"Misses Holstein…Misses Holstein, please; I can assure you this is no prank call…"
Drawing in a deep breath as he clenched the phone receiver, Steve leaned his forehead into his palm, the pen in his other hand tapping the pages of his notepaper incessantly.
"I just don't want anybody thinking that we've gone nuts, you know, Inspector?"
The woman on the other end sounded to be in her mid-twenties, still slightly oblivious to how her interview with the West Californian Intrepid had turned into pure mockery.
"Misses Holstein, I can assure you this is a very legitimate call. My partner and I are investigating a homicide here in San Francisco and there are certain similarities between our case and Emily's disappearance. Now, I am hoping to get some more information on what happened to her or anything you guys may have encountered during your trip. It might help us stop whoever is responsible for what's going on here."
"Alright Inspector Keller…I believe you. And please, do call me Julie. I just wish…I hope you guys find her killer. Emily was a very caring person, not an easy one, but a kind soul. She didn't deserve what happened to her."
Reaching for his cup and enjoying another long sip of hot coffee, Steve readied his pen.
"I understand that Julie, and do feel free to call me Steve.", he began and nervously shifted in his chair, "So, how did you find out that Emily's body had been found? Who told you?"
There was a pause on the other end, as the lady seemed to fight with her emotions.
"Sherriff Watson did. He's the…the Sheriff around here in Lucerne. He…said that they'd found it in Clear Lake, it had gotten entangled in the propeller of a boat or something like that and that there wasn't much left of her but that he was sure it was Emily…but he didn't say why."
Raising his eyebrows at the connection to the body being found in the water, Steve made some notes of the Sheriff's name and a reminder to call the office in Lucerne as soon as he got done.
"Julie, it said in the Intrepid that her body was found two weeks after she disappeared during your camping trip, is that true? When exactly did you go camping?"
"It is. Her, Jolene and I were using up some vacation we had left and just wanted to get away for a few days. We left for the park on the fifteenth of October and she disappeared the night of the sixteenth. Like I told the police officer when I filed the Missing Person's report, she just got up and I thought she went to go to the bathroom but when I woke back up an hour later, she still wasn't back so I woke Jolene up and we looked for her all night but couldn't find her. As soon as it was light out, we drove to town and I called the police."
"Is there anything odd that you remember from that night? Did Emily behave strangely? Did you guys meet somebody out there? Did anything out of the ordinary happen?"
Another pause ensued, as Julie sighed in defeat and he could hear her switch the receiver to the other ear.
"I…I really can't think of anything, Steve. Believe me, I have spent every day since her disappearance wondering what could have happened and nothing comes to mind. Heck, I dream about it almost every night. It was a quiet evening, the weather was gorgeous, we were sleeping peacefully, I didn't hear anything outside."
"Tell you what, why don't we go over everything one step at a time. I will see if there's something that strikes me as odd, being that I am the neutral observer…", he suggested and waited until he heard her grunt in acknowledgement. In the meantime, Steve used the pause to pull up his road map and find Lucerne, a town right along Clear Lake and only about eighty miles north.
"The day you embarked on your trip, what all did you do?"
"We eh…well, Jolene and I had gotten food, you know, some hotdogs for the grill, and we had plates and soda. We were just planning on staying at the Hollow Springs campground for a few days, nothing special, so we packed light. Emily had a couple spare sleeping bags and she got that ready, plus she had a big tent. My mom let me borrow her Buick Estate for the extra room and then around noon we met at the parking lot of the old Union76. We were going to leave right away but then decided to grab some snacks there. The drive was only going to be an hour but we had fun, so why not…"
Steve hadn't listened to her last few words. Instead, he'd stood up, frantically digging through his other Missing Person files until he came across the one for Ron Sterling.
The man in his late 40's was a convicted child rapist, had been released from prison a few years earlier and survived on odd jobs here and there, most recently as a car mechanic for a local dealership. His employer had filed the Missing Person's report for him; his family seemed to care less, practically disowning him due to the criminal charges. Geyserville was more than fifty miles southwest of Lucerne, but one small detail had gotten stuck in his mind from the previous night.
The last place Ron Sterling was seen at was a Union 76 Gas station.