MANTEO, N.C. Merri Jo Alford knew what she was looking for. Hidden somewhere at the Outer Banks SPCA among stacks of paperwork buried in long-forgotten cardboard boxes were a few pieces of paper stapled together. On them, Alford knew, would be the names and phone number of a New Bern, N.C. couple she’d spoken with so many years ago. But how much time had passed? Had it been two years, Alford wondered, or three? Could it really have been four years since Greg and Leigh Wilkinson desperately filed a lost-dog report? Alford knew one thing for sure: That the skinny...
