Mills put Nobody in the passenger seat, where he could keep an eye on her, and cuffed her to the door handle. He chatted idly as we drove, asking my theories about the church and its relationship to the killings, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t think the church itself was a part of this at all, aside from the simple fact that it was the one thing, in all of Dillon, Attina had decided to burn. That meant it was important to him somehow, but I didn’t believe there was anything beyond that. I’d only mentioned it to Mills because I knew it would pique his interest, and I wanted to stay in town as long as I could.
Put that in your psychological profile, smart guy.
We arrived in Dillon about two hours later and Mills took us for a spin past the burned-out hulk of the church before doubling back to the police station. The whole church lot was blocked off with wooden barriers and police tape, and the singed grass was covered with stacks of recovered hymnals and chairs and anything else that hadn’t burned. I recognized several people from the town picking through the wreckage: Sara, Ingrid, Paul, and even Beth, though she was too frail to walk through the debris and had been relegated to sitting on the sidelines, pointing at things with her cane. She participated in everything, in spite of her age. I wondered about Paul: what had brought him to the church to help, without Brielle? Presumably she was still mourning for her sister somewhere, but if Paul was her boyfriend, why wasn’t he with her? And why wasn’t he in mourning for Corey?
“What do you do when a friend dies?” I asked out loud.
Mills looked over his shoulder at me, curious. “You … cry, I guess. Give your condolences to the family. I don’t know, why do you ask?”
“Because I don’t react the way other people do,” I said, “so I don’t know if what I’m seeing is strange behavior or not.”
“What are you seeing?”
“Paul was back there at the church,” I said. “Corey and Derek were his best friends, and yet he’s right there, plugging away.”
“That’s not … automatically weird,” said Mills. “A lot of people deal with grief by throwing themselves into manual labor. Or helping others. Paul’s doing both, that’s … probably healthy.”
“So where’s Brielle?” I asked.
“Some people don’t do service and labor,” he said. “I don’t think you can catch a murderer just by looking at who turns up for a recovery project.”
“Are you sure?” asked Nobody. “How many murderers have you caught?”
Mills didn’t talk for the rest of the trip.
20
Agent Mills walked us straight to the front desk of the Dillon police station. “Hi,” he said, flashing his badge, “I’m Agent Peter Mills with the FBI. I need to speak with Officer Glassman.”
The receptionist looked at him, then at Nobody and me—me looking completely disheveled, and Nobody in handcuffs. She looked back at Mills. “What is this about?”
“Just some follow-up questions to Jessica Butler’s murder,” said Mills. He waved at us dismissively. “Don’t worry about them, just give Glassman a call or … whatever you do to summon him.” He wiggled his badge again, as if to underline his authority.
The receptionist sighed in relief. “It’s about time we got some help around here. Are there more of you coming?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Best news I’ve heard all week.” She dialed, and we waited.
She cocked her head, listening, then hung up the phone again. Her voice was painfully apologetic. “I’m afraid he’s not answering, and that’s the only number I have for him. Do you want me try … I don’t know, anything else? Just say the word and you’ve got it.”
The cops in Fort Bruce had hated working with our team, feeling like we were stepping on their toes and throwing our weight around, but this station seemed practically overjoyed to have Mills.
Mills smiled. “Was that his home phone or his mobile?”
“Mobile,” said the receptionist. “His home is in Tulsa. He’s staying with his sister while he’s in Dillon—ooh, let me call her.”
“Thanks,” said Mills. We waited, but after a while she shook her head again.
“No answer there, either.”
“We know his sister,” I said. “Let’s go look in person.”
Mills smiled at the receptionist a final time, thanked her for her help, and led us back outside. “Is it close?” he asked. “We could just walk.”
“You’ve got my best friend in handcuffs,” I said. “You don’t get to parade her around like a freak show.”
“Your best friend is a demon?” he asked.
“Well look who’s Judgy Judgerson all of a sudden.”
“I don’t mind the cuffs,” said Nobody.
“I do,” I said, shooting her a quick, worried glance before looking back at Mills. Was she getting depressed again? “You take them off, or we go in a car.”
“Car,” said Mills, and prodded us back toward his SUV. “The demon and I aren’t best friends yet.”
We drove the four blocks to Sara Glassman’s house, and I was surprised to see two cars in the driveway: Sara’s little sedan, and a police car. I glanced at the clock on the SUV’s dashboard. “10:27,” I said.
“Does that mean something?” he asked.
I looked at the cars again, and then at the house. “It means they’re not asleep—maybe one, maybe, but not both. And we didn’t see them at the church cleanup project.”
“They could have walked somewhere,” said Nobody.