Ludwig pushed the report to the side and looked at the other contents of the file. Inside were a series of newspapers, publication dates spanning between the 15th to the 21st of September.
The 15th was when she was reported missing, so her photo wouldn't be in that paper. A quick check proved that the others had photos of her, the car, along with all the relevant information from its make to the serial number. Once again, he had an odd feeling upon seeing Héderváry's grainy photo on the thin pages of the aged yellowing newspaper.
There was also a strange and ancient object in the file, which was labelled to have the footage from Héderváry's work showing her drive-off. Gilbert eyed it.
"What is that? That's probably older than Opa!"
"I'll ask Natalya if she can digitise it." Ludwig ignored his brother as he set it aside and grabbed what appeared to be a map torn from a navigation book. It was annotated, highlighting the store, her house and the route in between, cited by a coworker who travelled home with her once. Ludwig was impressed with the number of extra details the previous detective had included as if they had just tried to get as much information as possible despite the lack of knowledge available.
"So what are we gonna do?" Gilbert asked. "It's not like the last case, we can't just get DNA off the body and hope it matches someone somewhere. No body no crime right?"
"That's a stupid saying, of course there's been a crime." Ludwig rested his head in his hands as he thought. Why did he expect that their formula could cut and paste for each case and they didn't have an easy solution. Without a body and DNA, they needed a new approach. "I don't know what to do. We'll just do what we can."
"Yeah, we can do this! If we just narrow down what didn't happen then we can figure out what did happen!"
Ludwig grunted in response as he looked at all the papers and slid the recording to Gilbert.
"Give this to Natalya and don't talk. We need to go over all this so we have all the context we could possibly need about the time she disappeared."
Gilbert sighed dramatically at being told not to bother Natalya but took the old device and sauntered out of the office. Both curious and obsessive with starting in chronological order, Ludwig opened the newspaper dating the 15th of September, 1982. The stories' insides were considerably tame compared to today.
The front page was about the storm that had apparently passed through the night before and the front picture was of kids flocking a submerged street in rain boots having the time of their lives as they kicked the dirty water at each other. It felt odd to think they were all adults now. It made him feel sombre. Gilbert came back, far quicker than Ludwig expected. But that didn't give his brother any credit for how dedicated he could be to his work. Gilbert slumped into the seat next to him and disregarded his personal space by shuffling the chair until they were like sardines.
"Wow, this is like looking at a time machine," Gilbert commented. "Like how nice those cars are. It's such a shame we don't have awesome cars like that around anymore."
Ludwig agreed, admiring the colourful cars parked on the edge of the photographed road before flipping the page. There was a page for the newspaper editors, their youthful faces preserved on the thin paper. Apparently, they were looking for more journalists to join their team. There was a strange photo of a carrot that someone grew that looked like a person. There was a segment about a local school receiving funding so they could expand. Having lived in the area for so long, Ludwig had heard of it, only now it was one of the biggest schools in the area. There was a double-page spread about expected damages from 'the storm of the century' as more and more damages kept adding up. Officials advised that many people would be without power for at least a week.
"Hey, I reckon we had another 'storm of the century' when we were kids! We didn't have electricity for a week after but we didn't care. Do you remember making mud pies in the backyard and Opa yelling at us for getting mud in the house?"
"I do..." Ludwig smiled at the memories. It wasn't long after they first moved in with their grandfather and while Ludwig felt bad playing in the mud, having fun with his big brother was worth it.
"Geez, I remember the storm. It was terrible. I don't know how you weren't pissing yourself in fear, but you've always been so tough." Gilbert sighed fondly. "We built a fort by the window to watch the lightning and stayed up all night having the time of our life. And when the thunder shook the house, I pretended that was my stomach. We should do that again!"
"I just found the stormy weather relaxing." Ludwig shrugged. "I don't know why you thrived because of it."
Gilbert cackled.
"I don't know either. Storms are just so fun!"
Ludwig smiled at the memories as he kept reading. The memories felt like a lifetime ago.
In the paper was a woman thanking the stranger who braved the heavy rain and sweeping wind to help find her dog again after the thunder caused the pup to run away. As heartwarming as it was, Ludwig knew the dog was gone now. Animal deaths never failed to touch a sore spot inside of him. He turned the page.
The next page spread was about the upcoming city election. Polite politics as the officials stated their case rather than cut each other down. Ludwig agreed with his brother's sentiment that the newspaper was from another time.
The last few pages of the newspaper held a mix of different things. There was a spread for international news and the stock market, followed by a spread for a variety of familiar topics from a lifetime ago. Local sports, letters submitted from the public about whatever opinion they had (surely risky in today's climate), real estate listings that cost less than he ever would've guessed, job listings and things being listed to be sold. It wasn't too different from a paper today, only it was entirely different. Ludwig put it down.
The next paper, the 16th had the same format and similar topics. There was more on the storm. More details on the damages and even a story about an unfortunate fatality as a tree had fallen on a house, killing the elderly resident inside. Then there was more debate about the election. Reports of vandalism and excessive litter in the park. Ludwig kept turning the pages, only skimming over the stories until he reached what he was looking for.
There was a photo of a woman with long brown hair and intense eyes. She had a confident grin as she stared down the camera. Elizabeta Héderváry. It was strange to think that when that photo was taken, she didn't know it she would disappear and it would be printed in the newspapers and broadcasted on the TV to try and bring her home.
"Damn," Gilbert declared. "Why do I have the feeling she'd be a pretty good cop?"
"Likely instinct" Ludwig suggested. He understood what Gilbert was saying. She looked serious and determined, like an older sister who couldn't be told what to do and made her own rules. "No matter what happened, she didn't go down without a fight."
"Maybe we should check hospital records for whoever tried to mess with her?" Gilbert half-joked, but Ludwig filed the idea away as a possible resort.
Next to her photo was another picture, one of her red car, along with all the details you could ever need to identify it. Her car was in good condition, the photo taken in the driveway of her house, perhaps to commemorate the occasion of getting a car. No one would ever know now...
They read the other newspapers out of curiosity, though when Gilbert comments it's like he's in a trance Ludwig doesn't disagree. They read about the official rainfall recorded from the storm, more vandalism, a drug bust and more. But every time they come across the same photos of Elizabeta they pause. Was it out of obligation? Respect?
Ludwig was more than happy to tuck the newspapers away once they read them, though he did so with guilt.
Discussing their method of investigation was fairly straightforward. Gilbert agreed that finding the car was their best bet at making progress.
"I'll contact all car-related places and see if they have her car in their records, though I don't have much hope. While I do that, you look into all cars that have been torched since. At the very least we'll be able to narrow down our possibilities."
"Got it," Gilbert gave a thumbs up, but his smile was weak. "What do you think happened to her?"
Ludwig grimaced as possibilities taunted him. Neither he nor Gilbert were ignorant to the horrors a human can commit against another. As awful as it was to even think, Ludwig could only hope she was dead now, because the alternative of being alive was very dark.
"I shouldn't have asked," Gilbert added and rubbed his face. "I just, well- We shouldn't assume anything yet. Not when we know so little."
"I know we're looking for a body," Ludwig said. "I can only hope she's at peace now."
"Yeah, it's mostly likely she's dead. Oh! Why don't we look at all the dead Jane Does? Maybe she's one of the unidentified female corpses?"
Actually, that was a good idea. Ludwig re-evaluated his mental list.
"I'll look through the Jane Doe's while you go through the records of torched cars. If nothing comes up, we'll contact every other car-related place after."
"Sounds good bruder!"