So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Al, Thursday

Al hung up from his phone call with Sunny and was about to head back to work from his lunch break when his phone rang again. It was Rachel. He answered and said, "Hi, honey."

"Were you just on the phone before? I got sent straight to voicemail but I didn't want to leave a message."

"Yeah, I was talking to Sunny. Just gave him the bad news. Did you tell Lauren?"

"Yup, but that's not why I'm calling."

"Oh, no?" Now he was curious. "It couldn't wait until we were on our way home?"

"No. Lauren's in a meeting with a client so I couldn't tell her, and I had to tell someone."

"You sound excited. What is it?"

"Well, earlier I got a call from Marjorie Wilson."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, and she told me she found out a little about Sadie T. Diamond."

"What?!" he sputtered, braking before he reached the staff door on the Lower Level. It was just on the other side of a glass wall from the Circulation sorting room, with its Automated Materials Handling machine and its conveyor belts moving books and other items to various bins in response to signals provided by each item's Radio Frequency Identification tag, which worked much like Al's staff badge on the RFID reader that unlocked the staff door. He couldn't touch his badge to the reader with his hand anymore, because he'd discovered late last year that, due to an unsolicited treatment he'd received while in his coma, his body was constantly emitting its own tiny radio signals and they were interfering with the signal from his badge; he had to hang it against the reader from its lanyard around his neck to make it work.

She said, "I know, I didn't think I'd hear back from her about it, but she actually tracked down the information and realized why the name was familiar to her."

"You have me on tenterhooks, Rachel. What did she find out?"

Rachel cleared her throat, as if gearing up for what she was about to tell him. It had to be something game-changing.

"Sarah Teresa Diamond, nicknamed Sadie, thirteen-year-old daughter of Ned and Claire Diamond of Boyd Street, Queensborough, went missing in 1971 and has never been found."

Al stood with his phone to his ear, absolutely stunned.

"Al?" Rachel asked. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah," he said weakly. He shook his head as if waking from a daydream. "Sorry, yes, I'm still here. Is Marjorie sure of this?"

"Yes. In fact, she found the newspaper article in the Province that first mentioned the disappearance. The Society keeps clippings from major newspapers of stories mentioning New West, and files them by the last name of the person involved."

"Wow," Al said. "Sounds like a library of sorts. Do they keep a catalogue showing where to locate the articles by subject as well as name?"

"I didn't ask, and now I know it's going to eat you up wondering about it because you're a nerd about these things and I love you for it."

He chuckled in surprise. "You're right, and I love you for knowing that."

"Anyway, the article mentions that Sadie left to go to Spagnol's to pick up cigarettes for her mother. This was back when such a thing was common, the oldest child going shopping for Mom while she had the younger children at home, and kids could buy smokes on behalf of their parents with no questions asked."

"Of course," Al said, rolling his eyes at the laissez-faire attitude of previous generations, who'd never considered that they were making future customers of their children.