Missing Memories

by Carol Dean Jones

  “She’s a dachshund. Some people call them a wiener dog,” the kennel manager said.

  Caitlyn laughed and held the dog’s face between her hands. “You’re no hot dog, are you?” she said lovingly. “What’s her name?” she asked, turning to Robert.

  “Her owner had named her Gretchen, but you could change it if you want. Lots of people do. She probably hasn’t had much chance to learn her name anyway. I understand her owner had been sick for a long time.”

  “Gretchen?” Caitlyn repeated, looking doubtful. “I’m not sure she looks like a Gretchen.” She repeated the name and the dog didn’t respond. “Do you think she’d mind being named Sabrina? Her ears look like long curly hair around her face – she just looks like a Sabrina to me.” Caitlyn cocked her head to the side and looked at the dog thoughtfully. “Sabrina?” she called, and the dog wiggled with excitement. “See? She likes it,” Caitlyn announced excitedly.

  As the two got to know one another, Robert and Sarah stepped back and talked about the adoption process. Sarah explained about how she got Barney. It was before Robert’s time, but he thanked her for giving him a good home. Sarah asked about the dachshund and learned that she was only two years old.

  “Can we take her home, Aunt Sarah? Please, please?” That tone again.

  “Your dad will need to fill out the application like we talked about.” Turning to the kennel manager, she asked, “Is there any way you can hold the dog for her?”

  “I think these two are a perfect match. I’d be happy to hold little…Sabrina, is it?” he said smiling at Caitlyn. “When do you think her father could come in?”

  “He’s only working until noon today,” Caitlyn said with excitement. “He’ll come in right away, okay?”

  “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll hold her for twenty-four hours.” He excused himself and returned with a new sign which read: SABRINA – PENDING ADOPTION. He took the dog out of Caitlyn’s arms and placed her back in the kennel.

  “Sorry, little girl,” Caitlyn said reassuringly. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back for you.”

  * * *

  Sitting across the table from her handsome husband in the dimly-lit restaurant, Sarah reached over and touched his hand. “I’m sorry I got so prickly the other day, Charles. I’ve thought about it, and I realize that you could be right, at least partially right. I don’t believe she made up her stories about her parents, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved in something she couldn’t tell me about.”

  “It’s okay, hon. I understand. She’s been a good friend for several years, and I know how worried you are about her. For the FBI to be involved, I’d like to believe they’re doing everything they can to find her, whatever the story is with her.

  The waitress arrived with their dinner, and they set the issue aside and enjoyed a delicious meal of comfort food at their favorite Italian restaurant. Sarah told him about her trip to the shelter with Caitlyn and little Sabrina, and he told her about his frustrating trip to the hardware store where he was waited on by a kid who didn’t know what a washer was. “He tried to send me to the appliance store.”

  As they walked in the door several hours later, Sarah saw the message light flashing. Seeing that it was Andy’s number, she returned the call without listening to the message.

  “Oh,” Andy responded when he heard her voice. “That was Caitlyn calling you. I’ll let her give you the news.”

  Moments later, Caitlyn came to the phone breathlessly. “She’s here already,” she said excitedly. “They let us bring her home.”

  “Already? You mean they did the home study today?”

  “No, Aunt Sarah. Thanks to you and Aunt Sophie as references, they let us take her home today. They’re coming out tomorrow, but they talked to Sophie already, and they said it was just a formality.”

  “How is she doing? Is she happy to be in her new home?” Sarah asked, knowing the answer already.

  “She’s so excited,” Caitlyn responded. “She’s checked out the whole house and is playing with her toys now.”

  “She has toys already?”

  “Sure. We stopped at the pet store and got toys and food and a bed and…oh, and a tag with her name on it and our phone number like Barney and Emma have.” Caitlyn’s excitement was contagious as Sarah asked questions and laughed as she listened to the various antics little Sabrina was performing.

  “Bring her over in a few days after she gets settled so she can meet Barney.”

  “Do you still have Emma?” Caitlyn asked sounding reluctant.

  “No, she’s back with Sophie.”

  “Okay then, I’ll bring her over. I thought two dogs might be too much for her all at once.” Sarah smiled at the protectiveness Caitlyn was already providing the little dog, and she wished there had been someone to protect Caitlyn during her childhood.

  Later that night, the phone rang, and it was Charles’ son, John. “I have some news for you and Sarah,” he began, and Charles immediately put the call on speaker. Sarah sat down on the couch next to him.

  “Yes, John. We need some news. What’s happened?”

  “I had a call from Seymour. He said there'd been a dramatic development. It seems they ran Ruth’s picture through their facial recognition software.”

  “Ruth’s face wasn’t there was it?”

  “No, actually it wasn’t, however, they came up with someone else, a Tina Manchester.”

  “Who is that?” Sophie asked, looking bewildered.

  “That’s all I could find out for now, but I thought it was an interesting development. I immediately assumed it was your friend’s alias, which would make sense if she’d been in witness protection, but Seymour’s contact told him it wasn’t actually a perfect match. Of course, your friend could have had some facial work done, I suppose.”

