by Kathi Daley
“Yeah,” she agreed. “There are a lot of holes in the story. It does seem odd that you didn’t remember having a sister before this.”
“I suppose I must have missed my sister and maybe my mother at first, but if Dad didn’t speak of them, I suppose I might have forgotten them.”
“So, do you think the woman in the photo is your mother?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. I feel a connection to the baby in the photo. I have from the beginning. But the woman doesn’t feel like a mother. I know her. She’s shown up in my dreams, but she feels more like an aunt or a babysitter. Although...”
“Although?” Keni asked.
“I do remember referring to someone as Mama. Still, I don’t think the woman in the picture is my mother.” I shook my head as if the movement would rattle my thoughts into place. “I’m just not sure. It’s all so fragmented. I’m not sure my dreams are even accurate.”
“This is a lot to take in and process,” Keni acknowledged. “My advice to you is to let it percolate. Your subconscious mind can work on it even if you’re doing something else. Give your subconscious time to get everything filed in the correct folder.”
I smiled. “I will. And thanks for listening. I needed to hear a familiar voice today.”
“Any time. You know that I miss you.”
“I know. I miss you too.” I glanced out at the bay. “I don’t suppose you’d want to fly out for a visit? You can stay with me, and I’ll even pay for the plane ticket.”
“You know I’d love to, but I have my play.”
“How’s that going?”
“Really well. But of course, you heard about Francisco and Natalia.”
“No. I didn’t hear. What’s going on with Francisco and Natalia?”
Keni spent the next fifteen minutes filling me in on all the backstage gossip. By the time she hung up, I really did feel marginally better.
Chapter 5
By the time the group met that evening, I’d been able to refocus my thoughts away from the sordid past of Ainsley Holloway to the sordid past of the Hamish family. The more I learned about the family and the events leading up to and immediately subsequent to their disappearance, the more convinced I was that something very odd had occurred. When I arrived at the Rambling Rose, I found Jemma and Parker sitting in a booth in the back corner of the indoor/outdoor room. I’d noticed Josie chatting with one of the servers as I’d walked through, but I assumed she’d be joining us shortly.
“Beer?” Jemma asked, holding up an empty glass.
“Sure,” I answered as she filled the glass from the pitcher. “It’s busy tonight.”
“There’s a local crowd that gathers on the weekend, so it is always busy on Friday and Saturday nights even in the offseason,” Jemma informed me.
I looked around the cozy room, which featured fixed walls on three sides and a wall of glass doors that rolled up to create an open wall on the fourth side. Tonight, the wall was down to keep the heat in, but on warmer days and evenings, it was usually rolled up.
“Tegan was lucky to find such a large building,” I said.
“Actually, when she bought the place, the building only had one dining area,” Parker said. “This room was just a covered patio, but Tegan had the idea of creating a four-season room by adding the walls to the sides and the glass doors to the back of the room. Of course, once she enclosed this room, she still wanted an actual outdoor patio for the summer crowd, so she built the deck off this room and then eventually added the picnic tables to the grassy area.”
“Well, in my opinion, she has done an excellent job of creating the sort of space where locals and visitors alike will want to spend time.”
I watched as Josie crossed the room and joined us.
“What did I miss?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Jemma answered. “We were just talking about the remodel Tegan did when she bought the place.”
“Did you dig up any new leads today?” Parker asked Jemma.
It did seem that Jemma had been assigned the bulk of the “tasks” we’d discussed the previous evening.
“I’m not sure if what I found can be categorized as a lead, but I did do a lot of digging, and am prepared to share what I know at this point.”
“Okay, shoot,” Parker said.
“First of all, the house the Hamish family lived in is owned by someone named John Smith,” Jemma informed us. “I was unable to find an address or any other contact information relating to this particular John Smith, and the name is so common as to be useless.”
“So, do you think the name might be an alias?” I asked.
“That would be my guess, but I honestly don’t know that for certain. There doesn’t seem to be a loan associated with the house. At least not one I could find.”
“What happened to the personal possessions left behind by the Hamish family?” Josie asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jemma admitted. “I guess that’s something we might want to find out. I assume that someone cleaned the place out and that it’s currently empty, but there aren’t any windows that aren’t either boarded up or shuttered to look through to verify that.”
“I suppose the neighbors would know if someone had been by to move everything out,” I said. “At this point, we don’t even know if the family bought or rented, and if they did rent, if they rented the place already furnished or if they furnished it themselves.”
“What about next of kin?” Josie asked.
“None were ever identified that I know of,” Jemma answered. “At least I couldn’t find mention of anyone. I did look for bank accounts and only found a single checking account. The balance was seventy-two dollars on the day the family disappeared, and the balance is twelve dollars now since there haven’t been any deposits, but there has been a twelve dollar a year annual fee taken out each year.”
