Someone knocked on my front door at 9 p.m.
I closed my laptop—I’d been playing and losing a game of chess against the computer—and answered the knock. A woman stood there, talking on her phone. She was fifty, she looked forty, a good forty, brown hair glinting with silver. Excellent physique made even more commendable through plastic surgery, or so the rumors and the physical evidence indicated. I’d seen her face earlier today on the cover of a magazine published in Roanoke.
We’d helped each other on cases before. A collegial arrangement. She was probably my prettiest colleague. And probably the prettiest sheriff on the East Coast.
She held up a finger. Said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up. Texted something and put away her phone. “Hey babe. Sorry this is late. Got a minute?”
“Sheriff Stackhouse.” I stepped aside to let her in. “You have me on the cusp of alarm.”
“There aren’t many good reasons for the sheriff to knock on your door after dark, are there.”
“I can think of more with you than with the typical sheriff.”
“Thanks. But don’t be alarmed. I’m here to compare notes.”
I led her to the kitchen. Held up a beer and a bottle of Woodford bourbon. She nodded at the bourbon and slid onto a stool. Her khaki uniform was snug and she hadn’t buttoned it all the way to her neck and the collar gapped, but I did not look.
“Compare notes,” I said. Dropped two ice cubes into a highball glass and poured bourbon. Slid it to her. And did not look. “On Margaret Atwood’s most recent novel?”
She finished the bourbon in one pronounced gulp. Held it out for more.
“I don’t know who that is, babe.” I thought she sounded husky, like Demi Moore. “A kid’s gone missing. And your name came up.”
I poured another shot.
Said, “I’m not on any missing children.”
“This is a weird one. Two years ago, maybe around the time you moved here, a teenager disappeared. Jon Young. Good kid, lived with his grandmother, plenty of friends. Sixteen, I think, made solid grades, and then he was gone. No clues. A month later his body surfaced in the Roanoke River, down near North Carolina at the John Kerr reservoir. Waters were high. M.E. saw no significant signs of mistreatment, but he’d been shot two days before floating onto the shore. Shook Roanoke up good.
“This morning, a mom reports her teenage son missing. Happens a lot. Usually it’s a non-issue; the kid’s a prick or the parents are assholes, he’s staying at a friend’s or girlfriend’s, boyfriend’s, whatever, and comes home soon. These things resolve themselves. This one caught my eye, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“His name’s Alec Ward. I kinda know who his parents are. Both Alec and the boy who died two years ago regularly attended All Saints,” she said.
“Ah.” The hairs on my arm raised.
“Yes. Ah. So that sparks my interest—two missing kids from All Saints? God, I don’t want to go through that again. I go over there today and I’m chatting with Jeremy Cameron in his office about Alec Ward and Jeremy’s phone rings. He answers it, talks a minute, and hangs up. He looks a little spooked and I ask, anything wrong? No, he said. That was just a friend, Mackenzie August.”
“I’m so friendly.”
She sipped her bourbon. She watched me over the rim with green eyes. I don’t think she was doing it to seduce me, but it had an effect just the same.
She said, “No you’re not. I didn’t mention to Jeremy Cameron that you being involved is often trouble. Looks like he’s got enough on his plate. But I thought I’d come talk to you as soon as I could.”
“My tax dollars hard at work.”
“Speaking of hard at work, Manny around?”
“He,” I said, “is not. Sometimes he’s gone for a couple days without explanation.”
“You wouldn’t believe the ruckus he causes walking through my office. No one can focus the next ten minutes.”
“I sleep in the same room with him every night. Doesn’t bother me. I am an oak.”
“You two share a room?” she said.
“Not really. But also yes.”
“That’s the juiciest damned gossip I’ve ever heard, sweetie. The girls will lose their minds, I tell them about this. And speaking of a girl losing her mind, where’s your father?”
“I’m here,” said Timothy August coming down the rear staircase. He was rolling up the sleeves of the shirt he’d just thrown on. “I thought I detected the most lovely bachelorette in Roanoke.”
“In Roanoke?” she said.
“In the state, I mean, of course.”
She held out her hand. He took it and squeezed.
She hadn’t held out her hand to me. Weird.
Timothy kissed her cheek. “You’re here on business.”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
“Drinks after?” he said.
