Dead, gone, ripped from the earth. Did they know? Did the surrounding flowers realize she’d uprooted their earth-mates to ensure the weeds didn’t steal the nutrients from her valuable flowers and vegetables?
“I’m sorry?” Abe faltered.
She offered him a sympathetic smile.
“She’s dead. That’s why I’m crying.”
“Damn. Well now, I’m doubly sorry.”
She waved a weed.
“You don’t need to be sorry. She was suffering. I try to remember that. It makes the missing her a little easier. How can I want her here when she was in pain? I can’t, simple as that, but I miss her just the same. And now the anniversary is coupled with Orla.” Her voice hitched. “Do you think she’s dead, Abe?”
He gazed at her for a long time, and then beyond her, through her.
“After forty-eight hours, the likelihood of finding an abducted person alive is much smaller. But it happens.”
“We’re not searching for Orla, are we? We’re searching for a body or for a madman, but not for my friend.”
Abe nodded.
“There’s a good chance, yes.”
“You’d make a terrible grief counselor,” she told him.
“Yeah. I’m built for what I do and little else.”
“Speaking of what you’re built for, how’s the story coming along?”
“Good,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I’d like you to read the portion about Orla. Make sure I’ve got my facts straight.”
Hazel stood and brushed off her skirt, gathering the weeds in her arms and dumping them in her compost pile.
“Go ahead and have a seat.” She gestured to her patio furniture and slipped inside to grab a plate of cookies and pitcher of mint tea she’d made from her garden.
Abe picked up a cookie, took a bite, and made a face.
“They’re sage shortbread. Orla’s favorite,” Hazel told him.
He took a second bite, cocked his head and nodded.
“Not what I expect in a cookie, but intriguing.”
He set the cookie down and ruffled through his briefcase. A huge stack of typed pages emerged.
“Is that your story? It looks like it will take up the entire newspaper.”
He shook his head.
“I write the story ten times, ten different ways. Then I ask everyone to check their pieces. I do my final fact check, and then I modify the story that most jumps out on my second read-through.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“The twenty hours I spent writing these,” he touched the pages, “don’t compare with the work of the last year of my life. It made me sick to cut so much.”
Hazel lifted a cookie for a bite, and then returned it to the plate. She’d lost her appetite. She pulled the page with Orla’s story closer and read.
“Do you believe in fate, Hazel?”
Hazel looked up from the sheet of paper.
Abe sat across the patio table, his eyes distant.
“Yes, though I think there are many fates, and we determine the path. Why do you ask?”
“When you consider the missing girls,” he started. “Every single one of them vanished without a trace. Not a single witness saw them get into a brown truck or walk into a certain store. What if they’d varied their choice by some tiny thing? Left their house fifteen minutes later? I bet we’d be staring at different girls’ faces. This guy chose them because there was no possibility someone could trace the abductions.”
“Which implies you don’t think it was fate, but an opportunity that put each of them in danger.”
He frowned.
“It’s a notion I’ve struggled with my entire life. Is it all random? Is there no lesson in all of this? No greater truth?”
Hazel looked at her garden. Some flowers would live, others would die. Who made the call?
“I like to believe there’s something more… but maybe it’s not dictating our lives.”
He shrugged.
“How could they disappear without a trace? Without a fucking trace?”
Hazel sighed.
“The woods. Right? Isn’t your theory that they all vanished in the woods?”
Abe frowned, chewed his lip.
“Rita was afraid of the woods. Her dad told me she never hiked, hated camping. She got lost in them once when she was young. They found her within a few minutes, but it had a lasting impact.”
“How do you know so much about all of them?”
His expression had grown distant as he gazed at the photos.
“Because how can we discover the choice, that tiny imperceptible moment that put them in the path of this man, if we don’t know everything about them? She didn’t go hiking in the woods. That’s not where he found her.”
“Where did she like to go that’s remote?”
He smiled.
“Now you’re thinking like an investigator. She liked to go to the beach, once beach in particular, where she searched for Petoskey stones.”
“A beach is not exactly isolated.”
“Some of them are. And she went on gray, windy days, because she often found more stones. She polished them. She covered her dresser in jars filled with Petoskey stones. He’s local, he’s an opportunist. He does not target these girls before he takes them. The who doesn’t even matter. Here’s what matters: their long blonde hair. I suspect that’s the focus. Long blonde hair and a moment of opportunity.”
“Orla has dark hair.”
“Orla was an anomaly. I haven’t made sense of it yet. Maybe the urge was too strong, or she had some other trait that made her desirable. Something…” he trailed off.
“It’s great,” Hazel finished, pushing the paper back across the table. “You captured the spirit of Orla in this. One little thing, though, she prepped food at Zander’s. She didn’t wait tables.”
Abe grabbed a pencil and crossed out a line, put a note beside it.
“Pat said waitress.”
Hazel smiled.
“Pat probably assumes the only work for women in a restaurant is waiting tables. Orla joked that she’d forget the water if she had to waitress.”
Abe
Abe sat on the long wooden bench, staring into Detective Moore’s office. The shades were drawn, but the door stood open. He’d tried to walk directly in, but an eager young deputy refused to let him pass. After fifteen minutes, he shifted his attention to the deputy. The moment something distracted him, Abe was making a move for the office.
Detective Moore stepped from the office, his suit coat clutched in his hand. His eyes found Abe, and he froze, and then started to turn as if he intended to slip back into the office. His gaze darted toward desks containing deputies, up to the wall clock, and then finally back to Abe.
“I can give you five minutes, tops,” he barked, waving for Abe to join him.
Abe stood and followed the burly man into his office. Paperwork flooded the detective’s desk. Family photos lay jumbled at the back, some fallen over, as if edged aside to make room for more paperwork.
“Any developments on the Orla Sullivan case?”
The detective sat on the edge of his chair, not settling in. Abe preferred to stand. After a moment, the detective stood as well, clearly not comfortable looking up at the young journalist.
“The suspected runaway? No.”
Abe blew out a frustrated sigh.
“She’s not a runaway. Are you incompetent? Does anyone in this office actually investigate crimes?”