FATHER ALWAYS SMILING

Chapter 55 ~~~~~

Freddie continued his way through the hallway past other officers dressed in uniform where he went into a large room where an older stoutly woman with brown curly locks with hints of grey at a desk was reading a book. She gave the man a beaming smile when she saw him and spoke with a thick Nova Scotian accent. The kind that a large chunk of Americans thought all Canadians had. "Oh, Detective Louds, late night, need something from the archives?"

"Evening Margerie, and yeah, I do. Could you pull up the missing person's file on Lauren Davenport?"

"Sure, Hun, I can do that no problem." She paused to look back at him from her screen as she typed without even needing to look. "Anything else while I'm at it?"

"Yeah, I'd like to request copies of the last few cases that Detective Louis Duval worked on before his death."

That brought Margerie to pause. "Does Detective Song know you're doing this?"

"She will when I'm sure of something." He paused then added. "Could you also get me a copy of Marie-Amédée d'Orléans missing person's file too?"

"That's quite the load, you sure you don't want to tell her?"

"It's more or less wanting to look into something as a side gig, that's all."

"Alrighty," she said as her fingers flew across the keyboard before she frowned. "Well, sorry to say I won't be able to get you a copy of Marie's case file."

Now it was Freddie's turn to frown. "Why?"

"Because the original was taken out, no copies exist."

"By who?"

She turned the computer screen to see who signed off on taking the file.

Louis Duval.

"He must have taken it out before we had the chance to make a copy." Margerie glanced at Freddie. "I completely forgot about it after what happened to him. Never really talked about the leads he was on. What do you need them for?"

"It's just a hunch." He tells her. "I just want to check something with them is all."

"And that's the same thing he said to me before he died." She grasped his hand. "Now you listen here Fred, I don't know what it is your doing, but don't wind up dead. I don't want another sweet man to end up dead at that monster's hands."

He placed his hand over hers and squeezed. "I won't be reckless."

"Good, your smarter than that." He then let go of her hand to let her back to work, the sound of the printer whirring away as pages came flying out. "That is Lauren Davenport's file, I'll have Louis's in a moment, how many do you need?"

"Six, please."

"Alright, six it is." As she then began to sort the printed documents, sorting them in order, and holding them with paperclips before putting them in a standard manila envelope she held it up for him to take, but refused to let go when he took hold of it. "Louis was a bright man; it still breaks my heart that he's gone. But if he had that file, then you might be better off asking his wife. As far as I know, she still has all of his things."

"I will, thank you Margerie." Only then did she let go of the file.

"Don't get killed or I'll smack you!" she called out as he headed out and back to the elevator. Waving as he did so.

When he was on only then did he allow himself the moment to breathe. His dark eyes looked down at the unassuming envelope. Something so unassuming held so much weight.

"People who hurt me, disappear..."

Amalie's words echoed inside his head. He didn't want to think this, not after all the grief he gave Kira for doing the same thing but his mind kept going to the same thought over and over.

Alastor Hilmarsson was somehow involved.

Did he kill the people who hurt Lauren, and if so, where was she? Was she even alive?

The grip he had on the envelope tightened, the only thing he had right now was Amalie's words, her words and all these strange connections leading right back to her father.

The only thing Freddie could do right now was to go over every piece of information as slowly as possible to not miss anything important.

As much as he'd like to power through, doing that could mean something bad on his end. So for now, he'd take his time, and see just what he could uncover with a fresh pair of eyes.

Who knows, he might just find something that Louis missed all those years ago.