“If I were hiding something, where would it be?” I muttered, prowling the green room early in the morning. Eddie was around somewhere, but not in the green room. I was glad he had been at the park because otherwise I would have been forced to scale the outside gate and to open the door with the number which I wasn’t supposed to have, but which I had seen Eddie enter once. The last thing I wanted was to call attention to myself while I tossed the joint. I was the only one in the green room, which made it easier to snoop. It was Friday, but it didn’t feel much like the weekend. I was glad I had Saturday and Sunday off to recover from the events of the last few days.
I had called the cops earlier this morning to tell them about Shannon, which made them very excited. I talked to the male detective, Detective Bradley, and I could tell by his tone that I had just made his day. It was obvious that they were looking at this as a case of mistaken identity. I almost asked him if he had talked to Lydia’s mother about their last conversation, but I caught myself just in time. It wouldn’t do to appear to interested in the case, so I practiced my golden rule—never volunteer information that wasn’t absolutely necessary to the cops. It had kept me out of trouble thus far in my life, and I saw no reason to break it now. Detective Bradley made me promise that I would think more about if anybody had a grudge against me.
The green room did not have many hiding places, so it didn’t take me long to figure out that if Lydia had hidden something, it wasn’t in this room. I wondered if she had hidden it in her apartment, but I dismissed that for two reasons. One, I’ve never been there so there was no reason for her to believe that I’d be able to find something hidden in it. Two, it was too obvious. If someone wanted to find something of hers, that would be the first place she or he would look. I was pretty certain that Lydia had secreted whatever it was she wanted to hide somewhere around the park. The problem was figuring out where, but she seemed to have faith in me. I was beginning to think it was misplaced, but I soldiered on.
