CHAPTER 3 - THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ABBY

October 31, 1993

Detective Booger McLain was sitting at the counter of a waffle house enjoying a hot cup of strong coffee at the end of a sixteen-hour day when a police radio code rang out.

“10-65 at Connorville carnival.”

A missing person at the carnival. Nothing too unusual, he thought as he took another sip of his coffee. Probably some kid that didn’t want to leave when his parent told him to.

“10-21r 112.”

112 was his badge number. Code 10-21r was for him to call dispatch.

It must be more serious than I thought it was, he thought. He was a detective. He wasn’t usually called to investigate someone that got lost or was a little late getting home.

At least, he didn’t think that was his job. He had only joined the Sikeston police force three weeks earlier. Sikeston was at the northern edge of the bootheel area of Southern Missouri. It was a small town with a small police force. He was the only detective. Serious crime rarely happened in Sikeston. That’s why he took the job. He had been sheriff in Branson, MO, and had been accused of taking bribes to cover up a drug operation that took place there. He hadn’t. Booger McClain had never taken a bribe. But he had upset the police chief. There were times he could be abrasive. He had an unfiltered mouth. So when he accused the police chief of refusing to arrest two of his friends accused of a hate crime during an interview with the local newspaper, that spelled the beginning of the end of his career. He was asked to leave the Branson force.

When the Sikeston job came up, he took it. He wanted someplace where people didn’t know him, where he could settle in, and where his past wouldn’t follow him. Besides, Booger was on the downside of fifty, overweight by a hundred pounds, and most comfortable on a bar stool drinking shots of Old Crow. He was tired. He wanted a job that didn’t require a lot of work and would give him the time to enjoy his two hobbies, fishing and drinking.

His wife had told him for years that he needed to relax more and enjoy life. He always seemed to put his job first. They hadn’t even taken a vacation in nearly ten years. Looking back, he wished he’d taken his wife’s advice. He wished he’d spent more time with her and less time with his job. Taking the job in Sikeston would give him that quality time, or so he thought.

It hadn’t exactly worked out how he had planned during his first three weeks on the force. Being a detective was more of a title than anything else in Sikeston. There was so little crime that he spent most of his time investigating petty crimes and car accidents. There hadn’t been a homicide in Sikeston in nearly five years.

“2121 to dispatched,” he said into his radio. “Bertha, what do you want? I was enjoying a cup of Flo’s finest at the awful waffle. I hope this is important.”

“Booger, you know anytime I tell you to call me back, it’s important.”

“Yeah, right, Bertha. What do you need?”

“You need to get to the carnival asap, Booger. One of the Wilkinson kids has disappeared.”

“Did they look in the bathroom?”

“Not very funny, Booger. Abby Wilkinson just vanished from the haunted house. Earl and Jed are there already.”

“I’m on my way.”

Great, the Dufus boys are already there, Booger thought. If there was a crime, those two idiots probably contaminated whatever evidence was left behind.

Booger had only been on the Sikeston police force a short time, but it didn’t take him but a few minutes with Earl and Jed to realize that neither were the sharpest knives in the drawer. When they weren’t around, Booger referred to them as “Dumb and Dumber.” They were nice enough guys, just good old country boys that really had no business in law enforcement.

When Booger’s car pulled up to the front gate of the carnival, he just shook his head. Crowds of people were gathered around inside and outside the carnival gate. The word had gotten out that Abby Wilkinson was missing. Some were there searching for her. Others were just spectators, curious about what had happened and wanting to be present for one of the biggest crimes to hit Connorville in recent memory.

Damn those two idiots, Booger thought. They should have secured the scene and not let anyone in or out until we had a chance to interview everyone.

Booger grabbed his blow horn, stepped out of the car, walked to the carnival entrance and yelled into the blow horn, “Everyone step outside the front gate. This is a crime scene. No one is allowed inside. I want anyone that was inside the carnival earlier tonight to go to my right and stay there until an officer takes down your information. Everyone else, I want to go home now.”

When everyone was outside the entrance gate, Booger shut and secured it. Then he walked to the haunted house to find Jed and Earl.

