HE FELT THE hard floor beneath him as the dream faded. His breathing was labored. He heard a persistent high-pitched ringing coming from the headset on the desk.
“Nate! What took you so long?”
He waited before answering Harry. The clock showed that he had been asleep, or whatever it was, less than five minutes.
“Just getting used to the equipment,” he said, adjusting the headset. His voice sounded rough to his ears.
“Any luck in the Missing Persons?”
“Not yet. Not unless the M.E. finds a stash of money on the body. According to one candidate, the woman he reported ran off with twenty-five thousand of his hard-earned profits.” Nathan looked down at the notes on the desk in front of him.
“I got five hits that fit, so just doing follow-up calls,” he added.
“Well, you can stop looking. Patterson got here a half hour ago. He’s starting the autopsy now. Using that van of his as the setting. Imagine driving around in a car where you cut up dead bodies all the time. His life, not mine. Anyway, when we carried the body out of the woodshed, the blanket slipped down and Sela recognized her.”
“No kidding.”
“Yes. Not a pretty sight, but Sela isn’t the squeamish type. She said it’s Nora Gray, from Vesta, a town about eighty miles north of here.”
“She’s not on my list. So how does Sela know her?”
“They did an exhibit together last summer, at an art gallery in the city. Both were there to show their work. Sela does oil paintings. She remembers this Nora acted nervous all the time, and kept worrying that she wouldn’t sell anything, saying she had to get some money or she’d die. Sela took it as just a throwaway comment. I’d say it might be a lot more than that.”
“Did she sell anything?” Nathan asked.
“Matter of fact, looks like she sold some watercolors she’d done, walked away with around two thousand dollars. Nice return for a day out.”
“Not if you end up dead,” Nathan said.
“Yeah, right enough. So get what you can on Nora Gray—whatever there is. Bring it over to me when you’re done.”
“Yeah. Wait. What’s the name of the gallery?”
“Hold on. Here it is. Ramos. Fourteenth Street.”
Nathan removed the headset. The dream washed over him and he pushed it away. He didn’t want to remember anything. He wanted the headaches to stop. Go back to his old life. That’s what he wanted.
He drew up the NamUs website again and typed in the woman’s name, specifying the town of Vesta. Three hits came up for Nora Gray, but they were all from relatives in the town who had entered their own information separately.
The log file was thin. They described the blue coat and black scarf well enough, and the color of her hair, but there was nothing about the woman herself, her work and life. He’d have to conduct interviews.
He went to a browser and got several million hits when he typed in her name. Narrow the search, he reminded himself, wishing the computer could read his mind.
He typed in the name of the art gallery. Samples of the latest exhibit were displayed, but there was no link to an archive. He opened Skype again and called the number shown across the bottom of the screen.
YOU ARE READING
The Magic Hour
Mystery / Thriller"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof." -Childe Rowland "T...
