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“She makes things up,” said Mrs. Sparks, a stout woman with her daughter’s green eyes. “I’m sorry she’s wasting your time, Agent Hammersmith. I’m always telling her to stop spinning tales, but she says she’s going to be an actress when she grows up and she wants to practice.”
Nina looked closely at her little sister. “Mel, you know this is really important, don’t you? We have to help find Linzie. Tell the truth, did you really see this man?”
Melanie whispered, “Yes, I swear I did, I promise,” and crossed her heart.
Griffin came down on his haunches in front of the little girl. “Tell me where you saw him, Melanie. And when.”
The little girl sent an agonized look at her mother, who looked ready to blast her. Then Mrs. Sparks drew in her breath and said, “Tell Agent Hammersmith what you saw, Melanie.”
Melanie looked down at her worn blue sneakers, the laces coming loose on her left foot. “I saw him at Buffett’s Hamburgers a week and a half ago, maybe it was last Tuesday. Nina and her friends let me go with them after my summer camp was over for the day.”
Griffin said to Nina, “Was it a Tuesday? A week and a half ago? Was Linzie with you?”
Nina had to think a minute, then said, “Yes, I remember. There were six of us.”
“Go ahead, Melanie.”
“He had on this cap, a baseball cap, it had a big Y on it, and a jacket and I thought that was weird, it was really warm, you know? He was standing next to a black truck, eating a hamburger, not sitting at one of the outside tables. Mrs. Buffett has them all under the shade trees.”
“What else did he do?”
“He ate the hamburger, really fast, and you know what? He didn’t toss his trash in the waste can. He dropped it on the ground. I remember thinking Mama would tell him not to be a yahoo, like she does us. He wiped his hands on his jeans, got in his truck, and drove away. That’s the only time I saw him.”
“Did he talk to any of the girls? To Linzie?”
“No.”
“I want you to close your eyes, Melanie, picture him standing there by his truck, all right? Good. Now, did he look at the girls? At Linzie?”
Melanie looked like she wanted to cry. “I don’t know, Agent, sir.”
“That’s okay. You did great.” Griffin shook the little girl’s hand. “Sheriff, we need to go speak to Mrs. Buffett.”
Sheriff Cruisie said, “Good idea, someone had to take his order for the hamburger.”
It was Mrs. Buffett herself, a woman of nearly eighty, wiry gray hair scraped back in a skinny bun, who’d served him. “Yep, a handsome young man, nice and polite, but he mumbled. I couldn’t believe it when he tossed his wrapper on the ground, left it for us to clean up. So it turns out he was still a dirty little kid, didn’t learn manners from his mama.” She shook her head.
“Did you notice if he looked at the teenage girls? Did he talk to them?”
“Nope, not that I saw. He didn’t make a big deal out of it since he wasn’t a teenage boy, he looked them over, sort of nodded, and went over to his truck. I don’t think any of the kids noticed him, too busy flirting. I’ll say this for him, he kept his truck mighty clean. So why’d he throw his wrapper on the ground?”
Carson said, “Like you said, his mama didn’t teach him manners.”
“Ain’t that the truth. You want one of my hamburgers?”
Carson turned down the hamburger, but she did buy a cup of french fries for the road, lots of salt, and walked beside a whistling Griffin to his car, Sheriff Cruisie nearly bouncing beside them.
Griffin said to the sheriff, “I’m going to take another trip to the Bodines’ house, have a nice long talk with Rafer. I think they might even be expecting me.”
“There’s no direct evidence, though,” Cruisie said, and shrugged. “I mean, who’s going to convict him because he happened to be here a week ago Tuesday eating a hamburger?”
Griffin said, “It’s another nail in his coffin at trial, as my former SAC in San Francisco would say. I think we’ll get him, Sheriff.”
Cruisie shook his head. “I don’t understand why Rafer Bodine would go around kidnapping teenage girls. Like he’s suddenly become a serial kidnapper? It doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve never heard anything bad about Rafer. You must already know his family’s a power in Gaffer’s Ridge, but Rafer? He’s always seemed to me to go with the flow, as the teenagers say. I pray to heaven he hasn’t killed them. No one could stand that, no one.
“To think he’s Sheriff Bodine’s nephew. It would be a huge blow. Would you like me with you to talk to Rafer Bodine?”
Griffin thought about it. He wanted Carson with him, and the sheriff was more useful to him here in Whytheville. “Sheriff, let me handle this first interview. I’ll keep you posted. I need you to show those photos around town, talk to neighbors and the businesses around the parking lot at Buffett’s. Spread your deputies in a wider circle.”
Sheriff Cruisie’s shoulders squared. Like the Drumms, he now had some work to do that could mean something. He shook Griffin’s hand, nodded to the gorgeous woman with him.
