Page 106 of Sunset Beach
Exasperated, she sat up in bed and reached for her cell phone, returning to the Google search she’d done earlier in the evening.
She yawned as she skimmed through the first half-dozen articles the search generated, impatient that none of them yielded anything new. But she paused when she came to a 2016Tampa Bay Timesarticle headlined COLLEEN HICKS WITNESS DELVES INTO 40-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY.
Vera Rennick still remembers the last words Colleen Boardman Hicks, her friend and coworker, said to her on that otherwise unremarkable afternoon on August 20, 1976.
“We’d left work early to do a little shopping. Maas Brothers was having a big summer clearance sale, and afterwards we had dinner at the Suncoast Room. I needed to get home and see about mymother, so Colleen insisted on picking up the check. She stood up and gave me a hug. She told me to make sure to tell my mother hello from her,” Mrs. Rennick said. “And then she said, ‘See you tomorrow.’”
But tomorrow never came. The disappearance of the attractive 26-year-old dental hygienist triggered one of the most intense police investigations in St. Petersburg history. Investigators widened their search to a five-state area, consulted psychics, dragged local ponds and questioned dozens of known sex offenders, but to no avail. The mystery remains unsolved.
Forty years later, Vera Rennick’s pale blue eyes still fill with tears at that memory. “And that was the last time anybody ever saw Colleen. Ever. It still haunts me. I wake up so many nights, wondering, Where are you, Colleen? What happened to you? That’s why I decided to start my own blog. It’s my way of trying to find answers to my questions.”
Mrs. Rennick titled her blog Have You Seen Colleen? In it, she shares tidbits of information she has personally gleaned over her years of following the case, and invites readers to contribute their own knowledge and theories.
“The police don’t care anymore,” Mrs. Rennick said. “The fact that it’s unsolved is a black eye. They won’t even answer my phone calls.”
Cassandra Banks, a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department, denied that authorities have given up their investigation. “We welcome any and all information from the public concerning this case, as we would for any still-open investigation.”
“People are still fascinated with the case,” Vera Rennick said. “And I’ve received valuable tips. It all happened so long ago that people who might have stayed quiet at the time of Colleen’s disappearance have been willing to come forward and share information with me.”
She pointed out that Colleen Hicks’s husband Allen passed awayin 2009, and that the missing woman’s parents, Burton and Edith Boardman, died, separately, withinfour yearsof their daughter’s disappearance.
“I’m the keeper of the flame,” Mrs. Rennick said. “And I intend to keep asking questions until I find out the truth, or die trying.”
“Screw it,” Drue whispered aloud, after tossing and turning for another half hour. She found Vera Rennick’s blog online, and spent the next hour or so trying to slog through three years’ worth ofHave You Seen Colleen?
The blog was comically amateur, replete with typos, misspellings, blurry photos and stream-of-consciousness posts in which the author posed, then debunked, wildly improbable theories.
One post would examine the possibility that Colleen Hicks was living in a hippie commune in upstate New York, while another would have the missing woman joining a cloistered religious order.
Various “experts” opined that Colleen Hicks had been murdered by a Manson family–inspired cult, by a jilted former boyfriend, even by a disgruntled patient from the dental clinic where Colleen was working at the time of her disappearance.
It was all mildly entertaining, Drue decided, but what she really needed to do was talk to Vera Rennick in person. Just before dropping off to sleep, Drue sent a deliberately vague private message to the blogger.
Hi, Vera. I recently moved home to St. Pete from the east coast, and found a trove of newspaper clippings about the Colleen Hicks case in my late mother’s belongings. I’m intrigued and wonder if you’d be willing to talk to me about the case in person? Thanks, Drue Campbell.
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The woman, Drue concluded, must be a night owl. At 2:15A.M.she’d responded to Drue’s message:I’d be happy to talk to you about Colleen. I’m free anytime before noon. It’s a retirement community on the south side.She attached the street address.
Still sleepless, Drue checked her phone at seven-fifteen Friday morning and found Vera’s response. She typed in her own response immediately. If Vera Rennick agreed, she would visit her today. It would make her late to work, but, she reflected, with Wendy out of the office, there would be no hateful yellowSEE MEnotes stuck to her desk when she finally did make it in to work.
I can be there by 9, if that’s all right.
Vera’s answer came almost immediately.See you then.
Drue called Rae Hernandez on the way to meet Vera Rennick. “Call me please, Rae. I have new information about Jazmin Hicks, and it’s important that we talk.”
Vera Rennick lived in a tidy buff-colored stucco bungalow in the sprawling Sunny Shores retirement community in the Bahama Shores neighborhood on the city’s south side.
Before Drue could ring the bell, the door opened. The woman who answered the door wore a floor-length black and white floral caftan. She was stoop-shouldered, peering up at her visitor past a fringe of silver bangs, through thick-lensed glasses.
“Drue? How nice to meet you.”
She showed Drue into the living room, which, though modestly furnished, boasted a stunning waterfront view.
“Sit here,” Vera urged, pointing at an avocado velvet club chair. “It’s the best view of Little Bayou.” She pointed toward the galley kitchen, visible through the half-wall that separated it from the living room. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, maybe?”
“No, thank you,” Drue said politely.
