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"Every night I used to do the same thing. I would make sure the lights were off, the curtains drawn, the house locked. And
I would check to make sure he was all right before I went to bed. Sometimes he would wake up and tell me not to worry. I didn't
want to worry I just...and then, he..."
She pulled a cotton handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her eyes for a moment before giving up and sobbing into it. Her
muffled wet sniffs and sobs filled the room, sobs like a small child and quite loud, reminding me of a baby squirrel calling
out into the early morning for its mother. I never liked the sound of baby squirrels.
"And then?" I patiently said when her sobs had quieted down. I picked up her teacup from the rim and handed it to her in the
hopes that she would pause to take a sip and calm down. Tea always seemed to have that effect for me: it cleared my mind.
She looked at me with large, wet, green eyes, but didn't take the cup.
"He was gone!"
It was a Saturday afternoon and after getting a phone call that a woman was at my office in utter hysterics hoping to speak
with me, I got into my car and drove over to the office to meet Charlotte Winston, an aspiring young actress who lived in
a small townhouse with her son, Richard. She was a delicate woman with large red lips and frizzy blond hair. Her body was
long and slender and moved gracefully, even as her shoulders bobbed up and down to her sobs.
"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?" I asked.
"If I knew do you think I would be coming to you?"
I took a deep breath and stood up to look out the window at the cars driving by. I took a sip of tea and waited for her to
continue. I'm not usually an impatient soul, but I was hoping not to get any work today and since I had come especially, I
wanted a little more cooperation. But she was the customer and I had to be patient.
"No, I don't know where he went," she sniffed. "I just went to his room to wake him up for school and he wasn't there."
"Are there any places he liked to visit?"
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"What does he look like?"
"He's tall, has brown hair and brown eyes, fifteen years old, fairly muscular, you know, a regular kid."
"May I have a recent picture of him?"
She fumbled with her purse and pulled out a glossy picture of a lanky youth posing next to a picnic table on a sunny day.
It was hard to tell his eye color, but his hair was much darker than his mother's. I thought it was interesting that he didn't
seem to have a speck of his mother's physical traits in him. I made a mental note of that in case it was important later.
"Is there anybody who would want to kidnap your son for any reason at all?" I had to ask.
She placed her head delicately on her hand and looked up at the ceiling. "No, I don't think so. My family...well if they even
recognize him as part of the family at all, they wouldn't dare take him from my home. Most of them don't even look at him.
No, there's no one who would dare do that."
"What about the father?"
"I don't know his father. I was too drunk to tell a bed from a chair."
She looked up at me, her lip pouted out and her eyes widened, as if expecting me to pass some sort of unwanted judgment. I
was in no state to bother with that.
"I'll see what I can do."
Which is what lead me on Sunday to the Winston house. It was wedged between two others in the middle of the city and almost
hidden by a line of cars. The white paint was peeling off the bricks and the windows were opaque with dirt. Christmas lights
were peeking out from under the gutter and a faded welcome mat sunk into the cement porch in front of the door. I walked up
to the door and knocked, but the woman who answered the door was not Charlotte.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
I flashed my identification. "I just want to check Richard's room."
"There's nothing to find," the woman said, but she moved out of the way for me to pass. I followed the contour of the hall
to a bright yellow "Do Not Enter" sign.
"In here," the woman said pointing to the door. "You're lucky; Charlotte didn't have the heart to move anything."
It was hard to tell whether or not there had been a struggle in the room. Clothes were all over the floor, bed covers draped
off the bed, and schoolbooks overflowed from the desk to the floor. But no furniture was overturned and the window wasn't
open.
I moved cautiously about the room. It looked like a typical teenager's abode. I looked through a few papers, but they were
all homework or notes home. There were a few unfinished letters to Feagle Publishing Company with stories and scripts, but
no other clue of his disappearance. I took one last look around the room for good measure before going back out to the hall.
"Is Ms. Charlotte Winston here?" I asked a little more formally than I had originally intended.
"She's in rehearsal," the woman said as she moved back down the hall. We reached the living room and the woman sat down in
the nearest chair before half-heartedly motioning for me to join her.
"Are you related to Ms. Winston?" I asked taking a seat on the couch across from her.
