Grace, I think this phone is fine,” Mr. Simmons tells me as he hands me an Android phone. “But click through it and make sure nothing needs to be restored. Check the calendar, the e-mail, the photos. If the last entries were weeks ago, or if the whole thing is empty, that tells you something. Also try to get online to see if the browser works.”
People who drop their phones in water would be surprised to know that all they do here is wait for them to dry. Yes, the techs take the phones apart, remove the battery and all, but then they just wait it out. Often the phone comes on when they put it back together, and then they charge enough to make you think they did surgical magic on it.
He disappears into the back, and I lean on the counter and click around on the phone, hoping I don’t botch this up. The calendar has recent entries, so that seems fine. When I check the owner’s e-mail, new messages load, so that looks okay.
Finally, I click on Photos, and there’s a long pause as it tries to load. I start to yell back to Mr. Simmons that this customer may have lost his photos, when a few pictures finally appear.
I click on one, and it fills the screen. It’s a scruffy-looking man sitting at a kitchen table, drinking coffee. I start to advance to the next picture when my gaze snags on a newspaper on a buffet table behind him.
Even though it’s tiny on the screen, I recognize the photo—it’s Laura, Lucy’s missing granddaughter. I zoom in and can just make out the headline. “Volunteers Search Forest for Missing Teen.”
I frown. Miss Lucy told me they did those searches in the first weeks after Laura went missing, but none since. Why would this guy have kept that article for two years?
Maybe it’s just an old picture. I check the date on the snapshot. It was taken last month.
My interest piqued now, I click through the rest of his pictures, studying details in his house. There’s one photo of a towheaded baby in a bouncy seat. I click ahead to the next one—a fiftysomething woman who must be his wife, her blondish-gray hair piled on top of her head, bags under her eyes so puffy that she could carry cargo in them.
There, again, I see another article about Laura. This one says, “Shady Grove Teenager Missing.”
Another two-year-old article lying around the house. Why?
I study the woman. She’s wearing a tube top, definitely an odd choice for her age and size, but she’s dressed it up with a pendant necklace.
It’s one I’ve seen before—an old cameo pendant. I zoom in. It looks just like the one Laura Daly was wearing in the picture of her in her homecoming dress.
That’s impossible. But then, cameos aren’t exactly rare. Must be a coincidence. When I finish looking through his pictures, I open the owner’s Internet browser and check his search history. Most people don’t realize they’ve left open every article they’ve ever read. Sure enough, I see that his are all still there. Frowning, I flick through them. There are other articles about Laura, most of them over a year old. He must have read every article written about her on this phone.
Maybe he knows the family, or he’s a relative or a neighbor. His fascination with Laura may be nothing more than concern over another Shady Grove citizen. But it bugs me.
I tell Mr. Simmons that the phone seems to be functioning correctly, but I dig for the customer’s receipt and get his phone number and address. Frank Dotson. I’ll ask Sandra if she knows him.
I make sure I’m out front when he comes to pick up the phone. He still looks scruffy, unshaven for days, and his hair is scraggly and dirty. He smells like old cigarettes and body odor. His teeth are yellow, and one of the front ones is missing.
He seems way too interested in me, smiling and flashing that gap in his teeth, asking if I’m new in town. I tell him yes, that I just moved here.
“What brings you to Shady Grove?” he asks.
I hesitate for a moment, then decide to go for it. “I have friends here. The Dalys.”
He blinks hard, then wipes the place above his lip where beads of sweat have burst out. “I don’t believe I know them,” he says.
I know that’s not true. He’s well acquainted with the Daly family, at least through articles about their missing daughter.
He leaves pretty quickly after that, and I shove his address into my pocket. Something isn’t right about that guy or his wife. I may as well look into it. I don’t have anything better to do.