8: Records Of Things Past

Original circa 1994-5 version. Scroll down for the 2007 rewrite.

RECORDS OF THINGS PAST

"GRANT, DEBBIE. GRANT, Edward. Grant, Shelley. Grantner, Philip. Whoever he is, he's not listed."

Damien set down the phone book, and dropped his head upon the kitchen counter, frustrated. He and his uncle had looked through every Cheboygan and Straits Area phone book they could find, dating back as far as the mid-Eighties; even Harvey and Ez had helped, searching the phone books for Emmet, Presque Isle, and Charlevoix Counties, with no luck. Derrick Grant was an unlisted number. Damien sighed and brushed the book off the counter, and it fell to the floor with a plop. Father Damien automatically bent over and picked it up, setting it back in place. Harvey and Ez, meanwhile, sat on chairs at the side of the room, bobbing their feet and squirming uncomfortably. Phone books littered the floor around them.

Father Damien turned to them. "All right, you two can go now," he said.

The kids, relieved that at least their job was done, jumped down and bolted out the kitchen doors as fast as they could, disappearing in an instant.

"I actually had to bribe them with the promise of cookies." Father Damien shook his head, smiled, and turned back to his nephew, his smile fading quickly away as soon as he saw the serious look on his nephew's face.

"Why wouldn't he have a listed number?" Damien demanded, flinging up his hands with a snort. "Is he not from around here? Or does he not have a phone? Like the Amish maybe? Or is he hiding something?"

"Don't get all worked up, Damien. Maybe he's from downstate."

"Like where? We checked all the local phone books!"

"No, further downstate. Like Grayling or Traverse City. Maybe even Kalamazoo! An unlisted number doesn't prove anything. You should know that."

Damien was quiet for a few moments, tapping the counter with his fingers. Then he got up abruptly and headed for the living room. "It may not," he agreed, an idea striking him, "but a birth certificate does."

"Now, wait a minute!" Father Damien exclaimed, standing also and following him through the house and laundry room and to the front door. He took his nephew's arm as if to stop him. "Don't tell me you're going to do a full check on this guy!"

"That I am," Damien siad, for some reason glancing around for his coat before realizing it was summer and eighty degrees out, then turning back to the door. He opened it and Father Damien caught it as it started to swing back, following him out onto the porch. The singer glanced back over his shoulder. "You coming?"

"I suppose I really have no choice!"

"I suppose not. Well, then, get your stuff together and let's go."

* * * * *

They went to the hospital first and, not quite knowing what else to do, asked to look through the birth listings. The supervisor there was suspicious at first, but Father Damien's presence must have allayed that, for after some haggling he led them to the records room. For several hours the three of them pored over the files, searching for anybody named Grant. They found several, but none of the names matched, and the few whose names began with D were born either too early or too late.

"He's about my age," Damien told the supervisor. "Brown hair, blue eyes. Probably born around October or November," he added, on a whim.

"I'm sorry, but we've looked through every single file. There's simply no one in here who fits that description," the supervisor answered, sounding exasperated.

Damien turned to look at his uncle, and sighed, flustered. "All right then, if that's all you've got." As if he expected the grand tour.

"I'm afraid it is," the supervisor replied, looking eager to get them out.

"All right," Damien said again, "thanks for the help." He didn't mean it though, and Father Damien shot an apologetic glance at the supervisor as they turned away to leave. The supervisor, left to his own wiles, sniffed irritatedly and went back to work straightening out the files.

"It's like he doesn't even exist!" Damien said, once he and his uncle were back in the Lamborghini and pulling out into Main Street, away from the hospital. "No phone number, no birth certificate! Just what the heck's going on here, anyway? What normal person doesn't have birth records?"

"Maybe it's a pseudonym," Father Damien suggested lamely.

"Yeah, but then that just compounds the mystery, doesn't it? I mean, why would any honest, decent person give you a false name? It just doesn't make sense." He sighed and thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, then fell silent. They drove on for a short time before Damien put on the right turning signal. Father Damien started as he pulled in at the state police station.

