Picture Perfect 106
Dan found himself dozing off as Peter pulled the car into the garage.
“Traffic was a bitch tonight, sir.”
“I’d forgotten what real traffic was like while I was on the east coast. This is one thing about Toronto life I don’t miss.” Dan said pushing himself up & out once he had opened the car door. “But feels good to be home. What’s that song about the smell of home?”
Dan went through the kitchen & dropped his shoulder bag on the couch. Peter followed & put Dan’s carry on beside it.
Dan gabbed him. “There is one thing I do miss about Toronto life.”
As they kissed they fell awkwardly on the couch pushing Dan’s baggage on to the floor.
“Sir!” Peter said as he tugged his jeans down. “Yes, sir.”
Dan yanked his own shirt off as Peter did the same.
“Oh fuck yeah.” They both said at the same time as flesh met flesh.
“This is the smell of home.” Dan growled as he rubbed his unshaved chin down Peter’s chest, stomach & to his cock & balls.
Peter moaned as Dan pushed his legs higher into the air to quickly tongue his hole.
“Don’t stop Sir.”
Dan adjusted the position of Peter’s ass before thrusting deep into him. As he pounded into Peter’s ass they kissed. Dan pulled out to shoot his load over Peter’s stomach. He slumped back on the couch.
“I need that more than I realized.”
“So did I, sir. So did I.”
“Shower time. You first while I unpack this stuff.”
“Okay. You sure you don’t want to join me?”
“Not this time. I have things to do. Busy day tomorrow & back to the studio on Monday.”
“Right I forgot you are big star now.” Peter laughed. ‘Back to you, John.’ There’s food in the fridge for you to reheat if you are hungry.”
As he was washing the dishes he got a call from Sandy at the Depot.
“Good evening bossman.” she said. “Calling to confirm that you would be here tomorrow.”
“Yes. No ‘he’s back’ sale?”
“No nothing like that. I also wanted to check about that package you sent from Sydney.”
“Oh right. I picked up a jumble of photos & photos albums. Vintage stuff. You can sort them for me.”
“Chronological?”
“Yes that’ll do. As best as you can figure. If any strike you, scan them. No rush mind you.”
“No rush, darn, I was looking forward to overtime.”
“See you in the morning.”
He went into his study to go over the notes and transcripts of the interviews they had done for Cold Canada. This was his first real opportunity to get a sense of the time line, locations and possible connections without having a camera over this shoulder.
He had made a calendar grid based on his father’s travel journals. As well as one of events that happened around the province at the same time. Fairs, concerts, the Happy Hippo stops. There had even been a hypnotist using movie theatres and small town school gym to put on his show.
No pattern had emerged other than the obvious one of them all being children. There was no link between the families. Different religions, different financial status. They didn’t see the same doctors, travelling nurses, play the same sports. There were no real common factors. There was actually no evidence to suggest that the disappearances were even related expect by coincidence.
Now if they were all done by the same person what might that person be like. He hadn’t profiled a criminal for some time so this would be the right time to resurrect those skills.
He paced his office as he went over the personality variables to see which ones would fit this case. He tried to put the people he suspected out of his mind. It was too easy to create a profile to to fit a specific person. He didn’t want to be narrow focused.
It would be someone mobile enough to transport the children. Someone the children didn’t consider a threat or who offer them something. Possibly someone the children had met before or whom they had seen in the company of their parents or other adults. That trust was something the abductor knew how to manipulate.
School teacher. Female? Statics were against that. Someone who knew how not to lave a trail. Or knew how to cover a trail if one was left. In every case there had be a delay in either reporting or starting a search. Where children considered so disposable that delay was standard.
Who would children easily trust? Ice cream man. minister, nuns. someone with a pet – a dog or cat perhaps – that would attract the child.
Motivation. Children would be easier to abduct than adults. They need to be taught a lesson, needed to be protected, needed to be saved … from what? The parents for the most part had been average. There had been no reports of family abuse or even of being overly protective.
There were casual overlaps – school photos by his Dad, mentions of Happy Hippo but nothing he would consider conclusive. The snake man? There was that picture of Paula and Winston Chamberlain.
Someone who had a way of hiding the bodies of these children. No trace of them had been found. Had the bodies been buried at sea, in the ground, burned and scattered? The more he looked the more questions presented themselves. Answering any one of them would start to unravel them all.
He read over what he had input as he thought though the materials they had gathered. One thing he was sure of was that they were connected and that the children were all dead. None of these were runaways. One person was responsible for what had happened to them. Was this person still alive? Were they also abductor of Paula Morrison.
A rattle outside his study door disturbed his thinking. He reached over & let the door swing open.
“A gift for for me?” Peter shook the cookie tin Dan had found stashed in his boyhood room.
“Haven’t I given you enough?” Dan laughed as he stood to stretch.
They went into the living room to look at the other boxes he had found. He quickly told Peter how he found them as they went though the contents.
“You know I’m not even sure I didn’t leave them there. There’s enough of my youth in the company archives at the Depot.”
He stared at the hockey cards & realized his family had made a practice of hiding things from one another. Like, why his Dad had moved them so suddenly to Toronto, his Dad’s secret business, his sister holding on to the house. What would he find out next? That he was adopted. No he looked too much his Dad for that fantasy to be real.
“Earth to Dan! Earth to Dan.”
“Sorry Peter. I’m tired from the flight, I guess. Takes longer to get from the airport than the flight actually takes.”
“So were you serious about me moving in?”
“Yes but …”
“But what?”
“Separate rooms. So we both can get some sleep.”
Dan ran up the stairs with Peter right behind him trying to pull his sweat pants down.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
TOpoet 