“Hey, Booger,” Jed said when he spotted him. “Abby Wilkinson is gone. We’ve looked everywhere. She just vanished from the haunted house.”

“Was she here with anyone?”

“Yeah, her brother and his friends. They’re right over there,” Earl said, pointing his finger at a group of kids standing just outside the haunted house.

“What about all the carnival workers?

“I don’t know, Booger. Some are around. I guess the rest probably went back to their trailers.”

“Well, find all of them and have them come to the entrance of the haunted house. I want to speak to everyone that works here.”

“OK, boss,” Jed said.

“Then. I need both of you to go outside the front gate and take statements from everyone gathered outside. I need their names and addresses, and I need to know if they saw or heard anything unusual tonight, anything at all, even if they just had a bad feeling about something.

“And, boys, don’t let anyone inside the carnival.”

“Will do,” Earl said.

After the officers left, Booger walked over to the group of kids standing nearby. “I understand that you kids were with Abby tonight,” he said.

“Yes sir,” several of them said at the same time.

“Which one of you is Abby’s brother?”

“I am,” Andy said rather sheepishly.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Andy Wilkinson.”

“Well, Andy. Were you with your sister just before she disappeared?”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Could you come inside with me and show me exactly where you were when you last saw your sister?”

“Yes, sir.”

They walked inside the haunted house through the mazes and down the narrow corridor. The lights were on this time. There were no scary creatures jumping out from their hiding places. Still, the area gave Andy the creeps. Less than fifty feet from the exit, Andy stopped.

“This is just about where we were when the fog came. A few seconds later, I could see the zombies. I told Abby to close her eyes. I tightened my grasp on her hand, and we started to run. That’s when the crowd of people ahead of us started to scream and began running back toward us. I guess the zombies had really frightened them. I was run into by someone, lost my balance and lost the grip I had on my sister’s hand. When I regained my balance, I looked around. She was gone. This was the last spot that I saw her,” Andy said, crying.

Andy told Booger every detail he could remember about that night. He told him about the last few minutes before Abby disappeared. He told him about how frightened his sister was in the haunted house and how he knew he had made a mistake taking her inside.

“I tried to get her out. But there were so many people. The walkway was narrow. They ran into me,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “They knocked my hand away from Abby’s. The fog made it difficult to see. When I looked around, I didn’t see my sister. She was just gone.”

“Did you hear her cry out for you?”

“I don’t know. So many people were screaming. I couldn’t tell if one of them was Abby.”

“Do you remember anyone unusual? Maybe someone that you felt uncomfortable about or someone that you thought was watching you?”

“No, I don’t remember. Please find my sister,” Andy said, wiping tears from his eyes. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her here.”

“Don’t worry, son,” Booger replied. “We’ll do our best to find your sister.”

Booger interviewed Josh, Nathan and Nancy. They were all together in the haunted house. None remembered seeing anything out of the ordinary. They all confirmed the same story Andy had told. No one saw Abby after the zombies came out from the fog, and people started running. No one remembered anyone unusual, anyone that made them feel uncomfortable at the carnival. No one appeared to be following the kids.

Booger wrote down every detail of their statements. He took down their names and phone numbers and asked them to call him if they remembered anything later. By the time he had finished interviewing the kids, Earl and Jed had gathered all the carnival workers at the opposite end of the haunted house.

Booger separated them into two groups, those that worked at the haunted house and all the others. He took down everyone’s name and then began the interview process, starting with one of the two owners, Bryan Fischer.

According to Bryan, Justin Fischer, Bryan’s brother and the other co-owner hadn’t returned from a supply run earlier in the day. Neither of the brothers were near the haunted house that night, Bryan said, but he was able to provide information about each of their employees assigned to the haunted house.

The haunted house, the carnival’s most popular attraction, was not a place where most of the regular carnival workers wanted to work, although Bryan wasn’t clear about why that was the case.

“It’s just a difficult place to work,” he said. “The crowds are large, and the kids are loud. It’s a place that most of our employees prefer not to work.”

“Then tell me about the ones that do work there,” Booger said.

