Читать книгу The Weight of Silence - Heather Gudenkauf, Heather Gudenkauf - Страница 16

On my way over to the Gregory house, I contact our sheriff, Harold Motts. I need to update Harold as to what is going on. Let him know I have a bad feeling about this, that I don’t think this is merely a case of two girls wandering off to play.

“What evidence do you have?” Motts questions me.

I have to admit that I have none. Nothing physical, anyway. There are no signs of a break-in, no sign of a struggle in either of the girls’ rooms. Just a bad feeling. But Motts trusts me, we’ve known each other a long time.

“You thinking FPF, Louis?” he asks me.

FPF means Foul Play Feared in the police world. Just by uttering these three letters, a whole chain of events can unfurl. State police and the Division of Criminal Investigation will show up, the press and complications. I measure my words before I speak them.

“Something’s not right here. I’d feel a lot better if you called in one of the state guys, just to check things out. Besides, once we call them in they foot the bill, right? Our department can’t handle or afford a full-scale search and investigation on our own.”

“I’ll call DCI right now,” Motts says to my relief. “Do we need a crime scene unit?”

“Not yet. Hopefully not at all, but we just might. I’m heading back over to the houses. Better call the reservists,” I say. I am glad that Motts will have to be the one who wakes up our off-duty officers and the reservists, take them away from their families and their jobs. Willow Creek has a population of about eight thousand people, though it grows by about twelve hundred each fall due to the college. Our department is small; we have ten officers in all, three to a shift. Not near enough help when looking for two missing seven-year-olds. We’d need the reservists to help canvas the neighborhoods and question people.

“Louis,” Motts says, “do you think this is anything like the McIntire case?”

“It crossed my mind,” I admit. We had no leads in last year’s abduction and subsequent murder of ten-year-old Jenna McIntire. That little girl haunted my sleep every single night. As much as I want to push aside the idea that something similar may have happened to Petra and Calli, I can’t. It’s my job to think this way.