Damaged Goods

“Erica.” The soothing voice of Susan Findlay, my therapist. “You’ve missed two group sessions in a row without giving notice. Please call me when you get a chance.”

At least it wasn’t my mother. Thank God. She had called once before in an outlandish attempt to fix me up with some “bright young man” who worked for a bank. The fact that my parents and I had spoken maybe twice since my return from overseas fazed my mother not at all. I made it crystal clear that I had no interest in her bright young man.

Neither of my parents understood why I joined the Marines. Frankly, it was to escape the oppressive relationship my parents had with me and with each other. My father was one of those men who always wanted a son, and my achievements were never good enough for him. He also tended to boss my Mom around. Her responses were mostly passive-aggressive, but she never really stood up to him either on my behalf or her own.

Returning Susan’s call could wait, but not too long, because I needed to attend at least 25 sessions to officially establish my sobriety to the state’s satisfaction. First, I wanted to follow up on my big new case while my motivation was high. I erased the message.

I was about to boot up my computer when a black squirrel climbed onto the kitchenette’s window sill. He was such a frequent visitor, I had installed a sliding window screen so I could feed the little guy.

“Hey, Rocky,” I said to the squirrel. “Want a peanut?”

Rocky gazed at me through the window as I fetched the jar of shelled nuts. He waited patiently while I opened the window and handed him one. As he stuffed it in his mouth, I placed a small pile of nuts on the sill and closed the window. Rocky filled his mouth with nuts until his cheeks were huge and lumpy.

After feeding my “pet” squirrel, I pondered my next move while waiting for my laptop to fire up. I logged into one of my paid databases and searched for Melissa’s last known address. A Baltimore City address came up, so I made a note of it. Maybe worth a visit.

I tried calling Melissa myself, but there was no answer and no voice mail. Okay.

Since that first attempt failed, I did a reverse search on Melissa’s last known address and came u

p with another number. OK, now we’re talking.

Using my own landline (and hitting the code to conceal my number on the other end), I punched in the number and got a young-sounding woman on the second ring.

“Yes, hi,” I said. “Could I speak with a Ms. Melissa Blaine, please?” I added the “Ms.”, hoping to sound like the call was formal.

“I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I work for the law firm Dewey and Associates. Ms. Blaine has inherited some money. Did she leave a forwarding address?”

“No, I’m sorry. The note she left with her last rent payment only said she was moving. She didn’t even say goodbye.” The young woman sounded more perplexed than upset.

“When was this?”

“Exactly two weeks ago,” she said. “The rent was due that day.”

Before she and Blaine had last spoken.

“And I take it you haven’t heard from her?” I pressed on with ridiculous optimism.

“Not a word.”

On that note, we exchanged pleasant farewells and I hung up. Back to the drawing board.

I considered calling Melissa’s mother, but decided to hold off. Quizzing people by phone isn’t my first choice, and if Melissa had sought refuge from her father in California, what was the likelihood that her mother would talk to me about it?

And what about art school? Plus flying to California to confirm anything exceeded my three-hour limit and then some.

The art school was quite accessible, and I could easily spare the time to poke around the campus..

Also, a talk with Katie Saunders seemed to be in order. She was away at college—not hugely helpful at narrowing my search.

I did another online search on the terms “Damascus High” and “Saunders”. This time, I found a LinkedIn profile for Kathryn Saunders who had graduated from Damascus High School. Now taking graduate studies at Columbia University in New York City. The experience section showed that she worked as a teaching assistant in the English Department.

I called directory assistance for the Columbia University main number.

The woman who answered that number not only put me through to Katie’s office, but gave me the direct number to call for future reference. The phone rang twice, and then a young woman answered. “English Department.”

“Hello, is this Katie Saunders?”