She was in a cubicle with Detective Arthur Smith, whom I knew all too well. I stuck my head in. “Roe?” she said, already apprehensive.

“Where’s the baby? Where’s Chase?”

She looked at me blankly. “Why, John David dropped him off at my house this morning. My sitter is keeping my two and Chase, so Poppy and I…” And then her face crumpled all over again.

I hotfooted it back to the telephone, which I’d stupidly left on the desk. “Chase is at Melinda’s,” I told my mother. I was limp with relief. “Evidently, John David took him over there this morning.”

“So John David was in town this morning. At least we know that.” My mother had already absorbed Chase’s safety and was moving on to other ramifications. “Listen, Roe, you’ve got my cell-phone number.” I had it all right, tattooed on my brain. “Call me the minute you know where John David is. I’ve got to get to your stepfather.”

I thought my mother was a wee bit affected in calling John my stepfather, and she did on every possible occasion. After all, I’d been in my early thirties when John, a widower, had married Mother. He’d been a friend of mine before he’d dated my mother, and I felt a mixture of different obligations and attitudes toward John. I certainly never addressed him as “Step-dad.”

I hung up and faced the woman who’d been taking my statement. Her name was Cathy Trumble, and I’d never met her before. Detective Trumble was stocky and graying, with an easy-care curly hairdo and sharp, pale eyes behind rimless glasses. She was a real professional, I guess; I had no clue as to how she felt about the information I was giving her-the death of Poppy Queensland, my brother-in-law’s absence-or anything at all. It was like talking to a piece of stainless steel.

“How come you don’t have a cubicle?” I asked. I had been wandering off in my own mental world while Detective Trumble was typing into a computer, and she was a little nonplussed by my question. The Sparling County Law Enforcement Center housed the sheriff’s office, the town police, and the jail. In the world of SPACOLEC, detectives got their own little space with head-high carpeted dividers.