"Now what are you doing?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Seeing if he has a record," Damien replied. The idea had just struck him, and its source he hadn't liked very much. Nevertheless, it was better than nothing. He got out, slamming the door and disappearing inside the building. Father Damien groaned and followed.

Inside the station it was small and cramped, and the air conditioning must have been off or else broken, as it was stiflingly hot. Though Damien could hear other people in the back rooms and upstairs, there was only one person in sight, an officer at the front desk who looked up and snarled at him as he entered.

"Shut that door!" he snapped.

Damien simply screwed up his face and chattered soundlessly in a mock impersonation of the officer, and let it swing closed. A moment later Father Damien entered and closed it behind him. He looked around him; he'd never been in a police station before. Damien started moving around the room, picking up things, looking them over, and putting them back down.

"Cut that out," the officer said. "We just had this place dusted."

"For fingerprints, I suppose? How lovely," Damien murmured, picking up a glass paperweight with the elk-and-moose state seal inside. He hefted it.

The officer fairly bristled. "Cut that out!" he barked.

Father Damien watched the whole act proceed. He couldn't understand why Damien was being so cocky. Am I missing something here?

Damien just turned and grinned at the cop. "And how's your day been, Jonesy?" he asked in a sweet voice.

"Don't call me that," the officer growled, very nearly baring his teeth. "It's a hundred degrees out, the air conditioning's broken, and I haven't the patience to deal with the likes of you."

"I assume you two know each other," Father Damien finally said, puzzled by this exchange.

"Oh, of course," Damien replied, smiling graciously. "Me and Jonesy go way back. Ain't that right, Jonesy?"

The policeman snorted. "Your English leaves much to be desired, Damien. And it's Jones."

"Yeah, whatever." Damien reached up for a penholder atop a file cabinet. He was rewarded with a slap to the hand. He looked at Officer Jones with mock surprised innocence.

"I said cut it out," Jones hissed. "I really don't have the patience. Now tell me what the hell you're here for and git."

Damien paused just long enough to make the cop snarl. "We're checkin' up on somebody," he said. "Name's Grant--Derrick Grant? You ever hear of him?"

"Now why the hell should I know? There's probably a million Grants in Cheboygan!"

Damien smiled at the thought that Kat would be correcting Officer Jones's estimation of the number of people in Cheboygan, as she had his. He tipped his head forward. "But this is Derrick Grant. Think you could check that out for me, sweetie?"

"Don't call me sweetie!" Jones snarled, turning and tugging open a file drawer so violently that it nearly flew out of its slot. He ruffled furiously through the files, then rounded back on Damien. "No Derrick Grants! You satisfied?"

"Not yet. Are there any Grants?"

Officer Jones huffed but looked again anyway. After a brief pause he spoke up, slightly subdued. "Yeah. One. Amelia Grant."

Finally! "Mind letting us see that?"

Officer Jones pulled out a folder and handed it over, a storm-blue scowl in his eyes.

Damien opened the file and skimmed it briefly. After a moment or two a strange look came over his face.

"What's it say?" Father Damien asked; when Damien didn't reply, he looked at Officer Jones, who merely shrugged.

"How'd I know?" he muttered. "It's before my time."

"Way before," Damien murmured, still studying the file. They both looked at him. "This here's a missing person report. Amelia Grant, age twenty, disappeared 1967 on her way to the store. Never seen or heard from again. Alive, at least."

"Alive?" Father Damien echoed, uneasy. "What do you mean, alive?"

"Her body was found. Shot full of holes." Damien closed the file and handed it back to Officer Jones, seemingly half in a daze. The officer opened it again and Father Damien saw a picture of a young woman with wavy brown hair just past her shoulders. "Out in a field. Nobody ever caught the killer. Or killers, it'd seem, with all those gunshot wounds. They say it looks like she was trying to run away from something as most of the shots were to the back." He stared across the counter at nothing in particular, then turned to his uncle and spoke, dropping the bombshell. "Evidence says it looks like she'd just given birth not too long before."

