Prodigal

Chapter 8

8

Deputy Luther Beck stumbled through the front door of the Sheriff’s Department to the smell of coffee hours past its prime. He shook the water from his coat by the door and hung it on the coat rack the new girl had improvised. Then Luther put half a sandwich in the fridge and made his way back to Grant’s office.

The Sheriff’s door was open, and Grant sat behind his spotless desk. Luther knocked on the doorframe to get his boss’s attention before entering.

“I take it you’re not planning on going home tonight?” Luther asked.

No doubt Grant had shaved this morning before work, but that must have been sixteen hours ago or more. His face was shaded with auburn stubble, and he looked exhausted. Luther reached up to check his own dark mustache, but nothing felt out of place. His burgeoning beard was a whole other story. Luther couldn’t quite seem to figure out where it was supposed to grow and where it wasn’t.

Grant sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Maybe in an hour or two.”

Luther waited, but Grant didn’t say anything else. In addition to being a neat freak, his boss was not the most chatty bastard he’d ever met. “That coffee recent?” Luther asked.

“Maybe an hour or two—”

The two men looked at each other, caught in a moment of déjà vu, and chuckled.

“I’m gonna make a fresh pot,” Luther said. “Why don’t you do some jumping jacks or something? Don’t worry—you won’t scare the new girl. She must’ve gone home already.”

Grant rose and followed Luther. “Beth’s over at the Command Center. They’re trying to get the hotline set up by morning.”

“Command Center, huh? You mean the War Memorial Building?” Luther asked, hearing a hint of snark in his own voice. And there wasn’t any point in it. He’d already told Grant he wasn’t happy about the woman having a responsibility that should have been his. But Grant didn’t take the bait. He rarely did.

“Yes,” was all his boss said. Grant leaned against the kitchen table. It was solid wood, built for leaning on, and Grant’s own daddy had probably brought it in. It almost made Luther laugh sometimes, him and Grant working together, the son of a Sheriff and the son of a Beck, a family not known for their law-abiding ways.

“Alibi checked out on the last of our local boys on the s*x registry,” Luther said, scooping coffee. “He was at the VFW—drinking—from three p.m. until almost seven.”

“Damn. I expected as much, but we gotta check off the boxes.”

“No news on any other fronts?” Luther asked.

“Nothing good,” Grant said. “I’ve notified everyone, put her in all the databases, there’s an AMBER alert out. Everybody’s stretched pretty thin, but I managed to pick up a few deputies on loan from Sheriff Tucker and Sheriff Webster. Just for the weekend. We can use them knocking door-to-door, searches, checkpoints, whatever. Bad roads between us and the interstate are slowing things down, but the Feds are on their way. A couple of guys from an advance team are helping Beth right now, and the rest of them’ll be here first thing in the morning. Which brings me to your brother.”

Luther waited, and his jaw clenched in anticipation before he could stop it. Forcing the muscles to release, he ran his tongue over his teeth, as if to get rid of a nasty taste. “Yeah?”

“I appreciate Leslie helping out with the searches this evening. To be honest, I was hoping they’d find her. That she’d just gone off somewhere and didn’t make it back before dark hit.”

Luther relaxed a little, hearing thoughts that echoed his own.

Grant continued. “It was worth a shot anyway. My only concern is, now we’ll have everybody and his Federal agent brother in here. I’m grateful for the help, but all these alphabet soup guys are particular about how they do things. You think that’s gonna be a problem with Leslie?”

Luther considered. He’d been surprised how gung-ho his brother was, quickly dividing up the search areas, organizing the teams and assigning them territories. The man hadn’t shown a lick of enthusiasm for anything in a long time. It was a shame it took a missing child to bring it out, but that was better than the alternative. Now that he’d found a purpose, Les might very well bump against the higher-ups. But Luther couldn’t bring himself to speak against his brother.

Grant said, “How about this? How about from here on out we let everybody know to coordinate the search stuff through you, instead of talking direct with Leslie?”

Luther nodded. Maybe Grant wasn’t such a dumbass after all. “Sounds good. What else needs to happen?”

Grant looked lost, for just a moment, like a man trying to do the right thing but not sure what that is. He dropped his head, gave it a little shake, and cleared his throat. When he spoke, he lowered his voice, as if there were anyone else to hear them. “I’ve been putting it off, but I’ve got to go to Dorothy and Otto’s again tonight. I figured I’d ask Otto to sign releases for us. Then Doc Hammond can bring the girl’s medical records over tomorrow. I’ll send someone to Plattsville to pick up her dental records tomorrow, too.”

