Haunted (Michael Bennett 10)

I was a little surprised to see all the kids awake when I came through the front door. Chrissy and Shawna greeted me with their usual extravagant hugs, and the teenagers gave me a wave or a nod. About as much as I could expect.

I made my way to the kitchen, where Ricky was flipping a pancake into the air from a frying pan.

Mary Catherine came in from the outside door. Instantly, from the look on her face, I knew something was wrong. My first thought was Seamus. But the old man followed right behind her.

She rushed across the kitchen and gave me a hug.

Mary Catherine said, “I was so worried about you.”

I sighed with relief. “From your expression, I was afraid something was wrong here.”

“It is. Sadie is missing. Near as I can tell she left sometime in the middle of the night. Seamus and I have searched around the house and in the woods. If the kids know something, they’re not telling me.”

Suddenly sleep didn’t seem that important anymore. I pictured the poor girl out on the street again. But why? She had to feel welcome here. We really did want her here.

I started asking the kids. On something like this I knew to talk to them one-on-one. Just in case there was some sort of teenage honor involved and they didn’t want to rat on a friend.

Ricky shook his head and said, “I haven’t seen her since last night. She wasn’t here for breakfast. I didn’t notice until just now.”

I moved on, asking each kid. The order depended on location. As soon as I found someone, I pulled him or her off to the side and asked if he or she had seen Sadie or if she had said anything. They couldn’t know the danger she was in. All they knew was that this lonely young woman had slid into our family and now she was gone.

Finally it was Chrissy who told me what had happened. She said, “I heard Sadie moving around in the middle of the night. She was on the cot in my bedroom. I followed her downstairs, and she told me I couldn’t come with her.”

I held the little girl by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Did Sadie say anything about where she was going?”

“She said she had business. Serious business. She said the cops would never be able to do anything about Bill Sweeper.”

“About what?”

“I think she said the man’s name was Bill Sweeper.”

Then it clicked in my head. I felt sick to my stomach. She meant to say Dell Streeter.

Chapter 80

Just as I stepped out the front door, a lightning bolt struck near the lake, and the rain started to fall. The drops were so heavy they hurt my head as I rushed to the van. I wasn’t exactly sure where to look for Sadie, but I knew I couldn’t stay at home. I also had an idea she might be headed for Dell Streeter’s house. It was a crazy idea, but that would be my first stop.

I didn’t know what Sadie thought she could accomplish by confronting the drug dealer at his own compound. But I couldn’t risk the possibility of a bad outcome.

The downpour became torrential once I was on the highway, but there was no way I was going to stop. I could only see a few feet in front of the van. I pushed it anyway. A gust of wind shoved the van to the right. A clap of thunder made me jump in the seat.

Brian flashed into my head. No matter where I went, there was still a drug problem that was affecting my life. It affected everyone’s lives, whether people realized it or not. And drugs were ruining too many lives. At least drug dealers were. They were a scourge on society. But the courts weren’t helping much.

I called Sandy just to let her know what was happening but got no answer. God knows how busy she was this morning with the shooting and a crowd of vigilantes.

I felt sorry for the little town. It was like the people here had put their heads in the sand so that they could ignore the world around them. Even Tom Bacon knew his son and others were using serious drugs. He dismissed it. It was easier to ignore the issue than have an uncomfortable conversation and take the risk that the boy would want to move back with his mother.

Then there was the issue of that Texas jackass Dell Streeter. He played by a different set of rules. Whereas the people of Maine tended to be polite and considerate, Streeter had shown what being brash and bold could do. He saw a gap in the drug distribution network, a possible new market, and made the best of it.

Drugs weren’t a problem in society, they were a symptom. A symptom of something wrong. I wished I was smart enough to figure out what that problem was and offer some solutions. All I was used for was to clean up the mess drugs often caused.

It was hard to explain why Saint Louis had the most murders per capita of any city in the United States. Or why Baltimore came in second. But drugs played a huge role in that. So did gangs and a number of other issues. But drugs and money could always be found at the root of those issues. I saw it every day. Almost 70 percent of the homicides I investigated had something to do with the sale of drugs.

We used to joke in Homicide that if a woman disappeared, all we had to do was arrest her boyfriend or husband and we’d have the right suspect 80 percent of the time. I was starting to feel the same way about drug dealers. If we got them off the streets, I wondered what the streets would look like.

I hoped Linewiler could still be cleaned up. Right now, the only thing I hoped for was to find Sadie safe and bring her back home.

Chapter 81