by Dale Mayer
Mack groaned. “You need to just leave it alone,” he said.
“Do you know anything about that case?”
“No,” he said, “I really don’t.”
“Okay,” she said, “because Nan had mentioned something earlier about it, and I just don’t want murderers to go free.”
“And they won’t,” Mack said. “But, if they murdered anybody, we don’t have any bodies.”
“Do me a favor,” Doreen said. “When you go back to the office tomorrow, just make sure the Darbunkle seniors and the sister are not missing, okay?”
“How do you expect me to find that out?”
“I want you to confirm you don’t have anything important in a file on them.”
He sighed, then shrugged and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Otherwise,” Doreen said, “I’ll have an awful lot of obituaries to go through.”
Mack laughed. “It’s almost worth it to think how busy that’ll keep you. I won’t have to worry about you for at least a week.”
“Unless I get lucky,” she said craftily. “And I come up with something elsewhere that’s interesting.”
Mack shook his head. “What about the files from the journalist? Did you even look in there?”
Doreen bounced to her feet and bolted inside. “I forgot.” She returned a few moments later with her laptop. “I did tell you how I indexed them, right?”
“Indexed?” he asked cautiously, as he stacked their empty dishes.
“I wrote down all the names of everybody we have a Solomon file on. Then scanned in the summary notes from the journalist’s own handwriting.” She brought up her file. “Do you know how to spell Darbunkle?”
He gave her the correct spelling of Darbunkle, and she typed that into her document and searched for it. Almost immediately it came up. “Oh my,” she said. “There is a file.”
“Seriously?”
Doreen nodded. “I’ll get the box.” She headed back inside, but this time Mack was right there with her. They pulled the boxes down until she found the right one. Mack lifted it up and put it on the kitchen table, and they searched through it. Her hand found the Darbunkle file first, but he snatched it from her so he was the one holding it. She glared at him. “That’s my file.”
He gave her the sweetest of smiles. “You can pour us some coffee,” he said.
Doreen glanced at the pot and saw enough was left for a cup for each of them. She finished cleaning up and poured the coffee as she waited impatiently, while Mack flipped through the file.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What’s interesting? I remember typing notes about it, but I didn’t have any connection to it at the time, so it was just words on paper.”
“That’s the problem with some cases. They become just words. You really must have a personal connection, and then they come alive.”
“What kind of connection exists here?”
“Information on the family. The parents went bankrupt a couple times. Never very good at business, but the couple themselves were married for a good forty-plus years. Then they disappeared.” At that, he stopped and frowned. “Wait. Rumor had it they moved to the East Coast. That was … maybe a tad more than fifteen years ago. But then Solomon found where the sons filed a missing persons’ report—but in the other district where the parents had moved to—again about fifteen years ago. After the legal waiting period, the sons filed for a certificate of death. Yeah, so just seven or so years ago the house could have been legally in the sons’ names. … I will cross-reference this by checking our records in the morning. But, if the two police districts weren’t communicating, we won’t have all the related documents.”
“It could still be a missing persons’ case, right?”
“Hopefully, if the journalist has a file on them, the corresponding police jurisdiction will too.”
“But only if somebody reported them missing, correct?”
Mack nodded.
“So then, how would this journalist know about them being missing if there wasn’t a police file?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I can check tomorrow if our district or the other one has a missing persons’ file.”
“Unless anything else is in here in Solomon’s file.” Doreen already was at her laptop, going over the notes she’d scanned in. “Okay, I found what you just read off. Still so suspicious. One day to the next, just gone. Sons reported it, but nobody ever saw their parents again. After seven years the parents were declared dead, and the sons inherited everything.” She whistled at that. “That’s always suspicious. Whenever money’s involved, and people disappear, as far as I’m concerned, they’re already guilty.”
“Hey,” Mack said, “no jumping to conclusions. Besides, I don’t know that the Darbunkles had much in the way of money because of those bankruptcies.”
Doreen nodded. “I get that. Did you see any mention of Henrietta in there?”
Mack read through the Solomon file and shook his head. “Not in the journalist’s notes, nothing. According to this file, she’s not missing.”
“So maybe Nan was wrong.”
Mack closed the file. “Did you scan this one in?”
She nodded.
“Can you email it to me, please?” he asked.
Doreen brought it up, attached it to an email, and sent it to him. “Done. Do you think Nan is wrong?”
“The question really is,” he said, “if Henrietta’s not missing, where the hell is she?”
Chapter 10
Thursday Evening …
Doreen had to admit that was one of the things she liked about Mack. He didn’t dismiss what she said. He tried to downplay it a lot of times to keep her on track and tried to stop her from jumping to conclusions, but, when something potentially was there, he didn’t knock her sideways, laugh at her, or mock her. Something her ex would have done in a heartbeat. But then Mack was nothing like her ex. She watched as he got up to leave. “Did you ever hear from your brother?” she asked out of the blue.
He looked at her and nodded. “I was wondering how to bring it up.”