Father Damien fell silent a moment. "When was her body found?"

"Two years after she disappeared. 1969." A small, almost imperceptible shudder passed through his body. "The same year I was born."

"Was any baby found?"

"No. That's what's most confusing. There was some kind of swaddling clothes or something found near her, but no baby. Just her. All shot up. And left there." He leaned on the countertop, stunned. Officer Jones didn't even yell at him to get off. "Do you know what this means, Uncle? It means she had a baby--let's assume it was Derrick--and was trying to run away with him. Away from somebody or something so terrible she didn't even take the time to recover from her labor. And whoever it was, or they were, they shot her before she could get away. And they took the baby." He looked his uncle in the eye. "Whoever it was, they wanted that baby. Which means they wanted Derrick." He closed his eyes and placed his head in his hands, rubbing his temples and frowning with thought. "But why?"

"I don't know," Officer Jones said musingly, not even quite sure what they were talking about, "but whoever they were, they were pretty high 'n' mighty to just leave the body there and not even pick it up. Almost like a calling card."

"Or a warning," Father Damien corrected him. Officer Jones looked at him, curious. "A warning for others not to make the same mistake she made. By running away."

"Almost as if she were trying to escape something big and powerful and deadly," Damien said.

Father Damien nodded. "Something, I'd say, rather like a cult."

**********

Rewritten 2007 version. Not proofed.

CHAPTER EIGHT
RECORDS OF THINGS PAST

"GRANT, DEBBIE. GRANT, Edward. Grant, Shelley. Grantner, Philip. Whoever he is, he's not listed."

Damien dropped the phone book on the counter with a loud thud, then dropped his head upon his arms, letting out a frustrated sigh. He was in Father Damien's kitchen, and the two of them--plus Harvey and Ez--had spent the better part of the morning poring over every phone book they could find, including many borrowed from a neighbor of Father Damien's ("She's a sweet old lady, but tends to collect the most useless things," the priest had confided, his voice sympathetic), dating back to the mid-Eighties. The name "Derrick Grant," as common as it seemed to be, was listed only a few times and when they called those Derrick Grants, they were made certain that they weren't the Derrick Grant that they sought. They'd searched the numbers for Cheboygan County, and Emmet, Presque Isle, and Charlevoix, without the faintest bit of luck. If Derrick Grant was in fact Derrick Grant's real name, then he had no listed phone number to speak of.

Damien and his uncle were seated at the island in the middle of the kitchen, books piled around them. Harvey and Ez were seated upon two childsize stools at the side of the room, bobbing their feet and biting their lips as they squirmed uncomfortably. Yet more books were lying piled on the floor around them. Father Damien shut the last phone book he had and cast them a look, saying wearily, "All right, you two can go now. Stay out of trouble."

The kids, relieved that at least their part of this odd but insufferably dull task was done, promptly hopped down from their stools and bolted out the kitchen doors, which slid shut with a bang behind them.

Father Damien rubbed an eye. "I actually had to bribe them with the promise of cookies," he said, "and they wouldn't even start looking until they'd each had a Popsicle." His mouth twitched in a smile which faded as soon as he looked up at his nephew, who so far hadn't lifted his head. Damien was staring at the counter, one arm stretched out and his fingers drumming. It sounded like a miniature horse galloping.

"Damien?" Father Damien asked.

"Why wouldn't he have a listed number?" Damien asked, as if thinking out loud. "Is he not from around here? Or does he not even have a phone? What--is he Amish or something? Some kind of weird Satanic sect of the Amish?"

"Don't get all worked up, Damien," Father Damien said, and Damien finally looked up at him. There was black smudged around the priest's eye where he'd accidentally rubbed off some of the ink on his fingers, making it look like someone had punched him, but Damien was too irritated to point this out. "Maybe he's just from downstate."

