Page 25 of Sunset Beach
She listened carefully, ready to beat a hasty retreat at the first suspicious squeak. But all she heard was the steady, ominous drip of water coming from the roof. She popped her head through the attic floor and swung the flashlight in a wide arc. The attic was almost unbearably hot, and dank-smelling.
The first thing the flashlight revealed was a faded blue plastic child’s wading pool. “What the hell?” she muttered. But when she looked overhead, she realized the pool’s purpose. Somebody, maybe the last tenant, had decided to utilize the pool as a catch basin for earlier roof leaks. The pool held maybe a half-inch of murky brown water, and another pool of rain had begun to puddle on the rough wooden floor an inch away. A new leak. And a new headache for the new homeowner.
Drue pulled herself up to a standing position, wincing at the strain on her knee. She played the flashlight over the roof, spotting at least three slow drips of rain. She tugged the wading pool over a few inches, and was rewarded with the sound of raindrops splashing into the pool. Problem solved. For now. Until there was another heavy rain, or at the end of summer, the potential for a hurricane.
Aside from the wading pool, the attic was mostly empty. There was an old sewing machine base that she remembered from her childhood, and a funny split-level metal dollhouse that she’d never seen before, along with several outdated suitcases that looked like they’d last been used in the sixties. Pushed up under the roof gables was a row of worn wooden crates, some still bearing faded fruit labels. She lifted the lid of one of the crates, revealing a cache of old books, their covers faded and spotted with what looked suspiciously like roach eggs. She closed the lid with a shudder and moved on to the next crate, which was filled with stacks of tiny, carefully folded baby clothes in shades of pale pink and yellow. They were too old to have been Drue’s, and anyway, Sherri had never been the type for keepsakes, so these must have been Sherri’s own baby things, lovingly tucked away by Nonni.
Shoved into the crawl space behind the fruit boxes was a cardboard banker’s box withSHERRI’S PAPERSwritten in red Magic Marker, in her mother’s familiar scrawl. As Drue pulled it toward her, the sides collapsed under the weight of its contents.
Packets of rubber-banded canceled checks, old bills marked “paid” and two file folders spilled onto the rough-hewn attic floorboards. The first folder hadIMPORTANT PAPERSwritten on the tab.
Drue smiled as she leafed through the miscellany of Sherri’s life: an unframed high school “Certificate of Achievement” for stenography, and fastened together with a paper clip, faded photocopies of Sherri Ann Sanchez’s birth certificate, her first Florida driver’s license, both Drue’s grandparents’ death certificates, copies of Sherri’s social security card, Drue’s parents’ marriage certificate, and at the bottom of the stack of papers, their divorce decree, dated November 27, 1988.
Drue ran her finger over the black-and-white print, marveling that the official dissolution of a family could not only be reduced to a single page, but that it would end up here—in the attic of her grandparents’ house, along with a handful of other documents that her mother had deemed important but not important enough to keep close by.
The second folder contained a dozen or so yellowed newspaper clippings from theSt. Petersburg Times,all of them apparently about the mysterious disappearance of an attractive local woman whom the press had dubbed “missing local beauty.” Drue’s interest was piqued by the fact that the missing woman, twenty-six-year-old Colleen Boardman Hicks, had vanished after shopping and dining at a local department store, Maas Brothers, which had once stood only a few blocks from the present-day law offices of Campbell, Coxe and Kramner.
She carefully set both folders near the attic stairs so she wouldn’t forget to take them when she went back downstairs.
The third crate had a label scrawled in Sherri’s familiar handwriting.BRICE’S CRAP.Drue laughed out loud. The box was full of books and papers. Law books, loose-leaf notebooks and half a dozen composition books, all bearing the name Brice Campbell on the inside covers. She rifled idlythrough the contents of the crate, stopping when she found a thick black binder. A typed adhesive label on the front had faded, but the type was still legible.
COLLEEN BOARDMAN HICKS—Missing Persons. 8-20-76.
This had to be the same “missing local beauty” whose disappearance had been chronicled in the old newspaper clippings.
Drue leafed through the three-inch-thick binder. There were page after page of typed police reports, handwritten notes and carbon copies of more reports. A pocket on the inside back cover of the binder held yellowing black-and-white photographs.
She stared down at the binder. She knew virtually nothing about police procedures, but the book she was holding looked a lot like official police business. But what was it doing here, in her grandparents’ attic?
When she heard a faint scrabbling sound coming from the far end of the attic, she tucked the folders and the binder under her arm and scrambled down the ladder as fast as she could go.
Downstairs, she typed “Colleen Boardman Hicks” into her phone’s search bar. The screen filled with dozens of citations.
She clicked on the most recent article, published six months earlier in theTampa Bay Times.
FORTY-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED.She skimmed the article, which confirmed that Colleen Hicks had never been found.
Colleen Boardman Hicks was a vivacious blond 26-year-old newlywed. She had a loving husband, successful career, and strong local ties. Then, one evening in 1976, after a day of shopping and dinner with a friend, she vanished, seemingly into thin air.
Now, more than forty years later, officials say they are no closer to solving the puzzle of the bay area’s most enduring mystery than they were on the day she was discovered missing.
In fact, Ralph Pflieger, a now-retired St. Petersburg Police detective who was involved with the Colleen Hicks investigation in the late 1970s, says the case has gotten murkier with the passing of time.
“For a while there, every five years or so, me or one of the other detectives would pick it up again, chase down some leads, talk to some potential witnesses. But we never really got anywhere. And then, not long after I retired, when I asked about the Hicks case file, a buddy of mine said it had gone missing,” Pfleiger said.
“I couldn’t believe it. Back then, we didn’t have computers. All our work was typed or handwritten. The interviews, the evidence logs, the detective’s notes, all of that, years and years of investigative work, was in that file. And it’s gone just as sure as Colleen Hicks is gone.”
Drue looked down at the dusty black binder sitting on the floor beside her. Wasthisthe missing file?
10
“Drue?” Wendy stood beside her cubicle, looking uncharacteristically frazzled. Her Hermès scarf was haphazardly knotted around her shoulders and her eyeliner was smudged. “I need you out in reception. Right now.”
Drue finished the referral form she’d been working on. “Why?”
“Because I’m your supervisor and I asked you to, that’s why,” Wendy snapped, turning on her heel. “And bring your headset.”
Drue gave a martyr’s sigh and trailed Wendy out to the reception area.
