"So, ah, what do you recommend?" Mike asked, staring at the laminated menu, a good number of the dishes obscured by black marker ink. He looked at Manley overtop of his reading glasses.

The Colville sheriff, sitting opposite the San Francisco Homicide lieutenant at the small square table, snorted mirthlessly and shook his head. "I'm tempted to say nothing but that wouldn't be fair."

Frowning in alarm, Steve's eyes slid from Manley to his partner and back. "You're kidding, right?" he asked softly, glancing around the small diner to see if the lone waitress was within earshot.

Manley dropped his menu on the table and leaned back. "This used to be a really nice place until the mill closed a year or so back. That's when the whole town went to hell." He gestured towards the menu. "The BLT's still pretty good here – it's hard to really screw up a BLT. The coffee's pretty decent too."

With a curt nod, Mike tossed his menu on top of Manley's and took his glasses off, folding them and putting them into his inside jacket pocket. "Sounds good to me."

With a slight smile, Steve nodded. "Me too."

From the corner of his eye, Manley saw the waitress approach and he picked up the three menus. "BLT's and coffees all around, Doris."

"You got it, Sheriff," the older woman nodded with a smile as she slipped her order pad into her apron and stuck the stubby pencil behind her ear. Smiling around the table, she took the menus and headed towards the kitchen.

"The mill closed?" Steve prompted, his eyes settling on Manley again.

With a sad nod and tilt of his head, the Sheriff inhaled deeply. "Yeah, it was in its death throes when my wife and I moved here about three years ago – the lumber company was going under, but everyone was hoping some… I don't know, some corporate knight in shining armor was gonna show up and buy the company and rescue them… But it never happened. So most of the jobs dried up and people moved out of town and we went from a bustling little metropolis to what you see now. The precursor of a ghost town."

"I noticed a lot of abandoned houses on the outskirts. Was this a company town?"

Manley nodded. "Yep, the lumber company owned everything – the houses, the stores, even the utility companies. A real throwback."

"I didn't think company towns existed anymore," Mike offered. "I remember hearing about them when I was a kid… but I thought they disappeared during the depression."

"Most of them did but there are still some around, from what I've heard. Colville was the last in this part of the country, I'm pretty sure about that. But I bet there's probably some of them still going in other states, like Kentucky and West Virginia… you know, in mining areas."

He paused and looked up as the waitress approached with a tray and set coffee cups on the table in front of them. When she disappeared again, Mike leaned forward to pour a little milk into his cup. "So, those files we looked at today… were all those families employed by the lumber company?"

Manley nodded sadly as he stirred sugar into his cup. "Danny Cutler's dad was one of the foremen. Stuart Sullivan's mom worked in payroll. His dad is disabled; he was a logger. He was badly injured in an accident with a split tree about twenty years ago. Three other men were killed in that same accident, I heard. And Craig Steen's dad worked in the mill." He frowned and stopped stirring the coffee. "What? Do you think their disappearances has something to do with the company… or the mill?"

Mike shook his head and smiled slightly. "No, no, no… as of right now, I don't think anything. It's just another piece of the puzzle, you know. Do you have any theories?"

Manley glanced at Steve then looked down at the table before raising his eyes to Mike again. "Well, officially I have no clue, but part of me thinks it has something to do with drugs. There's a lot of dealing going on around here. When jobs dry up and people lose hope, a lot of them turn to… well, self-medication, I guess you call it. And we don't have the resources or the manpower to take it on. There's only me and Ryan and we have our hands full with domestics…"

At the mention of Deputy Ryan Hathaway's name, Steve's eyes slid towards his partner, who was already staring at him in bemusement. It turned out that Colville's sole deputy was a fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked redhead who didn't look a day over twelve. Trying to mask his smirk, Steve shook his head slightly with a soft clearing of his throat before turning back to Manley, who looked from one partner to the other quizzically but wisely chose to say nothing.

"So what kind of drugs are we talking about here?" the inspector asked, doing his best to ignore Mike's eyes burning an 'I-told-you-so' hole in the side of his head.

"Well, LSD and hashish continue to be popular but lately we've seen an increase in the use of heroin. There's been several near fatal overdoses in the past three months in the county and six weeks ago a 30-year-old biker died with the needle still in his arm over in Crocker."

"Crocker? Where's that?" Mike asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table.

"About 30 miles northeast of here. They still have a mill in the vicinity so they're doing a lot better, economically, than we are. But it's also the, ah, the hub I guess you could call it, for one of the biker gangs that seem to gravitate to this part of the state."

"You think the gangs are drug running?" Steve asked, glancing at his partner with a furrowed brow.

Manley glanced from Steve to Mike and back again. "I don't think it, I know it… but I can't prove it. And it's not my jurisdiction."

"Who's the sheriff up there?" Mike had leaned a little closer and dropped the timbre of his voice. Steve knew him well enough now to know this was a sign that his interest had been piqued.

