Missing Piece by TL Dyer

Author:TL Dyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edge of the Roof Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

The two-minute appeal Cass gave to PBC News had only gone out once when the calls started coming through. She had jotted down details of the first few, then let the voicemail take the rest. She’d get to them later, but for now there was still more to be done than sit around waiting for one of the callers to give them something worth considering as a lead. Second-hand witness testimony and those who just wanted to rubberneck on the investigation would bring them no closer to that lead than Adam and Eve’s biblical adventures in the forest had done. Her time would be better spent sifting through the messages tonight when she was at the cabin; but while it was daylight, there were other things they could do and people to speak to. Hoss had set up the social media pages and agreed to take responsibility for monitoring them, and after spending all morning in one spot in front of the laptop screen they were both restless to get out on the street. And when leads were thin on the ground, there was only one place to go. Back to the start.

Knocking on doors in the vicinity of a crime scene is what’s known in law enforcement as a necessary evil. It’s one of the first and most crucial lines of inquiry and also a chore, but one that sometimes delivers results. Knocking on doors in the vicinity of a crime that occurred thirty-five years ago, however, is another level of evil altogether. Halfway along the row of two-story houses that lined the opposite side of the street where Alex would have walked to Jackie’s convenience store, Cass had so far established that not one of the owners had been in residence there at the time of his disappearance. Two weren’t even born then.

To double up on their efforts, Hoss had started at one end of the row of houses and she the other. And now as they both neared the middle with little to show so far for their efforts, he whistled to get her attention and waved her over to a property three doors away.

‘Right there,’ a woman was telling Hoss when Cass caught up with them. They were standing in her short driveway and she was pointing up the road. ‘See where that lamp post is? Well, there used to be oaks here. This was like an avenue, you see. Till the roots started pushing up the sidewalk and they had to take out the trees. That was about twenty years ago now. Big operation, that was. Couldn’t get in the driveway for weeks.’

‘But it was parked there, you said?’ Hoss asked, and the woman nodded, dark black hair brushing against the collar of her shirt.

‘That’s correct, just there.’

Hoss tipped his chin to Cass. ‘Kalisha, this is my partner, Cass Fletcher.’

Cass extended her hand. The woman shook it, her smile broad and as warm as her palm. If this was someone who had lived here thirty-five years ago, she was looking well for her age.

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