“He did it.”

“Your husband?”

She nodded and sighed, lips tightly together.

“You live in Sarasota?”

“No, but it looks like he does. Not sure.”

I glanced at my watch, pretending to be considering the situation. I now had less than half an hour to get where I had to be.

“Adele and I live in Brisbane, Kansas. Dwight left when Adele was seven. I can’t say I was all that unhappy to see him go. He sent a letter two months back,” she said. “To Adele. Don’t know what it said. She didn’t show it to me, but I did see the return address. Don’t remember the address, but it was from here.”

I nodded.

“I think she ran off to be with him. I raised Adele alone. Not much to do for a child in Brisbane after school. I worked days and a lot of nights at the restaurant, Jim and Ella’s Good Food. Truckers welcome. Most nights Adele would watch the TV, look out the window of the apartment at the oil rigs in the field. At least till she got older and got in with the crowd.”

“Bad crowd?” I asked.

“Only crowd in Brisbane, if you count four or five kids as a crowd.”

“Go on.”

“Not much more to tell. She’s smart. Good grades, always good grades, but she got into a little trouble once in a while. She’s got a temper like Dwight.”

“Her father,” I said.

“Got on the junior cheerleaders but didn’t go to practice and they cut her,” said Beryl with a sigh. “In a couple of school plays. One she had a lot of things to say. How do they remember all those things to say?”

I ignored the sweat on my scalp.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well,” Beryl went on. “Life is a puzzle.”

“Yes,” I said.

“She ran away a little over three months ago. No note. Just packed up and left a message taped to the TV saying she was going and she would call. I told Josh Hamilton, the sheriff, that she had run and he took a picture just like the one you’re holding and said he’d follow up and maybe get her on milk cartons and paper bags if she didn’t show up in a few weeks. I told him about the letter from her father.”