A Maidens Grave

Handy and Wilcox are walking around inside, looking the place over real carefully.”
    “Looking it over?”
    “Pushing on pipes and machinery. It’s like they’re looking for something.”
    “Any idea what?” LeBow asked.
    “Nope. I thought maybe they’re checking out places to hide.”
    Potter nodded at Budd, recalling it had been the captain’s idea that the takers might don rescue-worker uniforms during the surrender or HRT assault. It also wasn’t unheard of for takers to, say, leave a back window open, then hide inside closets or crawl spaces for a day or two until law enforcers concluded they were long gone.
    LeBow wrote down the information and thanked Stillwell. Potter said, “I want to make sure everybody’s got pictures of the takers. And we’ll have to tell Frank and the HRT to go through the place with a fine-tooth comb if it looks like an escape.”
    He sat in his chair once more, staring out at the factory.
    “By the way,” Stillwell returned over the radio. “I’m having chow brought in for the troopers and the Heartland’s delivering you all’s supper any time now.”
    “Thank you, Dean.”
    “Heartland? All right,” Derek Elb said, looking particularly pleased.
    Potter’s mind, though, wasn’t on food. He was thinking something far graver—whether or not he should meetwith Handy. He felt the deadlines compressing, sensed somehow that Handy was growing testy and would start making nonnegotiable ultimatums. Face to face, Potter might be able to wear the convict down more efficiently than through their phone conversations.
    Thinking too: It might give me a chance to see Melanie.
    It might give me a chance to save her.
    Yet a meeting between the taker and the incident commander was the most dangerous form of negotiating. There was the physical risk, of course; hostage takers’ feelings, both positive and negative, are their most extreme about the negotiator. They often believe, sometimes subconsciously, that killing the negotiator will give them power they don’t otherwise have, that the troopers will fall into chaos or that someone less daunting will take the negotiator’s place. Even without violence, however, there’s a danger that the negotiator will, in the taker’s eyes, shrink in authority and stature and lose his opponent’s respect.
    Potter leaned against the window. What’s inside you, Handy? What’s making the wheels go round?
    Something’s happening in that cold brain of yours.
    When you talk I hear silence.
    When you don’t say a word I hear your voice.
    When you smile I see . . . what? What do I see? Ah, that’s the problem. I just don’t know.
    The door swung open and the smell of food filled the room. A young deputy from the Crow Ridge Sheriff’s Department brought in several boxes, filled with plastic containers of food and cartons of coffee.
    Potter’s appetite returned suddenly as the trooper set out the containers. He expected tasteless diner fare—hot beef sandwiches and Jell-O. But the trooper pointed to each of the dishes as he laid them out and said, “That’s cherry mos, that’s zwieback, bratwurst, goat and lamb pie, sauerbraten, dill potatoes.”
    Derek Elb explained, “Heartland’s a famous Mennonite restaurant. People drive there from all over the state.”
    For ten minutes, they ate, largely in silence. Potter tried to remember the names of the dishes to tell Cousin Linden when he returned to the Windy City. She collected exoticrecipes. He was just finishing his second cup of coffee when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Tobe stiffen as a radio transmission came in. “What?” the young agent said in shock into his microphone. “Repeat that, Sheriff.”
    Potter turned to him.
    “One of Dean’s men just fished the twins out of the river!”
    A collective gasp. Then, spontaneous applause erupted in the van. The intelligence officer plucked the two Post-It tabs representing the girls off the chart and moved them to the margin. He took down their pictures, which joined Jocylyn’s, Shannon’s, and Kielle’s in the “Released” folder of hostage bios.
    “They’re being checked for hypothermia but they look fine otherwise. Like drowned rats, he said, but we’re not supposed to tell the girls that.”
    “Call the hotel,” Potter instructed. “Tell their parents.”
    Tobe, listening into his headset, laughed. He looked up. “They’re on their way over, Arthur. They’re insisting on seeing you.”
    “Me?”
    “If