the basement archives, home to police records from decades past. “The forecasters are calling for at least another two inches this afternoon.”
I pointed to my boots, still caked in white, and smiled. “I almost didn’t make it.”
The officer grinned. “Guess you have a pretty important story, then?”
I nodded. “Yes. At least, I think I do.”
“It’s so weird, this storm,” he continued. “One of the officers got a call from his mother. She lives here in town, and she says that a storm just like this one hit in May back in the thirties.”
“I know,” I said.
“Oh, you got a relative who remembered it?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m writing about a little boy who went missing the day of that snowstorm.”
“I got three boys of my own,” he said. “Five, three, and one.” He shook his head regretfully. “Can’t imagine losing a child. But what it would do to my wife, that’s what I worry about most. She’d never get over it, I can tell you that.”
I nodded. “No mother should ever lose a child,” I said, staring at the door ahead. “I think it’s why this story is so important to me. As far as I can tell, this little boy was never reunited with his mother. I want to know what happened.”
We walked into a dark room, and the officer turned on the light switch. Fluorescent bulbs flicked and hissed overhead. “What year was he taken?” His voice echoed against the gray concrete walls.
I pulled my notebook from my bag, scanning my notes. “Nineteen thirty-three.”
“Right this way,” he said. “Homicides are down this aisle, and you can find everything else over by the wall.”
Homicides.
I eyed the shelves stacked with boxes, trying not to imagine the grim artifacts they might hold. Bloodstained clothing. Murder weapons. Bones. I shuddered. “Thank you,” I said, walking toward a shelf labeled MISSING PERSONS.
“I’ll be down the hall if you need anything,” the officer said, turning to the door. But a moment later he looked back at me. “You’re a good person to try to find that kid.”
I shrugged. “I’m just doing my job.”
With the assistance of a nearby ladder, I pulled a few boxes down from the shelf and thumbed through their files until I reached the R section. A thorough look produced nothing, and I climbed down the ladder disheartened. How could he just vanish without a single record?
I eyed the top shelf. Had I missed something? I ascended the ladder again, scanning the shelf carefully for a box of importance. I shook my head. They were all alphabetical, and there was just one box for the letter R. What if one was mislabeled? I opened up the next box, labeled S. Nothing. Then I tried the box with a Q on it. At the very back, two R records waited. They must have been misfiled. I pulled out the first, read it, then set it aside. But my fingers froze when, on the second record, I came across the typewritten name of little Daniel Ray.
Vera Ray, of Seattle, reports that her son, Daniel Ray, disappeared. He was last seen at the residence of 4395 Fifth Avenue, #2. Suspected runaway.
How could they be so quick to write him off as a runaway? Children don’t run away at age three. He was only a baby. No, there had to be another explanation.
I wrote down the address, then riffled through the file, eager to find more information, but after an hour, nothing turned up. I walked back out to the hallway, where the officer walked me upstairs. “Find anything?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, looking out the doors to the snowy street. “An address.” I could only imagine what might wait there.
I arrived back at the office at two, hoping to grab my laptop and make a few phone calls before visiting the former home of Daniel and Vera Ray. Before I could set my bag down, I nearly bumped into Cassandra.
“Oh hi,” she said, standing in the doorway of my cubicle. She wore a silk top, and the lace of her black camisole protruded through an unfastened button.
“Hi,” I said, wondering what she was doing there, but more important, why she always looked so fresh-faced and perfect. I’d stolen a look at myself in the bathroom mirror earlier and had gasped at the dark shadows under my eyes.
“Ethan and I just got back from lunch at Giancarlo’s, and we brought you back a doggie bag,” she said.