Seasoned cops, real cops, didn’t dish out details. They held back clues and “refused to discuss the case.” Ben inhaled sharply, not wanting to appear a fool in the pages of the Washington Post. “Well.” He tried to think what Steve McQueen would do if he were playing Ben in this scene. Steve McQueen would look pensive and in control. Shifting in his seat, he leaned back and folded his hands on his lap, like they did in Bullitt. “It’s possible that the same person committed both crimes. The other thought was that Todd Sutton knew about Peter Beaumont’s disappearance and staged the entire thing to look like it. I don’t think that the latter is likely, but it can’t be ruled out.”

“Was Sutton having money problems?” The reporter thumbed through her notes. Her nails were bitten to the quick.

“Not that we’ve found.”

“He disappeared on his wedding day. Perhaps cold feet?”

“Possibly, but then why leave his car behind?”

She seemed to consider his explanation but gave nothing away. “The site, Wickelow Bend.” She straightened herself in her chair. “People are calling it the Devil’s Bend.”

“Sadly, yes. The Ghostly Happenings show has made it a tourist attraction.” In the nine months since Todd Sutton’s disappearance, Ben knew what everyone was saying about Wickelow Bend, but he wasn’t about to believe in something otherworldly, not yet. Something evil may have befallen both Todd Sutton and Peter Beaumont, but Ben had to think that it was more likely some mortal person, not some Witch of the Wickelow Woods. Unfortunately, reporters, ghost hunters, and tourists were still crowding the Shumholdt Bridge, causing something that Kerrigan Falls had never had before: traffic.

“But you don’t think there is anything… odd about it?”

“You mean supernatural?”

She shrugged but jotted something down. “Your word.”

“No,” he said, letting the simple answer hang between them for a moment. Her eyebrow rose as if she wanted him to elaborate. “I think someone out there knows what happened to these men. Stories like yours are helpful to bring new leads to light.”

“Y’all are a legend around here with no crime. That means you also don’t have a lot of experience with missing persons cases, Chief Archer. No offense.” At this, she smiled.

“None taken.” He smiled back coolly, channeling Steve McQueen once again. He’d expected a bit of a dance, but he hadn’t anticipated that she would be trying to paint them as Mayberry. This was a very different feeling than he’d had with the Kerrigan Falls Express reporters, especially Kim Landau. “Your paper wrote about our phenomenon a few years back. It ran in your Style Section.”

“Oh yes, I read that one. It was cute,” she said. “Yet the cases you have involve two men who’ve gone missing on the same exact date.”