Hazel nodded.
“I know there’s something wrong. I know it.”
More than a week had passed since Orla disappeared. The searchers gathered at Birch Park, a natural area Orla often rode her bike to. Hazel knew if they found Orla in the woods, she’d likely be dead. That was the terrifying aspect of disappearances. If people could come home, they would.
Cars crowded the parking lot and bikes lay in heaps along the tree line. The police weren’t involved. Hazel wondered if they’d do it all differently.
“Here.” Calvin handed her a walkie-talkie. He’d tucked his long, dark hair behind his ears and opted for jeans over his usual shorts.
Hazel had planned the search, but Calvin organized it. Though he worked in a bookstore, detested law enforcement, and fit snugly into the 1970s counterculture many young people preferred, he came from a military family. He understood how search parties worked. Despite their political differences, his father and two brothers had volunteered their help. They’d also brought maps of the natural area marked into grids to organize searches, walking sticks, two-way radios, and jugs of water.
Hazel smiled gratefully at Calvin’s father and gave him a quick hug. Tall and broad with buzzed hair, he looked the part of a soldier, as did Calvin’s two brothers, who fanned out giving people directions.
“How ya doing, honey?” Calvin asked, trotting over.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
Thoughts jumbled her mind. Fear of discovering Orla’s decomposing body had soured her sleep for two nights. She searched the sky for crows and vultures, some signal that death lay near.
“You don’t have to give any directions. I’ll lead this group. My dad’s taking searchers west. My brothers are covering the group along the road. If you spot anything,” he pushed the red button on the side of the radio, “give your location.”
Hazel nodded and started forward with the searchers. She saw neighbors, a woman who Orla mended clothes for, and many people she’d never met. Orla’s father, Mr. Sullivan, arrived with a pickup truck filled with the same men she’d seen at the job site. He offered her a nod but didn’t say hello.
As she walked through the knee-high grass, she concentrated on the ground. Twice, other searchers paused, exclaiming they’d found something, only to hold up empty pop cans or discarded food bags.
“Is that a shoe?” a woman several paces to Hazel’s right, asked.
Hazel rushed over.
The woman pointed at a dark blob that appeared to be leather. Hazel stared at shoelaces tangled in the object. Moss covered most of the boot.
“It’s not Orla’s,” she sighed.
After the search, Hazel gulped water from a jug Calvin handed her.
The searches had come up empty. Hazel felt hollow. Perhaps Orla had not gone to Birch Park at all, and Hazel had wasted everyone’s time searching the wrong woods.
Across the parking lot, a man held his camera up, snapped a shot of the group, twiddled with the lens and took another, and then another. He didn’t speak with other searchers and appeared to be on his own. A notepad hung by a string around his neck.
“Are you a reporter?” she asked, stopping just short of him, blocking his shot.
He lowered the camera.
“Yes, with Up North News.” He held out a hand. “Abraham Levett. I prefer Abe.”
Hazel looked at his hand and felt torn. Was she supposed to befriend this man, beg him to print a story about her friend? Or did he intend to act as so many others had, as if she were making a spectacle out of a girl who’d hitchhiked out of town and would be back any minute.
Finally, she offered him a limp shake.
“I’m Hazel. Why are you here, Abe?”
He glanced toward the woods where more searchers trickled in, their faces sunburnt, their shoulders slumped.
“To cover the story of a missing woman.”
“So, you don’t think she just took off?” Hazel asked, an edge in her voice.
“Have you heard of Rita Schneider?”
Hazel frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar.
“She vanished from Beulah the summer of 1973. That’s where my father lives, where I grew up. She used to feed his cat if he went out of town. On July 17th, 1973, she rode her bike to Platte Bay and vanished without a trace.”
Hazel blinked at him, a cold, sinking feeling in her stomach.
“And you suspect her disappearance is connected to Orla?”
“Orla doesn’t fit the type, but maybe.”
“The type?” Hazel asked, irritated.
“It’s not an insult. If you truly want to know, I’ll explain it.”
“I do, but I need to help Calvin wrap this up. Can we meet in a few hours?”
Abe looked at his watch, a raggedy thing with a cracked face and a worn leather band.
“Sure. I’ll come by your house.”
“How do you know where I live?”
“I’m a journalist. That’s my job.”
Chapter 12
Hazel
Abe knocked on Hazel’s door moments after she poured herself a glass of water and slumped onto the couch. Calvin had gone home with his dad to drop off the search supplies and would return in the evening. Hazel wanted to curl up and sleep. Her feet and lower back ached. She was in good shape, but trooping through the woods, hunched over and squinting at the ground until her eyes crossed had worn her down.
In the end, they’d found nothing.
She pulled open the door.
Abe still wore the same blue jeans, rolled at the bottom, and brown t-shirt. His hair was black, curly and just above his ears. His beard and mustache were not unruly like many men Hazel’s age, but neatly trimmed. Though Abe looked young, she suspected he wasn’t her age - closer to thirty than twenty.
A black camera bag hung over one arm, a folder tucked into his armpit, and he held his notebook in his hand.
She smiled and almost threw the door open wide to invite him in. Instead, her mind drifted back to the Devil card she’d pulled for Orla days earlier. She quickly stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
“We can talk out here,” she said, leading him to the patio furniture at one end of their long front porch. It was white aluminum cushioned in green floral fabric. It had belonged to Hazel’s mother. Every night, Hazel carried the cushions inside and stored them in the closet.
Abe sat in a chair and opened his folder.
Hazel looked at a map of northern Michigan spotted with little red dots.
“What are the dots?” she asked.
“Where each girl went missing.”
“Wait.” She looked up, startled. “Each? You mean there are more than two?”
“Six, if we include Orla. Six women have disappeared since 1971.”
Hazel gaped at the page.
“How come I haven’t heard about this.”
Abe looked at her squarely.
“Because there are no bodies. Without bodies, there’s no conclusive evidence of foul play. Worse, there’s no evidence at all. Maybe they took off, started a new life, hopped on a plane.”
“Maybe they did,” Hazel said.
“They didn’t,” Abe told her. He pushed the map aside and pulled out paper-sized photos of each girl. “I’ve spoken with their parents, their friends. These weren’t runaways. They didn’t hitchhike. Most of them didn’t smoke pot. Not one of them had ever taken off, not even once. Rita left three hundred dollars in cash in the bureau next to her bed. Susie had plans to go camping for Labor Day Weekend.”