The dining table was covered in old flyers, and Billy’s room remained exactly as he had left it: the bed made, his baseball glove on the desk. Eleanor rarely slept, her eyes permanently shadowed by grief. She spent hours watching the street, jumping at every car door that slammed, hoping it was him.
Frank had become a man of few words, his quiet anger simmering just below the surface. His job at the plant was his only tether to reality, though he often stared blankly at his machine for minutes at a time. In the spring of 1967, a phone call from the police station broke the heavy silence of their home.
A detective asked them to come down to the station for an update. Eleanor felt a cold shiver of dread, while Frank simply grabbed his keys. In the cramped, smoke-filled office of Detective Sullivan, the air was thick with the smell of stale coffee and old paper.
A thick file labeled “Thompson, William” sat on the desk. Sullivan, avoiding their gaze, stood up as they entered. He gestured for them to sit in the worn wooden chairs. Eleanor gripped her purse tightly, while Frank stood by the window, his jaw set.
With a flicker of hope, Eleanor asked if there was news. Sullivan cleared his throat and began a long, clinical summary of the investigation. He listed every forest searched, every pond dragged, and the hundreds of interviews conducted.
Finally, the detective admitted that the investigation had hit a dead end. They had no new leads. Frank’s voice was a low growl when he asked how they could just give up on his only son. Eleanor stood up, her voice rising, refusing to believe that the police were throwing in the towel.
She begged them to keep looking, insisting that a mother’s intuition told her Billy was still out there, waiting to be found. Sullivan tried to calm her, but she was inconsolable. She spoke of the nightmares she had—of Billy calling for her from a dark, cold place.
Unable to hold it in any longer, she broke down. Frank stepped forward, his fists clenched, and asked the detective if he had any idea what it was like to live in this hell every day. He told Sullivan that he looked for his son in the face of every boy he passed on the street.
Sullivan rubbed his temples. He’d seen a lot of tragedy, but the raw pain in that room was overwhelming. He explained that the case wasn’t “closed,” but it was being moved to “inactive” status because there was nowhere left to look. He promised that if any new evidence surfaced, they would be the first to know.
