A Singular Witness

The Address

Toby's forehead was beaded with sweat as he walked his bike up to the door, despite the lack of physical strain involved in covering the grounds of the apartment complex.  He slowly fit his key in the lock and turned the knob, his spine stiffening involuntarily as he caught sight of Leah when he walked through the door.  She was curled up on a couch in the front room with a magazine.  She looked up at him curiously.

"You're here early.  A girl came by a little while ago, asking for you."  She said, her voice soft.

Toby just nodded, walking straight ahead to the bedroom at the end of the hall.  He closed the bedroom door behind him, roughly shoving a change of clothes into his backpack.  His chest seemed to constrict as he inhaled slowly through his nose, the air in the apartment too thick in his lungs to breathe.  When he walked out, his backpack slung loosely over his shoulder, Leah watched him with a bewildered expression. 

"I'm going out.  I won't be back tonight."

Leah chewed on her lower lip, nodding as she looked back down at the magazine that lay rumpled in her lap.

Toby found the rush of air against his body as he rode away from the apartment almost dizzying.  Getting into the bike lane on the highway, he sailed over a stretch of road that circled around the southern edge of the city.  He turned off after a few miles onto a street that cut across the center of town. 

Back in his old neighborhood, he slowed as he approached the street where Quinn's house was located.  Her house had the marginally maintained look of a home in which someone might stay on occasion, but where no one really lived.  The driveway was empty, the grass slightly overgrown, and a hedge that had been beaten back year after year straggled obstinately over a large picture window that looked out of the front room.  Toby took a deep breath and rode past Quinn's street, her house standing in sad relief against the carefully manicured suburban landscape that surrounded it, before it slipped out of sight.

Cass thought it was the postman when she heard someone on the porch.  She was surprised when she heard the door, though the sound was soon followed by the sight of Toby, looking lost as he walked through the door of his own home.  She smiled at him, but he did not seem to notice.

"Hi, Honey.  I was not expecting you this afternoon, but you are just the sort of surprise I always enjoy.  Would you like a cup of tea?"  She asked, walking over and setting a kettle on the stove.

Toby just nodded, and took his usual seat at the table without saying a word.

When the tea was ready, Cass poured two mugs, setting them down on the table as she lowered herself into the chair across from Toby.

"What a brutal summer, it seems hard to believe that we are almost through September, and it's still so hot."  Cass was gazing past Toby at the bright square of light framed by the window over the sink.

Toby sat silently for a moment, looking as though he was attempting to collect his thoughts.  Furrowing his brow, he asked, "If you wanted to find someone that did not show up in any public directories, or on any social networking sites, what other ways could you go about trying to find the person?"

Cass took a long sip of tea, studying Toby as she placed her mug back down on the table.  "You could search public records for a person, which would turn up things like birth and death certificates, divorces, or criminal charges.  Most county assessors have sites you can search by entering a person's name, that will list an address for that person if they own residential or commercial property in that county."

What county is Oklahoma City in?"  Toby asked.

Cass raised an eyebrow.  "Oklahoma City is the county seat of Oklahoma County."

Toby finished his tea, rinsing his mug out in the sink.  "I was planning on staying here tonight, in my room."

Cass just nodded, and continued sipping her tea.

Later that evening, Toby dropped his back pack in the middle of his bed before sitting down at the computer that had gathered a thin layer of dust on his desk.  Looking around on his bedroom floor, he picked up a sock that lay discarded some distance from an empty laundry bin, and used it to wipe off the screen.  He logged in, and brought up the Oklahoma County Assessor's site.  He clicked on the search tab, entering the words: Neilson, Everatt.  A brief message popped up on the screen that said, 'scanning records.'  A few seconds later Everatt Neilson's name appeared in a column on the screen, along with an account number, parcel number, and property address.  Under the property type heading was the word 'residential'.  

Toby sat back in his chair, considering the information on the screen in front of him.  After all of the searches he had conducted on academic search engines, it turned out he had only ever been seconds away from a physical address for the man he had found so elusive.  Toby opened a new screen, bringing up a satellite map, on which he enabled the street view feature before searching Everatt Neilson's address.  A fraction of a second later he sat staring at a townhouse in a tony neighborhood just east of downtown Oklahoma City.  He printed the picture of the townhouse, with the address of the property listed in an overhead caption.  He carefully placed the print out in a folder that he stowed away in his backpack, before moving the bag from his bed to the floor.

Lying on his bed, he appreciated the familiar cushion of his old pillow against his head, which had grown heavy.  He inhaled deeply, but did not find the scent he had sought all through the hottest part of the summer as he drifted off to sleep.