26. July 27, 2021

July 27, 2021, marks the day Hol­ly Gib­ney receives a call from Emilio Her­rera of Jet Mart, lead­ing her into a miss­ing per­sons inves­ti­ga­tion involv­ing a young man named Cary Dressler, who was once a reg­u­lar cus­tomer. Described as a ston­er and avid movie fan, Dressler was known for his long blond hair and noisy moped cov­ered in stick­ers. His dis­ap­pear­ance from his rou­tine stop at Jet Mart around the time Trump was run­ning for pres­i­dent catch­es Hol­ly’s inter­est. Fol­low­ing leads, Hol­ly learns Dressler had a pen­chant for Dri­ve-In Rock, a seclud­ed spot for watch­ing movies, sug­gest­ing a soli­tary yet con­tent lifestyle fueled by high-caf­feine soda and pos­si­bly mar­i­jua­na.

Hol­ly’s inves­tiga­tive steps are method­i­cal and thor­ough, engag­ing with var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als from dif­fer­ent walks of life — from a shift work­er at Jet Mart to the staff and own­er of Strike Em Out Lanes, where Cary worked. Each per­son adds lay­ers to Cary’s char­ac­ter; a dili­gent work­er, a reli­able league sched­uler, and a kind soul whose sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance left a void.

The inves­ti­ga­tion deep­ens as Hol­ly explores Cary’s work­place and acquain­tances, reveal­ing a pat­tern of miss­ing per­sons all con­nect­ed to the Red Bank Avenue area. The detail on Cary’s last pay­check and the rem­nants of his past sug­gest a sud­den end rather than a planned depar­ture, assem­bling a pic­ture of a young man deeply meshed in his com­mu­ni­ty, whose absence is felt pro­found­ly.

Haver­ty, the bowl­ing alley’s own­er, shares Cary’s back­ground — a resilient young man flee­ing a trou­bled past, find­ing solace in movies, work, and pos­si­bly sub­stances. As Hol­ly nav­i­gates through team pho­tographs and gath­ers infor­ma­tion, she unearths Cary’s inte­gral role in the bowl­ing com­mu­ni­ty, his pop­u­lar­i­ty and absence unset­tling­ly poignant.

Inquiries lead Hol­ly to Hugh Clip­pard, a poten­tial mine of infor­ma­tion about Cary, as Hol­ly spec­u­lates on a preda­tor lever­ag­ing inti­mate knowl­edge about poten­tial vic­tims’ vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Deep-seat­ed inse­cu­ri­ties fuel Holly’s ded­i­ca­tion to solv­ing the case, sug­gest­ing a per­son­al con­nec­tion and empa­thy towards the miss­ing, a dri­ve beyond mere pro­fes­sion­al oblig­a­tion.

Holly’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Cary Dressler’s life and dis­ap­pear­ance paints a mul­ti­fac­eted por­trait of a com­mu­ni­ty grap­pling with loss and the eerie pres­ence of a preda­tor exploit­ing the frac­tures with­in. Her jour­ney reflects a meld­ing of method­i­cal detec­tive work with a pro­found under­stand­ing of human nature and the shad­ows lurk­ing with­in seem­ing­ly mun­dane lives.