ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

Chief Belinda Walters sat at her desk, stewing.

She was angry that the feds had taken her department off active investigation of the murders. She was furious that they seemed to be withholding information from her. And she was worried that John Manning, who she still believed knew more about all this than he was saying, would get off scot-free.

But she was also stewing about something else.

Her daughter Emma’s comment that Madame Paulette had actually been right in her prediction.

Maybe, the chief thought, she’d been too quick to dismiss Paulette Drew’s reliability as a witness. Maybe she should at least give what she had to say some consideration.

This morning, Paulette had come into Walters’s office. She’d told her about a boy, a strange child who’d been taken in by Jessie Clarkson—a boy that Paulette felt had some connection to Emil Deetz. She was worried, deeply worried, about this boy.

What connection could a little boy have to all these murders? If Emil Deetz was committing them, what part did the kid play?

And where, Walters still wanted to know, did John Manning fit into all of this?

She stood from her desk and walked out into the department. She stopped at the desk of Detective Knotts.

“I’m going out to Hickory Dell,” she told him.

“But I thought—”

“I’m still the police chief of this burg. I can take a walk around a neighborhood when there’s a report of a lost kid.”

Knotts raised his eyebrows. “There’s been a report of a lost kid?”

“There’s gonna be,” Walters said, giving him a small smile before heading out the door.