“Bring what up?” she asked.
“Him and the whole lawyer issue,” he said. And then he gave her a gammoned grin. “I know exactly how you feel about lawyers.”
“I feel the same way about my ex,” she said with spirit, and she gave him a lopsided smile. “But that doesn’t change the fact we’ve put something into motion. What does your brother have to say?”
“He wants to meet with you,” Mack said.
Her eyebrows shot up. “So, you won’t be the middleman anymore?”
“Well, we both figured it’s probably better if I stayed as a middleman,” he admitted, “but he wanted to bring you up to speed on what he’s doing.”
“That’s fine,” she said, “just not anytime soon.”
Mack chuckled. “What’s the point of doing this if it won’t be anytime soon?”
Doreen shot him a look. “It’s just, as soon as you do it, it becomes part of something I have to deal with.”
“And right now you have enough to deal with?” He studied her carefully. “If you do feel that way, it’s time for you to back off from these cold cases.”
Immediately she got defensive. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to figure out how to make enough money to do this deck and then …” She waved her hand. “I don’t know what I’m saying. The bottom line is, I’d rather do anything but talk to your brother about my ex.”
“That’s honest, at least,” Mack said. “Let me talk to him and see what time frame he’s looking at.”
Doreen smiled. “I haven’t thanked you for linking me up. For your brother doing this pro bono. I know I don’t appear to be very grateful, and he is just investigating, but he certainly wouldn’t even be doing that much if it weren’t for you.”
Mack was already at the front door but turned to look at her. “What brought this on?”
She frowned. “
Can’t I show appreciation?” But she had to admit to feeling a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure what brought that on either.
“Appreciation,” he said, “is always good.”
“I thought so too,” she said and then laughed.
Mack looked down to see Mugs had dropped himself on top of his shoes.
“I think he’s got a message for you.”
“What? That I can’t leave?” Mack said in a dry tone. “I don’t think that’s quite what Mugs’s owner wants.”
She had to admit it was really nice to have him around. “I was going to ask if you could move my bed back upstairs and we were supposed to go over the plans for the deck.”
“Ah, the first I can do right now. As for the second,” he said grunting slightly as it picked up the mattress, sheet still on, and started up the stairs, “I took a look at the list and remembered what we were talking about, and I do have a couple guys I’ll ask.”
“Right,” she said trailing behind him with the bedding and pillows. “How many days do you think something like this deck expansion would take?”
He dropped the mattress on the box spring and shifted it into the right position. Then he stepped back, caught his breath and added, “For a professional, probably a weekend. For me, who isn’t a professional, maybe a couple weekends, maybe longer.”
“Plus it involves your days off,” Doreen said as she quickly made up the bed so it was ready for the night, “which is hardly fair.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but maybe, as punishment, you’ll have to help me and not go off on these wild goose chases and stop tracking down killers.”
They walked down the stairs to the front door. She opened it to let him out. As he walked out she chuckled. “Meaning, as long as I’m out there, moving cement blocks or whatever, I can’t get into trouble, right?”
That little slip of his lips twitched, and he nodded. “Exactly.” He headed out to his truck with a wave of his hand. “Are you coming to Mom’s tomorrow?”
“I thought I’d go around ten in the morning.”
Mack nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll remember to bring some money and drop it off on the weekend.”
“Perfect.” She leaned against the doorjamb and watched as he drove away. It was getting to be a habit, the two of them. A nice habit. She didn’t have any aspirations to make it more, at least not at this point, but no way did she want to lose what she had either. But the fact of the matter was, onto more tangible concepts, they had already scrounged up some pieces she needed for her deck addition, and that made her very happy. And his truck would haul the stuff here, and she wouldn’t have to pay for gas or delivery, at least for these pieces.
Feeling much better, Doreen called Mugs back inside and closed the front door. She’d hardly done anything all day, but somehow she was tired. She figured she was still recovering. She had dealt with a lot of cold cases and had suffered several attacks lately, and maybe it was time to chill for a few days.
But then that would mean Mack was right—again.
As she walked back into the kitchen to make herself a cup of chamomile tea to maybe take upstairs to her room, she caught sight of her open laptop. She went to shut it down but found a couple articles still open on her screen that she had missed. Once she saw a mention of Henrietta, Doreen sat down to read them. She leaned forward to read the rest of the article. Apparently the little girl had gone to school and not come home—before her parents went missing. There’d been a neighborhood search, everybody stepping up to find her, and she was found, so a happy ending that time. Then what happened to her after her parents went missing? She shouldn’t have just up and disappeared a second time with no one looking for her.
Doreen sat back and wondered. Was it because she was deemed as less than perfect? Or did she go missing again soon afterward, this time with her parents? Or did the brothers relocate her once her parents went missing, and so it became no news as she just went to live with someone else? All these thoughts ran through her head. She confirmed in this online article the date that Henrietta went missing from school—just before both parents went missing.
