by Tony Hayden
twenty-one
Deputy Ryan Watts sat at the computer in his home office. Clicking the mouse every minute or so, he advanced through archives of the Fort Collins Coloradoan, finding and reading accounts of “missing persons” over the past ten years. His wife, Heather, stepped behind him and began to rub his shoulders.
“What are you researching, baby?”
Ryan Watts relaxed with the massage, letting a contented sigh escape his lips.
“There are fourteen cases of missing persons over the last ten years that have some connection to Red Feather County. This young girl who went missing on Wednesday makes that number fifteen.”
Heather Watts leaned closer to the screen and read.
“That’s odd,” she said. “It seems like this would be big news around here.”
“It should be,” Ryan replied. “But some of them were hikers or campers, others were hitchhikers. Here, look at this story.” He pointed to the computer screen, “Five years ago, this boy and girl were headed to the mountains for a picnic. A credit card receipt shows they stopped in Ranch Springs for gasoline and soda. They were never heard from again.”
Heather scowled and kneeled next to her husband to get a better look at the computer.
“It says that they were listed as runaways,” she said. “Maybe they eloped.”
Ryan shook his head doubtfully. “Five years is a long time without contact. Don’t you think they would have called home by now? They would be what, twenty-three years old today?”
Heather shrugged. “Suicide pact?” she asked.
Ryan slid his chair back from the computer and faced his wife.
“Maybe,” he said. “But what about the others? Two high school girls camping in Rawah. A sophomore from CSU hitchhiking to Laramie. An exchange student from Ireland taking photographs near Pingree Park. All young women either passing through or visiting Red Feather County. And now Sara Haller, whose car broke down three miles north of Ranch Springs.”
Heather Watts stared at her husband. “Do you have a suspect in mind?” she asked.
“This latest girl’s father is in town. He’s a deputy sheriff from Eagle County and he is very interested in Jordan Barnes.”
Heather leaned back, unable to conceal the shock on her face.
“Jordan Barnes? Sheriff Hunter Barnes’ son?”
“I know, right?”
Heather Watts rocked back and sat on the floor, fully engrossed in the mystery.
“Jordan’s a creep, but he’s too young,” she finally said.
Ryan laughed, “He’s twenty-two.”
“I know, but he was only ten or twelve when these disappearances began. You need to look for someone older.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, “Good point, Sherlock. Hell, it could be any one of five hundred old hermits living in the woods in this county.”
Heather smiled, “Wrong again, my dear Watson. An old hermit would have to sneak up on all these women. No girl in her right mind would accept a ride from some scary old man. It has to be a person with charisma. A man with power. Someone these girls felt they could trust.”
Ryan leaned forward. The chair creaked loudly.
“Could be a forest ranger, or someone disguised as a law enforcement officer. Someone who knows this county intimately.”
Heather made eye contact with her husband, “I’m thinking someone with a connection to Jordan Barnes.”
Ryan thought hard. Finally getting her point, he rolled his eyes.
“Sheriff Barnes?” he asked incredulously. “You think it could be Sheriff Hunter Barnes? Come on!”
Heather shrugged and stood, “He fits the profile we discussed and he is a direct link to Jordan.”
“That’s just crazy,” Ryan said. “Sheriff Hunter Barnes is a good man. He’s a mean old coot, but he’s a good man.”
The Watts’ four-year-old daughter began to fuss from the next room.
“Well,” Heather said, moving to the door, “if this deputy from Eagle County is fixed on the sheriff’s son, maybe you should look a little closer at the sheriff.”
Deputy Watts scooted his chair closer to the computer and began typing again.
“That’s just crazy,” he said to himself.
twenty-two
Saturday morning found Mike Haller standing at a kiosk in the Foothills Mall in Fort Collins. Purchasing a replacement phone from his cellular carrier was proving to be a task.
“That will be three hundred dollars plus tax, sir.”
Mike stepped back and looked at the phone on the counter.
“But this is the same phone I had before.”