“Transients, for the most part,” Bryan said. “The newbies get assigned to work the haunted house,” he added. “Anyone new to the carnival gets assigned there.”

“And where do you find your new help?” Booger asked.

“They just show up in the places we go, looking for work. The carnival attracts a lot of people looking for a job. They seem excited about the idea of working at a carnival. But most of the time, that enthusiasm is short-lived. It’s a lot of hard work. The jobs here aren’t as exciting as people think. It takes a special person to live the life of a carni,” Bryan said. “Justin says most people just aren’t cut out for it. They work for a few days, and they’re gone.”

“These temporary people, newbies as you called them, do you have them fill out an application? Do you run background checks on them?”

Bryan laughed. “No, hell, we just give them work if we need someone. They get paid in cash every day they work. They come and go as they please as long as they show up for their work assignments.”

“So, they don’t stay at the carnival?” Booger asked.

“Some do. The ones that don’t have any place else to go stay in a trailer near the back of the carnival. We call it the “newbie trailer.” We have eight people staying there now, but that can change at any time. Like I said, they come and go as they please,” Bryan said.

Something about Bryan Fischer struck Booger as odd. He smiled, but his smile wasn’t natural. It seemed forced. He appeared comfortable, relaxed, but that seemed forced too. He seemed to be putting on a façade.

Booger walked away from the interview, thinking Bryan was hiding something.

One by one, Booger interviewed each of the carnival workers, spending the most time with the ones that were working at the haunted house that night. None volunteered any information about the missing girl. All said they didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. All were quiet, not offering any information beyond the scope of the questions they were asked.

There were two workers that did raise Booger’s sense of suspicion. Both worked inside the haunted house that night. It wasn’t really what they said that bothered Booger. It was more their mannerisms and the look in their eyes.

During his thirty-plus years in law enforcement, he had learned to tell the people that were lying to him and the ones that had something to hide, not by their words but rather by the way they held their hands or the way they nervously moved their feet or by the way their eyes darted downward or from side to side when they were telling a lie. Both of these workers were lying to him. He was certain of it.

Jim Latham was one of the zombie actors that jumped from the fog to scare the visitors near the exit to the haunted house. He was a tall, lanky fellow with dark eyes. He told Booger that everything went, as usual, that night until the lights suddenly came on inside the haunted house, and Bryan Fischer appeared, yelling for everyone to get out.

The other carnival worker, Kerry Johnson, had not been assigned to work the haunted house until that evening when another carnival worker took ill. He was operating the fog machine that night.

It wasn’t so much what he said that made Booger suspicious. It was more what he didn’t say. He never once asked about the missing girl, her name, her age, or where she was last seen. He never asked if it was possible that she just got lost and maybe found a friend to take her home. And most of all, he did not express surprise and alarm that such a thing could happen at the carnival.

No, Kerry Johnson seemed cold. His statements were short and without feeling. They seemed rehearsed.

Booger had just finished interviewing the workers when he spotted Earl running toward him.

“I’m sorry, Booger. Abby’s parents arrived, and they insisted on seeing Andy. I told them they couldn’t come in until you said it was OK, but they broke through anyway. I’m not sure where they went.”

A few seconds later, Booger heard screaming and crying coming from the entrance to the haunted house.

“Shit,” he yelled, running to the area.

The Wilkinsons had confronted their son and his friends to discover what happened. Now they were pounding on the door to the haunted house, trying to get inside.

“Stop,” Booger shouted. “You can’t go inside. We’re still examining the area.”

“We’re Abby’s parents. We just want to know what happened,” Abby’s father said.

“Please, I’ll tell you everything I know, but you’ve got to move back so we can continue our investigation.”

Booger motioned for Earl to move the group back away from the entrance then he took the parents to the side to talk to them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson. Can I ask you a few questions?”

Abby’s parents were cooperative. They answered every question Booger asked, although most of the answers were provided by Ron Wilkinson. His wife, Jane, was too distraught. They seemed surprised and a little upset that the boys would take Abby into the haunted house.

“She gets frightened easily. Andy should have known better than to take her inside,” Jane Wilkinson said.

