I Hope You're Listening

by Tom Ryan

  But on that night, instead of pulling back from the internet, I leaned into it. In the tiny search window, cursor blinking on and off, my fingers hesitated above the keyboard. Then I typed missing people, and the screen came to life. Pages and pages of news sites, small-town papers, blogs, social media pages, and many, many, many stories. Stories just like mine.

  Like Sibby’s.

  Before long, I’d fallen down a rabbit hole of missing persons cases from all over the country, even the world. I skimmed message board after message board, and I began to notice something interesting. People were actually trying to solve these cases.

  There were a lot of stupid theories, of course, but there were also many smart, serious people sharing clues and trying to dig into the cases in a real way. “Armchair detectives,” most people would call them, although I started to think of them as “laptop detectives.”

  I wasn’t interested in being a laptop detective. I didn’t want to get too involved; it was just too close for comfort, and besides, I’ve already proven I’m a shitty detective. But I knew what it was like to be on the other side of one of these stories, wishing someone, somewhere, would come up with a solution. The laptop detectives needed an outlet, somewhere to bring their ideas and find some attention.

  So I started a podcast. How hard can it be? I wondered. I bought a microphone online, downloaded some basic free recording software, and gave it a shot.

  Turned out it was plenty hard. For the first few episodes, I tried to do a roundup of cases that I’d read about, but that landed flat. I decided I needed a focus.

  So on my fourth episode, I picked one case. It was a brother and sister who’d been taken from their home after school, before their parents had come home from work. The day I uploaded it, an anonymous tip landed in my inbox, a tip I forwarded to the police, and that led to the kids being found in the home of a disgruntled former babysitter. They were returned safe and sound, and afterward, the police thanked the podcast for the information.

  After that, Radio Silent fell into a groove. I would find a case, research it as much as I could, turn it into a story, and let the listeners take it from there. As first, I discovered the cases myself by searching around online, but it wasn’t long before I started getting emails from listeners, drawing my attention to cases that would make a good fit for the podcast.

  Radio Silent breaks a lot of podcasting rules; I keep myself anonymous, there’s not a lot of consistency to the stories I choose, and I don’t even stick to a regular schedule—I post when it makes sense—but somehow, it struck a chord. Gradually, listener numbers started to grow, and I learned that the laptop detectives really were willing to help. In almost no time, they’d surpassed my wildest expectations, bringing me clues and tips and self-organizing into an online community, the LDA, short for the Laptop Detective Agency. I compile the research, sift through the clues and leads, choose the cases to focus on, and record, edit, and upload the podcast, but the real work happens thanks to the LDA. And it’s real work. Working together, we’ve found people.

  A fifteen-year-old runaway who was found alive and safe in Seattle after she’d run away to find an old boyfriend. An elderly man who disappeared from a nursing home and was discovered a hundred miles away in his childhood hometown.

  And then there was Danny Lurlee, an asshole who faked his own abduction. Thanks to the LDA, he was tracked down trying to cross the border into Mexico.

  I’ll be honest, that one seriously pissed me off. I wasted three episodes on that jerk.

  Obviously, not all of our cases end well. Murder. Suicide. Tragic accidents. There’s no way to avoid this because not every story has a happy ending. But take it from me, even a sad ending is better than no ending at all, and that’s always been my goal: to deliver an ending to as many unfinished stories as possible.

  I don’t do much. I just bring together the facts. Listen to people when they tell me they have information. Tell my listeners about a missing person.

  They do the real work. I just tell stories.

  I hope that telling them might make up for the story I wasn’t able to tell properly all those years ago.

  The story that never had an ending.

  HOST: Just over a year ago, Nathan and Cassandra’s grandfather, Walter, died. Nathan took the death really hard. The two had always been especially close, and over the years, they had spent a lot of time together at Grandpa Walt’s hunting camp, which just so happens to sit in the woods outside of Maple Mills.

  CASSANDRA CHESTNUT: Over the holidays, my dad and his sisters had decided to sell the camp. None of us ever use it, and it takes time and money to keep it up, so they figured they’d unload it and split up the cash.

  Nobody thought to ask Nathan if he had an opinion…

  HOST: Upon receiving the listener tips that I passed on, Cassandra and her parents notified police of their suspicion and immediately drove to Maple Mills. As they approached the darkened hunting camp, they saw smoke coming from the chimney.

  NATHAN CHESTNUT: So it was definitely the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but I was pissed off, okay? Nobody even thought about asking me about Grandpa Walt’s cabin, and I was the only one in the family who actually cared about the place. Anyway, I had almost a week before school started up again, so I packed some things and caught the bus to Maple Mills, so I could spend a few final nights hanging out there. I knew that my folks would say no if I asked to go, so I planned to text them when I got there, tell them I was safe and I’d be back in a couple of days. But my phone died, and I didn’t count on the power being shut off…Anyway, I convinced myself that they’d know where I’d gone and wouldn’t worry, which was fu—um, really stupid of me. Obviously.

  CASSANDRA CHESTNUT: (laughing) Oh man, he is in such deep shit. The cops were pretty good about it, since it was ultimately a misunderstanding, and they’re not going to press charges or anything. But my parents are a different story. He’s going to be grounded until he’s thirty.

