Tommy & Tuppence menus were leafleted in a 9-block area on Thursday, April 19th. Based on interview w/ co-owner MARY HOLLISTER, I am confident this date is correct. Such being the case, we can be sure it was the date MERLIN CASSIDY abandoned the van in nearby parking lot. Note that MAITLAND FAMILY arrived Dayton around noon on Saturday, April 21st. I am almost positive the van was gone by then. I will check w/ local police tomorrow, hoping to close off one more possibility, and will then visit the Heisman Memory Unit. If questions, email or call my cell.
Holly Gibney
Finders Keepers
With that taken care of, Holly went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light meal （she never even considered room service, which was always ridiculously expensive）。 She found a Mel Gibson film she hadn’t seen on the in-room movie menu, and ordered it—$9.99, which she would deduct from her report of expenses when she filed it. The picture wasn’t great, but Gibson did the best he could with what he had. She noted the title and the running time in her current movie log-book （Holly had already filled over two dozen others）， giving it three stars. With that taken care of, she made sure both of the room’s door locks were engaged, said her prayers （finishing, as she always did, by telling God that she missed Bill）， and went to bed. Where she slept for eight hours, with no dreams. At least none that she remembered.
4
The next morning, after coffee, a brisk three-mile walk, breakfast at a nearby café, and a hot shower, Holly called the Dayton Police Department and asked for Traffic Division. Following a refreshingly brief interval on hold, an Officer Linden came on the line and asked how he could help her. Holly found this delightful. A polite policeman always brightened her day. Although to be fair, most of them were in the Midwest.
She identified herself, said she was interested in a white Econoline van that had been left in a public parking lot on Northwoods Boulevard in April, and asked if DPD regularly checked the city’s honor lots.
“Sure,” Officer Linden said, “but not to enforce the six-hour limit. They’re cops, not meter maids.”
“I understand,” Holly said, “but they must keep an eye out for possible dump-offs, don’t they?”
Linden laughed. “Your company must do a lot of repos and retrievals.”
“Along with bail-jumpers, they’re our bread and butter.”
“Then you know how it works. We’re especially interested in expensive cars that have been hanging around those lots for awhile, both in town and in long-term parking at the airport. Your Denalis, your Escalades, your Jags and Beemers. You say this van you’re interested in had New York plates?”
“Correct.”
“A van like that probably wouldn’t have drawn much attention the first day—people from New York do come to Dayton, strange as it may seem—but if it was still there on the second day? Probably.”
Which still would have been a full day before the Maitlands arrived. “Thank you, Officer.”
“I could check the impound yard, if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary. The van next showed up a thousand miles south of here.”
“What’s your interest in it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Not at all,” Holly said. This was a police officer, after all. “It was used to abduct a child who was subsequently murdered.”
5
Now ninety-nine per cent sure the van had been gone well before Terry Maitland arrived in Dayton with his wife and daughters on April 21st, Holly drove her Prius to the Heisman Memory Unit. It was a long, low sandstone building in the middle of at least four acres of well-kept grounds. A grove of trees separated it from Kindred Hospital, which probably owned it, operated it, and made a tidy profit thereby; it certainly didn’t look cheap. Either Peter Maitland had a large nest egg, good insurance, or both, Holly thought approvingly. There were plenty of empty guest spaces at this hour of the morning, but Holly chose one at the far end of the lot. Her Fitbit goal was 12,000 steps a day, and every little bit helped.
She paused for a minute to watch three orderlies walking three residents （one of the latter actually looked as if he might know where he was）， then went inside. The lobby was high-ceilinged and pleasant, but beneath the smells of floor wax and furniture polish, Holly could detect a faint odor of pee wafting out from deeper in the building. And something else, something heavier. It would have been foolish and melodramatic to call it the smell of lost hope, but that was what it smelled like to Holly, just the same. Probably because I spent so much of my early life staring at the hole instead of the doughnut, she thought.