Closure
It was a parent's worst nightmare: eight-year-old Cheyenne Burnett was missing.
On the evening before her disappearance, nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. Bonnie Burnett tucked her daughter in bed and read her a bedtime story as usual. The mother then kissed her goodnight, turned out the light and went to bed herself. Neither parent was awakened during the night, and everything appeared normal the following morning when Bonnie rose at six o'clock.
Regis, her husband, was taking a shower in the master bathroom when she put on her bathrobe and headed toward the kitchen to make coffee. He came downstairs ten minutes later, dressed and ready for work.
"Do you want some scrambled eggs and toast?" Bonnie asked.
"Not today. I have a breakfast meeting with a new client at eight."
"Do you have to work late tonight?"
"Not that I know of. I should be home in time for dinner."
"Good. I'm trying a new casserole recipe."
Regis smiled and pretended to be pleased, but he wasn't looking forward to another one of his wife's recipes, which most likely came from the back of a soup can. His wife had many good qualities and had mastered several skills; however, cooking was not one of them.
After seeing her husband off with a kiss on the lips, Bonnie returned to the kitchen where she poured herself a second cup of coffee. This was the time of day she enjoyed most. Regis was gone and Cheyenne was still asleep. For the next forty minutes, until her daughter had to get up for school, Bonnie was free to relax.
She took her coffee into the living room, sat on her recliner and picked up her novel from the end table. Mr. Tibbs, the family's orange and black tabby cat, jumped up onto her lap, curled into a ball and fell asleep.
If there is such a place as heaven, Bonnie thought with contentment, then this is what it would be like: a good book, a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee and a cat sleeping on my lap.
It was a good thing Bonnie savored the moment, for in less than an hour, her world would come crashing down around her. At seven o'clock, she closed her book and laid it on the end table. Then she put the cat down, walked upstairs to her daughter's bedroom and knocked on the door.
"It's time to get up for school, honey," she announced.
There was no response.
"Cheyenne, are you awake yet?"
Still no answer. Bonnie opened the door and stepped inside the room. The bed was empty although it was obvious someone had slept in it during the night. The sight of the open window worried her. She checked the hall bathroom. It, too, was empty.
"Cheyenne!"
Bonnie's voice echoed through the empty house. Cheyenne was missing.
* * *
Regis Burnett left work before the start of his eight o'clock meeting, promising his new client that he would reschedule as soon as possible. He raced home, praying that his daughter would be found by the time he got there.
She wasn't.
After her husband's Buick pulled into the driveway, Bonnie, still wearing her chenille bathrobe over her pajamas, ran down the driveway and threw herself into his arms.
"Did you call the police?" he asked.
Before his wife could answer, Regis saw the Woodbine police car pull up to the curb. Patrolman Lester Poague got out and addressed the frantic parents.
"Have you heard from your daughter yet?"
Struck by a renewed bout of tears, all Bonnie could do was shake her head.
Poague followed the couple into their home. Regis suggested his wife make them all a cup of coffee, hoping the simple task would help relieve some of the stress she was under.
"This way, Lester," Regis said, seeing no reason for formality since he and Poague had known each other since grammar school.
When the two men got to the door of Cheyenne's bedroom, the patrolman put his hand up and blocked the father's entry.
"We shouldn't go in there," the police officer instructed. "We don't want to contaminate the crime scene."
Regis's face paled. He didn't want to believe his daughter had been kidnapped.
"We don't know that a crime has been committed. Maybe Cheyenne just sneaked out to visit one of her friends," he optimistically suggested.
"To your knowledge, has she ever done that before?"
"No," Regis answered with a sigh, trying to fight the terror that was threatening to engulf him.
Lester led the father back downstairs to the kitchen. Over coffee, he got the names and phone numbers of all Cheyenne's friends.
"I'll go and have a talk with these kids at the school," the officer announced. "If I learn anything, I'll give you a call right away. If not, I'll have one of the detectives come and see you. And please don't go in her bedroom."
"Why can't we go into Cheyenne's room?" Bonnie asked her husband after the police officer drove away.
"You know Lester. He reads too many detective novels. He fancies himself a combination criminal profiler and forensics genius. There's no need for you to worry, honey. Cheyenne is all right, and she'll most likely be home before lunchtime."