  HOST: So all’s well that ends well with Nathan Chestnut, but as we all know, not every story has such a positive result. The world is full of missing people, and the sad truth is that many of them will never come home. But I believe there’s a story behind every missing person, and maybe, just maybe, if we begin to dig up the details together, we can find our way to some more happy endings.

  Is there something you can do to help?

  Listen up.

  Let’s try.

  Recording takes me about two hours, editing in real time, to complete the finished take. When I’m finished, I glance at the alarm clock on the corner of the desk. It’s almost five in the morning, which means I should be able to grab a couple more hours of sleep before Mom is banging at the foot of the stairs telling me to get up for school.

  “I’m doing my best, Sibby,” I whisper.

  I click upload. An instant later, the episode is live.

  I take a minute to send a quick email to my mailing list, informing subscribers that there’s a new episode. Then I post the same to my various social media accounts and several of the more popular true crime forums on Reddit.

  I stretch my arms over my head, then glance past my laptop at the window. Across the street, the old Dunlop house is dark except for a single upstairs window, which glows orange from behind a curtain. I wonder if it’s that girl, if she’s still awake, talking to friends back wherever she came from.

  There’s one last thing to take care of. I erase my browser history.

  Because here’s the thing: I keep my shit locked down tight. I have impossible passwords. I only use private browser windows, and even so I erase my history every time I use my computer. I don’t use my real name. I use audio filters to disguise my voice.

  I never slip up.

  I created and host one of the most popular true crime podcasts in the world, and nobody—not my parents, not my teachers, not my neighbors—knows.

  5.

  I wake to my alarm, completely exhausted, but with a l
ingering tingle of exhilaration from my late-night work session. I crawl out of bed, yawn and stretch, and grab my phone. My screen is full, announcing the thousands of notifications I received overnight, everybody with something to say about the latest episode.

  I resist the urge to check out the notifications and new emails, the endlessly growing threads and subthreads on my message board. That can wait until later. It’s important to keep a wall between what happens in the podcast and what happens in my real life. Otherwise, I’d go nuts.

  I make my way down to the bathroom I share with the twins. After a quick shower, I rush to dry myself off, shivering against the draft that creeps in through the ancient leaded-glass window that sits somewhere on Dad’s endless list of things to fix or replace. I change into a pair of faded jeans and my Nevertheless, She Persisted T-shirt and head downstairs.

  Our house is huge. Half the rooms on the second floor are empty, closed off, with stuffed socks running along the bottoms to keep out the drafts. The ceilings are high, with elaborate plaster moldings running along the edges, big ragged chunks missing in several spots. Dad’s fixed a lot of the moldings on the main floor, but he hasn’t made his way upstairs yet, which also explains the peeling wallpaper and worn floorboards.

  My mother complains about this house every single day, but I know she loves it. Most of all, she loves how much my dad loves it.

  We moved from our old neighborhood when I was seven, after everything that happened with Sibby. Almost ten years later, this house has been hacked apart and changed in a million different ways, but it still feels like it will never be done.

  I don’t mind. I love its quirks and charming details. I love the elaborate original light fixtures and the intricate brass doorknobs. Most of all, I love the staircase, the wide steps that make two ninety-degree turns, the oak paneling that follows its progress, the grand, hand-carved wooden banister that took Dad years to refinish. I stop on the upper landing, like I do every morning, and glance through the bubbles of old stained glass in the gothic window that looks out onto the driveway. In the afternoon, when sunlight hits the window just right, colored light streams through and fills the staircase with a magical glow.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I carefully step around the empty cans of paint stripper and pieces of cardboard covered with tools and tape and brushes. Dad’s been working on the wood paneling in the main hallway for months, a bit at a time, stripping layer upon layer of old paint down to the raw wood beneath. He swears that it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done, but it’s hard to imagine him ever finishing it at this rate.

  I follow the sound of voices toward the kitchen, giving a wide berth to the twins’ bulky hockey bags that have been tossed down in the hallway, a dank waft of hockey stink floating around them like mist.

  “Morning,” I say as I enter the kitchen, which sits in a sunny, windowed addition at the back of the house.

  “Delia, please talk to your mother,” says my father, standing at the sink, an apron over a paint-spattered T-shirt and raggedy work jeans. “Tell her that I’m perfectly capable of repairing the chimney myself.”

  I turn to my mother, who’s standing at the island, dressed for work in a classy business suit, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, a thin gold chain around her neck. My parents do not look like a couple you’d expect to be married to one another.

  Dad stays at home, keeping house, which involves everything from cooking and cleaning to the never-ending renovations. He’s a remnant of the ’90s and he dresses like it: torn jeans, faded grunge band T-shirts under plaid button-ups, scruffy hair. Mom, on the other hand, is the chief administrator at our local hospital and the kind of woman who likes to dress for success—tailored suits, manicures, classy makeup. Despite the differences in appearance, they are head over heels for each other. They both have the same weird sense of humor; they’re both into good food and good wine; and judging from their constant, sickly sweet public displays of affection, they have definitely not lost the hots for each other.

