by Kathi Daley
“I guess we’ll continue to sort through the boxes of items left behind by Orson. In a way, going through all that paper seems sort of pointless since we don’t know what we’re looking for, but Cody suspects that the person who has been breaking into the newspaper might have been looking for something other than a newspaper, so we’re trying to cover all our bases.”
Mr. Parsons bent over to pet Mystique, who’d wandered into the room from somewhere down the hallway. I hadn’t noticed that she’d come upstairs last night, so she must have slept with Rambler and Mr. Parsons. Chances are she headed down the hallway to eat and use the cat box once she woke.
“I’ve been thinking about the discussion we had yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t think of it at the time, but it occurred to me at some point around two o’clock this morning that there was a man who regularly provided information to Orson. I don’t know if he told him anything about the missing women, but he did tell him about all sorts of things. The man’s name was Fairchild. I’m not sure if that was his first or last name. Fairchild is the only way Orson ever referred to him. I never met the man, but I know he lived on a boat which he kept docked in the private marina up on the north shore.”
“Are you talking about the homeowner’s marina up off Lighthouse Point?”
He nodded. “That’s the one. Given the fact that the man lived on his boat, I don’t think he owned a home there, but I suppose he might have had a friend with an open slip, or perhaps he rented one from someone. I know that Orson has been gone for a while now, and it’s been even longer since he’d mentioned Fairchild to me, so I have no way of knowing if the guy is still around or if he’s even alive. Still, it did occur to me that I should mention him to you.”
“Do you think this man might have known something about the commentaries Orson wrote about the missing women?” I asked after refilling my mug.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember Orson specifically saying that he’d spoken to Fairchild about that particular story. What I do remember is that Orson would make comments about getting a tip from Fairchild, and then he’d be off to follow up on it. He left me sitting alone in the bar a time or two when he got a call while we were out socializing.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll mention it to Cody. I don’t suppose it would hurt to follow up and see if the guy is still around. I don’t suppose you know anything more about the guy. Maybe Orson mentioned what sort of work he did.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t remember him mentioning anything like that. According to Orson, the guy seemed to come and go. I understand the boat he lived on was fully functioning, and sometimes he had it docked there at the marina while at other times he’d go off somewhere.”
“I don’t suppose you know how Fairchild came up with these tips he passed along to Orson?”
“No clue. Like I said, I never even met the guy.”
“Okay, well, thanks. Any little tidbit of information is valuable at this point.”
Once Cody came downstairs and joined us in the kitchen, he chatted with Mr. Parsons about Orson’s informant while we ate. At some point, Cody decided it wouldn’t be the worst idea to take a drive up north and see if we could obtain any additional information about Fairchild. It was unlikely he was still living on a boat docked in the same marina he’d been docked in all those years ago, but it was a beautiful day for a drive, and it never hurt to follow up on a clue. If nothing else, we figured we’d head over to the local bar and ask around.
We decided to take the dogs with us since there were a lot of deserted beaches along the way where we could let them out to run around. Not that the dogs weren’t able to run around on our private beach most days, but they liked to go for rides, and I sensed they enjoyed the variety of having a different beach to explore from time to time. Mystique seemed to prefer to stay at home with Mr. Parsons, so after I checked her food, water, and cat box, Cody, the dogs, and I headed out.
It used to concern me when the cats who’d been sent to help me didn’t start helping right away, but over the years, I’d learned that each cat had its own personality and its own rhythm. I’d also learned that if I simply waited until my feline friend was ready to help me, I could count on him or her to save the day when I needed them the most.
Twelve founding families from Ireland had settled on Madrona Island a very long time ago. Initially, the island had been divided up amongst those twelve families, but over the years, the land was sold and traded, and commercial areas evolved. The town of Harthaven was located on the west shore of the island. It was the oldest town on the island and the town where I grew up. The south end of the island was originally commercial in nature, but after the cannery closed and the ferry began bringing in visitors from Seattle and the surrounding area, the climate changed from warehouses to eclectic mom and pop shops. Coffee Cat Books is located on the wharf in Pelican Bay, the town that was established once people began moving to the area. It’s a much more modern and progressive town than Harthaven and quickly became a haven for artists and touristy type shops.
The peninsula where Cody and I live with Mr. Parsons is divided into three large estates. The Hart Estate, currently owned by my older sister, Siobhan, and her husband, Finn, is in the center, while the estate owned by Mr. Parsons is to the south of that, and the estate owned by a woman named Francine Rivers is to the north. Mr. Parsons has informed Cody of his intention to leave his estate to Cody and me since he has no family. At first, that seemed like a lot to offer to someone you weren’t related to by blood, but since returning to the island, Cody has taken care of him as if he was his own grandfather, and the land has to go to someone, so why not to the man Mr. Parsons loves like a grandson.
The north shore of the island, as well as the east shore, is sparsely populated. Those areas tend to attract rich landowners who enjoy their privacy, so it’s on the north and east shore where you tend to find the larger gated estates, including the one owned by our good friend, Alex Turner.
