Page 3 of Drowning in Lies
I stared at Chris for a long moment, my mind completely blank. I barely registered Sherry's gasp of horror, as I shifted my gaze to the rippling waters of the lake in front of us.
"Lila? Do you understand? Chris asked urgently, "We need to call...I think he...Lila, I'm worried he may have fallen in."
At his halting words, I snapped out of my daze, looking around frantically. "Do you see him?"I lurched to the edge of the dock, and Chris grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
"Sherry," he snapped at his wife, "take her back inside while I call 9-1-1."
Sherry's eyes were wide with shock, and she had her hands clamped over her mouth, as if she was trying to hold in a scream. She nodded, reaching out to take my arm but I pulled back.
"No, I need to stay here," I insisted, my eyes continuing to scan the surface of the lake for any sign of my husband.
"I'm calling from 4372 Elmwood Drive. My friend is missing, and I think he may have fallen into the lake behind his house. He hasn't been seen since early this morning, but his phone is on the floorboard of his boat and the boat is half untied from the dock." I heard Chris say, then he continued giving names and details to the operator. I could feel Sherry trembling as she wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me close to her, but I was numb.
"Lila, we should go wait up by the house. They are dispatching the police and the water rescue team as well, according to the 9-1-1 operator. She said there's a patrol car just a few minutes away."
I looked at Chris, realizing how pale he was, and noticed his hands were shaking as he put his phone back in his pocket. I still couldn't feel anything. It was as if I was in a void, a black hole where worry and fear and feelings just didn't exist.
The next thirty minutes or so were a blur. The initial officers directed their questions to Chris when it became clear that I couldn't manage much more than a few words. I had been able to tell them that I'd made his lunch, walkedhim down to the dock, and then left at 9:00.
"Wait, I'm sorry, it was 9:02. I was running late," I corrected softly. The older officer wrote everything down while the other one used his cell phone to take a video of the boat and dock, then snapped close up photos of the phone, the cooler, and the rope. Donning latex gloves, he carefully handed the cooler to the older officer, who had been joined by two others by that point. The two new guys weren't wearing uniforms, so I assumed they were detectives.
That assumption proved correct when they walked over to introduce themselves. Det. Horton gestured to the cooler, which they had opened, asking if I could tell if anything was missing out if it. The lunch and all the drinks I had packed were still in there.
He then held up the cell phone, which was now encased in a plastic bag marked 'Evidence'. "Mrs. Montgomery, does this belong to your husband?" He asked.
"Yes," I croaked out. I paused and tried to clear my throat. "He bought that monogrammed phone case a few months ago."
Sherry brought me a bottle of water, and the detectives urged us over to the deck to sit down.
He turned his attention to Chris. "So, are you here in a professional capacity, Mr. Decker?" He asked, trying, and failing to keep the sneer off his face.
Chris was a defense attorney, and the detective obviously recognized him.
"No, my wife and I are friends with the Montgomery's, and were invited here for a cookout this evening," Chris responded calmly.
The detective nodded, then turned to me again. In a much nicer tone of voice than he'd used with Chris, he asked me to run through the events of the morning again.
"I apologize, ma'am, I know you already told this to Officer Fremont, but it is important that I understand the timeline we're working with here."
I nodded, and went through it all again, my voice so quiet that he had to ask me to speak up or repeat myself several times.
He walked back down to the dock once the search crew arrived, asking one of the other officers to sit with us in case we needed anything. We sat in a huddle on the back deck, watching as the crew staged their equipment near the dock. It almost 6:00 pm, and I knew it would be dark around 7:30, so I wondered how long they would be able to search.When I mentioned that to Sherry, she asked the officer if he knew. He said they would bring in large emergency lights if needed.
The detective walked back toward us, with the leader of the search and rescue team. He introduced himself, then came to stand directly in front of me.
"Ma'am, I would like to take a few minutes and explain what we're going to be doing." I nodded, and he continued. "If your husband did indeed end up in the water this morning, it is more than likely that he was incapacitated in some fashion. Otherwise, he would have been able to get out of the water, being so close to the dock and his boat. At this point, I'm afraid our efforts are considered a search and retrieve, rather than a search and rescue."
Chris wrapped one arm around me and the other around Sherry, as the team leader continued speaking.
His voice was steady and calm, and I could hear the compassion in his tone. He quickly went on to explain that they would begin by sending a diver into the water, tethered to a safety line. That diver would complete a search in a sweeping arc formation in an area that was about thirty feet wide.
"In cases like this where we have a good idea where someone entered the water, we start with a radius as wide as the depth of the water. The lakebed drops off sharply about ten feet from the edge, and at the end of your long dock where the boat is tethered, it's roughly thirty feet deep. So, we'll focus our efforts there," he explained.
"We have sonar we can typically use, but in this particular body of water, it isn't very effective. This lake was created here as a fish and waterfowl habitat. So, about twenty feet below the water line, there are dozens of trees in this area alone that were dumped here when the lake was built, to serve as natural habitats for the fish. The sonar detects all of them, so it doesn't help much here."
"Sir," he said, directing his comment to Chris. "I would suggest you and the ladies wait inside the house with Officer Fremont. We will keep you posted about any developments."
"No, I want to sta-"