"Her sister," the woman said pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. She let out a puff of smoke. "I hope you don't mind
if I smoke."
"Um, no, I suppose not. What do you know about Richard's disappearance?"
"The kid was smart and an excellent liar. As to why he would disappear, your guess is as good as mine."
"How do you know he was an excellent liar?"
She let out a stream of smoke. "There was a time he snuck out of school and took the train downtown to see his father's grave
and when he got back to school he told them he was getting sick in the bathroom, when he blacked out and that's why he was
gone. So they sent him home and he spent the day watching TV and reading."
"How do you know this?"
She shrugged. "Someone had to pick him up."
At this point, I reassessed. Whatever story he gave to his disappearance was not necessarily reliable fact. The most obvious
reason for his disappearance would be to a publishing company, but I didn't know what Charlotte's attitude was towards this
endeavor. If she supported him, he wouldn't have run away. He might have gotten fed up with the dynamics between his aunt
and him mother, which was a clear possibility, and being a teenager, decided to run away. None of these reasons seemed like
very good ones, but I was working with a teenage kid, not a mastermind.
Besides there was the larger issue of the gaping hole facing me: why would Richard visit his father's grave if he didn't know
who his father was?
"I thought Charlotte didn't know who the father was."
"Is that what she told you?" Charlotte's sister laughed. "She seems to like that story. Unfortunately she told the kid his
father died in a car crash. That's why he's not allowed to drive."
"What's the truth?"
The woman shrugged. "You believe what you want to believe from what people tell you. The truth is irrelevant so long as the
facts you know points to an answer."
I seldom got frustrated. It was much harder to piece the facts together if your mind is automatically shutting out information.
But, especially in cases of missing persons, I've had much better cooperation with the people I interview. I think what was
really frustrating to me, though, was not that she wasn't giving me information, but that she was right in her assessment.
I decided to go on another path that I wasn't sure was fruitful. But I had to clear my head again. "What do you know about
Richard wanting to get published?"
"He's a good liar; he makes up good stories. He has a big ego sometimes and he's got a bit of an irrational streak. I suppose
he gets that from my sister."
"Do you know of any problems at school that might cause him to run away?"
"No, he seems pretty satisfied all things considered."
"Considering?"
"It's his first year of high school."
The door opened just then and Charlotte came into the room with a tote bag over her shoulder. She seemed tired and she was
obviously displeased after discovering cigarette smoke in the air.
"Oh," she exclaimed as she spotted me sitting on the couch. I didn't think she should have been that surprised. "Did you find
him?"
I shook my head. "I was just here to try and find more leads."
Her face clouded. "Oh."
She went into the kitchen and put down her bag with a thud on the table before joining her sister and myself in the living
room. Charlotte let out a short but loud cough before sitting down and clearing her throat. Her sister leaned over and put
her cigarette out in an ashtray on the table.
"Well what else do you need to know?" Charlotte asked.
"I was just wondering what you know about any problems he may be having at school. And I spotted some letters in his room
about getting some things of his published; what do you know of that?"
"He loves school and all of his teachers think he's a joy to have in class. As far as I know, he hasn't had any problems at
school with his friends; he seems to be adapting just fine. As for the publishing contract, well...I thought I made it quite
clear that I did not want him to worry about that while he had school work..." she stopped and clasped her hand to her mouth,
"you don't think I was too hard on him, do you? I didn't think he should have spent his time worrying about writing books
when he should have been doing his homework!"
"No, no, I don't think you were too hard on him," I said. "You had a right as his mother to say that. It wasn't over the top."
But this information did add to my theory of his rebelling to get published. It was improbable, I know, but I didn't want
to dismiss anything without a solid contradiction.
"For heavens sakes, Char! You told him that way before he ran away; you can't even pretend to link the two!" her sister said.
"What happened the night before he left?"
Charlotte glanced at her sister. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
Her sister rolled her eyes. "Oh no, sis! Nothing happened out of the ordinary."
"Mm-hm," I said. "What really happened?" I practically prayed someone would break down and share a little bit of the truth.
"He was going through the mail earlier that day and found a letter addressed to Charlotte," Catherine said before Charlotte
could stop her. Charlotte slapped her sister on her knee, but Catherine just continued. "When he gave her the mail, she whisked
it away to her room and he was curious. So he snuck in and read it. She found him and they started fighting, so he left that
night through the front door."
