Mean Streak(24)

“No professional rivalry?”

Jeff blew out a breath of exasperation. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. Her colleagues are very concerned.”

“Okay. Just asking. I’m gonna be asking a lot of things that might seem irrelevant, or just downright nosy. But, unfortunately, awkward questions are sometimes necessary. It’s about the worst aspect of my job.”

Jeff doubted the accuracy of that statement but didn’t dispute it.

Knight scanned through some of the other links. “She’s an active lady.”

“Very.”

“You sure she’s not off doing one of these charity things?”

Jeff drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She came up here Friday afternoon so she could run on a mountain trail on Saturday. For conditioning.”

“You know which mountain, which trail?”

“Not offhand. She showed me a map. If I saw it, I might remember.”

“You know which park?”

“There’s more than one?”

Knight just looked at him for several seconds, then said, “In this region of North Carolina alone we’ve got four national forests, and they merge with Great Smoky and Cherokee over in Tennessee. Then if you go south into Georgia—”

“I’m beginning to get the picture,” Jeff said, cutting off the geography lesson. “I don’t know which park, or which mountain. But she stayed the night here in Drakeland, so the logical place to start looking for her would be the nearest hiking area.”

Knight looked pessimistic. “That still gives us a lot of choices, a lot of square miles to cover.”

“I’m sorry I don’t know more about her destination. However, what I do know is that she wouldn’t be ‘off doing one of these charity things’ without telling me.”

Unfazed by his impatience, Knight said, “No, probably not. What about family members?”

“I’m her only family.”

“Nobody else she could’ve gone to see and decided to stay?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“I’ve called everybody I could think of, but nobody has seen or heard from her. Which I’m afraid means…means something’s happened to her.”

The detective leaned forward and propped his arms on the edge of his desk. “You’re fearing the worst, Mr. Surrey. Don’t blame you. I probably would be, too. But I can tell you that, in all my twentysomething years in this sheriff’s office, I’ve wadded up and thrown away every single one of these missing persons’ reports I’ve filled out. People turn up ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. It’s the one-tenth of a percent that makes the evening news and gives us all nightmares. So stay positive, okay?”

Jeff nodded. “I’ll try.”

“First thing, we’ll start looking for her car.” He called over a deputy he addressed as Maryjo and gave her the make, model, and license number of Emory’s car, which Jeff had provided. “ASAP,” he said. Maryjo promised to get right on it but cautioned him that the weather was going to be a major obstacle.

“We’ve got cars sliding off icy roads everywhere. Most of the less-traveled mountain roads were closed yesterday, but I’ll get the state troopers on it. ’Course, we’re talking three states, unless you throw in South Carolina, too, and then it’s four.”

Jeff was impressed. She knew the sum of three plus one.

As she moved away, Knight called over another deputy and introduced him as Buddy Grange. He shook hands with Jeff and pulled up a chair to join them. “Sam shot me an e-mail of the missing persons’ report on your wife. I’m up to speed.”

“Wonderful,” Jeff said, trying not to sound too droll. “When do we actually start looking for her?”

“A few more questions first,” Knight said. “Would Emory have been carrying a weapon?”

“Weapon?”

“People hiking in the mountains usually carry some form of protection. Pepper spray. Bear repellent. Which in my opinion is a rip-off, but if it makes folks feel safer…”

“It’s winter. Wouldn’t bears be hibernating?”

“In theory,” Knight said, flashing a smile. Then, “Does your wife carry a pistol?”

“Lord, no. Nothing else you named either. Not to my knowledge anyway.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. And I have the license to carry it.” He extracted his wallet from his hip pocket and showed them the issue from the State of Georgia. “I’m happy to show you the pistol. It’s in the glove compartment of my car.”

“Okay. Later.” Knight glanced at Grange before coming back to Jeff. “You said she left Friday, but you didn’t come see us till last night. That’s what, around forty-eight hours?”

“Which was bad judgment, terrible judgment, on my part. I realize that now.”

“Why’d you wait?” Grange asked. The name Buddy didn’t suit him. He was younger, leaner, sharper than Knight. Not as folksy.

“Emory had remarked to me how grueling it might be to run this trail. She mentioned the altitude as a factor. She also suffered a stress fracture in her right foot last year. She was worried about it.

“For all those reasons, she knew it was going to be strenuous and told me she might not want to drive home on Saturday, that she might stay over an extra night and rest. When I didn’t hear from her, I figured that’s what she’d decided to do.”