Page 9 of Two Marlboros

I shot an eloquent glance at Mr. Cossner, and his face petrified. What had Michael told his parents?

The woman slipped the notebook out of her husband’s hands and handed it to me again, so I went back to the note and opened it.

Don’t look for me. I’ll be back soon. And don’t call the police.

Michael

Mrs. Cossner gave me a pleading look. “Do you know where he might be, Officer Scottfield?”

“Officially he has been on sick leave for two weeks and has asked for a medical certificate for another week. Did you know?”

The couple shook their heads. They did not seem surprised by the note and had only done what their son had asked, but they certainly wanted to find him, so why not have the police find out about his disappearance? I put the note back and seized the notebook.

Mrs. Cossner confided that Michael had been missing for two weeks. They had tried to call him, but received no answer. He had disappeared, leaving only that note on the desk, while they had found the notebook hidden under the mattress, but, thinking it was important, the woman had arranged it so that it would immediately leap to the eye in case of a search.

“Have you noticed anything strange about your son lately?”

The woman crossed her hands on her lap and sighed. “Yes, actually. That vacation changed him.”

“What vacation?”

“About six months ago he was in Vermont, in Stowe. A skiing week with friends, at least that’s what he told us. Only since then...”

The husband railed. “Please don’t talk nonsense! You’re just looking for an explanation!”

“You’re the one who’s completely blind! What about the car? Was that an accident, too?”

The man was ready to bark again, but I interrupted him.

“Car?”

His wife took the floor before him, who bit his tongue to restrain his instinct to speak. “Yes, the car. We had our bodywork ruined on several occasions, and each time Michael seemed very worried. He became restless and often answered badly.”

“Can I see it?”

The wife made a nod in agreement, while the husband refused to interact. The matter was getting interesting.

The Cossners had a Ford pickup truck that was rather massive and dirty with dried mud, a sign that they often used it for out-of-town excursions. They kept it in a large, covered garage, so large that even a couple of off-roaders could have easily fit in it. I took a superficial look but didn’t notice anything unusual, at least until I reached the back. There were marks on much of the metal sheet, the same ones Mrs. Cossner had mentioned and that I had seen in the photograph found in Michael’s notebook. Perhaps the boy had photographed them at the request of the insurance company, to get compensation against vandalism.

A simple glance was enough for me to see that the stripes were not done randomly. There were straight lines on several points of the bodywork and, as also seen in the photo, they were intersected with each other in such a way as to form a rather stylized version of the horned animal; but what puzzled me was what was supposed to be the animal’s snout, which was certainly more challenging to make than the straight lines. I asked permission to take photographs so that I could observe the friezes with Ashton and the boss.

I decided not to press the woman with questions supposing an involvement of the couple: it was a too far-fetched idea, andI would have risked compromising their cooperation. Instead, I simply nodded and took notes. Only when I finished writing everything down, I got the impression that it was just the corner of a much, much more complicated puzzle.

3

In the surface

(?Philip Bailey, Phil Collins - Easy lover)

Ten, fourteen, eighteen… - There were twenty people in line in front of us. Twenty people who, I hoped, would not want to buy a ticket to the Backstreet Boys concert in October.

“Do you think it’s already sold out?” I asked Nelly, standing next to me. There was a lot of chatter, but the queue was neat and the vents on the ceiling were spitting out fresh air.

“Well, gosh, it’s been open for a while already.”

I gave her a sorrowful look, and she smiled to reassure me. She had a new haircut, a scaling that started at her chin and gradually reached just below her shoulders. It looked good on her, enhanced her face and made her look more like the 24-year-old she was than the 16-year-old she was often mistaken for. Meanwhile, the people in front of us became eighteen.

“I really hope they’re not finished,” she continued, “so at least in October you come back here. I still can’t believe that in two months you could be gone forever.”

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