Lucy took a deep breath, her warm brown eyes glistening with tears. “As I became more familiar with the cases, I thought about the parents who live without knowing what happened to their adult son or daughter. I thought about missing adults whose young children are left waiting for their return, and the parents who step in to raise their grandchildren while dealing with the pain of a missing adult child.”
“I read on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police website that over 78,000 persons were reported to police as missing. I was shocked at the number.”
“The numbers fluctuate every year, but it’s always in the multiple thousands. Thankfully, in the vast majority of cases, the missing persons are located within days. Sometimes it’s miscommunication. For example, the person is expected to arrive at a certain place at a certain time, but the time and meeting place are misunderstood, or the person gets lost and arrives late. These types of disappearances fall into the ‘unintentional’ category.” Lucy put air quotes around the word unintentional, then continued. “There are also cases of dementia, Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder, psychosis, or schizophrenia, sometimes undiagnosed. Addiction can be a contributing factor. Then there are those who disappear while engaging in sports—boating, hiking, diving, backcountry skiing…”
“What about foul play?”
“Some cases are a result of human trafficking, homicide, or kidnapping, but these are in the minority, as are cases of those who disappear with the intention of committing suicide.”
“And the rest?”
“Fall under ‘deliberate disappearances.’ The decision to disappear might be a way to escape a difficult situation like a bad marriage, a family breakdown, or financial difficulties. Some choose to leave family and friends behind to start a new life elsewhere. Some become drifters leading a transient lifestyle.” Lucy shook her head. “Dealing with missing adults is a difficult issue, as you know all too well from personal experience. There is no law that prevents an adult from voluntarily picking up and starting a new life somewhere else. The situation is further complicated in cases where there is no clear indication of foul play. It’s a delicate balance between respecting the adult’s privacy, while trying to determine exactly what has happened to them. At the same time, family and friends of the missing person are left to grapple with feelings and situations for which there is no guidebook. I created the Ontario Registry of Missing and Unidentified Adults as a first step in helping those families.”
“How do you upload a missing person case to the Registry?”
“I have four basic ground rules,” Lucy said. “One: the individual disappeared from or in Ontario. Two: they were eighteen years or older at the time of the disappearance. Three: they’ve been out of contact for three months or longer. And four: a report has been filed with law enforcement. I also insist on the case number and the police agency handling the case.”
“What about gathering the information? Is there a form to fill out?”
“There is, but before that happens I call the family member reporting the missing adult to flesh out as many details as possible.”
“Do you remember every phone call, every case?”
“I do, though some haunt me more than others. I still remember the day I spoke to Jeanine Westlake. She wasn’t like so many others I speak to. She was…the best way to describe it was hopeful.”
“Jeanine? Not Lorna or Michael? I spoke to her yesterday. She didn’t mention that.”
“It was definitely Jeanine, and it was three years ago. She told me she’d learned about the Registry through a client at New Beginnings.” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t advertise. Most police agencies will tell families about the service, but some don’t. The Registry wasn’t open when Brandon Colbeck disappeared. It’s understandable the family was unaware of our existence.”
“You say she sounded hopeful. Why do think that was?”
“She’d convinced a reporter from the Marketville Post to re-interview the family and run a story about Brandon. She was sure it would bring new leads, especially with the age-progressed photos and the sketch of the partially finished tattoo on the Registry. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Unless you consider the scam call from a few months ago.”
“You knew about that?”
“Yes, Jeanine called to tell me. Unconscionable.”
“You don’t think it was Brandon?”
“The police didn’t seem to think so, nor the family. Are you less certain?”
“I haven’t ruled it out or in. I’m hoping he’ll reach out to me, whoever he is, though I’m still trying to figure out a way to get his attention. Eleanor Colbeck told me a few facts that weren’t in the newspaper article. If he does contact me, I can vet him through that.”
“You may just have come up with the solution,” Lucy said. “The newspaper. If you could get the Post to run another article, that might get his attention. Or possibly a larger paper, like the Toronto Sun or Star.”
“I’m meeting with Gloria Grace Pietrangelo, her byline is G.G. Pietrangelo. She was the original photojournalist on the case in 2000 and a huge help when I was searching for my mother. I’m sure she still has connections, and she’s offered to share her notes with me.”
“Well, then, that’s your angle. I hope it works.”
“Now, enough shop talk. I promised you dinner. You must be famished.”
Lucy laughed. “I could eat the arm off a bear.”
I laughed with her. “My father used that expression. I’ve never heard anyone else say it, until now.”
“Then that’s another thing we have in common, beyond digging into the past.”
“Well, I can’t promise you any bear arms, but I did make an asparagus and Brie quiche and a radicchio salad. All I have to do is pop the quiche in the oven for thirty minutes. There’s angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. In the meantime, can I offer you a glass of wine?”
“Do you have red?”
“Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz.”
“Cabernet.”
“Coming right up.”
