Sagehen Mesa - Season 3, Episode 16 (season finale) - Deputy Rae's Stressful Week

 Hello, 

It's Rae. Clancy and I are here blowing off some steam after a rather stressful week. Town elections were last week, and I was voted out as Sheriff. It seems the community has lost faith in me due to all the botched attempts I had with trying to apprehend Cliff Mahon. Christopher Lang is the new Sheriff in town. As far as I'm concerned, he can have the job. Maybe Clancy and I will finally start that family we've been talking about. 

The police department is feeling the pressure from the community to get to the bottom of the Snowflake Day heist, and we haven't made any progress in the case. I KNOW Cliff Mahon is behind it, but we don't have any proof, and can't find and apprehend the guy. 

And now, the Culpeppers are reporting their youngest daughter missing. We've been all over town trying to locate her. 

We started with her teachers, friends and classmates. Her teachers say she's a quiet girl who hasn't given them any trouble in class. She's keeps up on her homework and works quietly in the back of the classroom. 

When we questioned her peers, we found out that none of them seem very close to her. Lara Whiting seems to be the one who knows her best. She's been over to the Culpepper house and says she hangs out with Ronda Culpepper a little bit after school, but claims that Ronda doesn't talk much about what is going on in her life. 

Rusty Vest admits to having a crush on Ronda, but says Ronda won't give him the time of day. 

The police department has noticed Ronda testing her boundaries recently. Officer Dodson says he caught her in an act of vandalism at the school one evening. He let her off with a warning and a promise to remove the graffiti. 

A few days later, he caught her out after curfew and had to take her home. 

Her older sister Dara is a rookie here at the department. She admits things at home have been a little tense. 

Ronda got into it with her mother over breaking curfew. 

"Chill, Mom, I was just at the festival doing homework with Starr Gwynne!"

She was grounded for breaking curfew, by her mother,  . . . 

. . . but her father acts like more of a friend than a parent and let her off the hook. 

"I'm sure you just lost track of time, honey. Be more careful next time, okay?"

As Ronda was headed for the bus to school, Dara went out and gave her a piece of her mind. "Stop manipulating Dad! And stop embarrassing me by making my co-workers bring you home in a patrol car!"

Dara swears Ronda is up to something and taking dangerous risks. 

She's lectured her father about going too easy on Ronda. 

Dara and her father don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things and have been arguing a lot lately. 

But no amount of arguing will keep Paul from coddling his youngest child. 

"I'm sorry about the whole police thing, Dad. I know I'm causing problems between you and Dara, and that's not what I want."

"I don't know why the cops are picking on me. They pick on you too, don't they? You'd think Dara could get them to cool their jets now that she's on the force."

"I'd like to start making some money of my own. Maybe I should get a part-time job. What can I do around here, I wonder."

"Maybe you could do some babysitting, or see if the bistro or coffee shop needs some help."

 

Dara says her sister worked as a dishwasher at the bistro for a few weeks, so she has some money of her own, but she doubts that it's very much. 

In addition to the strife that's going on between Dara and Paul, it seems Mrs. Culpepper's mental health issues have become more of a problem and is the main obsession for her lately. Holli finally decided to go to Dr. Ellen for help. 

Mrs. Culpepper reported that Dr. Ellen and she discussed the family dynamics in the home. Holli told her that her husband Paul seems to be doing well at his job and has taken up inventing as a hobby since he has access to a lot of scrap at work. 

Dr. Ellen said it was a good creative outlet, and asked Holli what she did to express her creativity, so Holli told her about her sculpting and how she finally found a medium that makes her happy. 

She told Dr. Ellen about her delusion that her ice sculptures would never melt and about the rude awakening she had when she went to the Art Barn one spring morning to find her sculpture of Tess Dexter was nearly gone. 

Dr. Ellen assured her that recognizing her error in thinking shows that her mental state is still intact. 

Mrs. Culpepper also told Dr. Ellen about how proud she was of her oldest daughter for joining the police force and becoming a deputy.

I asked Mrs. Culpepper if she made any mention of Ronda and what she was up to, but Holli doesn't think Ronda was mentioned. 

Dr. Ellen passed away suddenly, so we won't bother getting a warrant to have her release any information. Mrs. Culpepper said Dr. Ellen sent her home with some medication that would adjust her personality. Holli was afraid it would destroy her creativity, so she spent several days trying to decide if it was worth the risk. 

