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Everybody who is anybody in my small town could tell you about the disappearance of the Lechtler family. Some could probably write a book, more elegantly than me, because it's just one of those stories; a mystery with more questions than answers. But I'll do my best.
The year is 1994.
A man calls to reserve a room at the White Valley Hotel. He needs the reservation for the next night, and he will pay cash, only cash. If he can't pay cash, he will speak to the owner, Billy, who is a known pushover, and desperate for the money. The man is specific about the room. Number 13. No exceptions. No switches. He will require a king size bed, with two twins, and a bottle of brandy, wrapped in gift paper, ready to go on the dresser. He will also need towels for four.

The desk and service staff go about their preparations. The bellhop drive to the store and buy the brandy. The maids shuffle two extra beds into room thirteen. They clean, and clean, and clean again, because this is a new client, and business is bad. Business is always bad in White Valley.

The next day - the Lechtlers show up.

According to the bellhop, the father appears educated. He wears thick, horn rimmed glasses, which fit snugly over buzzed and graying hair. He is dressed in a brown button down shirt, with fresh ironed black slacks, and polished shoes. The mother, decked out in a floral print dress, ushers the wailing children like braying sheep. The Lechtlers have one boy and one girl. Each are under ten years old, and the young boy appears to be sick, because his coughs and wheezes echo through the empty halls of the hotel. Numerous guests hear his hacks throughout the night.

Mr. Lechtler hands over an envelope. The sleeve is filled with money. He doesn't offer an explanation, and the White Valley staff doesn't ask for one. The clerk confirms the booking. The bellhop leads the family to their room.

Number 13 is nothing extraordinary. On the surface, it looks like all the other rooms. A large and complicated armoire stores everything from extra power outlets to a mini fridge. There is a bathroom at the back, with a stand-in shower, and a small coat closet beside it. An oak desk sits catty cornered against the wall, and the king bed is decorated lushly, with plush pillows, a fuzzy blanket, and prototypical cream-colored sheets and comforters. A small window, on the west side, looks out into the lake below. The room can actually seem pretty peaceful, considering the modern circumstances, if it catches you at the right time of day.

The Lechtlers say goodnight. When the bellhop leaves for the evening, the father is perched at the desk, with a thousand papers spread out in front of him, and a fresh glass of liquor at the ready. Some folks assume Mr. Lechtler is a doctor. Others swear he is a scientist. It really doesn't matter, at this point, because the end result is the same. By morning, every single member of the Lechtler family is gone.

That's it. Gone. Vanished without a trace.

The room is made up. The bags are gone. The papers are gone. The twin beds have small creases in the sheets, where the children must have sat momentarily, but the bedding itself is barely disturbed. The shower in the bathroom is damp. Somebody must have used it. But every other trace of the family dropped from the face of the hotel.

The bellhop calls White Valley PD. Billy doesn't want that, at first. He insists that the guests went out. Maybe they would come back, and then wouldn't they be furious, launching an investigation into something as simple as a breakfast trip. But he must know the argument is futile. His employees are worried. The boy was sick. The woods outside the hotel are vast and foreboding. Anyone venturing out that late at night in the nineties risks something serious.

The police comb the hotel with a fine tooth comb. Nothing turns up. They check the basement. They check the room. They check the property. They look into the name Lechtler, to no avail, and declare it more than likely a pseudonym. Soon the police are looking for the town's help, ridiculously, instead of the other way around. Stories about the family volley around town like a game of telephone. Some people say the Lechtlers were spies. Some people say they were in witness protection. But the one story, the most disturbing of all, and the one that sits in the forefront of every locals mind, even if they don't mention it; is that the Lechtler family was murdered.