“I did it,” he said. “I told him. Not up to me no more.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Abe tried to make sense of his words, though he doubted the man had been speaking to him.
Stuart lifted the plate, licked off the pie residue, and stood. He hurried from the restaurant without another word.
Abe watched him through the window. He cut across the parking lot and disappeared into a thicket of trees at the road’s edge.
Despite his doubts, he jotted down the man’s tale.
“More coffee, hon?” Mona asked, pausing by his table with the pot.
“Yeah, thanks. Do you know him, Mona? The man who just came in?”
“I’ve seen him around. He’s a patient at the asylum, but he gets town privilege a few times a week. He’s never come in before - usually just walks up and down the roads. Harmless, but an odd ball.”
“Thanks.”
Abe tapped his pencil on Orla’s picture. It was a ridiculous claim. Unless somehow, she’d been admitted without a name. Could she have fallen, ended up with no memory of who she was? Could they somehow have not recognized her?
Abe shook his head and shifted back to his other notes.
Hazel
Hazel pulled into the diner. She waved at Abe seated inside.
As she turned toward the door, she spotted Orla’s dad at the telephone pole across the street, stapling a flier to the wood. She caught Abe’s eye, pointed at Orla’s dad, and held up a finger, signaling she’d be right back.
“Mr. Sullivan,” Hazel called, hurrying across the street.
He looked up, more fliers tucked beneath his arm, a determined look in his eyes. When he noticed her, his face lightened.
“Hi…” He paused as if searching for her name.
“Hazel,” she reminded him.
“Yes, Hazel, sorry.”
“Are those fliers for Orla?”
He sighed and held them up.
“Yeah. Fiona had an episode yesterday over the other fliers. They didn’t depict her eyes properly. So…”
“May I?”
He handed her the stack, and she looked at a picture of Orla in a high-neck dress, long black hair sweeping over each shoulder, wide blue eyes fixed on the camera.
“It’s a beautiful picture.”
Patrick nodded, taking the fliers back and dividing them in half.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Hazel said. She took the stack. “I had more fliers made up two days ago and already passed them out.”
He nodded, looking down the street.
“Have you heard anything more from the police?”
He shook his head.
“They still think she left on her own. This character who writes for Up North News might be our best hope.”
“Did you read the article?”
He nodded and stopped, an odd gurgling sound rising from his throat. He rushed across the street. His fliers exploded into the air and floated in lazy circles to the hot pavement below.
Hazel watched, awestruck, as Patrick slammed into the side of a man on a bicycle - and not just any bicycle, but Orla’s yellow bike, with the little purple basket painted with yellow flowers.
Chapter 24
Hazel
The man on the bike flew sideways, his body hitting the pavement hard, but Patrick wasted no time. He lifted him by his shirt and held him dangling above the ground.
Hazel almost picked up the discarded fliers but, realizing the situation in front of her was more dire, ran across the street.
“Where’s Orla?” Patrick shouted into the man’s startled face, and Hazel realized he was barely a man at all, maybe sixteen, with terrified brown eyes and an ugly red scrape where he’d landed on his left forearm.
“Mr. Sullivan,” Hazel whispered, touching his arm.
Patrick didn’t seem to hear her or notice the gathering people who’d stopped to watch the assault unfolding.
The boy shook his head, gave Hazel a panic-stricken glance. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his thin throat.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I think you’ve got me confused.”
The boy didn’t break away when Patrick spoke. Instead, he pulled his head back into his face, as if expecting the man to punch his teeth in. Hazel wouldn’t have been surprised if Patrick did just that.
“You’ve got my daughter’s bike.” Patrick jerked his head toward the fallen bike. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time-”
“I found it,” the boy squeaked. “I swear. I passed it a few times just laying beside a tree. I thought…” But he didn’t finish as Abe ran up beside them.
“Mr. Sullivan. Somebody called the police. You better set the kid down.” He put his hand on Patrick’s arm and pushed it down, encouraging him to release the boy back onto his feet. “Don’t even think about running,” Abe told him.
Hazel knew he had no such intentions. His skinny legs quaked beneath his shorts. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he wet himself.
“He has Orla’s bike,” Patrick told Abe, jabbing an accusatory finger at the yellow bicycle.
Abe nodded.
“The police will be here any second.” Abe glanced down the road, where cars had slowed and more people stood in small groups on the sidewalk, sharing their stories. “When did you find the bike?” Abe asked.
“Umm, on like Thursday,” the boy stammered. “Yeah, it was Thursday. In Elder Park. It was just lying there, honest to God. I walked by it a few times and figured somebody dumped it.”
“Where’s the park?” Abe asked.
The kid scratched his head, avoided eye contact with Patrick, and gestured toward the north. “A little north of the bay. On Cherry Bend Road.”
“How long was the bike there before you took it?”
Hazel observed Abe’s brain working behind his eyes. He wanted to question the boy before the cops arrived.
“Umm… like two days. I just thought somebody left it.”
Patrick stood frozen in place, glaring at the kid as if he wanted to pummel him despite the story. Hazel had the sense Patrick’s anger had been building ever since Orla went missing.
Hazel stepped toward the bike. She needed to set it upright. Orla loved her bicycle. She’d hate the image of it lying on the pavement, discarded.
“Don’t touch it,” Abe told her. “It’s evidence - already contaminated by this kid, but at least he found it, and now we have it. They need to dust it for fingerprints.”
“Am I in trouble?” the boy asked, as if the mention of fingerprint dusting had sealed his fate.
“Not if you’re telling the truth,” Abe told him. “So, give that a good think. If you’re lying, now’s the time to come clean.”
“Did you see anyone with the bike or around it?” Hazel cut in, squatting next to the bike. She pulled out a sprig of pink flowers tangled in its spokes.
The kid glanced at her, looked scared all over again, and Hazel knew he had. Abe, too, seemed to notice the slip.
“No,” he murmured.
Hazel held up the flowers.
“Water willow,” she told them. “They grow in Birch Park along the stream. I’ve picked them there myself.”
When the squad car arrived, two uniformed officers stepped out. The one in charge, clearly the senior of the two, was graying around the temples and wore dark sunglasses. He was handsome and reminded Hazel of a cop from a movie. His partner was young and fresh-faced, with an eagerness in his gait as he stepped onto the sidewalk.