“And that’s very weird too,” she muttered. She wrote down both dates and then printed out the article. As she was printing it off, she noticed Henrietta had been fourteen. Hardly a little girl—a young blossoming teen. Yet she might have been fourteen in physical age, but, with Down syndrome, she may have acted much younger in age.
And that brought more ugly thoughts to her mind. With the article printed off, she checked the other articles but nothing interesting was there. She shut down her laptop and walked out onto her veranda to take another look at the ice-fishing pick. The fact that she had brought up an ice pick as a joke to Mack just made her laugh, but the fact that it was something dangerous and murderous looking was a whole different issue. She had the little metal tags still sitting inside on the kitchen windowsill, and she wondered why she found two labels but only one tool. Surely a second ice pick or another tool went along with the second label.
She wanted to do more research, but it was kinda late to get started on something like that, which usually took her down the rabbit hole for hours. But, her curiosity piqued, she decided it wasn’t yet that late. She brought her laptop and her cup of chamomile tea with her to sit outside. She began by researching images of ice-fishing picks to see if it truly was one. Even though Mack had said so, she didn’t want to take his word at face value. But, as she studied the images, she realized he was correct. Next question was, did Kelowna Tool Repair produce ice-fishing picks. And, lo and behold, she happened to stumble on an old article, potentially a webpage. She wasn’t exactly sure what this was.
“Oh,” she muttered to herself, “this is a blog on old tools.” And it wasn’t so much that this was an old tool, but she stopped and stared because right in front of her was an image of a little tiny tag, the same as the ones Thaddeus had found. It seemed the two maker’s marks belonged to a set of custom-ordered ice pick tools created by Frank.
Doreen laughed in delight. “Well, look at that.” She wrote down more notes because she would have to return to the library to get additional information, if she could. She checked her watch and found it was only eight p.m. The library didn’t close until nine. Should she leave it for tomorrow? But she knew it would run around in her head, and she’d struggle with sleeping now if she didn’t deal with it before bed. She decided she would dash off to the library first. She stopped, stared down at her mug of tea, and sighed.
“Leave it until morning, Doreen,” she said. “Leave it until morning.” But then, come morning, she had to do the gardening at Millicent’s. Warring with herself, she let the potential cold case win out. She brought her laptop and tea inside, got her keys, and dashed to the library. She hated the fact she couldn’t bring Mugs with her. She couldn’t even bring her tea with her. But libraries were like that, where no food or drink was allowed. And no dogs.
Once inside, the librarian watched her suspiciously.
Doreen gave her a bright sunny smile. “Just need to find a new book,” she said cheerfully.
“We close in an hour. Remember that,” the librarian said.
Doreen thought librarians must have a specific mold—gray hair with a bun on top, stiff backs, and that look. The look just nailed it. Like a What are you up to and don’t you dare touch my books type of a look.
She headed for the microfiche files and researched the parents and the sons and Henrietta and the family in general. She found a couple things she saved in an email to herself, but she couldn’t take the time to read them because the library wouldn’t be open that long. When she sensed somebody breathing down her neck, she turned to find the librarian. Doreen raised her eyebrows, shuffled so she was a little farther away from her, and asked, “Is there a problem?”
The librarian sniffed. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe.”
At that, Doreen frowned. “And what is the problem?”
“I don’t want you ho
unding that poor family.”
“What poor family?” Doreen asked in exasperation. “The Darbunkles?”
The librarian gave a louder snort. “No, definitely not them. I meant the Hyacinths.”
“The flower?” Doreen asked in confusion.
The librarian glared at her. “Harlowe and Hilly Hyacinth. Henrietta was their daughter.”
Doreen stopped. “Henrietta, who was raised by the Darbunkles, was actually Harlowe and Hilly Hyacinth’s daughter?” It was a bit of a tongue twister getting out all those Hs.
The librarian nodded. “Yes.”
“Why would that be?”
“The poor couple couldn’t handle having a Down’s child,” the librarian said starkly. “And you can’t judge them for that.”
Sensing something behind the librarian’s abrupt, almost critical manner, Doreen said, “I’m not here to judge anyone. Did they give her up for adoption?”
The librarian shrugged. “There was an informal deal between them, but afterward Hilly wanted to move.”
“Okay,” Doreen said. “Any idea how far away they moved?”
The librarian shook her head. “No idea. They just didn’t want to be around. They were overwrought with guilt, but they also couldn’t handle seeing their daughter, so they left in order to make it easier on them all.”
“How old was Henrietta when this happened?” Doreen asked, her heart sinking to think of a poor girl ripped away from her parents to live with somebody else and then still see her parents around town. She imagined it would be easier for everybody if her birth family did leave—maybe the little girl would forget faster.
“I think she was young,” the librarian said, crossing her arms, her fingers tapping a tempo on her opposite arm. “Maybe three—four, five. I don’t remember.”
With the names all written down, Doreen said, “Thank you.” Then she asked, “Any idea where she is now?”
The librarian looked at her in surprise. “She moved back east.”
“Back east?” Doreen questioned.
