Read Online Little Girls Lost by J. A. Kerley - Free Book Online Page B

don’t really know anything about that.”
    She said, “I touched my hand on a hot pan once…I picked it up and it hurt terrible…” She put her hands to her eyes and started crying.
    Sandhill scanned the street. Ted Spikes’s grocery was half a block away. “Would you like an ice cream, Jacy? We could head to Teddy’s. Does that sound good?”
    Tears poured down her cheeks. “Why would someone steal little girls and burn them? Did they feel the…”
    Sandhill swooped her into his arms and stood. “Ssssh. Don’t cry,” he said, wondering what the hell to do. Jacy tucked her face under Sandhill’s chin and wept softly, kitten sounds, her tears dropping hot on his neck. He pushed open the door of the restaurant and stepped inside, cool and dark and perfumed with spices.
    “It’ll be fine, Jacy,” he crooned. “I talked to a policeman yesterday and he said they’re doing real good in finding the bad person.”
    “Then how come the little girl got burned up?”
    Sandhill paused, closed his eyes; good question . “They’ll do better soon. It takes time to learn things.”
    “You could help look for the little girls. You could do that.”
    “There’s nothing I can do, Jacy. Only the police are allowed to investigate. It’s the rule.”
    Jacy squeezed Sandhill’s neck. “You don’t have rules. You can do anything you want. You’re a king.”
    She started sobbing. Sandhill carried her around the room for several minutes. He noted the time.
    “Hey Jacy, you ever turn on the lights in a restaurant?”
    She kept her face buried in his shoulder, shook her head.
    “Let’s go over here to the switches,” he said.“You can make the place come alive. Is that cool or what?”
    She nodded, sniffling, wiping away tears with her wrist. Sandhill held her to the wall switches. “Flip ‘em all up. Don’t be afraid.”
    She looked at him instead of the switches. “Can you help find the girls, Mr King? Please?”
    Sandhill closed his eyes.
    “I’ll see what I can do, Jacy. No promises, though.”
    She reached out and snapped the switches. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling sputtered awake. The sign hissed. Hummed. Flickered.
    Paused as if gathering force…
    The Gumbo King wrote itself large and red against the sky.
    Photos from the fire were spread across Ryder’s desk, companions to those tacked to the gray divider beside him. The pictures showed charred joists. Seared floors. Carbonized walls. Several shots centered on a small object that resembled a…Ryder didn’t want to think what it resembled; he had no words for it.
    Pressed against his desk was Harry Nautilus’s desk, its surface empty and desolate. Ryder looked away as his phone rang. Bertie Wagnall, the phone jockey, burped: “You got a call on four, Ryder. Some guy says he’s Henry the Fifth. The fifth what?”
    Ryder’s heart dropped a beat. “I got it, Bertie.”
    “Ryder, you got the weirdest friggin’ snitches.”
    Ryder punched the line and snatched the phone. Sandhill said, “It’s me, Detective Ryder. I’ll come by and look at the files late this morning. Pro bono.”
    Ryder’s shoulders slumped in relief.
    “Thanks, Sandhill.”
    “I’ve got one condition, Detective.”
    “Which is?”
    “I don’t want to see anyone above the rank of sergeant. Got that?”

14
    Sandhill stood in his apartment tying his tie for the third time, scowling at the mirror, trying to get the wide end longer than the skinny end. He hated leaving the simmering gumbos, fearful they’d suffer in his absence. Each was an act of precision balance, the fulcrum shifting daily and dependent on such factors as whether the shrimp were from the bay or the bluewater, the freshness of the thyme and heat of the cayenne, the pungency of the onions. Gumbo, that sensory explosion of sight and smell and gustatory overload, was, at heart, one of the subtlest of the kitchen’s creations, a struggle for harmony.
    He cursed and went at the tie a fourth time,