Lucy brought the conversation back around to Brandon after dinner. “I’ve been debating this all evening, whether or not to tell you. However, your investigation does have the full approval of the family, and I believe you should know.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s something Jeanine mentioned to me when we had our telephone interview. It’s not on the Registry website because she left it out of her submission.”
Curious. “What is it?”
“One of the things Brandon took with him, a folder with some sketches. It was missing when he left.”
I wondered why Jeanine had neglected to mention that to me. Find out their secrets, Gloria Grace had said, and you just may learn the truth. This was the thing Jeanine had been holding back from me. I could feel it, taste it. “What sort of sketches?”
“That would be breaking a confidence. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask her.”
I planned to do exactly that.
19
Lucy Daneluk left early Saturday morning, refusing my offer of breakfast. “You’ve been far too hospitable already, and besides, there will be a buffet breakfast at the hotel. With the amount I’m paying for the conference, I want to be sure I capitalize on every freebie.” She gave me a quick hug. “It was great to get to know you a bit better, and I hope what I’ve shared with you will help to bring news of Brandon.”
“I hope so, too. At the very least, I have an understanding of the process, and new information to follow up with Jeanine Westlake. And I loved having you. If you’re ever back this way, be sure to let me know. We’ll do it again.” I smiled, thinking about the enjoyable evening we’d had. It turned out that we had more in common than digging into the past. Both runners, we compared race events past and upcoming, and it turned out we were both registered for 30K Around the Bay in Hamilton come March.
“The same holds true if you’re ever in Ottawa,” she said. “And of course, we have to get toget
her in Hamilton for a post-race celebration.”
“You’re on. I’ll be in touch before that, regardless, to keep you posted on our progress.”
Lucy nodded, her expression suddenly serious. “Be careful, okay?”
I was surprised at the warning. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“Nothing I can substantiate and I have no use for gossip. But not everyone welcomes having the past dredged up. You find out things, about people, family members left behind, things they may not want you to know. Things that may break your heart.”
Past experience had taught me that lesson all too well, especially the heartbreak part. I wanted to ask her more, to try to pry out the smallest hint of a detail, but she was in her car and halfway down Edward Street before I could formulate a question. It occurred to me maybe Lucy Daneluk had a secret or two she wasn’t ready to reveal.
I wrote up my notes from my meeting with Lucy Daneluk while everything was fresh in my mind, careful to write legibly. Tomorrow I would transcribe all my handwritten notes into a Word document, and from that I’d start my own version of a family tree, with Brandon’s name at the top, and everyone else’s branching off with a key point or highlight. I hadn’t tried to do that before, but it had been one of Daneluk’s suggestions, and I liked it.
The meeting duly recorded, I heated up some leftover quiche for lunch, and pondered how best to approach Jeanine Westlake on the sketches. Coming up with nothing clever or particularly inventive, I opted to come straight out and ask her. I called, expecting to get voice mail, given it was a Saturday, and was surprised when Jeanine answered.
“Callie. I understand you met with my mother. I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression. We talk. We just don’t talk.”
“No harm done. Actually, I’m calling for another reason.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“I met with Lucy Daneluk yesterday.” I paused to let the name sink in.
“The woman from the Missing Adults Registry? You really are thorough, aren’t you?”
“I try to be.” I placed an emphasis on try. “I was hoping to ask you a couple more questions.”
“Do you have time to pop down now? The office is closed, but I’m here doing some much-needed paperwork. Not my strong suit, I’m afraid. I’ll do just about anything to avoid it.”
It was a backhanded invitation, but I seized it. It would be better to see Jeanine’s reaction than to try to gauge it over the phone. “I’ll be there within the half hour.”
“See you then.”
I hung up, grabbed a jacket, and was out the door in minutes, the brisk walk down Edward Street serving to calm my nerves. Because despite my earlier resolve, I was nervous about questioning Jeanine about the sketches. She must have had a good reason to withhold the information from the online Registry, and for not telling me about them yesterday. What made me think that she would suddenly reveal all?
I made it to New Beginnings in record time and stopped long enough to watch the latest group of cyclists going through their paces. The same instructor was leading the way and she caught my eye and winked, motioning for me to come in and give it a try, her hands making a spinning motion. I grinned, mouthed “maybe next time”—as if—opened the door to New Beginnings and trundled up the stairs.
Jeanine was in the reception area, waiting for me, and, true to her word, searching through some files. “Callie, have a seat. My office table is cluttered with paperwork and folders. We’ll be more comfortable here. Can I get you anything? We have one of those coffee pod machines in the kitchen.”
“No, I’m good, thanks. It looks as if you’re busy, so if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to get straight to the point.”
“That works for me. You mentioned that you’d seen Lucy Daneluk. A lovely woman and so passionate about what she does. I get the same impression about you.”
“Thank you for the comparison. I am passionate about finding out the truth and as I said on the phone earlier, I try to be thorough. The thing is, I can only be as thorough as the information given to me.”
