Quest in Time

Where is Julienne? It is a question that has haunted my mother, father and myself. It was 3 years ago when my life changed forever. My sister, Julienne, disappeared coming home from Red Oak Park, a county recreation site about 20 miles west of Jonesburg, a small town south of Cleveland, Mississippi. The park had a pond with access to Lake Colbert and the Mississippi River, lots of trees and hiking trails, campgrounds, and a couple of boat docks. My sister and her boyfriend had gone to the park to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, the two had gotten into an argument, she had gotten mad, told him to find his own way home, and had gotten in her car and left.  

First of all, you might be wondering why my sister was driving. That had a lot to do with the argument they had got into. Her boyfriend, Steve Simich, was currently a stocker in a grocery store, did not have a car, at least not one that worked, was trying to finish college, although not very successfully, and didn’t seem too worried about whatever was ahead. My sister, on the other hand, Julienne Harden, had finished college, worked a full-time job, and was preparing for a life with a house, a family, and a future. Although there was no doubt she loved him, I believe that, looking back, she was beginning to doubt how much he loved her. His unwillingness or inability to move forward in a responsible manner was a red flag she couldn’t ignore. So, that being the case, according to Steve’s account, she blew her stack, fussed at him, and jumped in the car, speeding off down the road. She was never seen again.  

The police were called when she didn’t make it home that night. Steve was interviewed but the fact that he had to call a friend to pick him up at the park, something that was verified by the police, seemed to clear him of any part in my sister’s disappearance. We called on friends and family, searched the roads between our house and the park but found no sign of her or her car. Three days later, her car was found in a church parking lot. There was no video or security camera, so no evidence of who left it there. No matter how we searched, or the police investigated, no evidence of her has been found since. I was 17, a freshman at Hobart University, when this happened, she was 22, a graduate from the same college, and just starting her life. Although my questions started then, my quest didn’t begin until my senior year when I was finishing up a degree in Criminal Justice.  

My last semester at college, I had a chance to get an internship with the county sheriff’s office and I worked to get located at the same precinct that had investigated my sister’s case. I did not mention my sister because I was afraid that they might see my placement there as some kind of conflict of interest. Luckily, it had been long enough since my sister disappeared that the Detective assigned to the case, Johnathan Lucker, seemed not to recognize me or remember my name. I kept a low profile, determined not to be found out.

I started in late January with responsibilities to be assigned on a daily basis. My boss was Sergeant Holcroft, a middle-aged black woman who talked with a hardnosed tone but showed empathy and caring if you looked deep enough. In between cleaning interview rooms, filing personnel records, and filling out supply forms, I perused the computer, which I now had at least limited access to, and prowled the evidence locker to see what I could find out about my sister.

Unfortunately, I could find very little that I didn’t already know. She had left the park about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, according to her boyfriend’s testimony and started home. That was the last time she was seen. Being a long stretch of mostly rural highway, they could find no witnesses that saw her on the road, nor could they find anything that showed how the car ended up at the church parking lot. There weren't any fingerprints, DNA, blood, or any other clues in the car, and I was now determined to find out what happened to her. The only thing they found in her car was a plastic fork, not used, lying on the floorboard. Her purse and coat were in the backseat as if they had been moved out of the way. Did that mean someone had joined her in the car? No one knew. I poured through the files on the computer, and in the records themselves, looking at every note, form, report from other agencies that had been gathered until I could name page and paragraph where a certain fact could be found. 

“What are you looking at,” a voice suddenly interrupted me as I poured over papers on the back row desk that I had taken over? 

I was so concentrating on understanding everything that I could about my sister’s case, I didn’t notice the approach of Detective Lucker. This might not be good, I thought. 

“Sorry,” I sat back in my seat, “I thought I would familiarize myself with some processes used to investigate cases,”  

“Including your sister’s case, I see,” he said. Detective Lucker was short, slightly bald headed, with a thin gray mustache, thick fingers, and eyes that looked straight through you.  

I sat back even more, surprised that he knew who I was. I had been counting on a non-existent anonymity, it seems like. 

He smiled, “yes, I remember you. I don’t forget cases that haven’t been solved nor the people involved in them. “I also don’t have any problem with you researching the case, however that may not be true of everyone in the office. There are two caveats,” he continued. “One is that you don’t do anything that would jeopardize the case. You don’t contact anyone, you don’t mess with the evidence, you don’t talk to anyone else in the office. If you have questions, you come to me. Secondly, if you come up with any facts, theories, or other information related to your sister’s disappearance, you come directly to me, immediately. Do you understand?” 

