This girl’s face is open to the world, her smile wide and sunny. Her blond hair is short, cut off in front in a shaggy, sun-streaked fringe. The pictures on the sides of the car are full-face portraits, but the one on the back shows Bonnie astride her bike, wearing white shorts with V-cuts on the sides and a strappy top. No body consciousness there.
Holly finishes her cigarette, bends, scrapes it out on the pavement. She touches the blackened tip to make sure it’s cold, then places it in the litter basket outside the swing gate. She pops a Life Saver into her mouth, puts on her mask, and walks down to her building.
2
Penny Dahl is waiting in the lobby, and even with the mask Holly sees the resemblance to her daughter. Holly puts her age at sixty or thereabouts. Her hair might be pretty with a touch-up, but now it’s rat-fur gray. Neatly kept, though, Holly adds to this first assessment. She always tries to be kind. Ms. Dahl’s clothes are clean but slapdash. Holly is no fashionista, far from it, but she would never put that blouse with those slacks. Here is a woman for whom personal appearance has taken a back seat. Across the requested N95, in bright red letters, is her daughter’s first name.
“Hello, Ms. Dahl,” she says. “Holly Gibney.”
Holly has never liked shaking hands, but she offers an elbow willingly. Penny Dahl bumps it with her own. “Thank you so much for seeing me. Thank you so very, very much.”
“Let’s go upstairs.” The lobby is empty and they don’t have to wait for the elevator. Holly pushes for the fifth floor. To Penny she says, “We had some trouble with this darn thing last year, but it’s fixed now.”
3
Without Pete or Barbara Robinson helping out (or just hanging out), the reception area feels like a held breath. Holly starts the coffee maker.
“I brought pictures of Bonnie, a dozen, all taken within a year or two of when she disappeared. I’ve got tons more, but from when she was younger, and that’s not the girl you’ll be looking for, is it? I can send them to your phone if you give me your email address.” Her delivery is staccato and she keeps touching her mask to be sure it’s in place. “I can take this off, you know. I’m double-vaxxed and Covid negative. I took the home test just last night.”
“Why don’t we wear them out here? We’ll take them off in my office and have some coffee. I have cookies, if Barbara—the young lady who sometimes helps out—hasn’t eaten them all.”
“No thank you.”
Holly doesn’t have to look to know they’re all gone, anyway. Barbara can’t keep her hands off the vanilla wafers. “I saw the pictures of Bonnie on your car, by the way. She’s very attractive.”
Penny’s eyes crinkle as she smiles behind her mask. “I think so. Of course I’m her mother, so what else would I say? No Miss America, but she was a prom queen back in high school. And nobody dumped a bucket of blood on her, either.” She laughs, the sound as sharp as her delivery. Holly hopes she isn’t going to get all hysterical. After three weeks the woman should be beyond that, but maybe not. Holly has never lost a daughter, so she doesn’t know. But she does know how she felt when she thought she might have lost Jerome and Barbara—like she was going out of her mind.
Holly writes her email address on a Post-it. “Are you married, Ms. Dahl?”
Dahl pastes the note inside the cover of her phone. “If you don’t start calling me Penny, I may scream.”
“Penny it is,” Holly says, partly because she thinks her new client actually might.
“Divorced. Herbert and I dissolved our partnership three years ago. Political differences were part of it—he was all in on Trump—but there were plenty of other reasons, as well.”
“How did Bonnie feel about that?”
“Handled it in very adult fashion. And why not? She was an adult. Twenty-one. Besides, the first time Herbie came home wearing a MAGA hat, she actually laughed at him. He was… mmm… displeased.”
Here is another relationship chilled by the fast-talking man in the red tie. It’s not fate and not coincidence.
Meanwhile, the coffee is ready. “How do you like it, Penny? Or I have tea, and there might be a Poland Water unless Pete or Barbara—”
“Coffee’s fine. No cream, just a little sugar.”
“I’ll let you add that yourself.” Holly pours into two of the Finders Keepers mugs, which Pete insisted on ordering. Without looking up, she says: “Let’s cross one t right away, Penny. Is there any chance your ex-husband might have something to do with Bonnie’s disappearance?”
The jagged laugh comes again—nerves rather than amusement. “He’s in Alaska. Left for a white-collar job in a shipping plant about six months after the divorce. And he has Covid. His idol refused to wear a mask, so Herb refused to wear one. You know, Trumper see, Trumper do. If you’re asking if he abducted his twenty-four-year-old daughter, or tempted her into moving to Juneau to live with him, the answer is no. He says he’s getting better…”
This makes Holly think of Pete.
“…but when I FaceTime him it’s all cough-cough-cough, wheeze-wheeze-wheeze.” Penny says this with unmistakable satisfaction.
4
In Holly’s office, they take off their masks. The client’s chair probably isn’t a full six feet away, but it’s close. Besides, Holly tells herself, perfect is the enemy of good. She opens her iPad to the note function and types Bonnie Rae Dahl and 24 yo and Disappeared on the night of July 1. It’s a start.
“Tell me about when she was last seen, let’s start with that. You said it was at a Jet Mart convenience store?”
“Yes, on Red Bank Ave. Bonnie has an apartment in one of those new Lake View condos, you know where the old docks used to be?”
Holly nods. There are several condominium clusters down there now, and more under construction. Soon you won’t be able to see the lake at all unless you own one.
“The Jet Mart is at the halfway point of her ride home. A mile and a half from the library, a mile and a half from her place. The clerk knows her there. She came in on July first at four minutes past eight.”
Jet Mart regular stop, Holly types. She hits the keys without looking, keeping her eyes on Penny.
“I have the security camera video. I’ll send that to you, too, but do you want to see it now?”
“Really? How did you get that?”
“Detective Jaynes shared it with me.”
“At your lawyer’s request?”
Penny looks perplexed. “I don’t have a lawyer. I used one when I bought my house in Upriver, but not since. She gave it to me when I asked.”
Good for Izzy, Holly thinks.
“Should I have a lawyer?”
“That’s up to you, but I don’t think you need one right now. Let’s look at the video.”
Penny gets up and starts to come around the desk.
“No, just hand it to me.”
Double-vaxxed or not, home-tested last night or not, Holly doesn’t want the woman looking over her shoulder and breathing on the side of her face. It’s not just Covid. Even before the virus she didn’t like strangers in her personal space, and that’s what this woman still is.