The girl is pretty, with dark brown hair and wide, guileless eyes. I guess her age to be about twelve. She’s still more interested in horses than boys, and isn’t nearly as happy as the horse to be the center of attention.
“Hi, Mandy.” I extend my hand and we shake.
“Hi.” The girl’s palm is wet with sweat, telling me to tread lightly if I’m to loosen up her memory and pry something—anything—useful out of her brain.
I run my hand down the horse’s neck. “Is this big boy yours?”
A grin overtakes her face. “That’s Paxton.”
“Hey, Paxton.” I give the horse a pat. “What do you do with him?”
“We just started barrel racing.”
“I bet that’s fun.”
“Except when she hits the barrel,” a girl who is a younger version of Mandy blurts out.
Mandy rolls her eyes. “At least I don’t fall off like you.”
“Girls.” Elaina sets her hand on the younger girl’s shoulder and starts to play with her hair. “Let the chief ask her questions.”
I turn my attention back to Mandy. “Can you tell me what you saw yesterday?”
The other girls inch closer, as if they don’t want to miss a word. Mandy swallows. “Sometimes I take Paxton down the road after we practice barrels to cool him off. I saw that Amish girl walking along the road down by that old barn, and this car drove up next to her. She walked over and started talking to someone.”
“Did you see who she was talking to?”
“No.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“It was just old and kind of gross-looking.” Her eyes dart left as she tries to recall. “Dark. Blue, I think.”
I glance at Rasmussen and see him jot something in his note pad; then I turn my attention back to Mandy. “Do you know what time that was?”
“Around seven-thirty.”
I glance through the door toward the gravel lane. “When you go down the road, do you go left or right?”
“Left. We usually ride down to the bridge.”
I’m familiar with the bridge. It’s about a half a mile down the road and spans a small stream and greenbelt that separates a soybean field from a cornfield.
“Was the driver a man or a woman?” I ask.
Her eyes slide toward her mom, who gives her an encouraging nod. “I couldn’t tell.”
“Did Sadie get into the car?” I ask.
She knows where I’m going with my line of questioning; I see it in her eyes. And for the first time, the girl looks scared. “I don’t know.”
“Did you notice which direction the car went?”
“It was still there when I left.”
I give her a smile. “You did great, Mandy. Thank you.” I turn my attention to Elaina and hand her my card. “If she remembers something later, will you give me a call? My cell number is on the back. I’m available day or night.”
The woman gives me a firm nod and lowers her voice. “God bless you guys. I hope you find that girl safe and sound.”
A few minutes later, I’m back in the Tahoe, idling past the bridge where Mandy Reiglesberger claims to have seen Sadie Miller talking to someone in a vaguely described vehicle. It’s not much to go on—not enough to go on—but it’s all I’ve got.
I’ve called Tomasetti and asked for a list of individuals in Holmes and Coshocton counties who own dark-colored cars more than three years old. But we both know extracting any useful information is a long shot. Still, I could whittle down the results to pedophiles or males convicted of a sex crime in the last five years. It’s a start.
I park on the gravel shoulder a few yards from the bridge. Looking in my rearview mirror, I see Rasmussen pull over behind me. We exit our vehicles and meet on the shoulder.
He looks toward the west, where the sun has already sunk behind a purple bank of clouds. “It’s going to be dark in half an hour.”
Trying not to feel as if we’re wasting our time, I motion left. “I’ll go east and you go west. Let’s see what we can find.”
He nods and we start in opposite directions.
There isn’t much traffic along this deserted stretch. Two miles to the east, the road dead-ends at the county dump, which is chained off except on Saturday mornings. The asphalt is pitted and narrow, with a centerline that’s been scoured by tires and the elements. I walk the narrow shoulder, my eyes skimming the grassy bar ditch, the fence, the soybean field, and the macadam on my left. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Anything that seems out of place. Signs of a struggle. Skid marks. None of those things is indicative of a crime. But sometimes building a case is akin to putting a puzzle together. Alone, the pieces mean nothing. But when you arrange them in a meaningful way, a picture emerges.
Several minutes pass with no luck. I’m ever aware of the fading light, birdsong being replaced by a chorus of crickets in the woods. Near the bridge, I find a beer can and the ragged remnants of a paper towel. There’s a plastic Baggie that looks as if it’s been ripped to shreds by some animal. Twenty yards past the bridge, I notice horse hoof marks in the gravel. There are more in the grass, along with a pile of horse manure. I know now that this is where Mandy Reiglesberger rides.
I’m about to turn back, when I notice a single skid mark from a short, hard stop. It’s not unusual to see rubber marks on any roadway. People brake for animals. Teenagers, armed with new driver’s licenses, perform peel-outs to flaunt their horse power and show off for their friends.
These particular skid marks are fresh. My heart jigs when I spot a thin brown cigarette lying in the gravel. It’s smoked halfway down and it’s been run over at least once. Pulling a glove from a compartment on my belt, I slip it over my right hand. I’m an instant away from picking it up when I discern the scent of cloves. And I have proof—at least in my own mind—that at some point Sadie was here.
I glance over my shoulder, see the sheriff wading through knee-high grass fifty yards back. “Rasmussen! I think I found something! Bring the camera!”
Nodding, he starts toward his vehicle.
I return my attention to the skid mark. Cursing the swiftly falling darkness, I follow the direction of the skid to a disturbance in the gravel and a place where the grass has been flattened by a tire. It’s as if someone made a U-turn in the middle of the road. There’s no identifiable tread. Five feet from the skid mark, I find the one thing I didn’t want to find: a dark, irregularly shaped stain. I know immediately it’s blood.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter, staving off a crushing sense of helplessness.
“Looks like blood.”
I turn at the sound of Rasmussen’s voice.
He pulls a Mini Maglite from his belt and sets the beam on the stain. “Might not be hers.” He looks around, his eyes going to the wooded area at the bridge. “Could be from an animal that got hit. Raccoon or possum that came up from that creek.”
“Maybe.” But I don’t think that’s the case. More than likely, if an animal had been struck by a car, the carcass would be lying nearby. I motion toward the cigarette butt a few feet away. “Sadie Miller smoked clove cigarettes.”
We kneel next to the stain. There’s not enough blood to form a pool like the one in Buck Creek. This one is elongated and looks more like a smear, or a scrape.
Wishing for a magnifying glass, I lean close. I see what looks like bits of flesh that have been abraded by the rough surface. My eyes land on something in the center of the stain, sending a scatter of goose bumps over my arms. “A hair,” I hear myself say.
“Human?”