I nodded enthusiastically. From having to sneak around watching my back to being given permission to research all I wanted to, discreetly of course, was more than I could hope for.  

“Yes sir,” I answered quickly. 

“Anything that you have to tell me?” He followed up with the to be expected question? 

“No sir,” I shook my head. “Nothing yet.” 

He pointed at me. “If you do find anything, let me know immediately. I will give you some hints,” he continued. “The boyfriend was investigated thoroughly. He had no motive, and we were able to confirm that he was at the park until he was picked up by a friend about 4:30. We could also not find any other friends or acquaintances who had motive or opportunity. She was traveling home, alone. You will see all this on the report. Her phone stopped sending signals not long after it left the park. Whether she turned it off or the battery died, we don’t know.” 

“From what Steve told the family after it happened,” I interrupted, “he tried to call her many times after she left. Knowing my sister, she probably turned her phone off so as to not be bothered by his frantic messaging.” 

The detective nodded. “That sounds reasonable. Again, let me know if you find anything,” he said, and walked away.  

I took that as a command not to be trifled with, but I didn’t care. Anything I found out would have been on his desk the next day anyway so, in that regard, nothing had changed. Except now, I had permission, I didn’t have to feel guilty about doing my behind the scenes snooping and, better yet, my quest to find out what happened to my sister was on full throttle (I am sure there are cliches that I haven’t used yet but stay tuned). 

I spent the next several days, in between doing the job that I was actually hired to do, going through the folders that I had found in the evidence files. The police had very little to go on. They didn’t know when or where she disappeared except it was somewhere between the park and the town 20 miles away. They looked at security cameras along the main road but, although they saw similar makes and models, were not able to positively identify my sister’s car. One note said that a similar type of vehicle was shown passing by a gas station but did not show up in any other images between there and town. Again, did that have anything to do with my sister? Was it someone else who turned off to go home, visit someone, or head down a more rural road where only farms existed with no cameras or security images?  

I continued my research over the next several weeks, heading toward the time when my internship was fast running out. When the college semester ended, so did my internship. Luckily, the officer I worked for basically let me do my own thing and didn’t assign me too many additional responsibilities that would make my research even more difficult. I wondered if Detective Lucker had said something to her, but I was afraid to ask.  

More and more, I became frustrated because there was so little to go on and I came to appreciate how difficult the initial investigation had been. I feared that my question would remain unanswered until suddenly, my duties as an intern helped me find the clue that I had been looking for. I was cleaning up folders from the conference room to be refiled after a meeting when I happened to look at the heading on one file.  

Sarah Jane Fuller, Missing Person, the tab on the folder read. Curious, I closed the conference room door, sat down, and opened it up. There were the usual reports and a picture of the missing girl. Attractive white girl, with brown hair and a thin, pointed chin, her eyes seemed to stare at me. I quickly placed it on the table and read the basic details. She had disappeared the year after my sister and was driving from eastern Tennessee through Mississippi heading to New Orleans. Although there were interstate highways that provided fast and safe passages, for some reason, she was driving along the Mississippi River, taking back roads and rural highways. Her family said that she loved the river and visited it as often as she could no matter what state she was in so there was a possibility that she had driven that way for the scenery. Her phone had stopped pinging on Highway 17 just east of Rosewood, a town not far from the river. To me the interesting part was that my sister Julienne would have taken the same route, at least part of the way. Like my sister, her car was later found in a deserted parking lot. Again, like my sister, there were no security cameras that picked up any footage of her, her car, or anything else. 

Were there any other missing people in the last 5 or so years. I found another candidate, this one an older man. Timothy Mitchell was last seen at a friend’s house on Takeoff Rd, in June 2022. Takeoff Road ran south and north of Highway 17.  This occurred last year, again in the Thanksgiving or Christmas time frame. Another coincidence? His truck had never been found. I  kept looking but found no other missing persons in that geographic area, at least in the last five years. But why that area? It was probably as simple as the perpetrator lived close but was there more to it?

