by Blake Pierce
Kate heard someone yelling a response from inside, but she could not understand what was being said. She also heard running footsteps coming toward the door. Barnes stepped back, Foster flanking to his right. Kate and DeMarco stood behind them, hands on their weapons, ready to draw if necessary.
The door was opened quickly, making all four of them tense up. But when Kate saw the absolute terror and confusion on the face of the man that stood there, she stood down a bit. He was dressed only in boxers, still pulling on a pair of pants as he stood at the door. Todd Ramsey’s hair was tousled and in disarray. His eyes were till slightly hazed from sleep. He looked to be about forty-five or so—and many of those years had been hard ones. He noticed that Barnes had his gun drawn and took a clumsy step back.
“What’s going on?” Todd Ramsey asked. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
Barnes did not ask to be invited inside. He simply walked through the opened front door with Foster on his heels. Barnes turned back to Kate and gave her a nod, indicating that he wanted her to pick it up from here.
He’s smart, she thought. He used local credentials to get things started and now that we’re inside, it becomes more legitimate.
“Mr. Ramsey, we have proof that you paid for gasoline last night with a credit card that is not yours. Would you like to tell us where you got the card?”
He looked instantly guilty, but the confusion was still on his face. “Yeah…shit, sorry. But is that what this is about? That card…”
“That credit card belonged to a fifteen-year-old girl named Mercy Fuller,” Kate said, putting on her best authoritative voice. It was pleasing to see just how easily she could still slip in and out of it.
“That name ring a bell?” Barnes said.
“No, it—”
“I find that hard to believe,” Kate interrupted. “Her name has been all over the news. A local girl. Think hard.”
“That’s right,” he said, his voice trembling. “Her folks were killed. But I had no idea it was her card.”
“Mr. Ramsey, this is quite serious,” Kate said. “Mercy Fuller has been missing for three days now. And all of a sudden, you’re found using her credit card.”
The weight of what they were accusing him of seemed to land on him like a bomb. His eyes grew wide and he took another step backward. “Whoa. Hold on. No.”
“No what?” Foster asked.
“I have nothing to do with it! I swear, I had no idea it was her card!”
“Where is it that card now?” Kate asked.
“In my wallet.”
“Where?” Barnes asked.
“In my bedroom, on my dresser.”
“You stay here, Mr. Ramsey. I’ll go have a look. Any wife or kids back there I need to know about?”
“No. I’m divorced. I—”
“Where’s the bedroom?”
“Last door on the left. But I—”
But Barnes was already gone, walking quickly out of the living room and down the hallway that branched off of it.
“This is messed up,” Todd said. “I had no idea…”
“Where did you find the card, Mr. Ramsey?” DeMarco asked.
“Out in the woods, right on the side of a little dirt road.” He looked to Foster and added: “It’s the one the local kids call Blood Gulch. You know it?”
“I know it. Why were you out there anyway?”
“Just driving. I do it sometimes, you know. Just to clear my head. I got out of the truck to take a piss and saw it.”
“And when you saw the name on it—the name Mercy Fuller—you didn’t make the connection to the news story?” Kate asked.
“No. There’s no way I would have. That’s not the name on it. The name Fuller is on it, but the first name is just an initial and it’s not M.”
“I need you to sit down slowly on your couch,” Kate said. “Hands stay on your knees. We’re going to have a look around your house and your property for any traces of Mercy Fuller.”
“That’s insane! I have no idea what happened to her!”
“Then you won’t mind us looking, now will you?”
As Todd sat down slowly on his couch, Barnes came back from the bedroom. He had the credit card in his hand, showing it to Kate and DeMarco. “The card is made out to W. Fuller. I’m assuming that’s Wendy Fuller.”
“Then why would it show up as Mercy Fuller?” Foster asked.
“A lot of parents sign off on credit cards for their kids,” DeMarco said. “My own folks did it with me. A way to test responsibility and all of that.”
“Is that common around here?” Kate asked.
“No idea,” Barnes said. “Why any fifteen-year-old needs a credit card is beyond me. But that brings us back to you, Mr. Ramsey. Where did you find this if not plucking it right off of Mercy Fuller?”
“I already told them! I found in out on Blood Gulch Road. Right there on the side.”
“Now that seems like a stretch of good luck, doesn’t it? And even if that’s the truth, did you not think to turn it in? You figure it was yours if you found it? Finders keepers?”
“I’m not proud of it, okay? I felt bad but…hell, I can barely make my bills now. I got laid off two weeks ago and can’t find work. It’s been tough. One lousy tank of gas for my truck. That’s all I got with it.”
“Nice sob story,” Barnes said. “Officer Foster, would you stay here with Mr. Ramsey while I check the place over with Agents Wise and DeMarco?”
Foster gave a no-nonsense nod and sat down in a small recliner that was adjacent to the couch. Barnes gave Ramsey another distrustful glance before he headed for the door. Kate and DeMarco stepped out with him, walking back out into the early morning. They walked to the east side of the house, the large backyard giving way to the forests beyond.
