Free Murder Is Uncooperative by Merrilee Robson Page B

pressing. Anyway, thanks for taking this on. Let me know if you find anything you don't understand.”
    I was starting to realize there were many things about the co-op I didn't understand. I hoped these boxes would help me understand the tensions in the building better. If someone was pointing the finger at me for Les's death, I wanted to be prepared. Finding out what was going on in the co-op seemed a good first
    As soon as I got home, I wanted to upend the box that Gwen had given me and just root through everything. But I knew it was best to sort things first. From what I had seen in Gwen'sapartment, there were old photos and written documents. I could put the photos in one file, maybe sorted by date or subject, and sort through the written documents. I didn't know what I'd find, but I thought it best to get it in some order.
    Of course that was easier said than done. I glanced at the backs of pictures to see if anyone had noted dates or the people in the photos. Few had any kind of identification. I found myself looking at them curiously, wondering if I would recognize anyone.
    Some of the pictures were cute, showing kids in the playground or dressed up for a Halloween party. I glanced at each of them, trying to put them in order of date, based on the clothes and hairstyles of the people in the picture. It was easy to recognize the shoulder pads and big hair from the 1980s. Later pictures showed bangs flipped up and lots of leggings. Even if the files didn't help me understand what had happened to Les or what was going on in the co-op, I'd enjoy finding out about its history. This was going to be fun.
    The piles of old meeting minutes were easy to put in order. Most of them had the date on them, although not all, I noticed. The minute taking at meetings was sometimes pretty casual, particularly for committee meetings.
    There were other documents—lists of members from different years, newsletters, and other notes. I couldn't really see any pattern to them.
    Near the bottom of the box I found something different.
    It was a file folder with a single newspaper clipping, faded, yellowed and tattered. It was dated twenty years earlier. It showed pictures of two young girls. Another picture showed the co-op, the trees in front of it much smaller than they were today.
    And a headline.
    "H OPE F ADES FOR F INDING M ISSING G IRLS A LIVE ."

CHAPTER
Eleven
    I read the story quickly. Two fifteen-year-old girls, Jessica Anderson and Amy Cole, had been missing for a month when the story was written. Amy had lived in the co-op, and Jessica, a school friend, had visited her that afternoon. The last place they had been
    The pictures the newspaper had used were probably school photos. The two looked heartbreakingly happy. Jessica's face was covered in freckles. Her smile glinted with the silver of braces, and her long blond hair framed a face still chubby with baby fat. Amy looked like a sprite, with short dark curls and a heart-shaped face.
    I shuffled through the remaining papers in the box but there were no other newspaper clippings. Some of the other papers seemed to be from the same time. I glanced through them quickly to see if there was more information about the missing girls but there was nothing.
    I grabbed the phone on my desk to ask Gwen if I could pick up the other box she had. But I got her voicemail. It was too late for Ruth to be in the office, so I couldn't check there for more boxes.
    I switched on my computer to see if I could learn anything else on the web. The search was as frustrating as the one through the papers in the box.
    The newspaper's site yielded nothing.
    I found a site that claimed to be a list of missing people and unsolved murders in Canada. But it seemed to be completelyunofficial and run by a volunteer. The names of the two girls were not listed on the site.
    Which could mean that they'd been found alive and safely returned home. They could have run away for some reason. Or they could have been