Damien snorted and shoved the nearest phone book off the counter, just to try to satisfy his annoyance. It didn't work. "Like where? We checked all that old lady's phone books!"

"No, from further downstate. Like Grayling or Traverse City. Maybe even Kalamazoo! An unlisted number doesn't mean anything, Damien. You should know that, you even have one of your own!" He picked up a glass of orange juice, caught sight of his reflection in the glass, and nearly dropped it. He prodded gently at his blackened eye. "Goodness! What happened to my face...?"

Damien continued tapping the counter with his fingers. He felt rather like tearing up pages of one of the phone books but felt that the nice old neighbor lady probably wouldn't appreciate that. As Father Damien pulled a small mirror out of the nearest drawer and frowned at himself he drummed his fingers faster and louder, until abruptly stopping and pushing himself up. "Maybe an unlisted number doesn't prove anything," he agreed, "but a birth certificate would."

Father Damien's head shot up, eyes going wide. He jumped from his stool and hastened after his nephew, who was headed for the den; he managed to get into the room before him, halting in his path, but it was more the look on his face that stopped Damien than anything else. There was now black smudged around both of his eyes and he looked like a raccoon, or like the Hamburglar if the Hamburglar had suddenly decided to go straight and devote his life to God. "Now, wait a minute!" he cried, spreading out his arms even though Damien was going nowhere. "Don't tell me you're going to do a full background check on this guy!"

"Of course I am," Damien said, then furrowed his brow. "I thought that's what we planned last night."

The color drained from Father Damien's face. "Yes, well--that wasn't quite what I meant! I meant legitimate venues! Or--" he waved off his nephew's odd look with a frustrated gesture "--whatever word I'm looking for! I didn't mean prying into information that's not ours to pry into!"

"How else are we supposed to find out anything? Listen, Uncle--" Damien cut himself off, then sighed and licked his thumb and scrubbed at Father Damien's eyes with it, jabbing him more than once. "Listen, Uncle," he repeated himself, "you said dig up info, and we've tried that your way. Now we try it my way. Births and deaths are public record, aren't they?"

Father Damien rubbed at his eyes with the back of his wrist now, wincing. "To find birth records we'll have to go to the county building," he said, "and I doubt they'll just hand it over! We have no right to poke into things like that. It's invading his privacy."

"Yeah, well, he invaded our privacy the moment he showed up and got himself involved in this." Damien crossed his arms. "You really don't have to come, Uncle," he said when Father Damien lowered his arm, his eyes red. "I can just go and do it on my own. For all anyone knows you have no idea what I'm up to."

Father Damien's eyes went round, then the color rose in his face and he started letting out a huffing sound. Damien had to fight not to smile at his reaction. "And if he finds out, and questions us about it, what am I to do--just stand there and lie like there's no tomorrow?" he managed to get out at last. "Hardly! You've already got me involved in this."

"So..." Damien lifted a shoulder. "Are you coming?"

His uncle snorted. "I really have no choice, now!" He turned and headed down the hallway. "But I'm hardly going anywhere looking like I'm ready to hold up a bank!"

"I'll just go warm up the car," Damien called out, still fighting the urge to smile as he headed for the way out. "I think it's safer outside right now anyway."

* * * * *

The county building was a sprawling building of light brown stone located on Main Street, not far from the main shopping center. Damien was already approaching the main entrance as Father Damien got out of his own car, and the priest had to jog to catch up as he pushed open the doors and started down the hall. They began walking past various rooms and other hallways.

"Well," Damien said, "I've never looked up birth records before so where is it that we start?"

"You seem to know this place already," Father Damien commented, noticing how his nephew hardly glanced at the rooms they passed, but Damien did look at him rather sharply after he said this and he shrugged. "I haven't been here before myself. I suppose we start reading these doors."

Damien halted as if this idea had only just occurred to him, and blushed a little. "Ah," he said, and rubbed his neck sheepishly. "I guess that's a good idea."

