In the storage area, Mike Morgan was kneeling on the floor taking photos. If not for the strobe flash, Gabe wouldn’t have located him among the piles of boxes and the table, masks and costumes.

“Hey, Gabe,” he said, peering over the top of a carton. “I followed up on your deputy’s Dumpster-diving in the alley, but they’d all just been emptied before she went missing, so not much to see. I called the waste management company that runs the trucks and told them the situation. I also processed and printed the Barbie doll if you want to let the dog sniff that. Hey, you look steamed. Vic lay his latest hunch on you?”

“Yeah, but I think it’s crazy. Anything helpful here yet?”

“Lots of prints, probably mostly hers. I think she’d made a little dollhouse or play spot back here. Oh, yeah, I heard the dog out back a minute ago.”

“Good. Here’s hoping I’m not clutching at straws and his hound will turn something up.”

“Speaking of straws, there’s a really beat-up scarecrow thrown on the floor back here. Unlike the other decorations and figures, it’s old-looking and dusty as heck. Can you phone Sandy’s mother, ask her if it should be here? Everything else looks...well, better, like it could be for decoration or for sale, but not this.”

“She may have just wanted something authentic-looking. But will do as soon as I see Jeffers work his dog.”

“Sandy’s Barbie doll is on the box by the back door.” As Gabe took it in its plastic bag and went out, he saw Mike had debagged the doorknobs. “Hey, Sam, thanks for coming with Boo,” Gabe greeted the man, and they shook hands.

“Always willing to try again,” Sam said, but Gabe decided not to dwell on the fact that this tactic had not panned out when Tess was taken.

Gabe’s mom had always said Sam looked like how she imagined Johnny Appleseed. And she’d said he was ageless, as old as the hills. Maybe now Gabe would have to check him out, age, background, possible motives, though he thought Vic was really overstepping with that theory. Sam was lanky with a full, graying beard that made him look older than he was. He wore boots, patched jeans and a dirty green-and-white Ohio University baseball cap on backward. His sharp blue eyes assessed Gabe as did the hound’s sad-looking eyes.

“So, how’s the hunting?” Gabe asked.

“Lots of deer. Trapping season too. Hope Boo don’t smell like skunk. Last few days, we got us otters, beavers, coons, even coyotes, but old Boo got him a skunk this morning. Sorry it took me a while to get your message.”

Boo, who did smell slightly of skunk, sniffed the doll Gabe took from the bag and held out to him. The hound was eager to be off from the back door of the shop. Gabe’s hopes rose. The dog was following what must be a clear path, tugging Sam along on the leash. Gabe quickly followed, scanning the ground in case something had been dropped. There’d be no footprints on this blacktop.

After heading down the alley about twenty feet, the dog stopped behind the hardware store. Nose to ground, Boo went in circles, snorting, sniffing, then sat down and barked twice.

“What’s that mean?” Gabe asked.

“Her scent ends here,” Sam said.

Damn, Gabe thought. Just like when his dad used a tracker dog of Sam’s in the cornfield and it lost the trail. “Can you move him out a bit, see if he picks it up again?”

They worked at that for nearly an hour, up, down the alley, near the creek. Nothing. Gabe swore under his breath, but they had learned something. The girl had walked—unless she’d been dragged, but not carried—out the back door and then had evidently climbed or been lifted into a vehicle behind the hardware store. Gabe wished that, like in big cities, there had been roof or pole cameras, but no such luck here. As he scanned the familiar area again, he saw Vic had come out and was watching, leaning against the gift shop door, arms crossed over his chest. How long had he been there?

Gabe thanked Sam and let him and Boo go. Sam ducked under the police tape, which Gabe went over to yank down in frustration.

“The dog’s actions tell us something,” Vic said, coming up behind him.

“Yeah, Sandy either knew the attacker and walked out a ways with him, or was intrigued by something enough to go outside without telling her mother and may have gotten in a vehicle parked out back—with or without help. So now I’ll get Jace to focus on interviewing in more depth the hardware store staff and their customers that day.”

“Good. Hardware stores are a magnet for men. Ordinarily, any hardware store customers park out back here?”

“Sure, especially if they want to load something into a truck or car.”

“So there we go. I’ll look through their sales slips that day too, see if I hit any matches with gift shop customers. Mike says you’re going to ask Lindell Kenton about that scarecrow. Ask her if she’ll come in and help me with matching hardware store names with her customers that day. And you, for now, focus on Tess Lockwood.”

Gabe nodded. He was focusing on Tess Lockwood and not all for official reasons. It annoyed him that he couldn’t get her out of his head.

Gabe and Vic watched Sam put Boo in his old pickup truck and drive away from down the alley where it hadn’t been roped off. Then Vic helped him drag yards of yellow police tape toward the empty Dumpster behind the gift shop.

“I’ll look into Sam too, but I’d vouch for him,” Gabe told Vic. “You’re thinking of him as a possible perp, with Tess’s abduction too, right?”

“I didn’t even consider Jeffers last time. It’s bigger than that.”

“So tell me,” Gabe prodded when Vic seemed to hesitate.

“Don’t like to admit this, but your illustrious mayor irritated me so much years ago when I was here on the Lockwood case I was tempted to slap him with obstruction of justice. Demanding things, ordering me around. Even told me to get out of town because I was ‘bad PR.’ So I ran a check on him. Not back then, but just a couple of days ago when I knew I was coming back here and found out he was still in office. Thought I might turn up a drunk driving charge, whatever. He annoyed your dad, and I’ll bet he does you too.”

“Got to admit he does.”

“I’ll show you the printout. Years ago, when he lived in Chillicothe, in his late teens, he was arrested for lewd acts on a minor child—a five-year-old girl—but the charges were dismissed.”

“What? Man, you are reaching—but...”

“Yeah, but. Thought you might want to go yourself or send Deputy Miller to Reese Owens’s old neighborhood where it happened, see if someone recalls the circumstances, because except for this item I stumbled onto, other references to it seemed just gone. I only found a memo where a court clerk had jotted down notes, including a notation that Owens’s arrest and court records were either lost or sealed. They’re still missing, Gabe. Reese Owens may be mayor of a small town, but he’s got some big political heft and money ties through his marriage. Look, right now I’ll stay here with Mike till he gets done so you can get back to Teresa—Tess. What’s locked inside that pretty head of hers is exactly what we need.”

* * *

Tess sat on the picnic table again, waiting, until she heard a car pull in the driveway. To her surprise Gabe was not in his sheriff uniform but jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt. That’s right. He’d been wearing something like that when it happened. She remembered that much. She hopped off the table, suddenly afraid, but still wanting to do this.

“You okay?” he asked, and waited until she nodded. “When we go into the field, we don’t have to go clear over toward Dane’s.”

“I didn’t know you meant to go really far.”

“Let’s just do what you think is best—is right—once we get going. Okay, so I was over there where there used to be a swing set, just sitting on a swing, keeping an eye on you and three other kids. I think it rusted out before Lee and Grace’s kids got to use it. Anyway, you kept running past me, giving me a good shove in the back so I swung when I was trying to sit still. The other kids were playing in the sandbox like I asked, but—”