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Once Penny is gone, Holly takes a packet of antibacterial wipes from the top drawer of her desk and swabs down both the part of the desk where Penny rested her clasped hands, and the arms of the chair she sat in. Probably overdoing the caution—you can’t disinfect everything, it would be crazy to try—but better safe than sorry. Holly only has to think of her mother to know that.

She goes down the hall to the ladies’ and washes her hands. When she returns to her office, she reviews her notes and makes a list of the people she wants to talk to. Then she sits tilted back in her chair, hands clasped loosely on her stomach, looking at the ceiling. A vertical crease—what Barbara Robinson calls Holly’s think-line—has appeared between her eyes. The missing backpack doesn’t concern her; as Penny said, her daughter would have been wearing it. What interests Holly is Bonnie Rae’s bike helmet. And the bike itself. Both are very interesting to her, for related but slightly different reasons.

After five minutes or so the vertical crease disappears and she calls Isabelle Jaynes. “Hello, Izzy. It’s Holly Gibney. I hope you don’t mind me calling your personal phone.”

“Not at all. I was very sorry to hear about your mother, Hol.”

“How did you know?” Izzy wasn’t at the Zoom funeral, unless—and this would be just like her—she was lurking.

“Pete told me.”

“Well, thank you. Losing her was tough. And needless.”

“No jabs?”

“No.” Pete probably told Izzy that, too. Holly doesn’t know how closely they stay in touch, but she’s sure they do. Blue never fades. Bill told her that.

“How is Pete doing?”

“Not bouncing back as fast as I’d hoped.”

“Sorry to hear it. What can I do for you?”

Holly tells her that Penelope Dahl has hired her to look into her daughter’s disappearance. She didn’t expect Izzy to feel that she was muscling in on a police investigation, and her expectation is fulfilled. Izzy is actually delighted and wishes Holly the best of luck.

“Mrs. Dahl doesn’t believe Bonnie left town,” Holly says, “and she rejects the idea of suicide. Vehemently. What’s your take?”

“Between us? Not for publication?”

“Of course not!”

“It was a joke, Hols. Sometimes I forget how literal you can be. I think the girl either decided on the spur of the moment to light out for sights unseen and pastures new… or she was abducted. If you put a gun to my kitty-cat’s head, I’d favor abduction. Possibly followed by rape, murder, and body disposal.”

“Oough.”

“Oough is correct. I notified the right people, and put the State Police in the loop.”

“Did the right people include the FBI?”

“I spoke to the Cincinnati SAC. They won’t investigate, they’ve got bigger fish to fry, but at least it’s in their database. If something they are investigating touches on the Dahl woman, they’ll know. As for here in town, you know what a shitshow it is. Covid is bad enough, but now we’ve got the Maleek Dutton thing. It’s settled a little bit, no one’s been breaking store windows or setting cars on fire for the last couple of weeks, but it’s still… reverberating.”

“That was unfortunate.” It was a lot more than that, but Dutton is a sensitive subject and an old story: young Black man, busted taillight, traffic stop. The officer approaching says keep your hands on the wheel, but Dutton reaches for his phone.

“Stupid is what it was. Unconscionable is what it was.” Izzy sounds like she’s speaking through clenched teeth. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The grand jury cleared the trigger-happy asshole—you didn’t hear me say that, either—but at least he’s off the force. He’s not the only one, either. Between Covid and the trouble in Lowtown, we’re down twenty-five per cent. If the governor mandates masks and vaccinations for city and state employees, it will go down more. The thin blue line is thinner than ever.”

Holly makes a sound that might indicate sympathy. She is sympathetic, but only to a point. It was a bad shooting—an indefensible shooting, no matter what the grand jury said—and she will never understand why cops who snap on gloves as a matter of course before injecting ODs with Naloxone are against being vaccinated for Covid. Not all of them refuse the jab, of course, but a sizeable minority do. In any case, she’s used to this sort of grousing. Izzy Jaynes is basically a very unhappy person.

“Look, Hols, I know the Dahl woman thinks we let her down. Maybe we did. Probably we did. But they argued all the time, so the neighbors say, and this city’s infrastructure is almost underwater. Did you know they’re emptying the jails because of Covid? Putting bad guys back on the street? Sometimes I think it’s good Bill didn’t live to see it.”

I wish he had, Holly thinks. I wish he’d lived to see anything. Her mother’s death is a fresh grief on top of the one for Bill she still carries.

Izzy sighs. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re taking her on, kiddo. I feel sorry for her, but she’s one extra pain in an ass that’s already painful. Let me know if I can help.”

“I will.”