Chapter One
St. Valentine''s Day, 2007, started off as a frozen, chaotic mess in southeast Michigan. The first blizzard of the winter had swept through overnight, dumping up to eight inches of snow across the region. As the Wednesday-morning rush hour approached, temperatures suddenly dipped into the teens, while winds gusted up to thirty miles an hour. Road crews frantically spread salt on streets and freeways, attempting to melt the ice before Metro Detroit''s hundreds of thousands of commuters hit the roads. But the gale defeated their efforts, blowing the salt away. Swirling snow drifts blinded drivers and obscured slippery patches of pavement, causing dozens of fender benders throughout the tri-county Detroit suburbs.
About twenty-five miles east of downtown Detroit, in the nineteenth-century mineral-bath resort town of Mount Clemens, Deputy William Hughes was among the crew manning the lobby at the Macomb County Sheriff''s Office (MCSO) headquarters. Hughes, a twenty-year veteran, reported for work at 10:00 A.M. and was greeted by a leak in the ceiling of his small office, right over his desk.
Hughes had just finished moving his desk out of the drip''s soggy path when a fellow deputy poked his head in and said someone in the lobby wanted to file a missing persons complaint. Hughes prepared to write his first report of the day.
The visitor, Stephen Grant, was alone. Hughes beckoned him into the cement-block cubicle, apologizing for the messy, wet office. Stephen said he didn''t mind and took a seat. He then pulled out a notebook and consulted it for a moment before commencing his story.
In a jittery voice, the pale, dark-haired, wide-eyed visitor told Hughes he hadn''t heard from his thirty-four-year-old wife, Tara, since the previous Friday night, when she stormed out of their Washington Township home following an argument.
Stephen explained that his wife was an executive with Washington Group International, a construction and engineering company with branches throughout the world. Tara worked in the company''s San Juan, Puerto Rico, office and returned home weekends, her husband said.
The veteran cop took notice of a gash on Stephen''s nose. The inch-long scabbed wound immediately aroused his instincts.
"I was concerned about the scratch-plus, he had waited five days to report his wife missing," Hughes said. "And he kept looking at his notebook, like he was trying to keep his story straight."
Macomb County over the past decade has gone from the sparsely populated, semirural home of Michigan''s last remaining military base to one of Metro Detroit''s most prosperous and fast-growing bedroom communities. Still, the missing persons there tend to be drug addicts who drop out for a few days, or ice fishermen who inadvertently float out toward Canada on giant Lake St. Clair-not prosperous businesswomen from the upscale enclave of Washington Township.
"Something wasn''t right here," Hughes recalled.
Chapter Two
The slim thirty-seven-year-old six-footer told Hughes he was a stay-at-home dad who labored a few hours a week in his father William Grant''s small tool-and-die shop, making ball bearings, while his wife worked in Puerto Rico during the week. Stephen said he worked around the house most of the time and took care of the couple''s two children-six-year-old Lindsey and four-year-old Ian. He did have help, he added, from a nineteen-year-old live-in German au pair.
Hughes didn''t have to ask many questions; Stephen volunteered most of the necessary information without any prompting.
"He was rambling, and his eyes were really bugging out," Hughes said. "He was talking really fast. I just kept quiet and let him talk. I was listening real close to what this guy was saying."
Stephen freely admitted he was irked by his wife''s long absences. He told Hughes an argument about her frequent travel had broken out the night of February 9 when Tara phoned from Newark International Airport to tell him her flight home was delayed because of a huge snowfall that had hammered the East Coast the previous day. Tara also announced she would be returning to Puerto Rico on Sunday, a day earlier than usual, to prepare for a presentation. That''s what started the altercation, Stephen said.
"He said they argued about her travel schedule while she was in the Newark airport," Hughes said. "He said they kept arguing and hanging up on each other, and then calling each other back and arguing again, the whole time she was heading home.
"I figured he was pretty hot when she got home, and I figured some kind of fight must have happened, because of the scratch on his nose," Hughes said. "But I didn''t want to confront him with the scratch just yet. I wanted to just sit back and let him talk."
Stephen obliged. He told the officer he had argued with his wife for about twenty minutes after she arrived home from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Then, he said, Tara made a call from her cell phone before abruptly leaving the house and riding away in a black sedan.
Stephen said he heard his wife say, "I''ll be out in a minute" before she walked away. He told Hughes the car that picked her up may have been from an airport limousine service, he claimed, she frequently hired.
According to Stephen, his wife''s last words before walking out the door were a reminder that he needed to deliver her white 2002 Isuzu Trooper to the dealership Monday for a dent repair.