“Yes sir.”
“It only cost me forty-nine dollars last year. That’s a six hundred percent increase in twelve months.”
The young lady behind the counter had heard all this before.
“Your contract doesn’t expire for another two years, sir. You are not eligible for a reduced cost replacement phone until then.”
Mike shook his head and relented, “Fine! Will you at least program the damn thing so I can use it immediately?”
“Certainly, Mr. Haller. Would you like to purchase insurance for your new phone?”
Mike thought about Sheriff Barnes for a moment.
“Yeah,” he said. “You better include the insurance.”
Ryan Watts stood at a filing cabinet in the Red Feather County Building and slowly thumbed through a stack of folders labeled “Missing Persons”. The building was mostly empty except for an old couple who were busy emptying trash cans and vacuuming floors.
Deputy Watts was pulling any files that pertained to young women. When he was finished, he had a stack of twenty-six folders that dated back over the past fifteen years. Some were very thin, containing only a few pages; others were fat with witness statements, interviews, officer notes, and photographs.
Watts shuffled through most of the thin files and found that they had been reviewed and transferred to other counties around the country. Hitchhikers and runaways were given little attention by the Red Feather County Sheriff’s Department. As soon as a possible sighting was reported at another location, the file was closed and referred to the proper agency there. No follow up was ever recorded.
Ryan thought to himself, “This could be nothing but lazy police work---Someone in a hurry to clear files off his desk.” Then, Heather’s voice popped into his head, “Or it could be an attempt to minimize these girls’ connection to this county.” His wife had always been the skeptical one. Ryan snickered and admitted to himself that Heather would have been a much better police officer than he was.
Flipping through all of the reports, Watts noticed that each file had been signed off by Sheriff Hunter Barnes. Some included final notes, such as; Probable sighting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Transfer case to Clark County Sheriff, and, Transfer to Cold Status. Subject determined to be runaway.
In the case of the missing boy and girl who were last seen purchasing soda and gasoline at the only store in Ranch Springs, Sheriff Barnes wrote, After extensive search of Red Feather County, no sign of vehicle or missing youths. Correspondence in evidence suggests couple ran away to be married. Transfer case to Cold Status. Ryan leaned back in his chair. Even though there had been no further sightings of the couple, and no further use of the boy’s credit card, Barnes felt comfortable enough to suspend his investigation.
Deputy Watts snapped his fingers and shifted through the open file. Finding a report on the missing boy’s vehicle, he retrieved a photo copy of the registration to the young man’s Toyota pickup. On his computer, he accessed the Department of Motor Vehicles website and entered the seventeen digit VIN number to the truck. After only a short moment a report was generated sharing that the last transaction for the Toyota was a registration renewal in July 2005. He and his girlfriend were reported missing in August of that same year. The pickup had simply disappeared along with an eighteen-year-old boy and his seventeen-year-old girlfriend.
Watts found a phone number to the girl’s parents who still lived in the small town of Kersey on the eastern plains of Colorado. He hesitated for a moment then picked up a telephone and dialed. The phone at the other end rang four times and Watts was about to hang up when a sleepy voice answered.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice; guarded---hesitant---almost a whisper.
“Hello,” Deputy Watts said. “Is this Mrs. Araujo?”
“Yes,” came the quiet reply.
“Ma’am, I am Deputy Ryan Watts with the Red Feather County Sheriff’s Department.”
“Yes, I saw that on the Caller ID. Did you find my Linda?”
Ryan could tell that the woman was near tears. “No Ma’am, I’m truly sorry. I was just looking through this report and wanted to touch base with you to see if your daughter has made any contact with you?”
“No,” Mrs. Araujo finally broke down. “She’s gone. She’s up in those mountains somewhere, lost to us forever.”
Ryan remained silent for a bit. “Have you heard if Linda’s boyfriend ever made contact with his family?”
Mrs. Araujo sighed. “His parents moved back to Ohio two years ago. They were as devastated as we were. My husband died last year. The doctors said it was a stroke, but we all know it was a broken heart that took him.”
