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Chief Harry Cook couldn’t find anyone who claimed to have seen Gavin Denham in the last five days.

He hadn’t been at his usual morning station, the bench out front of the Lucknow Diner, since the Friday before, and it was

Wednesday. His old pickup truck remained parked a couple of blocks off Main Street, where Harry had found it the morning of

the sidewalk sale. He had left under the windshield wiper what might have looked at first like a parking ticket, but was actually

a note from Harry that read: “Gavin, when you see this, come find me. Best, Harry.”

Ordinarily, someone like Gavin going missing would not set off too many alarms. He was a down-on-his-luck guy, homeless, unless

you counted his pickup truck as a residence, and was known to like the bottle more than he should. But this town had already

seen two men go missing—one of whom had been found without much of his skeletal structure, the other still unaccounted for—so

Gavin made three, and that had Harry concerned.

He hadn’t made a big deal about it yet. The department was yet to issue a news release asking for information as to Gavin’s

whereabouts, although Harry had asked Mary to get one ready. He had not made a call Rachel Bosma, the reporter for the Lucknow Leader , suggesting she do a story.

He’d put that note on the windshield Monday morning, and when he drove past it today, it was still there, untouched. He stopped his cruiser next to the truck, got out, walked around it, checked to see whether the vehicle was still locked, which it was. Harry decided it was time to get inside, see whether there might be anything that would offer a clue as to where Gavin might be. This wasn’t an emergency, like a kid trapped in a car on a hot day, so he didn’t want to break the window. On the Lucknow Police Rolodex was a locksmith by the name of Gertie they got in touch with whenever they needed her services, usually for nothing more serious than someone accidentally locking their keys inside their vehicle.

Gavin radioed into the station and asked them to get Gertie out to his location, and within twenty minutes she was there.

“This is Gavin Denham’s truck, isn’t it?” she asked.

Harry said it was.

“That sad bastard,” she said. “Came to me one day, looking for work, and I didn’t have anything for him. Truck been sitting

here a few days, you say?”

Harry said yes.

“So what’s happening with that guy Hillman? You found him yet? We got another guy disappeared into thin air?”

“Could you open the truck, Gertie?” Harry asked. Gertie could be chatty.

She had the door open in under a minute. Harry thanked her and told her to bill the department. He waited until she was gone

before hauling himself up behind the wheel to begin his search.

Some of what was in here Harry had been able to see through the window. A couple of blankets, a pillow. Behind the seats, a plastic grocery bag with a wadded-up tube of toothpaste and toothbrush, a comb, half a bottle of Jameson, and some Preparation H, which was about when Harry wished he’d slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. There were two worn and yellowed paperback novels that looked to date back to the seventies. A Donald Hamilton novel about his Matt Helm character called The Ambushers . Harry could remember reading some of those when he was in his teens. The other book was an 87th Precinct novel by Ed McBain

called Fuzz .

Under the seat were some empty paper coffee cups, a Big Mac container with a few traces of lettuce and special sauce, a Subway

bag. Harry leaned over and popped open the glove compartment. He found the vehicle registration and a long-since-expired insurance

slip. No big surprise there. Some road maps for Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, all of which Gavin had

failed to fold back up correctly, making them twice as thick as they should have been. A flashlight and some loose batteries,

a package of tissues.

Nothing that one might call a clue jumped out at Harry.

He got back out of the truck and closed the door. Without a key he couldn’t lock it, but he didn’t feel there was much in

there to interest a thief, unless it was a crook with hemorrhoids who’d be delighted to find some remaining ointment in that

tube.

He drove the few blocks back into the center of town and parked out front of the diner. Once inside, he sat himself on a stool

and waited for Jenny to bring him a coffee. He never needed to ask. He had out his notebook, reviewing things he had jotted

down over the last few days.

