Niceville

of her house at six eight two Upper Chase Run. Still has a driver’s license, has a 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood, navy blue, in the shop for a busted axle. Missing Persons says her shopping lady, named Alice Bayer, sixty-three, she lives in The Glades, drove by the house early this morning with a load of groceries, there was a pink and lime green ’52 Packard in the drive which she recognized as belonging to an old man who does fix-up and gardening for Miss Cotton, name of Gray Haggard—that’s another one of those Founding Four, isn’t it?”
    “The Haggards, the Cottons, the Teagues—”
    “And your missus, right, Nick? Missus Kate?”
    “Kate’s part Walker, yes.”
    “Anyway, Alice Bayer sees the house is all lit up, windows and doors all open, music playing so loud it was rattling the glass—”
    “
Summarize
, Beau.”
    “Goes through the house, shuts off the music, sees nothing unusual other than there’s nobody home, far as she can see nothing taken, but she says she all of a sudden got … the jimjams.”
    “That means the place gave her a fright.”
    “Jimjams? Never heard of them. Anyway, she calls the security people for The Chase—”
    “Armed Response. Owned by Byron Deitz.”
    “Yep. Armed Response arrives, they do a walk-through, Miss Delia’s gone, no sign of this Gray Haggard guy, no sign of violence. By thistime Alice Bayer is having a fit, so one of the security guys takes her back home—she lives on Virtue Place in The Glades and she’ll be happy to talk to us if we want. Armed Response has a call-in-case list and they get on the horn to all those people—she has a book club and all these ladies are it—nobody knows nothing, so Armed Response calls NPD and NPD calls Missing and Missing tells Tig and Tig tags us—how’s that for summarizing?—and here we are.”
    Which they were, as they rounded a long tree-shaded curve of cobblestone road lined in black wrought iron covered in vines and Temple Hill, Delia Cotton’s mammoth Victorian pile, emerged massively from behind a wall of willows and live oaks draped in Spanish moss.
    A red and black Armed Response Jeep and a slate gray NPD patrol car were parked on either side of the open gate, two uniforms leaning side by side on the hood of the patrol car, a solid bald-headed young black man in the complicated red and white regalia of Armed Response and an older white woman with red cheeks and rich red hair and shiny gold sergeant stripes on her dark blue NPD tunic.
    They both watched as Nick and Beau rolled up in their navy blue Crown Vic. Across the street a small crowd of Chase residents had gathered, mostly elderly people, but a few young couples. They all had that avid, slightly glazed look civilians get when the cops show up.
    The lady sergeant pushed herself off the hood and came around to Nick’s side, smiling as she recognized him.
    “Nick, old horse, you’re catching this?”
    “I am, Mavis. You’re looking lovely today.”
    The sergeant rolled her eyes, smiling down at him. She had strong arms and big shoulders and a beefy body and looked like most sergeants look—cool, amiable, calm, risky to piss off.
    Lovely? Possibly not.
    Nick smiled back, introduced Beau Norlett to Staff Sergeant Mavis Crossfire of the Niceville Police Department.
    Beau leaned across to shake her hand, got it well and truly shook, managed to get it back mostly unmangled.
    “So, Nick, why you?” asked the sergeant, puzzled. “This is something for MP, I woulda thought?”
    “So would I. Tig has a soft spot for Delia Cotton, so he wants to cover it personally.”
    “Lotta Missings going on around town, don’t ya think, Nick?”
    “I do. So does the mayor. Little Rock’s finally got his hair on fire—missing people can’t vote for him—and now he’s got Boonie Hackendorff all worked up. Anybody Boonie can spare is going back over the last ninety years, looking for a pattern.”
    “Ninety years?”
    “Yep. Every record. Something like one hundred and sixty-two people.”
    “Well, good luck to them,” said Mavis. “I been wondering when Little Rock would get wise to all our
day-sah-para-cee-dos
. Damn strange, you come to think, for a small city like Niceville.”
    She straightened up, called out to the young black man in the Armed Response uniform.
    “Dale, come on over and meet yourself a genuine war hero.”
    Nick winced but plastered on a smile as the Armed Response guy stepped up and offered his hand.
    “Nice to meet