  “Mom, Dad is perfectly capable of repairing the chimney himself.”

  Mom looks up from her laptop, a bemused look on her face.

  “Delia, please tell your father that he has plenty of jobs to keep him busy without climbing up onto a steep-pitched roof in January.”

  “Dad, you have plenty of jobs to keep you busy without—”

  He raises a hand, cutting me off. “Okay, fine. I’ll call around for some quotes.” He comes around the island and encircles her waist with his arms. “I love it when you set firm limits.” She smiles up at him, and in front of my eyes, they’ve turned into gooey mushballs, nuzzling noses and batting eyelashes.

  The twins, Kurt and Eddie, are sitting in the breakfast nook in the large bay window at the back of the house. They groan in tandem, without even looking up from their phones.

  “Jesus Christ,” says Kurt. “Get a room.”

  “Seriously,” says Eddie. “You guys are gross.”

  “Hey,” says Dad. “You guys should just pray that you find someone who still finds you ferociously sexy when you’re in your forties.”

  “Well, I’m out,” says Kurt to Eddie. “Let’s go.”

  The twins are up from the table and stomping toward the front door before anyone has time to react.

  “Will you be home for dinner?” my mother calls after them.

  “Hockey,” says Eddie before the door opens and slams behind them. When it comes to the twins, hockey is a noun, a verb, an adjective, and a perpetual one-word explanation.

  My father hands me a plate of eggs and toast, and I slide into one of the chairs in the breakfast nook.

  “Who’s moved into the old Dunlop place?” I ask. “Someone showed up with a moving van last night.”

  “Were you up all night again?” my mother asks suspiciously. “No,” I lie. “The truck woke me up.”

  “I totally forgot to mention,” says Dad. “Georgina Walsh filled me in at the grocery store the other day. Some distant relative of Mrs. Dunlop’s is going to take the place over.”

  Dad is a dedicated member of the community gossip hotline. It’s not unusual to find him on his laptop in the kitchen, participating in the neighborhood group chat, his mouth hanging open as he absorbs some particularly juicy tidbit.

  “A family?” asks Mom.

  “A couple around our age,” says Dad. “I think they have a daughter. They’re from somewhere on the West Coast.”

  “We should go over soon and welcome them,” says Mom. She stands from the island and shoves her laptop into her bag. “Anyway, I’m off. I have a consult in half an hour. You’ll figure out dinner?”

  “I always do,” says Dad, coming around to give her a kiss full on the lips.

  I studiously turn away.

  “Bye, sweetie,” says Mom, coming over to kiss me on the cheek. “Have a good day.”

  “You too,” I say.

  She disappears down the hallway, and Dad removes his apron before bringing a plate of his own over to the table.

  “So what’s on the go at school for the new semester?” he asks, sliding in across from me.

  “At school?” I ask, surprised. “Same shit, different pile, I guess.”

  He smiles but doesn’t drop it. “Come on, really? There’s nothing exciting planned? Dissecting frogs? Digging into a really good short story?”

  He sounds so desperate for me to tell him something interesting that for a split second, staring at his bright, needy face, I consider telling him about the podcast, letting him in on the biggest secret I’ve ever kept. But no. Not a chance.

  “Um, I think we’re supposed to be building doghouses in shop class?”

  “Cool,” he says. He seems kind of disappointed.

  “What about you?” I ask, trying to make up for it. “What’s up for today?”

  He shrugs. “Probably going to get some work done on the wainscoting. Might stop at the café to see what the guys are doing.”

  �
��You want to walk with me?” I ask.

  “Yes!” he says. “Just let me change.”

  He looks genuinely excited, like a little kid who’s been offered a trip to buy ice cream. He bounds up the stairs, two at a time, and I pull on my coat and boots and wait outside on the veranda for him.

  Across the street, the Dunlop house is quiet. Curtains drawn, no activity outside. No wonder, considering how late those people arrived.

  The door opens behind me, and my father steps out, bundled up in his best aging-hipster winter gear.

  “Oh, hey, look at that,” he says, pointing across at the blue car. “A ’77 Chevy Nova. Man, when I was a kid I would have killed for one of those. My aunt dated a guy who used to fix up old cars.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “That’s a fascinating story.”

  He grins. “Always nice to start the day hearing how boring I am.”

  “What? I said it was fascinating.”

  At a crosswalk, we pass a young man holding a little girl’s hand as they cross the street. The little girl is chattering cheerfully at her father, and he’s beaming down at her, gamely answering her questions. It’s pretty cute.

  The guy looks up at us briefly, smiling, and he and Dad share a brief head tilt and a mutual “hey man.” An eye-rollingly masculine acknowledgment that they know each other.

  “You know that guy?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Aras.” His voice is wistful, and when I glance at him, he’s twisted his head around to glance back at them. “I miss that age,” he says.

  “What, thirty?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “Well, yeah, obviously, but I mean I miss when you were that age. You always wanted to hold my hand. You were a very touchy-feely child.”

  “I was not,” I say, shocked. If I were any less touchy-feely, I’d be a porcupine.

  “You were,” he insists. “After, you know, everything…you just needed your distance more, is all.”