ch. 12 Lady in White

Unlike Dean and Sam who were fakes, Nick was a genuine N.I.A. agent, so he could actually check the police archives for information.

Generally speaking, Hunters like Sam and Dean had to resort to tabloid newspapers or visiting people in order to obtain information as the Internet isn't that widely used in the current year of 2007.

For Nick though, the most convenient and quickest way to investigate someone is to enter the police station and check their file.

Nick pretended to listen to Dean suggestion, so the two parties exchanged contact information and split up to cover more ground, thinking that Nick was also going to be questioning townfolk. The two party's agreed to meet at this restaurant once it became night.

Driving away making sure that no one was following him, Nick turned around and drove back into the towns police station, making sure that his car was not visible from the road.

The size of the police station i

Was closely related to the size of the local town community. If the town is big then the police station will be bigger, better and the police officers will be well equipped.

This town was not small, but it definitely wasn't big enought to be equiped with those old style tan colored computers.

'Im pretty sure that there were still a couple of police stations in podunk remote american towns that still used those kind of computer in 2022'.

Walking into the police department, Nick gave the secretary his IDs number, which she called the Arizona branch of the N.I.A. to confirm he was really an agent. It was only after confirming his ID that they allowed him into the Archive room.

Looking at the Dust filled room with files upon files of paperwork, Nick asked the old man reading a book on the sole table In the toomt.

"Excuse me sir, if you don't mind, can you show me where the files of the missing persons report." Getting up from his book, the old man without answering Nick, started rifling throug multiple cabinets.

it was only after the old man spent close to 10 minutes rifling through a dozen cabinets that he handed Nick a stack of files.

The old man was catching his breath from this small task as he spoke "These are all of missing persons within ten years from here. We don't keep anything older than that." Without waiting for Nick to reply, he went back to reading his book

"Thank you," Nick picked up a file, blew the dust on it,

'Now we just need to find out what the similarly to these cases to the current disappearance. Let's start with men who were alone...'

Nick couldnt cheat this investigation with future knowledge as he didn't remember the monster of the week side plots in the TV series supernatural. He can only find clues the old fashion way

[ 1 hour later]

Laying in front of Nick were 16 files from the giant stack he was given. All these sixteen missing cases were very similar to Jack's disappeared. The dates of these people's disappearances we're between July 15 and 21 of each year.

The people who had the accident next were always men who were alone late at night, and there were no witnesses at the time of the accident. It looked like they had vanished off of the face of the earth.

After spreading out the sixteen thin files, one by one in front of Nick. Nick carefully checked through them, hoping to find clues.

After investigating for three hours, Nick didn't see anything. After all, a missing persons case remained open a lot of the time in 2007 with the low resolution security cameras and lack of Police AI to search the hundreds of thousand of cameras located in towns and cities.

As Nick was looking through the files, he spotted an old local map as he suddenly realized something

"That's it!" Nick began plotting down the route of where the men disappeared on the map, no matter which direction the men were coming from, there routes connected to a single highway.

Route 28!

Nick narrowed his eyes and quickly marked the location where the missing vehicles were found.

'The vehicles of all the sixteen missing people were abandoned around the bridge on Highway 28!'

Nick stared at the road line on the map that was thickened because the pencil was constantly drawn. Suddenly he remembered something and rushed into the stack of files that he was given. After turning through it for a while, he found a dust-stained file.

"Kolff Fuggin, on July 21, 1996, was reported by his wife Beth Fuggin that he was missing. After several days of investigation by the police, there was no result... the next year, on July 15, 1997, Beth was found to have committed suicide by jumping into a river, and when the police searched her residence, they found that Beth's two children, a boy and a girl, had already been drowned in the bathtub..."

Because this disappearance case ended up in a lawsuit, the investigation of this file were extremely detailed. There were not only detailed transcripts, but also on-site photos and so on.

Nick's eyes quickly locked on a photo, showing where Beth jumped into the river to commit suicide, and the place happened to be the steel bridge!

'This ghost we're hunting only targets men and this woman's husband disappears and a yearly later she probably kills her two children before committing suicide at that bridge! If that's not the makings of a vengeful ghost then I don't know what is!

Nick slowly closed the dossier, sighed silently, and handed the dossier to the old man "Please make a copy of this dossier, I want to take it."

Just as Nick made a major breakthrough in the case, Dean and Sam also made new progress.

After going to a local library, they looked through all of the missing persons published in the newspapers over the years and put them together, soon they also found the clue on Route 28.

Then they searched for any related to route 28, and soon they found a gossip tabloid article talking about an urban legend.

---------

"...It is said that Kolff was not missing, but eloped with a woman from outside...After Kolff disappeared, Beth's mental state has been unstable and often manic, but she refused to look to go to a therapist…"

Sam read the article while frowning , "On the night of July 15, 1997, when the two children were bathing, Beth had a mental breakdown. She was in no state of mind and did not pay attention to the two children for hours. As a result they, had brought a small fan into the bath, leading to them electrocuting themselves to death...Beth mind completely shattered. She ran out of the house in her bare feet and wearing only a thin white pyjama. She ran for more than an hour, before jumping off the steel bridge on route 28....."