Niceville

adoption thing was handled by a lawyer name of Leah Searle—dead now—had a practice up in Sallytown. Rainey was in some sort of foster home up there. Birth parents apparently died in a barn fire. Kid was made a ward of the county and put into foster care. Kate got the papers from Sylvia’s place after she …”
    “Disappeared,” said Tig, who knew that Nick, until he saw her body, was never going to acknowledge her suicide.
    “Yeah, since then. Leah Searle died the next year, but Kate went over all the papers. Rainey’s the only heir. Kate’s got power of attorney for Rainey, sees to his finances and monitors the Teague portfolio, which is huge. Kept the house as it was, so if Rainey ever comes around, everything will be the way it was on the day he was taken. Gardeners. Cleaners. Has it checked every day by some people from Armed Response.”
    “Kate. Gotta love her. One of my favorite people. Can’t believe you were thinking of going back into the shit, a lady like that at home.”
    On their terms this was an intrusion, but Tig felt it strongly, so he just let it stand.
    Nick understood it.
    Tig was right.
    A moment passed in silence.
    “Okay,” said Tig, changing the tone. “You go see Lacy, let’s hear what Lemon has to say.”
    “I will,” said Nick. “We have anything else?”
    “Yeah,” said Tig, looking troubled. “Vice got an anonymous tip. I didn’t like to hear it.”
    “They get a voice?”
    “No. It was an e-mail. Sort of. But the IP was stripped out, or it was from a computer link we haven’t got a line on yet. I don’t get all that cyber-shit stuff, Nick. Anyway, like I said, untraceable. Anonymous.”
    Nick looked at his hands. Snitches were how it all worked, but nobody liked to work with them.
    “What was the tip?”
    Tig moved his shoulders, hesitated, and then handed a printout across to Nick.
    The custodian at saint innocent orthodox has a history of child sex abuse going back to 1982. His name is kevin david his crimes were committed under the name kevin david dennison his dob is 1956/06/23. look first in maryland. He also is online on AIM as katydee999. You should look at him. a friend.
    Nick read it, handed the sheet back. “Jesus.
A friend
. Man, I really hate this kind of anonymous shit.”
    Tig’s face said the same thing.
    “So do I. I ran this Kevin David guy and he looks pretty solid. Custodian. Wife died of cancer last year. Grown kids. Has a house up in Sallytown. Lives alone. Nothing against him. I asked around on the quiet. Everybody at the church thinks he’s a saint.”
    “What about Maryland?”
    “I’m waiting for a sheet and a photo. Age and general description is right, but there’s a lot of Kevin Dennisons in the world. I gotta be sure before I let Vice go burn down a guy’s life.”
    “Any whiff of anything?”
    Tig looked down.
    “Yeah. He has a cell phone cluster.”
    “You mean his GPS records. That was fast.”
    “My sister’s family goes to Saint Innocent. They have a girl. I was motivated. I called a friend at Comcast.”
    “Where’s the cluster?”
    “Schoolyards. Playgrounds.”
    “Oh hell.”
    “Yeah,” said Tig. “Oh hell.”
    “You want me to do this?”
    Tig shook his head.
    “Vice already has it. I didn’t want to look like I was getting in the way.”
    Nick looked at the printout again.
    “This e-mail, someone who would send this out, Tig, is a slug. Guy’s capable of a whole lot worse. We should find out who this asshole actually is.”
    “You want to do that?”
    Nick shook his head.
    “I don’t get this cyber shit any better than you do. Do we have anybody around who can look into it? Like one of those tattooed geeks in dispatch?”
    “No. Not like this. Mainly they all sit around and twatter each other on their twats.”
    “I think that’s
Twitter
, Tig.”
    “Whatever. What about your brother-in-law, that Deitz guy? Doesn’t he have a whole boxcar full of computer wing nuts in that outfit of his?”
    Nick wasn’t very happy with Byron Deitz—something was going sour inside the guy—but he would definitely have guys who could track a cyber trail like this.
    “Okay with me. I’d rather you asked him.”
    Tig was aware that there was some tension between Nick and his brother-in-law.
    “Sure. I’ll ask Deitz myself. Off the record, like. But I got something for you to do yourself. Take your mind off this Army thing. You know Delia Cotton, the Sulfur King’s widow, up in The Chase?”
    “I