"He left through the front door?!" Charlotte screeched. "Why didn't you stop him?"
"He needed to let off a little steam; he'll come back."
"And has he? It's been at least three days and he hasn't come back!"
"Please," I said. "May I see that letter?" I guess you could say arguing when I was gathering information was a pet peeve
of mine.
Charlotte glared at her sister, who merely pulled out another cigarette and lit it before smirking back.
"He'll be back."
"May I see the letter?"
Charlotte got up from her chair and went down the hall. Catherine got up as well a little while after her sister, but walked
over to the dining room and opened a window. She stayed by the open window and blew the smoke outside.
"He'll come back," she said quietly, "because he hasn't really left."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked taking the opportunity that she might have some more information she was willing to tell
in spite of her sister, but Catherine didn't continue when Charlotte coming back in the room. She dropped a cream colored
envelope on the table in front of them. The green cursive writing on the envelope might have passed it off for being a wedding
invitation, except that the return label was for a company stationed in Quebec. I took out the letter and started to read:
Dear Ms. Charlotte Winston,
Thank you for your last letter in regards to Richard's achievements. I appreciate all the news you have been giving me and
I truly miss him, as you can understand. Both his father and I are extremely thankful for what you have done for the family,
but we won't be able to afford a payment this month. We hope you are getting enough money from your profession to get by.
We are more than willing to pay double next month. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience.
Now that the business is out of the way, how are you? I've been keeping up with the newspaper almost avidly and I make sure
to see you on the cast list. I wish I could have come down and seen you in Macbeth, but, well, work comes first. I hope you
understand and I'm sorry. I would have liked to see you again.
As to your previous question, the formality of the letter is necessary to the disguise of our correspondence. I hate using
this language as much as you and the company I work with does not like a thief taking the envelopes. If I'm fired, I will
still have to use these confounded envelopes! But I digress; I apologize for the inconvenience. But if it's any consolation,
you are such a wonderful actress.
Please send more of Richard's work. We love to know about him. We would ask for custody back, but the shock of knowing the
truth might be too much. I think it's better this way; please let me know if you feel otherwise.
Sincerely,
Margaret DuQuay
I wasn't sure what to do with this new information. It blew all of the other theories out of the water and surfaced new questions.
I looked up at Charlotte who took in a shaky breath; Catherine flicked her cigarette out the window and came back to join
us.
"Why were you sending letters to this Mrs. DuQuay about Richard?" I had a theory, but again, I wanted solid fact.
"I think you better start with Richard's father," Catherine said.
Charlotte sighed. "Margaret, Jack and I were friends in high school. Jacques, really, but everyone called him Jack. He and
Margaret would fight a lot, but there was that one Christmas when she and I were out and ran into him. And it started with
a fight, but I guess they realized they had a lot in common. I know Margaret had a lot of problems at home and it wasn't really
a surprise to me when she called me up that summer and told me she was pregnant. They love each other, they really, do, and
although they wanted the child, they couldn't keep him."
"So they gave you their child?"
"This was the summer after she graduated from high school. I was two years older than her, so I had already been off to school.
Margaret came one day in August after the baby was born and brought him over with the birth certificate, saying that he was
named Richard and gave me an address where I could write. So, I somewhat had custody."
"But you forget," Catherine chimed in, "Mom and Dad were furious about you ending up with a son. Especially since you refused
to come back home over breaks. And, oops, you end up pregnant without mother hearing about it? Believe me, you could have
bathed in the tension."
"I didn't want to take him! I just couldn't say no to her. Mar was almost a younger sister to me and she needed help. She
was just a child. So I finished school and then came back here to live with Ri-"
"And where's the part where the only call you got from Mom since was when Dad died. Isn't that why you came back? You're also
forgetting the five hour yelling match you had when Rich was seven. That's the first time he ran away. Forgive me for being
harsh, dear sister, but you tore this family apart with this drama. You were more interested in a sister who you weren't even
related to than one who started smoking because she lost her father and had no one to comfort her."
"I'm sorry to keep bringing up family issues," I said as my head started to throb, "but I need to know what happened if we're
going to find Richard. What happened after that? Do you know where Margaret is now?"
