by Kathi Daley
I paused and leaned a hip against an old hutch. “So, if Greg started off in Chicago and then sent the letter from Chicago approximately twenty-five years later, maybe he’s moved back there. Are you sure there isn’t any evidence of someone named Greg Townsend living in Chicago or thereabouts?”
Mike shook his head. “Nothing. He may have changed his name again after he fell out with his mother. The name Townsend still linked him to his father in a roundabout way because it was his mother’s maiden name.”
“Tony said the same thing.” I stepped away from the hutch and looked around the room. There were a lot of things there. If there was a clue to be found, how on earth would we be able to discriminate between the relevant and the nonrelevant?
Mike made his way toward the back of the room while Bree continued to sift through the box she’d been looking in. “I think I found something,” she announced, holding up a photo.
I walked to her and she handed it to me. It was of a young boy who looked to be around ten, standing in front of a building made of wood, old and in need of maintenance, though he had a huge grin on his face. “Why do you think this is significant?” I asked.
Bree handed me a stack of photos. “Because there are six other photos of the same boy in front of the same building. It looks like maybe one a year for six years or thereabouts, based on the last photo, where he looks to be well into his teens.”
“I see what you’re getting at. If the boy in the photo is Chip—and I assume it is—this building was a place he and the photographer, who for now I’ll say is Edna, visited on multiple occasions. If they chose this as a place for an annual photograph, we can assume it was special to them.” I looked at the photos more closely. “I wonder where it is. The building doesn’t look familiar, but the background does. It could have been taken somewhere in the mountains.”
“Maybe Edna and her son visited this area when they lived in Chicago. Maybe that’s the reason they chose to move here when Chip’s father was convicted; they’d visited before and liked it,” Bree suggested.
Mike took the stack of photos and began to sort through them. “I’m not sure I know exactly what building it is offhand, but I sort of feel as if I’ve seen it before. Maybe it’s in the park.”
I knew Mike was referring to nearby Glacier National Park.
“There are quite a few cabins in that area, as well as in the village, and there are other park buildings,” I agreed.
He put one of the photos in his pocket. “I’ll send a copy of this to the park service. Maybe someone who works in the area will recognize the structure.”
I picked up the box Bree had been sorting through. “I’ll take this box home with me and go through it some more. Maybe something else will pop. Right now, I’m going to go home and grab something to eat. I haven’t had more than a granola bar all day.”
Chapter 12
Tuesday, May 8
I’d spent hours looking through Edna’s photos, resulting in serious sleep deprivation and making the day seem endless despite the continuation of our beautiful spring weather. I hadn’t found anything in the box I would necessarily consider to be relevant, though I’d found a wedding photo of Edna with a tall, dark-haired man with small eyes and an emotionless stare. He, I decided, looked exactly like a serial killer. Even then. I guess I’d been operating under the assumption that Dorian Fairchild was a regular guy when Edna married him. At least on the outside. Given his intense stare and stony expression as he posed for a photo with the woman he’d chosen to spend his life with, I couldn’t imagine what had motivated Edna to marry him in the first place.
The only other item that seemed at all significant in the box was a heart-shaped locket with a photo of a baby inside. I assumed it was Chip. Mike was going to follow up with the photos of the building, and when I saw Tony tonight, I planned to give him the most recent photo we’d found of Chip and ask him to use his facial recognition software to try to find a photo of modern-day Chip.
“Afternoon, Frank,” I called out to my brother’s partner on entering the police station. I tossed a pile of mail on his desk. “Is Mike in his office?”
“He’s out on a call. I’m guessing he should be back shortly. Can I help you with anything?”
I sat on the corner of his desk. “No. I just figured that as long as I was stopping by to drop off the mail, I’d see if he’d had any luck locating the building in the photos we found.”
“I know he sent it to the local forest service office and the administration office for the National Park Service. As far as I know, he hasn’t gotten a bite; as least not as of when he left. I looked at the photo myself. If you ask me, the building the kid is standing in front of is one of those old forest service cabins off Highway 2.”
“Yeah, I had the same thought. If it’s a cabin and not a commercial building, it’s going to be hard to find. There are a lot of cabins dotted along the highway. It would be impossible to find a particular cabin with the limited view provided by the photo.”
Frank frowned. “And how do you think identifying the building is going to help you locate Chip?”
I slipped my bag off my shoulder and onto the floor, near where Tilly was sitting, waiting patiently. “I don’t think it will help us find him, but if we don’t find him, trying to figure out where he’ll be at noon on Sunday may be the only shot we have at letting him know of his mother’s death.”
“Seems odd he doesn’t already know.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. But if the two hadn’t been in touch, he might not have heard. Mike and Tony both think he may have been out of the country. He might have returned just recently. That would explain why they can’t find either work records or a driver’s license.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Frank looked at the photo again. “You show this to Hap?”
“Not yet, but I will. Hap likes to fish, and he said Chip did too. Maybe the cabin in the photo is a place the two chatted about when Chip worked for Hap as a teenager.” I stood and slipped on my bag. “Let Mike know I was here. Tell him to call me if he hears anything.”
