My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(63)

“What did you find?”

Calloway shifted as if uncomfortable. “It was only a visual inspection.”

“You didn’t find any evidence Sarah had been there, did you?”

“Again, it was only a visual.”

“So would the answer to my question be ‘no’?”

“The answer would be I did not find Sarah.”

O’Leary let it go. “Was a search conducted in the foothills above Cedar Grove?”

“Yes.”

“A thorough search?”

“It’s a big area.”

“Did you consider the search thorough?”

Calloway shrugged. “We did the best we could, given the terrain.”

“And was Sarah’s body found?”

“Jesus,” Calloway uttered under his breath, though the courtroom microphone picked it up. He sat forward. “We never found Sarah and we never found her body. How many times do I have to answer that question?”

“That’s for me to decide, Sheriff Calloway, not you,” Meyers said. He looked to Dan. “Counselor, I think we’ve established the decedent was never found.”

“I’ll move on.” Dan took Calloway through the seven weeks of tips leading up to the phone call from Ryan P. Hagen. Then he handed Calloway a multipage document. “Chief Calloway, this is the log of tips received in the Sarah Crosswhite investigation. Would you please identify for me the tip received from Mr. Hagen?”

Calloway quickly flipped through the document. “I don’t see one,” he said. Dan retrieved the document, about to return it to the evidence table when Calloway said, “The call could have come in directly to the police station. The tip line was no longer being advertised.”

Dan frowned but maintained his composure. “Do you have a record of those telephone calls?”

“Not anymore. We’re a small police department, Counselor.”

Dan took Calloway through his conversation with Ryan Hagen. “Did you ask him the news program he was watching?”

“I might have.”

“Did you ask him the name of the client he was visiting?”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t note either in your report, did you?”

“I didn’t always write everything down.”

“Did you speak to the client Mr. Hagen said he had visited that day?”

“I saw no reason not to take the man at his word.”

“Chief Calloway, isn’t it true that your police agency had received a number of false reports from people claiming to have seen Sarah?”

“I seem to recall a few.”

“Didn’t one man claim Sarah visited him in a dream and was living in Canada?”

“I don’t recall that one,” Calloway said.

“And wasn’t James Crosswhite offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction?”

“He was.”

“It was on a billboard outside of town, was it not?”

“It was.”

“But you didn’t think it wise to confirm if this witness was telling you the truth?”

Calloway leaned forward. “We’d never released any information that Edmund House was a person of interest in the investigation or that we believed him to be driving a red Chevy truck. In fact, the truck wasn’t registered to Edmund. It was registered to Parker. So there was no way Hagen would have known the significance of having seen a red truck.”

“But you knew Edmund House drove a red Chevy stepside, didn’t you, Sheriff Calloway?”

Calloway glared at him.

“The witness will answer the question,” Meyers said.

“I knew it,” Calloway said.

“Did Mr. Hagen say why he’d recalled this one particular vehicle?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“But I’m asking you, as a law enforcement officer in charge of an investigation into the abduction of your good friend’s daughter. Did you think to ask him why he remembered this one particular truck that flashed by for a brief second during a storm on a dark road?”

“I don’t recall,” Calloway said.

“I don’t see that in your report either. Can I assume you also didn’t ask him that question?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t ask. I said not everything went into the report.”

“Did you confirm he even had an appointment?”

“He had it written in his calendar.”

“But you didn’t confirm it.”

Calloway slapped the table beside the witness chair and rose from his seat. “I thought it important to find Sarah. That’s what I thought important. And I busted my ass to do just that.” Meyers rapped his gavel, the sharp snap of wood against wood competing with Calloway’s escalating volume. The guard at the front of the courtroom moved quickly to the base of the platform. Undeterred, Calloway pointed at Dan. “You weren’t here. You were back at your East Coast college. Now you come back here twenty years later and question me about how I did my job? You second-guess and speculate and insinuate about something you know nothing about.”

“Sit down!” Meyers had stood too, his face flushed with anger.