In the end, the walls closed in; the relentless sameness drowned me. And the man who loved me . . .
One day, a woman in my AA meeting talked about her daughter who’d disappeared and the police’s lack of interest in finding a young woman with a troubled past. I became intrigued, started asking questions, and the next thing I knew, I’d found the daughter. Unfortunately, the daughter’s fucked-up boyfriend had chosen to blow off her head and abandon her body in a crack house rather than let her go. But despite the case not having a happy ending, or maybe because of that, one search became another, which became another.
Ten years later, this is now my life. I travel from place to place, armed with only my good intentions. Currently, I’ve been traveling by bus to Idaho to take up the case of Eugene Santiago, an eight-year-old boy now missing sixteen months. I read about Eugene’s disappearance in one of the various online cold case forums I frequent. Something about his soulful dark eyes, his very serious smile. I don’t always know why I choose the cases I do. There are so many of them out there. But I spot a headline, I read an article, and then I just know.
Kind of like now, I think, setting down the local paper. I haven’t done a woodland search in forever. Mostly I work small rural communities or dense urban neighborhoods. I gravitate more toward kids than adults, minorities more than Caucasians. But my mission is to help the underserved, and as the families of those sixteen hundred people vanished in public parks will tell you, they are so underserved.
Mostly, I keep thinking of Timothy O’Day’s mother, who just wants to be buried next to her son.
Eugene Santiago has been missing for nearly a year and a half. A few more weeks won’t matter. And while there may be no chance of finding Timothy O’Day alive, I know from experience that finally bringing home a body still makes a difference.
I pick up the bus schedule and plot my new destination.
CHAPTER 2
Being poor requires patience. I don’t own a car or have the kind of bank account that can allow me a rental to get to the small town of Ramsey, Wyoming. Which means taking a bus from point A to B to C. Bus stops are more varied than many people realize. As in, there might be a beautiful mass transit station complete with restrooms and fast food. Or there can be this: a gas station mini-mart sitting completely alone off the side of the road.
The bus moves on and I stay behind, trying to get my bearings. It’s early afternoon. Above me, the sky is a shade of rich blue I associate with postcards and other people’s lives. This rural route is a dark gray strip rippling between the distant towering mountains behind me and the incredibly close towering mountains ahead of me.
I’ve never been to Wyoming, so far I love everything about it. The smell of warm earth and sun-dried grass. The sound of country music pouring out of the store’s speakers. The number of trucks and cattle haulers rumbling by.
I feel simultaneously excited by the vast unknown and terrified. Just because I don’t like to be tied down doesn’t mean I enjoy feeling untethered.
I wander into the small, dusty mini-mart. An older man with a faded red ball cap and bushy brown whiskers looks up from behind the register. He gives me a short nod followed by a hard stare, clearly recognizing a stranger when he sees one. I’m used to it by now. I’m never the local, always just an outsider, passing through.
I splurge on a candy bar and a bottle of water, then plant myself in front of a rack of brochures advertising local attractions. The man goes back to his magazine. Nothing to see here.
Normally, I plan my targets well in advance. Research the area while skimming the classifieds for local employment and potential housing options. But now my last-minute impulse has me flying blind. I can’t decide if this is incredibly daring or unbelievably stupid. Many of my decisions feel that way.
Most people would pull out their smartphones and Google away. Unfortunately, my job—obsessively locating missing people—doesn’t pay at all, while my side hustle—bartending part-time at the location of the moment—doesn’t pay well. The result is that my “smart” phone is an old flip phone with a limited data plan. On a good day, it might receive a text. Google would mostly reduce it to a lump of melted microchips.
Likewise, I don’t own a computer or even a tablet. I’d love the luxury, but I don’t just lead a nomadic lifestyle, I lead a high-risk one. As in, many of the places I frequent are known for their high crime rates and opposition to outsiders. I’ve had rental units broken into, property vandalized; I’ve had good-ol’-boy cops confront me with shotguns and grieving relatives attack me with broken beer bottles.