  “Could we do it another time?” Sarah asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Y’all must come to dinner as our guests,” she says. “Not to talk about the . . .” She mouths the word disappearance. “That wouldn’t make for good dinner conversation, would it? But maybe after dinner we could talk some.”

  “Or a different time entirely,” Clarence suggested. “The two things don’t have to be combined.”

  “That’s true,” she says.

  They both stand and tell Taylor goodbye and hug her, then rush off to the kitchen.

  One moment they had acted as if they had all the time in the world and the next they rushed away.

  “Sit and join her,” Sarah shouts to me from the kitchen. “We’ll send something out for you in a few. Y’all take your time and enjoy.”

  * * *

  We find Anna still asleep in our room, and when we wake her up, she lashes out at us.

  “I’m on vacation,” she says. “Don’t be so goddamn judgmental.”

  I had jokingly asked if she was going to sleep the day away.

  Taylor recoils. She’s never heard her mother use those words or respond in this manner.

  “Come here, baby,” Anna says to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that. I’m sorry.”

  She holds Taylor, who is in tears and still clutching the gift we got Anna, and begins to shed tears of her own.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I was having a bad dream when Daddy woke me up. I wish he would’ve just waited for me to wake up on my own.”

  So I’m to blame for her outburst.

  “What’s in your hand?” Anna asks Taylor. “Did you get a treat?”

  “Daddy and I got a present for you.”

  “You did?” Anna says, her voice rising and more tears coming. “Well that makes me feel even more lousy for snapping. Please forgive me. I’m so ashamed of—”

  “It’s okay, Mommy,” she says. “Open your present. You’ll feel better.”

  Taylor crawls off Anna and holds out the present.

  Anna pushes herself up and uses the pillows and headboard as a seat back.

  “You’re gonna love it, Mommy,” Taylor says.

  “I already do.”

  “And it’ll make you feel better.”

  “You’ve already done that.”

  “And Daddy too?” Taylor asks. “It’s from both of us.”

  Anna uses opening the gift to ignore her question about me. “Oh, I love it,” she says, withdrawing the snow globe from the ornate gift bag.

  Inside the snow globe is a miniature Sandcastle town square complete with a sign that reads Sandcastle, FL.

  “Shake it, Mommy,” Taylor says.

  “Okay.”

  Anna shakes the globe and holds it up again. Instead of snow, it’s sand that swirls around the liquid inside it.

  “That’s cool,” Anna says, and seems to mean it. “I love it. Thank you.”

  Anna pulls Taylor in for a hug.

  “It’s from Daddy too,” Taylor says. “Hug him too.”

  “Thank you so much for this,” Anna says. “You go wash your hands and face and I’ll thank daddy and hug him. Okay?”

  When Taylor is far enough away not to hear, I say, “She’s scared we’re going to get a divorce.”

  “You’re not?” she asks.

  “I wasn’t until right now,” I say.

  “Well . . .”

  “Who are you and what have you done with my wife?” I ask.

  “Your wife?” she says. “I’m not your property.”

  “No, you’re not, and sane Anna would know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “So now I’m insane?”

  “You are if you think I meant in any way that you’re my property. I just wanted to let you know how the way you’re acting is upsetting your daughter so you could—”

  “Oh, so she’s j
ust my daughter?” she says.

  “Again, not what I said or meant and you know it—or you should. The other you would.”

  “The other me?”

  “Do you not think you’ve changed recently?” I asked. “Drastically?”

  She shakes her head and lets out a harsh little laugh.

  I say, “Can we please figure out a way to talk about this before I go get Johanna?”

  “Figure out a way?” she says.

  “Find something to occupy Taylor and talk where she can’t hear us?”

  “All clean,” Taylor says as she walks back into the room holding her still damp hands up.

  “Good girl,” I say. “Great job.”

  “How would you like to go to the beach with Mommy?” Anna asks her.

  “Yay,” she says.

