Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Answered the Radio
Julian locked the garage door before he'd say another word.
"Her name is Celia Finch," he told us through the narrowing gap. "She used to dispatch for the sheriff's office. That's all you're getting."
Elliot opened his mouth, but I put a hand on his sleeve.
"Thank you," I said to Julian. "We won't come back without calling."
In the car, Elliot slammed his palm against the dashboard.
"Eleven months. A woman knows something, and everybody's too scared to tell me where my son went."
"If she loses her job or gets hurt because we rush her, we lose the truth as well."
"You sound like Harlan."
The remark was unfair. He knew it. Neither of us apologized.
At the shop, June found Celia's name in an archived county personnel newsletter, listed as a dispatcher who had resigned two weeks after Owen disappeared. There was nothing sinister about leaving a job. But resignation after a missing-person investigation was a reason to ask a careful question.
I called a legal-aid office in Akron, where the newsletter said Celia had once volunteered. The receptionist couldn't confirm whether Celia was a client and I didn't ask her to. I left my name, my shop number, and one sentence: We have information about the night Owen Bell vanished, and we can help you reach independent investigators.
Then I went back to work.
That evening, Elliot returned carrying a cardboard box filled with Owen's pay stubs, a gas receipt, and a county-issued mileage notebook.
"I kept trying to find the big clue," he said. "Maybe I should've looked at the boring things."
One page listed an extra trip to Graystone to check a road grader. Owen had written the mileage, an equipment number, and the name of the county road supervisor who sent him.
At 9:14 that night, Owen texted Elliot about something wrong at the quarry.
At 10:36, Voss called Julian to move the truck from the bus depot.
Between those times stood seventy-eight minutes nobody would discuss.
June arranged the receipts along our counter while the presses cooled.
"What if he never left Graystone?" she asked.
Elliot closed his eyes.
"Then someone took his truck away."
My phone rang a few minutes before closing.
A woman said, "You called the legal-aid office."
"Are you Celia?"
"Don't say my name again. I was on the radio that night."
I could hear traffic behind her.
"I didn't see Owen Bell," she said. "But at 9:27, I heard somebody call for an ambulance at Graystone."
"Who called?"
May you like
A long silence.
"Deputy Voss," she whispered. "And he was told to cancel it."
