On Sunday, June 6, Randy Byrne graduated from high school. Dean sent two dress shirts with neckties and a card of congratula­tions but did not attend the ceremony. Randy had called a few days before with an invitation but Dean was putting in a Sunday shift and was forced to decline. The young man said he understood but sounded confused at Dean's sudden absence from their lives, though he didn't press for an explanation. It was apparent that Mom was mum on the subject and hadn't told her son that Dean was about as popular as doggy do-do on new shoes.

Dean had had no direct contact with Cynthia Byrne after their acrimonious separation at the Jersey shore restaurant's parking lot. He had telephoned Randy the following day, asking the boy to inform his mother of Arthur Atherton's death. While the lawyer's death did nothing to undo the damage his note had caused to Cynthia, it at least eliminated her need for any further dealings with the miscreant. Dean wondered if Cynthia might suspect Dean himself had blown the creep away just for spite. While Dean was out of contact with Cynthia Byrne during the first two weeks of June, it didn't mean she was out of his thoughts. He refused to accept that he and Cynthia were other than tem­porarily at odds with one another. To think otherwise would have been intolerable. She was constantly on his mind. Someone would laugh and it would remind him of her laugh, turn their head to the side and it would be the way she always moved. A song would play and he'd recall hearing it when they were together. Although they'd been together but a half-dozen times, each remained with him, indelibly imprinted in his memory. It was as if this separation was by miles only, and not the great chasm created by the disap­pearance of Jeffrey Byrne.

On June 9, Monica Cutler, asleep in the arms of her beloved Harry Turnball, failed to wake from her snug and happy dreams. She was buried on Friday and Dean attended yet another burial service. He cried for the first time since his mother had passed away 15 years earlier.

On June 10, plans for his trip west began to come together, but not in the way Dean expected. The detective had wondered about Fred O'Connor's apparent acceptance of Dean's pronouncement he was going to Colorado alone. While Fred had chatted amiably during the course of the two weeks, he confined his discussions to methods that might be used in finding and identifying Byrne, and never complained about having to remain in Parkside. Dean learned why Fred was mum on the subject when he discovered an airline ticket in the old man's jacket.




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