felt herself drift backward an inch or so as the entire bridge shifted. She and Eric proved that it could support two people. There was no way of knowing if it could handle a third.
“Get off the bridge!” she yelled. “It’s too much weight.”
Nick shuffled backward until he was once again on land. Eric moved backward, too, gripping Kat’s forearms and shimmying until she had enough space to pull herself up and out of the hole. When she heaved herself forward onto its surface, the bridge shifted again, this time in the opposite direction.
Kat got to her feet with Eric’s help. The bridge still felt wobbly as they crossed to solid ground, but she suspected the sensation was just her body, which was shaking uncontrollably. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. For the most part, she was unscathed. Other than her trembling body, the only sign of her close call was a streak of dirt across the front of her uniform. Kat tried to wipe some of it away as she turned back toward the bridge.
“Someone,” she said, “needs to take a chain saw to that thing.”
A half hour later, Kat was on the phone in her office. She was talking to a skeptical Burt Hammond about the danger posed by the bridge over Sunset Falls. The mayor, probably because he was still miffed about earlier that morning, wasn’t buying it.
“I understand your concern, Chief,” he said, “but that bridge has been closed for going on fifteen years now.”
“Putting a sawhorse in front of it isn’t the same as closing it. It needs to be demolished. I practically fell through the thing this morning.”
“Why were you on the bridge in the first place?”
It was a question Kat should have seen coming. But still rattled from the bridge incident, she hadn’t considered what the mayor would say once she called him. She only knew she couldn’t give him the real reason. Burt Hammond would consider that a waste of manpower.
“It doesn’t really concern you,” she said weakly. “But the condition of that bridge should concern everyone.”
“The town council and I will consider that.”
Which meant they wouldn’t consider it at all. In order to get any results, Kat needed to put it into terms the mayor could understand.
“If someone steps on the bridge and falls through it, he’ll most likely go over the falls,” she said. “If that happens, he’ll probably die and his family will sue the town. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want an expensive settlement on our hands.”
When Burt responded, it was with a subdued, “I hadn’t considered that.”
Kat couldn’t resist a smug smile of satisfaction. Her mission had been accomplished.
“I’m glad we agree on this matter,” she said. “Maybe it means we can agree on a police budget, too.”
Her smile faded when Burt said, “Considering all you’re asking for, I highly doubt that.” He then bid her a terse good-bye and hung up.
“Asshole,” Kat muttered.
Nick, who was sitting in front of her desk, looked up in surprise. “Was that for me or the mayor?”
“The mayor, of course.”
“I was just checking. You did slam a door in my face earlier today, although I think I deserved it.”
“You did deserve it,” Kat said. “But I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”
“Deal.”
Between them was a club sandwich and French fries picked up from the Perry Hollow Diner. Kat grabbed a quarter of the sandwich and nibbled off a corner. Nick practically inhaled a fry and grabbed the file on Charlie Olmstead, which they had retrieved from the basement. When he opened it, a tuft of dust rose from the pages.
He read the report with care, not skipping a single word. In all her years as a cop, Kat had never known such concentration existed until she met Nick Donnelly. When he investigated something, it was like a spell had been cast over him.
“This is interesting,” he said. “After Charlie vanished, your father questioned everyone on the street.”
“Including Glenn Stewart?”
“Yep. He said he went to bed at nine and missed all the commotion.”
“Convenient alibi,” Kat said.
“Speaking of alibis, Lee Santangelo also said he was home alone that night. His wife was out of town. But according to Maggie Olmstead, Mrs. Santangelo was also there. She saw her in an upstairs window.”
“What did Becky Santangelo have to say about it?”
Nick grabbed his own piece of club sandwich and chewed slowly, lost in thought. With his mouth full, he said, “That she was visiting her sister that night. The sister backed up her story. So did half a dozen other guests.”
“At least my father was thorough,” Kat said, grabbing a French fry, “although I doubt he ever imagined I’d be looking through one of his old police reports.”
“Your father didn’t write the report.”
Kat froze, the French fry drooping an inch from her mouth. “Who did?”
“Deputy Owen Peale. Know him?”
“No. But I know someone who most likely does.”
They left her desk and edged out of her office. Lou van Sickle sat at her workstation, chowing down on her own club sandwich. When Lou saw them approach, she instinctively covered her fries.
“What do you know about the Charlie Olmstead case?” Kat asked.
“That was forty-two years ago,” Lou said. “How old do you think I am?”
Kat called her bluff. “Old enough.”
Lou gave her the stink eye, which was reserved for occasions when she was especially pissed off. Still, she answered the question. “I know what everyone else does. It’s no great mystery what happened to him. Or is it?”
Kat loved Lou like family, even though she was the town’s gossip champion. There was no way she was going to tell Lou how they were investigating the Olmstead disappearance.
Nick, however, showed no such discretion.
“His mother thought he was kidnapped,” he blurted out. “And we want to talk to the deputy who wrote the report.”
Since she had already used the stink eye, Lou gave Kat a you-know-better-than-to-get-yourself-messed-up-in-this look. Kat had seen it many times before, most notably when she had started sleeping with the colleague who would later become her ex-husband. That time, Kat should have followed Lou’s silent advice. This time, she plowed ahead.
“His name was Owen Peale,” she said. “I didn’t know him, so he had to have stopped working here when I was very young.”
Lou
