Trail of Blood. Wanda Evans
on them, especially on young kids like that,” he told Jim. “They usually show up—in 99 percent of these missing persons incidents, victims waltz back from an unannounced vacation or an extended weekend with a new attraction—or some other explainable circumstance.”
Jim informed English, “Scott has been gone too long for the extended weekend scenario and the timing is entirely wrong for the vacation theory.” Jim also emphasized to English that Scott would never, ever have gone off for such a long period of time without his yellow Camaro.
The detective reassured Jim that he would look into the case as soon as he got the report from the records division. In the meantime, although he didn’t tell the distraught father, English had another missing persons case that he considered more urgent. The other case also involved a young man, a ministerial student who had been reported missing by his family. He was a model student and a respected member of his church and school community. The prior week, he had gone to his bank and pushed a note under the teller’s window, asking for all of his money, both checking and savings accounts, amounting to several thousand dollars in cash. No one had seen him since that day. None of the man’s family members or acquaintances knew of any reason why he would need so much money. English had to face the possibility that the young man had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw his money. If that were the case, the concern became, how long would the man stay alive after he gave up his money? The search for the ministerial student, who appeared to be in more imminent danger than Scott Dunn did, took priority in Tal English’s mind.
English got to work diligently, with his superiors at LPD and the student’s family breathing down his neck, trying to find the missing boy. English had no qualms about working so hard on this case instead of the Scott Dunn matter, because Scott’s case looked like the normal missing persons case where the young man would turn up in a couple of days. By the end of the day, English had not found the other missing person, however, and he went home feeling discouraged and worried.
The next morning, he walked into his office to start the search for the missing student again. Once again, as it had on the previous day, the phone rang. Jim Dunn once again was on the telephone, wanting a progress report on the investigation into Scott’s disappearance. Since he had done nothing so far, to find Scott Dunn, English had nothing to report, but something about Jim Dunn’s persistence got his attention. When the conversation ended, he immediately called the number Jim had given him for Leisha Hamilton.
Leisha answered the telephone and English identified himself. He told her he was investigating the disappearance of Scott Dunn. Sounding more angry than worried, Leisha told the detective she thought Scott had gone off with another woman. She said other girls were always calling Scott, but the calls had stopped since he left. Then Leisha informed English that she thought someone was breaking into her apartment when she went out.
“Why do you think that?” English asked her.
“The day after Scott left, I came home from work and somebody had kicked in the back door. I made a police report. Haven’t you seen the report?” she asked.
Not having seen the report, English did not know anything about this.
Since that time, Leisha told the detective, she had noticed several things inside her apartment had been moved—placemats, chairs and other small things. So she felt that somebody could have been in the house.
“Is anything missing? Do you think it could have been a burglar?” English asked.
“Yes,” she told him, “several items are missing.” On the first day, when she discovered Scott was gone, a waterbed mattress liner, some towels, sheets, a thermal blanket, a comforter and three pillows were also missing. All the bedding had been laid out as kind of a pallet where Scott slept in the bedroom. A laundry basket full of Scott’s clothes also was gone. She told English she assumed Scott had taken these things with him.
Then, on the second day, when the door had been kicked in, tools and spare parts needed to work on the Scott’s remote control boat were gone. Also missing were a gas can for the boat and an empty clothes basket. In addition, Leisha Hamilton said, Scott’s wallet was gone, but the jeans he had worn last were left behind, along with his car keys.
“We lived with Max Gianoli, over on Fortieth Street, when we first came to Lubbock,” Leisha also told English. “Max and Scott moved here in January and I came in February. Then, when Max’s wife moved to Lubbock, Scott and I moved into this apartment.” Their move had been recent, “so we haven’t much bedroom furniture.” Max had given her the keys to the old apartment, Leisha said, and she was supposed to have turned them in to the manager, but she hadn’t done so. Now, the keys were missing. “I guess Scott might have taken the keys and gone over there,” she mused.
Something about Leisha’s comments didn’t sound quite right, English felt. He decided to check the situation out a little further. He drove to the apartment on Fortieth Street and pounded on the door, but no one responded. A check with the manager elicited the information that the locks already had been changed. The manager hadn’t seen any sign of Scott Dunn since he and Leisha Hamilton had moved. It was time, English realized, that he paid a visit to Max Gianoli, Scott Dunn’s employer.
Before the detective got a chance to go to ProSound Electronics, however, the Las Vegas, Nevada, Police Department called and said the missing student English had been looking for had turned up there, safe, but without the money he had brought with him. Ironically, the missing person case that on the surface appeared to be the more suspicious turned out to be okay. Meanwhile the case of Scott Dunn, which had looked innocuous, was proving to be more dangerous.
With the problem of the missing ministerial student solved, English turned his full attention to the disappearance of Scott Dunn. A visit to Max Gianoli still topped English’s to-do list. During the short drive, English found himself hoping Gianoli would tell him Dunn had taken a few days off and would be back soon. At ProSound, English introduced himself to a fit, dark-haired man in his forties, half expecting an angry outburst from Gianoli, based on what the man had said to Jim Dunn about firing Scott. English was surprised that Gianoli now seemed genuinely puzzled at Scott’s disappearance. He appeared to have had second thoughts on the matter.
Gianoli said it was not at all like Scott to leave so abruptly, especially not with a big Crank It Up competition coming up. He pointed out a row of statuettes that lined a shelf behind the counter. “Scott won those. He’s the best. Scott can look at a wire and know where it goes. Everybody else practically has to draw a diagram showing where each wire goes. Not Scott. He can just look at the speaker and do it.”
Gianoli also told English that Scott was great for his business. In fact, Scott, good-looking and articulate about his knowledge of electronics, had done a television infomercial to promote the opening of the store. Gianoli confirmed what Jim Dunn had told English, that it was totally unlike Scott to go off without his tools, his car and his prized remote-control boat. “When it comes to his stuff—he likes his stuff and he’s not going to leave that for anybody.”
English questioned two other employees at the store and got the same assessment. Scott was a great installer, a good friend, a grand guy to party with, Pat Taylor told him. Taylor insisted that Scott would not stay away for any length of time without calling and letting them know where he was.
The other installer, Mike Roberts, said the same thing. Roberts insisted that Scott would not go away and leave his tools, which were still there in the shop area of the store. In fact, Roberts currently was using them, because, he said, Scott owed him some money. Since Scott was not around to pay him back, Roberts had appropriated the tools. Roberts said he and Scott had gotten to be pretty close friends. They liked to hang around together in their free time and they were interested in many of the same things. Scott’s remote-controlled boat was a favorite of both of them. The Lubbock area doesn’t boast many lakes and most of them are of the small, playa variety, but they were big enough to put Scott’s boat in. Mike had gone with Scott several times to put the boat in the water.
Roberts told English he had gone by to see Scott at about midnight on Wednesday and stayed for an hour, talking about work, how to get ready for the Crank It Up contest. Scott