"Quebec," Charlotte said, "Jack went back to his home and he took Mar with him. She works for a perfume industry as a secretary.
Jack is part of the tourism industry and works as a French announcer for the changing of the guard."
"Rich'll come back," Catherine said standing up. "He didn't bring any money with him and it's a long walk to Quebec."
"Is that what you meant ‘that he hasn't really left.'"
Catherine let out a short laugh. "He used to come into the kitchen and steal some food before getting out again. I've seen
him running from the house once or twice, but he hasn't come back for at least twenty-four hours."
"Why don't you stop him?" Charlotte screamed.
"Because he needs to find a way home. He needs to find the truth, he needs to know his parents, he needs to start making decisions
on his own. He needs to get away from here. If I make him stay, he'll keep leaving. If you try and get the truth out of him,
he'll keep lying. Now that he knows what he does, he won't go back to being the innocent, gullible, little boy. And for god's
sake, he's fifteen!"
I cleared my throat and thankfully, it cut down the drama. "I believe whether or not you will let him see his parents is up
to you, after he is returned home. However, at fifteen, he is still a minor and leaving him out of the house is considered
neglect. For your sake, legally, I will pretend that you never saw him after he left and go on from there. Afterwards, you
have to escort him to Quebec if that is what you want. Now, Catherine, do you know any places where he might be?"
She sighed. "He heads off to the woods northeast from here, through the yards in a straight diagonal. If he turns off before
then, I don't know. But he really likes the woods. He left with his house key and a compass in his pocket. But that's it.
He ran into his room, slammed the door and once Char was in hers, he was out the front. The entire escape took, maybe, a minute."
"Well, thank you for your time."
I thought it best to take the path Richard had originally taken. I might have found a clue to his whereabouts anywhere along
the route. The forest was thick with brown and gray trees, the different shades of bark making stripes on the landscape. The
trees on the outside of the forest were still fairly leafy, as they got more sun, but the trees in the woods were just about
naked for winter. Very few people were walking along the path because the sky was gray and rumbling, but I had given myself
a few hours of research and knew I had to keep looking for Richard. The leaves crackled under my feet as I strayed on and
off the path searching for a bit off color among the trees. There was very little other noise. I peered into the ravines and
behind large trees, occasionally looking up into the bare branches, but the only bit of color I saw was a cardinal.
The sky gave one last rumble before a lightning crack signaled the large drops of rain. I opened the umbrella I was carrying
and trudged onward. With the rain, came the usual cold wind and you feel as if there is no way you can stay warm and dry.
I never really liked that feeling of a thunderstorm; it's too hopeless, especially for my current job. If the weather got
worse, I promised myself, I would go home. But if I could help it, I would search the forest until I was positive Richard
was not there.
I could see the leafy trees at the edge of the forest when a shape caught my eye. I almost passed it up for a rock, but it
was shivering and sobbing softly. I walked over to it and knelt down.
"What's wrong?"
The figure shot up like a rocket, brown eyes wide in surprise. Then the boy calmed down and swallowed hard before standing
up. I stood up as well. The boy was about a head taller than me and skinny as a rail. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans
and soaking wet from lying in the rain. His face and hair were dirty and his jeans had dirt on the knees and the bottom hem.
His sneakers were splattered with mud and the leather was scratched. He had a few bruises and blood was caked on his lower
lip, but there was no serious injury that I could tell.
"I got lost in the forest on my way home," he said.
"Would you like me to take you back?"
"Yes, please," the boy said, mustering a smile. "I'm Allen Williams, by the way."
"Sarah Smyth. Where do you live?"
"Oh, I just need to get out of the forest and then I'll be fine."
"All right."
I moved my umbrella so the boy could share it and started back towards the path. I didn't let my guard down, though. It was
strange for someone to by lying on the ground when it was pouring rain. Suddenly it hit me: Richard was a good liar. The rain
lessened until it was just a mist by the time we made our way to the well-worn snake of leaves and dirt.
"So, what were you doing in the forest?" I asked. I was hoping to catch him off guard.
"Oh... I was trying to find some leaves for a school project."
"But didn't you know it was going to rain?"
