Following a mutual silence, Billy met Harry’s eyes. “Do I know how to cheer up a room, or what?”
“I haven’t laughed so hard since Abbott and Costello.”
At an electronics store in Napa, Billy bought a compact video camera and recorder. The equipment could be used in the usual fashion or could be set instead to compile a continuous series of snapshots taken at intervals of a few seconds.
In its second mode, loaded with the proper custom disk, the system was able to provide week-long recorded surveillance similar to that in the average convenience store.
Considering that the Explorer’s broken window didn’t allow him to lock any valuables in the vehicle, he paid for his purchases and arranged to return for them in half an hour.
From the electronics store, he went in search of a newspaper-vending machine. He found one in front of a pharmacy.
The lead story concerned Giselle Winslow. The schoolteacher had been murdered in the early hours of Tuesday morning, but her body had not been found until late Tuesday afternoon, less than twenty-four hours previously. The picture of her in the newspaper was different from the one tucked in the book on Lanny Olsen’s lap, but they were photos of the same attractive woman.
Carrying the newspaper, Billy walked to the main branch of the county library. He had a computer at home but no longer had Internet access; the library offered both.
He was alone at the cluster of work stations. Other patrons were at reading tables and prowling the stacks. Maybe the embrace of “book alternatives”
wasn’t turning out to be the future of libraries, after all. When he’d been writing fiction, he had used the Worldwide Web for research. Later, it had provided distraction, escape. In the past two years, he hadn’t surfed the Web at all.
Meanwhile, things had changed. Access was faster. Searches were faster, too, and easier.
157
Billy typed in a search string. When he got no hits, he modified the string, then modified it again.
Drinking-age laws varied state by state. In many jurisdictions, Steve Zillis hadn’t been old enough to tend bar until he was twenty-one, so Billy dropped bartender from the search string.
Steve had been working at the tavern only five months. He and Billy had never swapped biographies.
Billy vaguely recalled that Steve had gone to college. He could not remember where. He added student to the string.
Perhaps the word murder was too limiting. He replaced it with foul play. He got one hit. From the Denver Post.
The story dated back five years and eight months. Although Billy warned himself not to read into this discovery more than it actually contained, the information struck him as relevant.
That November, at the University of Colorado at Denver, a coed named Judith Sarah Kesselman, eighteen, had gone missing. Initially, at least, there were no signs of foul play.
In what appeared to be the first newspaper piece about the missing young woman, another UCD student, Steven Zillis, nineteen, was quoted as saying that Judith was “a wonderful girl, compassionate and concerned, a friend to everyone.” He worried because “Judi is too responsible to just go off for a couple days without telling anyone her plans.”
Another search string related to Judith Sarah Kesselman produced scores of hits. Billy steeled himself for the discovery that her dead body had been found without a face.
He went through the articles, reading closely at first. As the material became repetitive, he scanned.
Friends, relatives, and professors of Judith Kesselman were often quoted. Steven Zillis was not mentioned again.
Judging by the wealth of material available to Billy, no trace of Judith had ever been found. She vanished as completely as if she had stepped out of this universe into another.
The frequency of newspaper coverage declined steadily through Christmas of that year. It dropped sharply with the new year.
The media favors dead bodies over missing ones, blood over mystery. There is always new and exciting violence.
158
The last piece was dated on the fifth anniversary of Judith’s disappearance. Her hometown was Laguna Beach, California, and the article appeared in the Orange County Register.
A columnist, sympathetic to the Kesselman family’s unresolved grief, wrote movingly about their enduring hope that Judith was still alive. Somehow. Somewhere. And one day coming home.
She had been a music major. She played piano well, and guitar. She liked gospel music. And dogs. And long walks on the beach.
The press had been provided two photos of her. In both she looked impish, amused, and gentle.
Although Billy had never known Judith Kesselman, he could not bear the promise of her fresh face. He avoided looking at her photos. He printed selected articles for review later. He folded them inside the newspaper that he’d gotten from the vending machine.
As he was leaving the library, passing the reading tables, a man said,
“Billy Wiles. Long time no see.”