Less than ten minutes after Tara left, Stephen said, he heard someone enter the house. He told Hughes he thought it was his wife returning, and he hollered, "What the hell are you doing home? Get out!"
His angry shout startled the couple''s au pair, Verena Dierkes, a slender teen with long blond hair who was letting herself into the kitchen through the garage after a night of dancing with friends.
Stephen said he explained to the German girl, who''d taken a job with the Grants in August, that he''d just had an argument with Tara. After a brief conversation, the au pair went directly to her room, Stephen told Hughes.
The sheriff''s deputy voiced the question that would occur to dozens of investigators and observers over the ensuing weeks. "I asked why he waited five days to report his wife missing," Hughes said. "He said Tara''s boss told him to wait."
Stephen told Hughes he left several messages on Tara''s cell phone on Saturday and Sunday, but he got no response. On Monday morning, Stephen said, he contacted Tara''s Washington Group boss, Lou Troendle, in Puerto Rico, but learned she hadn''t reported for work. Stephen said Troendle then told him to hold off calling the police.
"He said they were supposed to have some big meeting with everyone before going to the police," Hughes said. "It didn''t make sense."
That Tuesday, Stephen said, he telephoned Tara''s sister, Alicia Standerfer, and her mother, Mary Destrampe, but he said neither woman in the close-knit family circle had heard from his wife. By now, Stephen said, he told his sister-in-law he was so frantic that he would be happy to find out if Tara was with a guy in a motel, according to Hughes''s report. Stephen further stated that he believes Lou and Tara''s mother were not being truthful regarding Tara.
"I asked him, ''Why didn''t you call us to your house to report your wife missing? She was last seen at your house-instead of that, you come into the lobby,''" Hughes recalled.
Stephen explained that his sister had a friend, a Sterling Heights police officer, who had advised him to come into police headquarters to make the report. Stephen then earnestly pointed to his notebook and said, "If you want his name, here''s his name right here."
"I''m thinking, ''Why is he trying to provide me with so many alibis from people he''s spoken to, and showing me their phone numbers?''" Hughes said. "It sounded like a guy who was looking for a way out."
Stephen further aroused Hughes''s suspicions when, less than ten minutes into the interview, he named himself as a suspect. "He said, ''I talked to my father, and he said the first person who is always suspected in these cases is the husband.'' I thought that was a really strange thing to say," Hughes said. "He sounded like a guy who had done something wrong, and was trying to get out of it. But I had to hear his whole story. I wanted to try to stay neutral."
Stephen offered Hughes a bizarre theory about what may have happened to his wife. "He said Washington Group demilitarized chemical weapons, and he said her immediate boss was in charge of that," Hughes said. "He came in with the story that his wife was kidnapped by terrorists, and that she may have been exposed to nerve gas. I''m thinking to myself, ''This guy has been watching too much TV.''"
Chapter Three
Hughes continued jotting notes for his report while Stephen meandered on with his tale, consulting his own spiral-bound ledger as he bounced from subject to subject. The veteran officer, who has been married for twenty-three years and has two sons, was surprised when Stephen began talking about Tara''s alleged infidelities.
"He said his family thought his wife was having an affair with Lou, her boss," Hughes said. "He said they worked closely together, and that he was a little suspicious of that. But at first he didn''t believe she was cheating."
Stephen later changed his story, telling Hughes he was concerned Tara was having an affair with Troendle, her group boss. Stephen also revealed that he and Tara had been to marriage counseling. "He said he felt she confided in Lou about their marital problems more than she did with him, because she was with her boss all the time, while he was at home with the children," Hughes said. "He said she was traveling so much, it was putting a strain on the marriage." Stephen also explained that he''d recently contacted an attorney and was considering a divorce.
Hughes said he decided to call Tara''s boss in Puerto Rico, since Stephen willingly provided the phone number, one of many names and numbers that were recorded in the notebook he clutched. Troendle, the fifty-year-old executive who was in charge of Washington Group''s Puerto Rican operations, was at his San Juan office when Hughes called.
"I wanted to find out what was going on between Lou and Tara, since that was Stephen''s concern," Hughes said. "When I talked to Lou, he seemed genuinely worried about Tara. He said he would assist us in any way we needed to find out what happened to her. He really seemed worried, because he said Tara would never leave without telling anyone. Right then and there, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I''m thinking, ''Oh boy, Stephen Grant is lying to me.'' And he''s sitting there smiling," Hughes said.
