True, August was filming her origin story: they’d stopped at Fort Riley and taken pictures, they’d gone to her childhood home in North Lawrence, but the real reason they’d come to Kansas was to help Doris McKinnon. I felt sure of it, but I’d love to have confirmation. Especially an e-mail or tree-mail that laid out what had worried Doris so much she’d turned to her old friend’s daughter for help.

I called Free State Dogs to check on Peppy, who was having way more fun than I was, and got dressed again—wool slacks instead of jeans, a cashmere knit top in my favorite rose, and the one good jacket I’d brought with me. All I needed was lunch and a burner phone and I’d be ready for action.

I found the phone store first. Three disposable phones, which I could rotate, each with six hundred minutes. I drove on into town and stopped at one of the zillion student cafés downtown for a sandwich. Hummus on homemade bread, delicious. Coffee, mediocre. I poured it out and walked over to the Hippo.

A handful of what looked like regulars were chatting with the bartender. I took my coffee into a corner and called Troy’s mother.

“Ms. Hempel, I don’t know how much Troy has told you about what I’ve encountered in Lawrence, but it’s a worrying situation,” I said when we’d covered the preliminaries—Troy was at work, I knew; it was she I was looking for. “Did Ms. Ferring ever talk to you about a woman named Doris McKinnon?”

“Troy told me you found her—found her dead yesterday.”

“Did he also tell you the police think young August Veriden is the likely culprit?”

“Oh, yes.” She didn’t try to keep bitterness out of her voice. “And you, what do you think?”

“I don’t think anything. I don’t have any facts. I hope I find August before some trigger-happy local LEOs do. Have you heard from Ms. Ferring? I think you are one person she might consult.”

“I don’t know. God’s truth.” Ms. Hempel sighed heavily. “She’s known me for twenty years, and I think she trusts me, so it scares me that I haven’t heard from her.”

“Could she have gone back home, back to Chicago?”

There was a pause on Hempel’s end before she said, “If Ms. Emerald came home, she’s kept it quiet. There aren’t any lights on in the house.”

I wished I were face-to-face with her: interrogations by phone leave out the cues of truth and lies and the shaded areas in between. Ms. Hempel could be telling the literal truth—no lights in Emerald’s basement—all the while shielding her neighbor in her own home.

“What about the real reason she decided to go to Kansas?” I asked.