To the Burnetts' dismay, Cheyenne did not come home that afternoon, that night or the next. The Woodbine Police Department, unable to locate the little girl, eventually called in both the Massachusetts State Police and the FBI. Despite the hard work of those dedicated law enforcement agencies, Cheyenne could not be found.
As the weeks turned to months and months to years, the distraught parents held on to a slender thread of hope. Lester Poague took the department's failure to solve the case to heart. He could no longer look Bonnie or Regis in the eye when he passed them on the street.
"What if it had been my daughter or son who disappeared?" he often asked himself. "How would I get through each day not knowing if he or she was dead or alive?"
Since the morning Cheyenne Burnett went missing, Poague had made it a point to spend more time with his own children. Of course, he still managed to watch his favorite programs on truTV and Investigative Discovery. It was while he was watching an episode of Forensic Files that he saw a commercial advertising a program called Psychic Detectives. A staunch advocate of a scientific police investigation, he considered calling in psychics to help locate missing persons a last resort. But in Cheyenne's case, there had been no physical evidence—no fingerprints, foreign fibers or hairs found in the girl's room, no bloodstains, no DNA material. There had not even been a ransom request. Whoever took the little girl hadn't done so for profit.
To Lester, that led to one grim conclusion: a sexual predator had taken Cheyenne from her own home. The thought was devastating, but given the number of such cases in recent years, it seemed the most likely explanation.
Long after Forensic Files was over and Dayle Hinman had successfully solved another case with her behavioral science expertise on Body of Evidence, Lester Poague was still considering the possibility that a psychic might actually provide a useful clue to the whereabouts of Cheyenne Burnett.
* * *
"A psychic?" Bonnie echoed in horror as though Poague had suggested she cut off her left foot. "But our daughter is alive, Lester."
"Psychics don't just contact the dead. They also help find missing persons, living persons," the policeman explained.
"And just where did you get that information from, truTV?" Regis asked.
Poague ignored the father's sarcasm.
"I didn't come here to upset either of you," he said in an apologetic tone. "It's just an idea for you to consider."
"I think we should do as Lester suggests," Bonnie declared later that evening over dinner.
"Those people are nothing but charlatans and con artists. Why should we put ourselves through all that pain?"
"Because if there's the slightest chance of finding Cheyenne—however slim it may be—I want to take it."
With the Burnetts' permission, Lester Poague contacted Brynn Ireland, a Boston psychic who was highly respected by members of law enforcement for having helped locate three missing persons and solve two homicides.
"I can't promise I'll find your daughter," the psychic told the parents truthfully, "but I'll do my best. May I have one of her personal belongings?"
Bonnie led Brynn to her daughter's bedroom, the contents of which had been undisturbed since the day the girl disappeared. The woman walked around the room, picking up a doll, a hairbrush and a book. None of these objects offered any psychic impressions. She walked over to the closet, opened the door and ran her hands over the little girl's shirts, sweaters and dresses. Brynn closed her eyes for a moment, feeling a strong vibration.
"I see parallel lines," she said, her eyebrows knitted with concentration. "I see stripes and parallel lines."
"Is it her clothing you see?" Bonnie asked.
"I don't think so. I get the feeling of distance. The parallel lines are long, but the stripes are short. They're ... they're railroad tracks," the psychic concluded.
Bonnie's heartbeat quickened. Had someone taken her daughter to another state? Perhaps that was why Cheyenne hadn't been found by the Massachusetts authorities.
"I see water," Brynn continued, "but not the ocean. It's a lake or a river. The railroad tracks run alongside a steep embankment of the river."
"Do you know where that monster took my little girl?" Bonnie demanded to know.
"Yes. I see a sloping river bank, not far from the railroad tracks. That's where he took her."
* * *
Bonnie sat in her recliner with Mr. Tibbs curled up on her lap, but she was not reading. She was staring out the window, her mind's eye on the past. According to Brynn Ireland, her daughter was dead. Officer Poague was, at that moment, with the psychic attempting to pinpoint the exact location she had seen in her vision: railroad tracks, a steep embankment and a river.
While his wife sat in her chair, oblivious to everything around her, Regis paced the floor like an expectant father. The grandfather clock in the hall struck seven, its chimes reminding him that he hadn't eaten all day.
