Jamie and Casey exchanged text messages, on Tuesday, July 15, about the unpleasant incident at Fusian the previous Friday night. Because of what happened, Jamie told Casey that she wasn’t going to work there as a shot girl again. Jamie asked what she was doing that day. Casey said that she was going to work at Universal.
Jamie mentioned the little girl in the photographs on Casey’s MySpace page. “Is she yours?”
“Yes,” Casey wrote. “She has a birthday next month. She’ll be three.”
Casey left the apartment and stopped by the Bank of America branch on South Conway Road. She went up to the teller with one of Amy’s checks and walked away with $250 in cash.
Her next stop was Cast Iron Tattoos to make an appointment for herself and a friend for Saturday, July 19. Recognizing her as a regular customer, tattoo artist Danny Colomarino came out front to greet her. “Hey, how you been?” he asked, then inquired about her daughter.
“Caylee is with her nanny. I’ll bring her with me on Saturday,” Casey said. She pointed to the car in the parking lot and said it belonged to a friend. “I’m going to the airport to pick her up, and three other guys who are coming back from Puerto Rico.” She explained that she was supposed to go on that trip, too, but she had to save her money to move out of her mother’s house and into a place of her own.
Danny thought he heard a bitter edge in her voice, but he didn’t blame her. He knew he’d be “a little bummed” if his friends all went on an island vacation and left him behind.
While Casey was chatting up Danny at the tattoo parlor, George and Cindy were running head-first into Casey’s lies. Their daughter couldn’t have driven to Jacksonville as she’d said. The car was right here in Orlando at a tow yard.
Cindy explained the situation to her supervisor, Debbie Polisano. “Go get the car, get Casey and go home,” Debbie advised.
After retrieving the stench-filled Pontiac, George suggested that they call the police. Cindy refused. She had to find Casey first. Cindy returned to work around 2 that afternoon.
Co-worker Debbie Bennett was surprised to see Cindy entering the office. She turned away from the copy machine to ask her what happened.
At this point, Cindy didn’t seem worried, but sounded very angry at her daughter’s irresponsibility. “The car is a mess. Caylee’s car seat, her backpack, her clothes and her favorite baby doll are in there. It smells like a dead body in that car.”
“Cindy, there’s something wrong. You need to call police,” Bennett urged her. “It doesn’t sound right.”
“No. I’m going to give Casey a chance to explain herself. I’m going to try to get hold of her. I’ll call her employer.”
Concerned about Cindy’s state of mind, Bennett went to their supervisor, Debbie Polisano. The supervisor went to Cindy’s office to talk to her.
“There’s a really, really bad smell in the car,” Cindy told her.
“Did you open the trunk?” Polisano asked. When Cindy didn’t respond, she asked another question. “Where is Casey?”
“Cindy, you need to go home and call the police.”
“I can’t,” Cindy said, shaking her head. “I have a lot of work to do.”
Exasperated, Polisano went to the area director, Nilsa Ramos. Nilsa told Cindy she had to go home and deal with her family problems.
Finally, Cindy relented. She pulled into her driveway and went straight to the car in the garage. She pulled out the purse that Casey had left on the seat and found a phone number for Amy Huizenga.
Casey drove Amy’s maroon four-door compact to the airport and met Amy and the other three returning revelers. It wasn’t possible to fit everyone and their luggage into Amy’s small car. Rico, Troy and J.P. waited at the airport while Amy drove Casey to Tony’s apartment. On the way, Amy listened to Casey’s excited chatter about a cell phone call she’d received that day from Caylee. Amy then returned to the airport to pick up the guys.
After they got back to their apartment, J.P. wanted to get an iPhone, and Amy went with him to The Florida Mall. Twenty minutes after they arrived, Amy received a harried phone call from Cindy Anthony.
At Sutton Place Apartments Tony and Nathan played MLB 2K8, a major league baseball video game while they waited for the All Star game to commence on the television. Casey sat beside them on the sofa tapping on her laptop.
When he heard a knock, Tony shouted, “Come in.” The door opened and he looked up at Amy, who appeared totally miserable.
“I need to talk to you,” she said to Casey.
Casey went outside and closed the door behind her. Nathan and Tony returned to their game. Drama intruded on their concentration just two minutes later as the door flew open and Casey came inside loudly arguing with her mother. As Casey rushed back to the bedroom, Cindy spoke to Tony. “I hope you’re rich, ’cause Casey’s going to take all your money and leave you high and dry.”
Tony and Nathan exchanged looks of bewilderment. “What are you talking about?” Tony asked.
Casey zoomed back into the room and told her mother to shut up. The door slammed and they were gone. What was that all about? Tony wondered. He waited for Casey to contact him with an explanation. After two hours, when it hadn’t come, he picked up his cell and wrote a text message. Just a moment after he hit send, he heard a tone across the room. Casey had forgotten her phone.
He picked it up, looked for Amy’s number and gave her a call. She told him that Casey had taken her checkbook and used it to steal money from her. Cindy’s last words before leaving now made sense. But what else was going on? He remained in the dark until he got a call from Casey’s brother Lee.