The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,107

of her bloodied dorm room. I thought about Jacob Dobbs, castrated in an automobile. “Do we know where Charlie was when she died?”

“Charlie gave my guys the slip twice. I’m betting timeframes are consistent with what the ME’s laid out. Did I tell you there was a cat in the house? Extra food and water bowls put out for it.”

“He wanted to make sure the cat was okay until somebody got there.” I sucked in air. I remembered Charlie bringing into my office a tiny orange kitten he’d found wandering. He’d held it close to his chest and waited for my mother to pick it up and take it to a foster home.

“Chief’s talking about inviting the FBI in to help.”

Local cops hate federal interference. Rauser’s department had a certain rhythm. They knew and loved the community. It was their investigation. This wasn’t just another murder, for Rauser. I knew him. It was another murder he hadn’t been able to prevent, another failure, another family torn apart. And now more shrieking headlines, more calls for the police to solve these murders. I wondered how many calls had bombarded APD after Charlie’s mug shot was released, adding to the load this task force was carrying and Rauser’s stress.

“I can be there in ten minutes,” I told him.

“I don’t want you at the crime scene, Street. He’s targeted you already. He could do it again.”

“I’m sorry, Rauser,” I said uselessly. I didn’t know how to help him. My involvement seemed to only up the pressure on him. He was in trouble with his superiors and with the community and public opinion. And he was worried about my safety with Charlie still on the loose.

That cabin in Ellijay was sounding really good.

33

Georgia is a study in climate and backdrops, from the damp Low Country at the southeastern tip to the northern mountains reaching high enough to catch the winter snows before they turn to rain on the way south to Atlanta. Central Georgia is lush with kudzu and tall pine forests. I-75 runs for 355 miles from the swampy south and fresh seafood, past produce stands and cotton fields, country-cooking restaurants with homemade peach cobbler, truck stops and Waffle Houses, through Perry and Macon, until it merges briefly with I-85 and evolves into the Downtown Connector, Atlanta’s main artery, then splits off again and weaves through the textile-mill mountain towns of North Georgia toward Dalton, the carpet capital of the world.

I exited I-75 just north of Marietta and headed toward Ellijay and Blairsville in the Neon, knowing I’d have to cut off the air conditioner if I wanted enough power to climb the hills that were coming. My Impala had been moved from the crime lab to a repair shop but still wasn’t ready. Dad had taken charge of the body-shop details and I had a feeling he was armor-plating it.

It was Friday and warm, and it suddenly occurred to me I’d forgotten to cancel dinner tomorrow night with my parents. I picked up my phone and took a deep breath.

“What do you mean you can’t come?” my mother wanted to know. “You’re not off on another wild-goose chase, are you?”

I hesitated and Mother, righteous as ever, leapt in. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, is this dangerous?”

I sighed. “I’m looking for a cow, Mom. Unless she’s packing, I think I’ll be okay.”

“A cow! My Lord, Keye, that’s not what we sent you to school for.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I made banana cheesecake with a special pecan crust.” Mother was a ruthless negotiator.

“Will you go by and check on White Trash this weekend?” I thought of Melissa Dumas’s cat and the killer who’d left food out for it.

“Snowflake should just come and live with me and your father. Poor little thing—”

I crinkled the wrapper from the powdered doughnut gems I’d had for lunch into the phone. “Mom? Mom? We’re breaking up. I’ll talk to you later.”

My first afternoon on the cow trail was uneventful, something that may or may not be a good thing when searching for farm animals. I did have an opportunity to meet Jim Penland, the man with the missing cow, and he seemed perfectly normal, a big friendly guy with a good crop of hair, brown eyes, and Wranglers. He owned about a bazillion acres of land and the largest apple orchards in the region. Gilmer County was some kind of apple-growing capital, something the folks up here take seriously, and first thing, Big Jim took me over to one of his