The Mysterious Case of Adana Schifini

The year is 1989. September, the leaves of the trees in the crisp air have changed colors in the small-town area of Maplesville. Richard Schifini walks through his home into his kitchen at 3:36 in the afternoon with a bottle of Hennessey in his hands. He brings the half-empty bottle to his fingertips and twists the top off of the glass bottle.

“Do you drink?” Richard asks the detective on his daughter’s case for the past three years. Ryland Goodwards. Ryland shakes his head no before putting out his cigarette that he isn’t supposed to smoking in the first place. His brown-blonde hair displays on his head as a heap of mess, you can see how tired he is by the bags under his eyes, and the stress just drips off his words as he speaks, the same as Richard’s except his voice is full of sadness.

Richard nods at him and pours the brown liquid into the glass already set in front of his spot at the table. He sighs and sits down and scans the once cherry wooden table now littered with newspaper articles reading:

“Twenty-Two-Year-Old Woman Still Missing Three Years Later Still No Clues”

“New Leads on the Missing Girl in The Yellow Dress”

“Father of Missing College Student: ‘We Just Want Peace, Help Us Please!’”

“If you would have been asked if she’s dead, what would your answer be?” Ryland asks after starting his tape recorder. He’s in the process of writing a book on the family since he feels like he was close enough the family to record the process of this case. He wanted America, and hopefully the world to read the side of a grieving friends and family of a loved and loving woman.

“If anyone were to ask me if she’s dead my answer would be, naw. If they were to ask me why, my answer would be simple. She’s my daughter, I know my daughter. That feelin’ of your child bein’ alive is always there in a parent’s heart, even if the parent ain’t near ‘em it thrives, it’s the reason why my heart still beats today. When that feelin’ is gone it’s like a heart attack, I would imagine, because the pain of losin’ your child is the feelin’ of bein’ broken hearted.”

“What was Adana like when she was still here?” Ryland asks going for another stick of the handheld cancer item.

Richard smiles and chuckles, the image of his oldest daughter going through his mind vividly. “She a homebody, yeah. She likes to stay at home and write, cause she wanted to be a writer. She be listenin’ to the radio in her room while gossipin’ with my youngest daughter, Aileen, while doing her nails, and I be standing outside the door without either of them knowin’, just listenin’ and smilin’ at the thing’s kids do these days. Lard, how our times have changed, but that was our regular Friday night.” Richard leans back in his chair and looks ahead at the window outside, remembering the day where he couldn’t wait for her to show up or call. The day he went to the cops, they just… laughed at him.

“The cop’s first answer was, ‘It’s the 80’s. Teenagers are always runnin’ off to experience life out there, she’ll be back.′. I believe they laughed it off because we a black family, yeah, times have changed but us black folks still got hurdles to jump over.” Richard shakes his head, covering the space on his philtrum, the rest of his hand resting on his lips. “But my daughter don’t run off to experience life. She not interested in what life gotta offer because she enjoys what life has given her already. I just can’t imagine my daughter gone out to have fun and just not come back, or at least warn her father or sister first. She just too careful.”

Richard leans forward in his chair and looks back at the incomplete wall with random squares behind Ryland. Ryland follows his gaze to the wall showing off how fresh the off-white paint was when the picture was first put up. Richard gets up from his seat at the kitchen once more before going over to the coat closet, Ryland’s eyes following.

“I had to take ’em down, the photos.” He says with his head held down in disappointment. “Wasn’t good for my daughter... Aileen that is.”

Richard then opens the closet and pulls out a moving box, he sets the box on the floor and opens it up to pull out a picture of his two daughters. In the picture, they stand in front of the home that they live in now. He sighs remembering the moment this was taken under the hot sun in the summer of ’72.

“Aileen was six, Adana was eight,” Richard recalls showing the picture to Ryland so he could see. “I had let Adana dress since she never got the chance to, I had come to that conclusion this one Thanksgiving. Yeah, man, she came out in a baby blue shirt with a bright pink skirt with polka dots on, and black socks with white shoes. Until that day I never allowed her to dress. But I was satisfied with what she wore that day.” Richard says actually smirking for a good reason for once remembering the day the picture was taken.

