Velocity

computer at home but no longer had Internet access; the library offered both.
    He was alone at the cluster of work stations. Other patrons were at reading tables and prowling the stacks. Maybe the embrace of “book alternatives” wasn’t turning out to be the future of libraries, after all.
    When he’d been writing fiction, he had used the Worldwide Web for research. Later, it had provided distraction, escape. In the past two years, he hadn’t surfed the Web at all.
    Meanwhile, things had changed. Access was faster. Searches were faster, too, and easier.
    Billy typed in a search string. When he got no hits, he modified the string, then modified it again.
    Drinking-age laws varied state by state. In many jurisdictions, Steve Zillis hadn’t been old enough to tend bar until he was twenty-one, so Billy dropped bartender from the search string.
    Steve had been working at the tavern only five months. He and Billy had never swapped biographies.
    Billy vaguely recalled that Steve had gone to college. He could not remember where. He added student to the string.
    Perhaps the word murder was too limiting. He replaced it with foul play.
    He got one hit. From the Denver Post.
    The story dated back five years and eight months. Although Billy warned himself not to read into this discovery more than it actually contained, the information struck him as relevant.
    That November, at the University of Colorado at Denver, a coed named Judith Sarah Kesselman, eighteen, had gone missing. Initially, at least, there were no signs of foul play.
    In what appeared to be the first newspaper piece about the missing young woman, another UCD student, Steven Zillis, nineteen, was quoted as saying that Judith was “a wonderful girl, compassionate and concerned, a friend to everyone.” He worried because “Judi is too responsible to just go off for a couple days without telling anyone her plans.”
    Another search string related to Judith Sarah Kesselman produced scores of hits. Billy steeled himself for the discovery that her dead body had been found without a face.
    He went through the articles, reading closely at first. As the material became repetitive, he scanned.
    Friends, relatives, and professors of Judith Kesselman were often quoted. Steven Zillis was not mentioned again.
    Judging by the wealth of material available to Billy, no trace of Judith had ever been found. She vanished as completely as if she had stepped out of this universe into another.
    The frequency of newspaper coverage declined steadily through Christmas of that year. It dropped sharply with the new year.
    The media favors dead bodies over missing ones, blood over mystery. There is always new and exciting violence.
    The last piece was dated on the fifth anniversary of Judith’s disappearance. Her hometown was Laguna Beach, California, and the article appeared in the Orange County Register.
    A columnist, sympathetic to the Kesselman family’s unresolved grief, wrote movingly about their enduring hope that Judith was still alive. Somehow. Somewhere. And one day coming home.
    She had been a music major. She played piano well, and guitar. She liked gospel music. And dogs. And long walks on the beach.
    The press had been provided two photos of her. In both she looked impish, amused, and gentle.
    Although Billy had never known Judith Kesselman, he could not bear the promise of her fresh face. He avoided looking at her photos.
    He printed selected articles for review later. He folded them inside the newspaper that he’d gotten from the vending machine.
    As he was leaving the library, passing the reading tables, a man said, “Billy Wiles. Long time no see.”
    In a chair at one of the tables, smiling broadly, sat Sheriff John Palmer.
     
     
     

Chapter 37
     
    Although he wore his uniform, without hat, the sheriff less resembled an officer of the law than he did a politician. Because his was an elected position, he was in fact both cop and pol.
    Barbered to the point of affectation, shaved as smooth as a glass peach, teeth veneered to white perfection, features suitable for a Roman coin, he looked ten years younger than he was—and ready for the cameras.
    Although Palmer sat at a reading table, neither a magazine nor a newspaper, nor a book, lay in front of him. He looked like he knew everything already.
    Palmer did not get up. Billy remained standing.
    “How’re things up in Vineyard Hills?” Palmer asked.
    “Lots of vineyards and hills,” Billy said.
    “You