LITMIR.BIZ

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suggest who or what M.H. might be.

      He buzzed Sally. She entered clutching a large manila envelope. Dan pointed at the paragraph mentioning the fired gardener.

      “Find a name for that person — that’s who I want to talk to.”

      Sally squinted at the file and took note of the reference.

      “And this one here.” He pointed at the name of the ferryboat captain. “See if you can locate either of them.”

      “Will do. Now my turn,” she said, tapping the thick envelope in her arms. “Here are the John Does from that time.” She dropped it on his desk and smiled. “Have fun.”

      The Doe files were the saddest, most dismal collection of human relics Dan could ever have imagined. If there was anything more degrading than to end up strangled in an industrial park, stabbed beneath a bridge or fished from a river wearing concrete shoes, it was to find that no one was interested in claiming your remains or learning who you’d been. Not one thing in your life stood out enough for anyone to want to trace your steps and reconnect you with your past, with the people who had given birth to you, reared and loved you. Not one.

      Dan was familiar enough with the Doe files. What struck him was how generic most of the facial reconstructions were or how unlikely it was that anyone, even those who’d known the dead person intimately, might actually find a resemblance between the faces drawn, sculpted and recreated by computers, or sense a sliver of recognition between these humanoid images and the people they were supposed to represent. On the other hand, a few were so sharply portrayed and with so much circumstantial evidence noted — rare blood types, unusual scars, and dental records, even handmade clothing — it seemed improbable that they hadn’t been recognized: the buck-toothed boy with a bowl-shaped haircut found wearing a cap available from only one store in the county, or the young woman buried beneath a construction site and mummified so that her remains had barely altered in twenty years, with severe scarring to her left hip, probably from a car accident. How was it they had never been identified?

      The only probable reason was that someone didn’t want them found. In all likelihood, the reports had never been filed and the searches never begun. But if so, where were the grandmothers missing grandchildren, the husbands missing wives, and sisters missing brothers? Only a concerted conspiracy of silence by friends and family could have left them unnamed and unclaimed. For every one who vanished, Dan reasoned, there had to be between four and forty people who would notice sooner or later.

      He could never shake off a sense of futility when he went through those files, thinking of all the faces that might never be identified, all the lives that would never be reconnected with their pasts. Some had wanted to vanish, true enough, and that’s exactly what they’d done. But had they really meant it to be forever?

      New technology and improved networking between agencies sharing databases sometimes made identification possible decades later. The DNA retrieved when the bodies were first recovered might no longer be usable, but if the remains were exhumed then experts could take fresh samples that would respond to modern testing. Sometimes it was just a matter of diligence and old-fashioned stick-to-it-ness. Other times, it seemed a wasted effort. You never knew. Often families didn’t come forward for years then suddenly, for one reason or another, they did. Files were crosschecked with other files and it became a simple matter of matching a name to a photograph. It could be surprisingly simple.

      It kept Dan up nights wondering why families waited so long to report a missing relative. The reasons varied. Sometimes the misper had a habit of disappearing and it was assumed they wanted to stay lost. Others had a criminal record and the family believed they would only make things worse by looking for them. Then years went by without word, and it began to dawn on them that perhaps their son or daughter was no longer alive. Still others turned up alive years later — sometimes decades — and at last spoke about threats of violence or the trauma of an unwanted child. You just never knew.

      But there was one thing Dan knew: once asked, the questions didn’t go away just because they went unanswered. They hung around and festered, especially when you looked at them too closely. It was easy to obsess over unsolved clues, like the faded handwriting on a piece of paper that refused to yield up its secrets or a lake on a mountain that obscured its origins.

      No reply, no return. These were words Dan found unacceptable. Because they meant that somewhere someone wasn’t trying hard enough.

      “The gardener’s name was Magnus Ferguson. He showed up on one other report….”

      “Unusual name, Magnus.”

      “… so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Sally smiled. “It wasn’t. Last known address: Surrey, B.C., about five years ago.” She stood before his desk, pad in hand, waiting.

      Dan felt that tingle of excitement that came when something suddenly appeared within reach. Sometimes things took years to budge then suddenly the floodgates opened and it seemed as though they’d always been there, just waiting to be discovered. A single piece of thread that had seemed innocuous at the time might turn out to be a special material manufactured by only one company and sold in just a handful of locations. And suddenly you had a piece of a puzzle that unlocked a significant clue.

      “Did you phone to verify that it’s the same person?”

      Sally shook her head. “There’s no Magnus Ferguson listed in all of B.C. I didn’t have time to check the rest of the country.…”

      “But you will.”

      She groaned.

      “And you’ll have it for me by when?”

      She grinned. “Probably by the time you get back from seeing the ferryboat captain in Picton. I’ve booked you an appointment for tomorrow.”

      “Sweet,” Dan said. “When and where?”

      “Two p.m.” She looked down at her pad. “It’s got an unusual name,” she said. “Ever hear of the Murky Turkey?”

      Dan smiled. “Sally, I’m promoting you. You can stop cleaning chamber pots and start sharpening pencils effective immediately.”

      He drove along the same route he and Bill had taken to the wedding. The ghostly forms that had been obscured by mist then were revealed now, innocent and unprepossessing in the fresh light of day. A simple fall landscape, seemingly devoid of mystery.

      He was early. He reached Picton at noon. He thought over his plan again and continued on to Lake on the Mountain. He parked in the same lot and sat looking out over the water before walking to the resort.

      “I’d like to rent a boat,” Dan said to the man puttering around in the garden shoring up trellises.

      The man gave him a sharp look. “What sort of boat would that be?”

      “A boat to explore the lake,” Dan said.

      The man grinned. “Well, that should be simple then. We’ve only got one kind. It’s a rowboat. You looking for a good workout for your arms?”

      Dan smiled. “A little exercise never hurt.”

      The man left his trellises and went inside. Five minutes later, standing beside the boat, the man sized Dan up and offered him an orange life vest. “Keep this thing on at all times when you’re in the boat — it’s the law.”

      Dan placed it over his head and secured it around his chest.

      “Can you swim?”

      “Yes, I can.”

      “All right, then I won’t worry about you.” The man held up an orange plastic capsule. “There’s a nylon rope and a whistle in here. You run into any trouble, you blow it as loud as she can blow. I usually rent them for an hour,” he glanced over at the parking lot, empty but for Dan’s car, “though I suppose you can take your time. I’ll tell the crowds to wait till you get back.”

      Dan did a wonky duck waddle getting in, then settled in his seat and pressed an oar against

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