1 - The Bloody Trailhead

Special Detective Alex Turner drove through the hilly streets of San Francisco, the city's iconic fog swirling around the car like ghostly tendrils. The neon lights of the downtown district glowed dimly in the mist, casting eerie shadows on the rain-soaked pavement below. As she navigated the labyrinth of alleys and boulevards, Turner couldn't shake the feeling of unease that gnawed at her.

Haunted by the unsolved cases that stained her career, Detective Turner's mind pulsed with the images of faces long gone and the echoes of their families’ cries, silenced by the passage of time. Each street corner held the promise of a new mystery, a new puzzle waiting to be solved, but today was different. This early morning, Turner had yet another missing person to find.

The Chief of Police spam called her at 3 am until she picked up. His harsh voice made it clear that she had to solve this case or it would be the last one she’d get. Another disappearance, another case to add to the ever-growing stack of unsolved disappearances.

Turner's jaw clenched as she recited the details the Chief gave her over the phone. A study group of five University of San Francisco students had vanished from The Hilltop, leaving behind nothing but a trail of blood that led to the old cemetery on Lone Mountain. Whoever was kidnapping, and presumably killing, these young adults was getting bolder. She’d investigated missing person cases all over San Francisco for the last decade, but she never had a case involving more than two disappearances at once, let alone five.

As Turner parked her car outside the police station, her mind raced with possibilities. Something about this case felt off, like pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit together. She knew there was more to these vanishings than met the eye, and she was determined to uncover the truth, no matter the cost. In the last two years she had managed to find five of the now hundreds of missing. Those five have kept her going. But doubt had been creeping in a lot lately.

Maybe the Chief is right and someone else can do better? She thought to herself.

Stepping out into the cool morning air, Turner shook the doubt from her head. She made her way through the already bustling lobby of the station, nodding curtly to her fellow officers as she headed for her desk. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows on the worn linoleum floor below. The smell of freshly brewed coffee almost overwhelmed the stink of vomit and booze emanating from the detox cell. Almost.

As Turner settled into her chair, she pulled up the new case file on her computer and scanned the details with a critical eye while she sipped her coffee. The study group was kicked out of the library by the librarian at ten pm so she could lock up the building.

It was Colonel Mustard just outside the library with a candlestick, Turner mused as she contemplated who would be out that late on campus. Who are my Colonel Mustards?

The librarian was about five minutes behind the students. When the librarian was walking to the parking lot, she heard yelling and screaming and called the campus police.

Turner rolled her eyes. Campus police were usually useless.

Campus police found blood on the concrete path leading to the old cemetery on Lone Mountain. They roped the area off and took decent photos despite the moonless night. The students were nowhere to be found. The librarian provided the students' names and the campus police did as we’d asked; check their dorms, call their parents, and treat them like a missing person even though it hadn’t been 48 hours.

The police station has had to bend some rules over the last two years. So many young adults have gone missing throughout San Francisco lately that the missing person division has carte blanche to act within the first five hours of a suspected missing person. That’s why the Chief called her at 3 am - 5 hours after 10.

Turner read through the campus police’s interview notes with the student's roommates and parents. Then she put out a few orders: phone records and GPS locations for each student, student records, car registrations, and BOLOs. It’ll take a while for anything to come back, so she printed the file and headed for her car. It was time to see the scene for herself.

In her car, Turner phoned the head of campus police to request his presence at the scene. Officer Thomas and her go way back and they’ve shared more crime scene walks than she cares to admit. These walks haven’t been romantic by any means, but that hasn’t stopped Thomas from asking her on a date nearly every time.

Officer Thomas met her in the parking lot and opened her door. “Any new leads or intell? I’ve got parents calling the Dean like he’s a shady politician about to sign an abortion bill,” Officer Thomas asked as she stepped out of the unmarked police car.

Turner just shook her head with a grimace, noting the surprising number of cars in the lot considering it was only five in the morning. “Bummer,” he responded and began escorting her to the scene.

“I’ve read your notes, but tell me about your interviews with roommates, friends, and family,” Turner requested as she pulled out her phone and hit record. She didn’t think she needed him to rehash the notes, but it kept the conversation strictly about the case as they walked. It’s not a particularly small campus.

“Sure. I’ll start with Anthony Harper,” Officer Thomas pulled out his phone to access his notes. “His roommate, Miles Bissette, said he hadn’t seen Anthony since yesterday morning, but had a text from him around dinner saying he wasn’t going to be home that night to play video games because he needed to work on a project with his chemistry group. Roommate said Anthony liked one of the girls in his chemistry class, but he wasn’t sure if she was part of the same project. He’s an out-of-state student from Ohio with a single Mom who sounded delirious and unintelligible over the phone. The roommate, Miles, said Anthony didn’t call home much and his Mom never visited. They’d been roommates for the last three years. Said it sounded like his Mom was an alcoholic but Anthony never outright said it. We asked her to call us back when she was more awake and coherent.”

Officer Thomas took a few deep breaths before continuing up the sloping pathways.

“Sofia Brown is an R.A. so she doesn’t have any roommates. The head of the R.A. program seemed really frustrated by the coverage gap. Apparently her hall has had a lot of issues this year. Not sure if that’s relevant,” he paused again to catch his breath as Turner shrugged.

“Parents are here in San Francisco and have been calling all of her friends, at least the ones they know, and have been out looking for her at her favorite places all night. They’re likely to be the most vocal, from what we know so far about their families. Pretty wealthy too. Father’s in real estate and Mom works for the Mayor’s office.”

