The couple hated the house on Latour. It was one of a bunch of North Port houses that had been built but had not sold, so they were put up for rent at $800 a month. It was a good location for him to get to and from work. However, trouble started right away. They’d only been living there for a couple of weeks when someone stole $600 worth of CDs and a pair of Oakley sunglasses out of Nate’s car, which he’d left unlocked in the driveway. They’d been there for two weeks and already they were trying to figure out how they were going to get out of their lease. They would have had to pay the rent there until they got someone else to move in, and nobody else was going to want to rent that house. They couldn’t put a security system in the house because it wasn’t theirs. He worried because Denise didn’t work and she was home alone with the babies every day.
Nate followed the same routine every morning, up at six-ten, out the door by six-twenty. He showered at night, had his clothes laid out—in the morning, he did nothing. Didn’t eat breakfast. Put his clothes on, grabbed his phone and wallet, then headed out the door. Monday through Friday, weekends off.
For a time, he had a second job at a Winn-Dixie. He dropped it just that past December because he never got to see his family. The boys would be asleep when he left, asleep when he got home.
They paid the bills—rent, car, insurance, phone, Internet—just barely each month. It always came down to the last penny.
This most recent Christmas season, he’d had a few gigs playing the trumpet with the Venice Symphony, in churches and things like that.
He admitted to a small amount of tension at home, just because Denise wanted to go out all the time—because she was stuck in the house—and he wanted to stay in, because he was out all the time. When they did go out, it was usually so the boys could see their grandparents, both sets, or to go to the mall or Walmart.
He knew her routine pretty well. He talked to her every day, several times throughout the day. He would put her on speakerphone and talk to her as he worked. Noah got up between seven and eight every morning. That’s when Denise would get up. Adam woke up not long after that. Adam could talk to himself in his crib for hours and be fine; but the second Noah woke up, he needed attention. She would breast-feed Adam and give Noah oatmeal and chocolate milk. She watched TV a lot, went on the Internet, talked with her friends on Myspace. She put pictures of the kids on there, but she only communicated with people she knew.
The boys napped in the early afternoon. They had lunch midafternoon. She’d make Noah a sandwich—grilled cheese. The only time she would leave the house was to go to the store—and only then when they actually needed something, if they were out of juice or something like that. She would have to take the boys with her. They did not use a sitter much.
“Nobody wanted to drive all the way out to North Port to watch them,” Nate said.
She didn’t go shopping for fun with the boys because Noah would want to run around, and it was too stressful. They’d gone to the park maybe once since they moved to North Port. Maybe once they went to Walmart to get a money order. She couldn’t even go to the gas station with the kids because she had to pay in cash, and it was a hassle. They did those things together. He drove a ’95 Dodge Avenger. Denise drove a Corolla.
One thing that made Nate nervous was that she would walk around the house wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear—and she didn’t necessarily always have the blinds closed. He would tell her to close the blinds and she would say, “No one can see,” because the house was so secluded. He said it was true that there were no neighbors who could look in, but a driver on the street could see “right in.”
For the past month, the weather was nice and Denise had been opening windows, and raising the blinds so they wouldn’t blow in the wind. There were screens, but that was it. He knew for a fact that the windows were open on Thursday because he’d talked to her that morning and she’d said so.
There were two locks on the front door—one on the handle and a dead bolt. They locked both at night; but during the day, usually just the handle was locked.
One potential security problem with the house was the garage door—the door from the garage into the house, which didn’t lock all the time. They’d had a problem with it since they moved in.
The detectives asked Nate about events of the recent past. Tuesday night, he’d had rehearsal. Wednesday night, they’d had dinner with his parents. During that night, she’d gotten up a couple of times in the middle of the night because she was having her period. He thought she was wearing a white shirt, but he couldn’t be sure.
On Thursday, he’d called Denise about 7:55 A.M., which was early, and he’d been afraid she would still be asleep. But she was up and they had a five-minute conversation.
He also talked to her around eleven o’clock. She said she’d taken a shower. He asked her what was for dinner. She said she had chicken out or they could have pasta, but they were out of ingredients for that. She also said they were out of milk and juice—and he had the money.
He talked to her less than normal that morning. It was raining and he wanted to get his route done as quickly as possible because he wasn’t enjoying getting wet. When he did finish, he called home to see if he still needed to go to the store and to let Denise know he’d be home by three-thirty.
No answer.
The phone was ringing all the way through, so he knew it was turned on. He called again, and again. Six, seven times. He figured she must have gone to the store and left her phone at home. When he got home, the first thing he noticed was that the windows were shut, garage door shut, Denise’s car in the driveway, and front door locked. He opened it with a key.
When he got inside, he saw Denise’s phone on the reclining chair near the front door. It was plugged into a charger and said: Seven missed calls. Then he heard Noah, who was in Adam’s crib with Adam. Very odd. Denise would never allow that. Noah was so much bigger than Adam, and he didn’t completely know how to be gentle. Nate picked up Noah; then he checked the bedroom and bathroom. No Denise. He began yelling her name. Checked the whole house, opened all the closets, pulled back the covers on the bed, went outside and checked all sides of the house, called 911, went to a neighbor’s house and knocked on the door. Seen my wife? They said no. Both kids had full diapers. He changed the diapers and asked Noah where Mommy was. Noah pointed in the bedroom, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. The windows were shut but not locked. That wasn’t right. They were either open or closed and locked. Nothing was broken. It was 82 degrees in the house, so Nate turned on the AC.
At some point, he tried calling his mother-in-law—no answer. Then he called Rick, who said he was on his way. It started hitting Nate then, and he began to cry. The next time he looked out the window, the first police car was pulling up. Two police cars came. A few minutes later, Rick arrived. Nate dressed the boys. Police kicked everyone out and shut down the house as a potential crime scene.
The search for Denise Lee utilized the combined strength of the areas’ multiple law enforcement agencies. Canine search-and-rescue were active. Sheriff’s deputies from two counties, North Port cops, Fish & Wildlife agents, Animal Services, and Florida Highway Patrol all had people searching.
There were even civilian volunteers; some working in coordination with officials, some out on their own. All off-duty officers reported for duty.
Trooper Eddie Pope, the arresting officer, appreciated the numbers. It was a hell of a search team, but the game plan missed the mark. The evidence on the car was still wet. They should just draw a circle around the point of the arrest—or better yet, three or four hundred feet south on Toledo Blade, where he first saw the Camaro.
The trooper joined up with a corporal and went to a search command center at Sumter. He talked to some bigwigs he hadn’t seen before. They had it wrong.
Three hundred searchers all over the grid. No disrespect, but Pope was pretty sure Denise was close to the arrest site.