Have you ever sat with your bare skin exposed on naugahyde or vinyl long enough that your skin became adhered to the fabric as if someone had put glue there as a joke? You sit for just a second, and when you stand there a quick swishing sound as your skin peels away from the furniture, and it feels as if you left some…
It’s true that I live the kind of life where a simple trip to buy office supplies turns into a weeklong debacle that includes kidnapping, international espionage, a drunken brawl, some minor facial surgery, hostages, and a trip to Bermuda. It hasn’t always been this way. Just since I moved to Hollywood. The walk from my apartment building to the office supply is a…
It was not wrong of Jenifer Ridley Gale to ask me to find Elias Croehe. Aside from the personal debt of history, prior to my retirement finding lost people and lost things was my forté. Most of my life I have had a particular talent for the task of ferreting out the lost, secret, and hidden. My ability to discern obscure patterns in the…
There is the question of why I withdrew from society for so many years. It is a question I am hesitant to answer, mostly due to my natural reluctance to admit weakness in this predatory world. But the facts and results of the investigation of the missing cannot be completely understood without some knowledge of the events that led to my retirement as an…
How did I become drawn into the case of the missing Elias Croehe? It’s not as if I seek these things. Not any more. I had left that sort of business behind me long ago and walked away from the trade. The only way I could be drawn back into would be to repay an old life debt, to honor a close friend. Years…
This is the last place anyone saw Elias Croehe. He was drinking a tropical milkshake and staring out at the ocean. After he disappeared, his family and friends looked for him everywhere. On the beach, around the neighborhood. They went back to the park by the beach every day for two weeks. To no avail. The Coast Guard kept watch for his body but…