The Names of Our Tears by P. L. Gaus Page A

and buggy tracks, showing either their overall pattern or close-up detail, followed by photos Niell had made as Lance poured a rubber mold into the depressions made by the Humvee treads.
    Robertson stood silently and watched the display on the wall behind Newell. When the captain had finished his first pass through the photos, Robertson stood straight in the doorway and said, “Good work,” nodding to both Niell and Lance. He turned to the captain and said, “Bobby, you let me know if there’s anything on the first memory card that isn’t duplicated here.”
    Then he motioned to Niell and Lance, pulled them out into the hallway, and said, “Ricky, I need a report from Missy. It’ll be preliminary, and she won’t want to give us much detail yet, but get what you can from her, and come back here.”
    Niell acknowledged his orders and left.
    To Lance, Robertson said, “Pat, I want you to show up at the Zook farm about six or six thirty this evening. Ask a lot of questions, and try to get the grandfather—Alvin—to tell us more of what he knows.”
    Lance hesitated. “I don’t know, Sheriff. Old Order Amishmen don’t care at all for women detectives.”
    “Oh really?” Robertson smiled.
    Lance studied the sheriff’s expression and said, “Of course, you knew that.”
    Robertson nodded. “I’ll be coming out myself, about an hour after you get there. So call when you first arrive. I want to question the father and the grandfather
after
you’ve gotten them nervous. Or maybe a little resentful.”
    “Why do you want them resentful?” Lance asked.
    “I want them to be relieved to have a man asking the questions, Lance. I think I’ll learn more, once they’re happy to be finished with a woman in charge.”
    “You’d exploit a stereotype?”
    “Of course. It is what it is, Lance. They’ve been like this for decades, maybe centuries.”
    “What do you think you’ll learn?”
    “I think someone out there knows more about this. I don’t buy it that Ruth Zook came home after two months in Florida and didn’t speak to anyone at all.”
    *   *   *
    Once Lance had left, Robertson stepped back into Newell’s office and eased himself onto a sturdy wooden chair. Newell was still clicking through crime-scene photos. Robertson watched for a while, studying Newell’s expression.
    The captain was solid in build. For most of his adult life, he had trained in his spare time as a bodybuilder. Then, in retirement, he had worked to take off the extra weight that he had carried in competition. He had two grown children living in Columbus, but after his wife died of breast cancer, he hadn’t had much contact with them. Several years earlier he had taken retirement, ostensibly to devote himself to his sport, but after little more than a year, Newell had begun showing up in the sheriff’s office, asking about jail business, patrols, old cases, and personnel. When Robertson had offered him the position in the fall as captain of detectives, Newell had taken the post gladly. Robertson had thought all along that Newell’s retirement wouldn’t last.
    Now Captain Newell sat facing the sheriff in his new office, the defined muscles in his neck, shoulders, and arms straining the fabric of his white shirt. He wore his usual attire, a plain blue tie, loosened, with the collar of his shirt unbuttoned, and black slacks that matched a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses that greatly magnified his brown eyes for anyone standing in front of him. His brow was heavy, and his chin was squared under thin lips and a Roman nose. In build, temperament, and command style, he was the antithesis of the heavy and mercurial sheriff. In his devotion to law enforcement, though, Newell was the sheriff’s equal.
    “Bobby,” Robertson said eventually, “you think we’re right about this?”
    Newell looked up from his monitor. “That she brought drugs up here from Florida?”
    “Yes, but I mean that she didn’t want to do it. Or at least