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He read through the report, word by word, page by page And then he read it twice more

Pertinent people were questioned Ansere received

A few tangential leads had been run down

And that was it

Abject failure

In less than teeks

Puller wondered if his father’s status as the husband had had anything to do with the truncated investigation Had they wondered if Puller Sr had been involved and just didn’t want to go there?

Perspectives about doo Wife beaters were given time to cool off and sent back to battered woes What was clearly illegal noas tolerated back then A wink, a nod, a look the other way

On an Ars were different too But to be fair, the CID back then was not aware that Puller Sr had arrived home in time to possibly be involved in his wife’s disappearance He had not been a suspect

Now, technically, he was

Puller took out a notebook and a pen

He needed to get a name from Carol Powers One of his ht lead to so else

He needed to trace his mother’s movements on the day of her disappearance

He needed to see if there was any truth to the ru to leave her husband

He needed to find out why she was dressed up that night Was it a date? Was it a function? If so, CID had been unable to determine what it was

He put his pen down and closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts on the last day with his ood That was not the expression of a wo out on her family

Puller opened his eyes He had learned that not only did time heal wounds, but it also played with ered memories to match what they wanted the past to look like, rather than how it actually had been

He took the picture out of his wallet It showed the three Puller men all in a row Puller was the tallest, his father next in height, and his brother, at six-two, bringing up the rear Age and deteriorating health had robbed Puller Sr of two inches of his stature, so he would now be last in the height pecking order

But Puller was looking to the left of the picture Where hishad she still been with them

This was the only family picture Puller had ever carried with him In combat overseas, on every mission he had perforation he had carried out as a CID agent

He had no pictures of his mother

He had had no choice in the matter

His father had found and destroyed them all

Puller slowly put the photo away, closed his eyes, and refocused…on that day

The face at theHi outside The smile

A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead