Whiskers of the Lion Read online

  When Bruce Robertson and Missy Taggert entered the squad room after pizza with the Brandens, Rachel had three passages to show them, all found by her search strategy in letters from the Budget between the middle of April and the beginning of May.

  While Missy checked on Armbruster at his scanner, Robertson threaded his way across the crowded squad room to Rachel’s far-right corner hub. He peered in over the top of Rachel’s partitions and started to ask a question. Rachel held up a hand, typed briefly, and then took the three passages from a tray on her desk to hand them to the sheriff. When Robertson took the pages, she said over her shoulder, “I’ve got another one running right now, but see what you think so far,” and she returned her attention to her monitor and keyboard.

  Robertson retrieved a metal chair from one of the squad room’s long tables. He brought it back to sit at the opening to Rachel’s IT den, and he sat there to read the first letter’s excerpt. Rachel had identified it as coming from Whiteville, Tennessee, for the April 27 edition of the Budget:

  Guests from Ohio by way of Memphis surprised us yesterday at services and may stay only a while.

  Robertson started again to ask Rachel a question, but she stopped him with a shake of her head. As she continued to work, the sheriff turned his attention to the second excerpt:

  Paris, TN, May 4

  Our Ohio travelers stayed only two nights at the John Troyers and want their families in Charm to know that they are well.

  Robertson then read the third excerpt Rachel had given him:

  Cub Run, KY, May 11

  Two friends from Ohio traveled through after services yesterday at Daniel Brocks and report to Holmes County that they are well but weary.

  When Robertson looked up from the page, Rachel was waiting for him. He asked, “Where are these places?” and she pointed to a large wall-mounted monitor above her desk. There she had posted an electronic map of the center states, and on it, red digital pins marked the towns of Memphis, Whiteville, Paris, and Cub Run.

  Robertson smiled. “They’re traveling from one colony to the next.”

  “Yes, if it’s really them,” Rachel agreed. “But chances are it is.”

  Robertson passed a palm over the bristles of his flattop haircut and blew a breathy whistle. “Rachel, if this is them, they’re right here in these letters. Right out in the open.”

  “It’s only three letters from this spring,” Rachel said. “We’ll get more, if there are any, but it’ll take most of the night. And if you weren’t looking for it, these references to them wouldn’t register like they do with us. We know what we’re looking for. I don’t think Teresa Molina will ever get this, even if she did read a Budget once in a while. My guess is that she doesn’t have a clue.”

  Robertson paused with a thought and then asked, “Are you scanning them in sequence?”

  Rachel nodded. “Starting with April.”

  “Why not go straight for the recent ones?”

  “Because I’m finding it necessary to revise the search strategy as we go along. Before I got that second one, I wasn’t using travelers. Then the third one gave me friends. It’s going to evolve and expand with each new letter. So by the time we have scanned them all, I may have to adjust the search parameters. Maybe use couple AND Charm NOT Saskatchewan. Like that.”

  “All night, you say?”

  “It’s just the three of us—me and Pat and Stan. Everyone else is working to find Fannie.”

  “Chief Wilsher put double shifts into the deputy rotations,” Robertson commented.

  “It has been a little crazy around here,” Rachel laughed. “But we’ve got the two scanners running. Still, it’ll be morning before we’re done.”

  Robertson stood. “Can you send me that map during the night? As you update it?”

  “I’ll put it on the FTP server, Sheriff. You can log in anytime from home.”

  • • •

  On the other side of the room, Missy was helping Stan Armbruster fold newsprint for his scanner. Robertson came forward and asked, “Can you do that, Stan, and talk a little, too?”

  Without interrupting his rhythm, Armbruster said, “Sure. It’s not a thinking job.”

  “Then tell me what was in the yellow VW, Stan. Howie Dent’s things, I mean.”

  Armbruster laid newsprint on the flatbed scanner, closed the lid, chose PREVIEW SCAN, and turned to answer the sheriff. “The only personal item was his old red backpack. And it was empty.”

  Armbruster’s preview scan finished quickly. He turned back to use his mouse to select one specific letter from the page, and then he initiated a full scan.

  Robertson waited and asked, “No other personal items, then?”

  “Nothing,” Armbruster said, turning around to the sheriff again. “No keys, no wallet, no phone. Neither in the car, nor on the body.”

  Armbruster looked to Missy, who confirmed, “There wasn’t anything, Bruce. Nothing in the basement and nothing on the body.”

  “Luggage or toiletries?” Robertson asked Armbruster.

  Armbruster shook his head. The scan finished and he used the mouse again to select another letter in the scan area. After he selected SCAN, he turned again to Robertson. “No watch, no glasses, no prescriptions. He didn’t have papers, receipts, or books.”

  “Bills, Stan? Maps? There had to be something.”

  “There wasn’t, Sheriff.”

  “Kids these days always have a tablet,” Missy said. “Or some game.”

  “Sorry,” Armbruster said. “He didn’t have anything like that.”

  “Then it was all taken,” Robertson concluded.

  Armbruster nodded his agreement. “Whoever killed him took everything he had.”

