A Score & A Decade

Chapter 8

To say that Zoe was excited was an understatement. She was exhilarated. She was thrilled. After two weeks worth of research, she finally felt like she was getting somewhere with her case. She hurriedly took out her keys and opened the door to her office. She rushed to her desk and sat down, pulling out the envelope Harrison Church had given her.

She ripped it open and peered in to see the contents. Inside the envelope were two Polaroids. Pulling one out, she examined the man, William Park. Mr Park was a tall and thin man with mousy brown hair. He was clean-shaven and had black eyes. He was grinning in the picture. He was standing in front of what looked like a snowy mountain and looked to be on vacation.

She then pulled out the Polaroid of Diana Park. Diana was short, with long blond hair. She was almost unnaturally red-faced. It didn't look like a sunburn either. She wasn't smiling but she had on her way too much makeup. Even with the grainy quality of the 30-year-old picture, she could see the unnatural makeup patches on Diana's face.

Zoe frowned. Diana looked familiar, somehow. She didn't understand why, but she felt like she had seen her before. Oh well, Zoe guessed Diana just had one of those faces. She looked at the pictures for a moment more, then pinned them onto her case board with the other pictures and began to walk away when something caught her eye.

She turned back to the board and stared at the pictures, two in particular: Eric Rodney and William Park. Hadn't Louise said that she had been told by Jesse that Roselle's dad had taken her home?

And then, what exactly had Louise said?

"I had taught her not to talk to strangers. But kids, you know, they're so innocent and so gullible. They'll believe anything if you say it earnestly..."

The two men were both tall and looked to be the same height in the pictures. They were both thin and white-faced. If, say, William Park had put on a brown wig, walked to Roselle while Louise wasn't looking and told her that her dad was back from London and that he had come to take her back home, would Roselle have believed him?

She was a four-year-old and her dad had been away for a long time. She had missed him terribly and if a man with brown hair and a tall, thin build had come to take her home, she would have gone without hesitation, because he looked like her dad. Because her dad wasn't a stranger and she was an innocent kid, a simple disguise would have fooled her. Don't a lot of kids make that mistake? Seeing a person with a similar build and the same clothing as a parent and accidentally mistaking them?

Yes, Zoe supposed that was possible. But for Roselle to recognise her father immediately, William would have had to wear something that Eric wore regularly, regular enough for Roselle to recognise it.

She guessed it was time for another visit to Louise's house. She had some clothing to identify.