Elaine

Elaine was calling the police station for the fifth time this week. Their complacency frustrated her. She felt ignored and sensed a level indifference in their tone every time she identified herself on the line. But they were not in her shoes and the kind of apprehension and fear she felt daily was eating away at her. However the police lacked empathy because as usual, they only felt a sense of urgency when a matter affected one of their own.

She stayed on the line for fifteen minutes waiting for someone who had the patience and was willing to explain to her over again that the matter was under investigation. She could hear the loud sighs over the phone when the junior officer repeatedly requested that one of the seniors addressed her enquiry, but Elaine did not allow their apathy to deter her because they needed to know that someone out their cared about the missing person. When Sergeant Prince finally answered the phone his voice was controlled and monotone. He needed to be professional even though he felt tired of her pestering.

“Hello, Ms. Logie, how can I help,” he answered. “I need an update on the murder, I know your officers indicated to me that there was no evidence of one but I know what I saw and my father is still missing. Even though there is no evidence of a crime, how do you explain a missing person?” She exclaimed. Sgt Prince held the phone receiver away from him and he released a sigh. He settled his nerves and then replied, “Ms. Logie we are aware of your missing father and we are doing the best we can to locate him, but the fact is, he had dementia and he could be wandering anywhere. However we have a specific unit assigned to searching for him.”

“He was murdered!” She shouted over the phone. “You keep saying that but there was no evidence of a murder, just a missing old man.” Sgt Prince explained.

"Well you keep on emphasizing that my father had dementia, but he was still in the early stages therefore he was not at the stage where he would just wander off. He still had most of his senses, just some temporary memory loss," she further explained.

He listened as she ranted over the phone about the police’s complacency and lack of empathy towards victims and their family and then she angrily hung up the phone.  Sgt. Prince leaned back on his chair scratching his chin. He really hated this entire situation. The police already had such a poor reputation because of the negative publicity that they received recently and he was trying to avoid another shit storm in the media. Bit, this case was problematic; there was no body, no evidence of a crime but a missing old man. But with social media information was easily shared and misconstrued and he was afraid that Ms. Logie would get desperate and decided to utilize social media to get her story more exposure. This was a tricky situation and he needed to find a solution quickly.

He called his detectives in and requested that they bring all the documents on the case. Sgt Prince was convinced that they were missing something. Even if her father had ran away, how far an old man can go, without someone being suspicious of an elderly man wandering the streets barefoot and in his pajamas. As the two detectives walked in, they both looked at him with weary faces. There were so many urgent cases on their desk, cases where there was a body and witnesses, it was obvious that they found that this case was a waste of time. Detective Sammy and Jones sat and settled themselves in their respective chairs.

“We need to solve this case, fellas, I’m afraid that Ms. Logie turns this case into media frenzy because she believes that we’re complacent and irresponsible. The truth is our department is already under pressure with so many unsolved cases but we can easily excuse it as gang violence but when a middle class beloved family with strong community ties is affected, they get the entire city to stop because they are viewed as upstanding hard working citizens. Fellas we need to be ahead of this and I want you both to put every other case on the back burner and prioritize this case for a week. Her father needs to be found otherwise our precinct is screwed.”

“There is something very sinister about this case Sergeant,” detective Sammy informed. “What is peculiar is that no one saw this old man leaving. I mean that community is tightly woven, there must have been someone who recognized him for Christ sake he was the high school principal. He can’t just disappear from the face of the earth. We need to take a closer look at his family, especially his daughter Elaine, my guess is that she is involved in some underworld drama.”

“I have been doing some digging and the daughter is clean,” Detective Jones stated. “She goes to work every day and arrives at home 5pm religiously. The only thing I found peculiar was that no help was ever hired to take care of her sick father but when I enquired about it, she indicated that her father hated strangers in his home and she honored his desire. So consequently she installed all the doors and window that required being locked from the outside and had the entire house air conditioned. There was only one window in her bedroom that was secured with a padlock and she indicated that it was a contingency in case of an emergency. She stated that his ability to take care of himself was still with him. On the day of the incident the contingency window was opened, and she believed that her father escaped through the window. She stated that the keys were hidden away in a safety deposit box, and when we went in search if the box, it was also left open. What baffles me about this is that her father had dementia but was able to remember the numbers to the safety deposit box. All his medical records indicated that he was diagnosed with dementia since 2018, and with that moment of lucidity he was able to accomplish a lot, I must say. I believe we really need to take a closer look at Elaine, nothing adds up in this case.” Detective Jones stated. “I agree, look further into Elaine. But first let us go over her witness statement, stated Sgt. Prince.”