  • • •

  Before pushing out through the back door of the jail, the sheriff hesitated and asked Missy to wait at the end of the hall. He went back into the squad room and pulled Armbruster out into the long hallway, saying, “Stan, about this morning.”

  Anticipating what was coming, Armbruster shrank a little in stature. But Robertson shook his head and said, “No, that’s not it, Stan.”

  “I know I ruined a crime scene, Sheriff.”

  “No, you found a crime scene,” Robertson said. “And as soon as you knew it was a crime scene, you cleared out and called in.”

  “Mud, fingerprints, and vomit, Sheriff. I fouled the scene.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Robertson said. “But the next time, Stan? Before you discover a murder scene? Don’t eat such a large breakfast.”

  Looking puzzled, Armbruster seemed to bend at the shoulders, as if struggling under a new burden.

  • • •

  In the squad room, Armbruster crossed back to Rachel’s corner and asked, “What’s wrong with the sheriff?”

  Rachel looked up. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong.”

  Armbruster furled his brow and said, “It’s weird. And I don’t like it.”

  “What?”

  “I ruined his crime scene today.”

  “So?”

  “So, he’s not angry.”

  “And you’re complaining?”

  “This is Robertson.”

  Rachel smiled. “You just have to know how to handle him.”

  “I’ve mostly dealt with Wilsher. And now Captain Newell.”

  “You have to handle Robertson.”

  “Nobody just handles Robertson.”

  “Ellie always does.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She started here over fifteen years ago as a dispatcher, and she’s handled him from her first day on the job.”

  Armbruster gave a perplexed shrug of his shoulders. “OK, what do you think of this temp dispatcher?”

  Rachel smiled confidently. “Del knows what she’s doing.”

  �
�Are you talking about doing her job, or about handling Robertson?”

  “They’re the same thing, Stan. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

  Armbruster walked slowly back to his scanner. He pondered what Rachel had said to him about handling the sheriff, but he could not imagine any such thing. He didn’t think he could ever muster the nerve to do it.

  Once back at his scanner, he took up another page of the newspaper and began to fold it for a scan. As he worked, he thought again of Pat Lance, working a second scanner in Captain Newell’s office. He considered climbing the steps to see her. Maybe just to say hello. Then he thought again of the gruff sheriff, and the notion of asking Lance out on a date seemed preposterous.

  10

  Wednesday, August 17

  11:55 P.M.

  MISSY WAS nearly asleep when Bruce rolled over in bed to face her. “He thought I was going to tear into him, Missy.”

  She opened her eyes and resettled her head against her pillow. “Who?”

  “Stan Armbruster. He thought I was going to rip into him for tracking through my crime scene.”

  Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms, Missy asked, “How do you know?”

  “I could see it, Missy. He expected it.”

  Missy propped herself up on an elbow to face her husband. “Maybe you should have, Bruce.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe he needed you to berate him.”

  Robertson rolled onto his back and stared in the dark toward the ceiling. “He was looking for it.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Missy asked, lying back on her pillow.

  “I don’t know. Things are different now.”

  Missy sorted through her thoughts and then said, “You’ve been yapping too much about resigning.”

  “Yapping?”

  “Yapping. Barking. It’s all nonsense.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They all feed off your strength, Bruce. They’re each stronger because they know you demand it from them.”

  “Privately, Missy? I don’t feel like I’ve got the right to demand anything these days.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Why in the world not?”

  “Because I haven’t been able to find Fannie. Because I can’t protect her from Teresa Molina. Because another Amish girl is going to be murdered on my watch, and right now there isn’t anything I can do to stop it. I can’t protect her.”

  “Maybe Fannie doesn’t want you to protect her.”

  “Well, she ought to!” the sheriff shouted out. He pushed angrily off the bed and paced in front of the dresser.

  Missy watched him wordlessly. Eventually he stopped pacing and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t apologize.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re Sheriff Bruce Robertson.”

  “So?”

  Missy propped her pillow against the headboard, sat up, and said, “You’re Bruce Robertson, and everybody needs you to stay that way. Now, especially. You’ve pushed everybody to the limit hunting for Fannie this whole summer, and now is not the time they can afford to see you showing doubt.”

  The sheriff sat on the edge of the bed with his back to Missy and held his gaze on the carpet. “You’re not making any sense,” he complained.

  “What do you value most, Bruce?” Missy asked. “Don’t think about it, just say it.”

  “Loyalty, steadfastness, duty, honor. Competence. Determination.”

  “That’s who they need you to be, Bruce. That’s why Armbruster needs you to hold him accountable.”

  “He was disappointed, Missy.”

  “I know, Sheriff. I know.”

  • • •

  After Missy had fallen asleep, the sheriff eased out of bed, carried his robe and slippers into the hall, and quietly closed the door. He pulled his robe on and tied it, then he got into his slippers.

  In Missy’s front-room study on the first floor of their old Victorian home, with yellow porch lights illuminating the curtains behind the chair, he started the desktop computer and waited impatiently for it to come to life, wondering how Howie Dent had made it home to Millersburg. From wherever he had been. Without a car.

