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“Of course. Forgive me if I was being pushy, there.”

“Not at all.”

“Anyway, I’m sold. I’m going to get this.”

She went to lift the set off the shelf, but Edwin intervened. “Allow me,” he said, and carried the package over to the counter. He slipped behind it as the woman approached and opened her purse.

She suddenly shook her head, as though she had forgotten something. “I’m so rude. I haven’t even asked you your name.”

“Edwin,” he said, extending a hand. “Edwin Nabler. And you are?”

“Janice,” she said.

“Janice. Nice to meet you.”

She laughed. “I’m buying this for my husband, Harry, and our son, Dylan. Harry’s the chief of police here, in Lucknow. Chief Cook?”

“Yes, yes,” Nabler said, nodding. “I do believe we’ve met.”

Thirty-Seven

Harry had put in another call to Melissa Cairns, his friend who worked at the FBI. He’d gotten in touch with her briefly after the discovery of Angus Tanner’s body, wondering whether the bureau had ever come across any cases where a victim’s bones had been removed from the body. She’d made some mention of a case in Des Moines, had said she would get back to him, but he hadn’t heard from her.

So he’d left a message for her after Delbert Dorfman stuffed a pack of cigarettes into his mouth and set himself ablaze. There’d already been a couple of very dark jokes around the station in the wake of that, something about how maybe the anti-smoking lobby might want to make that dude their “In Memoriam” spokesperson, or how a picture of his flaming head might be best placed on every pack of smokes as a deterrent.

Harry hadn’t laughed.

Melissa was originally from Lucknow, and she and Harry had been in some of the same classes at the local high school. Harry could still recall sitting at the back of his history class, admiring the way Melissa, in her short skirt, one row over and three desks ahead, would sit slightly sideways and cross her legs, dangling one shoe. Pretty much drove him out of his mind. Didn’t dare walk out of that class without holding a binder in front of him.

As he headed for his office, Mary waved a couple of yellowmessage slips in the air and said, “Rachel Bosma called, and there’s some TV reporter from Montpelier who wants to do an on-camera interview about Tanner and Hillman.”

Harry took the messages, crumpled them, and tossed them into the closest wastebasket.

Mary, nonplussed, said, “If they call again I’ll say you have no comment at this time but that you are aggressively pursuing various leads.”

Harry filled a mug with coffee from the machine in the break room, went into his office, and closed the door.

He needed a minute.

Harry kept thinking about how when he depressed the whistle button on that toy train transformer, the dog from next door started barking and howling. When he took his finger off the button, the dog went quiet. He hung out in young Tyler’s bedroom for a few more minutes, repeating the experiment. Every time he held the button down, that mutt nearby went nuts.

The whistle, Harry concluded,didwork, but was not producing a sound that could be heard by human ears. It was operating at a much higher frequency, one that could only he detected, at least in this case, by dogs. The toy train version of a dog whistle.

The Lucknow department did not have a canine unit, but the state police did, its so-called K-9 unit. Harry had brought them in in the summer of 2000, more than a year ago, when a five-year-old boy got separated from his family during a camping trip. The tracking dogs were brought in and the boy was found within twenty-four hours. Cold and hungry and covered in mosquito bites, but he was okay.

Harry went to his Rolodex, found the number he’d called in, and made a call.

“John Garfield, K-9.”

Yes, it was true. The head of the canine unit’s surname was the same as a famous cartoon cat. And yes, he also had the same full name as a once-famous movie star who’d died at the young age of thirty-nine. But the cat connection was funnier.

“Harry Cook over in Lucknow.”

“Hey, Harry. You got another lost kid?”

“No, nothing like that today, thank God. But it’s good to know your dogs are at the ready next time we’re in a fix like that.”

“What can I do for you today?”