Once they'd started observing their surroundings--and had asked a woman carrying some manila folders down the hall--they located the right area, and spoke with the person overseeing the records department. They both received a curious look, but were led to the records room without argument, and there left to themselves after being pointed out to the appropriate area. Damien had expected to have to ruffle through folder after folder of papers but they were confronted with microfiche machines instead.

"Paper?" Father Damien asked after Damien had commented on this, and sat down at one of the machines, opening a box of microfiche. "Are you that behind the times?"

Damien snorted. "You're supposed to be the old-fashioned one! How do these work, anyway?" He sat down at a neighboring machine.

"Just turn it on and put a piece of this in there like that, and look at the screen. When you're done, take another sheet." Father Damien had his machine up and running in no time, and Damien at last saw what he'd expected to see, records typed on paper, only in negative. "He's about your age...so I guess we start in the Sixties. You do realize..." and he pulled out the piece of microfiche to replace it with another while Damien was still busy inserting his first piece "...that this will all prove fruitless if he wasn't born in Cheboygan County."

Damien made a face. "Don't remind me. I'm just playing a hunch. He seemed to know the area okay enough so we go the most obvious route, right? Jeez...finally." His machine lit up and he leaned forward to squint at the print. "I'm more used to black on white, thank you very much. Glad I'm not in charge of this stuff, it'd give me a migraine after a while." He pulled out the sheet and put in another one. "I think this would be easier if they were on paper..." He glanced at his uncle, saw that he was halfway through his own box, then rolled his eyes. "Then again, maybe not. At least if you were doing it."

"Just look for the date and name," Father Damien murmured, putting in another sheet, "and try talking less. One gets more things done that way."

Damien mocked him by mouthing these words in an annoying manner, but did as he was told. They sat in silence for a time, switching and browsing at sheet after sheet, and thus worked their way from 1960-1970 with no results. They then divided their work and Father Damien browsed through the Fifties while Damien took the Seventies; perhaps an hour later they pulled out their final sheets and looked at each other.

"Nothing," Damien said in a frustrated voice.

"This is the time I'd usually recommend digging deeper," Father Damien said with a sigh, "but I highly doubt that young man was in his forties, or is still a child!"

Damien pushed his box away as Father Damien started dispiritedly shuffling the sheets of microfiche and putting them back in their place. He rubbed his eyes. "So either he wasn't born in Cheboygan...or he has no birth records." He furrowed his brow. "What kind of person doesn't have birth records?"

"I don't care for that thought," Father Damien said without meeting his eyes, and picked up the boxes and put them back on their shelves, switching off his machine when he returned and gesturing at Damien to do the same. Damien gave him a questioning look which wasn't answered. "Perhaps we'd have more luck in Emmet County...? Not that I relish the thought of an hourlong drive..."

"I have a better idea," Damien said suddenly, standing up and flicking off his own machine. Father Damien was the one to give him a questioning look this time; Damien's face had lit up, but all that he did was wave a finger for his uncle to follow, and they left the room.

"Maybe it's not even his real name...?" the priest suggested as they walked back up the hall.

"Maybe," Damien said, "maybe not. But if it isn't, then that just compounds the mystery, doesn't it? A Scorpio necklace, that, maybe I could write off as coincidence. That and a fake name, I hardly think so. Being in this building gave me an idea."

"This building--?"

Damien gestured at the hallway around them. "The county jail," he said, and earned a perplexed look. "We've looked for phone numbers, and we've looked for birth records. There's one thing we haven't looked for. Police records."

Father Damien blinked, then his eyes went wide. "Police records--?" he blurted out, picking up his pace to match Damien's own.

"Think about it," Damien said as they neared the doors. "He's already proven to be shady. If he's with a cult, chances are he has a record."

Father Damien's face screwed up. "Not necessarily!" They went outside and crossed the parking lot. "And besides--wouldn't you want to browse the records here?"

"I don't know anybody here," Damien replied.

Another blink. "Where do you know someone...?"

