A fourth listing pulled up a photo showing my father-in-law in a full-action golf swing at a collegiate tournament. The caption said: Daniel Gibson places fourth at San Joaquin Country Club in Fresno, California. A fifth listing in the archive was not golf related. It was a photo of Joe standing with a few other students at a campus event in front of the historic Dallas Hall, which I’d passed on the walk over to the library. They were all wearing jeans and T-shirts. With each discovery, I found myself more baffled. Joe was standing there, smiling away. And yet he was again listed in the caption as Daniel Gibson. I scanned the other faces in the photo and then paused on a certain girl two people down from my father-in-law. I immediately recognized her. She was the same attractive blonde woman wearing the red dress in the photo I’d found inside the letter written to Daniel from Greta. I quickly read the other names listed in the caption from the yearbook photo: Tommy George, Wallace Kaper, Daniel Gibson, Mary Mosely, Greta Varner, and Vanessa Wilkens.
Greta Varner. I now had a last name.
I pulled out my phone, searched Google for Greta Varner. There were only a few listings online. A handful were from obituaries of much older people than the girl in this yearbook photo. There were only two Greta Varners on Facebook, but neither of them looked remotely like the girl in the photo. They couldn’t be the same person. I searched for Greta Varner, DC. Nothing at all popped up. And that was it. There was nothing else online about Greta Varner.
I sat back in my chair, wondered what happened to her. Perhaps she’d gotten married again and changed her last name. I went back to my university archive search. The very next listing I found online felt like it reached out and punched me in my chest so hard, I could barely breathe. It was a Dallas Times Herald news article reprinted in an SMU Dedman School of Law publication called The Brief from thirty-five years ago.
Father and Son Lawyers Die in Plane Crash
Bruce Gibson and Daniel Gibson tragically died in a small plane crash outside of El Paso on February 23. The father and son lawyers had their own firm, Gibson & Gibson, Attorneys-at-Law. An investigation is ongoing, but local authorities believe the cause of the crash was mechanical failure.
Blake Crosby, a technician at the one-runway airport, said, “The plane took off normally and then just suddenly exploded. Never seen anything like it.”
The two attorneys were in El Paso to meet with a client, according to Lorena Myers, a secretary with the two-man law firm. “We’re all shocked and heartbroken,” Myers said. “Bruce and Daniel were such good people who will be greatly missed.”
Bruce Gibson, an avid pilot, had been practicing law for twenty-seven years in the Dallas area. Daniel Gibson graduated fifth in his class last year from SMU Dedman School of Law and chose to join his father in private practice over several offers from top law firms around the country, according to law school dean Martin Becker. “Daniel was a dedicated student with a bright future,” Becker said. “The SMU family mourns this loss.” Funeral details are still pending.
There was a photo above the news article showing my father-in-law and Bruce Gibson standing together in what must’ve been their law office at the time. Both men were wearing business suits. I recognized Bruce Gibson because Joe had a photo of his father on the shelf of his home office. But I did not know him as Bruce Gibson. I knew him as Bruce Dobson. I read the article again and had a difficult time processing it. The article said Daniel Gibson died on February 23. I again thought about the letter from Greta to Daniel. I was sure the date written on the letter was March 19 of the same year—more than three weeks after his supposed death. What did that mean?
How had my father-in-law once been Daniel Gibson and then switched to being Joe Dobson after he’d supposedly died in a plane crash along with his father? My father-in-law had told me his father had died while Joe was in his twenties. But Joe said it was a car wreck. Not a plane crash. As far as I knew, Joe did not have any other family. He said his mother, who had been estranged from her own family, had passed away from an illness when he was just a toddler. He was an only child. And his father had no brothers or sisters. So Taylor and I never traveled anywhere to see relatives on his side of the family.
But was that the truth?
What the hell was going on here?
My eyes went back to the news article and found the name of the secretary who was quoted. Lorena Myers. I typed her name into Google on my phone, searched, and found a possible candidate on Facebook. She looked to be around the age of someone who could’ve been a secretary thirty-five years ago, lived in Dallas, and was very active on social media, making several posts a day—including a post about gardening from only twelve minutes ago. I clicked the “Message” button on her page and quickly typed something out for her.