Before I go to the police archives office, I stop at a local Italian trattoria near my office. Besides having tables both inside and out for customers, the trattoria does a brisk take-out business. The last time I ate was at Melissa’s earlier this morning and it's now past one in the afternoon,. I’m starving. A nice Italian sub is what I want. I inherited my green eyes and coloring from the Dutch ancestors on my Dad’s side but I got my healthy genes and love of food from my mother, whose ancestry is a nice combo of Italian with a sprinkling of French.
As I’m watching Enzo, the owner of the place, masterfully create my generously proportioned Genoa salami, capicola, provolone, hot peppers, and onion sub, my cell buzzes a text. It’s from Will. Will be at your office late this afternoon.
I smile. Will refuses to use text lingo. To me, with my background in linguistics, text-speak is just another language. Usually, I don’t use it much either, I prefer to call rather than text. But just to bust him I reply, “C u la8r”. It’ll drive him crazy.
“Here’s your sandwich, Cate,” says Enzo, handing me a neatly wrapped sub. “I put in a lot of the Genoa just the way you like it.”
I grab an ice tea, smile my thanks, pay him, and head out the door to savor it in my car.
****
The Vault, as the police archives department is known, is located on a dead-end street. There are two new personal storage warehouses and some old office buildings that have been there since the turn of the 19th century. I park my car a block from where I have to go, and downing the last of my ice tea, walk down to the front door on the side of the building. I’m a little early, but Jimmy won’t mind. On the way over I make a pit stop at his favorite deli to get him a nice corned beef on rye and a cream soda. It pays to feed those who help you. The beer will have to wait until he’s off duty sitting on a bar stool at the Shannon Rose.
I walk in the door but don’t see Jimmy at his desk; he must be off in the back. There's a bell-button on the wall by the door and I push it. A few minutes later Jimmy comes walking from the back of the Vault carrying a box.
“Hey, Cate! How’s the girl?”
“Good, good, Jimmy. How about you? Everything good?”
“Yeah, can’t complain, huh? Let me put this box on the desk. I got to go through it for some high up lazy-ass lieutenant who can’t get his tired old butt down here to find what he wants. Asks me to do his work, can you beat that? Give me a break. I should say screw him but I won’t. I know where my bread gets buttered.”
I laugh. Jimmy's got a way with words and an opinion of everyone and everything. Fortunately he likes me and he thinks what I do for a living is great “for a girl” if a bit dangerous.
“C’mon, kid, I’ll take you to the back and you can get your hands dirty on this, what’s the name? oh yeah, Mc-El-roy file.”
The file room is a veritable warehouse of boxes of evidence. Stacked floor to ceiling are sealed boxes with old stories of crimes committed, police investigations, personal frustrations, and the sadness of people's lives. Jimmy locates the file box I need, which is way up on top of the ribbed steel compartments, climbs up a ladder, and carries it down for me. It’s small and dusty.
I take the box over to a cart that’s been set up as a desk and, perching myself on a cracked leather stool, open it. There isn’t much. A few pictures of Josh McElroy, an old shirt, a backpack emblazoned with the name of his school, the original police report and notes of the investigation, and a police officer’s list of what was found in the backpack. I look at the statements the cops took from the members of the McElroy family, neighbors, classmates, and teachers. As Marie said, no really close friends. Nothing out of place there, simple statements: good kid, above average student, no problems with classmates, wonderful son and brother. There are no clues as to why he disappeared.
I empty out the backpack carefully and find everything that was documented. There's the usual student stuff like pens, pencils, a couple of sticks of gum dried hard as plaster from age, a flyer advertising some local band, a key which the list describes as a locker key, and an old three-subject notebook. Some of the pages of the notebook are dog-eared as if he were bookmarking them. Opening them up, I see that they’re filled with hand drawn pictures and that they are surprisingly good. One picture captures my attention; it's a picture of a female lion standing tall and alert. Between her massive front paws she is holding two cubs that look out at the world with calm eyes. A male lion sits to the right of the lioness, his shaggy head up and proud. To the left, as if it is a distance away, there seems to be some other animal drawn in a stalking position. I look closely and see that it is a hyena. Its yellow eyes are staring directly at the cubs. The detail is excellent.
There are various drawings of the hyena; some showing large pointed teeth and a snarl. Always the yellow eyes are prominent and staring. Drawn by a teenage boy, these pictures evoke evil and menace. Why this theme? There’s got to be an answer and that answer may lead me to Josh himself. The cops might have bypassed the drawings as just something a kid might do, but I think that the drawings may hold a clue to Joshua's disappearance.
I read and re-read the statements from Josh’s family. Sometimes fresh eyes see a word or phrase that might give a clue someone else may have missed. I check carefully and concentrate, trying to imagine how they felt and how they looked when they were giving their statements. God knows they were scared, stressed beyond belief that this was happening at all. The statements are all accompanied by notes from the cop who took them, notes that may prove to be crucial. Were the parents and siblings believed to be telling the truth? Yes. Were the individual statements, taken from the parents and from Marie, concerning any family problems, consistent? It seemed so. Who was the last person to have contact with the missing person and what happened? At the house, his mom waved goodbye as he walked to the library. It’s a cat-and-mouse game because the cops are going in cold and everyone is a potential suspect. The police have to eliminate family members as persons of interest. This is unbelievably hard on the family because they’re desperate to have the cops find their loved ones. At the same time they’re imagining what horrible things may have happened to them.
Everything about the investigation the morning after Joshua went missing seems to be upfront and by the book. The officer who did the initial interviews at the McElroy home wrote that the parents, Joseph and Denise McElroy, seemed to be genuinely upset about their son and he had no reason to suspect either one of them. The sister, Marie, who had to come home from camp, was almost hysterical and a doctor had to be called to sedate her.
A preliminary report written by an Officer Coronato reads:
“The alibis of the people in the neighboring area check out. Several people saw him leave the house around ten in the morning with a couple of library books and a gym bag. The head librarian, a Mrs. Brenda Rosehill, said it was common for Joshua McElroy to be at the library from around ten until near five during a school break. She said he usually read in the main lounge area and then drew pictures from the books he read. Said in days leading up to the disappearance, he seemed the same as always to her. She doesn’t remember seeing him the day he went missing so there’s a hole in the timeline. Everyone’s stories check out. There’s no reason to suspect any one of them. Looks like a runaway kid but we’re still checking everything out. No leads, no signs of violence or a struggle. Joshua McElroy left to go to the library between nine-thirty and ten. His mother went food shopping that afternoon and came home around five-twenty-five. She just assumed her son had come home at his regular time. Right before the usual family dinner hour of six o’clock, she went to call him to help set the table but he couldn't be found. He seemed to just have vanished after leaving his house.”
Another report about two weeks later confirms no leads found in the disappearance of Joshua McElroy. Known sex offenders in the area and beyond had been questioned with no results. Unmarked police cars have been watching the McElroy house but have found nothing out of the ordinary. Cadaver dogs brought to the McElroy property found nothing.
****
“Hello Father. Do you remember me?
“Joey! It’s so good to see you again, my son. Oh my Joey. It’s been so long.”