LIVING ON THE EDGE

CHAPTER: 30

Melanie did not have any social media accounts, but Kiara had one that she seemed to use sporadically. Her posts were vibrant and intelligent. The teenager seemed to try, and succeed at times, to be introspective, insightful, and impersonal. The one exception was on April 20th.

Happy birthday to my beautiful mother who sacrifices so much for me! She is my inspiration and I will always strive to live up to her impeccable example! Love you, Mom.

Kiara was respectful, enrolled at one of the best schools in the state, a standout athlete, and a scholar. Melanie had to be a proud mom. The only reason Melanie would not mention Kiara was if she thought her daughter might be hurt, or put in danger by something she told her. Or perhaps Melanie did not want to share much because the less she shared, the less Sharon would suspect that she was guilty. 

Sharon went back to the yearbook website and printed out a picture of Melanie Jackson. A teenage mom turned yogi, college professor, and counselor was a somewhat irregular path. She did not have statistics, but she was sure that Melanie's life represented the road less traveled.

Sharon jotted down Melanie's daughter's name and birthday. After that, she ran Adriana's name through the system, but could not find a trace of her. There was a chance that Adriana had simply never signed up for the website, but Sharon wondered if perhaps she had not graduated high school. As a troubled youth, she might not have finished twelfth grade.

Sharon spent the rest of the day looking for gaps and holes in the narrative. She needed to reconstruct Adriana's life from the age of sixteen onwards. Sharon spent some time searching online for more information; she dug further and found out that Adriana had taken 'The General Educational Development' GED test, not a high school diploma, meaning that not only had she lived in Maury County but was a dropout while she was there. Sharon considered all the trouble Adriana could have got into as a teenager with so much free time, and wondered what she had done to keep herself occupied.

Several other names came up in a search of possible relatives. Names that Sharon expected popped up. Nicholas Davies, Adriana's parents Ralph and Julia Davies, and Chase Reed. But there was also another name: Sam DaCosta. Sharon typed 'Sam DaCosta' into the computer and received several mug shots in the results. She opened another tab and looked for address information for Sam DaCosta. A few addresses popped up for him. One included Melanie Jackson and Adriana Davies was listed along with DaCosta, for another address. Adriana and Melanie had lived with the same guy? Sharon thought.

Next, Sharon entered DaCosta's name into the Offender Tracking Information System and found out that he had committed a few minor offenses in Maury County, and Sweetwater, but those were all dated crimes. Sam was currently serving five 15-to 60 yrs concurrent sentences for s****l misconduct. He also had committed a crime as a juvenile and had been locked up from the age of fifteen to nineteen. It looked like he had been released in January 1998 and Kiara had been born in December 1998. That meant he had met Melanie, who would have been fifteen when he was released and got her pregnant almost immediately.

An attempted murder at the age of fifteen was usually a sign of things to come. It was not a stretch to think that Sam DaCosta had committed the crime close to, if not within the boundaries of Maury County. Sharon guessed that he had grown up in the area, and that was why Melanie ended up living there. Sharon's former area was just outside the jurisdiction that held the now non-functioning school from which Melanie had graduated, and Sharon assumed that Sam DaCosta had also attended. 

Sharon searched through a newspaper database using the Redcliff High School and 'stabbing' as a keyword. Several hits popped up, but only one took place in 1993, the year Sam Dacosta was detained. Since he had been a juvenile, no names were used, but the article described a gang fight that ended with one student being stabbed in the head. That definitely fell into the attempted murder category, but that area of the city had been teeming with violence at the time, due to the c***k cocaine epidemic. DaCosta could have been the perpetrator, but so could any other violent youth in the area. Sharon thought of old-timers on the police force that might be pining for a stroll down memory lane. Sharon wondered if there were still guys around the area who remembered the stabbing, or the kid who had committed the crime. She sent Detective Mike Jackson a text asking if he had heard of Sam DaCosta. Her phone rang a few minutes after the text was sent. 

"Hey, Mike. What can you tell me about him?" Sharon asked.

Mike was quiet on the other end. After hesitating and sighing, he said, "I am busy for the next couple of days, but don't move on this thing until we talk, okay?"

"I will do my best. What can you tell me now?" Sharon asked him.

"Slow down, Sharon. Just wait for a few days and we will meet up." A sharp edge of warning was in his voice. Sharon heeded it.

"Okay. Call me when you are free and we will set something up," she said.

After Sharon hung up, her head started to spin with questions that were not going to be answered that evening. She closed her laptop, curled up on the couch, and slept until the next morning.

                                                                       ************

The cold morning air brought fluffy snowflakes. Sharon was snuggled under a light brown blanket, her head bent at a slightly awkward angle. Shaking off the pain in her neck, she went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, and headed for the shower. At 6:30 a.m, she slipped on a pair of black slacks and a yellow button-down blouse. Next, she sent Stuart a text telling him to meet her at the Blue Grill at 7:30 for breakfast. Just as she was heading out of the door, Mr. Davies called and agreed to meet at 10:00 a.m. that morning.