Trial and error, p.1
Trial and Error, page 1
Dedication
To those who pray for the restoration of families.
May the circle be unbroken.
Epigraph
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing.
—Psalm 68:6
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Acclaim for Robert Whitlow
Also by Robert Whitlow
Copyright
Prologue
Buddy Smith sat on a green vinyl chair in the expectant fathers’ waiting room at the Milton County Memorial Hospital. He stretched out his lanky 5ʹ11ʺ frame and ran his fingers through his light brown hair. The minute hand on a large round clock on the wall clicked forward. It was 3:00 a.m. Buddy yawned. Amber Melrose, his girlfriend, was in the labor and delivery suite.
To Buddy’s right sat a man wearing faded jeans and work boots with red Georgia clay caked on the sides. The man leaned back, rested his head against the wall, and pulled a red ball cap down over his eyes. A minute later he snorted, and his head jerked up. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at Buddy.
“Did I snore?” he asked. “My wife claims I start making a racket even before I’m asleep.”
“I wouldn’t call it snoring.”
“What did it sound like?”
Buddy thought for a moment. “More like the noise you’d make when telling a little kid what a pig sounds like.”
The man laughed and slapped his thigh with the palm of his hand. “That’s exactly what Crystal claims. And she’s usually right.”
Buddy cracked a smile.
“I’m Sammy Landry,” the man said, extending his hand to Buddy. “Crystal is about to pop out our fifth pup. She likes having me around when she checks into the maternity ward and they stick in the epidural, but after that she doesn’t want me bothering her while she works. The nurse knows to bring me back when it’s time for the big push.”
Leaning forward, Buddy listened closely to what the man was saying.
“Babies look gross when they first come out,” Sammy continued. “But every woman in the room thinks they’re beautiful. I’m cool with holding a newborn after they clean it up, but I give it back to Crystal as quick as I can.”
Buddy hadn’t thought about anything Sammy mentioned. Though he was lagging behind in the dynamic of becoming a father, he was determined to catch up. He and Amber didn’t attend any prenatal classes together, and they’d broken up twice during her pregnancy, first initiated by Buddy, more recently by Amber. Anxious and private about the imminent arrival of a baby girl, Amber had angrily ordered him not to come to the hospital. But when her mother called and told him Amber was in full-blown labor, there was no way Buddy was going to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what was going on. He’d hopped in his souped-up car and sped through the quiet streets to the hospital.
Patty Melrose, who was with her only daughter right now, had vacillated between resentment toward Buddy and insistence that he and Amber get married. Now that the big day had arrived, she seemed positive and excited. Three times she’d come to the waiting room and given Buddy an update as the contractions became stronger and closer together.
Amber’s father hadn’t come to the hospital. Buddy hoped the deranged former security guard wouldn’t barge into the waiting area. John Melrose’s profane, vocal negativity about Buddy and Amber’s relationship was scary, and the young couple never hung out at her house. Whenever possible, Amber grabbed the opportunity to spend the night with friends, and it wasn’t unusual for Buddy to pick her up for school across town. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of her older brother, Amber couldn’t wait to leave her parents’ household. The big question was whether she would be with Buddy after she left.
“Do you have a name picked out?” Sammy asked.
That was one item Buddy could check off the new-father to-do list. “Elise,” he replied.
“Nice,” Sammy said with a nod. “We’re having a girl too. Crystal wasn’t too keen about the name I picked out, but she named the first four, so it was finally my turn. We’re naming our daughter after the greatest president this country has ever had.”
Sammy didn’t continue. Buddy waited and thought about his AP American History class.
“Washington or Lincoln?” he asked tentatively.
“Reagan,” Sammy replied with a big smile. “You wait and see. When our girls are in high school, they’ll be putting Ronnie up there with the ones you mentioned.” Sammy adjusted his cap. “Is this your first kid?”
“Yes.”
“I figured that. I mean, how old are you? Twenty?”
“Eighteen.”
Sammy gave a low whistle. “Man, I thought we started early. I was twenty-one and Crystal was nineteen when our son was born. He’s almost twelve. Are you still in school or did you drop out and go to work?”
“I’m a senior at the high school and will graduate in a couple of weeks. My girlfriend finished early because she got pregnant.”
“It’s good they let her do that.” Sammy eyed Buddy closely. “You look kind of familiar. Do you play any sports?”
“I ran cross-country, and I’m on the baseball team.”
“That could be it,” Sammy said. “Crystal’s nephew plays baseball. His name is Jeff Minshew.”
“Jeff plays shortstop, and I’m in right field.”
“Are you that fast kid who steals all the bases?”
“Yeah. My problem is getting on base in the first place.”
“Tell me about it.” Sammy shook his head. “Once the pitchers started throwing curveballs that dropped out of the sky for strikes, my baseball days were over.”
