Sara slid off the stool. “They should be able to do the blood types today,” she told him, opening the cabinet beside the sink. She took out the sample packets of antibiotics and opened one, then another. “I called Ron Beard at the state lab while you were in the shower. He’s going to run the tests first thing this morning. At least we’ll have some idea how many victims there might have been.”

Jeffrey took the pills and washed them down with some coffee.

She handed him two other sample packs. “Will you please take these after lunch?”

He would probably skip lunch, but he agreed anyway. “What do you think of Terri Stanley?”

She shrugged. “She seems nice. Overwhelmed, but who wouldn’t be?”

“Do you think she drinks?”

“Alcohol?” Sara asked, surprised. “I’ve never smelled it on her. Why?”

“ Lena said she saw her getting sick at the picnic last year.”

“The police picnic?” she questioned. “I don’t think Lena was there. Wasn’t she on her hiatus then?”

Jeffrey let that settle in, ignoring the tone she gave “hiatus.” He told her, “ Lena said she saw her at the picnic.”

“You can check your calendar,” she said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think she was there.”

Sara was never wrong about dates. Jeffrey felt a niggling question working its way through his brain. Why had Lena lied? What was she trying to hide this time?

“Maybe she meant the one before last?” Sara suggested. “I recall a lot of people drinking too much at that one.” She chuckled. “Remember Frank kept singing the national anthem like he was Ethel Merman?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, but Jeffrey knew that Lena had lied. He just couldn’t figure out why. As far as he knew, she wasn’t particularly close to Terri Stanley. Hell, as far as he knew, Lena wasn’t close to anybody. She didn’t even have a dog.

Sara asked, “What are you going to do today?”

He tried to get his mind back on track. “If Lev was telling the truth, I should have some people from the farm first thing. We’ll see if he goes through with the polygraph. We’re going to talk to them, see if anyone knows what happened to Abby.” He added, “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting a full confession.”

“What about Chip Donner?”

“We’ve got an APB on him,” Jeffrey said. “I don’t know, Sara, I don’t like him for this. He’s just a stupid punk. I don’t see him having the discipline to plan it out. And that second box was old. Maybe four, five years. Chip was in jail then. That’s pretty much the only fact we know.”

“Who do you think did it, then?”

“There’s the foreman, Cole,” Jeffrey began. “The brothers. The sisters. Abby’s mother and father. Dale Stanley.” He sighed. “Basically, everybody I’ve talked to since this whole damn thing started.”

“But no one stands out?”

“Cole,” he said.

“But only because he was yelling to those people about God?”

“Yes,” he admitted, and coming from Sara it did sound like a weak connection. He had made an effort to back Lena off the religious angle, but he felt maybe he had picked up some of her prejudices. “I want to talk to the family again, maybe get them alone.”

“Get the women alone,” she suggested. “They might be more talkative without their brothers around.”

“Good idea.” He tried again, “I really don’t want you mixed up with these people, Sara. I don’t much like Tessa being involved, either.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got a hunch,” he said. “And my hunch tells me that they’re up to something. I just don’t know what.”

“Being devout is hardly a crime,” she said. “You’d have to arrest my mother if that were the case.” Then she added, “Actually, you’d have to arrest most of my family.”

“I’m not saying it has anything to do with religion,” Jeffrey said. “It’s how they act.”

“How do they act?”

“Like they’ve got something to hide.”

Sara leaned against the counter. He could tell she wasn’t going to give in. “Tessa asked me to do this for her.”

“And I’m asking you not to.”

She seemed surprised. “You want me to choose between you and my family?”

That was exactly what he was asking, but Jeffrey knew better than to say it. He had lost that contest once before, but this time he was more familiar with the rules. “I just want you to be careful,” he told her.

Sara opened her mouth to respond, but the phone rang. She spent a few seconds looking for the cordless receiver before finding it on the coffee table. “Hello?”

She listened a moment, then handed the phone to Jeffrey.

“Tolliver,” he said, surprised to hear a woman’s voice answer him.

“It’s Esther Bennett,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Your card. The one you gave me. It had this number on it. I’m sorry, I-” Her voice broke into a sob.

Sara gave him a puzzled look and Jeffrey shook his head. “Esther,” he said into the phone. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Becca,” she said, her voice shaking with grief. “She’s missing.”

Jeffrey pulled his car into the parking lot of Dipsy’s Diner, thinking he hadn’t been to the joint since Joe Smith, Catoogah’s previous sheriff, had been in office. When Jeffrey first started working in Grant County, the two men had met every couple of months for stale coffee and rubber pancakes. As time passed and meth started to be more of a problem for their small towns, their meetings became more serious and more regular. When Ed Pelham had taken over, Jeffrey hadn’t even suggested a courtesy call, let alone a meal with the man. As far as he was concerned, Two-Bit couldn’t fill a three-year-old girl’s shoes, let alone the boots of a man like Joe Smith.

Jeffrey scanned the vacant parking lot, wondering how Esther Bennett knew about this place. He couldn’t imagine the woman eating anything that didn’t come from her own oven, picked from her own garden. If Dipsy’s was her idea of a restaurant, she’d be better off eating cardboard at home.

May-Lynn Bledsoe was behind the counter when he walked into the diner, and she shot him a caustic look. “I’s beginning to think you didn’t love me no more.”

“Couldn’t be possible,” he said, wondering why she was making an attempt at banter. He’d been in this diner maybe fifty times and she had never given him the time of day. He glanced around the room, noting it was empty.

“You beat the rush,” she said, though he doubted people would be banging down the door anytime soon. Between May-Lynn’s sour attitude and the tepid coffee, there wasn’t much to recommend the place. Joe Smith had been a fan of their cheese and onion home fries and always asked for a triple order with his coffee. Jeffrey imagined Joe’s sudden heart attack at the age of fifty-six had put some people off.

He saw a late-model Toyota pull into the parking lot and waited for the driver to get out. The early-morning wind was whipping up dirt and sand in the gravel parking lot, and when Esther Bennett got out of the car, the door caught back on her. Jeffrey went to help her, but May-Lynn was in front of the door like she was afraid he’d change his mind and leave. She was picking something out of her back teeth that caused her to put her pinky finger into her mouth up to the third knuckle as she asked, “You want the usual?”

“Just coffee, please,” he said, watching Esther quickly take the steps to the entrance, clutching her coat closed with both hands. The bell over the door clanged as she walked in, and he stood to greet her.

“Chief Tolliver,” Esther said, breathless. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“You’re fine,” he told her, indicating she should sit down. He tried to take her coat, but she wouldn’t let him.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, sliding into the booth, her sense of urgency as palpable as the smell of grilled onions in the air.

He sat across from her. “Tell me what’s going on.”

A long shadow was cast over the table, and he looked up to find May-Lynn standing beside him, pad in her hand. Esther looked at her, confused for a second, then asked, “May I have some water, please?”