Chapter 20
Hazel
Hazel stepped from Abe’s car. He’d parked in the driveway of a little fifties-style bungalow. The houses on either side burst with summer flowers, neat rows of bushes stood beneath windows. This house held no such color. The drawn shades and closed garage door gave the house an air of abandonment.
“She lived here? Susan Miner?”
Abe had explained his relationship with Liz on the drive. Not only had she motivated him to begin the investigation, she’d fielded tips, had a thousand theories, and worked night and day to solve Susan’s disappearance. She was also his way into the families - after all, she was one of them.
Abe knocked on the door.
After a moment, a man pulled it open.
He looked prematurely gray, wore a sweater despite the summer heat, and offered them a strained smile.
“She’s in the study,” he murmured and wandered back into the living room, returning to his chair where a muted television played.
Cold churned from a window air conditioner, turning the dark rooms and hallways frigid.
The study occupied a small room lined with long tables. The tables held stacks of fliers, and a network of corkboards with maps, missing girls’ posters and tips plastered the walls. A telephone sat on one desk.
A woman stood staring at the map, her hand poised as if she’d been reaching up to adjust something and gotten lost in thought. She’d clearly not heard the knock on the door.
“Liz?”
The woman gave a start, dropping her hand.
“Abe. I didn’t hear you come in.”
She blinked at him, and then at Hazel. Her short curly hair lay flat in the back, as if she’d recently slept on it. She wore pleated jeans and a loose button-up men’s shirt.
“I was trying to make sense of the abduction sites. I mean, the probable abduction sites. We can’t know for sure, but….”
“Liz, I’d like you to meet Hazel. She’s Orla’s roommate and close friend.”
Liz stared at her for a long moment, as if processing his words took time She smiled and crossed the room.
“Yes, of course. Abe said you were coming. Delighted to meet you, Hazel.”
She turned back to the map, frowned, and then shook her head.
“I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Maybe it’s time for a break?” Abe asked. “From the room, anyway?”
Hazel had the sense the woman spent a lot of time in the room, too much time.
She continued to stare at the map until Abe cleared his throat.
“Yes, a break. You’re right.”
They followed Liz to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door, and it surprised Hazel to see bare shelves. A half-empty gallon of milk sat on the top shelf.
“I should have made tea,” she murmured.
“No. You didn’t need to go to the trouble. Let’s drive into town. Jerry, can we bring you back lunch?”
Abe stepped into the living room, where Jerry sat watching the still-muted TV.
He looked up, then craned toward his wife.
“I’ll have what you’re having, dear.”
Liz nodded, brushed at the flat curls on the back of her head.
She picked up a red purse from the counter.
“This belonged to Susie,” she told Hazel as they left the house.
The sun shone blindingly bright after the dim interior.
“It’s nice,” Hazel told her.
Hazel watched Liz’s eyes drift to the neighbors’ yard, a self-conscious expression flitting across her face. She reached up to her hair, and then touched her shirt, pausing. She looked down.
“Good grief, I’m still in Jerry’s shirt. Give me five minutes to change?”
“Take your time,” Abe told her.
Liz disappeared back into the dark interior.
Hazel watched her. “It’s like her life was-”
“Frozen,” Abe finished. “Pretty much. Everyone handles it differently. Liz abandoned the person she used to be. She told me that once, she felt like she’d stepped out of that woman’s skin and left in it a pile on the floor.”
Hazel grimaced at the analogy.
“Do you think she’ll ever…?” Hazel trailed off. She didn’t know how to finish the question: get over it - move on - be normal again?
He gazed down the roadway, where freshly washed cars gleamed in driveways.
“I don’t know. When she gets answers, when she is freed from the purgatory of not knowing, that’s when she might be able to rebuild again. Figure out who she is on the other side of all this.”
Hazel imagined years down the road, walking through town and glimpsing a streak of long black hair, wondering if it was Orla - never knowing what had become of her friend.
She took an uneasy breath, chased the image away. She wouldn’t forsake her friend by giving up.
“Do you guys get tips? Is that what her phone is for?”
“We advise people to send tips to the police, but every flier also contains her phone number or mine. We both take calls.”
Liz bustled out several minutes later in a clean blouse and less wrinkled jeans. She’d pulled her short curls into a tiny ponytail at the base of her neck.
“Much better,” she announced.
The restaurant had a fifties theme, and Hazel followed Abe and Liz’s lead by ordering a chocolate milkshake. It arrived in a tall, old-fashioned glass smothered in whipped cream and dotted with a red cherry.
“This has become our little ritual,” Liz said, plucking her cherry from the white froth and gazing at it. “Susie loved this place, the milkshakes in particular. Jerry and I always gave her our cherries.” Liz put it in her mouth, rolled it around. “I eat it now. For her. I used to order it without one, but now…” She stopped, and her eyes welled with tears.
Abe took her hand and squeezed.
“Here’s to Susie,” he said, clinking his milkshake against each of theirs.
“And to finding the son of a bitch who took her,” Liz added, renewed strength in her voice.
“The story will hit the stands Sunday,” Abe said. “We have to be ready to field calls, they’ll be pouring in. And Liz, expect the cranks again. If people call your home line, let the machine pick up.”
“Let ‘em call,” she said. “A few words from me and they’ll never do it again.”
Abe chuckled.
“Has anything of the women’s ever been found?” Hazel asked. “A purse? Or a wallet? Anything?”
“Susie’s shoe is the only physical evidence the police have ever found in connection with any of the girls,” Liz offered. “The other missing girls left nothing behind. But what it tells us is that someone abducted her in the woods.”
Abe spread out a map that labeled the state forest area where someone had discovered Susie’s shoe. “There’s a series of marked trails maintained by volunteers. Then there’s a dozen other trails formed by deer and mountain bikers. They found her shoe on one of those. There are three marked parking lots for this forest. Based on where her shoe was, our guy was parked here.” Abe pointed to a darker square. “This location is also important because it’s shielded from the road. You can easily park there and conceal your car.”
“On a Sunday afternoon? Why wasn’t he worried about hikers?”
“A few reasons. One, by Sunday afternoon most of the tourists are heading out of town, families are getting ready for the work week. And for those not doing that, it was hot out. People went to the beach, not hiking. But this guy is careful. He can abandon his plan at any time. He nabbed her close to the trailhead near his car. I’d say he could see his car and the lot. The coast was clear, so he grabbed her. We assume there was a struggle, and that’s how she lost her shoe. He carried her to the car.”