Found Missing: Day 15

 Word Count: 90,131

Summary of Events:

After several hours it was determined that the request for the hostage negotiator had been forgotten, so Blake tried to get one sent their way, but found it difficult, and even Dallas' effort to help didn't go well, but eventually the Strathmore detective succeeded in getting one sent out. Dallas also snooped around the house and discovered Talbert Brauer's drivers license had expired two years ago, before he and Blake discovered that the registration on the car in the garage had expired sooner than that. Once the hostage negotiator arrived Dallas showed Det. Sgt. Nash their discoveries before Det. Sgt. Nash started snooping around in the bedroom, including digging into the closet . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Brass buttons, olive green wool, crisp lines, impeccable tailoring, a brown leather belt with a shoulder strap going over the right shoulder, and a bright scarlet armband with a crisp-edged white circle that had a black swastika centred inside somehow staying in place around the left arm without an arm inside of it.

“He still has it,” Dallas whispered.

“Hm,” Det. Sgt. Nash said. “Obviously it has value to him, and that means he still must believe in all the hate they believed.”

Dallas nodded feeling dazed as Det. Sgt. Nash shoved all the clothes he’d pushed away back against the uniform to hide it from sight again.

“Oh look,” Det. Sgt. Nash said.

Startling and blinking, Dallas turned to look where Det. Sgt. Nash was looking and saw a hat not unlike the black-brimmed, yellow-banded, navy blue hat presently perched on his head, but with a red band and olive green, and another swastika centre front where Dallas’ hat had the bison-headed crest of the RCMP.

In the shadows behind the hat, Dallas also spied tall, straight leather boots probably not altogether unlike the mahogany-coloured boots every RCMP officer wore with their red serge.

“A history museum might be super-keen on having all that,” Dallas said. “It’d all be original, not pieced together from here or there.”

“You really think a museum would want a Nazi outfit?” Det. Sgt. Nash asked.

“Well, you’ve got to show what the bad guys wore too,” Dallas said.

“Maybe,” Det. Sgt. Nash said, starting to draw the doors closed.

“Wait!” Dallas exclaimed, remembering something. “Is there, like, a stitching or a repair in the stomach area of the uniform?”

“Why?” Det. Sgt. Nash asked.

“Because he was shot in the stomach by Mrs. Hardwick’s father when he tried to get the chain back,” Dallas replied.

Det. Sgt. Nash pulled open the door behind which the uniform lay and Dallas pushed the clothes back, lifting the wooden hanger on which the uniform hung out of the closet and laying it on the bed.

He drew back the plastic and looked at the abdominal area of the uniform, but found no stitches. Unless he’d been able to get a replacement uniform, or he’d gained this uniform by promotion later on.

Dallas covered it back up and hung it in its place before returning everything as it’d been before.

“I can’t believe you would touch that,” Det. Sgt. Nash said.

“I don’t think the clothes a guy wears can make him evil,” Dallas replied. “After all, these threads don’t make everyone who wears them good.” He pulled at his shirt.

Det. Sgt. Nash gave a concessional nod and closed the closet door before leading the way out of the room, with Dallas feeling a little uncomfortable now that he really thought about it and realised he’d actually touched a bonafide Nazi uniform that’d been worn by a coldblooded Nazi who was holding an innocent old woman hostage downstairs.