“You touch anything?” Kessler asked.
“No,” I said. “But I got pretty close to her.”
“Point me,” Kessler said.
Augie raised an arm, extended a finger. “Down by the creek. Just under the bridge.”
“Terrific,” she said, pulling the gloves on. “Give me a couple of minutes.”
She was gone more like ten. Augie talked briefly to some of his officers, then returned to my side, the two of us hugging the railing, leaning over, catching glimpses of Kessler doing her job. We walked to the end of the bridge to meet her as she worked her way back up the hill.
“I’d say strangled,” she said. “There’s impression marks on her neck, aside from the bite marks from some animals, dogs most likely. Dead at least a day, I’d guess, but I’ll know more later.”
“Sexually assaulted?” Augie asked.
Kessler shrugged. “You could presume, given that her pants and underwear are missing. But I won’t know until I’ve had a chance to examine her.”
“Missing?” I said.
“If they’re down there,” she said, “I didn’t see them. They’re certainly not close to the body. Your people find any of the vic’s clothes?”
Augie said he would have to talk to his people.
Kessler sneezed and said, “I’m gonna go home, drink a gallon of NyQuil, try to get some sleep. I’ll tackle her first thing in the morning.”
As Kessler walked away, Augustus Perry said to me, “You might as well go home, too, Cal. We’ll take things from here.”
I wasn’t ready to leave. “It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Someone’s not keeping you informed. That has to worry you.”
“Cal,” Augie said, bristling, “it may surprise you to know that the chief is not informed of every single thing that goes on within the department. If you get pulled over for speeding, I don’t get a call. If someone smashes a window at Griffon High, I don’t get a call. A cat gets stuck up in a tree, I don’t get a call.”
“Fire department gets that one, don’t they?”
“There are any number of reasons why someone in my department might be asking around about Claire Sanders that would not warrant my being brought into the loop, as you put it.”
I shook my head. I was suddenly very tired, but I knew I wasn’t heading home to bed anytime soon.
“See you around, Augie,” I said.
“You going home?”
“Once I’ve found Claire.”
I started to walk away, and then something struck me. I stopped and turned. “Of course, the other possibility is, you do know what’s going on. You know everything. Maybe you know something about Claire that Mayor Sanders would prefer didn’t come out. Maybe she’s into something she shouldn’t be. Maybe if you find out what it is, you’ll have some leverage against Sanders, get him to get the hell off your back.”
“Good thing there are a lot of people around right now,” Augie said. “Otherwise, I’d knock you flat on your ass.”
I looked around. “Just about all of them are cops,” I said. “I think they’d back up whatever story you wanted to tell. Isn’t that how it works around here? You may have thought you were fooling some of the people at that meeting, Augie, but you didn’t fool me.”
“You got a lot of nerve,” Augie said. “You think if this had happened anywhere else, where your brother-in-law wasn’t the fucking chief, you wouldn’t be getting your ass hauled in for questioning? You’re the last person who saw this girl alive, Cal. You don’t see me making an issue out of that.”
“Not yet,” I said.
Augie smiled.
Twenty-five
On the way to my car, I stopped to check in on Sean, interrupting an interrogation by Kate Ramsey and Marvin Quinn.
Quinn said, “Excuse me, mister, but we’re working here.”
“It’s okay, Marv. This is a friend of mine, the one I was just telling you about,” Kate said. “How you doin’, Cal?”
“I’ve been better, Kate.”
“I was telling my partner that was you I saw earlier tonight, out front of Patchett’s when we were talking to our biker friends.”
I didn’t know I’d been spotted sitting in the car. Kate was good. “Yeah, that was me.”
She grinned slyly at her partner. “Didn’t I tell you that was Donna’s husband keepin’ an eye on me?”
“I had a feeling it was you,” I said. “There’s only two women working uniform in Griffon, right?”
“Just me right now. Carla’s been on mat leave for six months.”
I thought of the kid working that convenience store, the one who’d said he’d had his tonsils spray-painted by a woman cop. Kind of narrowed it down for this neck of the woods.
“You stake out Patchett’s much?” I asked.
Quinn, who’d said little up to now, said, “We’d been watching those two ridin’ in on their hogs and were waiting for them to come out, have a word with them.”
Kate nodded. “Plenty of places for them to hoist a few and play pool back where they come from.”
Sean was watching with glazed eyes, like he didn’t even know where he was anymore.
“Were you watching Patchett’s last night?” I asked them. “Around ten?”
Kate didn’t hesitate. “Nope. We were both finishing up with a fender bender south of town around then, weren’t we, Marv?”
Officer Quinn nodded.
“Why?” Kate asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, and turned my focus to Sean. “You gonna be okay?” He shrugged. “You called your parents?”
“These guys are still asking me questions.”
“Call your parents,” I said. “And don’t say another word to these nice officers until they get here and hire you a lawyer.”
Kate Ramsey got her back up. “Cal, what the hell—”
Quinn stared at me. “Butt out, pal.”
I gave the two cops a smile. “Have a nice evening. And you take care, Sean.”
As I was rounding the corner to head back to where my car was parked, I glanced back and saw Haines and Brindle up on the bridge again.
Brindle was looking at me. When our eyes met, he turned away.
While Ramsey and Quinn might not have been watching Patchett’s last night, it was possible some other Griffon cops had been posted outside. And not necessarily Haines and Brindle. If some cop was watching the place for potential troublemakers like those bikers, and noticed a teenage girl getting into a car with a strange man, he might have made a note of my license plate. That could have been what led Haines and Brindle to have a word with me.
It still didn’t explain why they were looking for Claire if no one had reported her missing. I wondered if I’d been onto something when I accused Augie of trying to get some dirt on her to strengthen his position in his fight with Sanders.
Sanders.
I wanted to talk to him again. Much had changed since we’d spoken a couple of hours ago.
A girl was dead.
His daughter’s best friend.
He might not have wanted to talk to me before, but I didn’t see where he had much choice now.
So I pointed the car in the direction of his house. But en route, I noticed Iggy’s up ahead. It was on my mental list of places to stop, too. I figured I might as well go on and get it out of the way, especially considering it would probably be closing soon.
As I was heading toward it, I noticed a small car in my rearview mirror that seemed to be taking every turn I did. When I slowed, it slowed. When I sped up, it did the same.
I wondered whether it would follow me into the Iggy’s lot, but it didn’t. As it kept on going down Danbury, I managed to get a quick look at it. A silver Hyundai. I didn’t have a hope of reading even one number on the plate as it sped off.