Luther swallowed hard. “You think it’ll come to that?”

Grant started to shrug off the question, but met Luther’s eyes instead. His voice sounded strained as he said, “It doesn’t look good.”

Luther felt a sickness in his stomach that made him wish he hadn’t had that half a sandwich an hour ago. Somehow, the situation hadn’t seemed that serious before. He’d assumed the girl would’ve shown up by now. But he, of all people, should’ve known better.

“My brother was there the night the guy took Danny Carpenter. Never thought we’d have to deal with something like that again,” Luther admitted. The coffeepot stopped burbling, and he topped up Grant’s proffered cup before filling his own and sipping at the bitter brew. “Your dad know what’s going on?”

“I hope not.”

Grant’s father had been Sheriff during the Carpenter kidnapping. The man had hired Luther and been good to him over the years. Now he was in a care facility, and some days he didn’t know what decade it was, much less what day.

“Stop by the Command Center on your way home, see what Beth needs, but other than that, I can’t think of anything else you can do before first light. You want to meet me here in the morning? We can swing by the Nicholsons’ together to check in, first thing,” Grant suggested.

“What time?” Luther asked.

“Say six a.m.? No, six-thirty should do it.”

Luther couldn’t help cringing, just a little, as he checked his watch. It was nearing eleven p.m. now, and he’d be lucky to make it to bed before one. “You got it.”

Grant looked at his own watch. “I better be getting out there with the releases, before it gets any later. You still got that inhaler?” he asked.

Luther pulled the device from his jacket pocket, already sheathed in a labeled, plastic bag. “You know Dorothy’s gonna freak out when she sees this,” he said, handing the item to Grant.

“I was thinking maybe I’d show it to JJ first, see what she can tell me. With their kids being best friends, she’s taken care of the girl a lot, and she’s a nurse…” Grant trailed off, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously.

“Makes sense. JJ’s got a cool head on her shoulders,” Luther said. He smiled to himself as he thought of the scene Les had described earlier. Especially when she’s got a cold shotgun in her hands. “That reminds me, my brother told me something. When they were wrapping up tonight, him and his buddies saw a strange car pull into JJ’s.”

Grant took a sip of coffee while he waited for Luther to continue. Luther thought the man was trying to look casual, but not doing a very good job of it. Especially since his cup was about empty.

Luther said, “It was Adam Rutledge.”

Grant’s tired eyes widened. “Adam Rutledge? Was Leslie sure?”

“Pretty sure.” Luther grinned. “Although JJ was apparently doing her best to keep him out of sight while she chewed everybody out.”

Grant didn’t even smile at the image, just stared at the dregs in his cup. “Well, thanks for letting me know, Luther, but I can’t imagine it means anything.”

Suddenly Luther felt the heat building, the buzzing in his brain that forecast his temper, but he wasn’t sure why. Because Grant had been dismissive? Or because it was Adam? Something was pushing Luther’s buttons, enough that he should keep his mouth shut. But Luther had never been very good at that.

“Adam Rutledge was Danny Carpenter’s best friend,” Luther argued. “You think it’s just a coincidence that the man shows up within hours of our first kidnapping since then?”

“Don’t forget the girl, the one after Danny. Sarah Edmunds,” Grant countered.

“That was in Plattsville.”

“The town may have had their own police force, but the Beecham County Sheriff’s Department helped out.”

Luther’s voice raised a notch. “Nobody ever proved a stranger snatched that girl.”

Grant lurched to standing, with the table giving the tiniest scooch as it released his weight. “Technically, no one ever proved that of Danny, either.”

“Maybe not, but Danny sure as hell wasn’t a runaway!” Luther said. “He was taken.”

“Yes, he was. And Adam was a kid at the time.” Grant’s voice remained calm as he asked, “Are you trying to say Adam had something to do with it?”

Luther held his breath to slow the words that would have tumbled from his mouth. He tried not to gasp audibly as he breathed in and responded. “I’m saying some weird s**t happened around that kid. And now he’s not a kid anymore.”

Grant nodded. “Unfortunately, some people get more than their fair share of tragedy.”

Luther remained outwardly still, but flinched inside at Grant’s words, at the thought of young Adam crying for his mother while she bled out in a mass of twisted metal by the side of the road.

“Coincidence or not, Rachel Nicholson has nothing to do with Danny Carpenter,” Grant said, rinsing his mug and setting it in the dish drainer alongside the sink. He reached out and squeezed Luther’s arm briefly as he passed. “And she’s not coming back unless we find her.”