"Barry Lassiter. He's been sheriff there for over twenty years. I've had a lot of… crossover with him and his deputies in the past couple of years, and as far as I can tell, he's a square shooter. But, ah…" He paused and sighed heavily, his eyes dropping momentarily to the table. "But I also think he turns a blind eye to what goes on in his town… As far as I can tell, he leaves the gangs alone so they just go about their business without any threat of repercussion over their heads."

Steve glanced at Mike before asking almost hesitantly, "So, ah, so do you think there's some reason for that…? I mean, do you think Sheriff Lassiter is doing this deliberately?"

When Mike continued to stare, unblinking, at Manley, Steve knew he hadn't overstepped his bounds, that he had put into words the question that Mike was going to ask himself.

Manley looked uneasily from one detective to the other, finally allowing his haunted eyes to settle on Steve. "What I'm saying is… I think there might be more behind his… his reluctance to deal with the heroin problem than just lack of manpower and lack of prosecutable evidence."

Very slowly Mike sat back, allowing his hands to drop into his lap but not taking his piercing blue-eyed stare from the troubled sheriff. The waitress approached the table again, three plates balanced on her arms. As the three men sat back slightly, she set the BLT's down in front of her customers. Manley and Steve watched as she quietly and efficiently went about her business; Mike's eyes never left Manley.

Alone once more, Mike leaned forward slightly. "Is that your way of telling us to take a close look at Sheriff Lassiter and the good people of Crocker?"

Several long seconds ticked by before Manley smiled slightly, raising his head to meet the lieutenant's eyes evenly. "I seriously think that's something you should consider." He took the toothpick out of one half of his sandwich, picked it up and took a bite.

Mike stared at him, unmoving, for several long seconds then smiled as he reached for his sandwich.

"I didn't see anything in those files today that said any of those three guys were into drugs, did you?" Steve asked before taking a bite of his own BLT. He nodded to Manley in appreciation of the taste before turning his attention back to his partner.

Chewing, Mike shook his head. "No, I didn't," he said after swallowing, "but then again, they were shy quite a few details I would've like to have seen."

Manley shrugged. "Sorry, fellas, but like I said, there's only Ryan and me, and we really didn't think we had anything at all here until Craig Steen disappeared a couple of weeks ago and I remembered about the other two."

Mike had held up his hand. "I wasn't being judgmental, John, I know how understaffed you are. It was just an observation. But believe me, Steve and I are going to be picking your brain for everything you know and for things you don't even know you know. I hope you don't mind."

"Are you kidding?" Manley replied with a short, almost mirthless laugh. "If we can find those boys alive, or if we find out they just left town and didn't tell their families… or, god forbid, we end up finding their bodies, I just want to put paid to it all."

Taking another bite of his sandwich, Mike nodded in agreement.

"Or," Steve offered almost lightly, "maybe none of these disappearances are related and it's all just one big coincidence." He kept his eyes on his plate but peripherally he could see his partner freeze briefly then turn slowly towards him. He masked his smile by deliberately picking up the second half of his BLT, taking out the toothpick and dropping it almost theatrically on the plate before taking a large bite.

Coffee cup to his lips, Manley's eyes were snapping back and forth between the partners once again, still not sure what was going on but absolutely sure that something was silently passing between them. He smiled to himself; he had enjoyed two very close partnerships during his own career, and he recognized the signs.

Clearing his throat a little louder than necessary and slowly tearing his eyes from his smiling partner's down-turned head, Mike looked at Manley. "So, John, if it's okay with you, Steve and I'll start interviewing family and friends of the three young men and see if there's anything that connects them… or maybe if they were into the drug scene or maybe even one of the gangs. How does that sound?"

Swallowing a large gulp of coffee, Manley nodded as he set the cup down. "Don't think you have to run everything past me, Mike. As far as I'm concerned, this one's all yours right now. You guys just do what you have to do and let me know what you think when you're done. Okay?"

Mike grinned, picking up the second half of his sandwich and nodding. "Thanks," he said, accentuating the word by slightly pointing at the sheriff with the BLT. He looked at his partner. "Well, buddy boy, we have our work cut out for us tonight. I want to go over those files again with a fine-toothed comb. I want to make sure we're fully prepared tomorrow." He looked back at Manley. "Do you have a map or something we can use to find all the addresses?"

Manley nodded, pausing to swallow before he answered. "Carole'll have a package waiting for you tomorrow morning so just stop by the office before you hit the road."

Grinning, Mike sat back and looked at the younger man again, a twinkle in his eyes. "That's great. Steve'll pop in and pick it up." He turned to Manley. "Carole was very impressed by him," he offered with barely suppressed amusement.

Steve dropped his head with a heavy sigh as both older men erupted in laughter that filled the small diner.