Chapter Nine

Lazily she clicks into her emails, checking out the events of the previous day. A few misdemeanors, a couple of transfers, the usual boring stuff. Whenever the Sargent wasn't around, she would look at the murder files, armed robberies, and missing persons. But lately she was sneaking a peek at all of the evidence that was being collected on missing persons. 3 so far and now they are saying there is a missing boy. 14 years old. She wonders if there is any connection. Probably not as there are no similarities between them that anyone can detect.
She is busy making her own notes practicing double duty. What do they know so far? Missing person # 1 Yvette A Turner, a middle-aged office manager last seen driving home from work. Missing since June of last year.

Missing person # 2 Young woman bartender Sandra Jean Jesperson, she disappeared in middle of a work shift last seen at work. Missing 9 months.

Missing person # 3 Olesia Strabynski a mother of 3, housewife grocery store charge on cc last evidence of location. Missing 4 months.

And now a teenage boy Buddy Stang - last seen when he left school at lunch.

No one seems to think these are connected but something in her gut tells her otherwise. The most unusual one is the boy. Three women and a boy, maybe he is just a runaway teenager and that's why he doesn't fit. Maybe. But again, her instincts are telling her to look a little harder. She decides to do a little investigating on her own. She heads over to the files and pulls out the first missing person file, Yvette Turner. Bringing it back to her desk she does a quick look to make sure no one was paying attention to her and that the Seargent isn't anywhere to be found.

She opens the file and grabs a notepad. Yvette Turner, 44. Husband, Frank Turner called in when his wife didn't come home after work. Her car, a 2010 Hyundai was later found at the end of Chester Lane, around 6 miles East outside of the town limits 1 week after she was reported missing. No other evidence was found at the scene. The car was towed to the impound lot and a thorough combing of the vehicle commenced. Nothing unusual appeared to be in or around the vehicle. No unknown prints were found on the vehicle. The keys were in the ignition and her purse was on the seat. Nothing missing. As if she just parked the car and walked away. An investigation of the scene was conducted and again nothing appeared unusual. There were tire tracks and impressions were made, however the tire tracks were a common tread and brand. Unlikely to find anything there. There was one farm far down the road from the entrance to the gravel road. An interview of the homeowners indicated that, other than seeing the abandoned car, they didn't see or know anything else. The brush and bushes were checked, and the mountain rangers did a complete combing of the surrounding forest. To this date no evidence of her whereabouts has been found.

There are notes from the interview with the farm owners, her fellow employees at the office, her husband, and her children. Although her children were adults and didn't live in the home with her husband.

Terry thought she would check out the area where the car was found, maybe re-interview the husband. Sometimes things come to your mind after the fact and she may be able to trigger some new leads. She looks at the photo of the woman. She sees nothing remarkable. Middle aged brunette with shoulder length hair. Brown eyes, glasses and in this photo, she is smiling. Beside her is assumed her husband. He is average height and build balding and slightly overweight. Terry takes out her cell phone and snaps a couple of photos of the contents of the file and carefully slips it back into the file cabinet. Now she has a start.

She waits until the end of her official shift and then climbs into her personal vehicle. She checks her notes and looks at the pictures in her phone. She will head out and re-interview the husband.

She pulls up to the double wide on private property. Knocks on the door and a woman answers. She has scraggly shoulder length hair and dark eyes with circles under them. She is wearing an oversized T-shirt and ripped jeans.

"Can I help you?" she says after taking a long drag on a half-smoked cigarette, blowing the smoke to the side.

"Hello, I am Detective Terry Smythe of the Bozeman Police department, is Frank Turner home?" she asks. She does a quick scan of what she can see of the inside of the trailer. It's dark with 70's wood paneling on the walls, garbage strewn over what she could see of the countertops. Evidence of drinking is also on the surface. The young woman at the door smelled of old alcohol. She surmised that this woman was probably an addict of some sort by the sunken cheeks and evidence of damaged teeth.

"Nah, he went to the liquor store. He should be back in about a half an hour. I'll tell him you were here."

Terry produces a card and tells her to have him call her on her cell. As Terry turns and starts to walk away a blue pickup truck comes into the gravel driveway, the owner cursing "Who parked in my spot!"

"Mr. Turner, I am detective Terry Smythe. Can you answer a couple of questions?"
"I already answered a bunch of questions before what new can I tell you?" He says squinting at the sunlight in his eyes.

"I understand Mr. Turner but this should only take a minute."

He trudges past her carrying a couple of cases of beer. He gestures to the woman at the door, passes her the beer. He points to the inside of the trailer and the woman disappears inside closing the door behind her.

"Ok then let's shoot. Waddaya wanna know?"

Terry is mentally taking note of the entire surroundings. It seemed that this used to be a well-kept trailer that had only recently seen harder times. Even the old blue pickup truck seemed to have more recent dents and bumps in it.

"Can you tell me about the last time you saw your wife?"

"What's to say. She got up for work as usual and left. Nothing new."

"Ok, I understand. How was her mood? Was she complacent or complaining about anything?"
"Nah, she usually complained about stupid things, but nothing seemed more than usual. She has this one co-worker that irritated her, but she didn't say anything in particular."

"Mr. Turner. No disrespect but what may seem like stupid things can sometimes lead to more important things. Can you tell me the name of the co-worker she had seemed to have problems with?"

"Uh yeah, it uhm some guy named Joe something or other. I'm not too sure but like a Russian or Polish name with a ski at the end. That's all I remember."

"Thank you, Mr. Turner. Now did your wife have a cell phone?"

"Yeah, but it was in the car, and it was taken by your office. But that was her work phone. Her personal cell phone is here. For some reason she forgot it that day."

"Mr. Turner, I am going to need that phone. Please go and get it for me." She waited for him to come back out of the trailer with the cell phone.

"Mr. Turner, who is the woman in your trailer?" She asks.

"Who? Her? She's no-one. Meaning, I met her after my wife disappeared. Long after."
His instance on not divulging more details was interesting and she decided to press it a little more.

"I just need her name for my records."

"Uh it's a Shannon...Shannon Beadle. B..E..A..D..L..E."

"Ok Mr. Turner, if anything else comes to mind, here is my card. Call anytime."

"Uhm Detective Smythe?" A look of intense pain crossed his face and made his blood shot eyes momentarily shine. "Do you think you will ever find her?"

"Mr. Turner, I can only promise you to do my best."

Terry left with the cell phone in her possession. Now she had something more to go on.