"After I got off the phone with Lou, [Stephen] asked if I wanted to call her parents, but I said, ''I''ll leave that to the detective bureau.'' Because after I talked to Lou, I was concerned Stephen was lying, and I figured I''d better leave any more phone calls up to the detectives. I got the feeling that this guy was playing me."
That feeling was reinforced when Stephen veered onto his next topic: the Grant family''s live-in babysitter. "He started talking about the au pair," Hughes said. "I said, ''How old is she?'' He said she was nineteen, and I asked him if he was having any kind of relationship with the au pair. He leaned back in his chair and smiled at me, and said, ''She''ll never tell.''"
Chapter Four
During the course of their conversation, Stephen disclosed that he knew of a warrant out for his arrest, based on unpaid traffic tickets. "I decided not to pursue that, because I thought the detectives might want to talk to him, and if they arrested him, he might not talk," Hughes said.
Hughes did, however, start asking tougher questions. "I asked him about the scratch on his nose, and I said he needed to tell me if there was a fight that night," Hughes said. "He started getting nervous, saying, ''No, no, no.''"
Stephen insisted it had only been a verbal spat, even though he admitted he''d had a few beers before Tara got home. He also mentioned that he kept a handgun in the house. "Then I asked him if we could send detectives to his house to ask further questions and look around, and he said we could," Hughes said. "Basically, I think he wanted to come in here and hit a home run with me, get the missing report down on paper, and exclude himself as a suspect. He seemed to feel good about the interview."
Hughes handed Stephen a preprinted witness statement form and asked him to recap his statement in writing. In a spidery, juvenile scrawl, the father of two poured out a story that filled two pages and spilled out of the lines provided into the document''s margins: I said it was not fair to the kids that they would only see her for one day, he wrote of the argument he''d had with his wife. She said "Tuff."
Stephen stated that during the argument with Tara, he repeatedly said, "The kids are going to be disappointed if you''re not home Saturday," Hughes wrote in his report.
As Stephen told his story, Sergeant Brian Kozlowski was reporting for work. Striding through the sheriff''s department lobby, he overheard Stephen relating his story to Hughes. Kozlowski later said one thing stuck in his craw: he had heard the man say his wife had been missing since Friday. The veteran detective wondered the same thing Hughes was wondering: why would anyone wait five days to report a missing spouse?
Finally, after more than an hour, Stephen''s deluge of information trailed off. Hughes told Stephen that detectives would be in contact with him. The cop then typed out his report and submitted it to his supervisor, who turned the case over to the detective bureau as Case #0700003638. A description of Tara Grant-five feet, six inches tall, 120 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes-was entered into the nationwide Law Enforcement Intelligence Network (LEIN).
The most intense investigation in the history of the Macomb County Sheriff''s Office was under way.
Chapter Five
At the same time Stephen was spilling his story to Hughes in the lobby, the telephone rang in Lieutenant Elizabeth Darga''s office, located just off the lobby. Darga, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the department''s detective bureau, found the phone call peculiar.
"It was a woman who said she was a sergeant out of the Michigan State Police post in Lansing," said Darga, a twenty-year police veteran. "This woman said she knew the Grant family, and had been in contact with Tara''s sister. She said that Stephen Grant was planning to come in to make a report, and that we should really look closely at this case because something was not right. She said there was no way Tara would have left like that."
Darga relayed the Michigan State Police (MSP) phone call to her boss, Captain Anthony Wickersham, who headed the detective bureau. "I said, ''You might want to hear this one. I just got off the phone with a female state police sergeant from Lansing,'' and I told him what she said," Darga recounted.
Wickersham agreed that the case warranted a closer look. "It was obvious from the beginning, something wasn''t right" he said.
Learning that Hughes had just concluded his meeting with Stephen Grant, Darga called Hughes into her office. "I asked, ''Did you just take a report about a missing woman?''" Darga recalled. Hughes said he had, and relayed to his boss what Stephen had told him.
"We immediately put a priority on this case," Darga said. "There are times when you get a missing persons report and there are factors that lead you to believe they took off for whatever reason, or there''s some type of substance abuse. But in this case, there was none of that."
The first phone calls made in the investigation were to Tara''s family. "Everyone said there was something wrong, because she would have never left her children," Darga said.
Darga assembled several detectives in her office at about 1:30 P.M. and explained the situation. "I told them about the information I''d gotten from the state police sergeant, and I directed everyone on what we needed to do," Darga said. "We had to start checking everything."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from LIMB FROM LIMBby George Hunter Melissa Ann Preddy Copyright © 2009 by George Hunter and Melissa Ann Preddy. Excerpted by permission.
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