Ninda found the second victim's family at the market, not at home.
She recognized the mother from the old report: Sulastri, forty-two, a laundry worker, last seen at Wringin Anom Alley. Her son Dimas was listed as the person who filed the report—a nineteen-year-old boy who, according to the neighbors, often helped his mother deliver clothes.
The woman Ninda was looking for was choosing chilies at the farthest stall.
“Bu Sulastri?”
The woman didn't turn around.
Ninda stood beside her. “I'm Ninda from—”
“I don't want to talk.”
The answer came before she could even show her press card.
Ninda looked at the woman's hands. She was gripping the plastic bag so tightly that the chili seeds were pressing into her skin.
“I just want to make sure Dimas—”
“Dimas is gone.”
“How long has it been?”
“Don't ask.”
Those last two words left Ninda silent.
Not because they were the same words Wira had used. Because they sounded like something Bu Sulastri had learned from someone else, then repeated until it became a survival habit.
The chili seller pretended to be busy weighing the produce. Nearby, women haggled over tomato prices. The market went on around them, but the small space between Ninda and Bu Sulastri seemed cut off from it all.
“I know people don't like talking about that alley,” Ninda said. “But I didn't come here to make things difficult for you.”
Bu Sulastri put the chilies into the bag.
“Everyone says that before they write.”
“I won't write your name without your permission.”
“But someone else has already written my son's name.”
The woman finally looked at Ninda.
Her eyes were red, but there were no tears. Her face showed exhaustion that had been forced to look like strength for far too long.
“On your papers, he's just a name, an age, and a date. Dimas had a voice. He ate standing up. Whenever he had a fever, he'd deliriously call out his little sister's name. You never write things like that.”
Ninda accepted the words without defending herself.
“You're right.”
Bu Sulastri didn't seem prepared to hear her admit it.
Ninda lowered her press card.
“I want to know the things that never make the news.”
The market let out one long roar from every direction: knives chopping fish, buckets scraping across the ground, motorcycles revving their engines. Bu Sulastri looked toward the end of the stall, then took money from her cloth wallet.
“Come help me buy onions.”
Ninda followed her.
They walked through the market's wet aisles. The smell of salted fish mingled with turmeric and soapy water. Bu Sulastri didn't speak until they reached the spice stall.
“Dimas wasn't the kind of boy who went out at night,” she said, picking up some shallots. “That day, he said he was going to deliver clothes to someone's house. I told him to wait until tomorrow. He said the person was already waiting.”
“Whose house?”
“I don't know. He didn't say.”
“Why go to the alley?”
Bu Sulastri put the shallots in a small bag.
“He said someone could help him find his little sister.”
Ninda stopped.
“Dimas had a sister?”
“He did. She died when she was little.”
Bu Sulastri twisted the edge of the bag in her hand.
“But that night, he said someone knew where his sister was. He believed them. My son trusted people too easily.”
Ninda wrote that down after Bu Sulastri paid.
They left the market. The sun was already high, its heat bouncing off the road the vendors had just washed down.
“Did you ever look for Dimas at Wringin Anom Alley?”
Bu Sulastri nodded.
“Three times.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
“No one.”
“Mbak Rara?”
“She gave me coffee. She didn't ask anything.”
“Wira?”
Bu Sulastri stopped walking.
Ninda saw her back stiffen.
“Don't bring that name into my home.”
“Why?”
“Because ever since my son disappeared, everyone who asks too many questions ends up being searched for, too.”
She quickened her pace.
Ninda followed until they reached the front of the apartment building. The entrance was crowded with children's bicycles and hanging towels. Bu Sulastri climbed the stairs without waiting.
On the second floor, she opened the door to her small unit. Inside, it smelled of fried onions and mothballs. There was a photo of Dimas beside the television: a skinny teenager with slightly crooked teeth, giving the camera two thumbs-up.
Ninda looked at the photo.
“I won't ask you to tell me everything today.”
Bu Sulastri didn't answer.
Ninda opened her notebook. “But I need to know Dimas's last address.”
The woman walked into the kitchen. The clatter of dishes came from behind the wall.
“There is no address.”
“You said Dimas was delivering clothes to someone's house.”
“I didn't say where the house was.”
“But you know.”
Silence filled the room.
A few seconds later, Bu Sulastri returned with a small piece of paper. It looked like a torn-off piece of a shopping list. There was handwriting on the back.
She handed it over without looking at Ninda.
It read:
A small house at the end of Wringin Anom Alley. Blue door. Don't come after the call to prayer.
Beneath it was a simple sketch of the layout with an X marked on it.
Ninda looked up.
“Whose house is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Did Dimas ever live there?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have this address?”
Bu Sulastri sat on the edge of a chair. She looked older than she had a few minutes earlier.
“Someone slipped it under my door three days after Dimas disappeared.”
“Who?”
“I didn't see them.”
“Why are you only giving it to me now?”
Bu Sulastri looked at Dimas's photo.
“Because you didn't immediately say you wanted to write his name.”
Ninda folded the paper and put it in her folder.
Before she left, Bu Sulastri called out to her.
“Mbak.”
Ninda turned around.
“If you meet Dimas...”
The sentence broke off.
“What do you want me to tell him?”
Bu Sulastri stared at her son's photo. Her lips moved, but her voice was barely audible.
“Tell him his mother is still waiting.”
Ninda nodded.
Outside the apartment building, Semarang's heat pressed against her skin. She stood beneath the balcony's shadow, reading the address again.
A blue door. A small house at the end of the alley.
Empty for twenty years, according to the locals.
Ninda texted Bagas.
I have a new address. A small house at the end of Wringin Anom Alley.
His reply came quickly.
Ninda, don't go in alone.
She stared at the message, then added a sentence she didn't send.
I'm never really alone there.
Behind her phone's screen, the shadow of a banyan tree stretched across the photo she'd taken yesterday. Between its roots, something seemed to be waiting for the blue door to open.