He smacked a wide palm on the table. “This all happened while I was out of the country, but my mother says it was Ms. Emerald’s idea and that she talked August into going with her to film her, to make what they call an origin story these days. She’s wanted to find a way to revive her career, or at least generate interest in those feature films of Nilsson’s, so I believed it, believed that Ms. Emerald driving the train, in a manner of speaking.”

“Maybe August pitched it to her, but in such a way that she thought it was her own idea,” I suggested.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve started to think, especially since neither of them is answering their phones. We—my mother and I—have been trying to decide what to do. I hate to involve the cops, especially when I don’t know where Ms. Emerald is. They could be on the road in any of four different states or in some dinky Kansas town.”

“They drove?” I asked.

“Yes, in Veriden’s car, a Prius. Ms. Emerald hardly ever drives anymore, so he’d be doing it all. I’ve been worrying since I got back from Israel, but now I’m seriously disturbed. Look, I’d have to talk this over with my mother and one or two other people—but if they agree, would you try to find them?”

6
Crossing the River

“One day my grandfather walked across the Kansas River when a drought had shrunk it down to three feet,” Gertrude Perec said. “He left behind a wife, eleven children, and all his recipes for curing everything from warts to cancer.”

“You never told me that before, Gram. I mean about the cancer recipes,” Cady Perec said. “Did you ever try any of them? Or show them to Dr. Kiel?”

Gertrude laughed. “I only remember one, for stomach cancer: you soaked rose petals in port for seventy-two hours. Probably made all those good church ladies who signed the Pledge feel better even if it didn’t make them well. No, I never thought to mention it to Dr. Kiel, but maybe that lay behind my wanting to work for a scientist. Show up my grandfather for the charlatan he was.”

“Who is Dr. Kiel?” I asked.

“He’s a big disease authority—at least he was,” Cady said. “He’s retired now, but they still talk to him sometimes, like last year when there was a salmonella outbreak in Eudora—that’s a town east of here—he tracked it down to someone who was handling food at a burger joint. Gram used to be his secretary.”

She turned back to Gertrude. “I know that your grandfather never came home, everybody knows that, but did he ever write your granny, or your mom, or anyone?”