“Is she a painter?” Hazel asked.
The woman glanced back at her with a smile.
“No, I am the painter. I care for Mrs. Cooper, so she offered me a room to paint while I’m here.”
“You’re not her daughter, then? Or granddaughter?”
The woman shook her head, pushed open a swinging door into a brightly lit kitchen. This room differed from the rest of the house. Sun streaked through tall windows, revealing the tangled woods behind the house.
The kitchen counters were clean, the table empty except for a bowl of fruit.
“I know Miranda,” the woman said, gesturing toward a chair. “And I am Hattie.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. She didn’t say an age. I just assumed…”
The woman nodded.
“I rarely involve myself in such matters.”
“What matters?” Hazel asked.
Hattie let her delicate hands rest on the table. Hazel could see bits of paint in her cuticles.
“The dead. That’s why you’re here, I assume?”
Hazel blinked at her, unnerved by her directness.
“Yes, but…”
“Seeing the dead is a terrible burden. It nearly destroyed my life, and my mother’s as well. My mother vowed to never speak of her gift again. I have been foolish with my own. You see, when the dead appear, there is always a reason. They are persistent. If you allow them, they will consume your life. Their messages will never cease, their appearances never falter. To live a life free of their influence has to be a conscious choice again and again, until they fade.”
Hazel frowned.
“But you could do so much good. People are suffering, searching for their loves ones…”
Hattie smiled.
“And that is why I did not close the door in your face. But I am not as open as I once was. I may not be able to help you.”
Hazel studied the woman’s unlined face, her gentle eyes. If she had to describe her in a word, she’d say angelic.
“Thank you, Hattie.“ Hazel tried to think where to begin. “A woman disappeared in 1973. Her name was Susan, or is Susan, I guess. She is part of a series of women who have vanished. Do you read Up North News?”
Hattie shook her head.
“I don’t read the news, nor do I watch television, other than an occasional movie.”
“Okay, well, six women have disappeared in the last four years. I believe the ghost of one of them has appeared to me. I’ve seen her twice.”
Hattie nodded.
“Do you have something that belonged to her?”
“Yes.”
Hazel pulled out the fake pearl bracelet Liz had given her.
Hattie took the bracelet and held it in her hand. She closed her eyes, lashes fluttering.
“Hattie?” an old woman’s strained voice drifted in.
Hattie opened her eyes, slipped the bracelet over her wrist, and stood.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
Hazel watched her go, her long blonde hair swishing along her narrow waist.
Minutes clicked by, and Hazel grew restless. She wandered from the kitchen, pausing at a closed door when she heard voices.
“There, there, Claudette. Lie back and rest. Oh look, Chester has come to join us. Can you feel him, Claudette? Chester is here with you.”
“Chester?” the old woman croaked. “Oh, my love, my heart. Hattie, ask him to tell you about our trip to Paris in 1921. We stayed at the Hotel d’Angleterre.”
Hattie laughed.
“Chester says you spilled your espresso in the lap of Ernest Hemingway and fell into the Seine.”
When the voices died in the room, Hazel returned to the kitchen. She paused at a window, gazing into the dense yard.
“I’m sorry,” Hattie spoke, startling her.
The woman, as quiet as a ghost, had drifted into the kitchen and stood just behind Hazel.
Hazel managed not to jump, but her heart hammered in her chest.
Hattie handed her the bracelet.
“Susan is filled with purpose,” Hattie said, brow furrowed. “I cannot understand her. I believe she seeks justice, but more so an end to the pain of those who mourn her.”
“She’s dead?”
Hattie nodded. “I’m sorry. A violent death, and there were others.”
Hazel swallowed and drew a scarf from her bag that belonged to Orla.
Hattie eyed the scarf for several seconds, and then took it. She took a big breath in and closed her eyes.
“Nothing,” Hattie said, handing the scarf back.
“Does that mean she’s alive?” Hazel asked, hopeful.
Hattie shook her head.
“It means she’s not available to me. I don’t know if she’s alive.”
“Can you tell me anything, Hattie? Anything about who did this?”
Hattie shook her head.
“He was a stranger to the girl with the bracelet. But she keeps showing me a number: 3-1-1.”
Abe
Abe sat on a tree stump and stared across the street at the empty field where the boy had found the bike. Elder Park was unremarkable. An open space surrounded by trees, crisscrossed with trails that circled back to the entrance. He’d found a few discarded beer cans and the remnants of an old fire pit. The State of Michigan owned the land, and it was located on the complete opposite side of town from the park Hazel believed Orla had ridden to the day she disappeared.
Could Hazel have been wrong? Maybe Orla had ridden west instead of east. What if they’d been looking in the wrong place all along? But then, there’d been tips, multiple sightings of Orla that Sunday morning on Road 210, the road which led to Birch Park.
As Abe watched, a green pickup truck pulled into the grassy parking lot.
A young man stepped out. Dark hair to his chin concealed much of his face. He wore black pants and a black shirt. He drew a paper sack from the cab and walked to the rear of the truck, folding down the tailgate. He slid onto the back and took a sandwich from his bag. As he chewed, he gazed toward the trees.
Abe studied the man, likely in his mid-twenties with watchful eyes and hunched shoulders. He looked like a loner, the guy in high school who sat alone during lunch, reading a horror novel and avoiding eye contact.
Luke Dixon had described a pickup truck to Deputy Waller - a green pickup truck, with a rusted bumper. An identical truck to the one before him.
Abe waited until the man finished his lunch and climbed behind the wheel.
He squinted toward the back of the truck, writing the license plate number in his notebook. Abe waited several seconds after the truck pulled from the park, and then he followed him. The man turned onto Division and wound back around the bay, taking 131 south. Two turns later, Abe knew where the man was headed: the asylum.
The man parked in an employee parking lot and lumbered toward an entrance tucked into an alcove at the base of the enormous building.
Chapter 31
Hazel
“Abe just wants a story,” Hazel exploded, after they’d hit another dead end. “Frankly, I’m sick of feeling guilty because he’s running around town like a lunatic. It’s his job, and he has unlimited time to devote to searching.”
Abe had received a tip from a woman convinced that Orla was being forced to work at a topless club in Cadillac. Liz had picked up Hazel, and they’d driven together to Cadillac spotting the woman as she walked in for her shift. She had long black hair, and the resemblance ended there. Her lined face was haggard; her eyes brown, not blue; and when she saw them staring, she flipped them her middle finger.