The sky was beginning to show the first hints of sunrise by the time they reached the taped perimeter of the scene. They walked past a group of students huddled outside the tape holding lit candles, fully occupied by prayer. Turner motioned for Officer Thomas to continue as they hunched under the tape. Turner began scanning the scene with a flashlight.

Reducing to a whisper, Officer Thomas continued, “The parents say Sofia hasn’t had a boyfriend in over a year. Not sure that’s true though. She’s pretty and has good grades. Pretty sure most of that prayer group is Tri Gamma, her sorority sisters. Uh…” he thumb-scrolled through his notes, “Carson Bowers is failing most of his classes. He lives off-campus with his younger brother who’s also a student here, Luka Bowers. Carson has a full-ride scholarship for baseball and is in jeopardy of losing it. His parents know nothing about his grades - they think he’s doing well, based off what he’s been telling them - and they said he’s had a new girlfriend every time they talk…”

Turner tuned him out as her eye caught something in the grass. She pulled out a glove, evidence markers, and a plastic bag from the small backpack she always carried. Kneeling down, she recognized it as a small square bead, white with the letter ‘S’ on all four sides. Turner placed the #1 evidence marker next to the bead and snapped a photo before picking it up with her gloved hand, looking it over, and placing it in an evidence bag.

“It’s got some blood on it,” she murmured. Officer Thomas had stopped talking and pulled out a flashlight of his own to help search for more beads. Turner found another bead a couple of yards away, this one had an ‘O’ on it and slightly more blood.

They searched in silence for another hour but didn’t find anything else. Turner returned to where she found the ‘O’ bead. A large, old stone and overgrown vegetation was nearby, but nothing else was noteworthy. “What is this?” Turner asked, pointing at the stone.

“This area used to be a Masonic cemetery. Most of the remains and tombstones were relocated in the early 1900s, but not all of them. That’s an old tombstone or decorative stonework from the cemetery days,” Officer Thomas explained.

“Ah. That’s… interesting,” Turner responded, wondering what’s beneath her feet and if it’s relevant to her missing students. Then, Turner’s phone rang.

“Turner.”

“It’s Asher. Got the students' phone records and GPS from AT&T and Verizon. Three of the students' GPS activity stopped pinging at 10:13 pm last night with the last known location on campus. Two of the students have active GPS at 1712 Dolores St. Neither of them has made any outbound calls, texts, searches, etc. since before 10 pm. Sofia was the only student who posted on social yesterday. It’s a photo of the students eating takeout in the library. I texted you the post. Looks like the owner of 1712 Dolores Street is… Vincent Blackwood?”

“Is that a question or a statement?” Turner asked.

“Sorry - statement - just surprised. Blackwood is-”

“Well-known and rich. It’s odd, that’s for sure. Can you put in a warrant request for Blackwood’s address for me? I’ll need to do everything by the book if he’s implicated or involved somehow.”

“Uh… can you submit the warrant request yourself? I don’t want my name on that,” Asher sounded really conflicted.

“Sure. I’ll put in the request from the car in a few minutes. What else you got for me?” Turner was irritated, but understood Asher’s hesitance. To be honest, she didn’t want her name on it either.

“The only student who had a car was Sofia Brown, but the car GPS shows it’s still on campus. I sent you the details.”

“Can you do some digging on Blackwood for me? Any criminal record, list of businesses, known aliases, known business partners, public disputes, etc.?”

“You’ll have it in an hour.”

“Perfect. Thanks, Asher.”

“Chao.”

“Any news?” Officer Thomas looked at her, eager for good news.

“Possible location for two of their phones. It’s likely they’ve been dumped so it’s not worth sharing the details yet.” Turner brushed him off lightly and looked at Sofia’s Instagram post from yesterday. Zooming in, she could see a beaded bracelet on Sofia’s wrist, poised to shove a large shrimp taco into her pretty mouth.

Turning the phone to Officer Thomas, “I want to know if you or any of your officers find any more beads. It looks like they’re part of Sofia Brown’s bracelet.” Turning the phone back to her face, she said, “Looks like it spells out Sofia - Best Friends Forever. Cute.”

“On it. Let me know if you find anything else we should be looking for. My shift is about up, but you have my interview notes. Anything else you need from me?”

“For today, can you keep an officer at the tape perimeter and have them take notes and photos of the students that spend any time here? And send it all to me at the end of each shift?”

“We can do that,” and he headed out of the perimeter towards the campus station. Turner headed in the opposite direction towards the parking lot and sat in her squad car. She was relieved she didn’t get a dinner invitation from Officer Thomas, but she was feeling increasingly nauseous the longer she thought about Blackwood’s possible involvement.

She didn’t know much about him, but she knew he was wealthy, popular, and powerful.

Turner put in the warrant request, looked up Sofia Brown’s car details, and grabbed her backpack. Standing next to Sofia’s white 2012 Volvo XC90, Turner pulled a long, metal hook from her bag and unlocked the front driver door. Another way she was allowed to bend the rules nowadays.

Sofia had an assortment of unused condiments and piles of napkins in the center console, car manual and registration in the glovebox, and an overnight bag in the backseat with a change of clothes and toiletries. That was it. All the car told her was that Sofia might have an off-campus boyfriend.

As she locked up the SUV, her phone pinged with a text notification.

Chief Thompson: My office. NOW!

“Fuck!” Turner yelled, causing nearby students to look at her and give her a wide berth as they walked by. “Shit,” Turner whispered as she returned to her car.