Cover Page

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

LOVE TO READ?

LOVE GREAT SALES?

GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS

DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!

The Web’s Creepiest Newsletter

Delivered to Your Inbox

Get chilling stories of

true crime, mystery, horror,

and the paranormal,

twice a week.

Title Page

The Detective

Roderick Thorp

Dedication

For Noel

In this breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for … the appointed task of both our existences to be carried out …

—The Secret Sharer

Part One

PART ONE

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

“… And now, recapping today’s headlines,” the news broadcaster continued, “the search in Port Smith for little Mary Shoftel goes on. Grim spokesmen for the Port Smith Police Department this morning released the information that since last Friday evening, more than five hundred men have been diverted from other duties to hunt for the seven-year-old girl. No evidence of kidnap or ransom notes has been revealed. The little girl, who had been playing in front of her home in the Westlake district of Port Smith on Thursday afternoon when she disappeared, requires daily medication for the treatment of a rare form of anemia. In an interview with WTOU’s Bill Phillips, health officials here in Manitou stated that the lack of the medication would weaken little Mary, but in no way would it prove fatal. The search goes on.

“In a related story, the Port Smith police this morning announced the arrest of twenty-two-year-old Donald L. Harrow, Jr., in connection with a series of obscene and threatening telephone calls received at the Shoftel home yesterday. Young Harrow is being held on charges of obscenity, disturbing the peace, and obstructing justice. Other charges are forthcoming. It was reported that Mrs. Edna Shoftel, mother of little Mary, has been under heavy sedation since yesterday afternoon, when the crank telephone calls began.”

The announcer paused. “Now, at nine thirty-four A.M., WTOU and WTOU-FM bring you the official United States Weather Bureau forecast for Manitou, Cuyahauga County, Upton County, and vicinity. Cloudy today with possible snow flurries late this afternoon, temperature in the low thirties, dropping to the twenties tonight, five to ten degrees colder in the mountain areas. Tomorrow, Tuesday, November sixteenth, cloudy and seasonably cold again with possible snow. Present humidity, sixty-eight percent; barometer thirty point two inches and steady; wind out of the west at eight miles an hour; and the temperature now, at the observatory atop the Manitou Life Insurance Building in downtown Manitou, thirty-one degrees …”