"Move anything you like," Hunter said. "We took all the photographs we need and we've inventoried everything. I even read the list to Mrs. Byrne over the phone. Everything's here...but the bathing suit and ball cap. When you've finished we'll stuff it all in the suitcase and you can haul it back up north to her."
Dean methodically searched the room, examining each of the missing man's items slowly, not knowing exactly what he was looking for. Hunter stood off to one side, nodding as if to say he too had done the same thing. The suitcase contained three sets of underwear and socks, all neatly folded and strapped in place with an elastic cord. The closet contained a second suit and three shirts, each on its own hanger with a necktie looped over it. A toilet kit containing nothing out of the ordinary was on the bathroom counter. The only item that appeared out of place was a matchbook on the bureau. Dean picked it up and examined it.
"That was under the bed, in the back corner. I'd guess it's been there a spell-there was a fair amount of dust on it." Two of the matches were missing. The cover advertised art lessons for anyone drawing cartoon pictures and seeking "A rewarding career." Dean tossed it back on the table as Hunter said, "If this were the movies, that matchbook would be to a Hootchy-Cootchy night club where some sexy broad would come on to us both and then get her throat slit by a gangster boyfriend."
Dean laughed. "This place sure isn't the movies." He began to look through the wallet. It contained 78 dollars, a half-dozen credit cards, a few business cards and two pictures, one a duplicate of the desktop photo of Cynthia Byrne and the other a grade school picture Dean assumed to be of Byrne's son, Randy. There was also a small sheet of white paper listing 11.2 gallons of gas purchased in Aberdeen, Maryland, a mileage figure and the amount of the purchase. It was dated Monday, the day before Byrne's disappearance.
"We checked out the tank and the mileage. It's about right for him to have filled it up there. I called the station in Maryland but it was a cash sale so they don't have a record. But the price per gallon's right so it don't look like he faked it."
"So why did he pay cash if he had a pocket full of credit cards?"
"It was a Texaco station. He didn't have a Texaco charge card and they don't take Visa or MasterCard," Hunter replied, and then added, "but I've driven that route. There are lots of stations along there. He could have stopped where he could charge it."