He pulled his cap low over his eyes. “You got a lead, headquarters is moved out into the lobby. You couldn’t’ve missed it.”
“No, I’m—” I struggled to say the right thing. The introduction would set the tone. “Kent Schaffer asked me to come by.”
I let the sheriff take his time placing Kent’s name, remembering the offer Kent must have made and the specialty service I could provide. When he looked away in impatience, I knew he’d put the pieces together.
“You’re a fed?” he said.
“A . . . subcontractor.”
He snorted, shook his head. But before he said anything else, before he stood and introduced himself or shook my hand, before he did anything at all, he did what they all did. He surveyed his desktop, closed a folder. He selected a single page from the mess of papers and files on his desk and turned it over.
I crossed his office to the window and blinked into the sun. Below, my neighbors made their way to the bank, the café. I could see the trophies in the window of the karate studio. I could see for a mile, actually. I’d read central Indiana had once been a dense forest, but I didn’t buy it. A lone tree on the courthouse green had begun to change its colors.
“Well, OK, Mrs. Winger,” the sheriff said finally. He came around his desk with his hand outstretched.
“Ms. Winger, please. Sheriff Keller, let’s be clear.” I let my hand glance off his. “I’m not here to analyze your handwriting.”
He stayed straight-backed, level-eyed. The brassy details of his uniform seemed to make him taller than he was, though he was tall. The features I had discerned as handsome faded against the razor’s edge of his demeanor. He was as hard and stern as a billy club, and probably considered it part of his job not to look away.
“I had no idea Schaffer was into this mumbo jumbo,” he said.
“He’s a leading international expert,” I said.
“In bunk,” he said. “And how did you become—whatever level of expert you are?”
“Training and apprenticeship, certifications—the way you become anything else.”
“But you didn’t become anything else,” the sheriff said.
We considered each other. “I can go,” I said.
“Kent Schaffer wanted you to help.” The sheriff squinted at me so I would know that he didn’t. He brushed past, swept a pile of newspapers and folders off the guest chair, and nodded toward it. “I’m in no position to turn away volunteers. The entire Indiana law enforcement community is camped out downstairs, and they’ve taken every resource we’ve got. I’m down to just me and my secretary.”
I remembered the sticky note in the lobby. Back in a jiff! I could have told him his secretary was someone who couldn’t quite control her emotions, someone who might be inappropriately confidential with a stranger, who might say too much or the wrong thing entirely. Probably the worst sort of person to have working with confidential information, but then no one had asked for that assessment. I didn’t give it away for free.
“Anyway,” Keller said.
I sat in the chair, waiting.
He returned to his side of the desk and sat, cleared his throat. “Anyway. This is what you do?”
“This is what I do,” I said.
I listened to his knee bouncing under the desk. His handwriting probably had a kinetic wriggle.
“You can really make a living out of this—what’s the word? Service? In Parks?”
“Most of my work is federal or for large corporations. None of them are headquartered here.” I heard the tweak in my voice, not so different from the TV reporter’s that morning. “I don’t do a lot of—local jurisdiction.”
He’d heard the tweak, too. His chin was pointed in my direction now. “I see. And what do you do a lot of? Exactly?”
I sat back and crossed my legs. I’d promised Kent I didn’t mind going in person, but I did. I dealt with authority every day—by phone. By virtual, protected networks and hypersecure file transfer. Occasionally by sterile, anonymous package delivery. The justice and corporate work was faceless, often humanless. Under the stern control of technology and distance, the work had dignity. In the sheriff’s office, the search for justice was close and, by the looks of things, in chaos. Papers, books, and binders stacked and falling and, underneath, the smell of the lockup. There was no telling who had been dragged in to sit in this very chair and face the music. I felt the slick of their sweat and blood on the armrests and pulled my elbows in. The office was stuffy and close, reminding me of—
The air, thick, over a Northwoods lake, blood rising like smoke in the water—
Keller narrowed his eyes at me.
I took a deep breath. “I’ve spent time with ransom notes, forgery, all manner of documents, prenuptial agreements, contracts,” I said. “I work a little in corporate recruitment and with the FBI—”
“I heard you were a spy,” he said.
“Better than fortune-teller,” I said, remembering teasing my neighbor the night before. I needed to stop making jokes about my job. They’d get made by everyone else, given enough time. “I think my son might have started the one about me being a spy.”
“Got his handwriting all over it, huh?” The sheriff grinned. “What’s his name?”
I shouldn’t have come. Kent should have never asked this of me. Other people got involved. Other mothers hosted pancake breakfasts. I was the kind of mother who checked the license plates of passing cars.
“His name is Joshua,” I said.
“Joshua,” he repeated. “How old?”
The sheriff was perfectly within his duties to ask questions, but I was perfectly within my rights to hate the sound of my son’s name coming from a stranger’s mouth.
“He’s thirteen. Just. I’m glad you haven’t had to meet him. Now,” I said, retrieving a notebook from my purse. “How can I help?”
The sheriff wasn’t satisfied, I could see that. But he flipped open the cover of a binder on his desk, taking care to tip his notes away from me.
Chapter Two
Aidan Michael Ransey,” the sheriff began. “Age two years. His father reported him missing yesterday morning, early. And wouldn’t you know it? His mother also seems to be out rambling. She resided in Parks with the husband and son until just a few months ago and now can’t be reached.”
I heard the squeak of Keller’s chair and looked up from my notes. He’d leaned far back in his chair to look over the wall behind him. A diploma, a few certificates with shiny seals, a sea of frames full of photos: Keller and campaign signs. Keller in a crowd of uniformed officers. Keller shaking hands, handing out accolades. In each photo, he held himself tight, his eyes focused somewhere beyond the camera. The people near him shook his hand, clasped his shoulder, leaned into him, and propped themselves up against him. Given half a chance, they might have crawled onto his back and let him carry them.