Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

Sopchoppy Public Library’s free Internet terminal. She’d learned that “skip trace” referred to a search for loan defaulters, deadbeat dads, and other missing persons. She’d learned that some missing persons searches could be accomplished for free.
    Free was good. She’d perused the no-cost databases, but the result of her searches was cyberquick and brutal. No one in the United States had a telephone listed under Cedrick Kirby. No one in the United States had died while admitting to be Cedrick Kirby.
    She’d never thought about how hard it would be to hide if your given name was as eccentric as Cedrick. Telephone records listed only three Cedric Kirbys living in the whole U.S. and not one Cedrick.
    Having come to the end of her investigative ability fairly quickly, she steeled herself to spend some dollars. A low-rent private investigator located at wefindem.com offered only one service she could afford. It was titled simply “Real-time Name Search.” Its cost, only $35, was probably a good estimate of its value in finding missing folk.
    Faye pulled her credit card out of her wallet, the one on which she kept the annual fee paid but never actually used, the one that represented her final line of security. Nothing but insanity would explain her willingness to put thirty-five dollars on it for no good reason.
    Wefindem certainly worked efficiently. After a quarter hour, the first message came through. “Got his SSN. I can’t tell it to you, but he was born in 1946.”
    Faye nodded. This was her Cedrick.
    Five minutes later. “No current telephone number. No current address.”
    Was he dead? Faye sorta hoped he was dead so she could let Abby rest and forget her. She leaned back and waited.
    “No previous telephone or address,” said the next message. “He’s never had a magazine subscription, ordered anything by mail, or received a catalog.”
    After a twenty-minute wait, the detective gave the final report. “I’ve got no record of him living anywhere under his own name. And he hasn’t renewed his driver’s license since he got it in 1961. Dead end.”
    Faye was thirty-five dollars poorer, but she understood the value of negative information. Either Cedrick had changed his name or he had died about the time he left home, which was when Abby died. Suicide? Remorse? Who knew? Or maybe he’d been living in the woods since then, subsisting on roots and acorns. The notion reminded Faye of the Wild Man story, a tall tale passed down for decades to the gullible young of each generation.
    The Wild Man was said to live in Micco County’s abundant wetlands. The tale said that he’d gotten lost in the swamps as a young child, surviving only through the kindness of the native bears. If Cedrick was the Wild Man, Faye would eat her copy of Beloved Southern Folk Tales .
    She signed off and headed home.
    Her mind was fully engaged with the Cedrick problem during the drive from Sopchoppy to Wally’s. She didn’t feel like talking to Wally or Liz, so she skirted around the grill and walked directly to her skiff. She hadn’t been underway five minutes when Wally’s voice emanated from her radio, sounding remarkably unsullied for late afternoon. Maybe he’d taken a nap, giving his liver time to catch up with his morning six-pack.
    “I see you out there, Faye,” he bellowed. “Where in hell have you been?”
    “I don’t sit by my radio all the time. I don’t even have it on all the time. The racket makes me nervous, especially when I’m working. Want me to spell it for you? W-O-R —”
    “Shut up, dear. Magda’s been calling me. All day. The phone is ringing off the hook and I really hate that.”
    “Disturbs your sleep?”
    “Bitch. But yeah, I got things to do besides answer the phone when Dr. Famous Archaeologist wants to make it ring.”
    Intellectual jousting with Wally was a one-sided venture, so Faye got to the point. “So what did Magda want?”
    “She has some paying work for you. Want me to spell that? P-A-Y —”
    “Doing what?”
    “The sheriff said they could dig on Seagreen Island again.”
    Faye cut the engine so she could sit in the quiet and take a deep breath before asking, “Does that mean he’s found the killer?”
    “No, it means he’s giving up.”
    Wally’s words made her feel heavy all over, despite her relief at being employed again. Krista and Sam had been dead for ten days. All that time, she’d been worrying about money and snooping around in a murder older