32. July 27, 2021

On July 27, 2021, Hol­ly Gib­ney dri­ves down Ridge Road, stop­ping in a two-hour park­ing zone to make a call to the Har­ris house­hold, aim­ing to inquire about Cary Dressler in con­nec­tion with a series of auto thefts she is inves­ti­gat­ing. Speak­ing with Pro­fes­sor Har­ris, Hol­ly explains her inter­est in Dressler, men­tion­ing her vis­it to Strike Em Out Lanes, where she saw a team pho­to includ­ing Dressler. Although ini­tial­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed, Har­ris agrees to let Hol­ly come by for a brief con­ver­sa­tion.

Mean­while, Har­ris dis­cuss­es the incom­ing vis­it with his wife, Emi­ly, who strug­gles with sci­at­i­ca. They spec­u­late on the coin­ci­dence of Hol­ly inves­ti­gat­ing two indi­vid­u­als they are con­nect­ed with, pon­der­ing the impli­ca­tions. Har­ris, fac­ing the ear­ly signs of cog­ni­tive decline, reas­sures Emi­ly of his capa­bil­i­ty to man­age the con­ver­sa­tion, despite her con­cerns.

Upon her arrival, Hol­ly meets Har­ris, who is dressed casu­al­ly. He dis­miss­es con­cerns about COVID-19 skep­ti­cal­ly and insists on con­tin­u­ing his work while they talk, cit­ing his wife’s migraine. The con­ver­sa­tion is observed by Emi­ly via a hid­den cam­era, wor­ried that Har­ris might inad­ver­tent­ly reveal too much due to his declin­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties.

Hol­ly presents a fab­ri­cat­ed sto­ry about Dressler being involved in car thefts, refined dur­ing her jour­ney. Har­ris, while offer­ing some rec­ol­lec­tions of Dressler, ulti­mate­ly can­not pro­vide any sub­stan­tial infor­ma­tion but dis­cuss­es Dressler’s pos­si­ble drug habits and the com­pa­ny he kept, includ­ing a group referred to as the Hot Witch­es.

Bar­bara, else­where, con­tem­plates her broth­er Jerome’s man­u­script and dis­cov­ers addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about Hol­ly’s case, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant loca­tion on a map relat­ed to a series of dis­ap­pear­ances. Her atten­tion is then divert­ed by a call regard­ing a friend in the hos­pi­tal, high­light­ing the inter­wo­ven per­son­al con­cerns and pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties of the char­ac­ters.

Hol­ly’s vis­it con­cludes with Har­ris unable to offer valu­able leads on Dressler’s where­abouts but inad­ver­tent­ly show­cas­es the var­i­ous indi­vid­u­als’ inter­con­nect­ed lives, the impact of ill­ness and age, and the lengths tak­en in the pur­suit of solv­ing a mys­tery. Hol­ly leaves, hav­ing gained lit­tle but reflect­ing on the poten­tial dan­gers of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the com­plex lives of those she encoun­ters.