by David Dean
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The sun was just reddening the horizon as Nick hurried down the deserted sidewalk. His home was only two blocks from the police department. The morning was cool, with just a touch of crispness in the freshening breeze. The autumn was not yet old, and winter still seemed far away as Nick strode beneath the posters of Seth Busby that fluttered and snapped along his way.
Even in the grey light of coming dawn, he recognized the boy’s face as it had been seven years before, while the age-enhanced version was the face of a stranger—a reproach for his failure to bring the boy back to his still-grieving family.
A chill ran through him as the breeze ruffled his thick, dark hair, hair that was just beginning to show some gray. Zipping up his jacket, he crossed the street to the police department.
Giving Diana a nod through the bulletproof glass of the lobby window, he even managed a tight smile as she nodded back and buzzed him through. The hum of subdued conversation reached him from the squad room. Just before entering, he took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. It was going to be a long day. He pushed through the door.
At a glance he could see that, indeed, everyone had been gathered. “Good morning,” he said to the entire assemblage, which was answered with a mumbled chorus of the same.
Besides his four detectives, the on-duty and on-coming shift sergeants, a couple of dispirited-looking investigators from the prosecutor’s office, and the sheriff’s K-9 team, he recognized the ever-affable Jack Kimbo from the regional F.B.I. Office.
Smiling even at the ungodly hour of dawn, Jack raised a coffee cup in greeting and pointed to it. Nick grinned back. He was very glad to see the rumpled Kimbo. They had known each other for years and he had never failed to be a reliable source of expertise and support on the cases that they had worked together. They had first met on the Busby case, and it was obvious by his presence that kidnapping had not been ruled out in this one either.
Nodding back, Jack swept the coffee pot up and began to fill the cup. Without asking, he added two creamers, but no sugar, handing it to Nick. “I still remember how you like it, big boy,” he said, peering over the rims of his glasses.
“Thanks, Jack, you’re sweet,” Nick replied without the trace of a smile. Then, “It’s good to see you.” He turned to the room at large and spotted his second-in-command, Captain Shadrick Weller.
The Captain appeared to be hunkered down in the midst of his supporters, made up mostly of the small detective bureau, as well as the most nakedly ambitious of the patrol division. He caught Weller peering at him from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. “Chief,” Weller said curtly. The rest of his entourage found other places to look.
Nick shook his head to clear it, took a deep breath, and drew himself up to his full six foot height. “Gentlemen,” he boomed, as all eyes turned towards him, “will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Sitting up straighter, Shadrick paused. As usual, he was unhappy with being treated like a subordinate. Or perhaps he just didn’t have a good answer, and wanted to cover. Nick would probably never know. “We searched her house, of course. You know the drill, Chief; just in case she had snuck in and was hiding. Patrol took statements from the neighbors, but no one saw her leave the school grounds. Then we got a scent item from the mom—the little girl’s pillowcase—and brought in the dogs. It’s the only lead we’ve got. The dogs tracked her up to the schoolyard fence, but wouldn’t go any further.”
Nick arched an eyebrow.
“Don’t ask me!” Shadrick threw up his hands. “They started whining and pissing and turned tail for home. There was a funny smell might have put them off.”
“Funny smell?” Nick asked. His stomach started to tighten.
Weller ignored him. “In any case, the Fire Chief is organizing volunteers over at the fire house.” He pointed out the window at the brightening dawn. “They’re ready to go as soon as you finish your coffee, Chief.” Nick felt his face harden at the obvious dig. A small smile appeared on Weller’s mouth. He had scored a point. “Maybe the goddamn dogs will do better then.”
Shadrick Weller came from one of the “original” families in town. The Wellers had arrived from Long Island with a charter from William and Mary to purchase one of the first tracts of land in what would later become Wessex Township, New Jersey. The county museum proudly displayed the deed his namesake ancestor had received from the crown in 1695.
