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Just like with Marjorie, I had means, motive, and opportunity.
Means: I am at least one hundred pounds heavier than Sylvia. The short, skinny brunette wouldn’t stand a chance against me in a physical altercation.
Motive: Revenge. She testified against me in court.
Opportunity: Since being released from prison, I’ve spent multiple hours with Sylvia, in her home, in town, building her trust. She would go with me anywhere.
And as if all that weren’t enough, I am sporting a series of nasty scratches down my face that are unmistakingly from a woman’s fingernails. Stroud is no idiot. He knows I didn’t fall.
In other words, I am royally fucked if Sylvia isn’t found, unharmed, immediately. (Unharmed enough toverballyconfirm that I had no part in her disappearance).
Truth? I did want revenge, but not on her. I wanted it on the man who framed me. Marjorie Stone’s real killer.
Truth #2? I don’t want to go back to prison, therefore, I know I can’t murder Marjorie’s killer once I find him. I mean I could, but I can’t risk the chance of being convicted. To be clear, the day I was released I fully intended to kill the man who framed me. I’d spent twenty years of my life plotting it out. I’m not a sadist after all. (I’m not.) But, to my surprise, a few days of breathing fresh air, feeling the sun on my face, watching it rise and set, did something to me. Cleansed my soul, if you will. In fact, it was while watching my second sunrise that I made the decision that I would not take another man’s life. Besides, if I did, I would immediately be the number one suspect.
Much like I am now.
I decided that instead of killing someone, I would find honest work, save up, and buy myself a plot of wooded land somewhere. I have this absurd aspiration to build my own home. A simple one-room cabin. Then, I’d get a dog, a few perhaps, adopted from the animal shelter. Save them from behind bars because I understand that kind of misery.
I made a promise to myself to never miss a sunrise.
Obtaining these things have become my new goal.
I don’t need a halfway house, friends or family, I need a goal. One that does not allow for murdering another human being.
* * *
Just after five o’clock, a woman pulls up to the site. Juan’s sister, delivering the truck he’d promised to loan me.
Juan wasn’t kidding. The 1987 single cab Ford Ranger is one pothole away from falling apart—like the Fred Flintstone mobile, a stick there, a stone there, flap of animal flesh there, until eventually the driver is just sitting in the middle of the road on a stone seat.
A thick layer of rust covers the hood, streaking down the side like dried blood. It is anyone’s guess what the original color was. Obviously having been painted several times, a faded blue has merged with hunter green like a melting candle. A few spots of red peek along the fender. The tailgate is spray-painted camo and I can just make out the wordperrahidden in the swirls. I’ll have to look that one up.
Despite all this, it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.Mytruck (if only temporarily). My freedom. The opportunities personal transportation offer are endless.
I thank Juan profusely and promise I will make it up to him, though he is having none of it. I get the vibe he’d also spent a stint in prison at some point in his life. Perhaps along the way, someone had given him a handout, like he is giving me. The power of paying it forward. I will never forget it and I will pay him back, I vow. In one way or another. This, another motive to not kill a human being. Pay Juan back.
Five minutes later, I am on my way to Sylvia’s house to begin my own investigation into her disappearance.
The most obvious suspect is Dr. Harris Taylor—the man who saw her watching him sodomize a woman who was not his wife. I picture the mask, the narrow slits for eyes, the long white horns spearing out of his head. The trusted town doctor, a secret sexual deviant, fluent in both obstetrics and sadomasochism. I wonder if there is a connection there. The man spends his days knee-deep in vaginas, eventually gets bored of this and needs more—different—stimulation at the end of the day. I make a mental note to study this disorder over a beer later.
Anyway, his motive to kidnap Sylvia makes sense: Harris Taylor gets busted sodomizing his neighbor and needs to silence the person who saw him, therefore, he kidnaps her. He has much to lose, after all. His hot super-wife would divorce him and take half his money quicker than he could say “you’re going to feel some pressure.” He would lose his practice, because what sane woman would trust a sexual sadist to examine their most private parts and deliver her precious baby?
Dr. Harris has means and motive, but what about opportunity?
Did Harris Taylor drive to Sylvia’s house after his late-night tryst? How did he know where she lived? And why would she answer her door to him, after having just seen him sexually torturing another woman?
No, no, no, this doesn’t make sense. If Stroud is right, and there was no forced entry, then Harris Taylor didn’t have clear opportunity to abduct Sylvia Stone. She wouldn't have allowed him close to her. Not after what she saw.
Regardless, I need to trace Harris’s steps since that night. But how? My trust level within the community is only marginally better than a sexual sadist.
Three days.
Silvia Stone has been missing forthreedays, according to Stroud. This means she disappeared after she dropped me off, after 1 a.m., Wednesday night. She’d gone home, put a frozen dinner in the microwave, poured a glass of wine, turned up the heater.
Then what?
Had someone visited her then? Or early the next morning? I don’t recall her saying she was expecting company.
