Five Days in Summer

Kaminer was bored and liked a good chicken fight. Well, if he partnered her with Snow, Amy was going to make sure that didn’t happen. She was going to transcend the obstacles and become the best detective they had ever seen.
    Two boys were standing in front of the Parker house, throwing rocks down the road and marking their landing point with chalk. The younger one was putting a lot more energy into the game than the older one, who noticed the squad car first and bolted into the house. Amy was still waiting to be assigned anunmarked car, and she had a hunch Kaminer planned for her to share Snow’s.
    She pulled up in front of a lush summer garden bordered by hand-laid stones, got out of the car and smiled at the young boy.
    “I thought you were going to be a policeman.”
    “I am, sort of. I’m a detective.”
    “Where’s your uniform?”
    Her linen pants and tailored blue T-shirt were clearly a disappointment to him.
    “Detectives wear regular clothes.”
    “Do you catch bad guys like the police?”
    Amy nodded. “I try to.”
    “My mommy got lost, I think.” He walked up to the squad car and peered inside. She couldn’t tell if he was looking for his mother or admiring all the gear and gizmos in the front of the cruiser.
    “Ever ride in one?” she asked him.
    He shook his head.
    “Well, maybe another day you could get a ride.”
    “How about now?”
    “I’m a little busy right now.” Amy smiled. “Anyway, you’d need permission from one of your parents. You know that, right?”
    He nodded.
    From inside the house, Amy heard voices getting louder, nearly shouting. “Hey, is your daddy home, or your grandma?”
    Will Parker just then pushed open the screen door at the front of the house. “Detective! I see you’ve met Sam.”
    Amy smiled at Sam. “Yes, I have. Everything okay in there?”
    “Sam,” Will said, “go downstairs with David. The grown-ups need to talk.”
    Sam ran into the house.
    “Nice gardens.”
    “My mother-in-law, Sarah, has a green thumb.”
    “I’d say so.”
    “Any news, Detective?”
    “No. But the phone’s been ringing. It seems someone put up a sign?”
    Will nodded. “Sarah. We were just discussing it.”
    “Discussing,” Amy said.
    “This is new to us. We don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with a sign.”
    Sarah appeared at the screen door, Maxi on her hip. “So it wasn’t a mistake?” She pushed open the door and joined them on the slate path. Amy noticed the dark rings under Sarah’s eyes, her fragile skin.
    “Anything that can help us do our job is welcome. We could have given you a few tips about what to put on it, but the main thing is to work according to procedure or the system can fail.”
    “We just want to find Emily.” Sarah tucked a wisp of the baby’s hair behind her small ear.
    Amy suppressed an urge to reach out and stroke the little girl’s cheek. “So do we.”
    “I went to the grocery store this morning,” Will said. “The car was there, and I asked around—”
    “I know. I just came from there.”
    “It rained last night.” It sounded more like an accusation than a statement, as if she had personally ordered the weather conditions to blight the survival prospects of his wife. But Amy knew better than to take this family’s agitation personally.
    “Mr. Parker, I have a forensics team over there right now. The car’s going into impound. We’re going to look over every square inch of it with a microscope.”
    “When?”
    “Today. It’s happening now.”
    “Why did it take so long?”
    The truth was, if Amy had been on night shift, she would have gone then. But Snow saw things differently; if a wife disappeared, he figured she had taken off, much as his own wife had, and would turn up if she wanted to, as his wife had opted not to.
    “Procedure,” she answered. “There’s a twenty-fourhour protocol in adult—”
    “Did anyone talk to the people working in the store? Did you talk to them?”
    “Yes, I did. And I know you and John Geary got there first.”
    “Did you find out about Mr. White?”
    Amy kept her voice calm. “Mr. Parker, it would be better if you let us handle this. We found out about this Mr. White character and we’re going to check him out. We know your wife didn’t run any other errands. None of the other local shops saw her yesterday. We’ll get a preliminary report from forensics later this afternoon. Believe me, we’re on the case. Let us do our