A Fool's Journey Read online

  The family of Brandon Colbeck is still hoping to be reunited with him nearly fifteen years after his disappearance. Brandon was twenty on March 9, 2000 when he left a note for his parents that said he was leaving home. “I was completely blindsided,” said Lorna Colbeck-Westlake, Brandon’s mother. “Brandon borrowed my car that morning to go job hunting. He dropped me off at my office and was upbeat about the prospect of finding work.”

  When Brandon didn’t pick up his mother at the prearranged time, a co-worker drove her home. “I remember being embarrassed and more than a little annoyed,” said Lorna. “At the time I just assumed it was Brandon being unreliable.”

  Annoyance turned to shock when Lorna found a note from Brandon on the kitchen counter. “He wrote he was going to ‘find himself,’ and told us where he’d left the car. I ran to his bedroom,” said his mother. “He’d taken his laptop, toiletries, and most of his clothes, but no identification, not even his health card or driver’s license. I called Michael in a panic.”

  Michael Westlake is Lorna’s husband and Brandon’s stepfather. The couple found Lorna’s unlocked vehicle in the parking lot of a neighborhood strip mall. The keys were underneath the driver’s floor mat. There was no trace of Brandon.

  Although it’s been fifteen years, the family has not given up hope. “We believe Brandon wanted a fresh start, which is why he didn’t take his ID,” said Westlake, reiterating a statement from an earlier interview. “He’d dropped out of college in his second year, moved back home without a plan, and didn’t seem motivated to find gainful employment.”

  “There was tension in the house,” admitted Jeanine Westlake, Brandon’s stepsister, who was twelve at the time of his disappearance. “My dad was a firm believer in tough love, and that only intensified after my brother quit school. Brandon didn’t respond well to that approach.”

  Brandon Colbeck’s profile has now been added to the Ontario Registry of Missing and Unidentified Adults, along with two age-progressed sketches supplied by the Cedar County Police Department’s Forensic Identification Unit. His grandmother, Eleanor Colbeck, best known for her widespread community philanthropy, was recently interviewed at her retirement residence in Marketville. She believes the pictures are an accurate representation of what Brandon may now look like at age thirty-five.

  “I have never stopped believing that my grandson is alive and well,” said Eleanor, her eyes glistening with tears. “I’m waiting for the day when the telephone rings and Brandon says, ‘Nana Ellie, I’ve missed you. I’m ready to come home.”

  Nana Ellie. There it was for any scammer to read. The term of endearment that had convinced Eleanor Colbeck that her grandson was still alive. Add the implication of Eleanor’s advanced age and wealth, and I could understand why the police had dismissed the telephone call as a scam.

  But there were questions the article didn’t answer, and Olivia had written them down. I smiled. They were the same questions I would have asked.

  Who is Brandon’s biological father? Where is he now? Did he play any part in Brandon’s upbringing?

  How old was Brandon when Mike and Lorna met and got married?

  Who were Brandon’s friends?

  How close were Brandon and Jeanine? Did he confide in his sister about his plans to leave?

  Why did Brandon drop out of college?

  I wondered if Eleanor Colbeck had the answer to any of those questions, or if they were locked inside her mind, no longer accessible. I reread the article, thought for a moment and then added one final point.

  Find Michael Westlake’s earlier interview (and G.G. Pietrangelo)

  I moved on to the second clipping. It was dated 2018, nearly three years to the day after the first, the headline announcing, “Phone Call Scammers Target Grandparents.” Once again the byline was that of Jenny Lynn Simcoe, this time without a nod to G.G. Pietrangelo.

  There have been numerous reports of unsuspecting seniors receiving phone calls from callers claiming to be a grandchild in need of money. Referred to by police as the ‘grandparent scam,’ these calls play directly on the emotions of the elderly. For example, a scammer will call an older person and pretend to be their grandchild. In one scenario, the caller will ask if they know who is calling. When the grandparent guesses the name of one of their grandchildren, the scammer pretends to be that grandchild, then tells the grandparent that they are in a financial bind. Typically, they will also ask the grandparent not to tell anyone else about their situation because they are ashamed or embarrassed.

  In another scenario, the caller knows the name of the grandchild along with one or two key facts, information culled from social media posts or newspaper articles, and assumes their identity.

  While not all scams targeting seniors involve grandchildren, they inevitably include requests for money, usually by Western Union wire transfer. “There are as many variations of the grandparent scam as there are grandparents,” said Detective Aaron Beecham, who heads the Cedar County Police Department’s recently formed Fraud Investigation unit. “If you have a senior in your life, please take the time to educate them about scams targeting the elderly.”

  For a list of the latest scams, visit the Cedar County Police Department’s website and click on the Fraud tab. To file a report, call 555-835-5763, ext. 35.

  Detective Aaron Beecham. That name also sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it, not that it mattered. It angered me to think there were unscrupulous people whose sole purpose in life was to swindle seniors.

