Vanished in the Night by Eileen Carr

someone must have seen him. She just had to find out who that was.
    Because her father couldn’t have killed Max. He wouldn’t have killed Max. Oh, dear God, could he have killed Max? Could he have lost his temper and by accident killed Max and dumped his body downtown somewhere?
    She couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. The police had to be on the wrong track. She’d find out who’d seen Max when he’d come back to Sacramento and convince the police that her father was innocent.
    And if she was wrong? Well, she needed to know that, too.

5
“You’re not going to believe this, but the basketball coach is still at the high school.” Frank stood up and stretched. “He said he could talk to us after school at about four thirty.”
    It had taken a little over five hours to search George Osborne’s house. They hadn’t found much that was interesting. No one was surprised, though Zach was a little more disappointed than everyone else.
    They had come away with only a box that held Max’s high school yearbooks, where he’d been prominently displayed with the rest of the junior varsity basketball team.
    “Does the coach remember Max?” This could be helpful. Coaches tended to know the kids in their charge pretty well. Zach remembered a long string ofsoccer coaches who seemed to know exactly what had made him tick. Most of them took some extra time with him, and he hadn’t questioned why at the time. He’d been too damn grateful for the attention. He supposed they knew that.
    How many men had stepped in to fill the void after Zach’s father had died? Quite a few.
    “He seemed to remember the kid. I guess we’ll know this afternoon.” Frank glanced up at the clock. “You hungry? I could use a burger. You want one?”
    “No, thanks. I want to find out about that missing persons report that was supposedly filed.”
    “Suit yourself.” Frank ambled out of the room.
    Zach picked up the phone and dialed, got a receptionist, and waited to be put through to someone who could actually help him.
    Janice Lam, a deputy sheriff in the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office, picked up. Zach identified himself and told her what he wanted.
    “You’re looking for a twenty-year-old missing persons report?” she asked when he finished. “How the hell is that going to help?”
    He laughed. “I have no idea. I’m hoping there’s something in it that will give me a direction to go.”
    “I’ll dig it up and fax it to you.”
    “Thanks. You know anything about the school?”
    “I know that it’s a pain in my butt. It’s been closed foryears and we constantly have problems with the property. Kids hang out there to drink and make out. There’s vandalism and parties. It’s off the beaten path enough that we don’t get too many complaints about noise and such, but it’s also far enough off the road that it’s out of my deputies’ way to patrol it very often. One of these days someone’s going to fall through a rotten floorboard, and everybody’s ass is going to get chewed out.”
    “Who does the property belong to now?”
    “Near as I can tell, the bank, and they don’t give a rat’s ass about the place. Aaron Joiner owned it before, but he died in ninety-eight and the place has been empty since then. He didn’t have any kids to leave the property to, and the school closed a year or two before he died.”
    That wasn’t going to make it easy. “So what’s up there?”
    “A bunch of empty, half-falling-down buildings. Well, except the stone ones. Those’ll still be standing when we’re dead and cockroaches are ruling the earth. Apparently they brought a bunch of Hopi Indians up from Arizona to build them back in the thirties. They’re gorgeous. Too bad the place is such a pain to get to. Someone could have probably made something of it. A resort or something.”
    Lam said she’d give him a heads-up when she faxed the missing persons report, and they hung up. He figured he’d try to find out a little