  “That’s crazy,” Sarah mumbled.

  “It sometimes happens in the program, Sarah.”

  “This is becoming more and more outrageous,” Sarah remarked as she stood up and walked across the room. Turning back, she said, “Ask him if she’d be in that database if she were in witness protection.”

  John, hearing her question, replied, “They wouldn’t have intentionally been entered, but there are many ways to get your face in the files. I suppose they could have everyone with a driver’s license in the database. This software is used worldwide now. We’ve used it in large crowds and stadiums, searching for potential criminals or terrorists. Mexico has even used it to detect voter fraud.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Sarah muttered as she walked into the kitchen, leaving Charles to speak with his son. When she returned to the living room, she found her husband staring off into space.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “This case keeps taking on strange turns. I wonder how Tina Manchester fits into it, assuming she even does.”

  Chapter 17

  It was the morning of the third quilt club meeting since Ruth vanished. Sarah was pulling together odds and ends that she thought would work in her fidget quilt in addition to the few things she had picked up the previous day at the craft shop.

  Suddenly she had an idea, and she pulled out her laptop. Later when Charles came into the room, he found his wife with a very distressed look on her face. At first, she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but after some encouragement, she admitted that she needed his help.

  “I hope you won’t be upset with me, Charles, but I did a computer search on the name your son mentioned the other night, Tina Manchester.”

  “Why would I be upset with you? I was going to do that myself. What did you find?”

  “Well, that’s not the whole story. I did the search and got dozens of Tina Manchester’s, but only one was in Chicago and this is the part I thought you might not like. I paid to get more information on her.”

  “That’s fine, Honey. You’re detecting. What did you learn?”

  “Nothing, because I suddenly lost my connection and when I went back in, I couldn�
��t find her again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All the other Tina Manchesters came up, but the one listed in Chicago was gone.”

  “Did you write down any of the information?”

  “I did,” she said, sounding relieved. “I have her social security number and her address.”

  “Here, let me try.” He quickly confirmed that there was no one by that name in Chicago.

  “This isn’t the only way to skin a fish,” Charles said, signing into a private criminal justice database.

  A few minutes later he said, “There’s no such social security number as that,” he said frowning. “Are you sure you wrote it down right?”

  “I’m positive. I checked it very carefully. Can you check the address?” Charles tried several other sources and finally said, “The woman doesn’t exist, the social security number doesn’t exist, and the house at that address is vacant.”

  “Charles, this is crazy. She existed ten minutes ago. Wait, she also had a DUI. Surely you can find her that way.”

  “Right,” he responded and went into another database.

  “No luck,” Charles reported moments later. “I’ll call Matt.” Mathew Stokley was Charles’ Lieutenant before he retired and a good friend. Unfortunately, his call resulted only in confirmation that there was no DUI and no record of a Tina Manchester in the system.

  “Am I going crazy?” Sarah asked, confused by what had happened. “She was there twenty minutes ago, Charles, and fifteen minutes ago she disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s like someone just erased her…”

  “Ah, you may be on to something.”

  “What?” she asked, hoping for some logical explanation.

  “Let me think about this, and I want to call my son again. I wonder if this Seymour Jackson would be willing to talk to me directly. I have some questions about how this whole thing works.”

  An hour later, Agent Jackson called Charles, having heard from John and agreed to speak with his father. John hadn’t mentioned that his father was, in fact, retired. “Like I told your son, Detective Parker, there’s very little I know about this case, and even less that I can talk about.”

  “I just want to ask one question.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “When someone in the witness protection is moved to a new identity, what happens to the old identity?”

  “Generally speaking, the old identity is totally erased. But that’s all…”

  “Thank you, Agent. That’s all I wanted to know.” Tina Manchester has been erased.

  * * *

  It was difficult for Sarah to keep the strange turn of events to herself when she arrived at Stitches that evening, but she had promised not to tell anyone, including Sophie. She knew how hard that would be since Sophie could always tell when she was holding something back, so she was somewhat relieved when Tim called to say that Sophie didn’t want to go to the meeting that night.

  “Let’s dump all our treasures in the middle of the table unless there’s something you want to hold back to use yourself,” Anna said. Everyone emptied their tote bags onto the table and the only thing held back was a little furry toy with a squeaker inside.

  “I’m planning to make a little pocket for it and attach it by a cord so it doesn’t get lost when the person pulls it out,” Allison announced. “It actually belonged to our little boy, but he never played with it, and I ran it through the washer. Is that okay?”

  “Lots of our things are used,” Kimberly said as she emptied a bag of buttons onto the table along with a skein of multi-colored yarn and assorted pieces of lace. “And I brought these keys as well. They’re something everyone is familiar with. I thought they might inspire good memories.”

  Christina added a half-yard piece of brown faux-fur and a strip of white craft fur. “These will feel really good. I thought I might make a pocket out of a piece of the fur, but help yourselves to the rest.” She cut herself a piece.