I supposed a lot of families lived paycheck to paycheck and didn’t have savings or investments, but it did seem a bit odd that there weren’t financial records of any sort.
“I looked for cell records as well as landlines,” Parker continued. “I couldn’t find evidence of cell records for anyone in the family. If they had cell phones, they were unregistered burner phones. There was a landline associated with the house, and that was the number I found in the children’s school files and in the employment files for both Mark and Mary. The phone was deactivated years ago.”
“Sounds like a family in hiding,” I said.
“It really does,” Parker agreed.
“What about Vanessa Hudson?” I asked the question that had been tickling my mind all day.
“There isn’t anyone named Vanessa Hudson listed in any local database I can find. I didn’t have time to do a wider search, but I will. As for Kyle Hudson, he currently lives in Bellingham and is married to someone named Gwen. I found a number, but when I called it, the phone rang until voicemail picked up. I left a message. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if he calls back.”
“So the Kyle Hudson who went to school with Hannah Hamish is married to someone named Gwen,” I confirmed.
“Yes,” Jemma answered.
“Dang. I thought we might be onto something with the idea that Hannah actually had fled with her family only to return to Gooseberry Bay in order to be with her one true love.”
“She might have, but if Hannah Hamish is Vanessa Hudson as we’ve theorized, it looks like it wasn’t Kyle Hudson from Gooseberry High she came home to marry. As far as I can tell at this point, Vanessa Hudson doesn’t exist. It might just be a name the woman pulled out of a mental hat when she decided to stop and speak to you.”
“Yeah, probably,” I sighed.
Josie looked at Jemma. “Did you ever find any social media accounts for any member of the Hamish family?”
She shook her head. “Not a one. And not only did the family have a zero social media footprint, other than the single checking account, they had no financial records, and they don’t appear to have a history
before showing up in Gooseberry Bay. I dug around quite a bit today, and I can’t find a single mention of where they lived or worked or where the children went to school before they moved here. If I had to guess, Hamish was an alias. We discussed the fact that they might have been hiding from someone. After my research today, I really think that was the case.”
“The question is,” Parker said, “did they flee when they realized the person they were running from was closing in or did the person they were running from catch up with them before they could get away?”
None of us was willing to venture a guess at this point, but it did seem that if the bad guy had caught up with them, there would have been a struggle of some sort, and it seemed that someone who lived in the area would have seen or heard something if a skirmish had occurred.
“If the family left without taking anything, they must have left behind items that could provide clues. Photos and other keepsakes. I suppose the cops would have those items. I wonder how we can get a look at what they have,” Josie said.
No one answered, and I imagined that was because no one knew.
The four of us refilled our glasses and placed an order for food before continuing the discussion. It was nice that I had people to dine with as often as I did. I didn’t mind eating alone, but having someone to share a meal with was the superior option.
“Is there any way at all for us to track down the woman I spoke to?” I asked. “I still feel like getting to her might be the key to figuring this whole thing out.”
“Maybe we can track the child even if we haven’t been able to find the mother,” Jemma suggested.
“I guess we can talk to the neighbors who live in the same area as the Hamish home and see if anyone knows of a blond-haired woman named Vanessa Hudson who may or may not have a daughter named Arial,” Josie suggested.
“And I can check local preschools and daycare centers to see if I can find someone named Arial, but I’ll need to be careful so as not to end up in jail for stalking a three-year-old,” Jemma said.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and it seemed that the woman I spoke to really began to open up after I told her I was working with Parker. She told me that she’s a fan of Parker’s work.” I looked at the woman I referred to. “Do you ever get fan mail? Maybe tips via mail or email from folks who want to pass along a suggestion or theory about a story you’re covering?”
“Sure.”
“What do you do with those pieces of correspondence?” I asked.
“Mostly ignore them. I’m a busy woman. I don’t have time to read every email or piece of fan mail.” She frowned. “Although in the beginning, before I became so cynical, I guess I did at least open all my mail.” She looked at me. “Do you think someone could have written in with a tip? Someone such as this young woman who may have seen something, but was afraid to come forward.”
“Maybe. Do you still have mail from back then?”
She shook her head. “A few things, but no, I didn’t save most of it.”
“Do you remember a tip about a blue sedan parked in front of the Hamish home?” I asked.
She slowly moved her head from left to right and then back again. “No. Not that I remember.”
“It seems as if the woman who spoke to Ainsley might know more than she’s shared. Maybe we need to widen our search,” Jemma suggested. “I can do a search of the entire state, and if that doesn’t turn anything up, I can add in bordering states. If this woman did just happen to be in the area with her three-year-old daughter, it seems that she most likely hadn’t come from too far away.”
Everyone agreed that finding the woman might be a good first step to figuring out why she stopped me and told me what she had in the first place. I thought about the photo I’d seen of Hannah. I thought about the woman I’d spoken to. If I had to guess, I really would say they were one and the same.
