He's Ba a a a ack!

I came home from work last Thursday before Spring Break. It was one of those glorious spring days when the birds were happy and singing like they were in competition with each other. I pulled my laptop from the back seat of my Nissan Frontier and walked to the front door of 333 West Monroe Avenue. I spotted it.

"It" was a manila envelope sitting on a piece of my wife's wicker furniture. I unlocked the door first and put the computer inside before retrieving the envelope. Since it was too small to be a bomb, I pulled back the flap and peered inside only to see a bunch of papers that I slowly slipped out for a look see. On top was a letter addressed to me.


Mr. Hodge,
 You don't no me and I am not going to introduce myself.I will tell you I was in law enforcement with more than one agency for over twenty fove years.  I red your riting about Ray. i dealt with him myself on numerous different times. I arrested him and talked to him at thhe jail I included his arrest record. And some notes. hope you find him.


Below the letter was a copy of his arrest records from the Greenwood Police Department, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, the Winona Police Department, and the Montgomery Sheriff's Office. There was also some handwritten notes from a file that several Carroll County sheriffs kept on Ray.

I was flabbergasted. 

The picture at the cave had started all this up again in my mind. After living with his presence for a couple of decades followed by his sudden disappearance, I had struggled to come to terms with the fact that he was gone and gone for good. Then the picture at the cave had not only brought it all up again, but had created some tension in the family when my daughter didn't believe me and my wife and father-in-law claimed not to remember him. I had lain awake at night and thought and prayed and wondered. I struggled through the tangle of emotions and questions all over again and put it away once more never to think of it, of him, again. Now, like a bad dream it was back, he was back. Why can't I get away from Ray? Now I have to try to find him. I have to. But first, I must read the files and reports and see if there is anything there to learn, anything that can help me track him down.