The woods encroached so nearly that there was hardly room to park the vehicles and still leave room for other cars to pass. I figured Tolliver had to be worried someone would come along too fast and clip the Malibu. But he didn't say anything.

"Tell me what happened," I said to the dark-haired man.

"Can't you just go look? Why do you need to know?" He was suspicious.

"If I have a little knowledge about the circumstances, I can look for her more intelligently," I said.

"Okay. Well. Last spring, Teenie came out here with Mrs. Teague's son, who was also Sheriff Branscom's nephew—Sybil and Harvey are brother and sister. Sybil's son was named Dell. Dell was Teenie's boyfriend, had been for two years, off and on. They were both seventeen. A hunter found Dell's body. He'd been shot, or he'd shot himself. They never found Teenie."

"How was their location discovered?" Tolliver asked, pointing at the patch of ground on which we stood.

"Car parked right where we're parked now. See that half-fallen pine? Supported by two other trees? Makes a good marker to remember the spot by. Dell'd been missing less than four hours when one of the families that live out this way gave Sybil a call about the car. There were folks out searching soon after that, but like I say, it was another few hours before Dell was found. Right after that, it started raining, and it rained for hours. Wiped out the tracking scent, so the bloodhounds weren't any use."

"Why wasn't anyone looking for Teenie?"

"No one knew Teenie was with Dell. Her mom didn't realize Teenie was missing for almost twenty hours, maybe longer. She didn't know about Dell, and she delayed calling the police."

"How long ago was this?"

"Maybe six months ago."

Hmm.