Chapter 6
Tuesday dawned dark and overcast. Several inches of rain had been predicted over the course of the next few days, although so far, all we’d had was a bit of drizzle. The dogs and I decided to head out for a walk before the heavy moisture blew in. I was tempted to take a run up to the bluff, but I hated the thought of being that far from home if the sky did decide to open up, so I decided a walk along the sandy shore of the peninsula would be a good alternative.
As I did most days when I chose to walk along the peninsula beach, I headed to the right. Three cottages were on the left, and I hated to disturb the others by walking past their doors so early in the morning, but Coop, the only resident with a cottage to the right, didn’t seem to be home all that often even in the early morning hours.
As I walked along the sandy shore, I thought about the investigation the gang and I had undertaken. After my conversation with Vanessa Hudson, we’d decided to follow up on the lead relating to the blue sedan. Parker had gone through her notes in order to verify that no one had mentioned a blue sedan during the initial investigation, and then Parker and I had taken a walk around the neighborhood where the Hamish family had lived and chatted with as many neighbors as we could find at home. It seemed that no one we spoke to remembered anything about a blue sedan, which I supposed was odd. If a car had been parked in front of the Hamish family home in the days before their disappearance, it seemed that someone would remember having seen it.
I knew that Jemma and Parker continued to work on the case. Jemma had found her way into the official police files, but the digital copy of the investigator’s report was sparse with only the very basic information provided. Jemma had also continued to search for Vanessa, but as of the last time I’d spoken to her, she hadn’t had any luck. I could see that both Parker and Jemma were becoming frustrated with their lack of success, which made me feel bad for them, but while I wanted to help and planned to do so to the extent of my ability, the truth of the matter was I had my own mystery to try to find answers for. Answers I suspected I was going to need to find if I wanted freedom from the dreams that were disturbing my sleep nearly every night.
“Coop,” I said as I rounded the corner and found the resident of cottage number five sitting on his waterfront deck. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“The mail charter I’ve been doing for the past few months is over, so I won’t be going out as early in the mornings anymore.” He looked off toward the dark sky. “With the weather that’s being predicted over the next few days, I suppose I’ll just hang out here at the cottage rather than trying to drum up some piece work.”
“That’s probably a good idea. I hear we’re not only in for rain, but wind as well.”
He held up a silver pot. “Coffee? It’s fresh.”
Normally, I would have continued on my way, wanting to get my mileage in while I could, but Coop was the neighbor I knew the least, and I’d never been given the opportunity to speak to him one on one.
“Sure,” I said. “If you have an extra cup.”
He stood up. “Have a seat. I’ll grab one.”
I sat down on a chair at the same patio table as he’d been sitting. The dogs settled onto the deck near where I was sitting. It was a cool morning, but I’d bundled up for my walk, so I was actually feeling rather toasty.
Coop returned with a large mug and filled it with the dark brew in the silver pot. “Cream?” he asked, holding up a carton.
“Thank you.” I took the carton and poured a dollop into my mug. “So, you’ve been delivering mail in the mornings?”
“I picked up the mail here at the local post office as well as a few other small towns in the area and then flew it to the sorting center in Seattle where I picked up the mail destined for Gooseberry Bay and the surrounding communities. It’s a route that’s contracted by a buddy of mine, but he was in an auto accident and was out for a few months, so I temporarily took over for him. He’s back now, so I’m done with the early morning runs.”
“I guess it was good money.”
“It was okay money, but
to be honest, I prefer having my mornings to sort of ease into the day.”
“I understand. I feel the same way. If possible, I like to run or at least walk in the mornings. I feel much more alert when I can get out and get some exercise first thing.”
“I seem to remember you told me you moved here from Georgia.”
I nodded. “I grew up in Savannah, moved to New York for a while, then back to Savannah, and then here. I’ve enjoyed every phase of my life, but so far, in terms of scenery and weather, this is my favorite overall environment.”
“You picked a good time of year to show up.”
I looked out over the choppy expanse of water that had been kicked up by the wind. “I understand you recently moved to the area too.”
He nodded. “A little over a year ago.”
“And where did you live before here?”
“Here and there.”
I raised a brow but didn’t push. I figured if he wanted to tell me, he would, and if he didn’t, that was fine. The man didn’t owe me anything. “So, have you owned your bird long?”
He shook his head. “I bought it from a friend just before I moved to the area.”
“Really? I guess I figured you’d been flying for a while.”
“I have.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I learned to fly in the Army. When I got out, I found myself at loose ends, and really had no idea what I was going to do with myself. I have a friend from before I went in who does chopper tours in Hawaii. We got to chatting, and I told him I needed to find a way to settle into civilian life, and he told me he was looking to buy a larger bird and would sell me his old one for a really good price if I was interested. She only holds six people, including me, but she’s got good bones, so I worked out a deal with my friend and then decided to move here.”
