Page 18 of The Witch’s Orchard

FOURTEEN

I STAND ON THE PORCH with AJ, leaning against the railing while Deputy Flora goes around the cabin looking for prints that likely aren’t there.

“You don’t risk the trouble of burgling a PI unless you have at least some sense of what you’re doing,” I say. “It’s a dangerous business, stealing from someone whose job it is to track.”

AJ nods and says, “I’ve been telling Max to put cameras out here, but he said the fishermen who usually come like it rustic and don’t care for the intrusion on their privacy. He needed the money.”

“So he could hire a PI.”

He nods.

Max and Shiloh have returned to Max’s farmhouse, where, undoubtedly, Shiloh is whipping up some kind of warm, healing homemade bread. My belly growls, and I remember again that I haven’t eaten since last night.

“You got anything sensitive on that laptop?”

I snort. “You mean like naked selfies?”

I’m basically whistling past the graveyard but, at this point, it’s all I can do.

If I let myself dwell in the misery and misfortune of every case I worked, I’d surely be lost for good.

Instead, I watch as an almost imperceptible blush creeps up AJ’s thick neck and deepens the color in his cheeks.

I bump him with my shoulder and he shakes his head, a sheepish grin stretching his mouth.

“I just meant—”

“No, I know. There’s a lot of sensitive casework on there. I wiped it remotely when I saw it’d been taken. It’s backed up on a drive back at my office.”

“That’s good,” he says.

“The worst thing is Max’s casebook,” I say. “He’s had it for years.”

“I know,” AJ says. “He showed it to me when I became a cop. But it’s more of a scrapbook than a case file.”

“It’s got no value to anyone but him,” I say.

“You think somebody came looking for it?” he asks.

“I doubt it. I think someone figured I’d have some expensive spy shit laying around. Little did they know the extent of my gear is a six-year-old laptop and a car that’s older than I am.”

We both look out at Honey, and I smile at the beautiful amber hue of her paint and the sleek, elegant line of her body and send up a silent prayer of thanks that she, at least, wasn’t harmed today. Lucky for me, most folks don’t see the beauty in rusty 1970s Japanese imports.

“Don’t forget about that piece,” AJ says. “Think I haven’t noticed the dang designer gun you’re toting?”

“Been looking at my ass?”

He blushes again, and I laugh. I feel glad for the company, glad for his closeness. I’m not generally a lonely person, but the day has worn on me and AJ’s warmth is an unexpected comfort.

We watch the field for a few moments, watch the long brown grass waver in the breeze, watch as a crow swoops through the sky and disappears down into the gorge.

“AJ, you know Molly went missing from this town. And she was found again, this morning, in this town, not even a mile from where she was taken.”

“Yeah,” he says with a sigh.

“So, either someone took her and then brought her back…”

“Which—”

“Could be because someone heard about Max hiring a PI,” I say. “Some kind of perversion, returning to the scene of the crime when attention falls on it. Out for some kind of thrill?”

We look at the field some more, the faraway trees, and I consider that option for a while.

He says, “You know, we’re not that far past the ten-year anniversary of when they were taken. If they took the girls away, then maybe the kidnapper brought them back as a kind of reunion.”

I nod.

“It’s that or she was here the whole time,” I say. “I don’t know what’s more unlikely. But either way—”

“Makes you sick, don’t it?” AJ says, finally turning toward me.

“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”

It’s all I can manage. I watch the wind in the field, try not to think about it.

“If she were here,” I say, “who would have the means to hide a girl for that long?”

AJ says, “About anyone with a little bit of land. Even anyone with an extra room. Two young girls, I guess all you’d need is a sturdy setup.

Everyone around here values their privacy, and we respect it until there’s a reason not to.

So, as long as Molly and Jessica were kept somewhere out of sight, somewhere they couldn’t make too much noise… ”

“She could’ve been just about anywhere,” I say. “Some kind of Flowers in the Attic situation.”

“Right,” AJ says.

Deputy Flora comes out of the house with her case snapped up.

“All done,” she says. “You’re free to go on back inside.”

“Find anything exciting?” I ask.

“Looks like he came in through the bathroom window. The lock on that side was jimmied off. I found what was left of it on the floor.”

I nod, and she heads down the steps, gets in her cruiser, and drives away.

“Your sheriff isn’t gonna like me staying around this town,” I say.

“That’s okay,” he says, watching the cruiser disappear down the lane. “ I want you to stay.”

“You don’t trust Jacobs?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that. Jacobs is a good man, but he’s shortsighted and underfunded.

Ten years ago, the cops looked for the girls.

Fish and Wildlife looked for the girls. Hunters with bloodhounds looked for the girls.

The FBI came down and looked for the girls.

Hell, even my scout troop pitched in, combing the woods.

Nobody found anything, and after that, officially, it was over. ”

“But unofficially?”

“Unofficially, off the record, Cole Jacobs has a whole board of evidence still standing in his home office. I saw it once. When I became a deputy, he and his wife had me over for dinner. I don’t think I was supposed to see it.

I took a wrong turn looking for the toilet.

“Anyway, he’s never been able to find anything.

And I don’t think it’s for want of looking. ”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is him and me and Max and all the rest of us were born here. We have our own suspicions and we have our own biases.”

I think about Mandy Hoyle and the way Kathleen Jacobs had called the Hoyles “trashy.” I think about how the FBI didn’t show up until Cole Jacobs’s niece was kidnapped. I think about how she’s the only one that was ever brought back.

Until now.

“You want fresh eyes,” I say.

“We need fresh eyes. My kin went to school with Max’s kin who went to school with Sheriff Jacobs and all their kin went to school with each other and married each other and whatever. We know each other.”

“Or you think you do.”

“That’s the problem,” he admits.

“What can you tell me about Susan McKinney?” I ask. “The old woman who lives in the woods across the creek.”

“Susan? You run into her?”

I tell him about my encounter with the old woman the day before, standing in the very spot I found Molly this morning. I leave out the fact that she’d given me actual, full-on heebie-jeebies.

“Local psychic,” he says.

“Dangerous?”

“Not as far as I know. She lives in a little shack in the woods and mostly keeps to herself.”

“Was she questioned the first time around?”

“Yes,” he says. “I was only fifteen when it happened, but even I remember hearing about her being taken in, questioned. Both the cops and the FBI. They may have even held her overnight, but I don’t remember for sure. I’d have to check the records.”

“Speaking of the records…”

“I’ll get you copies.”

“And the coroner’s report for Molly’s body?”

He nods.

“You could lose your job,” I say.

AJ shrugs. “It’s not important.”

“You sure?”

He meets my eyes.

“Molly Andrews was murdered,” he says. “ That’s what’s important. And Jessica Hoyle is probably still out there. That’s what’s important.”

I nod.

“Okay, then,” I say. “Get me those case files and the coroner’s report.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I poked the hornet’s nest yesterday,” I say. “This evening, I’m gonna go out and see who’s buzzing around.”