CHAPTER TEN A: A DRIVER’S ROUTE

Cole Mercer drove transport vans for seven years and knew the city’s hospital entrances better than most ambulance crews.
He also knew which patients needed help with stairs and which families waited outside to make sure a ride arrived.
When Ruiz interviewed him, he brought a pocket notebook full of handwritten mileage figures.
“I started keeping this after they blamed me for fuel shortages,” he said.
Ruiz asked about the night Martin disappeared.
Cole pointed to an entry in the notebook.
He had been assigned a route to a dialysis center, then told to park his van at a service station and take a taxi home.
“They said the vehicle needed an urgent inspection,” he explained.
“But it had passed its inspection the day before.

”
Cole had watched another driver collect the van while he waited for the taxi.
The driver wore a reflective jacket and kept his face turned away.
“Did you recognize him?” Ruiz asked.
“No, but I recognized his limp.”
Cole described a man who favored his left leg when climbing into vehicles.
He had seen the same gait at the transport company’s maintenance yard.
Ruiz asked for a name.
Cole gave her the name of a contractor who handled fleet purchases.
“He told me he never drove patients,” Cole said.
“That night, he drove my van.”
The notebook also showed that Cole had logged more miles than the company recorded.
The discrepancy did not prove fraud by itself, but it gave investigators a reason to inspect fuel records and service receipts.


Cole left the interview carrying his notebook in a sealed evidence bag receipt.
He had worried that the records made him look obsessive.
Ruiz told him that ordinary habits sometimes preserve details that electronic systems can be altered to conceal.

CHAPTER TEN B: THE WRONG DRIVER

The fleet contractor was named Randall Sykes.
He had worked for three transport companies and was known for buying vehicles cheaply at auction.
When inspectors first questioned him, Randall claimed he had been out of state during Martin’s disappearance.
His hotel receipt supported the claim.
A fuel purchase from the same evening placed his company card in Columbus.
Randall said an employee had borrowed the card.
Ruiz asked for the employee’s name.
He supplied one that belonged to a man who had left the company a year earlier.
The investigators did not accuse Randall of kidnapping Martin during that interview.
They asked him to explain how his company controlled access to vehicle keys.
Randall described a locked cabinet in the maintenance office.
When Ruiz asked for the access log, he said the cabinet had never required one.
Later that day, Denise identified a photograph of Randall leaving the dispatch building.
She remembered him because he had argued with Graham Pike about a vehicle that needed to disappear from the records.
“Those were his exact words?” Ruiz asked.
“He said, ‘I need that van gone before Monday,'” Denise replied.
“I remember because I thought he meant it needed repairs.”
Ruiz asked what Graham had said in response.
“He told Randall to stop talking where drivers could hear him.”
Denise looked down at her hands.
“That was the first time I wondered whether the routes were being changed for something other than money.”