Blowout

Savich, FBI, and this is my wife, Agent Lacey Sherlock. We have a problem and we need to move quickly. My wife is the one who called you.”
    “Yes, she did,” said Sheriff Harms as he looked them over. Well, well, two FBI agents, and they were husband and wife, even had a little kid. What was this all about? Agent Sherlock had told him only that her husband had something important to tell him. Doozer wished he was finishing the Bud Light he’d left on top of the TV, and began tapping his foot.
    He’d been the sheriff of Blessed Creek for nearly thirty-two years. He figured he’d heard every tourist problem anyone could think of, even if the tourists were FBI agents. But he knew the importance of being polite, knew how to listen even if he was thinking about how much he’d like to be home watching the 76ers.
    He shook hands all around, patted the little boy’s head, and pulled out two chairs. “What seems to be the problem, Agent Savich? Your wife said it was urgent that you see me.”
    “It’s a woman, Sheriff, she ran out in front of my car, waving her arms, hysterical, yelling that a man was trying to kill her.”
    Sheriff Harms didn’t say a word, just leaned a bit closer, his eyes on Savich’s face. He hadn’t heard anything like this before. “Where is she, Agent Savich? This woman?”
    Savich told him what had happened, including the bats that had knocked him off the attic ladder and onto the second-floor corridor.
    “Bats,” the sheriff said, then nodded for him to continue.
    “It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. We’ve got to hurry, Sheriff. You need to get your deputies together so we can search around the house. She ran away again, and I’m very worried for her safety. She believes a man is trying to kill her, and whatever’s going on, something’s just not right.”
    “I can see that you’re worried, Agent Savich. You spoke of driving her back to her home. Where was her home?”
    Savich was ready to throw Sheriff Harms through the front window. Time was not on their side. She was out there on this dark night, it was cold, and she had been so disturbed he knew she’d do something stupid. He could see her huddling in the thick trees, shuddering with cold, crying, her hysteria building until maybe the man would find her. Or maybe she’d just die of fright without his help.
    “She lives in a big house on Clayton Road. We have to hurry, Sheriff,” Savich said, rising. “It’s about a fifteen-minute drive.”
    “Just a moment, Agent Savich. You said she was gone when you came back downstairs?”
    “Yes, I’d left her in the living room, told her not to move an inch. I was coming back down to give her some hot tea, hoping to calm her down, to get some sense out of her.”
    “She didn’t tell you who this man was who was trying to kill her?”
    Savich shook his head. Sherlock said, “If my husband says this woman is in danger, Sheriff, she’s in danger. Do you think we can get out to that house, begin a search for her?”
    “You said it’s a big house on Clayton Road?”
    Savich wanted to coldcock the old guy, but since this was a local situation, no matter he was at the center of it, he held to his patience. “Yes, on top of a small rise on the left side of Clayton Road; it’s a narrow road off Route 85. All the downstairs lights are on, so it’s like a beacon.”
    Sheriff Harms began fiddling with a tooth-chewed pencil on top of his desk. “Would you say it’s no more than a half mile off Route 85 on Clayton Road?”
    “That’s right. Maybe twelve, fifteen minutes from Blessed Creek. Look, Sheriff, time is running down. If I have to call in the Philadelphia Field Office to get some action, I will, but it will take time. I don’t think this woman has much of that left. We’ve got to get out to that house and find her.”
    Sheriff Harms slowly rose, leaned forward, his palms flat on the desktop. “You’re talking about the Barrister place, Agent Savich. Biggest house around these parts, you’re right about that. You said the woman lived there?”
    “Yes, of course, she lived there. It’s a lovely house, really big, but nice and warm, cozy. There was a fire burning in the living room fireplace. No one was there, no husband, no help, no one. I searched the place top to bottom.”
    “After the bats knocked you out of the attic, you came back downstairs? And she was gone?”
    “Yes. Maybe she heard me crashing out of the attic and it terrified