She said she just sat contemplating the repercussions of taking the medication before she worked up the courage to give it a try. 

She says it hasn't helped her mental instability but she has become more frugal. 

It seems the woman is too wrapped up in her own problems to notice her youngest daughter and if she's also facing some problems. 

The best lead we got was from Starr Gwynne, the girl Ronda told her mother she was doing homework with at the festival. Starr said she and Ronda had planned to meet up at the festival that evening and work on a school project together. Starr said when she got to the festival, Ronda was in a deep conversation with an older guy, so she waited nearby for Ronda to finish talking with him. 

He looked like some kind of artist or something. 

Starr said that Ronda looked like she was really into the guy, hanging on his every word . . . 

The guy said he was leaving town and going to the city. He thanked her for being a good friend to him, and she asked him if she could go with him. He told her she should stay and graduate from high school. Once she had a good education, she would be free to explore the world much easier than the way he's been doing it. 

When we questioned Starr about the what city the man was going to, she said she didn't think he named it, but it sounded like they had discussed his move previously. He was talking about there being a beach. He also said he'd probably be sleeping outside, at least initially, so it would not be a life for her. 

He also said there were some sketchy people in the city, and a person needed to be able to take care of themselves if they were going to live on the streets like he planned to do. 

Then he gave her a big hug goodbye and left. Starr asked her who the guy was, and she said, "Oh, just a friend," and she seemed kind of sad. 

She said the whole thing seemed kind of "sus" to her. We checked Officer Dodson's records, and that was the same night that he picked Ronda up for breaking curfew. 

The man Starr described matched the description of a vagrant that had been frequenting the library. The librarian reported him to us after she caught him sacked out on a couch sleeping. We spoke to him and told him to cease and desist using the library as his personal lodging, and the librarian says she hasn't seen him for several weeks. No one around town has seen him for a few weeks, so we suspect he did leave town shortly after the conversation with Ronda at the festival. 

Ronda just disappeared a couple days ago, so she apparently didn't leave with the man. When I brought up the incident Starr reported, Ronda's parents slapped their foreheads with their palms. "Carmen! They groaned. We thought we nipped that relationship in the bud! We told her to stick with people her own age, and he quit coming around the house. She started bring home age-appropriate friends, so we figured she had moved on from it!"

We checked with the water taxi company, and they report dropping off a girl fitting Ronda's description on the mainland about the time she went missing. 

Amber Alert: 17 year old Ronda Culpepper has long chestnut hair, and was last seen wearing blue jeans and a blue graphic hoodie and carrying a backpack. She may be travelling with or looking for an adult male named Carmen who is a person of interest. Carmen has mid-length dark hair and athletic build. He has been know to frequent libraries and bars. Please direct any information regarding the whereabouts of Ronda Culpepper or a homeless man named Carmen to the Sagehen Mesa Police Department. 

******

If a missing teenager isn't enough drama for this small town, Clancy says his sister came to him and shared her harrowing week. First of all, there was the housefire. No one knows how it started, but it's assumed it was faulty wiring. Poor Sondra was trapped in the house and Tess was in the garage, so freaked out, she didn't have the presence of mind to open the garage door and escape. 

Bridgett, one of our local firefighters, saved the day by putting out the fire and breaking down the doors to free both Tess and Sondra. 

That woman deserves a raise! 

The following day, Sondra was out with her mother Tess and step-father Anton at the junkyard. Tess was looking for some inspiration and materials for her next sculpture. 

While Tess and Anton were perusing the junk piles and viewing the metal sculptures, Sondra went exploring. She went down to the basement and found a secret door had been left ajar.

Behind the door was a small library. "What's a library doing in a junkyard?" she wondered. She said she got an eerie feeling so she went to tell Tess and Anton about the secret library. 

Tess was intrigued, and decided to go check it out. 

Anton was flirty and decided it was a great make-out spot. 

They decided not to question why a library was hidden behind a secret door . . . 

. . . but Clancy gets the feeling that Sondra isn't telling him the whole story. 

Overlord's Note: I tried directing Sondra down the ladder and deeper into the lair, but she insisted on going back and telling her mother about the books. I think she suspects her father is behind this and doesn't want to be the one responsible for his arrest. She knows her mother wouldn't have a problem turning him in and was hoping Tess would discover the door to the storage room, but Anton went in and messed it up!

This is the end of Season 3. Time to set up for Season 4.