Detective Sammy opened his file and handed Sgt. Prince her statement. He read through it very slowly and then repeated it back to them. She claimed that she was asleep when she heard a loud thud. She quickly got up thinking that her dad had fallen off the bed. When she arrived at the door of his bedroom she saw a person over her father on the floor stabbing him repeatedly. When she started screaming the other assailant grabbed her and choked her until she passed out. When she awoke she found herself back in her bed. She quickly ran back downstairs to her father’s room and she found that the assailants were gone and so was her father and there was not a trace of blood in the room.

“This story is so ludicrous,” said Detective Jones. “My first instinct was to look into Elaine’s medical records to determine if she had a history of mental disease, but she was cleared. She only had a prescription for hypertension. I also spoke to her brother and sister, Eric and Ellen, and they had no idea who would want to hurt their father and they also believed that their father had just ran away. The account from their sister about what transpired that night also seemed unbelievable to them, but six days after there was no sign of this man and they spent every waking moment looking for him across the neighborhood. Elaine’s siblings were mortified and they were blaming her because they believed that if she had hired a caregiver their father would have been home safe” highlighted Detective Jones.

 “I am convinced that someone knows where Mr. Logie is and I think our best course action is to look deeper into the personal records of each child and put a tail on them, something about this seems personal. A beloved man in the community does not just disappear without a trace,” hissed Sgt Prince.

Elaine sat on the sofa biting through her finger nails until they bled. She could not believe that she allowed this happen and to add to her agony no one believed her when she indicated that he was murdered right before her eyes. Every time she attempted to sleep, the image of the sharp knife glittering in the air ready to penetrate into her father’s flesh haunted her. She hated herself for not doing more, not being strong enough to fight their attackers and not being wise enough to run and call the police immediately. What confused her was that there was no sign of a murder, the room was spotless but she knew what she saw. What was even more frustrating was that her brother and sister did not believe her and she found it to be insulting and cruel. After all, she was their sister and that should have been all the credibility they needed.

Eric and Ellen were out every day looking for their father and they never once invited her along. It was like if they blamed her also, but when her father became ill they never volunteered to assist him, they made it seem as if it was only fair that she became the primary care giver as she was the eldest and already lived with him and she agreed; but after the decision was finalized they never showed interest in his well being. But she hated that they excluded her and made her feel ostracized. Suddenly her cell phone began ringing and when she picked up, the man introduced himself as her father’s attorney. After exchanging pleasantries he indicated that he received a message from an individual indicating that they were one of the benefactor of Mr. Logie’s life insurance, he then added that they did not leave a name or number so he assume it was her. He then further explained that he contacted her first because he was aware that she was her father’s primary caregiver.

Elaine was confused, who would make such a call she thought. She said to the attorney that she was not the person who made the call and then she informed him of what was happening with her dad. He expressed his concerned and indicated to her to keep him informed. But that call got Elaine thinking and quickly she ran up the stairs to find a copy of her father’s insurance policy. As she read through the policy she realized that she received the least amount of the three children, she was flabbergasted but that was always her life, giving people her all and in turn she received very little. Her brother and sister combined would receive 75% of the policy. Why would they call in to enquire about the insurance policy when they were convinced that dad just wandered away, she wondered. However as she sat at the edge of the bed in deep thought, things started to make sense. She quickly grabbed her coat and called an uber and drove 74 kilometres to her sister’s house.

She knew that her sister was going through a divorce and at times she expressed how it expensive it was just to have an attorney on retention. She arrived at her sister’s doorsteps and used her keys that she always hid above the front door. When she entered the house she was welcomed by a foul stench. She walked cautiously as she scanned the rooms. She was afraid of what she might see, but she was determined to get to the bottom of this saga. When she got to the basement she saw the small frame of a feeble old man and immediately she knew that it was her father, he was alive but barely. As she called out to him, his head shot up and a broad smile covered his face. He stretched his hands out to her and she embraced him.

“What was really happening here?” she thought. She assisted her father up the staircase and led him to a sofa in the living room. It was then she noticed stacks of papers on her sister’s office desk. They were documents containing living arrangements for a man called George Fields at a retirement home, however she knew no one by that name but his date of birth was similar to her dad’s. Finally it all came together for Elaine and she made sense of what really occurred that night. It was her brother and sister that broke into the house and staged a murder. They wanted her to believe that their father was murdered so she would have closure, and in doing so when the police gave up searching for him and pronounce him dead, they would cash out the insurance policy, while hiding him in a retirement home under another name. “How could they do this?” she hissed. They made me look like a complete lunatic to the police, insisting that their father was murdered when there was no evidence. “How could they be so cold hearted?” she cried. She experienced real trauma that night and then to add to the distress she blamed herself. They wasted the resources of the police force and how much money did they need that they could not simply ask for it. Dad was such a generous person, she thought.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of police sirens coming closer and she figured that they too had figured out the plan of her siblings. She just could not believe the length they went to, just for money. She sat on the sofa and hugged her father, as she was reminded that he was really the only person she had left in the world and that thought brought here to tears.