“Is Officer Tatum in?” Carol asked the officer at the counter and nervously tapped her short nails. The deputy looked her over and waved her back to his office.

“Bill, hey, I needs some information. A little background on this whole fiasco at Shana Lee’s place. Could you help?”

Officer Tatum looked at Carol with a perplexed look. “What do you mean background? Shana dropped all charges, there’s nothing more to cover.”

Carol had to decide quickly how much to reveal to Bill. She hemmed a bit before continuing on. “Can you just help me close out the facts on the original arrest of John and, more minorly, the night his vehicle was vandalized? I want to confirm I have the right dates.” She handed her notes to Bill.

Bill looked her notes over, and looked back at Carol. He knew she was digging for more information for some reason, but hadn’t put why together yet. “Well, I can help you with the vandalization, but John was arrested by the county police, so I don’t have any of that information. You’ll have to head over to the county seat to get any details there.”

Carol smiled, she was getting somewhere with her research. At least she didn’t hit a brick wall.

Bill looked up the case number in the computer. “Carol, this is a very old case. It was a paper file according to the system and was never fully scanned in. Unfortunately, we had a fire a couple years ago, those case records are long gone.”

Carol grimaced. “Does the system at least give a date? Maybe I can find some info out another way.” Really, all she needed was the date to confirm her suspicion that the diary was Johanna’s.

“The file here says March 23, 1999. But that’s the day it was filed. Looks like it was March 22nd, or that weekend at least,” Bill commented. “Heck, that was the year after I graduated!”

Carol looked at Bill. He appeared much older than a man approaching 40. His hair was already mostly grey with just a few remnants of brown.

But that date ties to the journal’s dates. “Bill, thank you. That’s just the information I need!” Carol stuck out her hand and gave him an enthusiastic shake.

Bill wasn’t sure why Carol was, well, ecstatic with just the date. He looked at her puzzled. “Just be careful out there. Not sure what your getting into, but stay out of trouble.”

Carol smiled, but it wasn’t time to reveal her hand just yet. She was still putting together the pieces. “Sure. Will do. Thanks again, Bill!” With that she waved a farewell to him and headed out the door.