"Do you want me to make us something for dinner?" he asked his wife.
"I'm not hungry," she replied and then retreated to the solace of her silence.
Regis continued pacing. It was almost nine when the telephone rang. Bonnie turned toward her husband, her eyes revealing her anxiety.
"Hello," Regis said into the mouthpiece.
Bonnie keenly watched her husband's reactions. She saw his eyes close and his head shake in denial even as his shoulders slumped in resignation. After several agonizing minutes, he spoke again.
"Yeah, thanks, Lester."
He put the receiver back in its cradle and sat down on the couch, not daring to look at his wife, not trusting the tenuous rein he had on his emotions.
"Well?" Bonnie asked.
"They found human remains just where the psychic said they would be: buried on a sloping river bank near a railroad track. Lester will see to it that the body is brought back to Woodbine for identification and an autopsy."
The loss of hope was nearly as hard to endure as the uncertainty the parents had lived with since Cheyenne's disappearance. Bonnie gave in to her grief and collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. Regis, who was battling with his own demons, had no comfort to give his wife.
* * *
The Sunday edition of The Woodbine Courier carried the headline PSYCHIC LEADS POLICE TO CORPSE OF MISSING GIRL. The article told the amazing tale of Brynn Ireland's visions and the discovery of the body just outside of Ipswich. It then went on to reveal the medical examiner's conclusion: Cheyenne had died from a blow to the head of sufficient force to crush her skull. Understandably, neither Bonnie nor Regis Burnett wanted to read the article.
Later that afternoon, as the grieving parents entered Rosenfeld's Funeral Home, they were swarmed by friends, family, neighbors and the morbidly curious. Officer Lester Poague, who attended the service with his wife, offered the Burnetts his sincere condolences. He had not expected Regis's anger.
"Why didn't you let well enough alone?" the bereaved father cried, struggling to keep his voice down. "Why did you have to get that damned psychic involved? We were just beginning to put the nightmare behind us, and now things are worse than ever."
Poague was stunned.
"I'm sorry. I thought you'd want to know what happened to Cheyenne, that it would give you and Bonnie closure."
"Closure?" Regis's voice rose, and many people turned in his direction. "What's that, another of your truTV catchphrases?"
Lester attributed Regis's hostility and his uncharacteristic rudeness to his extreme grief and thus bore the verbal assault in silence.
"Our prayers are with you," the police officer said quietly and then steered his wife to the back of the viewing room.
The remainder of the service was relatively uneventful, except for Bonnie's hysterics. But her tearful outbursts were to be expected. After all, she finally had to come to terms with Cheyenne's death.
* * *
With their daughter buried, the Burnetts were supposed to have closure—whatever that meant—and they were to begin the healing process and move on with their lives. Bonnie, however, was not willing to let go of her grief so easily. It wasn't enough to have found Cheyenne's body; she wanted to know who had killed her.
"I'm going to the police station," she announced the day after her daughter's remains were laid to rest at Peaceful Pines Cemetery.
"Whatever for?" her husband asked.
"Our child was murdered. I want the bastard who killed her to be punished. I want him to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison. I want him to suffer as we've suffered these past few years, as we'll probably suffer for the rest of our lives."
"There's no reason we have to go on like this. Why don't we just forget about vengeance and find whatever peace of mind we can."
"I'll never be at peace until I know who killed Cheyenne."
"Damn it! It's all Poague's fault. Why didn't he stick to writing speeding tickets?"
"How dare you criticize Lester after all he's done for us?" Bonnie shouted angrily. "If it weren't for him and Brynn Ireland, we still wouldn't know what happened to Cheyenne. And we wouldn't have been able to give her a proper burial."
"Maybe we would have both been better off not knowing."
Bonnie stared at her husband with a look of horror on her face.
"You fought the idea of calling in a psychic from the start. Just why is that?"
"You know why," Regis said defensively. "I didn't want you getting upset all over again."
"Is that really it? Or is it something else? You were already in the shower when I woke up that morning. Yet ever since we've been married you've always showered after you had your coffee."
His wife's thinly veiled accusations stunned Regis.
