2

Shirley McCloud turned the page of the Union Daily Times and adjusted the pillow at her head. She had been lying on the living room couch in her thermal nightgown for the past hour, half-listening to the television as she flipped through a stack of newspapers at her feet. It felt good to relax. Shirley left her small, two bedroom house in Union County each morning at 7:00 A.M., driving about thirty miles to her job as a secretary in Spartanburg. She liked her work, but at times, the commute was grueling.

Shirley glanced at the domed brass clock that sat atop the dark wood stand. It was a few minutes past nine. Her husband, Rick, lay on an adjoining sofa, engrossed in a sitcom. Their only child, Rick Jr., twenty-three, was in his bedroom, also watching television.

Well, if I’m going to watch a movie, I need to see what’s on, Shirley thought. She was just about to commandeer the remote control from Rick when she heard a loud disturbance on the porch. She sat up abruptly.

It was a moaning, almost a wailing sound. Shirley wasn’t sure what it was. She caught her husband’s eye. The banging on the front door took them both by surprise. In the four years they’d lived there the McClouds always used the side entrance.

The Union Daily Times dropped to the floor as Shirley McCloud rushed to the door, her husband right behind her. She quickly unfastened the lock, made sure the chain was securely in place, and opened the door a crack.

In the haze of the porch light stood Susan Smith, hysterically sobbing. Shirley immediately unfastened the chain and pulled open the door, the screen door still locked.

“Please help me! Please help me!” Susan wailed.

Shirley peered past Susan to the far end of the porch, her mind racing. Could this be a ruse? Was this woman a decoy for a robber?

“Please help me!” Susan sobbed. “He’s got my kids and he’s got my car!”

The terror in Susan’s voice left no room for doubt. Shirley McCloud hastily unlocked the screen door and reached toward Susan. She wrapped her arms around the young girl’s shoulders and pulled her into the house, practically carrying her across the living room. Susan’s shrill cries echoed through the little house as she fell back on to the sofa.

“Please tell me again what you said,” Shirley said, trying to stay calm.

Susan Smith could barely speak. She gasped, “A black man has got my kids and my car.”

Rick McCloud stared at the young woman sobbing hysterically on the couch. He turned and yelled toward the back bedroom, “Rick Junior, call 911!”

The younger McCloud reached for the cordless phone in his room and quickly punched in the numbers.

“Union County Communication” the dispatcher said.

A flustered Rick Jr. tried to explain. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “There’s a lady that come up to our door, and she—some guy jumped into—a red light with her car and two kids in it. And he took off, and she got out of the car here at our house.”

“And he’s got the kids?”

“Yes, ma’am, and her car. I don’t—she’s real hysterical, and I just decided I need to call the law and get them down here.”

The dispatcher called Union County deputy sheriffs to respond, logging in the call at 9:12 P.M. As Rick Jr. emerged from the bedroom and returned the phone to its cradle, his father grabbed the keys to the family’s 1993 Pontiac Bonneville. “Let’s go see if we can find them,” he said.

As father and son headed out the side door, Shirley McCloud continued to try to calm her visitor. She knelt in front of Susan and took her face in her hands. Susan’s skin was wet and clammy, her breaths coming in shallow gasps.

“Now tell me what happened,” Shirley said gently.

In a fresh rush of tears, Susan began to tell her story. “A black man stopped me at a red light,” she said. “I was stopped at the red light at Monarch and a black man jumped in and told me to drive. I asked him why was he doing this and he said shut up and drive.”

Susan’s sobs grew louder. “He made me stop right past the sign. I remember I had just passed that sign.”

Shirley held Susan’s face and tilted it toward her. “What sign?” she asked.

“The John Long sign,” said Susan.

The sign, Shirley McCloud knew, was just a few hundred yards outside their front door, directly opposite the turnoff for the lake. On both sides, Highway 49 was lined with thick trees.

“He told me to get out,” Susan went on. “He made me stop in the middle of the road. Nobody was coming, not a single car.”

Shirley McCloud listened intently. Her mind was racing. What a dangerous spot to stop a car, in the middle of the road, she thought. And no cars around at all? God, if there had been a car somebody would have helped her.

Susan continued her story. “I asked him, ‘Why can’t I take my kids?’ But he said, ‘I don’t have time.’ He kept pushing me out of the car, pointing a gun at my side.”

Shirley tried to envision the scene. “Did he get out and go around the car?” she asked.

“No, he kept pushing me out the door,” Susan said quickly. “When he finally got me out he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt your kids.’ I dropped to the ground. I don’t know how long I sat there. Then I got up and started running and I saw your house.”

Shirley held Susan’s head in her hands. At the top of her head was a large white bow, her light brown hair scooped back in a high pony tail. Such a pretty young girl, Shirley thought. So frail.

“Do you feel faint?” she asked.

“No,” Susan said. “But I need to go to the bathroom.”

Shirley helped Susan stand. Holding her shoulders tightly, she led her to the light gray bathroom in between the two bedrooms. As she waited outside the door, Shirley wondered how soon the police would arrive.

Susan emerged a few seconds later. “I’ve got to call my Momma,” she announced.

Shirley reached for the cordless phone. “I’ll dial it for you,” she said. Susan returned to the sofa and in a halting voice, recited her mother’s telephone number. Shirley pressed the buttons and listened as it rang. A young man answered. It was Susan’s oldest brother, Michael, who lived at home.

“This is Shirley McCloud,” she said, her voice quavering. “I live near John D. Long Lake on Route 49. I have Susan Smith in my home. Is Susan’s mother there?”

