Abe should have bit his tongue. It didn’t pay in his profession to be on the bad side of the cops, but unfortunately Detective Moore rubbed him the wrong way. He seemed to view anyone under the age of thirty as a lazy, pot-smoking communist. Abe was no exception.
The detective rested his hands on the desk and leaned toward Abe.
“Be careful, young man, or I’ll make sure you never squeeze a tip or so much as a fart out of this office again.”
Abe tensed his jaw, glaring at the detective.
“I assume you’re not connecting Orla to the other five missing girls?”
The detective cocked an eyebrow.
“I get it. You want your big story. But guess what? In my line of work, the crime has to fit the evidence. Where’s the evidence, Abraham? Where’s the eyewitness connecting a single perp to these women? They’re from different cities, they didn’t know one another, they disappeared years apart. Visit any state in the country, and you’ll find scores of missing young women. Could you lump ‘em all together and cry connection? Sure. Would you be a damn fool for doing so? Absolutely.”
“I’m not the only one who sees this, Detective. You want to know what I think? You’ve lost your instincts, your gut. You can’t see the connection because you’re blinded by your own prejudice.”
The detective flicked his finger at the door.
“Get out of my office. I don’t have time to talk conspiracy theories today.”
Abe didn’t go home. He’d given Moore one last chance to prove his competency, and the detective had failed.
He drove to the newspaper and delivered his story. His editor was on the phone, but grinned and gave him a thumbs-up when Abe rested the pages on his desk.
Chapter 23
Abe
Abe stepped into the office. He could see his editor on the phone, his face red, his eyes lit as if he were in a heated conversation. Throughout the office, phones rang. Several other reporters scurried to answer them, jotting down hurried messages.
When Brenda, who wrote obituaries and entertainment stories, spotted Abe, she grinned.
“Oh my God, Abe!” she squawked. “People are going nuts.”
She held up a copy of Up North News, his headline plastered on the front: The Missing Girls of Summer - Are the Police Paying Attention?
He paused, his breath catching as he gazed at the six women staring out from their black-and-white photos. A sensation of exhilaration, floating on a tremor of fear, coursed through him.
His editor Barney walked from his office, his glasses askew, his eyes wide.
“That was Detective Moore. He’s livid!” The editor grinned and clapped Abe on the back.
“Well done, Abe!”
It was not a typical reaction. Many editors would be furious if their head reporter ostracized the police, but Barney was old-school. He believed that journalists were the watch dogs, whether they were outing the criminals, the cops, or the politicians. More than once, he’d proclaimed their reaction to the missing girls as gross negligence bordering on criminal.
“What did he say?” Abe asked.
“Oh, the usual. Reckless journalism, jumping to conclusions. We’ve created a shit storm, and vigilante parents will soon fill the streets with their rifles and a hangman’s noose.”
Abe considered the accusations, listened to the phones ringing, and smiled.
“Maybe we’re finally gonna nail this guy.”
“You the one writ’ them articles?”
Abe looked up from the table, where he had notes spread from the sugar canister to the table’s edge. A fidgety man gazed down at him.
“Yeah.” Abe stood, brushed the crumbs from his toast off his shirt and held out a hand. “Abe Sevett. You got a tip?”
Abe had set up a makeshift office in Grady’s Diner. They served hot coffee and cheap breakfast and didn’t mind if he took over an entire booth. Certain types of people wouldn’t set foot in a police station, or a newspaper, to offer information. He’d let his editor know to send tipsters directly to the diner, and Grady seemed grateful, though he grumbled about the few who stopped in without buying a cup of coffee.
The man shifted his eyes around the diner. He looked one loud sound away from spooked.
“Here, have a seat, man.” Abe shoved the papers to one side of the table, clearing a space, and gestured at the opposite seat. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” He watched the man’s eyes rove across the counter, pausing hungrily on the glass case of pie.
“Or a piece of pie? Peach or blackberry?”
The man blinked at him, eyes watering, and nodded.
“Peach,” he mumbled
Abe walked to the counter.
“Mona, can you grab us a piece of peach pie and a coffee?”
“Sure thing,” Grady’s wife told him, offering a thumbs-up as she grabbed a plate of eggs from the hot window and slid them in front of two men eating at the counter.
“You got a name?” Abe asked, sitting down. He rarely bought food for strangers who may or may not have anything of significance to tell him, but the man looked like a runner, and on the skinny side. He’d count it as his good deed for the day.
“Stuart,” the man said, glancing at the papers on the table.
Abe was careful not to leave anything exposed that wasn’t already public knowledge.
“I seen her,” Stuart whispered, leaning forward. His hand snaked up from the beneath the table, tapped quickly on Orla’s picture, and then rushed back down.
“On the day she disappeared?” Abe grabbed a clean sheet of paper and wrote Stuart’s name at the top.
Stuart shook his head.
“Three days ago - no, four.” He shook his head, frowned as if days were hard to follow. Stuart dropped his voice to a whisper “At the big hospital.”
“The big hospital?” Abe asked, confused. “You mean the asylum?”
Stuart’s eyes darted around, and when Mona arrived with the pie, he jumped and nearly sent the pie flying. Mona pivoted away and kept the plate balanced on her hand, spilling only a sip of coffee on her white apron.
“Barely a drop,” she announced, grinning. She slid the pie and coffee on the table and turned without another wood.
Stuart blinked after her, and then turned his eyes to the pie. He licked his lips and leaned close, sniffing it. He glanced around again, studying Mona before lifting his fork, carving out a bite, and touching his tongue to the pie. Abe wondered about his strange behavior.
“Is there something wrong with it?” he asked, though he suspected the pie wasn’t the issue.
“Can never be too careful,” Stuart told him, taking a bite and chewing slowly.
“You saw Orla Sullivan at the Northern Michigan Asylum?”
Stuart’s head bobbed up and down.
“Doing what, exactly?”
Abe didn’t want to write the man off, but he’d been hoping for a more plausible lead.
“Screaming. Her head was all wrapped up.” He gestured to his head as if wrapping it in a towel. “Her arms was strapped down. She looked me right here.” Stuart pointed two fingers square at his own face.
“Stuart. It’s public knowledge that Orla is missing. I find it hard to believe a doctor, a nurse, or an administrator at the asylum wouldn’t have called the police immediately to let them know.”
Stuart took another bite, watching Abe as he chewed.
He turned his head slightly, as if someone had whispered in his ear.