“Will do. Enjoy the nice day.”
I looked out the window at the blue sky and snowcapped mountains in the distance. “I’ll do that. You have a nice day too.”
The next few hours passed quickly. It seemed a lot of folks were out and about today, which meant that most of the merchants I delivered to were busy with customers and therefore didn’t have time to chat. I even managed to get in and out of Bree’s place without more than a wave, which was rare even when she was busy. By the time I reached Hap’s it was close to three, which was excellent, because I’d done my route in a backward loop, which meant he was the last of my deliveries. It would be nice to finish early and get home. Tony was coming over to install my planter boxes.
“Wondered what happened to you today,” Hap said when Tilly and I came in and I dropped a pile of mail on his counter.
“Changed things up a bit.”
“Been doing that quite a bit lately. I suppose I’d get bored doing the same thing every day myself. Did you settle on a color for your rocker?”
I nodded and handed him the sample card for the shade of blue I’d selected. “I had Mike pick up the rocker and bring it to my cabin this morning. I can’t wait to get started. How much paint do you think I’ll need?”
Hap twisted his lips. “Are you planning on painting the planter boxes the same color?”
“I’m thinking about it. It occurred to me that painting the boxes a darker blue than the chair might provide a nice contrast.”
Hap handed me a medium-sized can. “I’d start with this. It should be plenty for the chair. If you decide on the same color for the garden boxes, I can mix up more. If you decide to go with a different shade, you won’t have purchased more of this blue than you need.”
I smiled. “Okay, thanks. I can’t wait to get started.”
“I have some outgoing mail for you.” Hap reached under the counter, then set
a stack of envelopes secured with a rubber band in front of me. I picked it up and put it in my bag.
“Before I go,” I took one of the photos of Chip in front of the wooden building from the pocket of my bag, “will you look at this?” I passed it to Hap.
He gave it a brief look. “Looks like a young Chip. Did you track him down?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. We found a bunch of photos of him standing in front of this building. Based on my best guess, the photos, six in all, span the years between Chip being eight or nine and maybe thirteen or fourteen. Do you recognize the building?”
Hap took a moment to really look at the photo. “Seems familiar.” He narrowed his gaze, then pointed to an object off to the side that was too blurry to really make out. “If this here is a gas pump, I’d say this is the old filling station out on the highway.”
I took a closer look at the blurry object. There was no way to know what it was from the angle of this photo. I pulled the other photos out of my bag, but the angle was the same on all of them.
“Seems odd that Edna, or someone, would take a photo of Chip in front of an old filling station,” I said.
“Maybe. But the one I’m thinking of is the last station before you turn up the dirt road to the seasonal cabins. There’s a good fishing lake up that road. Most who rent the seasonal cabins get their gas and supplies there. You can’t tell by the photos you have, but if my assumption is correct, the building Chip is standing in front of is a camp store. They carry a few grocery items, propane, firewood, that sort of thing.”
“Is it still in business?”
Hap lifted a shoulder. “I haven’t been up that way in quite a while, but it was still there the last time I checked.”
“How far is it from here?”
“I guess forty or fifty minutes.” Hap turned and pulled a map from a display behind him and opened it up on the counter. He smoothed it with his hands and pointed to a spot just off the highway. “The filling station I’m thinking of is right about here.” He ran a finger up a thin line. “This here is the dirt road up to the cabins.” He pointed to a small lake. “And this here is the lake I mentioned.” Hap looked up from the map. “It might not hurt to take a drive out there. If it’s the right place, you should be able to match the photos up with the building.”
“Thanks. I will. Can I buy that map?”
Hap folded it up and handed it to me. “Consider it a gift.”
By the time I walked back to my Jeep, drove to the post office, dropped off my bag, and drove home, it was after four, but still early compared to most days. I wasn’t expecting to see Tony quite this early, but his truck was in the drive when I pulled up. Tilly began wagging her tail, the tip hitting the door next to her and the can of paint on the seat between us alternately, and Titan ran around the house from the back. I grabbed the paint and the map, opened the driver’s side door, slid out, motioned for Tilly to hop out the same door, and then bent down to greet Titan.
“Hey, sweetie,” I said as I vigorously rubbed the shepherd in greeting. “Where’s your daddy?”
Titan didn’t answer, but the sound of hammering coming from the back deck gave me the answer I needed.
Titan and Tilly followed me around the house, where I found a shirtless Tony, slick with sweat, hammering two boards together. I waited until he was done with the nail he was working on, then greeted him.
He looked up, surprise evident on his face. He put down his hammer and grabbed a T-shirt from the railing, and quickly pulled it over his head. “I didn’t know you’d be here this early.”
“I’m usually not home until after five, but I finished early today.” I noticed Tang and Tinder sitting on a lounge chair out of the corner of my eye. “The garden boxes look perfect. Exactly what I imagined.”
