Urgency built inside her. She needed to call the department and didn’t have time for this. “I can do that. But, Lisa, I really need to sign off now.”
Lisa gave her a look. “Okay. But think about trust and emotional self-reliance and what they mean to you, and we’ll discuss it at your next session.”
By the time Lisa confirmed their next appointment and signed off, Mattie’s shoulders had tightened into knots. She made eye contact with Robo, and he lifted his head eagerly.
“Come here.” After scrambling up from his cushion, he came to her and sat, and she hugged him close while she dialed into the office.
Sam Corns, the night dispatcher, answered. “Mattie, we need you to go to the junior high. We got a girl missing from there. Brody will meet you out front.”
Her thoughts leapt to Sophie and Angela Walker, Cole’s daughters. She loved those kids as if they were her own, but her feelings for their father had grown complicated. Despite her yearning to be a part of their family, she’d had to take a step back a few months ago.
“Who is the girl?”
“Last name—Banks.”
Her relief turned to guilt. Someone’s daughter was missing. “Tell Brody I’ll be right there.”
She slipped on a khaki coverall with the Timber Creek County Sheriff’s Department emblem on the sleeve and hurried to retrieve her service weapon from the gun safe mounted on the wall inside her bedroom closet. Robo dogged her tracks and then broke out into his happy dance when she went to the door. He loped to their vehicle, full of energy.
It took only a few minutes to get to Timber Creek Junior High. She parked curbside on the street that ran directly in front of the decades-old redbrick building that dominated the campus. A subsidiary mobile building that housed classrooms sat next to it.
The sun had traveled to linger above the western mountains; shadows were long and the springtime air cool. Mattie rolled down her windows.
“You’re going to stay here,” she told Robo, watching his ears fall. “I’ll be right back.”
Giving Robo one last glance, she saw that he’d resigned himself to stay, watching her from the back window, and she walked up the sidewalk toward the school’s entrance. Brody and the school principal, along with a man and a woman she didn’t recognize, stood at the base of the steps that led to an ornate portico that ran along the middle of the building, its white columns freshly painted.
“I think you already know Deputy Cobb, Mrs. Ketler,” Brody said when Mattie joined the group.
“Yes.” The principal offered a handshake.
“And these are Candace’s parents, Burt and Juanita Banks.”
Mattie scanned their faces while they shook hands. Burt’s bloodshot brown eyes dominated his rather square face, and Mattie caught a whiff of alcohol when he said hello. He had a bushy beard and wore his dark hair slicked back from his forehead.
Juanita Banks appeared small as she stood beside her husband. She’d wrapped a saggy black sweater around herself, clutching it in place with crossed arms. Dark circles underlined her rather narrow-set green eyes. Her straggly brunette hair appeared to have escaped the anchor at the nape of her neck hours ago, and her grip felt limp and clammy when she shook hands.
“What’s the concern, Mr. and Mrs. Banks?” Mattie could have asked Brody, but she wanted to hear it directly from the parents. It also gave Brody a chance to hear them state the problem twice, a method commonly used with missing children.
“Candace hasn’t come home, and she was supposed to be there three hours ago.” Despite the smell of alcohol, Burt seemed sober enough when he spoke. “We came to see if she stayed at school.”
“We didn’t have any after-school activities today,” Mrs. Ketler said. “As far as I know, Candace left with the other children at the end of the day.”
“At what time?” Mattie asked.
“Three o’clock.”
“Did you see her leave?”
Mrs. Ketler shook her head. “I didn’t. I’ve contacted one of the teachers that supervised the children’s departure, but she didn’t notice Candace leave specifically. As you can imagine, we have a great deal of foot traffic out front here when the final bell rings.”
Mattie remembered it. She’d gone to this very school herself, and she’d driven past or sat out front in her cruiser at the end of the school day many a time since hiring on with the sheriff. It was a zoo out here that time of day. But she still wasn’t sure why this girl’s failure to return home on time would warrant calling out two off-duty police officers. She looked at Brody.
“Candace has asthma, and Mr. and Mrs. Banks are concerned that she’s gone someplace alone and had an attack,” Brody said.
Now it came clear. Mattie looked at Juanita. “How severe is her condition?”
“Bad.” Juanita started to say more, but her husband interrupted.
“She takes medicine after school but didn’t get home to take it today.”
Mattie looked at Burt. “And you were home then?”
“He wasn’t.” Juanita looked down at the ground and muttered under her breath, “Even though he was supposed to be.”
“The boys were at home,” Burt said. “They said they never saw her.”
“Are you sure she didn’t go home, take her medicine, and go out again?” Mattie asked.
“The boys were watching TV,” Juanita said, giving Burt a sidelong glance. “They would have noticed their sister come in. She wasn’t there to fix them a snack, and that made an impression.”
“Does Candace carry a rescue inhaler or something like that?”
“She does,” Juanita said, “when she remembers it. It’s in her bedroom on her dresser today.”
Brody nodded toward Mattie’s SUV. “I thought we’d try to follow her with Robo.”
Mattie scanned the premises, imagining all those footsteps and different scent trails coming out the large double doors of the school, crossing over the portico in a human herd, passing down the steps and spilling out into the schoolyard. Even as she stood there eyeing the area, several boys that looked to be in their early teens came onto the property and headed toward them, laughing and jostling each other. “Hi, Mrs. Ketler,” one of them called.
“Hi, Jimmy,” she called back. “Excuse me a minute. Those boys share some of Candace’s classes. I’m going to ask if they’ve seen her.”
As the principal walked away, Mattie could almost see the woman’s scent trail mingling with all the others on the sidewalk. What Brody had in mind would be a Herculean task for Robo.
Mattie turned to the parents. “Do you have an article of Candace’s clothing with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I ask my dog to search for her, I’ll need something that Candace wore recently, not something that’s been freshly laundered. A T-shirt or something.”
“There might be a sweat shirt in the back seat of the car,” Juanita said.
“Wait a minute and I’ll go with you. I should be the one to handle it.”
Juanita’s brow furrowed. “Why’s that?”
“It keeps your scent from mingling with Candace’s. Which way is your house?” Mattie thought she’d start Robo working in the direction toward the girl’s home, out about forty or fifty feet to avoid the scent congestion at the front door.
Burt pointed to the west, into the older part of town, and gave her their address, a location a few blocks from her own house.
Mrs. Ketler came back, the teenage boys drifting along in her wake. Mattie noticed an older couple who looked like they might be out for an evening stroll walking past on the sidewalk. Scent trails everywhere.
“The boys haven’t seen Candace, and they don’t recall seeing her leave the school,” the principal said as she rejoined the group.