Case 0001

Case Number: 0001
Type: Missing Persons
Clients: The Honourable & Mrs. Peterson
Case Status: Unsolved

They came to me late one summer afternoon. It was a Friday, around the time that the cafe districts were opening for the early diners out for a night of red wine and cinema. The heat was stifling and I would have killed to get out of the office and get a drink, but my options were limited; I needed the money.

It had been a couple of months since I’d opened my doors to the public, but no-one had come through. Now sitting before me was my first wind-fall, and they’re oozing the right sort of stuff… he’s a judge and she’s the trophy wife. Get this right and I’ll be set for life. Repeat business, flow on from their friends, rubbing shoulders with the rich and elite at the Christmas parties of thankful clients.

Why have they come to me? They could afford any firm that they want, one with real contacts, one that could afford morals. So why me? Sometimes the wealthy need a little discretion and discretion is my middle name. Well that and if I decide that I need to go public with their little “problem” they can always discredit a small-timer with no reputation, it’s a little harder to do when you hire a firm with a name and a reputation.

They told me that they’d come to me on a matter of up-most importance that also required the up-most discretion. I jokingly tell them that that’s my middle name. We laugh. The conversation turns serious quickly. It’s clear that they don’t like being here; my office is in the more “affordable” part of town and they’re way out of their comfort zone. Sure they like to slum it like the rest of the upper-class, but this is the real deal. Back-door dealings, pimps and pushers operating from the offices next-door, this is real and they’re out of their zone. They’ll never find anywhere quite like this!

Their daughter has gone missing and they want me to find her. A teenage run-away they say. No clues, no warning signs, no notes. Watch her step into the box *Poof* she’s gone. But, in this trick, when the magician opens the box again there is no happy returns.

No milk cartons, no posters, no cops. They don’t want a scandal, they just want me to locate her and let them know where she is. That’s how this one has to go down, it’s stipulated in the contract that he’s drawn up. It’s airtight and I hate it, but I need the cash and he needs my under-belly status. If I break any of the stipulations I loose my fee… Something about the case bothers me, but I sign. I ask them to bring in any personal effects that might have a clue…

Week 1:
Preliminary enquiries yield no results… it looks like she’s just fallen off the planet. There’s no chance of a TV appeal, it’s in the contract.

Week 2:
This case is going no-where fast, I need to get a look at her personal effects, so I go up to their residence on the other side of town. My clapped out MG looks so out of place among the new and shiny Porsches and Ferraris. They want me out of there fast, so they push me through the door to her room.

The place is a mess, nothing unusual for a teenager. A photo of a smiling family, photogenic like all “perfect” families should be. I spy her laptop beside the photo and decide to misappropriate both in the interests of the investigation. I fire it up and have a quick look at the contents of the hard-drive, but nothing stands out. Sighing I sit down on her bed and fall back, spreading my arms out and just taking a moment to slow the think.

My hand slides under her pillow and finds her journal. I pick it up, notice it has a lock and so quickly slip it inside my overcoat for later investigation.

I leave… Mrs. Peterson seems happy to see the back of me so she can get back to her Margaritas, it’s 10:00am but who am I to judge? She doesn’t even question me over the lap-top.

I take the diary and lap-top to a café to have a brunch. Bruschetta with buffalo mozzarella and latte to chase. When I finish eating I pull out the diary and a paper clip and quickly pop the lock open. Papers fall out all over table; mostly teen angst poetry, but as I gradually shift through everything, trying to keep it in order to return it to the file, I find an 8*10 glossy of a smiling boy in graduation gowns.

I light up a cigarette, inhale deeply and let the stream out slowly as the waitress brings me a long-black. The cogs are ticking slowly, there’s no moment of enlightenment so I turn back to the poems.

If only you and I could be,
Together,
Happy family,
My pain would slowly slide away…
Slide away…
Slide away…

But dreams were never meant to be,
And mine is no exception to the rule,
I’m just a fool,
A fool who once thought something could be…
Just a fool…
Just a fool…

But maybe, somewhere, hope remains,
A way,
For us to be, you and me…
Together…
Together…

Teenage run away… I look through the diary.

It’s not like I’m too young to make my own decision. Mum and dad still treat me like a child; they forget that I’ve grown up while they’ve been off building their public image. I’d be going away to college in a year anyway…

I flip over to the back to take a look at the address list. The usual list of school friends and acquaintances, favourite take-outs numbers and travel agents, one number stands out of place. A little motel in a town a few km’s down the road.

I take a drive, and decide to check in, making sure I get a receipt so I can claim the cost back as a case expense. I get the key to a room a couple of doors down. All I can find on the TV are bad tellie-movies so I decide to give the lap-top a closer look.

Her email is full of correspondence to friends, not yielding much more than the local gossip. As I scroll through the list I find one, the subject line citing the name of the motel. It’s addressed to a boy. I decide to hit a local bar.

A few bar-flies sit on stools, but it’s a little early for the 5pm rush. She’s working behind the bar; the boy is strumming Bryan Adams songs on a guitar on a make-shift stage, he can’t stop looking at her. She looks just like she does in the photo with her family, photogenic and happy. But something is different… I just can’t pick what it is.

I order scotch from the girl and go and sit at an open table near the back of the bar just listening to him sing. To him, she’s the only one in the bar; and she’s oblivious to the leers and jeers of the bar-flies because she can only hear him.

I check out of the hotel and drive back to the office. As I drive down the high-way I realise what was different… she’s genuinely happy. Not the fake happy of a family photo, but genuine happiness, she's found her reason, her meaning, and who am I to judge? I know what I have to do…