"At the state police post...right over there." Damien pointed, and although it wasn't visible from their location, both of them knew that the small brick building sat not that far on the opposite side of the shopping complex, closer to the city limits. Father Damien stopped on the opposite side of Damien's car and faced him over the roof as Damien opened the door.

"The state police...?" He frowned. "But why would you want to head there? The county's probably got more records on this area, and we don't need to speak to somebody we know."

"I know," Damien replied, getting in and peering out the window at him, "but I'd like to pay this guy a visit. If I bother him long enough, chances are he'll find the info for us, and a lot faster, just to get us out of his hair." He gave a winning but not altogether trustworthy smile. "Coming?"

Father Damien sighed, shoulders sinking, but turned and trudged back to his own car.

The state police station, within walking distance, was a much less impressive building than the county one, but a row of shiny royal blue police cars with bright red cherries on top were parked to the side, lending it an air of authority. There seemed to be more cars than were necessary to accommodate everybody who could comfortably fit inside the building. They jogged up the steps, but Damien paused with his hand on the door and turned to his uncle, who had to keep from running into him.

"Now if he's on duty, this might come across kind of weird," Damien warned him. "Just go along with it...okay?"

This earned him another frown, but it was more puzzled than anything, and Father Damien nodded. Damien steeled himself, then opened the door and went inside.

Within was a small lobby with the front desk to the right and a set of steps almost directly ahead, leading upward. Father Damien peered around himself, obviously never having been in here before, though there really wasn't much to see, as the building's outside size didn't belie the space inside. A lone police officer in blue was behind the desk, doing something with some papers; when Father Damien's hand lingered on the door he snapped out, without looking up, "Shut that door! It's ninety frigging degrees out!"

Father Damien jumped and immediately let the door swing shut. "Now that was rather rude and uncalled for," Damien retorted; Father Damien's mouth fell open and he grasped his arm, ready to tell him not to be so rude himself, but as soon as he spoke the police officer stiffened, then lifted his head. He and Damien made eye contact and it was immediately obvious that they knew each other.

The police officer's lip curled back and he let out a disgusted sound. "I hardly thought I'd see the day when you'd come in here willingly!"

Father Damien's look of confusion grew, but Damien spoke up before he could say anything. "Now now, is that any way to greet an old friend, Jonesy?" He turned to his uncle as the officer scowled. "Uncle, this is Officer Jones. His name's as generic as he is. Jonesy, this is my uncle, Father Damien."

"You're going to need a priest if you keep calling me that," Officer Jones grumbled. He glanced at Father Damien, then looked him up and down skeptically. "Sure you two are related? I find that kind of hard to believe..."

"Of course we are," Father Damien blurted out, then flushed and shut his mouth, but Damien just gave his winning-yet-untrustworthy smile to the officer, who scowled again.

"Now do you think a priest would lie...?"

"Just say what you're here for and get it over with," Officer Jones said in an unpleasant voice. "I hardly need you in here without a pair of handcuffs on!" He lashed out when Damien picked up and hefted a paperweight with the elk-and-moose state seal on it, snatching it from the singer's hand so abruptly that Damien jerked back. "Cut that out! No touching ANYTHING else in this room!" He shoved the paperweight somewhere under the desk and gave him a livid look. "Now get to the point, or get out!"

"And I thought we were having a frustrating day," Damien said to his uncle, raising his eyebrows. "Is that's what's up with you, Jonesy, or are you PMS'ing again...?"

Father Damien opened his mouth, shut it. Which was just as well, for Officer Jones bared his teeth this time and looked ready to have a coronary.

"Look, you," he grated at Damien, "it's a hundred degrees out, the air conditioning's broken, and I hardly have the patience to deal with the likes of YOU today! If you don't say what you're here for, and right now, I'm going to find--SOME kind of offense I can book you on!!" He leaned down and started doing something under the desk--it sounded like he was tearing it apart. "There's bound to be SOMETHING illegal you've done since you came in here!"

