Melba shrugged. “I guess she reminds me a little bit of Teresa Farmer from the public library.”

“You think in dim light you could mistake Teresa for this woman?” I recalled the incident when Teresa and I visited Mrs. Cartwright and her daughter and how Marcella Marter reacted so oddly when she opened the door and saw Teresa standing there. I figured she might have mistaken Teresa for Yancy Thigpen.

“I reckon I might,” Melba said. She didn’t sound convinced. “What does this have to do with anything, though? You think they could be related?”

“I hadn’t really thought about that,” I said. I told her what happened when we first met Marcella Marter.

“That’s weird enough,” Melba said. “But does it really mean anything?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. Melba shrugged and went back to work on her list.

I examined a few more pictures of Yancy Thigpen, and I soon realized that they all had one thing in common. In every single photograph, each apparently taken on different occasions, Ms. Thigpen was wearing a red dress with a scarf. The scarf in each photo was different, but they were all vivid geometric prints. What this had to do with anything, I wasn’t sure, but the information could be useful to the authorities looking for her. I fired off a brief e-mail to Kanesha, just in case.

That was enough about Yancy Thigpen for the moment, I decided. I needed to get on to the main subject of my research, Electra Barnes Cartwright. The solution to the murder, the disappearance, the strange theft—she was the common denominator. I was convinced of that.

I typed in her name, hit Enter, and got back over twenty-five thousand results. I knew many of them would be repetitive, but I still had to comb through them to make sure I didn’t miss anything significant. As I stared at the screen, I realized I still hadn’t formulated a coherent strategy for my research. I needed to have some focus to what I was doing; otherwise I would easily get sidetracked and end up following trails that would yield nothing helpful. That was what made surfing the Internet both frustrating and fun.

“Melba, let me have a couple of pieces of paper. I need to make a few notes.”

She glanced up from her work, her expression one of fierce concentration. “What? Oh, okay.” She tore several pages out of the notebook and handed them to me.

I found a pen in the jumble drawer and resumed my seat. I stared at the blank page. What should I focus on to start with? Basic biographical information was the logical answer. I made a heading for that on the paper before I turned back to the laptop.