  Sarah had purchased several yards of different types of fringe and several packages of rick rack.

  “Here are some zippers from my stash of notions,” Anna said as she placed a dozen zippers in different sizes and colors on the table. Anna had also cut 8.5” squares of various fabrics: solids, tone-on-tones, bright fabrics, and some with familiar designs. They had decided to use nine squares sewn together in three rows of three to make the quilt approximately 24”x 24” finished.

  Delores arrived late, explaining that she had been taking care of her granddaughter’s foster child and had to wait for her to get home from work, but when she dumped her tote bag on the table, everyone squealed with delight. There were at least a dozen little furry animals, a half-dozen small rag dolls, ribbons, and several dozen plastic rings for attaching items to the quilt. “Where did you get all these things?” Caitlyn asked.

  “My grandson works in one of those dollar-type stores, and he was able to get these at a discount.”

  “The rag dolls, too? I’ve never seen such small ones, and they even have hair.”

  “Actually, I made those,” Delores responded. “I thought we could make little dresses for them.”

  Frank came in late, as he often did because of his job. He was carrying a large paper bag and looked hesitant when everyone turned to greet him. “I don’t know if you’ll want to use this. I told my grandmother what we were doing, and she said if we put flannel on the back, it wouldn’t slip off the person’s lap.”

  “Frank,” Sarah responded excitedly. “What an excellent idea.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out several yards of solid blue flannel. “Grandma said we can have this. She said she didn't need it.”

  “Please thank her for us, Frank,” Anna said. “This will be perfect. I’ll cut it now.”

  “If everyone will choose the nine pieces of fabric you want to use, I’d be happy to sit at the machine and start stitching them together,” Sarah offered. With Ruth and Tina Manchester on her mind, she didn’t feel very creative but knew she could sit and sew straight lines with no problem. “Put your name on your pile so I can get it back to you.”

  Within minutes, she had her first pile to work on, and soon all of the others were piled on the table next to her. She pinned the quilter’s name on each one when it was finished and set it aside.

  “I think we should layer our finished quilt top with batting and a back before we start adding things,” Anna said as she came back into the work room with a pile of flannel backs. “That way our stitches will go all the way through and make it more stable.”

  “Good idea, especially since they won’t be quilted.”

  “Maybe we should be quilting them,” Delores said. “How about if I sit over here, and as Sarah finishes stitching a top she can pass it to me, and I’ll layer it and straight-line quilt through the middle of the blocks.”

  “What about the binding?”

  “You can add that yourself when it’s finished. I know some people want to add fringe and Sarah was talking about prairie points.”

  “I was thinking about turning mine so it wouldn’t need binding,” Allison said.

  “That’s a good idea, too,” Delores responded. “Get your fabric top from Sarah if you want to add the batting and back and turn it. After you finish, bring it to me if you want, and I’ll quilt it.”

  “Okay, let’s get our sweat shop going.” Sarah handed Delores her first piece ready for quilting while everyone else rummaged through the decorations, choosing items for their own fidget quilt.

  By the end of the meeting, everyone had a few things attached to their fidget quilts and were proudly showing them off. “Do you want to take them home,” Anna asked, “Or do you want to leave them here?”

  “I suggest,” Sarah began, “that we leave everything here and pick up where we left off next week. This is fun to do together. Do you have room for all this, Anna?”

  “I certainly do.” She left the room and returned with a large box and everyone carefully sta
cked their quilts inside followed by all their materials.

  “I’d like to take one of Delores’ little dolls home to make it a dress,” Allison said.

  “Oh, I want to do that too,” Caitlyn chimed in. Turning to Sarah, she whispered, “Will you help me?”

  “Yes, and please grab one for me. We’ll do them together.”

  As she was driving home, her mind went back to Ruth. She felt guilty about the fact that she had become so absorbed in the activities of the evening that she hadn’t thought once about her friend. But she knew that’s what Ruth would have wanted her to do, and she smiled when she thought how happy her friend would be when she returned and saw that her idea had been such a success. When she returns, Sarah repeated the thought, but her smile began to fade.

  * * *

  “Sophie, how are you feeling this morning?” Sarah asked when her friend answered the phone the next morning. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

  “I’ve been up since daybreak feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Sophie responded. “I’m just happy to be home with my Emma.” She had returned to her own home the previous day and was getting around on her crutches. “What are you up to this morning?”

  “I want to take a road trip. Are you up for five or six hours in the car?”

  “As long as we can stop for a meal or two, I’d love to get out in the world. I’m tired of being treated like an invalid. What are you up to?”

  “I want to do some detecting.”

  “Does Charles know what you’re doing?”

  “No, but I fully intend to tell him after I do it, that is. Here’s the thing.” Sarah told her friend about Tina Manchester and how all reference to her on the internet had vanished, including a DUI from her police records. “I want to drive up to Chicago and talk to her neighbors. Maybe someone knows where she went.”

  “What does this woman have to do with Ruth?” Sophie asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I just know that when the FBI used their facial recognition software to search for Ruth, this woman came up. It just might be a clue.”