And There He Kept Her (Ben Packard #1)(66)

“I’m getting a dog again,” he said just after Angie set down his roast beef with pureed potatoes and parsnips and grilled asparagus.

Thielen bent over and inhaled the scent from her gnocchi with orange and cauliflower. “You’re kidding,” she said. “Another golden?”

“Nope. It’s a corgi. Only has three paws.”

“Interesting. Puppy or full grown?”

“Still a puppy for the most part. I’m getting him from Gary’s shelter. I was out there on a four one seven the other day—”

“Four one seven?” Thielen asked. She knew four one seven was code for someone with a weapon. She wanted to know who had a weapon at Gary’s.

“Yeah, him and Cora at it again. Anyway, I made the mistake of letting him walk me through the kennel. He got me.”

“Good for you. I think you’ll be happier with a dog.”

Packard ate his food, wondering why Thielen thought he was unhappy or less happy than he could be. She told him about her husband’s new job as an online psychologist. His previous job was as a caseworker for the county, but he had taken early retirement and was now making three times the salary. Good for him, bad for the county, which now had one fewer person on the payroll who gave a shit.

Susan went in and out of the kitchen door but didn’t stop by. People came in and people left. Ruth had flipped over the last of her pages and was making notes on the back. “Ruth, any good book recommendations for me?” Thielen asked.

“What do you like to read?”

“Jane Austen and crime novels set outside the U.S.”

“Have you read Jo Nesb??”

“No, who’s that?”

“Norwegian writer. If you can get past the fact that his detective’s name is Harry Hole, you’ll probably enjoy his books. Well written and some exotic locales.”

Packard said, “Harry Hole? Really?”

Ruth said, “It’s a Norwegian name. Spelled like a man’s name Harry and ‘hole’ like ‘hole in the ground.’ It’s supposed to be pronounced HOO-LEH, but all you say in your mind while reading it is Harry Hole.”

Thielen had taken out her phone and was typing Joe Nesbow into it. “I’ll check him out,” she said. “What are you working on there?” She nodded at the pages in front of Ruth.

“I’m writing a book,” Ruth said. “I come in once a week and have a drink and review what I’ve written. Gets me out of the house.”

“What kind of book is it?”

“A memoir. My true confession.”

“What do you have to confess?” Packard asked.

Ruth was a second too slow putting on a smile to cover the dead-serious expression the question elicited. “Terrible things,” she said with a laugh.

Packard realized he wasn’t in a laughing mood. He dug into his pot roast and watched Ruth finish the last of her drink. You didn’t have to be a cop and witness people on their worst behavior day after day to realize that pretty much everyone was capable of terrible things. Even the librarian.

Ruth paid her bill and scooped up her papers and wished the two of them a good night. Pretty soon it was just Packard and Thielen at the bar and two booths with couples lingering over dessert and coffee. Susan came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She set up two small glasses and poured from a bottle of Laphroig 18. Packard thought they were for one of the booths until she used a metal scoop to drop a single cube in each glass and then pushed them in front of him and Thielen.

She hadn’t made eye contact or asked if they were Scotch drinkers. Maybe she thought she had. Maybe she didn’t care. She looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept for days. This was how a rationalist like Susan went off the rails, Packard thought. Not with wild emotions and erratic outbursts but by the neglect of self through the mindlessness of work. The comfort of logic and reasoning she was used to was gone. There was no making sense of Jenny’s disappearance.

“Tell me the latest,” she said finally.

Packard told her about the news conference and the unhelpful calls that had come in overnight and the deputy he had following up on anything that sounded promising.

Susan poured herself a glass of water from the gun and took a long drink. “Where could they be?”

“I don’t know,” Packard confessed. “What we’ve been looking into lately is the identity of Jesse’s recent contacts. We put together a list based on the phone records and the interviews I did at the school after I saw you at Subway. We’ve been able to determine that the last person in touch with Jesse before he and Jenny disappeared was Sam Gherlick.”

Packard paused to let Susan put together what he’d left unsaid. The look on her face said she knew the name and what had happened. “Sam Gherlick died yesterday.”

Packard nodded. “He was working on his car and it fell on him. I’m the one who found him. I went there to talk to him about where Jesse was going that night. Sam might have known.”

Susan reached up and pinched the spot between her neck and shoulder. “The one person who could have helped us is dead now? Is that a coincidence?”

Packard didn’t want to answer that question. He felt Thielen holding her breath, waiting to see how he would respond. “We’re actively investigating what happened to Sam,” he said.