He’d checked Wendell Comstock’s alibi. He had, in fact, been to Brattleboro to help a friend seeking his opinion on a possible house purchase. Wendell had been nowhere near his home when Nadine had died in the bathtub from electrocution, courtesy of that toy train transformer. There was no evidence to suggest her death was anything other than suicide, although it bothered Harry that Wendell had not believed his wife to be seriously depressed. Harry had spoken to her doctor, whom she had seen within the last four months when she’d felt a lump in her breast. Tests had shown that she had nothing to worry about. If she was feeling at all despondent, she had not made that known.

Sometimes you just didn’t know what was going on inside people’s heads.

If only Gavin had been Harry’s only worry of late. Lucknow seemed to be losing its mind.

The radio clipped to Harry’s belt crackled, and then a voice came through. “Chief?”

He grabbed it off his belt, brought it to his mouth, pressed the button, and said, “Yeah?”

“Report of shots fired over on Guildwood.”

Harry headed for his car.

Guildwood Street was in the town’s north end. Harry was making good time, pedal to the floor, until he approached that Albany

& Bennington double-track mainline. It cut across the town along an east-west axis, dividing north Lucknow from south Lucknow.

Harry saw the crossing gates begin to lower, the lights start to flash.

He thought, for a moment, he could gun it, cross the tracks before the first of three blue linked Conrail engines rumbled

into view. Great big roaring behemoths clipping along, and the odds that Harry could slip through the crossing without getting

hit—and killed—were slim to none.

The engineer hit the horn and held it, a deep-throated warning that echoed across the landscape and chilled Harry to the bone.

The front end of his vehicle was on the first set of tracks when the diesels flew past, missing the SUV’s bumper by inches.

“Shit shit shit!” Harry cried, his foot pressing down so hard on the brake it was a wonder it didn’t go through the floor.

He put the vehicle into reverse and rolled back to safety, off the first track and ahead of the gate, where he should have

stopped in the first place.

It was a long train, a mile long at least.

“We got anyone north of the tracks?” he barked into the receiver, shouting to be heard over the racket made by the passing

train.

Dispatch came back: “Bloodworth.”

That would be Officer Ben Bloodworth. Stick.

“Get him to Guildwood!”

Harry scanned the freight cars, his frustration growing with each one that passed. A long line of tanker cars, linked together

in the middle of the train, rumbled past. Going way too fast, Harry thought. A freight train barreling through the center

of town should be required to slow down. A derailment of those cars, carrying God knows what kind of deadly chemicals, would

be a catastrophe.

The end of the train was in view. Harry got ready. When the last car rolled by and the gates began to rise, Harry floored

it.

When Harry reached Guildwood Street, he saw another Lucknow Police Department car was already there. Stick had beat him to

the scene.

The front door of the house, a stately two-story that had likely been built in the last couple of years, was wide open. Harry

screeched to a stop and got out of his car. He heard no gunfire, but that didn’t mean the situation was under control. Hand

resting atop the firearm at his side, he proceeded up the driveway and was almost to the front door when Stick walked out,

holding a gun, the barrel pointed toward the ground.

From where Harry stood, it looked like a Smith & Wesson CSX, one of the smaller handguns on the market.

Stick looked stricken.

“Stick?” Harry said.

“Situation’s under control, Chief,” he said, working to control his voice, keep it from shaking. “No civilians hurt. Don’t

need the paramedics.”

Harry said, “Whose gun is that?”

He held it out to Harry, who took it from him and put it into his jacket pocket. “Belongs to Mrs. Wilford. Betty Wilford.

She’s inside.”

“Anyone else in the house?”

“Her son. Tyler. Upstairs. He’s seven, home from school today because he’s got an upset stomach.”

“What happened?”

“Mrs. Wilford shot Dougie.”

“Dougie?”

“The dog. Big one. A Lab. Five shots. Dougie was moving fast. First two missed him.”

“You go stay with the son. I’ll talk to Mrs. Wilford.”

He found her in the kitchen, but not before seeing Dougie, motionless on his side on the gray broadloom next to the coffee

table in the living room.

Mrs. Wilford, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in black slacks and a black silk blouse, a strand of pearls

at her neck, sat at the table, staring into space. Harry took a seat, introduced himself.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

“Dougie went crazy. He’s the kindest, gentlest dog in the whole world. Never bit a soul. We could always trust him with Tyler.