If Todd Ramsey was indeed keeping Mercy Fuller, Kate saw no immediate areas he could be hiding her. There were no sheds, no garage, no barn, no suspicious trailers or other structures on the property.
“You know this guy at all?” DeMarco asked Barnes.
“Not well, no. Hardly at all, really. Just in a passing sort of way.”
“So you have no real reason to suspect that he would take Mercy?”
“Other than the fact that he has her credit card, you mean?”
Kate nodded, understanding that Barnes was starting to take the case rather personally. He just wanted it wrapped so the people in his town could sleep easier—so the news crews would finally just get the hell out of his town.
With that in mind, Kate dutifully assisted as they looked around Ramsey’s property. They checked the tree line around the forest, they scouted his house, looked through the basement and even, after much debate and arguing with Ramsey, looked at his car and old pickup truck. The entire process took about half an hour. Kate knew within about ten minutes that Mercy Fuller was nowhere on Todd Ramsey’s property. It just didn’t add up; it didn’t make sense.
Ramsey’s car was the last place they checked. Barnes closed the trunk and leaned against the back of the car. The look he gave the agents was a helpless one—a man asking for help without using any words.
“So what do we do now?” he asked.
“We have Mr. Ramsey take us out to this Blood Gulch Road,” Kate said. “Make him show us where he found the credit card.”
Even as she said it, Kate could feel that it was a thin lead at best. But the fact remained that they now had in their possession something that likely was on Mercy Fuller’s person on the day she went missing—discovered randomly by Todd Ramsey. Weak lead or not, she felt that they were at least still moving forward.
And as long as they had momentum on their side, Kate knew there was hope.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Even with Officer Foster leaving to return to the station, the car felt incredibly crowded with Todd Ramsey sitting in the back beside DeMarco. It wasn’t just that there were four people crammed into Barnes’ patrol car—Kate and Barnes up front, DeMarco and Ramsey in the back—it wa
s also the added fear, tension, and confusion coming off of Ramsey. No more than three minutes after they had left Ramsey’s house, it was just too much for Kate. She knew from experience that silence in tense situations never led to anything good. So she did her best to defuse it before it was too late.
“Mr. Ramsey, why were you out driving so late at night anyway?”
“Like I said. I was just clearing my head. I’ve always liked to drive around the back roads at night—especially those old dirt and gravel roads no one really ever uses. It’s been a rough few weeks and I was just getting antsy sitting around the house.”
“What did you do for a living?”
“I was a tree-topper for a local lumber company. I got laid off when the lumber yards cut back the quotas. I knew it was coming…it’s been happening to other companies all year. Some say because of the government shutdown. I don’t know…”
And just like that, Kate knew she had succeeded. She had not related to him per se, but she had him speaking to her about something other than the disappearance and the murders of the Fuller family. Ramsey seemed to be at ease, still clearly unhappy to be in the back of a police car but not quite as tense.
Fifteen minutes after leaving Ramsey’s house, Barnes turned onto yet another back road. This one wound like a snake even deeper into the forest. Kate saw a few small houses tucked back in coves of trees, a good distance off of the road. These were houses that were clearly being lived in but were about two or three paychecks away from squalor. There were weeded yards, collapsed porches, wandering pet dogs in desperate need of a meal. Just as Kate had started to understand the state of this part of the county, Barnes turned onto a road that started out with a sign that read: End State Maintenance 0.5 Miles.
“Blood Gulch Road sees a lot of traffic during hunting season,” Barnes explained. “There are all of these little turn-offs into big open fields or off-roading-type roads that used to be logging roads.”
“Deer or turkey hunting?” DeMarco asked.
“Both. It’s one of the reasons locals have dubbed it Blood Gulch Road.”
“One of the reasons?” Kate asked.
“Yeah. I guarantee you we catch at least twenty or so cars every year out here at night…kids coming to have sex. It sort of got that reputation…a place where local girls came to offer up their virginity and…”
“I got you,” Kate said. “No further explanation needed.”
They came to the spot where state maintenance came to an end, the rough tar surface giving way to a dirt road. The sun was nearly at full blast as 7:30 in the morning approached, painting a muddy golden hue over the road.
“The spot is about another mile ahead,” Ramsey said. “Just before you get to the Jones Field. You know that little side road?”
“I know it,” Barnes said, aggravated.
They drove on, the cruiser kicking up little plumes of dust behind them. The car remained in silence again until, about two minutes later, Ramsey sat forward in his seat. “It’s right there,” he said. “That’s where I pulled over.”
Barnes pulled the car over to the side of the road and wasted no time getting out. All four of them piled out of the car and stood along the edge of the road. “Where was the card?” Barnes asked.
Ramsey walked to the back of the car and looked in all directions. He seemed to be giving it some serious thought, wanting to be absolutely sure. After a few seconds, he pointed to a spot just ahead of the car, to the left. He walked over to it, took two steps off of the road and into the overgrown grass along the side, and nodded.
“Right there,” he said. “I saw it so easily because it wasn’t lying down flat. It had gotten caught up in some of the weeds and was sort of standing a bit.”
