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“Which is?”
“Oh, the usual. God will protect the worthy. The spawns of Satan will burn in hell. You know the drill.”
“That I do,” Barbara said wearily. “Although she doesn’t look like a typical fundamentalist.”
“No, she’s an odd one, for sure. Cool as a long drink of milk but, make no mistake, that milk is sour.”
A good description, Barbara thought.
Rita sipped her coffee. “Going back to the boy you saw, you might want to have a word with the school. He should be in class. Kurt Mowlam teaches tenth and eleventh grade. Only ’bout a dozen kids. He’ll know who’s missing.”
“You should be a detective, Rita.”
“Except,” Nicholls interjected, “about half the kids are at home this week. Compassionate leave, after what happened to Marcus.”
“And that is why I’m not a detective.” Rita chortled. “Now, while you real cops get on with things, I gotta make some house calls.”
She swigged the rest of her coffee, slid off the desk and headed for the door. As she pulled on her hat, she turned:
“You want me to pick you up some cookies while I’m out, Pete?”
“You need to ask?” Nicholls replied.
Another raspy chuckle and Rita was gone, in a blur of crimson and knitted bobbles.
“She’s quite something,” Barbara said to Nicholls.
“She is. Certainly helped this townie settle in when I first arrived.”
“I’m surprised there’s enough work here for a full-time mayor.”
“There isn’t, and Rita isn’t full-time. It’s not an official position. More honorary. She fits it in around caring for her mother. She’s pretty ill.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He nodded. “Rita is good with people. Sorts out a lot of minor stuff so I don’t have to.”
“I wish I had that talent.”
“Me too.”
They regarded each other with slightly more warmth.
“So,” Nicholls said. “You want to discuss the phone footage?”
“That I do, sir.”
She opened up her laptop. Nicholls slipped on an ancient pair of glasses, held together on one side with sticky tape. Another one who ate a lot of meals for one, Barbara thought. No one to nag him to get those damn glasses fixed.
She pressed play. When the video reached the shot with Marcus’s coat in the background, she paused.
“You see, here,” she pointed. “Hanging on the wall.”
Nicholls frowned, peering at the screen.
“It could be anything.”
“Well, if you think that, you need new glasses more than I thought. It’s a coat. Marcus’s coat.”