Buddy had more trouble with fastballs. His hand-eye coordination didn’t match his foot speed. He’d recently started wearing contacts. They helped, but it was too late to salvage his batting average.
“Have you lived in Clarksburg your whole life?” Sammy asked.
“Yeah, I was born in this hospital.”
“Me too. Crystal grew up outside Atlanta. She wasn’t a city girl, but she likes to tell people that’s where she’s from. Who are your folks?”
“My father is Marvin Smith—”
“Rascal is your old man?” Sammy interrupted, using the universal nickname for Buddy’s father. “My folks rented a house from him for years. It was a mile outside of town on Newberry Road.”
Buddy knew the rural two-story dwelling. He’d spent two weeks the previous summer scraping and repainting the white frame exterior.
“Does he still own it?” Sammy asked.
“Yeah. Once he buys a place, he usually holds on to it.”
“My brothers and I had a blast at that house. We practically lived in that creek out back. We thought it was huge at the time, but when I drove by there the other day, it wasn’t much more than a wet spot with a trickle of water in the bottom.”
“It depends on the time of the year. It spills over onto the yard when there’s a big rain.”
“Oh, that was the best. We’d play football until we were so covered with mud that our granny couldn’t recognize us.”
The door opened and a nurse stuck her head into the room. Buddy held his breath.
“Mr. Smith?” she said.
“That’s me,” Buddy answered, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack.
“Congratulations. You’re the father of a healthy baby girl.”
One
The young mother grabbed a tissue from a box on the corner of Buddy’s desk and pressed it against her eyes. When the new client intake screen appeared on his computer monitor, Buddy typed in “Sue Ellen Ford—Domestic Matter.” He waited patiently for the distraught woman to regain her composure. Sue Ellen blew her nose and stuck the crumpled tissue into the front pocket of her jeans.
“Who referred you to me?” Buddy asked.
“Gracie Blaylock at the courthouse said you were the best lawyer in town for this sort of emergency. One of my nieces played on her summer league softball team last year. I called Gracie because I figured she’d know who I should talk to. She told me you don’t usually handle divorce cases but have a heart for people who are trying to”—Sue Ellen stifled a choking sob—“find their children who have been kidnapped.”
Buddy leaned forward. The young woman’s words changed everything. He’d not seen his only child since his daughter was a newborn. Years of fruitless searching had caused him to lose hope of ever finding her.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I don’t really want a divorce. I just want my son back. I mean, I’ve thought about leaving Jackie a bunch of times over the years, but when I walked down the aisle and said ‘I do,’ I meant it. Now I wish I’d listened to my mother, who told me to kick Jackie out and hire a lawyer over a year ago.”
“What is your son’s name and date of birth?”
As he entered the responses, Buddy stayed calm and professional on the outside, but anger rose up within him. To wrongfully deprive a deserving parent the right to be with his or her child was inexcusable.
Three days earlier, Jackson Ford Sr. had left Milton County, Georgia, with the couple’s three-year-old son, Jackson Ford Jr. Claiming he was going to visit his grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, Jackie’s actual goal was to kidnap his son and abandon Sue Ellen and their six-year-old daughter, Emily.
“Has he ever taken Jack for an overnight trip before?” Buddy asked.
“No, this was the first time. I didn’t want him to do it, but we’d been fighting a lot, and it was easier to say yes and try to keep the peace. If I had known this would happen, I would have done anything to keep him from—” The young woman stopped, and her tears returned.
“You didn’t know,” Buddy said softly. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I’d been receiving text messages from Jackie all along saying they were doing fine, which made me feel good because things between us have been so awful. But when he didn’t come home like he was supposed to, I called his grandma. She told me she’d not seen or heard from him in weeks. I immediately called and texted Jackie. Nothing. I rushed down to the sheriff’s department, but the detective told me I had to prove little Jack was in danger or that his daddy had violated a court order giving me custody before they could do anything. Is that right?”
“Unless there’s a court order limiting a parent’s rights, either the father or mother can exercise custody over a child.”
“That’s horrible! A mother ought to have the right to be with her child!”
“You do, but you’ll need to get an order from a judge before law enforcement personnel can step in and act.”
“How long will it take?”
“Given the circumstances, I think we can convince a judge to act quickly. What have you done on your own to try to track them down?”
“After calling everybody I could think of, I went to the cell phone company to find out where Jackie was when he texted me. They said he’d terminated his contract, and even though they had the cell tower information, they couldn’t give it to me because I wasn’t on his account.”
Buddy was impressed with Sue Ellen’s creativity. And disturbed by her husband’s advance planning.
“According to a recent Supreme Court case, that kind of information can’t be disclosed to a third party without a search warrant,” he said. “Were you and your husband ever on the same cell phone plan?”
“Yes, but he changed it a few weeks ago to save money. By the time a court does something, who knows where Jackie and little Jack will be?”