“She just left,” he said.

Shirley turned to Susan. “Your mother’s not there,” she said.

Susan’s sobs grew louder. “Tell Michael he’s got to find her,” she said.

Shirley returned to the phone. “Can you get her?” she asked. “A black man has taken her kids and her car. There’s no way you can find her mother?”

On the other end of the phone, Shirley heard a gasp. “I’ll try,” Michael said.

When Shirley hung up Susan motioned for the phone. “I need to call my stepfather, too,” she said.

Susan tried to make the call herself, but her hands were shaking too much. “I’ll do it,” Shirley told her, taking the phone.

When Susan told her the name of her stepfather, Shirley was surprised. She knew of Bev Russell. Everyone in town did. For many years, Bev had run a profitable business, Bev’s TV and Appliance store, in downtown Union. He had closed it just a few months previously, and began working as an investment-and-tax advisor. Bev was active in local politics and the Christian community.

Bev Russell answered right away and Shirley quickly explained who she was. “I have Susan Smith here who says a black man has taken her kids and her car.”

She heard him exhale sharply. “What?” Bev practically shouted. “What did you say and who are you and where do you live?”

Shirley repeated the story. She handed the phone to Susan, who tearfully told her stepfather the story of the black man, the gun, the kidnapping of her children. Bev Russell promised his stepdaughter he would be there as soon as possible.

Susan asked to go to the bathroom a second time. Shirley went to the linen closet and pulled out a white washcloth. She soaked it in cool water.

When Susan emerged again, she was slightly calmer. There was one more phone call to make.

“I need to call my husband, David,” she told Shirley McCloud. “He works at Winn-Dixie.”

For the third time in less than ten minutes, Shirley McCloud explained who she was and told the story of the black man taking Susan Smith’s children and car. As she spoke, David kept saying, “What? What?” Then, “Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming.”

*   *   *

About eight miles away, Sheriff Howard Wells had just finished leading a planning meeting for his second-in-command, Captain of the Patrol Division Roger Gregory and Harry Helms, supervisor of the reserve program. The men discussed new possibilities within the department’s ten-member reserve unit and the likelihood of buying new equipment. When it was over Wells turned out the lights, locked the door to his office and to the outside. The office of the sheriff’s department closes at 5:00 P.M., when his four secretaries go home. From that point on, calls are handled through dispatchers at the Union County Communications Building and by the Union County Police Department.

Howard Wells walked across the parking lot to his car. He was tired. He had left his brick ranch home with a red shingle roof on the north side of town shortly after eight A.M., some twelve hours earlier. He had known it would be a long day. That morning, he had told his wife, Wanda, that he would grab dinner out before the reserve meeting and probably be home around nine. Wanda understood. She always did.

As Wells pulled out of the parking lot he turned left on Highway 49, heading for Highway 176 for the five-minute drive home. As he drove, he listened to his deputies talking to a dispatcher on the scanner.

His men sounded agitated. Something must be going on, he thought. Because he’d missed the initial call from the dispatcher he couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was. He continued to drive, trying to catch the gist of the situation. He listened for a moment more, then reached for his microphone.

“What kind of call do you have?” he asked.

The deputy sheriff recognized Well’s voice and answered quickly.

“A car was taken from a woman at gun point,” he said.

Wells continued toward home. He was surprised—a carjacking in Union? It had never happened before. Regardless, his deputies could handle that, he thought. Wells had been elected Union County’s sheriff almost two years before, taking on a staff of twenty-five full-time deputies, ten unpaid reserve deputies and four office clerks. He had trained his staff well and had a lot of faith in them.

Wells was just nearing the turn onto Highway 176 when he heard the deputy speaking to the dispatcher.

“Advise. Did you say children were involved?”

“Yes, children were in the car.”

Sheriff Wells hit the brake and the car stopped with a jolt. He grabbed the microphone.

“I’ll stop at the home,” he told the deputies on the frequency, his voice strong. “Start systematic patrol of the area. I’ll relay the information as fast as I get it.”

*   *   *

By 9:15 P.M. dozens of deputy sheriffs, city police, and family and friends of Susan Smith were speeding up Highway 49, en route to Shirley and Rick McCloud’s little house just opposite the road leading to John D. Long Lake.

At the same time, Rick McCloud and his son were maneuvering their Bonneville around the lake itself. While Shirley McCloud had stayed behind to try and comfort Susan until the police and her family arrived, the men had decided to begin their own search for the missing children. They had driven straight to the lake in the hopes that Susan’s carjacker might have decided that the deserted shores would be an easy place to abandon the children and make a clean getaway with the Mazda.

“Maybe the guy let them out down there,” Rick had told his son. “I hope we find the kids.”

It took only a few seconds for the men to reach the dead end. The headlights of the Bonneville shone down the boat launch at the still and silent lake. Rick McCloud and his son gazed into the dark waters at the same spot Susan Smith had sat in her Mazda Protege, her little boys strapped securely in the back seat, less than twenty minutes earlier. The faint signs of tire tracks were embedded in the gravel leading to the water. But it was too dark to see them.

Besides, who would believe it possible?

Indeed, there was nothing to see from the banks of the lake, and no sounds at all. By now, the Mazda had drifted out 100 feet, overturned and settled into a depression amidst the algae bloom and silt eighteen feet below. The McCloud men looked for just a moment more, and then turned and drove back home.

The children, they believed, were not there. There were no answers, the men thought sadly, at the lake that night.