Ray Tilman, who was resetting breakfast items behind the front counter, glanced up and watched him go through the front window.
He told investigators this later with the precision of someone who had in the intervening years replayed the memory so many times it had become worn smooth like a riverstone.
He walked out into the parking lot, Ry said, and he stopped at the edge of the asphalt where the gravel starts.
He stopped and looked up. I don’t know what he was looking at. Maybe just the sky.
Then he turned right and started walking. There was a pause before he added, “He walked like someone with somewhere to go.”
This phrase, “He walked like a man who has somewhere to go,” sounds almost insignificant, but in disappearance cases, such details often become very important.
The last witness doesn’t say he looked confused, scared, sick, or unsure. On the contrary, Daniel seems composed, calm, even inspired.