I researched every chance I got, when I wasn’t doing my day job or going to school or anything else I was legitimately supposed to be doing. The end of my internship was approaching rapidly, and I was fast running out of time. In fact, tomorrow was going to be my last day. I kept looking at the files, searching for anything that might be related. Just as I was fixing to hang it up for the day, the year, and perhaps forever, I found the key, I knew now why the location mattered. Would that lead to the person or persons we were looking for? Would that lead me to Julienne? 

At noon the next day, I was sitting in my car outside of Josephine’s Roadhouse, an old-fashioned restaurant located on Highway 17 halfway between the river and Jonesburg, hoping that the person I was waiting for would show up. I gave a big sigh of relief when a familiar car pulled into the parking lot and Detective Lucker stepped out. I had left an invitation on his desk before leaving the night before since today I would be involved in out processing, turning in paperwork, filling out forms, etc. and would probably have very little time to see him in person. The invitation was vague but stressed that it was not a social event and might be very important to an answer that we both wanted. 

I met him in the parking lot, and we walked into the building. It was as old-fashioned inside as it was outside with plaid table clothes, white walls covered with old portraits, plaster statues on tables in each corner, and pictures of customers above each booth. We sat down and started looking at the menu. I was waiting for the detective to ask something, but he kept quiet, obviously content to leave it up to me. 

After we ordered, I looked at him, hoping that I wasn’t going to sound like an idiot or nutcase. 

“Thank you for meeting me on short notice,” I started off with. 

He nodded, but didn’t reply. 

“I was researching as you are aware, and I found some interesting coincidences,” I said. 

“What coincidences,” he asked, already looking intrigued? 

I told him about the missing people besides Julienne and stressed that this was only based on an initial search and there might be more. 

“What makes you think they are related,” he asked? 

“The location was the first thing that came to mind,” I replied. “ They were all thought to be either on Highway 17 or approaching or leaving the highway. Also, the time of year. All disappearances occurred in the November or December time frame.” 

“I am assuming you found out what was so special about Highway 17,” he asked? 

I nodded. “I believe I did. That is why I asked you to meet me here today,” I said, taking a deep breath. Almost a year before my sister went missing, a wreck occurred on Highway 17. In that wreck, Joanne McKinsey, a 54-year-old mother of two was killed. She supposedly lost control and hit a tree head on. The car was old, and the airbag failed to deploy.” 

“Supposedly,” the detective asked, as I had expected him to? 

“The son, Timothy McKinsey, who was 21 years old at the time, did not agree with the police report. He kept saying to anyone who would listen that it was no accident, that his mother was murdered and that the police were negligent. He complained to the news, to the city and county authorities, and even to the state. I found records online of letters he wrote to web sites and news outlets all the way up until October of the next year.” 

“October,” the deputy asked, his voice suddenly sounding very curious? 

I nodded. “The last thing I saw was about a month before my sister’s disappearance.” 

“Maybe, he just gave up and stopped fighting a lost cause.” 

“Maybe,” I agreed, “except he also reached out after my sister’s disappearance as well as the other disappearances by writing letters or posts about how unsafe our state highways were.” 

“You think that he is involved in these disappearances in some way?” 

“I do. These disappearances emphasize how unsafe the roads are and that there are people out there who could be responsible for his mother’s death. By causing these people to disappear, he is getting his vengeance on the entire state.” 

“But wouldn’t these actions result in increased police presence, in making it harder for him to commit future crimes?” 

“Maybe,” I answered, “but it hasn’t happened yet. The other thing, as I mentioned, was the time frame. These three disappearances occurred within a month or so of the date that his mother was killed. And McKinsey and his family have a farm off Highway 17. We have time, location, motive.” 

The detective thought for a minute. “Even if this unlikely story is true, we have no evidence to tie him to any crime.” 

“One other thing,” I leaned forward. “His mother is buried on a private cemetery on the McKinsey property. Where is a better place to hide bodies than in a cemetery, especially a private one? And” I continued, “even a private cemetery has to be licensed by the county and is subject to health and welfare inspections.” I leaned back, my case was made. Now it was up to the detective. 

He thought for a minute. “Okay,” was all he said before getting up to go. “I will take care of it. Any reason that we met here," he asked his last question?

"Yes," I said. "The McKinsey family owns this restaurant."

I waited and watched him leave. I had no doubt that he would find a way onto the property and, unfortunately, I also had no doubt that he would find the missing people and that my question would finally be answered. Where was Julienne? I was fixing to find out.