The Touch Of Ghosts: Writer's Cut (Alex Rourke) by John Rickards Page A

running his finger quickly over the near-illegible text as he took an absentminded sip of his drink. “Everyone I spoke to reckoned the police had done a fair job of checking all the local trails. There were quite a few of them thought she might have fallen from some place called Broken Gap. I've no idea where it is, but it seemed to be about the only place people routinely have accidents and such in the area.”
    “One of the stories said the LCSD checked it out.”
    Elijah nodded and momentarily brought his wandering finger to a halt, tapping on one section of notes. “That's right,” he said. “They didn't find anything. I got the impression at the time it was pretty much guesswork, looking for her there.”  
    “What happened once the State Police took over?”
    “About the same, really. They made a big speech about doing things right, then took off on a wild goose chase up in the mountains. By the time they'd finished with that, she'd been gone for a week and almost no one was expecting to see her alive again. Not unless she'd gone somewhere else on her own, run away, but that didn't seem likely. So they packed up the search.”
    So I hadn’t been the only one to notice the contradiction between Flint's words and his actions. “I’m surprised there wasn't any criticism of the search effort at the time,” I said.
    “I was planning to write some, but my editor said he didn't want it, not while the cops had more important things to deal with, so I left it. Then, by the time they'd given up and forgotten her, I'm afraid she just wasn't news any more.” I gestured for another double espresso and Elijah raised his eyebrows. “You want to go easy on that stuff, man. Looks like you're missing enough sleep as it is.”
    “Is it that obvious?”
    “You don't just have bags under your eyes, you've got a whole set of matched luggage and a trolley to carry it around on.”
    “You wouldn't believe some of the nights I've had. Did the police ever say why they thought Stephanie might have gone up to the Long Trail?”
    “I spoke to a woman called—” the finger skipped to a different piece of paper “—Detective Saric. She said they'd had a call from someone who thought they might have seen a girl like her heading up that way, and that the description was a fair match. I guess that was as good a lead as they'd got.”
    “She was one of the cops in charge?”
    “There were two detectives running the show, but most of the work was done by state troopers. The other detective, Flint, told me off the record that the search was mostly public relations. Looking for one person in an area that big and that empty without any clue where to go was impossible, but they had to make it look good for the cameras.”  
    “Wow.”
    “Yeah.” Elijah drained the rest of his chocolate and smacked his lips. Then he brought a second bundle of paper out of his pocket and looked at me. “You said you thought Stephanie Markham might be related to a case of yours?”
    “That's right.”  
    “I don't suppose you can tell me what case it is you're talking about?”
    “Sorry.”  
    “No matter. It's just that I've brought along some other stuff I gathered at the time Stephanie went missing. About a year before, there was a couple from Minnesota on a hiking holiday in foliage season. Last time anyone heard from them, they were just leaving Jay Peak State Forest, heading south to Hazen's Notch and beyond.”
    He slid across a couple of photocopied photos. It was barely possible to make out their faces such was the quality of the pictures.  
    “Will and Althea Haley,” he said. “At the time, there wasn't much publicity — nothing like Stephanie Markham; pretty white girl syndrome — and it was a couple of weeks before anyone wondered where they'd got to; a car rental place in Waterbury called their family when they didn't pick up their Volvo. The only reason anyone knew where they'd last been was because they’d phoned Haley's