"I thought I could do it before it did. Apparently I was wrong." He smiled. "What were you doing there?"
"Just taking a stroll."
As we walked a short rhythmic jingle accompanied our steps. The boy put his hand in his jeans pocket and the sound stopped,
but he needn't have, I knew what it was right away. I glanced at the boy's pocket. It bulged quite a bit on the side I was
looking at and the wet jeans hugged a circular object. It rattled very quietly as the boy walked. He shoved his hand into
his other pocket to seem congruent, I suppose, but he had to stop just above where the object was.
We were almost at the edge of the forest and the line of blue sky was a single vertical stripe. My companion seemed a little
on edge, as if one spurt of energy and he could get free, but he would also give away his position.
"What's in your pocket?" I asked.
"Oh, just..." his hand felt around the curve while he searched for an answer. He was obviously extremely nervous and if I
hadn't nonchalantly stepped in front of him, he would have taken off like a rocket.
"May I see it?"
"Huh? Oh sure, I guess." He pulled out the bronze compass fit for a ship's captain. The letters-S, N, W, and E-were illuminated
in red and blue. The gold arrow pointed behind them to a number 20 between the S and W. The boy's hand shook.
"Heh, didn't know it was in there," he laughed nervously.
"Richard, you need to go home."
"What? How'd you know...No Way! I can't go back!"
"Your mother is worried sick about you and she hired me to find you. If I have to, I can use force, but I don't want to and
I'm not going to if you'll just go back home."
"She isn't my mother! She lied to me!"
"And you lied to me; I'm not getting upset."
"But..." he paused. "I've always thought of her as a mother and she's not. Why didn't she just...why didn't my real mom want..."
Richard dropped the compass and visually swallowed back tears. I wasn't sure what to do, but I didn't think trying to convince
him to come back would be such a good idea at the moment.
"Why would I want to go back to someone who doesn't even love me? Why didn't she just tell me herself? Too afraid how I would
react? Wouldn't it have been better if she had told me instead of waiting until I found out?" He left his train of thought
and turned to me. "You don't have a right to tell me what I should and should not do. You're not part of the police."
"And if I was?"
I let the question hang in the air. "If we get to town, I can use a pay phone and call the police to get you home."
"You wouldn't do that."
"I might. It's your choice."
Richard stared at me in thought for a moment before relaxing his grip. He walked quickly down the path but once he was at
the edge of the street, glanced at me, and started to run. There was nothing else to do, but to run after him.
Besides being a good liar, Richard was also a good runner and he was far ahead of me when I got to the street. It seemed like
Richard kept getting farther and farther away as we ran into town. If he hadn't tripped, I wouldn't have caught up with him.
I was lucky.
I realized then, when I had his arms pinned behind his back, my mistake. My car was in front of the house while I was here.
I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I did this, as I was sure he wouldn't come voluntarily, but that didn't change the
fact that it was there, and I was here.
"I'll give you one more chance to just come home," I said. I was bluffing, sure, but it was worth a shot.
He started to cry, but he was doing his best not to let me know. "Just tell me one thing, why would anyone think its better
to be left in ignorance?" I let go of one of his arms and he turned to face me.
"I can't say, for sure, but she might have just wanted you happy with a mother thinking she was your own than knowing you...well..."
"Weren't wanted." He sighed. "I don't know where to go; I don't know who to call mom or where to call home. I don't know what
to do."
"Come on," I said. "Let's get you to your house and your room and you can talk it over with your mother. You need to think
and be rational about what you're going to do next. Maybe you have to just let it sit until you're out of high school before
looking for your mother. What if you wrote her a letter? These are just suggestions, but running away didn't seem to solve
anything. You have to find it inside yourself."
"Yeah. Well, thanks."
"Don't mention it."
I took him the rest of the way home; Charlotte seemed ecstatic that he was back. Richard smiled half-heartedly and went inside
while she ran down the steps to pay and thank me. I told her it wasn't a problem before walking back to my car. I don't know
why, but I glanced out the window of my car to the house as I put the key in the ignition and saw Richard waving to me from
his bedroom window. He didn't wear a big smile, but it was still there. I suppose he thought it was a necessary gesture because
he continued waving as I drove off down the street and out of sight.
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