“Is there anything new you can tell me? Anything at all?”

The sheriff turned to the woman; her face was contorted by fear and exhaustion, and her panic-stricken eyes stared up at him from sunken gray pools. “I told you I’d tell you the minute we know anything.”

“That was an hour ago.”

“That was ten minutes ago. We’ll find your boy, Mrs. Coleman—it just takes time.”

“It seems to be taking longer than it should.”

“Not at all,” the sheriff lied. “Look at all these people pitching in—if your boy’s anywhere around here, they’ll find him.”

“What if he’s not around here? Has Mark told you anything else?”

“I’m afraid your husband has decided not to cooperate.”

“Maybe I should try talking to him again.”

“I don’t think that will help, and it’ll only make you feel worse. Right now you need to keep your hopes up and let us do our work. I’ll keep you posted—I promise.”

“Then I’ll help search.”

“You’ll only slow us down, Mrs. Coleman—people keep stopping to take care of you instead of searching. If you want something to do, go back and pitch in at the refreshment table.”

“That’s a good idea,” she mumbled. “Everyone’s working so hard— they’ll be hungry . . .” Her voice trailed off as she turned away.

Just then a sheriff’s deputy approached and nodded a greeting.

“Where have you been, Elgin?” the sheriff asked. “You’ve been gone for hours.”

“I went to find her, just like you told me. She lives way up on top of the mountain above Endor, y’know—thought I’d like to never find her.”

“Well, did you?”

“Eventually. It’s like a prison up there—she’s got the whole place surrounded by a chain-link fence and she keeps the gate chained shut. She don’t have no phone—I had to just sit there and lay on the horn until she finally came to the gate. Any news here?”

“Nothing. We’ve looked everywhere we can think of.”

“The crawl space?”

“Checked it twice. Checked the attic too, but he wasn’t there, thank the Lord—the boy wouldn’t have lasted an hour up there in this heat. I had the city engineers bring maps of all the storm drains and culverts— nothing. We searched the woods over there—been over it twice, but we’re looking again. A bunch of the neighbors walked that cornfield hand in hand but they didn’t find him there. Did you fetch her down?”