“So there has been no word from the boyfriend?”
“The boyfriend has a name, Deputy,” Mrs. Araujo replied. “Derek was a good boy. He was so in love with my little girl. He brought her flowers, and they played music together; my baby had a gift on the piano. That boy would have never harmed Linda. They were what some people call, ‘soul mates’.”
“I understand,” Ryan said. “Do you have time for a few more questions?”
“Of course, Deputy. I have all the time left that God has granted me.”
Deputy Watts cleared his throat. “Do you feel the investigation was handled properly? Do you believe your missing daughter received the diligence she deserved?”
Mrs. Araujo was quiet for a long time before answering. “Oh, I don’t know,” she finally said. “Your sheriff worked his behind off trying to find Linda and Derek. He would call Matthew and I, and we would drive up and ride with him all day as we searched for that damn Toyota pickup.” Mrs. Araujo sighed. “Derek’s parents came by about three weeks after the kids went missing and they told us that the sheriff may have found the truck. They had called him for an update and his secretary informed them that he was visiting a junkyard outside of Fort Collins on a report that someone was trying to sell Derek’s pickup for scrap.”
Deputy Watts was shocked by this revelation. He quickly sorted through the papers in the file of the missing teens and found no report of the possible lead.
Mrs. Araujo continued, “We all jumped in the car and drove up to Ranch Springs to talk to Sheriff Barnes. He was real upset; said that the junkyard was a false lead and that he was starting to believe that Linda and Derek ran off and got married.”
Ryan finally broke his silence. “You said that Sheriff Barnes was real upset. Can you elaborate on that for me?”
“Oh,” Mrs. Araujo said, “he just seemed frustrated is all; kind of distracted. I think he felt real bad that he didn’t have news for us. We didn’t hear from him again for another month. That’s when he told us that he had exhausted the investigation and was not going to look for Linda and Derek anymore.”
Mrs. Araujo cried quietly. “This is a terrible place to be, Deputy. I cannot grieve because somewhere deep in my heart I have to keep hope that my Linda is still alive, and I’m not allowed to heal because I just don’t know if she’s really gone.”
Ryan felt his own heart turn heavy. “I am so sorry for all that you have been through, Mrs. Araujo.”
“God is testing me,” she said before hanging up. “He is truly testing me.”
Deputy Watts hung up his phone and searched slowly through the file for any mention of the junkyard lead.
“That was a very hard case for me.”
Ryan jumped at the voice of Sheriff Barnes standing directly behind him. His ears burned and his face flushed with embarrassment. He stuttered and tried to stand, “Sheriff! I didn’t know---”
Barnes put his hand on Watts’ shoulder and pushed. “Sit down, Deputy,” he barked. Walking around the table, he asked, “Are you on duty, Watts?”
“No, sir,” Watts replied. “I had nothing to do today, so I thought I would pop in here and try to come up with a plan to find Sara Haller.”
Sheriff Barnes stared at Watts and took a seat across the table. “Did you receive my memo regarding the Haller case?” he asked.
Ryan looked at his in-box full of papers. “No, sir,” he said.
Barnes placed his brown felt cowboy hat on the table. “I have transferred the Haller case to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department. An eye witness places the girl with two boys from over there.”
Watts remembered seeing Connie Lohr leave the sheriff’s office the day before. “Is old man Lohr a reliable witness, sir?” he asked. “Connie’s in the drunk tank every other weekend.”
Barnes leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “Mr. Lohr gave a detailed and conscientious report. I have no doubt that his statement is reliable.”
Ryan broke eye contact with the sheriff and looked back at the open file on the table. “Mrs. Araujo shared that you had investigated a lead reporting the Toyota pickup belonging to Derek Walker had possibly shown up at a junkyard outside of Fort Collins.”
