Five Days in Summer

your jurisdiction. Please let us handle it.” The girl detective gave him a patronizing smile and started typing on the computer. Why did they always do that when they wanted you to go away?
    “Sweetheart, I’m retired. I have no jurisdiction, which means I can do anything I want.”
    Her fingers froze, the screen stopped flashing and she skewered him with her dark eyes. “Don’t call me sweetheart.”
    The flat of Geary’s hand flew up in a gesture of peace. “Didn’t mean it — just wanted your attention.” He winked, then regretted it.
    Amy Cardoza sighed deeply and swiveled her body around to face him. She crossed her legs, then she crossed her arms. Her eyes flicked at the wall clock. “Five minutes, flat. Pull up a chair.”
    Geary moved fast, scraping a chair across the floor.
    Just then Snow walked in, holding a yellow smiley-face card with the bright red legend Have You Seen My Nose? “Need you to sign this for Suellen,” he said. “Don’t forget, we’ve got the birthday cake tomorrow at five.”
    Amy signed the card without looking at Snow, and handed it back. “You might as well stay for this, Al.”
    Geary couldn’t help taking a little satisfaction when Snow sat down next to Amy and she inched her chair away. Geary sat opposite them at a small rectangular table half covered by mailboxes, in-boxes, and a shiny striped bag with the head of a stuffed bear sticking out of the top. Snow leaned over to slide the birthday card into the bag.
    Amy looked at the clock again. It was 9:07 A.M. “Go.”
    Geary balanced his brown accordion file on his knees, and one by one pulled out each of his manila file folders.
    Snow shot Amy a skeptical glance but she ignored it.
    “That was one minute,” she said.
    Geary opened one of his files and laid each of the five newspaper article printouts on the table in chronological order. Then he opened another file, and on top of each of the articles he placed a printout with a heading that read Federal Bureau of Investigation: VICAP in blue across the top. From a third file he took a sheaf of loose yellow pages torn from a legal pad and covered with his own handwriting, or “scrawl” as Ruth had called it. He sorted out the yellow sheets between the five piles.
    “Two minutes,” Amy said.
    Geary sat back down and watched their faces as they tried not to look too interested in his piles. He let another thirty seconds go by. He knew the headlines and printout headers would start his argument for him. When they were ready to pay attention, he spoke.
    “September third, 1973, Roz Gregory disappears inL.A., outside a restaurant where she just had lunch with her boyfriend. He stays behind to pay the bill. She goes out to the car. Two minutes later he comes out and she’s gone. Seventeen days later, a decomposed head is found in the Santa Monica dunes. The head belongs to her son, Evan, age eight, who disappeared five days after his mother on September seventh. Roz Gregory doesn’t return and a body is never found. Case never solved.”
    “California?” Snow said. By the white dust on his collar, Geary figured he was eager for a reunion with the second half of his doughnut. But Geary had more to say, and if he pitched his case right, Snow wouldn’t feel like eating.
    Amy glanced at the clock. “Go on.”
    “September third, 1980, Louisiana. Terry McDaniel disappears from a softball game where her seven-yearold son, James, is pitching for the Baton Rouge Bombers. When his team comes into the dugout, she whispers to him she’s going across the street for a cup of coffee. Takeout. She never comes back to the game or anywhere. Five days later, James disappears from his house while his dad is mowing the lawn. Five days after that, his right arm surfaces in a swamp twenty miles away. The rest of his body is never found, but his mother’s is, perfectly intact, no apparent cause of death. An autopsy turns up traces of pancuronium but it can’t be determined that this drug alone could cause death. The dad buries the arm in the casket with Terry’s body and the newspaper has a field day. The police vet him as their number-one suspect but he clears. Case never solved.”
    The wall clock read nine fifteen. Snow’s foot was tapping the air but Amy ignored him. Her eyes stayed fixed on Geary and she nodded soberly. He felt thatrush he used to get in the bureau’s conference room when he briefed special agents on a new case for the first time. He always knew when