Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

Kate reached into her bag for her wallet and handed him one of her business cards. Owen then escorted her to the reception desk, where she traded her visitor’s pass for her identification.

“Safe travels, Ms. Page.” Owen shook her hand.

In her car, Kate was still simmering from the exchange.

Before she’d left New York for Alberta, she’d made other calls. She paged through her notes for other people who’d agreed to talk to her.

Sheri Young was a neighbor of Barton and Fiona Mae at the time of Tara Dawn’s disappearance. Then there were Eileen and Norbert Ingram, who now owned the Maes’ former house. And the Children’s Searchlight Network was working on finding her people familiar with the Mae case. She roared out of the lot. As she glanced at the RCMP building in her rearview mirror an image burned across her mind.

A tiny hand rising from the cold dark water…

Kate squeezed the wheel. No way was she backing off.

Not now.

Not ever.

Tilley, Alberta

Kate drove toward the horizon undaunted.

The Trans-Canada Highway east from Calgary cut across gentle hills that soon flattened for as far as she could see. Still smarting from her meeting with the RCMP, she was now counting on the people of Southern Alberta to help her.

“Certainly, we’ll talk to you,” Eileen Ingram had told her earlier when Kate had called. Eileen and her husband, Norbert, were the current owners of the Maes’ house.

Two hours after leaving Calgary, Kate had reached Brooks, a small prairie city known for agriculture, gas, oil and meat processing. Staying on the Trans-Canada, she passed the Grand Horizon Plaza.

The truck stop where Tara Dawn Mae was last seen fifteen years ago.

Kate continued east to the hamlet of Tilley then followed a ribbon of highway south for another fifteen minutes or so before coming to the remote property amid the eternal rolling treeless plain. It was a modest two-story frame house, set back from the road. Gravel crunched under her tires when she rolled along the driveway to the house. Two women and a man stepped onto the porch to greet her.

“I’m Eileen, this is my husband, Norbert, and this is our neighbor, Sheri Young. She used to babysit Tara Dawn for Fiona and Barton.”

“You made good time,” Norbert said as Kate shook everyone’s hand, noticing that Norbert held an unlit pipe.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

The house smelled of soap and fresh soil. They led her to the kitchen and a table covered with a checkered tablecloth. Everyone sat while Eileen made tea and coffee, then set down a plate of cookies.

“Eileen told us about your accident in BC, when you were a child.” Norbert looked into the bowl of his unlit pipe. “What a terrible thing.”

“You really think that Tara Dawn’s disappearance is connected to your sister’s case?” Sheri spooned sugar into her coffee.

“Yes, a lot of new factors have surfaced with a recent murder and suicide in New York State.”

“What sort of factors?” Eileen passed Kate a mug.

Kate gave them an account of what was found at the Rampart site and how, along with dates, it all aligned with Vanessa and Tara Dawn’s cases.

“That sounds unsettling, for sure,” Eileen said.

“Could be there’s something to it.” Norbert nodded.

“I’m not sure how much we can help, though,” Eileen said. “We never knew the Mae family. We’re from Manitoba and bought this place ten years ago this spring after Norbert retired from the railroad. Sheri knew the family better than anyone.”

“I did,” Sheri said. “What would you like to know?”

“Tell me what you can about the Maes, about Tara Dawn’s adoption and her disappearance.”

“Well…” Sheri reached back over the years. “Barton and Fiona didn’t mix with other people. They were private, deeply devout. You only saw them at church, or at the store. They just worked on their farm. Then Fiona had a baby, a girl, but she died after a year.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody in town really knew. One day we saw the ambulance and the Mountie cars out at the place. Later, it got around that their baby had died. My mom figured it was SIDS or some sickness. Then my dad said there was a rumor that Barton had dropped her. But no one knew the truth.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Oh, that was over twenty-two, twenty-three years, back. Anyway, they both took it hard, as you can imagine. People saw even less of them. It was like Barton and Fiona were haunted by it. Then two or three years later, they started coming to church with Tara Dawn, who was about five or six. At first people thought she was a niece who was visiting. Then it got around that Tara Dawn was their adopted daughter.”

Kate showed Sheri a picture of Vanessa on her cell phone.

“Did she look like that?”

Sheri studied the photo for a few seconds.

“It was a long time ago, but I’d say she looked a lot like that.”

“Tell me more about her.”

“Eventually, we’d heard that Tara was adopted from a distant relative in the United States and that was that. Not too long after, my mom said that Fiona asked if I would babysit occasionally. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes Barton and Fiona would go to Hanna, or Medicine Hat, for some deal on a tractor, or something. I don’t know why they didn’t take Tara with them, but I liked watching her.”

“What was she like?”

“Very quiet, shy. I remember one time I tried asking her about where she used to live, what had happened, and all she did was cry. I gave her a hug then we went to the barn to play with the kittens. That cheered her up. But I felt so bad I never asked her about that kind of thing again, because she didn’t want to talk about it. Some days I would look across the field from our place and see Tara playing by herself with her dog. She looked lonely but she seemed happy. She always smiled at me and said hi if I saw her with Fiona in the store.

“Then, a few years later, she was stolen away at the truck stop. Oh, it was horrible. The whole town was shocked. I never saw so many police cars. They had dogs, helicopters, searchers, roadblocks. It was in all the news. People prayed in the churches for a miracle, for a happy ending. Reporters came from everywhere. It was a big story, but as time went by, things seemed to slow down and it wasn’t in the news as much.

“Barton and Fiona were devastated. Nobody saw them…they stopped coming to church. They were like ghosts. About a year after Tara Dawn went missing, Barton’s tractor rolled on him. He was in a coma for a week before he died. A year or so after that, two women from the church went to check on Fiona and found her dead in her bedroom. She’d overdosed on sleeping pills.”

Eileen passed tissues to Sheri, who dabbed her eyes.

“There were some anniversary stories about Tara Dawn’s disappearance, but her story faded until it was practically forgotten. Of course, the place went up for sale,” Sheri said.

“We knew the history,” Norbert said. “So did a lot of other people, but they weren’t interested, so we bought at a good price and parceled some of the land to rent.”

Eileen looked pensively out the window at the expanse of flat land. “Every morning when I get up I say a little prayer to their memory.” She turned back to Kate. “We can show you Tara’s room, if you like?”

Kate gripped the banister and the stairs creaked as she climbed them behind Eileen, with Sheri and Norbert behind them. A double bed and mirrored dresser took up most of the room, which smelled of pine and moth balls. White-on-white-striped paper covered the walls.