Chapter II

"Has anybody seen Lieutenant Jamison this morning?" Chief Forbes asked.

"Well, Sir, I saw him at about two this morning," Parker said. "He stopped by my house. He was having trouble sleeping."

"And since then?"

"No, Sir. He said he was going home, and that was the last I heard from him. He has been putting in a lot of hours lately; maybe he just overslept."

"By two hours?" the Chief replied.

"I suppose it's possible," Bubba chimed in. "I've never seen him work so hard on a case."

"He isn't answering his phone," the Chief said. "Would you mind going over to his place to check, Captain?"

"Sure, Chief."

"Thanks."

Bubba made the short drive to Lonnie's house. Lonnie's car was gone, but Bubba went to the front door to check anyway. He knocked several times and called Lonnie's name –no answer. He tried the doorknob –it was unlocked. It wasn't like Lonnie to leave his door unlocked. Bubba went in and called out again. He checked every room, but there was no sign of Lonnie Jamison. Most of Lonnie's neighbors weren't home now. The ones that Bubba was able to question hadn't seen anything. Bubba got back in his car and called in to the station.

"You there, Parker?"

"Yeah, Bubba, go ahead."

"No sign of Lonnie at home. Tell the Chief I'm going to drive around for a while and look for him."

"Bubba, I thought of something," Parker said.

"What's that, Parker?" Bubba asked.

"Last night before Lonnie left, we were talking about the old playhouse. I know it wouldn't make much sense for him to go there without telling anybody, but I just thought I'd mention it."

"I'll check it out," Bubba assured him.

Bubba left Lonnie's house and drove to the old playhouse. Any misgivings he might have had about Parker's suspicions were silenced by the familiar sight of Lonnie's red sports car in the back parking lot of the place. Bubba leapt from his seat and went to check out the car. It was definitely Lonnie's car, but Lonnie wasn't in it, neither did there appear to be any evidence of foul play inside. Bubba called in his findings to the station and looked for a way to get into the building itself. All of the doors were locked, but he found the window through which Lonnie had crawled the night before. It was a narrow window, difficult to get through; he knocked over the table, smashing the old hourglass to bits.

Bubba grimaced at the damage he had done, but he saw something else that was of more interest to him beneath the bits of glass. It was obvious that someone had been here, for there were footprints in the dust. Bubba followed the prints through the paths that Lonnie had walked only hours before, but like Lonnie, he turned up nothing in his search but dust, rats, and uneasy feelings. When he emerged from the building again, the place was swarming with officers –Sparta PD, Sheriff's Department, FBI. Agent Phillips was standing by Lonnie's car, and so was Parker. Parker looked extremely displeased with the agent.

"Anything?" Phillips asked.

"Somebody's been here, that's all I can tell you," Bubba said. "C'mon, Parker. I thought we'd go question the shopkeepers around here, see if anybody saw or heard anything last night."

"We're already on it," said Agent Phillips.

"Any theories?" Bubba asked.

"Oh, he has a theory, all right," Parker said.

"Well, what is it?" Bubba asked.

"He thinks Lonnie is responsible for –"

"I never said he was responsible, I said he could be," Phillips protested.

"Say what?" Bubba asked.

"We have to look at all the possibilities," Phillips explained. "By all accounts, Lieutenant Jamison has been behaving erratically. Now it seems he's gone missing."

"Listen to me, and listen good, Agent Phillips," Bubba said. "I have been way more accommodating with you than I have a tendency to be. I have deferred to your expertise since you've had this case, or something like it, longer than we have, but I am not going to stand here and listen to you paint one of our finest officers as a criminal."

"The FBI doesn't come here to antagonize your department," said Agent Phillips, "but it seems to happen every time we have dealings with each other. You men never learn, do you? I understand that everything that happens in a small town is likely to be personal, but objectivity is essential in our line of work. It's a fact that violent crimes are often committed by people we know."

"You have no evidence against Lonnie," Bubba said.

"Oh, don't I?" Phillips replied. "I've had him under surveillance for the past week. He was the one to find Deputy Surillo's car, he's been the one to find every lead in this case. His schedule and his behavior have been strange, even according to those of you who know him. And I noticed about him almost as soon as I met him that he's quiet, taciturn, cold even. Connecting this case with the other murders could be his way of routing suspicion away from himself."

"Like I said, you have no evidence," Bubba said. "Excuse me, Gentlemen, but we have two officers missing, and I for one intend to find them while they're still alive."

Bubba turned his back and walked away from the agent without waiting for a reply. Parker followed close on his heels.

"What are you going to do?" Parker asked.

"I don't know," Bubba sighed. "I need to think. You say you and Lonnie talked about this place, and there are recent footprints in the building, so it's reasonable to assume that Lonnie came here of his own accord. Maybe he found something in there, and somebody wanted to shut him up. But then, why would the car be left here for us to find?"

"Maybe the suspect's not as smart as we think?" Parker suggested. "Maybe he just didn't count on Lonnie showing up and was caught off guard."

"Maybe. I think we ought to go and double check this whole area, no matter what Agent Phillips says. I think our FBI agent is grasping at straws as much as anybody in this case. He's got nothing on Lonnie."

Lonnie thought he heard a familiar voice, but it sounded distant. Bubba? He opened his eyes slowly, but his surroundings remained dark. He struggled to remember where he was, how he got here, and why he felt dull aches all over his body. He suddenly realized that he was lying on the floor. I must've been really desperate for sleep, he thought. He tried to remember if he had taken any sleep aid. Images flooded back to his mind, but he couldn't make sense of them or even tell which ones were real and which ones were dreams. Christine, the Phantom, the hourglass…the playhouse, Parker, the darkness…He had a vague memory of standing by his car, seeing a man glaring at him from a shop window, driving into the parking lot to turn around…

He tried to move, but something was restraining his wrists and ankles, and he couldn't speak for a cloth in his mouth. He must have found his man, he thought, or else some other psycho who liked to kidnap cops, and from the grogginess that still lingered, Lonnie guessed that he had been drugged. He still couldn't remember how it had all happened. What mattered now, though, was getting out.