by Kathi Daley
“How old is she?”
She shrugged. “I guess maybe seven.”
“It must be hard for her not to have any friends her own age.”
“I’m sure it is. Ashley doesn’t have much freedom. I suspect whoever is after them is a real threat. Emily never leaves the kitchen when she’s working. She eats at the restaurant. Tegan is good about buying extras like juice and milk for Emily to keep in the little refrigerator up in the apartment. I don’t think she leaves the place very often, not even to grab supplies. I suppose she and Ashley might go out for walks from time to time, but they don’t seem to socialize. I’m pretty sure the only people they have any sort of relationship with are the staff at the Rambling Rose.”
“You don’t think that Emily might be running from the law, do you?” I asked.
Josie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Emily is sweet and quiet, and she works hard. I really doubt she’s a fugitive. As I said before, I suspect she’s running from a man. Probably a man who was violent toward her. She startles easily, and she’s always looking over her shoulder.”
“Wow,” I said. “The poor thing. How awful it must be to know someone is out there who wants to do you or your child harm. I’m glad Tegan and everyone at the Rambling Rose are watching out for her.”
“Oh, we are,” Josie assured me. “If anyone ever comes snooping around, looking for either Emily or Ashley, the entire staff will be willing to jump in and hide them. Emily doesn’t trust many people, but I think she’ll like you. I’ll introduce you the next time you’re in during one of her shifts.”
“Does she realize that you know she isn’t who she says she is?”
Josie paused and then answered. “Well, it’s not like I’ve ever said as much, but I suspect she knows that I’ve figured out that she may be running from someone. She’s never admitted to me that she’s not exactly who she presents herself to be, but Emily is a smart woman. I’m sure that she must realize by this point that she isn’t exactly living a normal life and that those closest to her would have noticed.”
“So it’s one of those things no one talks about, but everyone knows.”
“Well, not everyone, but everyone who works at the bar and grill realizes that Emily has a secret and we all respect that.”
I thought about the woman in the photo I came to Gooseberry Bay to research. I thought about the fact that Gooseberry Bay was a good place to hide if you needed to get gone. Once again, I had to wonder if perhaps the woman I assumed was my mother had been on the run, trying desperately to hide from her own nightmare.
Jemma came downstairs just as Josie and I were finishing the cheese and fruit platter. She worked remotely for a company based in Seattle and kept an office upstairs, where she could be found a lot of the time.
“Is Parker on her way?” she asked, grabbing a slice of apple and a piece of cheddar cheese.
“She should be here any minute,” Josie informed her.
She bent over to pick up Stefan. He swatted at her nose, and she smiled. “Did they ever find Damon and Stefan’s mother?” she asked me.
“Actually, I got a call from the rescue just this morning. I guess they managed to catch two more kittens and the mother. They’re going to continue to leave food in the traps for a few more days just to be sure they have all the kittens, but they seem pretty sure they have them all. They told me they even put the mama cat in a harness, which they attached to a lead, and then attached the lead to a tree. Once they were sure the mother couldn’t simply take off, they hid behind some shrubs. They watched for almost two hours, but no other kittens showed up. It’s their opinion that if there were additional kittens, they would have approached when the mama was left alone.”
“Yeah. That seems likely,” Jemma agreed. She held up the kitten she was caressing and looked him in the face. “Stefan here comes running anytime he even suspects there might be food involved in whatever anyone might be doing.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” I said.
“We’re the ones lucky to have him and Damon,” she countered.
“It looks like Parker is heading up the path,” Josie said. “I’ll get her a glass of wine. Why don’t you toss another log on the fire,” she instructed Jemma.
I opened the door for Parker, who had her arms full of files. “What’s all this?” I asked.
“Notes from five years ago. I have pages and pages of thoughts and impressions, transcripts of interviews, copies of maps and photographs, and computer searches that never panned out.”
“You seem to have a good head start on the project,” I said.
“At the time of the initial investigation, I thought I was getting somewhere, but in the end, none of my leads panned out.” She accepted her wine glass from Josie. “I realize that it’s going to be nearly impossible to pick up the trail after five years, especially given the fact that there wasn’t much of a trail to follow back when it happened. But I have more experience now, and I have help I didn’t have before, so I figured that nothing would be lost by taking a second look.”
“I agree,” Jemma said. “I’m ready to jump in.”
“I’m in as well,” I said. “As a private investigator, I know that not every case pans out, but this one is interesting, and, like you said, we really have nothing to lose by trying.”
“So, where do we even start?” Josie asked.
Parker looked toward the stack of files she’d brought. “I thought we’d start with what we have. I can go through everything I found five years ago, and we can discuss which leads I tried to follow but ended up abandoning.”
“That makes sense,” Josie said. “Dinner will be ready in about forty-five minutes. I guess let’s dig into the files now, and then we can continue to chat while we eat.”
