The following morning, the detectives headed to Tyler. The drive would take over two hours and gave Mike plenty of time to ask questions about the town and the area, now knowing that his partner spent the early part of his childhood there.
The pair crossed the Bay Bridge and left the metropolitan area in relative silence. Steve drove while Mike reviewed the case file one more time.
"So, I see on the map," Mike said as he broke the silence, "Tyler is on the other side of the valley."
Steve picked up on where Mike was headed in the conversation. "It's in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range. It's a beautiful area and quite historic, too."
"Pray tell," Mike commented.
"Simply put, it's where the goldminers came to get their supplies during the Gold Rush back in the 1840's and 50's. The town was founded on that. And to top that off, it's also built on a mountain pass and had its share of settlers coming from the east."
Mike furrowed his brow a bit trying to picture a town like that in a modern-day setting, something that would have produced his partner as well as a family man found murdered on his beat.
"What's it like now? I'm thinking old ghost town here, Buddy boy."
"Ah, but you'd be wrong there, Kemosabe. Think about it. Goldminers weren't the only ones who came to California during the Gold Rush. There were people who worked with metals, assayed, and refined. Some of those folks came as far as Europe. And then you had a lot of merchants who wanted to see if they could build legitimate businesses selling supplies and making clothes and even construction folks and architects. Didn't you take state history in school, Mike?" Steve teased.
"All right, smart guy. So it's still a functioning town, right?"
"Honestly, it's more than that. You'll be surprised. That's all I'll say."
Mike mulled over the conversation a bit and then curiosity got the best of him. "So your not going to tell me your family were early settlers here? I find you to be too fancy to come from an old gold mining town."
Steve chuckled. "Honestly, they did. On my mom's side, her great, great grandfather was one of the first assayers. He and his family were sent from a firm in Belgium. There was quite a bit of gold found in the area and they made a true go of it, deciding to stay permanently. Dad's side was a little different story – his great, great grandfather was a tailor from New York who wanted to see the Wild West. He came out as a young man."
"So both of your folks have roots there?"
"They do. I still have some cousins there."
"Do you come back to visit often?"
"Not really intentionally. But occasionally, on my way back from Tahoe, I've been known to swing by with friends for a bite to eat and a walk through town. Like I said, you'll be surprised."
"Well, I'm looking forward to it. May I ask, why did your folks leave?"
Steve shrugged, "I don't know really. I always thought it was wanderlust after the war. I mean we lived here a while, but we did road trips. Not too far in today's scheme of things, but we'd head down through the valley and that seemed to be something my folks did with frequency. Eventually, we packed up and moved."