Kate took a step back, wanting to be able to take in the entirety of the scene. She saw no blood, no clear indications that anything bad had happened in this spot. She could also see no clear traces that anyone had passed through the area on foot. Beyond the overgrowth of grass on the side of the road, there were only trees and shadows.
“Sheriff, what’s on the other side of those trees?” Kate asked.
He thought about it for a while, perhaps checking out a map of the area in his head. “This little strip of forest goes on for a few miles. Two, maybe three. And then it empties out at Jones Field…just a big old strip of undeveloped land that becomes popular during hunting season.”
“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” DeMarco commented.
“Well,” Kate said, “with the discovery of the credit card at this very spot and the fact that she’s now been missing for three days, I can contact some folks at the state PD. Get some manpower and some bloodhounds. If we need it, I can maybe get a few more bureau eyes down here as well.”
“I can get on that right now,” Barnes said. “I figure the dogs could be down here within a few hours.”
“Make the call,” Kate said. “In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do to get the bureau to put some push behind it. If we—”
Her phone rang, buzzing from her pocket and interrupting her. She answered it, still looking out into the forest and imagining all of the possibilities out there.
“This is Agent Wise,” she said into the phone.
“Agent Wise, this is Jan Pettus…Anne’s mother. Do you have a moment?”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“I thought you might want to know that Anne woke up this morning and came to me right away. She said she just remembered something she forgot to tell you when you were asking about Mercy having any jobs.”
“Is she available to speak with me?” Kate asked.
“Not right now. She’s getting ready to finally go back to school. But she told me what she remembered. And honestly…I even knew about it but didn’t think anything of it.” She paused here, almost as if for dramatic effect. “Earlier this year, she babysat for a local couple that was going through a hard time. Maybe just two or three times, Anne says, though she’s not absolutely certain.”
“Does she remember anything in particular about this family?”
“Well, everyone in town knows that they were going through a hard time. No one knows quite why, though. Rumor has it that the husband was cheating on his wife and they spent a lot of time apart…so the kids sometimes got caught in the middle. They were friends with the Fullers and apparently, Mercy stepped in as babysitter.”
“What’s the family name?”
She saw that Barnes was listening in now, his interest piqued as he stood by the side of the car, keeping a distrustful eye on Todd Ramsey. She listened as Mrs. Pettus told her what she knew, which wasn’t much: a name and a general location of where the father—now divorced—was living.
The call was over ten seconds later. She pocketed her phone and looked back to the strip of grass beside the road. She wondered how the credit card had gotten there. Had it been discarded as someone had pulled Mercy Fuller into the woods or had her abductor (assuming there was one) thrown it out in an attempt to get rid of any evidence?
“Sheriff? What can you tell me about a man named Edgar Lee?” she asked.
“A Deton native. Went through a nasty divorce end of last year, or early this year. His wife and kids moved somewhere further south. He stayed here, keeps working on a farm that should have given up the ghost about ten years ago. In my estimated opinion, the guy is sort of a sleazeball.” He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I believe Agent DeMarco and I are going to pay him a visit.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Barnes knew exactly where the farm was and gave them directions easily. While he returned to the station to get the state police further involved with the investigation into Mercy Fuller’s disappearance, Kate and DeMarco headed out toward what Barnes had referred to as the Lee Farm. Along the way, DeMarco called both the bureau and the state police to request any records on Edgar Lee. When she got off of the phone with the bureau, she had quite a bi
t to share.
“I think I may have just found out one of the reasons for the Lees’ divorce,” DeMarco said. “Three years ago, Edgar Lee was arrested for attempting to download illegal pornography.”
“Children?” Kate asked, horrified.
“No. But just as bad. Some sixteen-year-old that was selling videos online. He got off on a technicality, as he never actually downloaded it. But when an investigation was conducted, they did find questionable content on his computer. Girls that, while there were obviously no ages given, certainly did not look to be eighteen.”
“Any word on how old his kids were when all of that went down?”
“No. But state PD did confirm the divorce was finalized last year. The wife has a restraining order filed against him. They say other than the severe porn mark on file, there’s no other record on the guy.”
This information weighed heavily on them as they approached Lee farm. It sat just slightly outside of the Deton town limits, tucked away down a driveway that was at least a quarter of a mile long. Once the driveway ended and the surrounding forests opened up, it revealed a rustic-looking barn. It was quaint and beautiful in a derelict kind of way—the sort of thing one might see in paintings on a dentist’s office or in calendars depicting whimsical scenes.
Kate parked the car at the end of the driveway, behind a large pickup truck with Farm Use tags. They stepped out of the car and walked into the large front yard. The house was a two-story farmhouse; while it was in need of many repairs, it was still a fairly beautiful house. Because the farm was named after a family, Kate wondered how long the house had been standing here.
As they neared the house, they hard a series of thumps and thuds coming from behind the house, accompanied a male voice uttering a few quiet curses. Exchanging a look of caution, they walked around the side of the house and more of the property came into view. A single large barn sat roughly fifty yards away from the house. A few other sheds sat beside it and off to the distance. Beyond that were what looked like emaciated corn fields and large fields of varying crops that Kate could not tell the difference between.