Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

A curtained window opened to the eternal sky.

Kate traced her fingers along the frame envisioning Tara Dawn- or Vanessa -standing in this very spot searching the horizon.

So alone.

“We use it as a guest room when our son and his kids come to visit,” Eileen said. “I redid the walls, and the furniture is ours. I’m sorry, there’s nothing here from the Maes. It all got auctioned.”

As Kate’s eyes swept the room, Norbert, who was leaning against the doorway, stood as if a memory had prodded him to attention.

“Wait, we still got those trunks from Doug Clovis’s son.”

“What trunks?”

“Last year, Eileen. You were in Calgary that day.” Norbert turned to Kate. “Doug Clovis sold his auction business and his son found two trunks in their warehouse left over from the Mae auction. They were supposed to go to charity but they dropped them here. I said, might as well leave them here. Our son could go through them first.” Norbert pointed somewhere with his pipe. “They’re in the barn if you want to look.”

The barn was a rusting metal Quonset hut some distance behind the house. The old building had been subdivided into pens and stalls that had once been used for livestock.

“We don’t keep any animals. We use it for storage,” Norbert said.

The air was still strong, stale and musty. Dust swirled in the light, shooting through the line of ceiling vents. They went to an area holding a small tractor, wheelbarrows and other equipment. Norbert pulled back a heavy canvas tarp, sending dust mites spinning as he revealed two time-worn, flat-top steamer trunks. They were dark green with leather handles and hinges that creaked as he opened them.

Each trunk was jammed with clothes, cardboard boxes and various items. Kate, Eileen and Sheri sifted through plaid work shirts, jeans, socks, women’s clothes, underwear, coats, boots, shoes, hats, scarves, gloves and mittens.

Eileen covered her mouth with her hand when she found baby items, bibs, shoes, little jumpers.

They came across plates wrapped in newspapers, a tea set, a lamp, candleholders and a clock.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Sheri held up a framed picture of a tropical sunset.

“I don’t know.” Kate set aside a shoe box of papers, mostly invoices. “Adoption records, any evidence that might connect Tara to my sister.”

“Look.” Eileen held up a photo album, opened it and pointed to a color photo of a woman with a baby. “Me and Charlotte” was written under it.

“That’s Fiona with her baby daughter,” Sheri said.

The album pages crackled as Eileen turned to more photos: Barton next to his tractor, Barton fixing a truck, Barton laughing with Charlotte on his knee.

Those pictures were followed by album pages of nothing. Eileen kept flipping the crackling pages until new photos appeared. “Our Miracle, Tara Dawn” was written under the first picture.

Kate felt the air rush from her gut.

She spasmed as a cadenza of sound shrieked through her mind, burning across years of loss, years of guilt, years of senseless hopes and prayers. Years of never believing, yet refusing to not believe; years of battling every reason to abandon the irrational, unable to let go.

“Are you all right, Kate?” Eileen touched her shoulder.

“That’s my sister, Vanessa!”

“You’re sure?” Eileen passed the album to her so she could take a closer look.

“Yes!” Kate flipped pages, her voice breaking. “I don’t understand how she could’ve got here.” Kate came to a shot of girl showing a timid smile. She was wearing a necklace.

Tenderly Kate ran her fingertips over the picture.

I found you! I found you!

Fighting her tears, her hand shaking, Kate reached for her phone and quickly cued up a photograph of her necklace, the matching one she’d shared with Detective Brennan in Rampart.

“See, it has the same guardian angel charm, see? It’s the necklace our mother gave to each of us!”

“Oh, my God, it is!” Sheri said.

“This is a helluva thing!” Norbert was shaking his head. “Just a helluva thing!”

At that moment the light on Kate’s phone flashed and it rang.

“Kate Page.”

“Hi, Kate, this is Carmen Pearson in Calgary. I’m a private investigator. I do volunteer work for the Children’s Searchlight Network. They gave me your number.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Fred Byfield said I should call you directly if I came across anything that might help you in Alberta.”

“Yes, okay.”

“I’ve located Elliott Searle and he’s agreed to talk to you about Tara Dawn Mae’s case.”

“Elliott Searle? Who’s he?”

Sheri’s eyes widened with recognition as Carmen answered, “He’s a retired RCMP inspector. Kate, he’s the Mountie who headed the investigation into Tara Dawn’s disappearance.”

Bragg Creek, Alberta

Is Vanessa alive?

It was one of a million questions Kate agonized over while driving to meet the retired officer who’d run the investigation into Tara Dawn’s disappearance.

Maybe I’m wrong?

Maybe I’m giving too much credence to coincidences and resemblances? Maybe I’ve become blind to reason over the years?

Kate found the Sweet Pines Café, a small log building in Bragg Creek, a postcard-perfect community at Calgary’s southwestern edge, tucked in the thick forests in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Retired inspector Elliott Searle was right where he said he’d be: in a corner booth reading a newspaper.

“Inspector Searle?”

“Yes.” He stood.

“Kate Page. Thanks for meeting me, sir.”

“Call me Elliott. It’s no problem.” He shook her hand. “Have a seat.”

He was an imposing figure in faded jeans and a navy shirt that accentuated his short, silver-white hair and piercing eyes. He had a gravelly voice befitting a capable man accustomed to being in charge.

“I work with missing persons groups,” Elliott said. “They told me about your case. I’m aware of the current activity and your involvement. Police circles are tight, Kate, and no cop would do anything to damage a case. I’m sure you already know that.”

“I’m well aware.”

They both ordered coffee. Before it came, Kate got to the point.

“I think Tara Dawn Mae is my sister.”

The old Mountie’s poker face betrayed nothing as Kate related the whole story. She reached into her bag and pulled out the Mae family albums, which the Ingrams insisted she have. She flipped through the photographs, then showed Elliott pictures of the necklace as she raised question after question about her crash in BC, Tara Dawn and the case in Upstate New York.

“The adoption records were incomplete,” Elliott said.

“Incomplete? I don’t understand.”

“Before our meeting I reviewed my personal notes to refresh my memory. When Tara Dawn vanished, part of our investigation was to examine the family history, their background. That’s when we found that the adoption records were incomplete. The Maes had said a distant relative, a cousin, who was a heroin addict and had been charged in a robbery and was jailed in South Dakota, was Tara Dawn’s mother. She lost custody of the girl and begged social services to give her to a family member.

“We pursued that account and found that a relative of Barton’s had in fact committed suicide in a South Dakota jail. But if there was any sort of adoption, there was no record of it. A courthouse fire had destroyed a lot of state court records, so anything pertaining to any adoption would’ve been lost. The family court in Alberta acknowledged the fire and that records were incomplete but still allowed the adoption.”