"I had an early meeting that day. Don't you remember? I had to be at the office by eight, so I got up early. You can't think I had anything to do with Cheyenne's death! I loved our daughter. I wouldn't have done anything to hurt her."
"If you really loved her, you would come with me to the police station and try to help them solve this case."
Regis capitulated. He would prove his love for both his wife and daughter by devoting the remainder of his life—if necessary—to finding his little girl's murderer.
* * *
Six months later, the police were no closer to finding Cheyenne Burnett's killer. After more than four years, the case had grown cold.
"We must face facts," Regis declared in defeat. "The police are stymied."
"Then we can go to Brynn. She helped us find Cheyenne's body. Maybe she'll be able to locate her killer."
Regis was not sanguine about contacting the psychic again, but he didn't make his objections known to his wife. Oddly enough, not even Officer Lester Poague thought it wise to contact Brynn Ireland again.
"Why not?" Bonnie demanded to know. "You, of all people, should know how valuable her assistance was. And it was your idea to call in a psychic in the first place."
"I wanted her help in finding your daughter," Lester argued. "But a murder investigation is a matter for the police."
"The police aren't making any progress," Bonnie contended. "I'm going to ask Brynn for her help whether you and my husband agree or not."
Despite his misgivings, Poague decided to provide whatever assistance he could.
* * *
Bonnie stood on the sloping bank beside the spot where her daughter's body had been discovered. It was such a peaceful location, with the trees providing shade from the sun and the lazy river meandering through the woods. Brynn stood next to her, holding a small scrap from the pajamas Cheyenne had been wearing when she was abducted.
"I feel a great sadness here," the psychic announced, connecting with energies that neither the Burnetts nor Lester could sense. "The killer didn't mean to hurt your daughter. Her death was a tragic accident."
The lack of premeditation afforded the parents little comfort, however.
"He cared a great deal about Cheyenne," Brynn continued. "He chose her specifically. This was not a random kidnapping."
"Do you mean he knew her?" Regis asked with incredulity.
"Yes, he saw her on a daily basis, or close to it."
Bonnie instinctively looked at her husband, her former doubts nagging at her brain again.
"I can see them together ... at a park or maybe it's a playground."
"Cheyenne never went to the park," Bonnie insisted. "She always played in our backyard."
"I see her laughing and riding on a swing while he stands by and watches her."
"Swings?" Lester echoed. "There are swings at the school."
Bonnie suddenly remembered a man at Cheyenne's funeral claiming to be her daughter's guidance counselor. At the time, there had been something about him that bothered her.
"I think I know who killed our little girl!" she blurted out. "He came to Rosenfeld's for the memorial service."
"Who was it?" her husband asked.
"I can't remember his name, but he said he worked in the guidance department at Cheyenne's school."
Poague immediately took out his cell phone and called the Woodbine Elementary Center.
"Hi, Matilda," he greeted the secretary who answered. "Could you do me a favor and give me the names of everyone who works in your guidance department? That's it?"
As Lester pocketed his cell phone, his eyes met Bonnie's.
"The elementary school has only one guidance counselor—and it's a woman."
The Burnetts' hopes of finding their daughter's killer were crushed.
"Even if Brynn was able to determine the killer's identity, it wouldn't have done you any good," Poague said.
"Why not?" Bonnie asked.
"Without hard evidence, the D.A. would never prosecute. He certainly couldn't try a case based solely on the testimony of a psychic. To my knowledge, no Massachusetts court has accepted such arguments since the spectral evidence provided at the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692."
* * *
A week after Brynn Ireland had unsuccessfully attempted to discover the identity of the killer, Officer Poague ran into Regis Burnett in the Woodbine Home Depot.
"How are you and Bonnie holding up?" Lester asked.
"I think we're finally ready to get on with our lives. It's been more than four years, after all."
"That's great to hear."
"I'm going to take some time off, and we're going to go on a little vacation."
"Any place interesting?"
"No. We're just going down to New Jersey for a couple of days for some much-needed rest and relaxation. There’s an old friend there we want to meet up with."
"Well, you and Bonnie try to have a good time, okay?"
"I'm sure we will. Well, we'll see you when we get back."
"Maybe we'll get a break in the case by then," the officer called to the retreating figure.
