Hidden Truth: Missing in a Small Town

Chapter 4

"So what are you telling me, Bruno?"

The short officer stretched, arching his back and pushing his rotund belly even further out over the edge of his belt. "Well, we lost the trail right here, and neither of the dogs picked it up again... In our experience, that usually means the victim got into a car."

Damn.

"You're sure?"

"Positive, if there was anything to find, this little lady would have found it." Officer Bruno Turner patted the German shepherd at his side affectionately. Further down the road, Officer Wilder was making a serpentine pattern across the worn asphalt road, his own dog's nose tight to the ground.

Bruno noticed my glance, and said, "Ajax hasn't found anything either, but Wilder is taking him for one more try. They have both lost the track right here every time we have taken them down the road. Like I said, if there was more track, Vesper here would have picked up on it."

I sighed and thanked the officers for their time and expertise. I had worked with Bruno in the past and trusted his opinion, but in this case, I wished he was wrong. An unknown vehicle picking up Erica a half mile down the street from Melissa Ramirez's home complicated the case even further, and didn't give me a good feeling about the outcome.

An extensive search of the region around the Ramirez home had failed to yield any promising evidence. Now the rain, which had started as a light drizzle, was beginning to come down in earnest, making the possibility of finding evidence in the forms of prints in the area even more slim.

It was turning into a shit show of a day, with nothing to show for it. I hoped the interviews would reveal more.

----

"Commencing the interview of Melissa Ramirez in case 181002337. The date is September 2, 2018, and the time is 1:43 PM. Melissa, why don't you start by telling us what happened two days ago on the evening of August 31?"

The girl sitting in the seat across from me was small, and very nervous. She had been wringing her tiny hands in her lap since she sat down. Her long, black hair hung in sheets on either side of her bowed head, obscuring her face. At my question, she looked up and her brown eyes briefly made contact with mine, then shifted back down into her lap.

"Um... from which part?" Her voice was barely audible.

As unobtrusively as possible, I slid the recorder across the table capture her words. "How about when you picked Erica up at her house?"

Melissa nodded and glanced up at me again, her thick black lashes fringed with tears. "Okay... well, you know school starts tomorrow?" Her timid voice held the hint of a question, and I nodded encouragingly at her, assuring her that I did indeed know that fact and urging her to continue.

She set her shoulders and exhaled forcefully, then started speaking in a rush.

After picking Erica up at her mother's house, the girls had gone back to Melissa's to freshen up before going to the county fair. "We had plans to meet our friends there at four." It was going to be their last big get together before the start of their senior year.

"Which friends?"

"Chase, Logan, Whitney," she hesitated, biting her lip, "and Paul, Erica's boyfriend. That's like, our usual group."

"Then what happened?"

The adolescents had all met together at the fair, a popular social event for teenagers. After hours of eating fried food and playing carnival games, the kids had decided to call it a night and head back to Melissa's house. But on their way out, something had happened.