Not My Brother's Keeper

Chapter 5: The Thread

            Kaldrick Dennison, Omar Hubbard, David McMillan, Tyrone Stevens, Keith Holmes, Isaiah Fuller, Sharif Ali, Antonio Hudson, Marc Howard, Eric Hightower, Desmond Campbell, Allen Williams, Xavier Robeson and Dwayne Alleyne are the names of the fourteen black and gay Calhoun University students who went missing between 1993 and 2012. All of their cases were different but ended the exact same way; they disappeared without a trace and their cases went cold almost immediately. Over the course of five weeks, I carefully conducted interviews by finding at least one person who knew one of the missing young men. I'd meet each person in a conventional place—grocery stores, restaurants, parks, etc.—so in the case that I was followed, I made sure it looked like I was just randomly talking to people while secretly recording each conversation.

There were a few common threads that connected the missing young men beyond them being black and gay. All fourteen were either juniors or seniors at the time they went missing. They were all masculine and in publicly known relationships. Other than those common threads between them, the individual circumstances of their disappearances were unique. Some disappeared during daylight hours while others disappeared at night. Some disappeared while driving somewhere while others disappeared after walking from one place to another. The whole thing was just bizarre and while I understood why the police had given up on finding the young men, I didn't quite understand why no one else had tried to link all of the disappearances together. Why was Tommy the only person working on that?

"You look like you haven't slept in a while," Marlon said to me, startling me in the campus bookstore.

"Leave me alone, Marlon," I snapped as I turned down another aisle of books.

"Cameron, stop." He grabbed my arm and made me turn around to face him. After sighing, he informed me, "Spencer and I are over for good."

"Okay, and what is that supposed to mean?"

"I know you miss me."

"No, you are not doing this right now. I am not doing this right now. Just leave me alone." I snatched my arm away from his grasp and that's when some files fell out of my leather carrier.

"I'm sorry, Cam." He bent down to pick the files up and immediately began reading one. He looked up at me and asked, "Why are you doing research on Dwayne Alleyne?"

I snatched the files from him and told him, "Stay out of my business."

"Cam, I knew Dwayne."

"You did?"

"Yes. I had a number of classes with him in undergrad and we'd share notes all of the time. He disappeared just six weeks before graduation senior year."

I looked around to make sure no one was listening in on us as I asked him, "What do you remember about him?"

"He was a cool dude. No one ever had a problem with him or his boyfriend, Mack. For like a week after his disappearance, it was all everyone talked about. You don't remember that? It was just a couple of years ago."

"No, I don't."

"Why are you doing research on him? Is it for a class project or something?"

"No. I can't really talk to you about it."

"Why not?"

I stared into his eyes as I told him, "Because I don't know if I can trust you. I don't know who I can trust anymore. They're everywhere, Marlon."

"Who?"

I looked around again before telling him, "If I'm going to tell you everything, then I need to know that I can trust you. Meet me in the underground level stairwell of Cougar Central in ten minutes. And make sure no one is following you."