Nick’s family, by comparison, was a relative newcomer, having only migrated up from Maryland in 1745. Preposterous as it was, Shadrick had the ability to make lineage appear to be an important issue—only the “originals” should hold the seats of power, and that included the position of Chief of Police. It was hard to believe that once upon a time they had been partners.
“A couple of my guys will be working with your detectives,” Jack spoke at his elbow. “We don’t have any evidence that this is a kidnapping, yet, but her getting over that fence worries me. It doesn’t make sense, unless she was taken, or lured somehow. The office crew is combing records for local pedophiles in the meantime… just in case.”
Nick nodded thoughtfully. His eyes searched each of the faces in the room, finally meeting Shadrick Weller’s, but only for the briefest of moments. Weller looked away.
Nick drained his coffee and reached for his uniform jacket. “All right, gentlemen. We’ve pissed away enough time. Let’s go find that little girl.”
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Nick and Jack walked several yards behind the Sheriff’s K-9 handlers watching the dogs work. After picking up the scent from the unwashed pillowcase Megan’s mother had provided they took off across the schoolyard, straining at their long leashes.
“They’re definitely on it,” one of the Sheriff’s deputies remarked. “They’ve got a good scent trail.”
The two bloodhounds lumbered forward, snuffling the earth, as a German shepherd, brought along as back-up, followed curiously.
Nearing the sagging chain link fence bordering the schoolyard, they broke into a run, the sheriff’s officers trotting behind them. Reaching it, they stopped suddenly, turning in tight circles and blowing loudly through their dripping nostrils. Nick noticed the handlers glancing uneasily at one another.
“They find something?” He called out. “What is it?”
The older of the two answered, “I… no, I don’t think so. I think they’re freaking out again.”
Suddenly one, then the other, pissed where they stood and began to whine. A low growl rumbled up from the shepherd’s throat though he had been kept back several yards.
“What the fuck?” Jack whispered.
The hounds began to pull in the opposite direction, and as Nick caught up he could see that they had begun to shiver. “What’s wrong them?” he demanded.
The dogs slunk towards the waiting K-9 vehicles, clearly eager to be away from there. “For Christ’s sake,” Nick breathed.
The handler looked up at him. “I don’t understand it, Chief. I really don’t. They did the same thing last night.”
Nick strode past to the low fencing sagging beneath the weight of vines and briars. “What’s that smell?” he called over his shoulder as a faint musty odor drifted to him from the shadowed woods beyond. He turned to ask Weller a question, but the Captain was standing back, watching. Nick turned to Jack. “Is that the smell you encountered before.”
Jack and the senior handler, a man named Miller, came up to either side of him. “Yes, sir. The same damned smell,” reported Miller.
“Yeah… what is that?” asked Jack.
Miller frowned. “Skunk, maybe?” Then his face brightened somewhat. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the girls,” he hooked a thumb at the two disgraced hounds being led off the field. “Maybe a skunk’s come through here recently. They spray everything within sight when they got little ones hid nearby.”
Nick favored him with a doubtful look. “That’s no skunk,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s no skunk.”
> The handler turned away to follow his partner, adding, “Sorry, chief… really. Never seen the girls act like this before.”
Jack chuckled, “Damn if it doesn’t make me feel a little light-headed.”
Nick turned to the agent, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You know, I feel a little dizzy myself. Meth lab…?” he ventured, glancing into the woods.
“No,” Jack assured him. “It’s not that… but something. Shall we see?”
Nick nodded in agreement and turned to the searchers waiting in the parking lot. Seeing that the useless dogs had been secured, he gave a whistle and wave of his hand and the line of officers and volunteers began to move forward. When they reached the fence line, Nick helped the more portly Jack over it, joining him on the other side.
“Jack,” he said in a low tone as they began to push on into the tangled forest, “You and I have seen dogs do that before… remember? Seven years ago when we set out to find Seth Busby. Different dogs, same reaction.”