  “Go get your suit on,” Anna says. “It’s draped over the side of the bathtub.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Are you coming, Daddy?”

  “He’s got to go pick up Johanna. It’ll be just us girls.”

  Day 61

  Day 61

  Oh my God. It’s unbelievable. I just can’t . . .

  I did an online search for sexual predators in our area and they are literally all around us. And not just a few. More than I could’ve ever possibly imagined. How can there be so many? And so close to us. Would it be this way no matter where we lived, or is this just here? Why the hell weren’t we notified? We’re raising a small child. Someone should’ve told us that we were doing so surrounded by a nest of vipers. Surely one of them is responsible for taking Magdalene. I want to go and knock down every one of their doors and demand they let me search the place.

  How can the cops not be doing that? How can they not be looking at these known predators? And if there are that many known predators, how many unknown are there?

  Has the whole world just lost its fucking mind? What is wrong with people?

  I’ll tell you this. If the cops aren’t looking at these vile fuckers it’s because of one and only one reason. It’s because they’re wasting all their time looking at us. They’d rather believe that Keith and I killed our own little girl and are covering it up—with the help of our friends I might add—than that a known predator somehow figured out how to breach our security system and get in and out with her without being detected.

  14

  Anna had told Taylor I couldn’t go to the beach with them because I had to pick up Johanna, but the truth was I didn’t have to meet Susan to get Johanna until later—Anna just didn’t want me going to the beach with them.

  Alone and with some extra time on my hands, I sit at the small desk, pick up the casebook Christopher made me, and flip through it.

  Christopher’s journal entries are raw and heartbreaking. Comments from Roderick Brandt, the investigator in charge of the case, show his frustration at the lack of leads. The local news articles and feature stories reveal way too much speculation and conjecture on the part of the media—particularly by the unsourced tabloid-type coverage found online.

  Most of the tabloid and citizen-sleuth social media conjecture involves conspiracy theories ranging from the implausible to the outlandish. The dominant one, which actually claims to have a source close to the investigation, involves various iterations of a scenario in which Keith and Christopher gave Magdalene too much sleeping medication so they could party with their friends—friends who helped them cover up the accidental overdose and have since kept their secret.

  In the pouch in the back of the binder is a thumb drive with a Post-it note on it that indicates it’s the security camera footage. I connect it to my laptop and open the only folder on it.

  The video files are labeled by dates and include 12/20, 12/21, 12/22, 12/23, 12/24, 12/25.

  Each file begins at 12:00 a.m. and ends at 11:59 p.m.

  I click on 12/20—two days before the solstice party.

  A split screen shows the feeds from both the front and back doors simultaneously, each with the timecode near the bottom of the image.

  Each camera is pointed directly down at the door it is covering, so it only shows when someone enters or exits the residence—nothing else. No approach or retreat. Nothing in the house or the yards. Only the two doors.

  As much as I don’t want to, as much as I don’t have the time to, I decide that I have to watch every frame of every day—something I do at a sped-up rate and only slow down when someone is actually entering or exiting the house.

  The angle of the cameras and the quality of the footage is poor to begin with—something seeing the video sped up only makes worse—but I can mostly make out the black and white and gray figures coming and going.

  At 6:06 a.m. Keith exits the back door. At 6:37 a.m. Hal Raphael exits the front door. At 7:16 a.m. Keith enters the back door. At 8:11 a.m. Christopher exits the front door. At 8:13 a.m. Christopher enters the front door carrying mail. At 9:32 a.m. a couple carting luggage exits the front door. At 9:44 a.m. a woman pulling a rolling suitcase behind her exits the front door. At 9:57 a.m. a young couple and two small children exit the front door with multiple bags. At 10:37 a.m. a female UPS delivery person enters the front door carrying four parcels. At 10:41 a.m. the UPS delivery person exits the front door carrying a large parcel. At 10:59 a.m. a male food delivery person enters the back door pushing a handcart with several cardboard boxes on it. At 11:04 a.m. a male FedEx delivery person enters the front door carrying three medium-sized packages. At 11:05 a.m. the FedEx delivery person exits the front door. At 11:09 a.m. the food delivery person exits the back door. At 12:37 p.m. Hal Raphael enters the front door. At 1:26 p.m. Sarah Samuelson enters the front door. At 1:29 p.m. Brooke Wakefield and Wren Melody enter the front door. At 1:33 p.m. Keith and Magdalene exit the front door.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen Magdalene in anything but a still photo, which have mostly been headshots, and I pause the image and look at her for a long moment, then run it back and watch it several times.