Jeanine’s face flushed with embarrassment. “I gather Lucy mentioned the sketches.”
“She did, although she was reluctant to do so and provided no details, outside of the fact that there were sketches and that you excluded them from the Registry report as something Brandon would have taken with him. Was there any mention in the police report?”
“No. I know you’re thinking that I should have told the authorities but I didn’t want Brandon’s reputation tarnished any more than it already was. The police were already looking into things like online gambling or drug abuse. I didn’t need them to think he was into pornography, and I didn’t want my mother to feel any worse than she already did. My father, his reaction…I don’t even want to think what his reaction would have been.”
“Back it up a bit. Are you saying the sketches were some sort of pornography? Do you think that was the reason Brandon had withdrawn?”
“I don’t know, because I never actually saw the sketches. All I know is that a couple of days before he left home, I knocked on his bedroom door and went straight in. I did that all the time, you know? Anyway, he had this thin green binder, and there were plastic sleeves inside—you know the ones that you use for archiving paper?”
Thanks to my last case and an interview with an expert on ephemera, I knew more about archival sleeves than was necessary. “I do.”
“Okay, so Brandon slammed the binder shut as soon as I walked in, and all I had was an impression of color, and I can’t even tell you how many there were, maybe half a dozen, could have been more, could have been less. I asked him what they were and he said they were flesh art.”
“Flesh art?”
Jeanine nodded. “Flesh art. I’ve never heard pornography called that before or since, but I was twelve and he may have been trying to protect me. I imagined sketches of naked women. After he left, I looked under his mattress and found some back issues of Playboy and Penthouse, but no binder, and no sketches. I took the magazines into my room and hid them under my mattress. I knew I had to dispose of them, and thought about putting them in the trash, but what if my parents searched the trash? That made me think the sketches might be in the trash. I checked, smelly and disgusting as it was, but there were no sketches and no binder. A couple of days later, I put the magazines in a plastic grocery bag, stuffed them into my backpack, and tossed them into a green garbage bin behind the plaza by my school.”
I imagined a young Jeanine, frantically trying to help her brother, so sure he’d come home, so worried about what her parents would think. “And the sketches?”
“Don’t you see? He must have taken them with him. In hindsight, maybe I should have told my mother, or the police, but I was so embarrassed for him…” Her voice trailed off. “I confided in Lucy Daneluk when we added Brandon’s story to the Registry. She suggested that I put it in the report, but how could I? What would I tell my parents after all these years? Not to mention that I’d withheld information from the police.”
I could understand her position except… “Are you positive he said flesh art?
Jeanine’s brow wrinkled. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking he probably said flash art.”
“Flash art?”
“As in tattoo flash. He’d just gotten a tattoo. Maybe he bought some flash art at the same time.”
“Tattoo flash,” Jeanine said, her voice soft. “All these years, no matter what I told anyone about my respect for Brandon, the police or my parents, his friends or reporters, inside me, I’ve thought the worst of my brother. Loved him and loathed him in equal measure.”
“You were just a girl, it’s understandable that you heard flesh versus flash. He slammed the binder shut, like it was something secret. Your actions, reactions, all perfectly understandable.”
“Thanks for trying to make me feel better.” Jeanine shot me a rueful smile. “Regardless, flesh art or flash art,
I don’t see how it’s going to help find Brandon now. I can’t even describe the sketches.”
“Let me worry about the how, okay?”
“Okay. And Callie?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You can thank me by asking your father to call me. Your mother was going to do that, but now that they’ve filed for divorce—”
“She filed for divorce? When was she going to spring that one on me?” Jeanine shook her head. “What did I tell you? We talk, we just don’t communicate.”
“I’ll let you get back to your paperwork,” I said, mainly because I didn’t know what else to say. I wondered if the family was this dysfunctional before Brandon left, if his leaving had caused the chasm or widened it.
20
I decided to pay a visit to Sam Sanchez, and wound my way along the side roads off Edward, eventually looping onto Poplar. Tash looked up when I walked into Trust Few. Once again I was greeted with the droning sound of a tattoo machine, the air redolent with the sickly-sweet smell of industrial strength sanitizer.
“Hey, welcome back,” Tash said. “Callie, isn’t it?”
“Good memory.”
“Part of the job is to remember client names.” She grinned. “Are you back to book a tattoo consult?”
“I was hoping that Sam might have a few minutes to talk to me. I was in the area.” Not entirely true, but not exactly a lie.
“You’re in luck. She’s just finishing up with a client. Should be done in fifteen, and nothing else is booked for a couple of hours. It’s been slow, especially for a Saturday. Grab a chair. Can I get you anything? Herbal tea? Coffee? Water?”
“No, I’m good. If you don’t mind, I’m going to check out the flash art on the walls.”
“Sure, we have binders, too, if you want to look at those.”
“Binders?”
“Yeah.” Tash pulled out a two-inch binder, longer than the traditional binder I’d envisioned, though about the same width.
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