  What about the real Brandon Colbeck? Was he long dead and buried in an unknown grave? Or was he still alive, living somewhere under a different name, perhaps with kids of his own? If so, what sort of person left his family in limbo for nearly twenty years, and why?

  I was still mulling things over when the train pulled into the Marketville station.

  3

  I called Chantelle as soon as I got home, anxious to get her on the case. “Do you have any plans for dinner?”

  She laughed. “I wish. Sadly, Prince Charming has yet to come my way. Not even a frog, which at this point, I might actually consider. Then I think about Lance the Loser and I come back to my senses.”

  Lance was Chantelle’s ex-husband, and I knew that despite her cavalier attitude about him she was still hurting, especially since he’d left her for an adolescent—her words, not mine, though she wasn’t far off the mark. “You’ll meet the right guy when the time is right,” I said.

  “I’m not holding my breath. How did your meeting go with Leith Hampton?”

  “It was…interesting. Olivia left me some money in her will. More than some, actually. Enough to pay off my mortgage.”

  “Wow, well done, you. I assume Corbin was less than impressed.”

  “You could say that. He accused me of undue influence. I gather he was the sole beneficiary until a few months ago. Leith assured him that Olivia had revised her will long before I reentered her life.”

  “She knew about you, even though you didn’t know about her? I expect that infuriated him all the more.”

  “He was livid,” I said, thinking back to the scene in Leith’s office, the way my grandfather had spat out the words that would hurt me forever, my grandmother sitting stone-faced and silent beside him. You were a mistake, Calamity. No amount of money will ever change that.

  “He threatened to contest the will. Leith doesn’t believe Corbin stands a chance, since he also inherited a sizable sum, but who knows? I’m not counting on the money until probate is granted, which, as I understand it, can take about a year. Of course, if Corbin does contest the will, the timeline will almost certainly be prolonged. In the meantime, there is a slight catch.”

  “What sort of catch?”

  “In order to inherit, Past & Present has to attempt to solve a cold case.”

  “Attempt, meaning we don’t have to solve it, we just have to try?”

  “According to Leith, it’s the effort during the next three months that counts, no
t the end result.” I bit my lip. “The thing is, Chantelle, I’m not sure I could accept the money if we didn’t find out the truth.”

  “Then we’ll have to find out the truth, won’t we?”

  “Exactly. Can you come over tonight? I can fill you in on the details over pizza and wine.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check out the online Ontario Registry of Missing and Unidentified Adults while I waited for Chantelle. The web page was attractive and easy to navigate, with three blocks at the top of the home page: Search Unidentified Adults, Search Missing Adults, and Publications. Beneath these were the dated bullet points: Recent News and Updates.

  I’m not sure why I started by clicking on Unidentified Adults, since I was looking for a missing adult, but that’s what I did. I was taken to a page where I could enter a number of parameters: Gender, Race, Date of Discovery, Location of Discovery, Province of Discovery, Hair Color, Eye Color, Age (Low) and (High), and Weight (Low) and (High) and Keywords. I left all fields blank and hit Submit, surprised and saddened to find eight pages with twenty-five cases per page, most with the caption “no image available.” Two hundred unidentified men and women, their bodies, or in most cases, their remains, discovered as far back as the 1960s, and no one had come forward to claim them. Did they not have families, or in the absence of family, at least someone who cared? Or was there an assumption that the person had left voluntarily and didn’t want to be found? Whatever the situation, it was heartbreaking to think that their death didn’t matter.

  I spent the next three hours reading each entry, looking for signs of Brandon in the case files, all the while fully aware that the police and members of Brandon’s family would have scoured the records many times over. I’m not sure if I was actually expecting to find something they missed—Calamity Barnstable solves the case in a matter of hours, the headlines screamed—but the only results of my search were a stiff neck, a sore back, and a pervading feeling of doom and gloom.

  I got up, stretched, made a cup of cinnamon rooibos tea, and settled back to the task at hand, this time clicking on the Missing Adults page. The news here was even bleaker, with eighteen pages of twenty-five missing adults in the database, one going as far back as 1935. Four hundred and fifty missing adults, I thought, doing the mental math. I entered Brandon Colbeck’s name in the appropriate Search fields, and was directed to the data about his case.

  SUMMARY

  Date of Disappearance: March 9, 2000

  Location of Disappearance: Marketville, Ontario

  Age at Disappearance: 20 years

  Height (estimate): 5’9”

  Weight (estimate): 150 lbs.

  Hair: reddish brown, wavy

  Eye Color: Dark brown

  Gender: Male

  Race: Caucasian

  Aliases: None known

  * * *

  DETAILS

  Dental Information: Teeth - described as good

  Medical Information: Unknown

  Clothing/Jewelry: Sheepskin-lined jean jacket

  Other Personal Items: Dell Laptop Computer

  Notable Identifiers: Upper left arm: A black outline of the bottom quarter of the sun emanating multiple rays, shining on the face of a wavy-haired boy. At the time of Brandon’s disappearance, this tattoo was recent. It may since have been colorized or enlarged.