* * *
Later that week, on Saturday morning, Poague walked into the local Barnes & Noble bookstore. While he was scanning the shelves for a good courtroom drama, the policeman saw Matilda Skinner reading the back cover of a Laura Lippman novel.
"Hello, Lester," the school secretary called in greeting.
Poague smiled and waved.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Matilda asked.
"Not yet," he replied. "I've read most of what's here."
"I'm not referring to books. I mean your call regarding the guidance counselor."
"Oh, that. I thought there was another counselor, a man."
"No. We've had Mrs. Washburn for the past four years."
A warning bell sounded in Poague's head.
"Four years? What about before that?"
"Before Mrs. Washburn, there was Frazier Dunlop."
"What happened to him?"
"He resigned. Poor thing. He took that little Burnett girl's death hard."
Lester's heart raced.
"I don't suppose you know what happened to him after he resigned."
"As a matter of fact, I do. He's working at a school in New Jersey. Are you okay?" Matilda asked when she saw the color suddenly drain from the police officer's face.
The Burnetts were headed to New Jersey, but Poague was willing to bet a year's salary that they weren't going for rest and relaxation.
* * *
As Officer Poague drove south on I-287, he spied a sign for Flemington, New Jersey, the county seat for Hunterdon County. Flemington was a lovely old town, now known for its shopping districts; but Lester, ever the crime aficionado, associated it with the Hunterdon County Court House, where in 1935 Bruno Richard Hauptmann was put on trial for the "crime of the century." Although there has been a lingering doubt in many people's minds to this day as to Hauptmann's guilt, he was convicted and later executed for his participation in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in nearby Hopewell.
It was a crime that had touched the hearts of millions of Americans: a two-year-old boy taken out of his crib, a missing child whose tiny decomposed body was later found in a wooded area less than five miles from his home. "Lucky" Lindbergh had been one of the world's most beloved heroes, yet his fame and good fortune couldn't protect him from the nightmare of losing his only child, any more than the Burnetts could have prevented the abduction of little Cheyenne.
Lester was reminded of his own family. Again, he wondered how he could ever survive if something should happen to one of his children. His doubts plagued him as he turned off the interstate and followed, at a safe distance, behind a blue Ford Taurus.
The car drove along county roads for close to an hour before pulling off onto a dirt road that led through a heavily wooded area. Lester pulled to the side of the road. He would give the Taurus a few minutes lead time, and then he would take the same route. There was no way he could lose them now.
The blue Taurus came to a stop beside a large hole in the ground. Regis got out from behind the wheel and went to the back of the wagon to open the trunk. Bonnie steeled herself for what lay ahead.
"I'll take his arms," her husband instructed. "You take his feet."
Frazier Dunlop, the man in the trunk, began to stir.
"He's coming to," Bonnie cried. "We've got to hurry."
The two grieving parents half-dragged, half-carried the body to the hole. There was a large wooden crate—not much bigger than a coffin-—at the bottom. A hammer, a box of nails and two shovels were nearby. The scene had been set the day before. All the Burnetts had needed was the guest of honor.
Bonnie groaned from her exertions as she and her husband leaned over and placed Frazier in the box. While Regis hammered the nails in the top of the crate, Bonnie stood up to stretch her back. That was when she saw the car heading toward them.
"Oh, no!" she moaned.
Her husband spun around and saw Lester Poague get out of his Subaru.
"How did you know?" Regis asked.
"I ran into the secretary from the elementary school, and she told me about Frazier Dunlop."
"He murdered my baby," Bonnie sobbed.
"He's a child killer," Regis announced, "and he'll get away with it—just like you said."
"I said I wanted to help you and your wife," Lester reminded them, "and I meant that."
The Woodbine police officer then grabbed one of the shovels and began shoveling dirt onto the crate at the bottom of the hole. The Burnetts looked at each other with shocked surprise.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Bonnie asked.
Beneath them, Frazier Dunlop had awakened and was pounding on the lid of the crate. Lester threw another shovelful of dirt into the hole, and the guidance counselor screamed for help.
"Yes. I'm making sure you two have closure; and while I'm at it, I just may be saving the life of someone else's little girl. Perhaps even my own."
It doesn't take a psychic to find Salem when he disappears.