Parker started by going over the basic details, many of which she’d already mentioned the previous evening. “The whole thing started when Erma Gilroy, the neighbor living on the left of the Hamish home, came over on the day after Thanksgiving to bring the family a pie. I guess she’d made extras and decided to give a few to some of her neighbors. No one answered the door at the Hamish home when she knocked, so she left, assuming the family was out for the afternoon. When they still hadn’t returned by that evening, she decided to peek inside through the windows.”
“Didn’t it occur to the neighbor that the family might have been out of town?” Jemma asked.
“No,” Parker answered. “According to Mrs. Gilroy, who I was able to interview after the event, the family who lived next door mostly kept to themselves and rarely went anywhere. To work, school, or the store, sure, but she really didn’t suspect they might have been out of town, especially after she noticed the food sitting out on the kitchen counter. She called the police. Initially, the police didn’t want to respond since leaving food out on the counter wasn’t a crime, but when no one showed up by the following day, Mrs. Gilroy convinced the police to break into the home, which was locked, and look around. Nothing was disturbed, but there was no sign of the family, either. As I said before, nothing was missing. The toothbrushes were still in the holders. The car was in the garage. Even Mrs. Hamish’s purse was still in her bedroom.”
“The food that had been prepared for the Thanksgiving meal was left on the counter,” I said, basically, repeating what Parker had just said, but wanting to work it through in my mind. “From what you said yesterday, most of it was still in pots and heating pans, waiting to be placed in serving dishes.”
“Yes,” Parker answered. “That’s correct.”
“Is that important?” Josie asked.
“Maybe,” I answered. “Was the oven still on?”
“No,” Parker said. “Someone had turned it off.”
“Was the turkey carved?” I asked.
Parker frowned. “I don’t think so.” She pulled the stack of files toward where she was sitting and pulled one out. She opened it to reveal a pile of photos. “I bribed the receptionist down at the police station to make
these copies for me.” She handed me a small stack of photos that showed the state of the kitchen when it was found.
I took a minute to study them.
“Is something wrong?” Josie asked. “You’re frowning.”
“These seem wrong.”
“Wrong?” Parker asked.
I handed the photo on the top to Josie. “I’m no cook and have never made a Thanksgiving meal in my life, but doesn’t this seem wrong to you?”
Josie looked at the photo. “Actually, yes,” she said, narrowing her gaze. “The turkey is golden brown, yet uncarved. The potatoes are mashed, transferred to a serving bowl, and ready to serve, yet still on the counter. The green bean casserole has been cooked, as have the yams. Even the rolls are browned, although they’re still on baking pans. If I was making this meal, I would have carved the turkey while the potatoes were boiling. I would have mashed them after the turkey was carved, and I wouldn’t have placed the rolls in the oven to brown until the very end.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “And where are the stuffing and the gravy?”
“I suppose that not everyone bothers with stuffing and gravy, and there might be families who carve the bird at the table and serve it as it’s sliced,” Jemma pointed out.
I supposed that was true.
“Even then, I would think that whoever made the meal would have transferred the turkey to a serving platter while the rolls browned,” Josie said. “The way they have things here, the rolls would have been cold before the meal was served.”
“I suppose the cook might have had a reason for preparing the individual items to be served in the order presented, but my first impression when I looked at the food on the counter was that it had been staged,” I said. “It’s like the meal had been cooked and posed intentionally. I mean, shouldn’t there be dirty pots and pans? Look at the sink.” I pointed to the sink in the photo. “Not a dirty pot, pan, dish, or utensil in sight. At the very least, there should have been a potato masher.” I flipped through the photos. “The table is set perfectly and with a good degree of care. Linen napkins, matching glassware, and even fresh flowers.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. “In addition to the flowers and six place settings, there are salt and pepper shakers, a plate for the butter, and a basket for the rolls. If the family planned to carve the turkey at the table, I’m not sure where they would have set it.” I flipped back to the counter with the food. “It’s a large turkey.”
“Maybe the dad was going to stand at the counter and carve it as each piece was served,” Parker suggested.
“Yeah. I guess,” I agreed, even though I still felt something was off about the whole thing.
“So, what else do we know?” Josie asked.
I decided this was a good time to pop into the conversation with my news. “When I was at the Hamish house this morning, I spoke with a neighbor who told me that she’d been friends with Hannah, the oldest daughter. She told me that one of the neighbors had noticed a blue sedan parked on the street in front of the Hamish house a few times in the days before the family disappeared.”
Parker raised a brow. “Really?”
“Do you remember there being any mention of the blue sedan when you investigated the first time?” I asked.
“Not that I remember.” She took a minute to dig through the files. “Did this friend of Hannah’s know if the neighbor she spoke to told the cops about the blue sedan?”
“She told me that she didn’t know for certain.”
“What was the name of Hannah’s friend?” Parker asked.
“Vanessa Hudson.”
Parker frowned. She opened a file and looked at her notes. It appeared like she was looking at a list of names. “I don’t see a Vanessa Hudson on the list. Where did she say she lived?”