  Even in the short seconds-long clip, her energy and personality come through, bursting off the screen so vividly the footage seems momentarily to be in color.

  She and Keith seem completely comfortable with one another, and appear enthusiastic about whatever they’re about to do.

  I withdraw my phone from my pocket and call Keith.

  I tell him the period of time I’m looking at and ask if he recalls what is going on.

  “That’s the day we celebrated Christmas with my mom because she wouldn’t be here on the day,” he says. “While Chris met with a few of our friends to discuss the solstice party plans, I took Magdalene to play at the park and to the bookstore to pick up Mom another gift—a book for her trip. We had so much fun at the park. We were the only ones there. God, I’m so glad we did that. I just wish we would’ve never come back home.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  We say goodbye and I return to the video footage.

  At 1:46 p.m. Hal Raphael exits the front door. At 2:23 p.m. Brooke Wakefield exits the front door. At 2:27 p.m. a woman carrying a backpack enters the front door. At 2:32 p.m. Wren Melody exits the front door. At 2:40 p.m. a man carrying a large cardboard box enters the front door. At 2:57 p.m. Keith and Magdalene enter the back door—her with a partially eaten ice cream cone, him carrying several paper Sandcastle shopping bags. At 3:03 p.m. Sarah Samuelson exits the back door.

  I’m not surprised to see Keith and Magdalene use the back door—any more than I would be Christopher—but I wonder why Sarah left through the back door, especially since she entered through the front.

  At 3:07 p.m. a man exits the front door. He appears to be the one who entered with the large cardboard box earlier but it’s difficult to be certain. At 4:17 p.m. a delivery person (I can’t be sure whether the person is male or female) passes a package to someone through the back door but doesn’t go in.

  At 5:21 p.m. a man exits the front door. At 5:28 p.m. a woman exits the front door. At 5:44 p.m. Hal Raphael enters the front door. At 6:01 p.m
. Keith’s mom Derinda Dacosta enters the front door carrying a precariously stacked pile of presents.

  At 7:26 p.m. a woman enters the front door. At 7:36 p.m. a man enters the front door. At 8:07 p.m. Hal Raphael exits the front door. At 8:14 p.m. a figure in a hoodie who could be male or female attempts to enter the front door. After a few moments he or she turns and leaves, and there are no more comings or goings.

  Realizing this is going to take a lot longer than I thought, I copy the files and paste them to my desktop and then into my Dropbox folder, which I can access anywhere from my phone—that way if I find myself with a free moment as I’m doing other things I can watch the footage. Otherwise it’ll take too long to get through it all.

  I’m not exactly sure what to do about it, but there are several people entering and or exiting that I can’t identify. I’m assuming most of them are guests, but it’s difficult to tell when they don’t have luggage. And even when it comes to those I believe I am identifying, I can’t be absolutely certain, given the quality of the footage, that I’m identifying them correctly—especially the ones I’ve only seen pictures of.

  Day 67

  Day 67

  My mom called today but instead of offering any compassion or comfort or sympathy she let me know that her preacher told her the reason Magdalene was taken was because my and Keith’s relationship is an abomination to God.

  So let me get this straight. God, who created me the way I am, is punishing me for loving Keith. God is love yet God punishes me for loving someone? Really???? Because I enjoy the company of and sex with a man instead of a woman, God has my innocent three-year-old daughter abducted?