The agent glanced over at him. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I remember. I was hoping you wouldn’t—things didn’t turn out so well that time.”
“The smell too, Jack. I had almost forgotten it. That was there, too.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed.
Both men pushed deeper into the undergrowth.
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As the light bled out of the bright October sky, shadows crept eastward through the dense maritime forest, coalescing into a damp grey uncertainty. Nick sent word for the team leaders to get a head count of their people and bring them out. With the coming of night there was little more that could be done, and he couldn’t risk any of the searchers getting lost or hurt. Besides, he would need them rested for the following morning.
Trudging silently back toward the schoolyard, Jack slapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Tomorrow, my friend, tomorrow.”
They broke out into the schoolyard once more. Nick saw two figures detaching themselves from a clutch of on-lookers in the parking lot. It was a man and a woman. The man began trotting toward him while the woman stumbled along behind. Nick recognized Megan’s parents.
“Oh God,” he breathed. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
“Why are you stopping?” the man began to shout as he drew near. He had heard the command to shut down for the night at the command post in the school lot. “Megan’s still out there!” A helicopter flew with a clatter over their heads.
Nick looked the desperate father in the eye and said, “It’s getting too dark for us to find anyone, Mister Guthrie. I know you don’t want to hear that right now, but I do have to think of the safety of the searchers, too.” He nodded at the police officers and volunteer firemen emerging from the woods and edging closer, drawn by the commotion. “We’re going to start again at first light…”
Jack intervened, pointing skyward, “We still have aerial assets… helicopters with night scopes looking for her, sir. They’ll keep working the area for a while…”
“That’s my little girl out there in the woods,” Guthrie screamed, spraying both men with spittle, his square unshaven face contorted with rage and fear. “Don’t you leave her out there like did the other one, goddamnit—like you did, Seth Busby!” He squared off with Nick. “Don’t even think about giving up on my Megan!”
Silence fell over the gathering crowd and every eye turned from meeting Nick’s own.
“I’ll find her,” Nick promised. “I’ll never stop looking and I’ll find her.”
Megan’s father turned away, replying hoarsely, “Bring her home, Chief. Please bring her home to us.”
His wife, still standing where she had been left, stared at the darkening woods beyond the fence, her faded blue eyes streaming. In her hands she twisted a damp handkerchief, bringing it to her mouth like a stopper. But the wail escaped her lips even so, floating over the heads of the men and women gathered there, the sound as lonely and lost as her little girl. Nearby, her husband’s sobs drifted to them as a soft undercurrent of sorrow to his wife’s keening cry.
Breaking the spell, a woman with the rescue squad rushed to her side, slipping an arm over her shoulders and murmuring meaningless words of comfort. The rest quietly stowed away their gear before turning for home, and their still-intact families.
CHAPTER THREE
The following morning, and surprisingly early for him, Preston shakily joined his daughter for breakfast. It was just past seven and the sun was beginning to dispel the darkness that lingered longer each day. He found Fanny in her flannel pajamas and Indian blanket housecoat shuffling about the kitchen. Preston had always known her to be easily chilled, and he put this down to her thinness.
For his part, Preston wore a pair of worn and faded green sweat pants that he never remembered owning and would never have stooped to buy in his heyday. Over his freshly laundered undershirt he had wrapped himself in a blanket that Fanny always left folded at the foot of his bed, even in summer. There was a distinct chill in the morning air, he noted, as he slid cautiously along the hardwood floor in his threadbare socks.
Reaching the table, he sat down without speaking, and Fanny placed a mug of black coffee in front of him. Preston waited until she had turned back to the stove to bend down and slurp the hot liquid as quietly as he was able; he could not yet trust his hands. It was apparent from his daughter’s silence that he had done something very wrong the day before, but could he not recall what it might have been. As it had obviously affected his only child, he could only surmise that he might have misbehaved at the library. Fanny’s first spoken words of the morning confirmed this.