“Please don’t blame your son. He feels horrible about what has happened,” Booger said. “Do you have a picture of Abby on you?” Booger asked.

Ron Wilkinson pulled out his wallet and lifted a picture from it. “That picture is a year old. She’s changed some since then.”

“That’s Ok. This will help,” Booger responded.

With that, he told the parents and the friends that they needed to go home.

“I’ll stop by soon and keep you informed. But for now, you need to be home. If she got lost, she may have found another way home, or she may try to call you. Either way, you must be home in case she tries contacting you.”

“OK, Detective,” Ron Wilkinson said.

“Earl, please escort these folks to their car,” Booger said.

Booger’s gut told him that Abby wasn’t lost. He was fairly certain that she was abducted. But, if she was, maybe it was a kidnapping for ransom, and if that was the case, someone would be calling the Wilkinsons soon. They needed to be home just in case.

Then Booger moved his focus to the area inside the haunted house where Abby was last seen. The path that customers walked through was extremely narrow, making it challenging for more than one person to go through at a time. The scenery around the area where the zombies came out was that of a graveyard, with rows of Styrofoam gravestones and dirt. Two open, wood caskets lay on the ground with fake body parts lying about. Booger got on his hands and knees to check every inch of the area. He checked the walls for hidden exit doors. There was one exit marked with a sign about twenty feet away.

Perhaps, that’s how someone got out of the haunted house with the girl, he thought. No, that didn’t make sense, he rationalized. Someone would have seen them leave. Even in the fog, a door opening to the outside would have been noticed.

Near one of the two caskets, he found a button, round, pink, and small. He picked it up and put it in an evidence bag. Then, he noticed a single strand of hair lying on the edge of the wooden casket. It was long, thin and brown.

He moved the casket. That’s when he saw the bracelet, a gold chain with a silver half-moon on it. He put that in his evidence bag. That’s when he saw the small metal latch in the floor. He pulled on it, but it was locked. He pulled harder. The door gave slightly with every tug. The wood around it began to crack. He kept pulling with all his strength. Finally, the wood board holding the lock in place gave way, and the door flew open. It was completely dark below. Booger took out his flashlight and shined it on the area. The dirt floor below was about three feet below him. The area reminded him of his grandfather’s cellar that had been built into the earth below his kitchen. In the old days, before refrigeration, it was used to keep food cooler, to preserve it.

He climbed down inside it. The room was small, with dirt walls and a dirt floor about the size of a large grave. He shined his flashlight around the room. That’s when he saw the small opening. It looked like a tunnel starting at one end of the room and expanding out. He crawled inside. The space was narrow, barely wide enough for him to fit. He began to crawl through it, shining his flashlight ahead to give him some visibility. His sides rubbed against the dirt wall as he slid his body through. He had to crawl on his belly as he wiggled through. The height of the tunnel was about two feet from bottom to top. The floor was muddy. It hadn’t rained recently, so he wasn’t sure why it was wet inside.

The darkness was eerie, and the cramped space was unnerving. Booger had never considered himself claustrophobic, but he felt uneasy in that tight space.

Someone has been down here, he thought. The mud in front of him had been disturbed. Mud had been slashed up against the sides. There were drag marks. Booger was certain this was how Abby was moved out of the haunted house.

About thirty feet through the crawl space, Booger encountered a wall, a dead end. He felt around the edges of the wall and discovered it was a piece of plywood put in place to cover another opening. He pulled it loose and discovered a large round sewer drainpipe. That was where the water seeped in to cause the mud, he thought.

He moved into the drainpipe. It was considerably wider and taller than the crawl space he had been in. He could stand on his feet as long as he crouched over. The odor was strong, but at least the feeling of claustrophobia was over now.

About thirty more feet was an exit. He climbed up four steps, removed a drain cover and was outside. He had come out at the back end of the carnival grounds. In front of him were several trailers, small mobile homes. The living quarters for the carnival workers, he thought.

The moon was full that night. The clouds had gone away. He could see everything around him except for the stranger standing directly behind him. He wasn’t sure what hit him. He heard the crack on the back of his head before he felt the pain then everything went dark.