  That’s the puzzle that had kept him awake. He didn’t know where Howie Dent had been staying for the last four months, and it caused him to understand that he also didn’t know how Howie Dent had gotten himself home.

  Once the computer had paced through its initializations, he used it to pull up Rachel’s electronic map. When it was loaded on his screen, he saw a total of six red pins. There were the original three, plus a pin for Memphis, the origin. The two new pins marked Horse Cave, Kentucky, on May 9 and Grabill, Indiana, on May 30.

  With the map still on the screen, Robertson wandered into the parlor and stood to gaze out the front window at the dark street below the long slope of their front lawn. He stood there for a while, watching for the occasional car passing by, and he wondered about the things Missy had told him. He wondered how all the qualities he cared most about would survive a crisis of confidence. How they would survive the loss of Fannie Helmuth.

  He knew Missy had been right to challenge him about the qualities of character that mattered most to him. The qualities of character that had always underpinned him. The qualities that had always underpinned his entire department. Not because any one person was so strong. But because he simply had demanded it from everyone. But since Howie Dent had been murdered, he had been wondering privately if he had the right to demand so much of anyone.

  Missy had also been right to challenge him on the matter of his threatening to resign. He had said it, he knew that. He had threatened it. But standing at the dark window, looking out at the silent street in front of his house, Robertson had no idea where that kind of talk had come from. He only knew that since Fannie had fled his protection, he had felt increasingly like an old circus lion, reduced to pacing the cage. A caged lion whose tone in full roar no longer broadcast anything fearsome. A lion made impotent by a loss of self-assurance.

  Still he knew that, regarding duty and honor, a man was reliable only insofar as he was relentless. And relentless was something he still was willing to be. Relentless in his dedication to duty. Relentless, regardless of how he felt, in his dedication to finding and preserving Fannie Helmuth. The trouble was—and he was learning this for perhaps the first time in his life—it all required self-assurance. Confidence.

  Without that, relentless devotion to duty was just bravado made laughable by incompetence. And incompetence was the last thing Bruce Robertson was willing to tolerate in himself. He’d rather be dead than be found pacing the cage. He’d rather resign.

  Robertson stirred, stretched, and turned back toward the study. At the desk computer, he minimized Rachel’s map and ran a Bing search for Greyhound bus routes. On a site that gave a nationwide map of bus routes, it seemed at first to the sheriff that Howie Dent could have traveled home from just about any location in the States. On a bus, he could have gotten back to Ohio from just about anywhere. But when Robertson drew in closer to Ohio, he also found that none of the bus routes would have brought Dent closer to Holmes County than Akron to the north or Mansfield to the west. Giving no thought to the time, the sheriff phoned Bobby Newell, and giving Newell no time to say anything more than a sleepy “Hello?” Robertson asked his captain, “Bobby, how’d Dent get back to Holmes County?”

  “What?”

  “It’s Bruce. The bus routes would get him no closer than Akron or Mansfield. So how did he get the rest of the way home?”

  “Dunno, Sheriff. What time is it?”

  Robertson looked at his watch and said, “Sorry. I’m up. Checking bus routes into Ohio. And nothing by Greyhound comes closer
to Holmes County than Akron or Mansfield.”

  “OK.”

  “Question is, Bobby, how did he get the rest of the way home?”

  Still sleepy, Newell answered, “Maybe he didn’t come by Greyhound. Maybe he had a ride.”

  Robertson paused on an answer and then said, “He used Greyhound before, Bobby. If he did that again, he’d still have to get a ride into Holmes County.”

  “Maybe he called a friend?”

  “Or took a cab.”

  “We can check that,” Newell said. “Cabs and maybe limo services.”

  “OK, are you coming in early?”

  “I am now.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t sleeping. But I got this idea, so I checked on Greyhound routes.”

  “Give me an hour, Sheriff. I’ll start checking cabs and limo services once I get into the jail.”

  • • •

  The sheriff pushed his chair away from the desk, wandered into the kitchen, and poured milk into a bowl of cereal. He carried it into the parlor and sat to eat it in an upholstered chair in the corner by the front window.

  When he woke up, he was lying on the divan, and he had dreamed of an angry lion pacing its cage. He was a boy. There was a strangely familiar lion tamer inviting him to draw closer to the cage. Taunting him to put his face close to the bars. Taunting him to let the whiskers of the lion brush against his cheek when the animal lunged at the bars to bite. Above the cage was a large red scroll, written in bold, old-world script:

  Fear the Roar

  Trust the Bite

  The sheriff knuckled his eyes and stood beside the divan. Most of his dream had fled from him, but he clearly remembered the lion and the sign. It was a nightmare he had suffered often as a child. He got himself moving toward the window, and there on the end table beside the corner chair was his half-eaten bowl of cereal. He checked his watch. Two hours had passed.

  Stiff in the neck and rubbing at a vague pain in his lower back, Robertson bent side to side tentatively to stretch, and then he walked slowly to the study. He eased himself carefully into the desk chair, and he refreshed the map that Rachel had been assembling in the night. As the map was redrawing on his screen, he rubbed at his back and swiveled around to look out the window behind him.