Back in Tennessee, 5 years later
Stacy paced nervously in the living room “Travis, Kevin, are you guys
ready yet? We are going to be late!” she hollered.
Kevin walked up behind her
placed his hands on her shoulders and gently kissed her cheek. “We’re not going
to be late, honey!” He said quietly “we’ve got plenty of time. Just try and
relax.”
“Relax !? How am I
supposed to relax when we are headed to Memphis to talk to the FBI agents who
are looking for our daughter-in-law and our grandbaby?”
“Grandbaby?” Travis queried as he joined them in the
living room “Mom, you do realize that Jamie’s ‘baby’ would be five years old by
now?”
“Yes, I know.”
Stacy sighed, “I was speaking in motherly terms, like you will always be my
‘baby’ no matter how big you get!” she
smiled and kissed him on the cheek “You know, Travis, I’m really proud of the
young man you’ve become!”
“Thanks Mom. I love
you too. Now can we get going? Now we really are going to be late if we don’t
hurry.” He said with a teasing grin.
As they all piled
into the SUV Stacy thought about the changes that had happened over the last
month since they had found Leslie’s picture and called the FBI. They had make a short trip to Cookeville and
supplied them with all of the information they had; the papers that had been
sent by Commander Taylor, Jamie’s
laptop, coat, the pictures, everything had to be turned over to the FBI.
They had all been questioned both together and separately on their knowledge of
the situation how they came to have this information, anyone they knew who
might have any knowledge of Leslie’s current whereabouts, etc. Stacy still
couldn’t understand it all, it was almost as if the FBI thought they were some
kind of criminals. They weren’t given any real information about the
investigation and were sent home with a vague promise that they would be
contacted should anything new develop. That
had been weeks ago and then yesterday they had received a call asking them to
come to the FBI Office in Memphis as soon as possible. Their appointment was a
1 o’clock this afternoon and they were all a little nervous the agent had been
as nice as he could be he just hadn’t given them any clear indication of why
they needed to go all the way to Memphis.
“Well,” she thought
to herself “in a few hours I guess we’ll know.”
They arrived in Memphis well ahead of their
scheduled appointment time, so in an effort to help Stacy relax her men decided
to treat her to some authentic Mexican food from Las Delicias Mexican Bar and
Grill. It was a family owned and run Mexican restaurant in East Memphis. “It’s got great
food, relaxed atmosphere, smiling faces and according to this blogger ‘the
best’ margarita’s in town.” Travis teased as he read the direction from his
iphone. Stacy just shook her head at his foolishness, she knew her son had
never drank any alcoholic beverage of any kind, because that’s just not something
they did in their family. The dinner was delicious and the service superb, all
in all Stacy found the atmosphere to be just what the ratings had said relaxing
and comfortable. They started off with
chips and salsa with a side of the restaurants famous guacamole. Then Travis
ordered the Fajitas Alambre, which was; Grilled
steak, green pepper, onion, bacon and cheese with 7 small corn tortillas. And Stacy and Kevin decided to split a tamale
platter that consisted of; a pork tamale, a chicken tamale, rice, and beans. They were both too nervous to
really eat anything but tried to make a good show of it for Travis’ sake. Of
course Travis wasn’t nervous at all and ate everything he could even offering
to help finish theirs when it became evident that it was way more than the two
of them could handle.
At precisely
1 o’clock they were standing in the office of Agent Wilson, who then ushered
them into a larger conference room where another agent was already seating
another group, a family it looked like, another couple about the same age as
Stacy and Kevin, and four young men, the oldest looked to be about 20 and the youngest
about 14, a young girl was also with them, about 9 years old.
“Good
afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Jamison, I’m Agent Nickelson, so glad you could make
it. Please have a seat.” The agent indicated the other side of the table from
the family already seated. As they sat down Agent Nickelson smiled and said “I know
you are wondering what this is all about and we will get to that in a few
minutes, but first. Please, allow me to make introductions, Mr. and Mrs.
Kingston allow me to present your son-in-law’s parents Kevin and Stacy Jamison.”
“Son-in-law? Son-in-law? What Son-in-law? I already told
you fools my daughter was not married!”
“Mr. Kingston,
please sit down.” Agent Wilson said calmly in spite of the fact that Mr.
Kingston and risen abruptly out of his seat his face flushed with rage and was
angrily pacing around the room.
“Steven,
please…” Mrs. Kingston pleaded nervously. “I’m sorry” she said, looking back
across the table “I don’t know who you folks are but my husband is right, our
daughter isn’t married. We would have known if she was.”
