Free No Show by Simon Wood Page B

awareness. He hadn’t seen any appeals in the local newspapers or on television. Oscar scored the winning goal to seal the game. Terry slid his paddle across the table.
    “We need to start our own milk carton campaign or something,” Oscar said.
    “What’s that?” Terry asked.
    “For years, they’ve been placing the pictures of missing kids on milk cartons and on junk mail flyers.”
    That was a neat idea. It wasn’t one the police utilized in the UK. “Great, but wouldn’t we have to go through Holman or something to do that?” Terry asked.
    “Yeah, but I’m not suggesting that we put Sarah’s face on a milk carton. We should do something similar, like a poster campaign. We’ll run up a batch of flyers and get the stores to post them in their windows and nail them to power poles. How many times has a missing dog notice caught your eye?”
    “Sarah, a missing dog?”
    Oscar frowned. “Okay, bad choice of words, but you get my point.”
    “I’ll agree with you, it’s a nice idea, but that pretty much assumes that Sarah’s still local.”
    “Granted, but we don’t know anyone who has even seen Sarah in the last week. A flyer might just jog their memory. It’s a start, don’t you think?”
    It was. Sarah’s case seemed to have stagnated. Anything to get it going again was a good thing. If anyone came forward witheven the slightest sighting, it would be good for his faith, if nothing else.
    The next evening, Terry pulled into his garage and Oscar parked his SUV in the driveway. They’d had a good night. Out of the two hundred flyers they’d printed, maybe two dozen were left. Terry was overwhelmed by the willingness of most store managers to post his flyer in their windows and at the checkout stands. His hand throbbed from stapling the flyers to every power pole they came across.
    Oscar locked the door on his 4Runner and brandished his depleted stack of flyers. “Do you want these?”
    The two of them had divided Edenville into halves and regrouped at the Gold Rush before returning to Terry’s house.
    “Do you mind keeping them and handing them out at the Gold Rush?” Terry asked.
    “Sure thing.”
    Terry examined the flyer on top of the pile he held. It was simple but effective. It was an eight-by-eleven sheet with a banner headline “MISSING—Have you seen this woman?” and a color photograph of Sarah he’d taken in Costa Rica. A short description and a phone number completed the flyer. He’d cobbled the affair together on his PC during his lunch hour, and Oscar had gotten them copied. Oscar had warned Terry not to expect every call to lead directly to Sarah and to expect a lot of crank calls. Terry wasn’t bothered by crank calls. He welcomed them. If he was receiving calls, then Sarah’s details were being seen; and if she were seen, then she would be recognized. He didn’t care if he received a million calls, as long as one led to Sarah. He hoped to find the answering machine dripping with messages when he got inside. He removed the first flyer from his pile and gave the rest to Oscar.
    “You can take these too, but I’ll keep one, just in case someone asks.”
    “Good idea,” Oscar said, taking the flyers. Both men knew Terry was keeping the flyer for quite different reasons. “I’ll put these in the car.”
    Terry stopped him.
    “Oscar”—Terry paused—“you know I have no way of expressing how grateful I am to you for all your help.”
    “Hey, pal. Don’t go all misty on me.” Oscar laughed. “I’m doing this as a friend, and there’s no reason to thank a friend.”
    Terry stuck out his hand. “Sometimes it needs to be said.”
    Oscar shook Terry’s hand and smiled. “I’ll accept that.”
    “I’ll get you a beer.”
    Oscar returned to his Toyota to put the remaining flyers back and Terry skirted his rental car to the door leading into the house. As Terry opened the door, Oscar stopped him.
    “Terry,” he said with trepidation.
    “Yeah?”
    Oscar didn’t