Tony wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “I worked the design out in my head. I think they’re going to add a lot to your outdoor space.” Tony glanced at the paint in my hands. “I think you’re going to need more paint.”
“This is for my rocking chair. I’m thinking of using a darker blue for the garden boxes.”
Tony placed the next board to be hammered in place. “I saw the old rocker on your front porch. Looks like you found a sturdy one.”
“It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. I can’t wait to get started on the painting, but first I have something to show you.” I held up the map. “If you want to take a break, I have beer and cola in the refrigerator, and I can show you what I found out today.”
Tony tossed his hammer onto a chair. “I could use a break, and a cola sounds good.”
In the cabin, I grabbed two colas from the refrigerator, then showed Tony the photos with the wooden building in the background and the place on the map Hap had pointed out to me, then asked if he thought it would be worth our while to drive out to the old gas station and take a look around. Even if we could determine the building in the photos and the food-and-gas stop Hap remembered were one and the same, it didn’t guarantee anyone would remember Chip or know how to contact him today, but it was something to do, and I felt like we were running into dead end after dead end.
Tony said he could plug the most recent photo of Chip into his facial recognition program. It was unlikely he’d get a hit, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. He wanted to take a quick shower and change into clean clothes before making the trip, so I ran upstairs and changed out of my uniform while he put his tools away. He’d come back tomorrow to finish up, so he left everything in my mudroom.
I fed the kittens and grabbed food to bring along for the dogs. I’d feed Tilly at Tony’s while he showered and changed. We’d bring the dogs with us; they’d enjoy the ride and we weren’t going all that far.
When I glanced at my unpainted chair sitting on the front deck I felt a twinge of indecision. I really wanted to get it painted, but it wasn’t urgent, and finding Chip before he made the trip to White Eagle from wherever he was seemed a lot more important.
******
When Tony came down from showering and changing his clothes, we went down to the basement. He scanned the photo of Chip into his computer, then typed in some commands to activate the facial recognition program. The blinking lights and whir of the equipment made me think of other mysteries Tony was looking in to for me.
“Any news about Luciana Parisi’s murder?” I asked.
“I haven’t found anything, although to be honest, I haven’t put a ton of time into it, but my contact did shoot me a message. Apparently, the investigator has a new lead. He either didn’t know or didn’t say what it was, but based on his tone, I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t an arrest relating to the murder in the upcoming weeks.”
“That’s great. If they identify and apprehend the guilty party, that eliminates the need for us to worry about it one way or the other. I’m just glad my mom isn’t talking about making a trip to Italy until summer. I know the case has been open for seven years, but if the investigator does have a lead, hopefully things will be wrapped up long before that, or Romero finds an opportunity to make another trip here.”
Tony pounded out a few more commands, then stood up. “Okay, that should do it. It’s a long shot. A very long shot. But it’s worth a try. Are you ready to roll?”
I nodded. “I’m also starving. Let’s grab a burger after we check out the tourist stop Hap told me about. A big one.” My mouth began to water. “With fries.”
Chapter 13
The trip out of town to the sparsely populated area dotted with hiking trails, clearwater lakes, and small seasonal cabins, was uneventful. The dogs sat happily in the backseat of Tony’s truck with tongues lolling to the side as the wind from the open windows caressed their faces. The rivers, creeks, and streams that ran under the highway were swollen with spring runoff, creating overflow along the uncrowded highway where water spilled from the barriers. Tony slowed and eased past the slow-moving channels of water as we made our way farther into the dense forest that c
oated the area with thick groves of dark green pines entangled with delicate, quaking aspens that turned the area a bright yellow in the fall.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been up this way,” Tony commented as the road meandered along and we enjoyed the spring evening, while rock tunes blared on the stereo.
“For me as well.” As we wound our way through a narrow canyon, I looked out the window at the rocky crags that lined the sides of the road. “I intended to take a drive out this way last October, but life got busy and I never made it.”
“We’ll make a point to come together this fall. Maybe bring a picnic.”
I leaned my head back and relaxed into the breeze from the open window. “That’d be nice. There’s this one spot at the end of an old logging road where I especially like to go when the leaves turn.”
“Sawmill Pond.”
I sat forward. “You know the area. All those aspens tangled up with the fern and vine maple. Simply breathtaking. And most years that little stream trickles down over the craggy bluff at the far side of the pond, creating the most beautiful waterfall you’re ever likely to see. I keep thinking I’ll snap a photo of it to hang on my wall, but I never seem to remember to do it once I’m there.”
The song we’d been listening to segued to a classic from the sixties, and Tony and I both sang along. After the song wrapped up, Tony spoke. “According to the map Hap gave you, the filling station and store should be just up ahead on the right.”
“There.” I pointed to a sign in the distance.
The small oasis was a one-stop shopping mecca for the campers, fishermen, and hunters who frequented the area. Toward the center of the large flat lot was a four-pump gas station that had been refurbished in the past decade by the look of things. Beyond that was a medium-sized log building that appeared to serve as a general store. To the right of that was a small diner, to the left a laundromat. Tony parked off to the side, out of the way.