Stacy leaned
across the table, “I understand, Mrs. Kingston, I felt the same way about my
Jamie, but …”
“Jamie? You’re Jamie’s mother?” Mrs. Kingston exclaimed
excitedly “what happened to your daughter?
We looked all over for her after Leslie disappeared, but no one seemed
to know anything about her.”
Stacy drew a
deep breath and exhaled shakily, “My SON, Jamie, was killed in a drunk-driving
accident on December 10th the same year your daughter, Leslie, went
missing!”
“But… Leslie’s
friend Jamie was a girl…”Mrs. Kingston stammered.
“Did Leslie
ever say Jamie was a girl?” Travis interjected.
“I’m sure
she did at some point…”
“No, Mom, I
think he’s is right,” the oldest Kingston boy, Todd, interjected “I don’t
remember Leslie ever saying Jamie was a girl, she never used a personal pronoun
for her either. We all just assumed when Leslie said she had made a new friend
that it was a girl ‘cause we could never imagine her making friends with a boy!”
“So you’re
saying, that my god-fearing, straight-laced, plain-Jane, Daughter, hooked up
with this BOY Jamie, lied to her loving parents and then just disappeared into
thin air after this BOY died!” Mr. Kingston shouted turning around and bringing
his fist crashing down on the conference table with such force that everyone in
the room jumped, and Lilly burst into tears. “Let me tell you something, my
daughter would never lie to her mother and I, she knew what would happen to her
if she did!” With that he turned and stormed out of the room letting the
conference room door slam behind him.
“Mrs. Jamison,
I’m sorry for your loss, but I must agree with my husband on this one, our
daughter would never have lied to us, there just must have been another Jamie.”
Mrs. Kingston said as she gathered her things and Lilly and headed for the
door.
“Mrs. Kingston,
I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,” interjected Agent Wilson again, “We have
uncovered some evidence that indicates that your daughter, Leslie, was married
to their son, Jamie and was pregnant at the time of her disappearance. So this actually
could explain why we couldn’t find her since we were looking for her under her
maiden name. Not to mention, we were looking for her in Germany, or the US it
turns out that the kids were planning on taking their honeymoon in Spain, before
they were going to surprise you all at Christmas!”
“Leslie was
pregnant!! No! That’s impossible!”Mrs. Kingston stood up her face sowing the
same indignation that had been on her husband’s before he stormed from the
room. “I know my daughter and she was not pregnant! Come on Lilly, Boys I think
we are done here!” They all stood and left
the room quickly.
When they
reached the elevator, Todd turned back; “Hold on Mom, I left my jacket in the conference room. I’ll meet you at the car.”
“Well, I’m
truly sorry ,” Agent Wilson was saying to the Jamisons as they watched the Kingston
family leave , “I was hoping that perhaps they would remember something that
would help us.”
“That’s ok.”Kevin
said standing to shake the agent’s hand “ you did what you could, it’s not …”
Suddenly the
conference room door burst open, and Todd burst in breathless, “Look I don’t
know why my parents are acting all defensive about Leslie, they certainly have
nothing nice to say about her in private, but I had noticed that Leslie was
acting a little strange the last few months before she disappeared, and she had
been gained a little weight. My dad had threatened to disown her several times
if she were to do something stupid like get herself pregnant, so there is a
good chance that if she was pregnant she just decided to stay away and not put
the family through that!”
“Oh, really,”
Stacy said somewhat worried now “had Leslie been heading for trouble before?”
Todd shook his head, “No,” He laughed, “actually, she hadn’t even had a boyfriend, to my
knowledge. She was always the dutiful daughter
first, always cooking, cleaning, and helping mom. I mean, yeah, she and dad got
into a lot of arguments especially after she moved in with the Hollands but I
think that was more her trying to grow up than actual rebellion, anyway here’s
my cell phone number. If you hear anything more would you mind giving me a call.
I’ll see what I can do to get them to come around.”
“Thank you, Todd,” Agent Wilson said “as to
the latest; we’ve contacted the American Embassy in Madrid and found out that
Leslie’s passport was reported missing about a week after your son’s accident
and that she applied for an emergency passport at that location, but that’s where
the trail seems to end. We are alerting all the local agencies, to the new developments in this case, but as it
is merely a missing persons case and not of national importance I have no idea
when we might actually be able to hear something. But I will notify each of you
as soon as I hear something and if you think of anything else you will please
let us know.”
With that he
ushered them from the room and called another agent to escort them to the
elevator. Where they said their good-byes, and separated, the Jamisons headed
to Mt. Juliet and the Kingstons to
Little Rock.
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