A Missing Person Is Reported

By Gary Tindall

Ian Nash, police detective with not enough to do, is handed a missing persons file to follow up. Due to in-department slip ups and buck passing the file has been bungled. Ian discovers some mystery in trying to trace a husband reported missing from his living room while watching a hockey game on TV. Lea Lenard is re-assigned to assit him and gain some detective experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Tindall
• Release date: Jul 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988026711

Book preview

A MISSING PERSON

IS REPORTED

Author G. Tindall

Published by Otter Point Books

(c) 2012 G. Tindall

ISBN#978-0-9880267-1-1

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase for your own use, then please return to www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locale is entirely coincidental

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Profiler

Chapter 2 Constance

Chapter 3 'Smoke’

Chapter 4 `and Mirrors`

Chapter 5 The Neighbors

Chapter 6 Compost

Chapter 7 Cadaver Dog

Chapter 8 A Trip to Vegas

Chapter 9 The Skillet

Chapter 10 Edna

The Characters

George Hooper ~ Retired Insurance Broker, 65, took a buyout at age 59, no hobbies

Edna Hooper ~ Housewife, also 65, both live at 510 Aliston Street.

Gladys ~ Edna’s friend, fellow flea market and garage sale shopping

Cliff ~ Georges friend, former mate in office, alibi provider

Constance Pierce ~ Georges girlfriend, `Cookie`

Ian Nash ~ Detective Constable, small City Police force, assigned bungled file

Lea Lenard ~ Rookie cop, assigned to assist Nash

Alan Rumsby ~ Aging forensic cop, operates out of basement storage room

Joseph Rickert ~ Tired old farmer

Richard Rickert ~ Farmers son, truck driver, old jail record

Nick Frawley ~ Police reserve constable, wan-a-be dog handler

Mort Frawley`s Bloodhound puppy ~ in training to be a Cadaver Dog

Chapter 1 The Profiler

I thought I would find you here, Lea said, as she sat down opposite, I was told you requested my help on something, before you start, if this is going to take long I will get my self a cuppa herb tea

Not drinking coffee these days? Ian asked.

Only first thing in the morning, Police canteen coffee doesn’t agree with me, she replied.

I want your help, a couple of ways, Ian started to say.

Only two? she interrupted, smiling mysteriously.

Well it is going to be out of uniform, Ian teased.

I thought so. she said with a smile, you detectives, detecting I suppose.

In civies, get your mind out of the boudoir, he replied with a smile.

Of course, I knew that. she lied.

I want you to pretend to be an expert, when I bring you along on an interview, he continued.

Why would you assume I am not an expert, Lea parried.

Well I haven’t told you yet what in yet, he plugged doggedly along.

Well I was told, you didn’t want this file in the first place, actually, something about Detectives didn’t do Missing Persons files, she said, You must have expected it would be shoplifting reports next, she joked.

Well possibly, not the sort of thing I would expect in the Detective branch, he said, Missing persons, but then it is a small town.

All two of you, and one’s off sick, I thought you could give me a hand with a shoplifting file I’ve got up at Peoples Drug Store, she said, I’ve even got the perp on video, prosecutor says I can’t prove his intention was to steal it with only the video. I can’t get a charge laid, let alone a conviction in court, she complained.

But if all you have is some video, he is right. Did no one in the store see this guy grab him or follow him when he left? Ian asked.

Well no, they thought he was up to something, but they didn’t know what, till they went back to the video later, she said. Sort of anti theft security as an afterthought.

Well you need someone who can identify the stolen item first, maybe it belonged to him already, you can’t prove it belonged to the store without a witness or recovering the item off him in the store or something to back up the video. Otherwise there are a million excuses, but then if he didn’t want to try, it sounds more like a prosecutor doesn’t want to take it to a judge to me, want to hear about my file, he said, sipping his coffee.

I am all ears, she leaned forward on her hands, smiling at him.

I am dealing with an older woman, who is giving me a run-around on what started out as a straight forward `husband gone missing persons, maybe-run-a-way`, file but was passed to me, as no one else around here was getting anywhere. And so far, I think I’m am getting a refined run-around from the wife.

I’ve got it so far, Lea said.

She is playing with me, I think. I don’t know whether to believe a word she says, or if there is a reason for it, I haven’t spotted it yet.

OK, and you want me to translate old woman speak into your language, that’s the `Why` I’m here, so what is the `How` I am going to do it?

Well by throwing her a curve ball, is the plan, catch her looking for a fastball.

Tough to get anything past an old woman at home plate, you should know that by now, she laughed. How do you think this might work?

By being an expert or consultant, to the Department, in `Behavior`, or what you want to call it, a` Pro-filer` on missing husband behavior, thinking, biases and preferences, that sort of thing, he said like you see on TV.

Well I am kind of missing a husband of my own, she said.

Because you have never had one? Ian asked.

Oh, Psych 101, I thought you wanted to know what she thinks, not her husband, she said.

I do, she isn’t telling me in a normal way and there has to be a reason for it, he said. So far she sticks to the story, he ran off with a girl, name unknown. the guy is 66, we cannot find a trace of him in normal channels or of a girl friend.

You want to start this morning? I will go change, she said, and got up to go through to the woman’s locker room off the cafeteria. When she came back, dressed in a black knee length skirt and white blouse and carrying a pocket sized note book and her purse, she was ready to go. This is my Consultant look.

Looks like a Pro-filer, Ian said, standing up.

Are you going to tell me a little about his file, before we get there? Lea asked as he drove to the Hooper residence, 510 Alliston Avenue.

That is just what I have been debating with myself, I don’t know how much I should really tell you to start with, might prejudice your take on the file. Like I said, I’m not quite sure why I asked for your assistance, other then, my senses tell me I’m missing something here and I need you to tell me what it is. Like you said, translate old woman, and I mean more than just what she say’s, there’s a lot more that doesn’t ring up some how, he said. The basics from the file are that the husband was reported missing on Thursday night, the sixteenth of last month, the wife phoned the office, the front desk took the report. It didn’t come in through 911. She just called the station. Some one bobbled the report, passed the buck, whatever, no one went out to see her until the following Monday, Ian said.

Oops, some one is wearing it? she said.

No, there was enough shit to go around on this one, but it was only a `Missing`, maybe `run-away-husband` sort of thing, so the Chief could not scream too loudly. I guess the call memo was given to a patrol officer the next day, but he got busy with a bank robbery or something, so he didn’t get to it before he went off shift, so it got bumped over again.

On the Monday, someone went out and interviewed her, got more details, put out a routine missing person’s memo. The only other thing was that someone in the office was given Cliff’s number, as a friend of the husband, a fishing buddy, and called and asked him if he knew where the husband was. Cliff said no, but managed to leave the impression that maybe he had a ‘honey’ on the side somewhere, and maybe it shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

So the file went to the bottom of someone’s pile for a week, Lea said.

"Yes, then some Consultant of the Chiefs was doing some