There’s a place known as the Hollow at the center of the island where the magical cats who live on the island make their home. The Hollow is a forested area that is surrounded by thick forest on every side. No human lives in the hollow, and few visit it, so the area is mostly left to the magical creatures that live there.
“So, what should we do first?” I asked as we neared the intersection where the roads that joined the east and north shore met.
“I guess let’s head to the marina. Not that I expect this man to be there, but there might be someone around who knows him and might know where he can currently be found.”
“And if no one is around?”
“Then we’ll head over to that little bar that has the good fish and chips. We’ll grab a bite to eat and ask around about Fairchild.”
“And the dogs?” I asked.
“We’ll bring them in. A place like that isn’t going to mind.”
When we arrived at the marina, we found it deserted, so we headed to the bar. As Cody predicted, neither the staff nor the other patrons seemed to care a bit that we had two dogs with us. We both ordered the fish and chips along with a pint of the beer on tap before Cody asked the man who took our order about the man we were there to find.
“Yeah, I know Fairchild,” the man said. “Lived here in the marina for decades until the man who owned the slip he rented up and sold his home and the slip along with it. Fairchild couldn’t find anyone else here in this marina to rent to him, so he moved his boat over to Lopez Island.”
“There are a lot of slips for rent in Pelican Bay,” I pointed out.
“Too crowded. Harthaven is too. Fairchild values his privacy. He has a nice thing on Lopez Island. He’s tied up at a private dock owned by some tech magnate who has a mansion on the island, but is rarely there.”
“Do you know how we can get ahold of him?” Cody asked.
“He doesn’t have a phone. If you want to find out exactly where he’s docked, ask at the marina. They should be able to give you directi
ons.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
As predicted, the fish and chips were delicious. After we ate, we took the dogs for a run on the beach and then headed back south. When we got home, Mr. Parsons greeted us, and we filled him in. It was much too late to head over to Lopez Island today, but maybe we could go tomorrow. I asked Mr. Parsons about Mystique when I didn’t see her anywhere in the area, and he told me the cat had headed upstairs over an hour ago, and he hadn’t seen her since. I was sure the cat was fine, but I decided to check on her while Cody and Mr. Parsons tried to figure out what we should make for dinner.
“What did you do?” I asked the cat, who was sitting atop one of the many file folders scattered across the floor of our living room. It appeared as if she’d dumped several of the boxes we still needed to go through onto the floor and then scattered everything around.
“Meow,” she said with a look of complete innocence.
I bent over and began picking up files until it eventually dawned on me that perhaps there was something special about the file Mystique was sitting on. I shooed her aside, picked up the file, and opened it. I read the first page of the small stack of documents contained within. I looked down at the cat. “I think you might be onto something.”
Chapter 10
One of the things contained in the file was a list of names. Based on the handwriting, the list appeared to have been penned by Orson. All thirteen of the names on the list were female names, and next to each name was a date. The first date was January twenty-fourth of nineteen ninety-six. The next one was March eighteenth of the same year, and the last one was May twenty-ninth of nineteen ninety-seven. Copies of missing persons reports matching the names of all thirteen women on the list were beneath the list. All the reports were associated with women in their twenties who were reported missing from several different towns along Interstate 5 from Tacoma to Bellingham. The current missing women Finn had been investigating had all lived in Seattle and had all been last seen in Seattle, but if Orson was onto something during the first missing persons spree, then perhaps Finn should widen his search for other women who seemed to fit the pattern.
I grabbed the file and took it downstairs, where Cody was chatting with Mr. Parsons. “Look what Mystique found.” I laid the folder on the table.
Cody picked it up and looked inside. “Missing persons reports?”
“They correspond to the missing women Orson seemed to be writing about in the nineties. I haven’t had a chance to take more than a quick glance at the reports, and I’m not sure if the information contained within can help us, but Mystique seemed to want me to look inside the file, so I think we should take a close look at everything.”
Cody pulled a piece of lined paper from the bottom of the stack. “It looks like in addition to the copies of the missing persons reports, Orson left notes.”
“So, what do they say?” Mr. Parsons asked.
Cody frowned. “A lot of this is in some sort of shorthand and really doesn’t make any sense to me. The initials JPR come up fairly often as do the initials MR and DF.” Cody glanced at Mr. Parsons. “Do any of those initials mean anything to you?”
“No. Not off hand. I suppose if we take the content surrounding the initials into account, we might be able to make some sense of what he noted.”
“There are a few times and dates, but otherwise, there are disjointed words that when read linearly make no sense,” Cody shared. “Like I said before, it appears Orson used some form of shorthand to make his notes. The fact that the words make no sense might very well be intentional so that no one except for him can read what he wrote.”
