Niceville

you, Detective Kavanaugh. I’m Dale Jonquil.”
    He pronounced it “JON-kwill,” and said it with a straight face, although a lot of people who knew that a jonquil was a kind of daffodil liked to make smart-ass comments about it.
    Once, anyway.
    Nick, who wouldn’t have known a jonquil from a jackhammer, smiled, shook his hand, introduced Beau.
    “Dale is Special Forces too, Nick,” said Mavis.
    Nick looked at the man more closely. Jonquil looked back, a cool, quiet consideration.
    “Who you with?” asked Nick.
    “Twentieth Special Forces Group. Third Battalion.”
    “National Guard? Based in Florida?”
    “Yes sir. We liaised with Air Force SF at Hurlburt Field in Mary Esther but mainly we backed up the Seventh at Fort Bragg. Not much going on in our Area of Operations, which is mainly Mexico and Latin America.”
    “Except the
narcotraficante
wars along the border.”
    “Yeah, but we’re not allowed to get into that, at least not yet. So, no service like yours, if I can say so, sir. Everybody in Special Ops Command knows about you, sir. It’s a real privilege to meet you.”
    “Well, I’m glad you’re home safe, Dale. Can you tell me what’s your read up there?”
    He nodded toward Temple Hill, and was surprised to find the young man’s expression closing up.
    “Sir, I honestly don’t know what to make of it. That nice old lady is plain gone. And so’s her gardener. Sergeant Crossfire and I walked through, it wasn’t like there was anything out of … out of place, like? But neither of us felt …”
    “Like staying,” said Mavis, her tone flat.
    Nick took that in.
    “Well, maybe Beau and I should go see for ourselves.”
    “You do that,” said Mavis.
    Nick put the car in gear, stopped and looked across the street at the crowd of neighbors.
    “Either of you talk to these people?”
    “Yes sir,” said Dale Jonquil. “I took down their names and phone numbers. Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary, other than they thought there might be a big party going on, because the lights were on all night and they could hear music coming from the house. But this is The Chase, sir, and people tend to value their privacy, so nobody made a call to us or went across to look.”
    “Thanks, Dale. Mavis. You going to wait?”
    Mavis shook her head.
    “We got a Barricaded EDP over at Saint Innocent. I gotta go supervise. Dale’s going to stay. This house was in his sector.”
    Nick was about to roll past that, but then he didn’t. An EDP was an Emotionally Disturbed Person, and a Barricaded EDP was the second most dangerous patrol call in the book.
    “Saint Innocent
Orthodox
? On Peachtree?”
    Mavis said it was, and was puzzled by the look on his face.
    “Got a name for the EDP?”
    “Hold on,” she said, unhooking her radio.
    “Delta Zero this is Echo Six Actual. Have we got a name for the EDP at Saint Innocent? Yeah? Okay, I’m five minutes away. Tell the guys to sit tight.”
    She snapped the rig back on her belt.
    “Some guy named Kevin Dennison. Supposed to be the custodian. He has the pastor and a couple of kids locked up in the rectory.”
    “Christ,” said Nick.
    “You
know
this guy?”
    Nick filled her in on the anonymous e-mail Tig had gotten that morning. Mavis took it in, her expression hardening up.
    “Jeez. You guys go all ape-shit on the man?”
    “No. Not on some anonymous tip. Tig wanted to go slow, didn’t want to burn the guy’s life down until we heard back from Maryland.”
    “Well
somebody
wanted to fuck with this guy. A reporter from the
Register
called the pastor, said they got a tip about a child molester supposed to be working there, and then the satellite trucks rolled up a couple minutes later. Dennison went totally bats. Locked himself in the office. You sure nobody at CID made a call?”
    “I don’t think so. But if somebody has, you can bet he’ll be out on his ass by the end of the day. In the meantime, go easy with this guy, if you can. He might be innocent.”
    “If I can. Innocent or not, he’s kicked over the trash can now. Something will have to be done.”
    “I understand. And you be careful, okay? We gotta do this thing here. Keep me in the loop about Dennison, if you can?”
    Mavis said she would.
    Nick turned to the Armed Response guy.
    “Dale, give us an hour at the house. Just stay down here, hold the AO and keep the gawkers at a good distance, if you don’t mind.”
    “Yes sir,” said Jonquil, coming on point.
    Nick was about