I don’t... I can’t understand how he could... he turned into a wild animal, snarling and baring his teeth and oh God

Trevor loved him so much and I don’t know what I’m going to tell him.”

“Trevor?”

“My husband. He’s in Boston on business. He won’t believe me when I tell him. Tyler was upstairs—he’s home today, he woke up with a funny tummy, but he got over it once I said he didn’t have to go to school, you know how kids are—and he was playing, and Dougie was down here, and he started growling and barking and coming after me. Look.”

She pushed back her chair and extended her right leg. Her pants were torn below the knee, and there was blood on her calf.

“You need to get that tended to,” Harry said.

“He was chasing me around the living room and into the kitchen, and I jumped up onto a chair and he leapt up, and that’s when

he bit my leg.”

“Tell me about the gun.”

“Trevor bought it for me. Protection for when he was away. I keep it up there.” She nodded toward the kitchen cabinetry. “Above

the microwave.”

“So you managed to get to the gun, and then?”

“I started firing. I was scared Tyler would come downstairs, or Dougie would go up there, after him. I didn’t know what else

to do.”

Her eyes welled up with tears. “I missed a couple of times. He jumped right at me, baring his teeth. I though he was going

to kill me. When Tyler heard the shots he came running down and I screamed at him to stay in his room. How could something

like this happen? I just don’t understand.”

Harry gave her arm a squeeze. “I’m going to go up and check on Tyler and see if Officer Bloodworth can do something about

getting Dougie out of the house.”

The woman nodded.

As Harry left the kitchen, he heard a sound from upstairs. A sound that should have been innocuous enough, but gave him a

chill when he heard it.

Chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff

Harry climbed the stairs and poked his head into the room where the sound was coming from. Stick was sitting on the floor with the boy, Tyler, watching a toy train go around an oval of track. Stick got to his feet and said, “Tyler here was showing me his awesome new train set.”

Harry pulled Stick aside and said to him quietly, “Get Dougie out of the house.”

Stick nodded and slipped out of the room. Harry took a knee and smiled at Tyler.

“Hey, Tyler. You mind if we slow that train down for a second? I want to talk to you.”

Tyler eased back on the transformer throttle. The train came to a stop and went silent.

“I’m real sorry about what happened to your dog.”

The boy’s lower lip extended and he said, “Mom said he must have got rabies or something.”

“You never saw him act like that before?”

Tyler’s head went back and forth.

Harry laid a hand on his shoulder. “Anyway, I just came up to see how you were doing, and let you know your mom will be okay

but she’s a little upset.” He took a moment to admire the train set. It consisted of a steam engine, a gondola car with three

large canisters that looked like milk jugs, a flatcar with a load of barrels, a coal car, and a caboose.

“That’s a pretty nice setup you have there, Tyler.”

Sadly, the boy said, “I guess.”

“Why don’t you turn it back on, show me how it works.”

Tyler turned the throttle on the transformer and the train started to go around the loop.

“I love the sound it makes,” Harry said. “That choo-choo sound.”

“It’s supposed to have a whistle, but it doesn’t work.” To demonstrate, Tyler pressed a red button on the transformer labeled

whistle . The engine did not make a sound.

“See?”

“Let me try it.”

Tyler took his thumb off the button. Harry shifted over, pushed down on it with his thumb.

Felt a small tingle.

Held his thumb there for several seconds. Harry could hear nothing out of the engine but the chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff sound it had been making all along.

But then he thought he did hear something.

“What was that?” he asked Tyler.

“What was what?”

Harry took his finger off the button, listened. He didn’t hear what it was he’d thought he’d heard a moment earlier.

“Do your neighbors have a dog, too?”

The boy nodded. “Scruffy.”

Harry got up, went over to the window, and raised it open far enough to feel a cool breeze blow into the room.

“Tyler, hit the whistle button again and hold it.”

Tyler did as he was told.

Next door, a dog began to howl and bark furiously.