Page 2 of Christmas Past
“The tourists have been arriving in town. Before the snow started, who did you see? Who didn’t you know? Who was wearing something you thought looked stupid? Out of place? Did it look like anyone was worried? Was anyone having a fight? You might not think it would have anything to do with a little girl gone missing, but I need to know everything. You had to see something…”
“There was that one guy…” Gus’ bushy gray eyebrows drew together as he looked at the other two. “You know, with the coat that looked like a woman’s…”
“Right,” Marv said, “It was long. My wife used to have one that looked almost like it.”
A clue. Something. All he needed was a place to start.
Another fifteen minutes had passed. One hour and forty-five minutes until he missed his best shot at finding the child alive – that first three-hour window.
“What color was the coat?”
“Blue,” Barty piped up. “I saw him across the street with Elias Adams, they went intoTheHeraldtogether.”
TheChristmas Town Herald, second generation owned by Elias, wasn’t likely to be a place where a would-be kidnapper would hang out.
“You ask them parents of hers?” Marv asked, the light glinting off his thick lenses. “I know he’s Posey’scousin and all, but they ain’t from around here and an hour after they show up in town, their little girl goes missing? Sounds fishy to me.”
Did to him, too. “Yes, I’ve interviewed both of them and they’re at the station right now, talking to the FBI agent I called in.”
A missing child was not something to mess around with.
But Marv’s question sparked another. “You guys told me what you saw on the sidewalk…who you saw, what they were doing and wearing, but what about cars?” Two years on the job as small town sheriff and he was still not used to having to ask the obvious.
All three men shook their heads. “In this weather?” Barty asked, while Gus scribbled. “Guy would have to be a darn fool to be out driving around in a car.”
“How about trucks?” Chad was gritting his teeth.
“Nope, none that I don’t know,” Gus said.
The other two nodded.
Deck The Hallsstarted to play over the store’s speaker system, amping up his tension. He had to find that little girl.
Neither of the Poseys knew of anyone who’d want to hurt them. Or have any reason to snatch their child. They were both school teachers. Lived modest lives.
Less than two hours to rescue a child, and he had no idea where to look.
“Without looking at Gus’ list, tell me everyone you saw this morning.”
“Gracie…” Barty piped up first. Everyone thought he was a little sweet on the strange woman twenty years his junior. Gracie had lost her entire family in a fire a decade before Chad had come to town. She’d been in a coma for weeks, but eventually had been able to return home and recover what was left of her life. Which mostly consisted of walking around town with her head down, sometimes crying, never smiling. She’d say hi to anyone who spoke to her, help out if anyone asked for anything, but mostly she just walked. She was living off insurance money and was set for life.
But Barty…he’d been talking about asking her out to dinner…
Another minute had passed. The guys had given him eleven more names – all already on his list and accounted for. “Bessie,” Marv said then. The preacher’s wife and friend to Marv’s wife. "She was in here picking up some extra Christmas lights."
“And Stan Whimple,” Barty added. A kid who worked at the Yuletide Movie Theater. He was graduating high school the following week – graduating early – and, after New Year’s, would be leaving for boot camp. Chad had had dinner at his place, with his folks, the night before. Definitely not a kid snatcher.
So there he was, another fifteen minutes short of time and he had a stranger with a long coat going into the newspaper office.
“There was that one kid with Stan,” Marv said, frowning. “Remember? He was down at the corner, talking to him. You figured he was that Murphy cousin who was visiting.” He looked at Gus.
Gus looked at his notepad. “Yep.” He nodded. “That’s right. He was dressed like a darn fool for this weather, in that sweatshirt with a hood and jean jacket and it looked like he had something in his pocket.”
“Marv thought it was a gun,” Barty said, “But it wasn’t near that big.”
“Figured it for a fishing knife,” Gus said. “But he didn’t come down this way, or I’d have asked him about it for sure,” the sixty-something man added. “So he couldn’t have taken that little girl. He left Stan down at the corner a block before the square.”
Chad would take whatever lead he could get. Telling the men to call his cell immediately if they thought of anything else, or heard anything, he was out the door and on his way to find Stan Whimple.
