“Why’d you wait so long to see about this?”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Sam said. “We’ve come to claim her and bring her back into her family. This is Elsie Weller, her mother.”

“That right?” The sheriff’s question carried a note of disbelief.

Elsie drew a photograph from her purse and placed it on the desk. “Yes, I’m her mother and this is Lily. She was three when she was abducted, and now she’s four.”

The sheriff looked at the photograph without picking it up. He pursed his lips. “Where exactly did you see her?”

“In the yard of a man named Acy White. I talked to some maid about her in the alley.”

“And why didn’t you come to me then?”

He glanced at a bookcase filled with leatherbound volumes. “She looked well off. Mr. Weller had just died, so I made a mistake and kept quiet about it until recently. When I realized I was wrong.”

“About what? The girl’s identity?”

“About not telling Mrs. Weller right away.”

The sheriff came forward decisively in his chair. “This sounds a little fishy to me, all of it.” He turned to Elsie. “You say your husband’s dead?”

“Yes. He died from-”

“I’m not interested in his health problems. I’m just trying to figure out who you are. How do you support yourself?”

“My son and I work on the Ambassador.”

“That the excursion boat? What, might I ask, do you do?”

“My son plays the saxophone, and I do some singing. Mostly I waitress.”

“So you’re musicians,” the sheriff said, as if this explained something. “You live on the boat, do you?”

Elsie sat up straight. “We keep rooms in Cincinnati.”

The conversation went back and forth like this for fifteen minutes, until the sheriff stood up and pulled down his vest. “I’ve known Acy White for a long, long time, and I know he’s a fine man who would never do anything unethical.”

“We know the girl’s here,” Sam told him. “I saw her. I met the people he hired to steal her away.”

The sheriff waved him off. “Two things you have to know. Even if this child was stolen, which I’m rock-hard sure she wasn’t, it happened out of my jurisdiction and I can’t have anything to do with it.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Elsie asked.

“Have whichever word you please,” he said. “Do you want to hear the second thing?”

She nodded, casting Sam a sour look.

“The Whites reported to me a few days ago that their daughter, Madeline, has disappeared. Along with their cook, Vessy.”

There was silence in the office, and then, after a few moments, a burst of explanations, accusations, and denials, all leading to an outright argument.

THE THREE OF THEM stood on the sidewalk, confused and angry, and Sam felt the anger turning against him. Looking up and down the long, clean street, he could smell the café but nothing like the stench of New Orleans. The storefronts were spotless, bright awnings fending off the heat, windows filled with merchandise. “I feel like jumping in the damn river,” he said.

August spat on the curbstone. “Where do they live?”

Sam looked up the hill, wondering where the boy he’d known last year had gone. “Way up there, at the top.”

Elsie began walking. “Let’s go, then.”

THEY WENT to the front gate and opened it. Elsie rang the bell. The house loomed, quietly. Then she knocked. After a long while, August stepped around her and pounded on the door with his fist, then tried the knob, but the door was locked, and as he rattled it they all sensed the heaviness of the wood, the wide bolts thrown into the frame.

Elsie stepped back into the yard and looked up at the broad windows cinched with squares of colored glass. “Are you in there?” she yelled. “We need to see you about our little girl.”

To her right a neighbor, an old woman wearing an alarmed expression, came out and stood on the steps, but Elsie yelled again, “We know you took her, and we want to get her back.”

Sam stepped out next to her and checked all the windows himself, but they showed no faces, just recently cleaned glass, blank and facing west. One broad pane captured a cloud like a picture frame, but besides this, there was no movement. After a while they walked around back and tried there, knocking and yelling until a city policeman drove up and told them to please leave, that they were disturbing the neighbors. “They’ve left home,” he told them.

Sam walked over, and seeing that he was bright-eyed and young, not a small-town thug in a uniform, he asked him a question. “What do you know about the Whites reporting a little girl missing?”

“Her name’s Madeline. It’s been a few days now, but they think their cook made off with her.”

“Vessy?”

“That’s right.”

“Vessy what?”

The policeman pushed back his cap. “I don’t recall hearing.” He glanced over at the Wellers, who were still watching the doorknob. “It’s a funny thing about cooks and gardeners,” he said. “Hardly nobody ever knows the last name of one. Why do you think that is?”

Sam leaned a hip against the short fence and shook his head. “I guess some people think it only takes one name to call a dog.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON August stayed at the hotel with a headache, and Sam and Elsie caught the sheriff in the hall of the county building. When they approached, he put his palms out in a pushing motion.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“We’d just like to know what you’re doing to find my daughter.”

“We’re doing a great deal to find the Whites’ little girl,” he said, then turned and began to walk off.

“I can’t believe you won’t go after kidnappers just because they’re your friends,” she called after him.

“I resent that.” He was still walking away. “I’ve already told you that the little girl was taken by the cook, I don’t know why. We haven’t had a ransom demand.”

“What kind of lawman are you?”

He stopped and looked at her. “Mrs. Weller, what kind of waitress are you?”

Sam took her arm and led her out into the sunshine, for her face had gone bone white and she was shaking with anger and fear. “Can you afford to hire a lawyer?” he asked.

“Not and eat too,” she whispered.

He looked up and down the pleasant street. “This isn’t good. I don’t have the money to hang around and track this Vessy character. The desk clerk says she could be in eastern Kentucky somewhere. From what I hear, the people up there back in the hills and hollers can’t even find each other.”

“How will we know,” she began, swallowing with effort, as if keeping down nausea, “if they find her? I’m nearly out of money myself.”

He looked up in time to spot the young policeman who’d shown up in the alley behind the Whites’ house. He was coming down the courthouse steps, looking in their direction.

Sam raised a hand. “Excuse me, Officer.”

“Do for you?” He walked over to them.

“I believe you’re the only man in town that would do a favor for that little girl.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He grinned, and Sam could tell he hadn’t been a policeman long.

“If she’s found and brought back to town, how about sending me a telegram?”

“I reckon. Where you want me to send it? And I’ll need a buck, won’t I?”

Sam had a railroad ticket stub in his pocket and borrowed the policeman’s pencil. He fished a limp dollar out of his billfold and put it in the policeman’s palm along with his address in New Orleans. “If it costs more than this, let me know and I’ll send it along.”

“All right, then. I’ll be glad to.” The policeman touched the brim of his cap and turned away.