I picked up the pile of papers that Cody had set back down on the table. Mystique had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure I’d see this particular file, so there must be something contained within that I needed to see. I supposed the thing she wanted me to see might simply be the missing persons reports. The reports demonstrated that there had been missing women in the nineties all up and down the coast, so maybe that was the piece of information she wanted me to share with Finn. But my gut told me there was something more. A clue of sorts that might be hiding within the notes Orson had left. A clue, I suspected, that was waiting to be decoded and understood.
“I think I’m going to go over it again later,” I said. “I just have this feeling there is something more to discover that we haven’t noticed yet.” I glanced at Mr. Parsons. “I was thinking about grilling tonight. Do you feel like sitting out on the patio?”
“Actually, that sounds lovely. I really haven’t been out much at all since the cold weather set in, but based on today’s weather report, it looks like we might be in for a warming trend.”
“It’s actually supposed to rain next week, but once the rain is gone, it should be sunny and warm for the next couple of weeks. When Cody and I were walking the dogs on the beach earlier, it was almost too warm for the long sleeve t-shirts we had on.” I glanced at Cody. “Why don’t you start a fire in the pit while I make the salad. That way, if it does cool down, we can warm up next to it.”
“Will do,” Cody said, heading out the back door to the patio.
I’m not sure why Mr. Parsons’ grandfather put the patio area at the back of the house when he built the house since the ocean and the superior view was in the front. The patio area was nice and cozy, but I always had thought that not taking advantage of the exceptional view was sort of a waste.
“I spoke to Cody earlier,” Mr. Parsons said as I began chopping lettuce for a salad. “He mentioned that you might want to go ahead with the plans we discussed and build a little cottage out near the water.”
I paused. “Is that okay? This is your home, and I wouldn’t want to do anything you weren’t comfortable with.”
“It’s more than okay. In fact, I think it’s a wonderful idea. A cottage will provide a little hideaway for you and Cody right here on the property, and maybe at some point in the future after you have children and need the room the larger house will provide, you can use it as a guesthouse.”
“That’s exactly what Cody suggested. I do love living here with you, but if I am totally honest, I miss the intimacy of my own space.”
“I understand completely. Cody is going to have some plans drawn up, and we’ll take it from there.”
I crossed the room and hugged the man I’d always been fond of but had grown to love since living in his home. “Thank you. This really means a lot to me.”
“I know it isn’t the dream of every new bride to move in with the old man who lives next door, and I appreciate that you and Cody look out for me the way you do. To tell you the truth, I’m happy to have a chance to do something to repay your kindness.”
Chapter 11
Sunday, April 5
“I think seven down is algae,” I said to Mr. Parsons the following morning while having coffee with him before heading to church and then visiting Lopez Island.
“I think you might be right,” he smiled.
“Cody and I are going to be gone for most of the day, but Cody spoke to Banjo and Summer, and they assured him that they will be by later for lunch and a movie.” Banjo and Summer were a hippie couple who lived in a little shack down the beach. The distance by road between their property and Mr. Parsons’ was actually quite far, but the walk down the beach between the two residences could be accomplished within a few minutes.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he reminded me, “but I am happy to visit with my friends. It’d already been a couple weeks since they’d been by when I came down with that darn flu. I’m feeling much better now, however.”
“I know they missed you as much as you missed them, and Cody wanted to be sure you had someone to help you with the dogs since your leg has been bothering you. I went to the store on Thursday, so there’s plenty of food to make whatever you’re in the mood for.”
“Thank you, dear. You and Cody have a nice day. And don’t forget to take the file to pass along to Finn. I think he might
be interested in the story Orson was working on.”
“I agree. I think he will be very interested indeed.”
Cody and I both attended Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church, where we oversaw the youth choir. When I was first asked to take over the choir, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but since making the decision to take on the responsibility, I’d grown very fond of all the children we worked with every week. This morning, Cody offered to head to the choir room to get the group ready while I went in search of Finn. I wanted to hand over the file I’d found before mass in the event he, Siobhan, and Connor left before I connected with them once mass was over. I’d made copies of each and every page I planned to pass off to Finn since somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice was telling me I was going to need the information contained within it at some point in the future.
“Oh good, you’re here,” I said to Finn after having bent down to hug Connor. “I have the file I told you about when I called last night.”
He opened it and peeked inside. “Okay, thanks. I’ll take a look and see what I can make out of it. Are you and Cody still heading to Lopez Island today?”
I nodded. “As soon as mass is over. I’m not sure we’ll even be able to track down this Fairchild, and even if we can, I’m not sure he knows anything about the missing women, but we figured it was worth a try.”
“I agree. Call me when you get back. Call me sooner if you need anything.’
“I will.” I looked toward the hallway leading to the choir room. “I should head to the choir room to help Cody. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Has Mom cornered you yet about Easter next week?” Siobhan asked before I could make my escape.
“No. Is she planning something?”
“She wants the whole family to get together. I don’t think Aiden will be back from his fishing trip by then, but I told her that Finn, Connor, and I would be willing to host at our place.”