City of Shadows

Chapter 46

7 October 2001, Harcourt, Ohio

Sheriff Marge McDormand cradled the mug of green tea in both hands as she stared at the computer screen in front of her.

‘Hell of a crazy world,’ she muttered to herself.

‘What’s that, Marge?’

‘Nothing, Jerry,’ she replied. She looked past the computer at her husband, sitting in the desk opposite hers. ‘And it’s “Sheriff” during office hours, my dear.’

Jerry pulled a biro out of his mouth and sighed. ‘It’s not enough I’m your office boy?’

‘The term is “Deputy”, hon… and that’s only until we can find someone else to stand in.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’m sure we’ll find someone soon. Then you can go back to being a kept man.’

She looked back at the screen. Quiet day in Harcourt. She’d done her rounds this morning. Nothing much to write up. A stolen car dumped outside Gary’s Bar. No harm done to it other than the driver’s-side window forced and the steering column’s plastic hood broken to jack the ignition. That and giving Henry Learry — the town drunk — a lift in the squad car back home to his anxious wife. Marge had found him fast asleep behind the wheel of his truck after a night binge-drinking, still way too soaked to be trusted to drive the thing home safely.

Those were the sort of things that Marge dealt with day to day. The occasional problem with kids breaking into and messing around in the abandoned factories, the occasional domestic dispute, the occasional kitty stuck up a tree. That was it. Police work in Harcourt.

Suited her. She was far too old to be dealing with real crime. She carried a firearm on her hip, but in five years as sheriff here she’d yet to unpop the leather flap of her holster in the course of doing her job.

Which was just fine.

The morning’s breakfast round had ended up as it always did at the diner where she’d got into the habit of picking up a take-out coffee and doughnut for Jerry and a green tea for herself. The Williams girl, Kaydee-Lee, usually served her and kept her there talking about everything and nothing for five minutes longer than it took to serve up the order.

That poor young girl’s so lonely.

Marge wondered why on earth she stayed in Harcourt. This place was a town with a past, not a future: a glorified departure lounge for an ageing population that seemed to shrink by a couple of dozen every harsh winter.

This morning, though, Kaydee-Lee had had some company. A disarmingly pleasant young man with an interesting accent and charmingly old-fashioned manners. For some reason Marge thought he was Canadian until she got back in the car and placed his accent. Irish. The pair of them seemed to be getting on like old buddies. Thick as thieves.

That girl needed someone in her lonely life. And the young man seemed to be a nice enough find.

Good for you, girl.

Marge sipped her tea and returned to her routine of grazing through news websites and the state police intranet pages. The world really seemed to have gone quite mad in the wake of that terror attack in New York. The President was busy banging a drum for the whole world to go to war with Iraq for some reason. Even though there was evidence surfacing that the terrorists had mostly come from Saudi Arabia.

Go figure.

And what about those guys in Afghanistan? What were they called? Tally-something? Jerry kept calling them the Telly — Tallies. Like those children’s characters on TV. Weren’t they more likely involved in attacking the Twin Towers than this Saddam Hussein fellow over in Iraq?

Marge shook her head. Americans were quite rightly angry. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were grieving for loved ones right now, but now was surely not the best of times to be making big decisions like who to go to war with.

The boys want a war. She sighed again. And they’ll get their war sure enough.

She clicked to close the MSNBC news page and then pulled up the state police bulletin page. It featured the usual day-to-day bumph, plus the now obligatory daily notices on the current terror threat level. Today it was, as it was yesterday and the day before: RED — SEVERE. Beside the colour-coded alert was a reminder for all law-enforcement personnel to be vigilant for ‘suspicious activities and persons’.

Marge was always alert for suspicious activities and persons. It was — well duh, excu-u-use me — her job anyway! She found the notice vaguely patronizing. It would be like telling young Kaydee-Lee to make a special effort not to pour scalding coffee over the head of the next customer she served.

Grating her teeth, she dutifully scanned the rest of the page then hit the link to the FBI’s ViCAP site. The Bureau were featuring front and centre a rogues’ gallery of Most Wanteds. Two dozen mugshots, a fair number of them dark-skinned and sporting dark Santa Claus beards large enough to lose a small dog in.

‘Nope,’ she muttered, ‘not seen any of you types skulking around here in Harcourt… nor you… nor you, Mr Osama bin Laden, nor you, Mr Manuel Caraccus.’ She clicked on the link for the second page of the gallery.

‘Nor…’ And stopped mid-mutter. She was looking at a face she’d seen just ten minutes ago.

Jerry heard her suck in her breath. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk. ‘Given yourself another paper cut, Marge?’ He noticed her wide eyes, her glasses reflecting the pale glow of the computer screen, the styrofoam cup held midway between the desk and her mouth, which now hung open, not making a sound — a rare event in itself.

‘You OK over there, Marge?’