“She just said in the area. She said she’d been keeping an eye on the house.” I paused to think about it. “She had a child with her. I assume she was her daughter, but I’m not sure. If Vanessa is married, her last name might not have been Hudson back when the event occurred.”
“There isn’t a Vanessa on my list, but I only have the names of people either I or the police talked to. I suppose that if she didn’t live in one of the houses directly next to or across from the Hamish place, she might not have been interviewed.”
“She said she knew Hannah. I guess they were in the same class in high school. I suppose we can look for a young blond-haired woman in the senior class named Vanessa. That should at least tell us if she had a different last name.”
“I’ll pull up the yearbook,” Jemma said, getting up and crossing the room to her laptop.
While she did that, Parker slowly looked over her notes. “At the time of the incident, I spoke to all the closest neighbors. Mrs. Gilroy lived on the left, Mrs. Franktown on the right, and Carl and Connie Jeffries lived directly across the street. A vacant lot is to the right of the Jeffries, and then to the right of the lot is a house, which was owned and occupied by a man named Glen Burbank back then. He has since passed away, and the house has been sold. Barry Bonsworth owns the house to the left of the Jeffries. He still lives there. Old guy. Totally deaf. Said he didn’t see or hear a thing. The Miller family owns the house to his left. Sam and Rosie have two children. Both boys. Both teens now, but they were in grade school back then.” She opened and closed several files, taking a minute to scan the notes contained within. “I don’t see mention of a blue sedan being seen in the area.”
“Maybe whoever it was that Vanessa heard about the car from didn’t think it was an important enough clue to mention,” I said.
“Maybe,” Parker said but didn’t look convinced.
“I have the yearbook,” Jemma said from the sofa where she was looking at her laptop. “I’ll do a search for anyone named Vanessa.”
The high school was a tiny school with only a hundred students, so it didn’t take long to discover that there hadn’t been anyone named Vanessa who’d been a junior or senior the year the Hamish family disappeared.
“How odd,” I said. “Why would this woman walk up to me and introduce herself only to lie?”
“I don’t know,” Jemma said. “That really doesn’t make sense. I guess you can go through it page by page and see if you recognize her, even though her name didn’t come up. Did she mention anything else?”
“Other than the blue sedan, no, not really.”
Jemma passed her laptop to me so I could look for the woman I’d spoken with. While I did that, the others continued to talk.
“So basically, what sort of conclusion did you come to five years ago?” Josie asked Parker after a brief break in the conversation. “Did you think the family left of their own free will, or did it seem as if the evidence pointed toward a forced abduction?”
“It was my opinion that the family was abducted. It seemed to me that if the family left of their own free will, even if they didn’t have long to gather their things, they would have grabbed Mrs. Hamish’s purse at the very least. It was as if they’d all been in the kitchen when whatever went down occurred, and they never made it back upstairs before vacating the home.”
“I remember hearing that they had cadaver dogs go over the property behind the home, but they didn’t find anything,” Josie said. “Was there any evidence that the family left through the back gate, whether of their own free will or at gunpoint?”
“Evidence, no,” Parker answered. “At least not as far as I know. I wasn’t able to get ahold of the police report, so what I know is because I was able to bribe people to tell me what they’d overheard along the way.”
“Was anything missing?” Jemma asked. “Phones? Computers? Winter jackets? Anything?”
“They never found Mr. Hamish’s wallet,” Parker answered. “Other than that, nothing was missing that I know of. You make a good point, however, about phones and jackets. I’m not sure if anyone looked for jackets, and it does seem like the two adults in the family should have had cell phones. I don’t know if they were found.”
“The reality is that the family could have taken clothing and personal possessions that wouldn’t be missed, and no one would have even known they were missing,” Josie pointed out.
“What about social media accounts?” I asked as I continued to look at the photos in the yearbook. “Hope said that the oldest of the four girls was seventeen. It stands to reason that she had some sort of social media account. Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Snapchat? Something?”
Parker shook her head. “I couldn’t find social media accounts for any of the members of the Hamish family. I was never able to identify any email accounts, although it seems like the parents and older children would have had them.” She looked at Jemma. “Of course, I didn’t have my secret weapon back then.”
“It’ll be close to impossible to find anything at this point,” Jemma reminded her.
“But, you will look just to be sure there isn’t anything to find, won’t you?” Parker asked.
Jemma nodded. “I’ll look.”
“What about a landline?” I asked as I slowly scrolled through page after page. “Did the family have a landline we might be able to pull the records for?”
“Not that I know of,” Parker said. “It is an avenue we can explore, however. Maybe one of the neighbors knows. Or Mark’s boss. There must have been some way to get ahold of the family.”
“Maybe when I’m done here, Jemma can pull up the school records,” I said. “It seems that there should be both contact information and historical data. I understand the family only lived in Gooseberry Bay for a couple years before they disappeared.”
“That’s right,” Parker said.
“Were you able to speak to Mark Hamish’s employer?” Josie asked Parker.
“I tried, but he told me he’d been advised not to talk to the press.”
