‘I’m starting to regret taking the opportunity myself. I’ll be honest, Darnell, my connections got me here. Apart from a couple of history degrees, I’m not qualified for this case. You can look back knowing you rose to success because of your hard work. If Daddy hadn’t put in a few words, I’d be back in DC behind a desk making coffee for the Chief, no doubt.’
Two detectives daunted by their age. One nervously finding herself too young. The other feeling too old. Their investigation was slow and the eyes of the world were now on them too. Since the news broke, the pressure had increased on the force to bring Abraham Lincoln back to Springfield.
‘Well we might not be the right people…’ Darnell said with an air of determination. ‘But we’re on it now. I sometimes think people expect us to fail. Well let’s show them. This will set your career up for life, and, well, I’ll be able to retire with quite the legacy.’
On arrival at the national park, they met with Penelope Stokes, the park manager who had greeted them on their last venture to Lincoln’s childhood home. As he shook her hand, Darnell glared at the ranger with suspicion, sure that she had a part in the devastating leak to the press regarding Lincoln’s missing body. She was one of only two people they’d revealed the true reasons behind their investigation to and she had a lot to gain; Lincoln stories brought publicity and, more importantly, visitors to sites associated with him across the land. And as for Lae Chang, Darnell just couldn’t see her telling anyone. She was as sweet as sugar.
Vanessa made him promise he wouldn’t grill Penelope for the leak; they needed her information and she hadn’t been NDA’d so even if she had spread the word, she hadn’t officially done anything wrong. Darnell, and Darnell alone, was guilty of breaking the code of conduct in a highly sensitive project and he had risked not only damaging his own career, but forgoing any insight into Patrick Burns if he failed to tread carefully around Penelope Stokes.
The park manager welcomed the detectives into her office and they took a seat before her desk. She lifted out the employee file of Patrick Burns. His file outlined that he had worked for the site for three weeks before his abrupt departure. His exit interview explained that Burns’s reason for leaving was due to a family emergency in Illinois and he wanted to be closer to home. As such he didn’t complete his four-week notice period, which was expected of all colleagues as part of their employment contract.
‘What can you tell us about Patrick?’ Vanessa began the interview, pressing a button on her recording device.
‘He was a remarkable colleague. For the three weeks he worked here, he was on time, polite, a real team player with our colleagues, and offered exceptional service to our customers. He was also remarkably quick to adapt at whatever we threw at him. He had a real eye for detail too.’ Penelope paused as she read through her manager notes. ‘It’s a shame that he had to leave so suddenly as I saw management potential in him, which is something I haven’t seen around here for a long time.’
‘When you say he had an eye for detail, what do you mean?’ Darnell asked curiously.
‘Well he wanted to learn everything. And I mean everything! He read over every board here and he wanted to know all the ropes. He learned all our processes and was very keen to ensure our security was up to scratch too. He spent a lot of time scrutinising every angle of our cameras and where we could get optimal exposure of any potential thieves; apparently he had a background in security. And he spent a lot of time in our research lab too. In his eyes he wanted to know as much as possible in case a visitor had questions about Lincoln.’
‘Thank you, you’ve been really helpful today. I don’t suppose if you looked through the CCTV footage whether you could show us who Patrick Burns was and what he looked like, could you? If you went back to one of the dates when he worked here.’
‘Oh yes, absolutely. He was always one of the first to walk in the door so we wouldn’t have to search very long.’
Penelope stood up and rooted through a cabinet. Row after row of discs lined the drawers and the ranger looked back and forth between the cabinet and Patrick’s employee file to select a date which would guarantee his presence in the tapes. She selected one and placed the disc into her DVD player, and fast-forwarded through the hours of overnight footage which simply showed a dark empty room.
At eight in the morning, the lights switched on and Penelope entered with a man of around six feet in height and a broad build. The footage was sketchy therefore they struggled to get a detailed look at his face. He had a blonde mullet, which drooped down to the bottom of his neck.
‘That’s him,’ Penelope said, pointing at the screen.
‘Could it be…?’ Vanessa said, turning towards her colleague, but then paused, conscious that Penelope was in the room. Her lower jaw hovered above her chest.
‘I was just wondering the same thing,’ Darnell replied with an excited tremor in his voice. ‘Add a wig and take away a few piercings…’
‘Thank you, Penelope, you’ve been most helpful!’ Vanessa stood up and shook the hand of the park manager. She graciously took it and appeared confused by how limited her support could have been for them with just a
