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I WOKE UP LATE IN THE morning. I guessed that the time was about 10:30 a.m. I rolled over and looked at my cell phone. It read 10:34, but the four switched just as I looked at it. Now it was 10:35. Close guess.
I got up and got dressed, headed out the door. I checked in on Matlind. He was in a deep sleep. There was a bottle of Ambien next to his wallet on the nightstand.
I backed out of his room and left him to sleep. No reason to wake him. He slept like the dead, and he probably needed it. Besides, I needed to investigate alone. I was better alone. And I did have my own agenda. Not likely that my mother’s killer, the missing girl from my town, and now his wife were coincidences.
I locked the door from the inside and closed it behind me.
For most fishermen, the day’s catch had already come and gone because fishing was an early morning sport, best started before the sun came up. The sun was high in the sky, and the trees creaked in the wind. The air was warm, and it smelled fresh, clean.
I set out to explore the town and to search for Faye Matlind.
I had no photograph of her because someone had taken Matlind’s cell phone, where he had kept all of his pictures. I had no real clues except for the rednecks. They were my only lead. I walked and took out my phone. I unlocked it and skipped the missed messages, calls, emails, and voicemails. I pulled up the Internet and looked up the name “Faye Matlind.” I figured that she’d probably have a social media account of some sort. Something with her picture on it. I searched all of the popular main search engines and social networks. I found nothing. I found a Facebook page for Chris Matlind, but it must’ve been ancient. Maybe only used once. He had no profile pictures. No photo albums. He had only a dozen friends, and his last post was four years ago.
I gave up. I didn’t need her picture anyway. She was a black woman in a town full of white people. She would stick out with no trouble at all.
I continued into town.
I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, but I decided to skip breakfast. I wasn’t interested in lunch, either. I wanted to find Faye. Enough time had elapsed already without anyone looking for her.
I walked the roads and through the suburbs. I walked past the school, the post office, the public safety complex, the people on the sidewalks, and the cars parked along the side of the streets. I saw a dismal public library with a parking lot that could’ve been a graveyard for old cars—the only cars in it were from the ‘70s or earlier. I continued walking past bait shops, a couple of gun stores, two hardware stores, and a four-wheeler store. Then I came up on the other side of the diner. I had walked the long way around it from the night before.
I continued walking past two gas stations, one with a liquor store attached, and one with a broken car wash that probably hadn’t worked since 1980.
I walked past a small grocery store, an old chain store. I recognized the name, but I thought the whole chain had gone out of business over a decade ago.
I took one more glance at the Eckhart Medical Center and got a better look at the clinic attached to it. It was open for business, and it was busy because the parking lot was full. Across the street from the clinic was a small plaza with another grocery store, this one smaller than the others I’d seen, and it had a tiny drugstore attached at the corner. The drugstore had a drive-through window, but the window was closed and dark inside, and the lane to drive through it had been roped off.
I walked through the downtown area. I looked around for store clerks, attendants, cleaners, anyone who held a blue-collar job. I wanted to find people who made less money than everyone else, people who might be in a more talkative mood. I wanted to ask them if they had seen a young black woman a week ago. I found a few townspeople who fit the bill. I inquired about Faye’s whereabouts, but no one had seen her.
They hadn’t lied to me. Generally, no one ever lied to me. Most people had the common sense to give me the information I asked for and to do it quickly. Even if I acted polite, which I usually did, they told me fast. Most people didn’t want to risk being discovered in a lie. Not by me. And not about something as serious as a missing woman.
Later in the morning, I came across a lady walking a French poodle. An older lady, grandmotherly. She was as sweet as could be.
I asked, “Ma’am, do you know anything about a young black woman who came to town last week? She’s missing.”
The old lady replied, “Oh, dear. Missing? Oh, dear.”
I said, “Ma’am, have you seen her?”
She shook her head in an early Exorcist movie fashion like it was about to start spinning around and around, but it didn’t. Instead, she said, “I heard about that poor fellow who’s looking for her, but I haven’t seen her. I hope it works out. Poor thing.”
I nodded. She was telling the truth. She hadn’t seen Faye or Chris. She knew nothing — just gossip. The old birds probably had some sort of phone tree. One would call another one and spread the latest rumors — that sort of thing.
I didn’t want to be one of those rumors. And I didn’t want to lose the element of surprise. I didn’t push her any further. I shrugged, thanked her, and moved on.
I neared one of the churches, the one with the short steeple. A bell sounded from inside. I looked at the shadows on the ground. It was late afternoon.
I had run out of places to search.
There were still the rest of the places around the lake, which looked to be just houses and neighborhoods. I figured I would spend the remainder of the day retracing the Matlinds’ hike around the lake and end at the rednecks’ compound. That way, I could take my time, make sure there were no other places for answers. By the time I reached the fork at the southwest side and the redneck compound, it would be dark.
And that was where I shined—in the dark.