Damien rolled his eyes. "Jones and I go way back," he said by way of explanation to his uncle, but didn't bother elaborating, so Father Damien didn't ask. Damien was glad that he didn't. "As it turns out, I'm not here for me, sorry," he said, when Officer Jones glared at him. "We're here to check up on somebody--name of Grant. Derrick Grant. Ever hear of him?"

Officer Jones huffed and slammed a drawer shut. "Now how the hell would I know? There's probably a million Grants in Cheboygan!"

"Actually a dozen or so. We checked in the phone book."

The policeman wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, well, math obviously isn't my strong suit. Go look at the county records office! Checking up on people isn't our job."

"We already did," Father Damien said, "and he seems not to exist--"

"Yeah, well, it's still not my business! I have more important things to do. Why you'd be checking up on somebody at a police station, well..." He looked Damien up and down this time, then glanced at Father Damien and said, as if his nephew couldn't hear, "You're really related to him? New in town? How well do you know your so-called 'nephew'...?"

Father Damien frowned. "I think I was the one who asked the question," Damien cut in, forcing a chilly smile, "and we already looked there, just like Uncle said. No Derrick Grant. Besides, we have reason to believe we'd have more luck with the police than with the records office. It's just one little teeny name, Jonesy." His smile turned sickly sweet. "Pretty please? Then I promise I'll leave you alone for the day."

"For the day--wow--some promise." But the officer opened one of the drawers and pulled out a set of keys. "STAY," he said to them as he came out from behind the desk, looking at Damien as if he were a dog. Damien rolled his eyes but obeyed--at least, as long as Officer Jones was in the room. When the cop disappeared upstairs, he started moving around the lobby, touching things and picking them up and setting them back down in different places and positions.

"Damien," Father Damien said, watching him, "you really don't have to do everything in your repertoire to irritate him, you know."

"I know," Damien admitted, "but it's so much more fun this way. Okay, okay," he said with a sigh when his uncle gave him a disapproving look, "I'll stop." He set down a book, then picked it up again, stood on tiptoe to set it high on a shelf behind a potted plant, and resumed standing innocently before the desk. Father Damien rolled his eyes but said nothing.

A thumping sound came, and Officer Jones came jogging down the steps, returning to his own spot behind the desk with a manila folder in his hand. "No Derrick Grant!" he said in such a voice that it was a wonder he didn't stick his tongue out and sing, "Na-na-na!" at them.

"So...what's that in your hand?" Damien asked, cocking his head.

"No Derrick Grant," Officer Jones repeated himself, scowling. "All we have is an Amelia Grant!" He waved the folder, and now they saw, written on the tab, "GRANT, AMELIA, 1967." "Unless your 'Derrick' is a woman who can't make up her mind what her first name is--I highly doubt this is the Grant you're looking for! See?" He opened the folder and presented them with a black-and-white portrait photo of a young woman with wavy dark just past her shoulders--it looked like an old high school photo--smiling for the camera. He shut the folder as soon as they leaned toward it, making them jump. A puff of dust shot out at them and Father Damien tried to suppress a cough. "Now hold up your end of the promise--and git!"

"Hold on," Damien said, ignoring the almost-protest that his uncle tried to direct at him. He waved at the folder. "Mind if I look at that anyway?"

Officer Jones's lip began to curl back again. "Damien, I think we should get going," Father Damien urged. "The county records office probably has more information anyway. So sorry to trouble you, Officer..."

"What kind of case do you have on this lady--?" Damien said as if not even hearing him, and managed to grab the folder from Officer Jones's hand before the policeman could stop him. Officer Jones's mouth fell open, then he made a move as if to come out from behind the desk; Father Damien quailed and held up his hands to try to calm him down, but Damien was already across the room, opening the folder and peering inside it with a frown on his face.

"This is a missing person case," he said.