“There are other things we can do. I know you talked to your husband’s grandmother. What about other relatives and friends? Have you spoken with them?”
Sue Ellen laid several sheets of paper on the edge of the desk beside the box of tissues. “Gracie said you would want that information. I’ve made so many phone calls and sent so many emails that I haven’t slept more than a few hours over the past two days. Nobody has heard anything.”
“They’ll take it more seriously once the police contact them.” Buddy flipped through the sheets of paper. “Do you have copies of all this information?”
“Yes. Those are for you.”
“What about your bank accounts?”
“We only have one, and I’ve checked it several times a day. He hasn’t taken out a penny.”
“If your husband is relying on cash, that will eventually run out, and he will have to go to a bank or use a credit card.”
Sue Ellen shook her head. “We don’t have any credit cards. Jackie does most of his work for cash. He’s an auto mechanic.”
“Does he have a business name?”
Buddy entered the information Sue Ellen provided.
“Another thing you should know,” she continued, “Jackie was always looking at those survivalist websites and talking about living off the grid. I’m afraid he’s going to change his name and go underground.”
“What kind of vehicle was he driving? Do you know the license plate number?”
“He left in an old pickup that he took in as a trade. I don’t even think he’d transferred the title into his name. That will make it harder to track him down, won’t it?”
“What’s the name of the man who owned the truck?”
Buddy entered that information as well.
“Jackie was trading vehicles all the time,” Sue Ellen said. “Sometimes the titles weren’t clean because the cars had been wrecked, totaled, or water damaged in a flood or hurricane. I tried to tell him it was a bad idea to mess with that stuff, but he said the government didn’t have any business sticking its nose into car trading so long as people had the chance to check out vehicles on their own.”
“Any chance he dealt in stolen cars?”
“Maybe,” Sue Ellen answered slowly. “Like a lot of things that went on, I stopped asking questions because it just caused a fight.”
“What is your husband’s relationship like with your son and daughter?”
“Jackie worships little Jack.” Sue Ellen grabbed another handful of tissues. “And ignores Emily. Sometimes I think the only reason Jackie married me was so he could have a son. He wanted another baby right after Emily was born. I got pregnant real quick but had a miscarriage. It was another year and a half before I became pregnant with little Jack. When the ultrasound came back showing a boy, it was the best time of our marriage. I really thought we’d turned the corner, and Jackie might start being a father to Emily and the baby. But it didn’t last.”
“Why would Jackie want to kidnap little Jack?”
Buddy knew it was an emotionally packed question and hated to ask it. But he needed to know. More tears preceded an answer.
“He doesn’t want anyone to raise little Jack but him,” Sue Ellen managed after a few moments passed. “He wants our son to be just like him, and if I’m around, that can’t happen. My mother saw it early on, but I didn’t think anyone could be that messed up.”
There were always two sides to every domestic dispute, but Buddy couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Jackson Ford Sr. came off looking like anything except a rogue. He’d heard nothing that justified running off with his son.
“What about your husband’s computers, social media, and email accounts?”
“Jackie has an email account but took his laptop with him when he left. I don’t know his password and doubt he’ll send any emails. He’s paranoid about a lot of stuff and believes the government spies on people through the cameras in cell phones and computers.”
Buddy held up the papers Sue Ellen brought in. “This is a good start for contacts,” he said. “Is there anyone on here that Jackie would be more likely to communicate with?”
“I highlighted a few names. One would be Boyd Lipscomb. He and Jackie both like to buy and sell cars, and they agree about a lot of political stuff. I’ve called Boyd several times since Jackie left, but he’s never answered. I even drove out to where he lives to see if maybe Jackie had gone there, but I was afraid to knock on the door. I’m desperate enough to do anything.”
“Leave him to me. I’ll try to talk to him or hire an investigator who works with me to do it.”
“Be careful. Boyd is a gun fanatic. At least Jackie never got into that.”
“Have you had any conversations with Jackie’s immediate family?”
“His grandmother in Tennessee is the only one he cares about. His father abandoned Jackie and his mom when Jackie was three or four years old—” Sue Ellen suddenly stopped and put her hand to her mouth. “I hadn’t thought about that. Jackie is doing the same thing, only taking little Jack with him.”
“What about his mother, brothers, or sisters?”
“Jackie was an only child. His mother remarried and had other kids. They live in Kentucky and stick to themselves. None of them came to our wedding, and they never invite us to family gatherings.”
Buddy leaned back in his chair. “Write down everything else you can think of about Jackie’s personal and business relationships and email it to me. Don’t worry about trying to figure out whether or not it’s important. I’ll sort through it. I’ll prepare an affidavit for you to sign, which will be the foundation for an emergency hearing in front of Judge Claremont. He’s familiar with my involvement in these types of situations.”
