“We ask the people most likely to know,” Lester volunteered. “The local PDs and sheriffs.”

“We already sent out a BOLO,” Willy argued.

“Which got dutifully pinned to the wall where everybody ignored it. We need to bypass normal channels and make it personal. Cop to cop.”

Willy didn’t respond, watching him.

Lester took that as encouragement to proceed. “Piece of cake to identify every law enforcement agency above Franconia Notch, or whatever latitude you choose, and then reach out personally—phone, text, email, whatever, complete with any pictures. Let them know that finding Seamus, and Shaw, is a top priority.”

“Shitload of work, and we don’t have anything on Seamus beside a head shot. How d’you get around that?”

Lester shrugged. “We have Shaw. Right now, it seems wherever he goes, Seamus isn’t far away. And as for reaching everybody, once you got the format down, it shouldn’t be too hard. I’m betting it’ll get noticed, too. How many times have we been approached for a BOLO in a way that wasn’t same ol’, same ol’? Basically, never, right? We all follow protocol till our eyes glaze over.”

Willy didn’t answer, well used to his colleague’s enthusiasm for such projects. Lester was one of the few veteran cops in Willy’s experience who rarely presented as wizened or weathered by his years on the job. Somehow, even suffering a few personal setbacks along the way, Lester maintained a resilience that the more burdened Willy Kunkle could only envy. Indeed, it was the man’s genuineness that cut him slack in Willy’s habitually skeptical outlook.

“What else we got?” he therefore agreed. “Go for it.”

The return on Lester’s investment came three days later in the form of a text from the Thomaston, New Hampshire, police department. Once more at his desk, Les consulted Google maps and pulled it up.

“Jeez.”

Willy looked up at the wonder in his voice. “What d’you find?”

“Thomaston. You ever hear of it?”

“New Hampshire?” Joe joined in. “Somewhere near Lancaster. Almost to Canada. Is this in response to your BOLO on Seamus?”

“Maybe,” Lester confirmed. “Officer Dillon Rowe just wrote that he doesn’t want to get my hopes up, but he thinks he’s got an older hit on Shaw.”

“How much older?”

“Little vague there. Ten years, more or less, is what he says. They had a tech crash—his words—where they lost a lot of their data, so they’re left with a mix of virtual files and old-fashioned paper ones.”

“Jesus,” Willy growled to himself, beginning to type. “Makes you wonder what he’s not saying.”

Sammie was looking up the Thomaston PD’s website. “It’s a three-man department,” she reported. “And Joe’s right about the location.”

“Rowe looks about twelve,” Willy said, glancing across the room.

“What’s Officer Rowe suggesting?” Joe asked.

“Short version,” Lester replied, “he thinks he has something, but it’ll take some effort to produce it, and he’s not sure he’s officially supposed to do that. He says he could do with some backup.”