Chapter 3

Now I had the fake tip-off, I had to appear to have done enough investigating to provoke it. I visited the school that both Ray and Sheila had attended, and was allowed to browse through their yearbooks. I jotted down the names of their peers and tried to track them down. Only a few still lived in Harford, and they had nothing useful to tell me.

I tracked down the company that had employed Sheila at the time of her disappearance. Luckily it was still in business.

“Can I help you?” asked the receptionist.

She looked in her early twenties. She wouldn’t have known Sheila.

“Ten years ago Sheila McKenzie, who was an employee here, disappeared in mysterious circumstances,” I said. “I’m hoping to find someone who might have known her.”

“I’ll ask Mrs Wilberforce. She’s the Personnel Manager. She’s been here like forever.”

Mrs Wilberforce agreed to see me and I was shown to her office. We shook hands and I entered her mind. I quickly found the information I was looking for.

“Rebecca said you were asking about Sheila McKenzie,” said Mrs Wilberforce.

“Yes. I’m a Private Investigator, working for her brother ray. It’s been ten years since she disappeared and he was hoping that I might be able to rustle up some leads where others have failed. What sort of girl was she?”

“Smart as a whip. She was wasted on the production line. She should have gone to college but her parents didn’t believe in that sort of thing for girls. If she’d stayed, I reckon she’d have ended up in management eventually.”

“Who was her supervisor?”

Mrs Wilberforce’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking?”

“I have information that she was in a relationship with her supervisor and the two planned to get married.”

And not only had the McKenzies refused to meet their potential son-in-law, but Mr McKenzie hadn’t even bothered to remember his name.

“Don’t you go chasing after that poor boy. He had enough problems with the police harassing him all the time.”

And, something I had plucked from Mrs Wilberforce’s mind, Laurence Daniels had filed the ‘missing person’ report. It certainly wasn’t the McKenzies, and Ray was away at college at the time. Although I had already picked the name out of Mrs Wilberforce’s mind, it was important for me to construct a plausible chain of enquiry.

“Mrs Wilberforce, the supervisor had a cast-iron alibi for the time of the disappearance. I believe Chief Schlutansky railroaded him out of town to suggest he was responsible for Sheila’s disappearance, rather than running a proper investigation.”

Mrs Wilberforce’s demeanour softened. “Laurence Daniels, that was his name. He was a good man.”

“Did he leave a forwarding address? I think he has strong grounds to sue the police.”

“Sorry, no. He just upped and left. And his next of kin, his mother, died a couple of years ago.”

“Thank you, I’ll try to trace him but the trail may be cold after all this time.”

I shook hands again with Mrs Wilberforce and returned to my motel room. Before I unlocked the door, I took the fake anonymous tip-off and slid it underneath. I was hoping it would pick up trace evidence to corroborate my claim that it had been slipped under my door at night. Then I sealed it into a transparent plastic wallet.

The next morning, I rang Ray and told him there had been developments. I made arrangements to drive home and see him that afternoon to provide an update.

Ray opened the door. “Come in,” he said. “You said on the phone you’d found something.”

Ray led me into the lounge, where Jocelyn was already seated. She smiled, which I hoped was a good sign.

“Red wine?” he asked, remembering my bar order.

“No, I’ve just driven straight here. I’d rather have a coffee, if that’s alright.”

Jocelyn got up and went into the kitchen. I made a querying gesture towards her retreating figure.

“I think she’s forgiven me,” said Ray. “Now what have you found?”

“Let’s wait until Jocelyn gets back. Might as well tell the story once.”

We sat there in uncomfortable silence until Jocelyn returned with a round of coffees.

“I asked around, and what I found out wasn’t encouraging,” I said. “Your sister was in a relationship with her supervisor when she went missing.”

“I think she would have told me about that,” said Ray, unconvinced.

“Laurence Daniels is black,” I continued. “He wanted to marry your sister. The Police Chief running the investigation into your sister’s disappearance tried to make it look as though Laurence was responsible, even though he had a cast-iron alibi. He effectively railroaded the man out of town.”

“That would explain why my parents accused my sister of running away to become a whore,” said Ray. “In their eyes, a white girl in a relationship with a black man was automatically a whore.”