“You’re not to go into the library today, Dad. I mean it. You’re going to get me fired before all is said and done.”
Looking up from beneath his spiky, gray brows, he found her regarding him with folded arms. She looked the very image of her lovely mother, he thought, though with a far more resolute demeanor than his wife could have ever evinced. He noted with some pride that his only child was a winsome-looking wench, even if she was his own flesh and blood. She had her mother’s chestnut-colored and abundant hair which she wore scooped up into a ponytail. She was also thin like her mother—too thin, he thought, and some of that was him.
Her eyes were large, the color of café au lait, with long, arched eyebrows. Her skin was clear and just a little too pale, her nose just a little too long. But her mouth was wide and generous, trembling to life in unguarded moments.
He foggily recalled some sort of disagreement with another patron—a man with highly questionable taste in literature. Was that yesterday… or the day before? The vague memory made the pulse in his head throb; each beat pumping a painful pressure into his egg-fragile skull. “Aspirin,” he pled, before shading his burnt eyes from the invading rays of the brilliant autumn sun. She had him at his low ebb, he thought. How perfectly female.
“There’s two right in front of you,” she pointed out, while at the same moment sliding a plate with dry toast across the table to him. She set her own plate down with a clatter and Preston winced. Gobbling down the two white tablets, he sucked up another mouthful of the steaming, black liquid.
“Are we out of marmalade?” he asked, regarding the wheat toast balefully, “or is that part of my punishment as well? It wouldn’t take much to weaken an old man like me, would it?” His mouth felt coated with something greasy and black. “Keep thinning down my feed long enough and before you know it I won’t be able to climb out of bed. Now wouldn’t that just be dandy for everybody?” He took a bite of a dry slice and chewed with his mouth open for effect.
Fanny put two spoonfuls of creamer into her own coffee, took a sip, and then began to spread orange marmalade onto her own toast from a small ceramic pot in the center of the table. Preston watched this with embarrassment and dismay.
“Pop, I’m not going to ladle it on for you. Hungover or not, you’re a big boy and I’m not your mother… or mine for that matter.”
He had forgotten that this was where she ke
pt his preferred spread. Looking down, Preston muttered something indistinct, then added, “It’s a public building, isn’t it?”
Fanny took a small bite of her own toast before saying, “Yes, Pop, it’s a public building, and a public library that I just happen to work at and that just happens to provide us both with the only income we have. Mrs. Cohansey had a ‘talk’ with me yesterday after you had to be escorted out again. Do you know what she wanted to speak with me about, Pop? Can you guess?”
Preston avoided both his daughter’s gaze and question, saying, “You can’t be fired for something I do. Just let them try something like that… we’d own the damned library. We’d own this entire Godforsaken county,” he declared.
Fanny’s expression remained unchanged and unmoved. “Dad, do you remember when I got my first job in my major… the one your old boss was kind enough to give me after I graduated? Do you remember what happened?”
Preston still wouldn’t look at her, slopping the marmalade onto his bread. He brought the slice to his lips with hands that now contained only the slightest of tremors thanks to the aspirin and coffee. “Pity work,” he said around a mouthful of rinds and syrup, “Wergild—just trying to ease a guilty conscience.”
“You said then that they couldn’t fire me because of your behavior and you never stopped testing that theory. You spent more time in the college library the nine months I worked there than you ever did as a tenured professor. The president was kind enough to give me a job and allow you to continue to use the facility in spite of everything that had happened. Maybe he did pity us. If you ask me, we were pretty pitiful.”
Folding her arms, she studied the man who had destroyed her mother, and his own career, with his unrepentant alcoholism: a preening and self-absorbed intellectual who had laughingly refused the least counsel by his fellow professors. Even the repeated warnings of a beleaguered college president had gone unheeded: Too many missed classes, too few students registering as a result of his abrasive reputation. Papers left ungraded, or so savagely reviewed, that few cared to volunteer for the experience.