“Yeah, I do…” he replied. “But did it get ya’ anywhere?”
She glanced over at her notebook computer. It was in standby mode once again, screen dark and power light slowly winking its amber glow. He had asked her a fair question; however, she honestly didn’t have a solid answer.
“Not sure yet,” she breathed softly as her mind began to wander. “Right now I’m still trying to connect the dots.”
“Prob’ly be easier if ya’ had some more rest.”
She didn’t reply because she had stopped paying attention to him. While still holding the phone to her ear she stepped over to the desk and tapped the computer keyboard. The machine whirred back to life as she watched. A moment later when the display clicked on, the multi-page document was staring back at her. She had saved the unencrypted version to her flash drive as soon as it was done loading this morning, but she found some solace in the fact that the original had not inexplicably disappeared while she slept.
“Yo… Earth ta’ Constance…” Ben finally said.
She mumbled, “What?”
“You fallin’ asleep on me or somethin’?”
“Or something…” she replied quietly, still staring at the embedded photos on the document.
“Wanna share?” he asked.
Her tone remained distant. “No… Not right now.”
“Ya’know, I really think maybe ya’ need ta’ go back ta’ bed.”
She snapped, “How about I rag on you the next time you’re working a case and running on nothing but coffee and cold, three-day-old pizza?”
“Fine, have it your way,” he conceded. “I didn’t call ya’ ta’ have an argument anyway.”
“Sorry,” she sighed. “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m definitely just not in the mood for the mothering, okay?”
“Yeah, I sorta got that,” he sighed, then gingerly added, “Ya’know, just for the record, your mood is kinda why I’m so worried. Ya’ don’t usually get like this.”
“Yeah…” she agreed. “I know.”
“Okay, that’s the last I’m gonna say about it… So listen, I’m callin’ ‘cause I ran your stuff for ya’.”
“Were you able to keep it off the books?”
“Flew as low as I could,” he told her. “I owe an acquaintance out in KC a bottl’a bourbon. The really good shit.”
“For what?”
“Well, it is Christmas Eve ya’know… Gettin’ things done on the sly wasn’t exactly easy.”
“This acquaintance a badge?” she asked.
He snorted. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowin’.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it,” she said, then thought silently to herself, Aren’t we a pair, trying to protect each other… Playing out our own version of the Gift of the Magi.
Ben added, “Oh, by the way, you’re payin’ for the bourbon, just so ya’ know.”
“Am I getting my money’s worth?” she asked.
“Guess it depends,” he told her. “Number one, your buddy the sheriff is damn near a fuckin’ Boy Scout.”
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah. Just about as clean as they come. Did twenty-four years with the KCPD, Missouri by the way… Fifteen of those were as a detective, and ten of those were spent heading up a child predator task force.”
Her mind wandered for a moment to the file attached to the cryptic email and what it had contained, but she decided it would be better to keep the information to herself for the moment. Instead she replied, “Given the history, I can easily see that. Merrie Callahan’s abduction was likely the truly defining moment in his career.”
“No shit… Well, he had a hell of a clearance rate on cases too, so I see what ya’ mean about the whole Sherlock thing. He was directly responsible for putting away a whole lotta seriously sick fucks… On top of that he received several honors…boatload of commendations… Oh, and never fired his service weapon in the line of duty.”
“Lucky bastard…” Constance breathed.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Ben agreed. “Anyway, married to Kathy Carmichael, three daughters, blah, blah, blah. Normal stuff, nothin’ spectacular. Retired from KCPD, hung out there for a while and did some consulting for the task force, then moved back ta’ Hulis in oh-two. Elected sheriff oh-three in a special election ta’ fill the vacated post, and that’s where he’s been ever since. Re-elected oh-four and oh-eight.”
“Two-Thousand Three was when the first murder occurred,” Constance announced.
“So you thinkin’ it’s him? He’d have the inside info, and he’d know how ta’ cover shit up.”
“Yeah, that’s true…but…no…” she replied, drawing out the word and ending it with a fat pause. “I’ll admit it’s a weird coincidence, that’s for sure.”
“Well, there was one other thing that showed up,” Ben said. “Don’t know if it means anything.”
“What’s that?”
“In oh-four someone from the FBI recommended Sheriff Sherlock be put on administrative leave pending a psych eval.”
“Who?”
“Dunno. Paper trail’s thin as one-ply. Lucky it showed up at all ta’ be honest. Seems that it came outta your office in Saint Louis though.”
“Curious,” she muttered. “Well apparently they didn’t find anything, or he wouldn’t still be sheriff in this county, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Nope. Nothin’. Passed with flyin’ colors. But ya’know, it still might make ya’ wanna rethink your position on this guy.”
Constance quietly considered his point, then finally said, “No. I just really can’t see it, unless he’s got me completely snowed.”
“Well, don’t turn your back on ‘im, okay?”
“Don’t worry. What else?”
“Well, that’s it for him. There was nothin’ on Merrie Callahan at all. And the only thing I could find on Colson was his record prior ta seventy-five and his time served at Gumbo. Real sick fuck, that one.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” she replied. “But I already have all that info.”
“Well, then that was a bust.”
“I figured it would be. Just needed to check. What about Reese? Anything?
“Actually, yeah. The pastor is a different story.”
“What did you find?”
“Well, he’s clean as far as an NCIC search…”
“I guess I’m not surprised by that,” she grumbled.
“But like I said, I still managed to dig up somethin’. Just for the hell of it I had a genealogist friend of mine pull a court records search on divorces in Missouri. Took a bit of siftin’ after the fact since I told ‘im to shotgun it so it’d be less conspicuous, but he found your guy,” he explained. There was a quick shuffle of paper at the other end of the line, then he said, “Wanda Corinne Reese versus Edgar Virgil Reese, dissolution of marriage. Filed and final in seventy-seven.”
“Seventy-seven…” Constance expressed her thoughts aloud. “Okay, so based on what I was told his mental breakdown occurred prior to the divorce, so it had to have happened before seventy-seven then…”
“Yeah…well while I was lookin’ I accidentally ran across somethin’ else. Not sure if it’s important or not, but turns out that from seventy-three till early seventy-six, Pastor Edgar Reese was Deputy Sheriff Edgar Reese.”
“You’re right… That is interesting,” she said. “Did he quit or was he fired?”
“There was a hearing, but I couldn’t get details. Might have been a psych eval or somethin’.”
“How early in seventy-six?” Constance asked.
There was a sound of paper rustling as Ben checked his notes. “Says here his service to the citizens of Hulis ended mid-January.”
“That’s not long after the Merrie Callahan abduction.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Like I said, don’t know if it means anything, but it seems a little hinky ta’ me. I mean,
