“All I did was bring her some of our old blankets so she could make a pallet and sleep up in one of them empty rooms for a couple of nights. Poor little thing’s not herself right now.”
“Where is she now?”
“Still at the house, I reckon. Leastways that’s where she was Thursday morning.”
“You were at the house that day?”
“Didn’t think it’d hurt to stop by on my way to the schoolhouse, maybe take her a sandwich.”
Mrs. Lunsford rolled her eyes in exasperation and explained that one of her husband’s odd jobs was to buff and polish the floor tiles of the main lobby of the high school once a week.
“The old school across from the Morrow House?”
They both nodded. “Only now it’s a retirement home.”
“Wait a minute,” Dwight said. “Let me get this straight. You were in the Morrow House with Pam Thursday morning?”
“Jonna, too.”
“What time was that?”
“Well, I usually do the floors about ten-thirty, so it was before that. I didn’t stay but long enough to give Pam the food because she and Jonna were getting into it pretty heavy. Jonna wanted to take her to the hospital and Pam didn’t want to go, so she ran off upstairs.”
“You didn’t follow her?”
“Wasn’t any use to. Ever since they were two smarty-pants little girls, they knew how to hide so nobody could find them. You’d swear they were on the third floor, and next time you turned around, they were all the way downstairs. They used to say Elizabeth Morrow’s ghost taught them how to disappear. Anyhow, Jonna told me to go on. That she’d take care of Pam and—”
Dwight’s phone began to ring. “Excuse me a minute.”
It was Paul Radcliff. “Hey, bo, where are you?”
“I’m here talking to Mr. and Mrs. Lunsford, why?”
“Well, get your ass over to the old high school. One of my men just found Pam Shay’s car parked around back with the residents’ cars. I called Lewes. He and Clark are going to meet us there.”
The white Honda Accord with Tennessee plates was surrounded by several prowl cars and officers. Residents of the converted school peered down from their win-28 dows, curious and alarmed by the flashing blue lights.
Radcliff already had officers going door-to-door inside, questioning them as to what they had seen and to ask if any were harboring Pamela Shay Morgan and her nephew.
The state agents had sent for their evidence truck to come and process the car, and while they waited Dwight told them of his fruitless trip out to the lake and of his interview with the Lunsfords. They were interested to hear that Pam and Jonna knew of places to hide in the Morrow House, and when he drove around to it, Paul Radcliff and Nick Lewes followed.
“We never checked the attic,” Dwight said. “Are there stairs?”
Radcliff shrugged. “Bound to be, wouldn’t you think?”
“Usually are,” Lewes agreed.
As they came up the front walk, they saw someone peering out at them with anxiety evident in every syllable of her body language.
“Oh, Chief Radcliff, Major Bryant!” said Betty Ramos.
“Is Judge Knott with you?”
“No,” said Dwight. “Isn’t she here?”
Mrs. Ramos shook her head. “I was wondering if she had to leave for some reason.”
“Her car’s still here. Why?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know. She was going through the files on Jonna’s computer when I left. I was only away a few minutes, and when I came back she was gone. Her purse is still there on the desk and so is her phone, but —”
She shook her blond head in bewilderment. “I’ve looked all over the house and there’s no sign of her, so I thought maybe she had to leave in a hurry, but then why would she leave her things?”
“She wouldn’t,” Dwight said decisively. The sight of Deborah’s red car coat on the back of the office chair chilled him with its implications.
“Are there steps to the attic?” Lewes asked. “We didn’t see any this afternoon.”
“That’s because they’re concealed up on the third floor,” said Mrs. Ramos. “I’ll show you.”
As she led the way upstairs, she described how she and Judge Knott had come up earlier to put the new coverlet on the bed in the Rose Room. “And when we went back downstairs, I cleared away the rest of the food and tidied up the kitchen while she got started with the computer.”
At the top of the second flight of stairs, she paused to catch her breath and explained how she had gone home to fetch some notes she had forgotten. “I wasn’t gone more than fifteen minutes.”
Dwight glanced at his watch. “And I talked to her myself about twenty-five minutes ago.”