“Okay, okay!” Adana smiles running at her father and little sister. Her white-collared dress matched with bright yellow socks, her brand new white shoes that she picked out herself, and a white hat that blocked out the hot Arizona sun.

Richard waves his hand to her to come on his left side as the strong wind blows by. Adana holds her hat on top of her head while her dress flopped and danced around her in the weight of the breeze.

The family smiles at the camera before the picture is taken, capturing Adana holding her white hat, 33-year-old Richard smiling wide wearing a white shirt with brown pants held up by a black belt with matching leather shoes, and finally six-year-old Aileen smiling missing two front teeth wearing a blue dress that she forced Richard to let her wear with her white ruffle socks and black shoes. They stand in front of the two-story white house, three windows on the top floor with two big windows on the lower level and a red door with a golden knocker.

Richard sighs again this time in sadness, he sets the picture on the floor gently and pulls out another picture of Aileen and Adana in the winter of ’79 at the age of 15 and 12. Adana is wearing a green turtleneck and a skinny black belt with freshly ironed brown pants with her hair standing out as a curly afro, she spent all morning perfecting it. And 12-year-old Aileen sits there in the chair in Adana’s room. Aileen wears a long sleeve bright yellow shirt with blue pants that have daisies on them. Both of her hands hold the side of her head that’s turned to the camera in pure agony and pain with her eyes squeezed shut.

“Oh, poor, Aileen.” Richard smiles engrossed in the photo. “Aileen begged Adana to straighten her hair cause she wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett from, uh,” Richard snaps his fingers to help him catch the name of the show that Aileen used to watch. “Charlie’s Angels. She loved that show and made Adana watch it with her knowin’ she wasn’t that entertained by it.”

Richard’s eyes begin to water as he chuckles at the painful but hilarious memory of his two girls. “It was more of a challenge since Aileen’s hair is way more different than Adana’s. It almost didn’t work cause her hair was too long, but Adana got it to work with a slot of hairspray.”

He pulls out another picture and this time he takes a deep breath seeing the last picture that was taken of 22-year-old Adana. She had just gotten out of the car, that she shares with Aileen from time to time. She hadn’t yet closed the door with the wind capturing her yellow dress that touched down to her knees and the middle of her bicep with matching yellow shoes. She decided to wear her natural bushy, but very curly, black hair because if she decided to style it, she’d be three hours late for work at the diner. She’s holding her apron over her forearm with her matching yellow purse on her shoulder, unbeknownst that 18-year-old Aileen has just taken a picture of her.

“This is the last picture we have her, can’t tell me wrong ‘cause she went missin’ that night. The night of that storm.” Richard recalls before his tears fall onto the photo. “She was 22 at the time, Adana. Yeah, she used to work at Loco’s Diner. Aileen was freshly 18 at the time and I will never forget how Aileen came back home, but Adana never did.”

He keeps going through the photos telling Ryland various stories and showing him the pictures while doing it before falling on the Missing Person description of Adana that he had cut out.

Adana is 5′10 ½ with medium brown skin, brown eyes, she has curly, bushy, black hair that reaches her neck. She was last seen wearing a yellow dress with buttons down the chest that stopped above the knee and stopped at the middle of her biceps, she was wearing yellow heels and a yellow purse to match with her outfit. She was last seen approximately 12 a.m. Wednesday, July 17, 1986.

So far, the only leads are her yellow purse that was found by the alleyway with her everything that she carried in it except her ID and a ripped piece of pantyhose that might be hers. The night that she went missing had been raining for hours and it didn’t stop raining until seven in the morning of the next day. Richard went to report it but the lady at the front desk had told him to wait 72 hours before complaining so he went back home and called everyone he knew. But no one had seen her.

Richard down to dig deeper in the box and pulls out a black book that was actually a journal. You can tell it’s been worn through with the coffee stains on the pages and a wave-like pattern from when Adana accidentally left her backpack in the rain, it had random scribbles on the pages throughout the book.

“Aileen found it on her bookshelf hidden between her books.” Richard holds the journal in one hand and holds it up for Ryland. “You really think you know your kid until you read one of these.”