“I wish.” She pulled out her phone to check the time. Scanned the waiting text messages. “Got a missing kid, a 7-11 clerk shot in northwest, a transport broken down in Danville with prisoners inside, and a deputy in custody for beating the shit out of an inmate. What about tomorrow evening?”
“I am yours,” said Timothy August. “Dinner? Drinks? Dancing?”
“Just drinks. I’m having dinner at the cancer research fundraiser. But I’ll be dying to get out of that room.”
“Hey. I’m still here,” I said with a sense of vertigo. My father was single and somewhat active in Roanoke’s Wealthy And Hot Over Forty-Five scene, a lurid world where rules seemed looser. I’d seen him and Stackhouse orbit one another before, enough that I anticipated them crashing together at some point. But I prefer not to witness it.
They ignored me.
My father said, “Tomorrow it is. Drinks at Stellina?”
She pursed her lips in contemplation. “Let’s make it the Pine Room.”
“The Hotel Roanoke’s bar.”
“You know, just in case.”
She smiled. It was a good one.
He smiled back.
I covered my face with my hand. “Holy hell.”
“Yes. Just in case,” he said.
“Actually, Timothy, I don’t have a date for the fundraiser. I’d like to bring the handsomest widower in Roanoke, if you could manage…”
“I’ll be there, Sheriff,” he said.
“You didn’t even let me promise a reward.”
“I will implode,” I said. “Any second. From atavistic outrage. And familial mortification. And—”
“Okay, son. I’m going. Calm yourself.”
“I’m the one who needs to calm himself?”
“Goodnight, Sheriff,” he said.
“Goodnight, Timothy. See you soon.”
Dad winked and went back upstairs.
I poured myself a glass of bourbon.
Stackhouse watched the empty staircase a moment and said, “He doesn’t have your breadth of shoulders, but that is one sexy man.”
“Keep it up and next election I’m voting for someone else.”
“You’re jealous because I have a date tomorrow night and you don’t,” said the Sheriff.
“That’s…unnecessarily deleterious. Let’s get back to the endangered children.”
“You aren’t friends with pastor Jeremy Cameron. You don’t have normal friends. You’re working for him?”
“For the church,” I said.
“How long?”
“A few days.”
“And now a kid’s missing. Coincidence?”
“Better be,” I said.
“Tell me about the job.”
“Top secret.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Louis Lindsey is accused of being a sexual predator. His targets are male.”
She said, “Ah,” and sipped her drink.
“You do not appear poleaxed.”
“I’m not poleaxed, whatever the hell that means.”
“You knew he was gay?”
“Babe, I’m fifty and single. I spent a fortune to look this good. I spend all day with seedy attorneys and all night at parties with bored rich people. I see things. I hear things.”
“Such as?”
“He’s often at soirees without his wife. He’s flirtatious and aggressive. Father Louis has a sexiness about him that’s hard to deny. His followers are rabid, they eat him up. Plus there are whispers and rumors that when he, ah, strays from home, it’s with members of his own gender.”
I put both hands on the counter and leaned on them. Stared at my glass of bourbon. Sucked at my lip.
She said, “Sorry. That bum you out?”
“It bums me out that the leader of a church is widely rumored to be promiscuous and prominent citizens accept that as normal.”
“The church at large doesn’t have a great reputation the last couple years.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t. Thus I am lugubrious.”
“Talk normal, Mack. Jesus. So what does your investigation have to do with Alec Ward disappearing?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a big coincidence.”
“Too big.”
“Let’s play Worst Case Scenario. Assume the two disappearances are related. Assume the same guy got them both, and will treat them similarly. That means Alec Ward is alive but potentially abducted and the clock is ticking; he’ll soon be shot and dumped into a river, and we’ll never know why.”
“A lot of assumptions.”
“Humor me.”
“The first kid disappeared two years ago. Hard to involve me or my current investigation. But still, I don’t like it.”
“I agree, and I’ll take all the help I can get. Bringing Jon Young out of the river and burying him was godawful.”
“Sure.”
“Who accused Father Louis?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m able to. At the moment, these incidents do not correlate.”
“Understood.” She drained the final drop from her glass. Stood. “Okay, babe. I’ll go. Update me and I’ll return the favor.”
“Just us law keepers sharing ammunition.”
She paused at the door. “Speaking of fathers who are predatory…”
“No. Shut up. Don’t.”
“Tell your old man I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”