A Flicker of Doubt - Tim Myers [11]
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
He said, “Let’s just say it’s come up in the past Now let’s see if we can find out what she’s been up to. Becka didn’t keep a diary, did she? It might save us some time.”
“If she did, I never knew about it”
Markum nodded as he moved to the mail and started riffling through it “Okay, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. You take the bedroom and I’ll look around out here. When we’re finished, we’ll trade off in case one of us misses something.” It was a nice way for Markum to search the entire apartment without hurting my feelings, but I didn’t mind. No doubt he had a great deal more experience doing this than I did.
As Markum started on the kitchen, pulling everything from the shelves and looking inside every box, can and container, I walked back to the bedroom. It was just as much a wreck as the rest of the place, but that didn’t mean anything. I fought the urge to start cleaning up, then realized that if something was on the floor under the piles of clothes, books and magazines, I’d never find it As I hung each dress and blouse back in the closet, I took the time to look through any pockets I could find. Going through her clothes, I remembered the large purse she always carried with her. Where was it, anyway? As I continued searching the bedroom, I kept looking for it, but I didn’t have any luck. Once the clothes were hung up and the books and magazines were stacked in one corner, I had a better idea of what I was dealing with. The drawers of her dresser were just as unorganized as the rest of her place. I had no way of knowing whether anyone else had been there before us. There wasn’t much of interest there, but I did find the torn corner of a photograph tucked inside the mirror frame, just enough left to hold it in place. It was of a clearing in some woods, filled with dead brown kudzu vines. There was a shape at one edge, maybe a barrel or a bucket covered in the dead vines, but I didn’t have any idea what that might mean. I turned the photo over to see if there was anything, written on back, but it was blank. Then I noticed a slight, hard to read imprint that had a date on it just four days old. I quickly glanced around the rest of the dresser space, but if the companion photographs from that roll were in the bedroom, they were hidden better than I could hope to find.
All in all, it was a rather unsuccessful search, so I went looking for Markum to see if he’d had any more luck than I’d had.
He saw me and said, “Good, I was just about to check on you.”
“Did you find anything?” I asked.
“I’m not sure yet Listen to this.” He hit the replay button on her answering machine and I heard a man’s angry voice. “Becka, I don’t care what you say, it’s not over. I can’t live without you.” There was a ragged pause, then he added, “You’re not getting away from me that easily, I promise you.”
“Who was that?” I asked, my skin cold from the sound of the voice.
“I’d say it was Becka’s ex-boyfriend. Do you know who she dated after you?”
“Do you think I kept a log? Markum, I didn’t even know she was going out with anybody.”
“Take it easy, I was just asking. This character doesn’t sound like he takes rejection well, does he?’
“How in the world are we going to find out who he is?”
Markum popped the tape out of the answering machine and said, “I know a guy who might be able to help us.”
“Should we really be taking that?” I asked as I gestured to his pocket
Markum sighed. “Harrison, the police don’t care; the sheriff himself told you that”
“Yeah, you’re right I guess I just feel creepy being here digging through her things.”
He said, “You can wait out in the truck if you want, I don’t mind. Really.”
“No, I’ll stay.”
He accepted that, then asked, “Did you find anything?”
I held out the edge of the photograph and he studied it a few moments.
I asked, “So what do you think it means?”
“I don’t have a clue,” he said as he stuffed it in his pocket along with the cassette. “Listen, are you ready to trade?