Page 115 of The Witch’s Orchard

“Could she?”

“For a little while. Sheriff, do you know the story of the Quartz Creek Witch?”

“Of course.”

“Well, so does Olivia. And when I asked her about it, she absolutely lost it. She was terrified.”

“It’s just an old story,” he says.

“Maybe not,” I say. “Maybe not to Olivia.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oliviabelievesit. She’s terrified of it. So who, in this town—because itmustbe someone in this town—could be the witch she’s remembering?”

He shakes his head.

“Susan McKinney,” I say, pushing into deep waters, “was taken in for questioning at the time. Someone must have thought there was something behind the witch story.”

“It was the applehead dolls.”

“So? My own granny made applehead dolls,” I say. “It must have been the same around here? So, what else was it? She told me there’d been an anonymous tip.”

He looks away from me and then back and says, “There was. It was from a burner phone so we never knew who the call came from.It happened right after Molly was taken. They said Susan was doing some kind of old-timey ritual with the girls. Taking them and sacrificing them in the woods. They said Sheriff Kerridge had been covering up for her.”

“Why would you believe that?”

“Well, I’m not saying I did. But I had to look into it. At that point? We couldn’t ignore anything. We couldn’t afford to. And Susan and Donald Kerridgehadalways been close. They grew up together. Their mamas were best friends, and the two of them were thick as thieves. Everyone knew it.”

“But you don’t know who made the call?”

“No,” he says. “It came into the dispatch. It sounded like a man’s voice, but it was raspy. We couldn’t be sure.”

“But you investigated Susan.”

“Yes.”

“And found nothing?”

He nods.

“What about Rebecca Ziegler? Deena Drake?”

“I have a hard time picturing Rebecca stealing little girls.”

“She was present at every single kidnapping,” I say.

“True but—”

“I think you’re blind to this community, Sheriff. Blind to what’s happening under your nose.”

Red blotches form on his cheeks, but he doesn’t deny it.

“What about Deena Drake?” I ask. “She was there too. Every single time. The church, the picnic, the Andrewses’ house.”

But even as I say it, I struggle to believe it. I’d been in her house. Gone through her things. I’d found nothing.

“Sheriff Kerridge checked her car the day Jessica was taken,” Jacobs says. “Same as he checked everyone else. And she had an alibi for the day Molly was taken. Dwight Hoyle—”