Picture Perfect 62
In his room Dan scanned the photo he thought might be Winston Chamberlain and ran the face through his Ager program and compared the result with one of the ones he had taken at the Museum. They were almost identical. What did that mean? Besides another visit to the Museum. He’d have to ask Linda about the two Kevins. Or was his memory starting to play tricks on him.
He went to his cloud storage where he had uploaded as many of the family photos he had time to before coming to the east coast. He then had Face Recog match these new face pics to all the ones in that file. No direct matches for this Kevin but a couple of near matches. Both were random people in the back ground of the beach pictures.
He knew from his years on the force that no coincidence was to be overlooked so he flagged those pictures. He did the same for the pictures of Winston Chamberlain.
The VidCon buzzer went off on the computer. He answered it and Sandy Reynolds appeared on his screen.
“Got caught in the rain, eh, boss?” She said.
“Word gets around.”
“More like lack of word gets around. We were expecting your call the last two nights and nothing. Good thing Peter kept us informed.”
“Shows how much I trust you guys. I can check up on you on line anyway.”
“I suppose.”
“This man from Lifend,” A photograph of a nondescript man appeared on a corner of the screen. “was by the Depot today looking for you.”
Dan enlarged the picture then minimized it.
“Not familiar to me.”
“He did give me his card.”
The card appeared on the screen. ‘Jakob Marhene – Products Development’ printed in the middle of it.
“Unless they’ve changed their design, that isn’t a Lifend card.”
“I didn’t say anything. Told him you weren’t available. You made it clear that anyone who needed to know where you’re already knew.”
“Right.”
“You did tell Lifend you’d be out of town?”
“They contacted me before I left to wish me well and to be sure to use their products as much as possible. The travel mug comes in handy. I’ve made sure the mug is in every shot I’m in. Of course the viewers will not know that unless Lifend buys advertising time to show them off. The hidden camera doesn’t call attention to itself.”
“What’s the picture quality like on the mug’s camera?”
He quickly told her about his Moose Trail adventure.
“The mug survived that easily. The pictures were random snaps with no one at the controls. It tumbled around taking pictures and even video footage. It’s on their website now. I don’t think the show’s target audience can afford two thousand dollar travel mugs.”
“Don’t put that mug in the dishwasher by mistake.”
“No fear. I’ll double check with Lifend about this Jakob Marhene.” With a couple of clicks he forwarded the picture & business card to Lifend. “There.”
“I’m worried about Linda. We haven’t heard anything from her since you left.”
“That’s good news. Hows Cuppa’s doing on their corner.”
“Funny you should ask. They’ve been delivering complementary coffee and muffins here twice a day since you left. Even to the Classic.”
“What!”
“They clearly did no market research.” Sandy laughed.
“I can’t wait to talk too Jill about this. I’ll be back to Toronto on the weekend. I should be arriving Friday night. I’ll be at the store Saturday.”
“See you then boss.”
He checked his flight reservations before his video chat with Peter to confirm that he’d pick him up at the airport.
In the morning Dan was finishing the b part of the Arms b’n’b when he got a text from Baxter: “War rm 10 am.”
Two days into the Stellerton stay and they had made up for most of the time lost to the storm. Stephanie had new leads for them to follow up on. Dan had interviewed Joe Murphy a cousin of David McPherson, one of the missing children. His recollections were not that that different from what he had heard from the others.
The shock of the loss, anger at investigators being more convinced the parents were culprits. He didn’t tell them that in all cases the closest relatives were always prime suspects. That was also standard so as not to alert the families of other victims to avoid influencing their initial statements.
Dan was as puzzled as Joe as to why the investigations were never linked until the Quintex researchers had made those connections.
Shortly after Dan arrived at the war room Warszawa arrived, then Stephanie, a couple of the camera crew and a woman he had never seen before.
“Before we get going I want to introduce you to our new sensitive. Jennifer Devereaux.”
“Pleased to meet you all. I am eager to help as much as possible. I’ve assisted in police cases across Canada for the several years. Glaucia Vidro was a good friend to me and had mentored me at one time.
“Unlike her I am … more sensitive to current events. She was more attuned to what had happened in the past. I do have some sensitivity to the energy of previous events but I’ve found that unless the objects have been protected in one way or the other, there isn’t enough energy for me to sense. Unlike Mr. James who can read things in a photograph from any point time. I would only see an old photograph.
“I should add that I am not a mentalist so don’t ask me to read your minds; nor am I the sort of clairvoyant who can tell you who you’ll marry. I can tell you if are going to get married though. But not how long it’ll last.”
“Any questions for Jennifer?”
“Will we catch the abductor?” Stephanie asked.
Jennifer closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes! Oh, even I wasn’t expecting that to come through so fast. That means you are closer to a solution than you think. But it isn’t going to be a … tidy ending.”
“Excellent Jen. You and Dan will be interviewing David McPherson’s Aunt. His parent are both deceased so she & the cousin are the best we can do.”
Baxter went to the families’ section of the suspects’ boards in the war room. “Mrs. O’Connor in Moncton is in shape to be seen as well, so Dan will be backtracking to talk with her on Saturday.”
“Dan will be talking to his staff in Toronto on Saturday.” Dan said.
“Oh, no! Didn’t you get the memo.” Baxter laughed. “All weekend passes have been cancelled to make up for time lost thanks to the storm.” Baxter shrugged.
“Not mine.” Dan said. “There was nothing in the contract about forced overtime.”
“Dan I thought you were a team player.”
“Think again. It is a part of our contract that I return to Toronto to attend to my business there. It was you who insisted we specify exact dates for that, so you could keep the production schedule on track.”
“We didn’t anticipate this set of circumstances.” Baxter said, motioning toward his broken arm. “You know how limited our time is for this. I don’t want to add any days after the proposed end time.”
“Not my problem.” Dan said looking up from his cell. “I’ve confirmed my flight. Out of Halifax tomorrow. I’ll be returning here for Tuesday.” He sent Stephanie & Baxter copies of the confirmation.
“Tuesday! If we’re going by that contact you forced on me, you’ll be back here Monday.”
“Monday I’ll be interviewing Mrs. O’Connor in Moncton.”
“Let me check with her.” Stephanie tapped into her cell.
“That’ll work. Monday is actually better for Mrs. O’Connor. She’s thankful for the slight delay.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
TOpoet 