“One jogger is all we got so far,” he says. “Helene and I spoke with him. He says he saw a white van he didn’t recognize, no markings on the outside, pulling away on Cass Road, over there on the other side of the woods.”
“But the bike was right here.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“So whoever it was grabbed her and then took her through the woods and got her into the van,” I say. “But nobody heard screams or anything, or saw it happening?”
“No,” Burt Webb says. “For now, all we’ve got is the van. Helene’s got her people putting a BOLO on it. You know what that is, right?”
“Be on the lookout,” I say. “I watch a lot of those FBI shows.”
“So we’re looking for an unmarked white van,” he says, “even though God knows how many of those are around here, and everywhere else on the planet, for that matter.”
He looks at me, his face a mix of hurt and anger. Or just plain sadness.
“It’s like whoever’s doing this is putting it right in our faces this close to the town hall the other night, Silas,” he says. “Like letting us know they’re not afraid of us. Almost like they’re mocking us.”
“Fucking fucks,” I say.
The crowd of onlookers, I can see, has grown since I’ve gotten to Corley Park. Like this has turned into a different kind of town hall meeting, just outdoors. Another tragedy of our town, another girl who’s been kidnapped. Or worse.
“You think these girls are dead, Burt? Gotta ask.”
“If they’re not,” he says, “it might be something even worse than that. There hasn’t been a single ransom demand, which to me means they’re being trafficked if they are still alive. Only thing that makessense.” He takes out his phone, looks at it, puts it away. “It would mean they’re being sold off, just God knows where and to who and for God knows how much.”
His eyes leave me now and drift over to the people continuing to collect on their side of the yellow crime-scene tape, the crowd growing. Small town. Big news about another missing girl.
“You gotta be kidding me,” he says, and then heads in that direction.
I turn and see right away where he’s going and what caught his eye: two of the punks we’d seen in front of their trucks outside the parish hall the other night. One of them, the taller of the two, is even wearing a ratty-looking “Cross Rivers HS” sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.
They’re standing in the front row. Even if we didn’t recognize them, they would have stood out anyway, as they happen to be the only ones in the entire crowd laughing right now.
Burt manages to stay on his side of the tape, but motions for them to come closer to him. I’m standing next to him by now, feeling as if I really am one of his deputies.
“What do you assholes seem to think is so funny?” Burt asks.
Everyone close to us has gone quiet and still.
The one in the sweatshirt, string-bean skinny and sporting old-fashioned mullet hair, says, “Huck here just made a joke, is all.”
I see Burt’s face begin to redden. Never a good sign, I know from experience, especially not with this many people as witnesses to what might happen next if he blows.
“You think this is some kind of joke?” Burt asks, managing to keep his voice low.
The punk looks at him now with sullen eyes and makes me remember a line, from either a book or a movie, about someone looking as if he’d grown up to be a perp.
He ignores Burt’s question and says, “Nice bike. You gonna hold on to it? Or can I have it?”
Burt starts to take a step forward, but then I’m quickly between him and them, addressing both of the punks at once.
“Leave,” I say. “Now.”
“Or what?” the mullet asks.
“Or,” I say to him, “I will grab you and swing you like a baseball bat and use you to beat the shit out of your friend.”
“What?” he says to me, not backing up or down. “You’ve always been such a big deal around here you think you’re the law now, too?”