  Additional Information: After failing during his second year at Cedar County College in Lakeside, Brandon returned to live with his parents in Marketville in late January. He had been studying Computer Science.

  Until a few months before his disappearance, Brandon had been a straight-A student, described as having an inquisitive mind and quick wit. His behavior started to change in his second year at Cedar County College, although the family is unsure of the reason. As his grades dropped, he began to withdraw from family and friends until there was virtually no contact.

  The rest of the entry recapped what had been in the news articles, noting he had not tried to contact family or friends.

  There were two Source Links, the first leading to the Marketville Post article dated March 19, 2015. There were no prior newspaper reports, not that I was surprised. The “earlier interview” mentioned would almost certainly have been within a few months of Brandon’s disappearance, predating online coverage. I hoped Gloria Grace still had her files, and that she’d be willing to share what she knew with us.

  The second link led to a “Find Brandon Colbeck” Facebook page listing Jeanine Westlake as the administrator. She’d posted the same photo and sketches as those on the Ontario Registry for Missing and Unidentified Adults website, but despite multiple shares and eighty-nine friends, there was nothing in the way of helpful comments, and all activity ground to a halt in early 2016. I made a note: why 2016? Too many dead ends?

  Under Related Photos, there were four thumbnails that could be enlarged to full size by clicking on each individual photo. The top photo was the now familiar Marketville Post photograph of Brandon. Beneath it there were two full-page, age-progressed artist sketches, one depicting Brandon with short hair, parted on the right, the other with shoulder-length hair, parted in the center, and a slightly scruffy beard, lips closed, with a hint of smile. He had a narrow face with high cheekbones and a perfectly proportioned nose. He was a good-looking man, even scruffed up. Both sketches were signed and dated March 1, 2015. How much more would he have aged in another four years? Would the reddish-brown hair now be tinged with gray?

  The fourth thumbnail was a rough sketch of the tattoo. It looked incomplete, a black outline of something more to come, and yet there was something oddly familiar about it. I stared at it for a several minutes, enlarging in on my screen, zoning in and out, frustrated that nothing came to me. I knew I’d seen this somewhere.

  I went back to the images, saving each one to a “Brandon Colbeck” folder on my computer, then printed all three sketches. One thing I’ve learned from my past investigations is that being organized makes everything easier going forward.

  I just wished I could shake the feeling that nothing else about this case was going to be easy.

  4

  Chantelle arrived a little after five, her tablet in one hand, a bottle of white wine in the other. I handed her the manila folder in exchange for the wine, and updated her on everything Leith had told me.

  “The main article raises more questions than it answers,” I said. “I jotted down what came to me and would like you to do the same.”

  Chantelle nodded, sat down at the long mission oak dining room table that doubled as a desk, and began reading.

  “With files from G.G. Pietrangelo,” she said, looking up.

  “Gloria Grace is definitely on my to-contact list.”

  She nodded again, turning her attention back to the article. I ordered the pizza—extra sauce with hot peppers—poured us each a glass of wine, forced myself not to pace, and dabbed on some cocoa butter lip balm. The lip balm helped a little. The wine helped a little more.

  “There’s a fair bit to read between the lines, isn’t there?” Chantelle said, after she’d finished.

  “Does the name Detective Aaron Beecham mean anything to you?”

  Chantelle wrinkled her brow in concentration, then shook her head. “No, should it?”

  “Probably not.” I handed her the two age-progressed sketches of Brandon Colbeck. “These are on the Ontario Registry of Missing and Unidentified Adults mentioned in the newspaper article.”

  “Interesting,” Chantelle said, her fingers tracing the outline of Brandon’s jawline. “In the one with the short hair, he looks like any number of clean-cut, thirty-something men. The one with the long hair and slightly scruffy beard lends him an appearance of someone who’s been living on the street.”

  “Really? I didn’t interpret it that way, I just thought of a free spirit, maybe someone who worked in a field where being clean-cut isn’t an expectation. But, yeah, you could be right.
”

  Chantelle bit her lip. “You know, as detailed as these sketches are, they don’t look like the young man in the photograph. At least, not to me.”

  “I thought that too, at first, but these are black-and-white sketches versus a color photograph and the sketches were done fifteen years after he disappeared. People change a lot between twenty and thirty-five. I know I did. Plus, according to the newspaper, Eleanor Colbeck believes these are accurate representations of what Brandon might look like now. Maybe she saw a resemblance between this older version of Brandon and his mother or biological father. Even the stepsister, Jeanine, could bear a likeness from the mother’s side. I’ve learned that age-progression is a combination of science and art, similar to facial reconstruction. Not an exact likeness, but someone who knows the person should see enough of a resemblance to recognize them.”

  “Valid points,” Chantelle conceded. “What else have you got?”

  I handed her the rough sketch of the tattoo. “According to the Registry, this tattoo is on his left upper arm. I know it’s incomplete, but does it remind you of anything? I keep thinking I’ve seen this before.”