Sheriff Barnes looked at the file. “It was a dead end,” he said. “Wrong year, wrong color, VIN didn’t match. There’s nothing in the file because it didn’t matter. The case had gone cold.” Barnes laughed and looked away. “Those kids are living in some trailer park in the middle of the desert. She’s popping out babies and he’s fixing lawnmowers to try and keep ‘em all fed.”
“Or,” Watts offered, “they’re buried under some guy’s shed,” he pushed the stack of folders across the table so they spread out, “next to twenty-four others.”
Sheriff Barnes face turned hard. “Son,” he said, “you need to stop watching CSI Miami and start doing what you are being paid to do; catching drunk drivers and handing out citations for barking dogs.”
“Yes, sir,” was his only reply. Deputy Ryan Watts decided that he was not yet ready to take on Sheriff Hunter Barnes.
Sheriff Barnes stood. “Get these files put back where they belong and go home. I need you to report for duty tomorrow morning. A bunch of civilians and the press are showing up at noon to search for the Haller girl. We need to put on a good show for them.”
Ryan looked up. “Is that what we’re doing, sir? Putting on a ‘good show’?”
Sheriff Barnes carefully placed the brown felt cowboy hat back on his head. “Deputy,” he said, “you are beginning to give me a headache. I will piss your career right down the drain if you cross me.”
“Yes, sir,” Watts said.
twenty-three
Mike Haller stood quietly on the shoulder of Colorado Highway 287 at mile marker 369 and absent mindedly kicked at a rusted muffler that had fallen from someone’s vehicle.
There was more than enough room for a car to pull off if needed and Mike was fairly certain that this was where Sara had called for a tow truck before she had disappeared. He wasn’t sure what he would find here, but he wanted to get a good look before a hundred volunteers erased any possible evidence with their shuffling feet.
Mike walked along the shoulder and knelt at a place where a vehicle with a flat tire cut grooves through the soft clay and prairie grass. The furrow from the wheel looked to be about seven inches wide; about what the front wheel of Sara’s Honda would measure. Mike stood and stepped back, tryin
g to picture how her car would have sat. He walked to where the driver’s door would have been, kneeled again and searched the earth for clues. Nothing seemed to pop out at him. On hands and knees, Mike began to circle what he thought would have been the perimeter of the Honda. At the “front”, he could make out deep gashes and lots of foot traffic. This was obviously where Jordan would have placed the yoke for the wheel lift to raise the front of the Honda off the ground.
Continuing around the perimeter, Mike finally stood when he came to a patch of prickly pear cactus. Brushing dirt from his knees, he caught a glint of silver in the dirt ahead of him. It was the charm bracelet he had bought for Sara for graduation. He picked it up and cupped the silver hearts in his hand. The clasp was broken and some of the charms were missing. Mike looked around. Spotting two of the missing hearts, he picked them up and rubbed away the dust with his thumb. One was engraved, We Love You, and the other said, Squeaky. Mike clenched his fist tight and held the bracelet to his lips. His heart pounded, trying desperately to escape the confines of his chest. The broken and scattered charms strongly suggested that Sara had been taken forcefully from this location. That fit Sheriff Barnes’ theory of the two young men from Larimer County being responsible.
Mike held the bracelet close and thought out loud, “Sara would not have gotten out of her car for two unknown men. She would have only gotten out for a tow truck driver…” Mike chewed the inside of his lip, “…or a police officer.”
The black Ford tow truck and three other cars sat out front of the grocery store/restaurant/gas station in Ranch Springs. Mike pulled in and waited in his car for a minute. He wrote down the license plate number to the truck then got out and walked around to the driver’s side. An empty cardboard box sat near the front bumper with a sign on it that read, Free Kittens. Mike peeked inside and saw nothing but an empty wool blanket. Glancing around the parking lot to make sure no one was watching, he opened the driver’s door to the truck and found the VIN number on the door post. Mike quickly jotted down the seventeen digit number before closing the door silently. He wasn’t sure what information he would need to access the GPS records for the truck, so he decided to get everything he could.