Free Dead Sleeping Shaman by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page A

across the world must dream. Then memories of dirty socks shoved deep in sofa cushions, tops left off toothpaste, and toilet seats left up to snare an unwary woman in the middle of the night tripped through my head, and cooking fell a few notches in my list of attributes a second husband must have.

Still 13 days to go
    I headed back toward Front Street and the college. Traverse City was always one of my favorite small cities. First driving along Munson Avenue—typical resort town shops: tee shirts (with a big grizzly guarding the entrance), miniature golf with waterfalls and ponds where a galleon sits perpetually half-sunk, and then Old Mission Peninsula, a finger of land jutting into the bay, a place where people lived on little coves and along curving roads. Old Mission was where artists and writers existed among vineyards and expensive, sprawling, waterfront mansions. The artists and writers lived off-water, in charming cottages or falling-down old houses, democratically sharing the spotlight with the wealthy because Old Mission was a little like an Irish town where artists were still respected.
    The city had spread out, to the south. There were malls and fast-food shops, but also tiny, family-run specialty shops and quirky restaurants like Eurostop in the old train station where I would go on a summer day to sit beside the tracks, wave to an engineer, and eat a caprese sandwich with fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and fresh tomato slices. And there was the Dennos Museum; Old Town Playhouse; a symphony orchestra; an ice rink; many, many galleries; the Opera House; and the newest attraction, the State Theatre run by Michael Moore and a host of civic-minded citizens. Traverse City was an eclectic place where, to my surprise when I first got up here, people still smiled and talked to strangers.
    Northwestern Michigan College was off Front Street, back in on winding roads lined with big, old trees. Students, wrapped in sweaters, keeping warm against the cold wind sweeping in from the bay, stood in hunched gaggles, laughing and horsing around, the way students do.
    I’d done searches in the newspaper’s morgue before. This time I struck out. There was nothing in the old issues. No missing Otis. I checked a Winnie Otis from 1967 through 1971, the years I figured Marjory had to be a teenager. Nothing. If Marjory was in her fifties and her mother, Winnie, left when Marjory was anywhere from thirteen to sixteen, those had to be the years when her disappearance would have been reported. I went through page after page, issue after issue, and found nothing. And nothing in the old obits either, not that there would have been, not with her mother running off the way she had, and never coming back. But where did she run to? I sat back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. It was conceivable, even probable, the woman was still alive. Had to be in her seventies. People were easier to find now, with paper trails left every year. Maybe through a social security number, an address, credit, tax IDs—something. If I only knew the name of the man she’d run off with, I’d begin there. One of Marjory’s brothers might know his name. Arnold, the famous one, was the eldest. He would have already been in his teens when their mother left them. Surely he’d been told who she ran off with—an area tractor salesman. We had to talk to Arnold Otis soon.
    I made notes. People to contact. Places to search. Maybe even in Antrim County records. A name and address for an Otis who owned property out near Deward. Or Harry—I’d go see him. He had lived right where he was, across Willow Lake Road, all his life. If anyone knew people who lived in or near Leetsville in the last sixty years, it would be Harry. A trip down Harry’s treacherous, burr- and picker-lined driveway was in order.
    Dusty fall light came in the big library windows. Moving shadows fell across the hunched backs of students studying at long tables. Others sat singly, in carrels around the