Dead Silver

53

I'd never actually been inside Evvie Jessup's office, but it was just like thousands of others-nondescript carpet and furnishings that were neither expensive nor cheap, a few paintings like you'd find in better motels, and fluorescent lighting that gave everything a polyester sheen. The temperature was warm enough to dampen my armpits and the air was close, pervaded by the sickly-sweet smell of a freshener.

Evvie was sitting behind her desk, looking extremely piqued. As soon as Gary stepped in the door, she challenged him.

"What's this about?"

"I want to know where your husband is, Evvie."

"I have no objections to talking to you, Sheriff," she said crisply. "But I'd like to know why. And in private," she added, with a haughty glance at Madbird and me.

Gary stalked to her desk, planted a fist down on it hard enough to make her cringe, and leaned his face forward to within a foot of hers.

"We're talking murder, and you're implicated," he said harshly. "There's another young woman's life on the line right now. You play games with me one more second, I'll do my god-damnedest to see to it you get old in prison."

I never saw a human being's face change like Evvie Jessup's did.

It took her several tries to start talking. The words came out in a shaky voice hardly above a whisper.

"I don't know where he is. Maybe fishing. Maybe off on business."

"Business! He's got business, all right-he kidnapped that girl and he aims to come back without her."

Evvie's mouth quivered and tears streaked her careful makeup. It was not a pretty sight.

"I don't know anything about this, I swear. He was gone when I woke up, I didn't hear him leave. I-I take pills."

"Where would he go? Where does he fish?"

"All over," she said helplessly.

Gary exhaled explosively and stepped back from the desk, shaking his head. There were thousands of square miles of stream-filled woodlands around here.

"Do you at least know the vehicle he's driving, for Christ's sake?"

"He must have taken his pickup truck, it was gone this morning. But I think he has others he keeps different places."

"You think?"

"He has secrets. He goes away and says it's business, but he takes my money and runs around, gambling and having affairs. I don't dare argue with him, I stopped a long time ago. He can be very frightening." She covered her face with her hands and started sobbing, with mascara-darkened tears dripping through her fingers. "Oh, God, I always knew there was something wrong. What is going on? Please tell me."

I actually started feeling sorry for her.

Gary ignored her and took out his belt phone. "That's an affirmative, Faith-get the show moving," he said into it. "Aircraft crisscrossing low, I want him to know we're looking. Search area's everywhere within four hours' drive. Check out all vehicles registered to him, but he might be on foot in the woods, and none of that's for sure." He paused to glare at Evvie. "And send a unit over here to take Mrs. Jessup in for further questioning. Anything yet on that BG check?"

He listened for a few seconds, then grimaced and said, "Okay, thanks. I'll be back in a few minutes for a war council."

Now Gary's expression was sour, the look of a man realizing that he'd been taken in by a long ugly con game played out right under his nose, and he was seriously pissed at himself for not seeing it.

"They don't know who he really is, but they know who he ain't," he told us. "The only Lonnie Jessup they can find that matches his date and place of birth died in 1956, at the ripe old age of nineteen months. How about that, Evvie? Did you know that was one of his secrets?"

She buried her face deeper in her hands and rocked in her seat, her sobs rising to a thin wail.