"That's NONE of your business!" Officer Jones yelled, rattling at the half-door that separated the little room behind the desk from the rest of the building. It seemed to have become stuck, or else he just wasn't able to open it properly in his frustration, and he started banging on it loud enough to make Father Damien wince and step back.

"A cold case," Damien added, browsing the typed pages. "You never even solved this."

"And how the hell, pray tell, was I supposed to do that?" Officer Jones was now straining at the door; Father Damien looked like he was torn between helping him and leaving him locked where he was. "That was WAY before my time! Now give that back--open cases are off limits to people like you!"

"Open? Really?" Damien gave him a dark look. "It looks like it's hardly even been TOUCHED in the past twenty years!" He approached his uncle and spread the folder open on the desk; Officer Jones pulled away from the half-door, but Damien kept his hands pressed on the edges of the folder and its contents in such a way as to make it impossible to move without tearing it in half. "Amelia Grant--age twenty--disappeared, 1967, on her way to the store one evening," Damien said as Father Damien looked over the report for himself. "Never seen or heard from again--alive, at least."

"Alive...?" Damien allowed his uncle to turn to the next page of the report--which was no longer a missing person report, but a homicide report. Father Damien's frown grew and he continued scanning the words as his nephew spoke.

"Her body was found. Shot full of holes." Damien ran his finger along the faded text. "Out in a field. The killer was never found--case never solved."

"Killers," Father Damien corrected him, reading. "With all these gunshot wounds..." he looked at a generic diagram of the human body, with black dots scribbled in all over its back, and shivered "...I doubt it was just one person!" He nudged the diagram aside and continued reading the report. "They say it looks like she was trying to run away from something, as most of the wounds were to her back." He turned the page and reached the coroner's report, which Damien hadn't glanced at. His brow furrowed and he paused, then said, "The evidence says it looks like she'd given birth not that long before."

"Huh...?" Damien at last let go of the folder, but by now Officer Jones was so caught up in what they were saying that he didn't try to grab it back. Damien picked up the final report in the folder and looked it over for himself while his uncle looked again at the homicide report. "Does that say when her body was found--?"

"1969," Father Damien replied, and looked up at him. "The same year you were born."

"I don't get it. I didn't see anything about a baby in that report. Did they find one--?"

"No...no baby was found." Father Damien scoured the report. "Just some blankets underneath her, wedged under her arm. Like she'd been carrying something. All shot up, and left there."

Damien looked at him. "Do you realize what this means, Uncle?" he asked, a touch of awe in his voice. "It means she had a baby--let's assume it was Derrick--and was trying to run away with him. Away from someone or something so awful that she didn't even wait to recover from her labor. And whoever it was, or they were, they shot her before she could get away. And took the baby." His hand tightened on the edge of the desk. "Whoever they were, they wanted that baby. Which means they wanted Derrick." He looked back down at the reports and his stare fell on Amelia Grant's photo. "But why her? Why him?"

"Who knows," Officer Jones said, apparently losing interest in their conversation as he started gathering up the scattered papers again. "But whoever they were, they were pretty high and mighty to just leave her body out there."

"Almost like a warning," Damien said, half to himself, as Father Damien took one last glance at the homicide report before Officer Jones could take it away. "A warning for others not to make the same mistake she made by trying to run away."

Officer Jones tugged on the homicide report to get it away from the priest, and tucked it and the photo back in the folder, tapping them all into place and shutting it. Damien looked to see that his uncle's face had gone pale and he seemed to have frozen in place, his hand still out and his fingers still gripped around an invisible paper. He frowned. "Uncle? What is it?"

"How...how well did you look at that homicide report...?" Father Damien asked, his voice faint.

"Well enough," Damien replied. His frown grew. "Why? What is it? You look like Amelia herself just got up and walked through here!"

"Did you read where her body was found?"

"Yeah, I already told you. Out in a field. Are you feeling okay...?"

"You must not remember where it was," Father Damien said, "because it was so long ago. But I know that field. That was the same one we tried to escape through."

Continue:

"9: A Confrontation" 


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