A. M. Taylor - Forget Me Not

The Altman family have requested peace and understanding at this time, and our condolences and heartfelt thoughts go out to them as they deal with this tragedy.

It was a short article, and I read it quickly, drinking in the few facts Ange had managed to glean from somewhere. What time Elle was found, when she was believed to have died, the exact location she was found. It was all relevant, pertinent, and yet it didn’t feel real. How could I be reading about Elle?

“The same spot,” I said, lingering over that detail. “How close was it exactly to where Nora’s car was found?”

Ange raised her eyebrows. “Really close. Willard said her body was a little ways off in the woods, but you could see the road still. The car was right by where the ribbon is.”

I reached for my coffee, as if going to drink some, but couldn’t lift it to my lips. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could still see the headlines and photographs that filled the newspapers in the days and months after Nora’s disappearance. But that little patch of land where her car had been found existed somewhere inside me, desolate and snowy, even in the summer when the sun managed to warm my skin and my mind managed to crawl its way out of a perpetual winter. For Elle to have been found there—to have been left, abandoned there, as if she were nothing but a scrap to be discarded and forgotten—gave shape to her death in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Whoever had done this may as well have placed Elle within the chalk outline of the body Nora had never left behind.

January 15, 2008

It’s been seven days since Wisconsin teenager Nora Altman went missing from the small town of Forest View, and her family is concerned. “This isn’t like Nora,” her father, attorney Jonathan Altman, said at a press conference held in nearby Waterstone last night. “She has never left home without telling either her family or friends where she is going, and we are very, very worried that something terrible has happened to our wonderful girl. We remain hopeful that she is somewhere, healthy and alive, and if that is the case then Nora, please come back to us. Please get in touch. With anyone. To anyone who may have taken her, may have hurt her … I beg you, please come forward. Please bring our girl back.”

An emotional Mr Altman was unable to finish his statement and plea to the wider public to be on the lookout for the tall 17-year-old girl who went missing over the course of the night of January 7. Her car was found abandoned by the side of the road, on a lonely and unpopulated stretch of Old Highway 51 the next morning, January 8, by local policeman and friend of the missing teen, Officer Leo Moody. It was Moody’s father, Chief of Police Patrick Moody who took over from Mr Altman at the press conference, issuing the description of the brunette and asking the public to report any sightings, and for any witnesses who may have seen her as she exited her vehicle or later on that night to come forward.

In a separate statement, the police department made it clear that despite the family’s fears they do not yet suspect foul play. Nora is a popular, smart, and tenacious young woman by all accounts, and there is no evidence yet that she left the area under anything other than her own steam. Nora Altman is described as being roughly five foot nine with dark brown, almost black hair and blue eyes. Anyone with any information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call the number below.

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