Long lost

8

An organ blared as I opened the church's front door: a solemn hymn I didn't recognize. To the right of the vestibule, stairs led up to the choir loft. They creaked as I climbed them. It was shortly after noon. I'd been to eleven Protestant churches before this one. With only six more to go, I was losing hope.

The choir loft was shadowy except for a light above the organ. As the minister finished the hymn, in the gathering silence my echoing footsteps made him turn.

"Sorry to bother you, Reverend." I walked nearer, holding out the photograph. "The secretary at your office said that you were almost done getting ready for choir practice. I'm trying to find this man. I wonder if you recognize him."

Puzzled, the minister took the photograph, pushed his glasses back on his nose, and studied it.

A long moment later, he nodded. "Possibly."

I tried not to show a reaction. Even so, my heart hammered so loudly that I was sure the minister could hear it.

"The intensity of the eyes is the same." The minister put the photograph under the organ's light. "But the man I'm thinking of has a beard." He pointed toward my own.

Beard? I'd been right. He'd grown a beard to hide his scar. "Perhaps if you put your hand over the lower part of his face." I tried to sound calm, despite the tension that squeezed my throat.

The minister did so. "Yes. I know this man." He looked suspicious. "Why do you want to find him?"

"I'm his brother." I managed to keep my hand steady as I shook hands with the minister. "Brad De

"No. You're mistaken."

"Excuse me."

"De

I didn't know what struck me more, that Petey was using his own first name or that he'd taken the last name of the minister who'd wanted to adopt him after the fire. My stomach soured. "So he still won't use the family name."

The minister frowned. "What do you mean?"

My heart pounded harder. "We used to live around here. But a long time ago, Pete and I had a falling-out. One of those family arguments that cause such bad feelings, it splits the family apart."

The minister nodded, evidently familiar with what that kind of argument had done to some families in his congregation.

"We haven't spoken to each other in years. But recently, I heard that he'd come back to town. This was the church we used to go to. So I thought someone here might have seen him."

"You want to be reconciled with him?"

"With everything that's in me, Reverend. But I don't know where he is."

"I haven't seen him since…" The minister thought about it. "Last July, when Mrs. Warren died. Of course, he was at the funeral. And before that, the last time I saw him was… Oh, probably two years. I'm not even sure he's in town any longer."

"Mrs. Warren?"

"She was one of the most faithful in the congregation. Only missed one service that I can remember. When Pete showed up two years ago and volunteered to do handiwork for the church for free, Mrs. Warren took a liking to him. She was amazed by how completely he could quote Scripture. Tried to trick him several times, but he always won."

"That was my dad's doing, teaching Pete the Good Book."

"Well, your father certainly did an excellent job. Mrs. Warren finally offered him a handyman's job on her property. Our loss, her gain. When she missed that service I mentioned, I was convinced she must be sick, so I telephoned her, and I was right-she had a touch of the flu. The next time she came to church, Pete wasn't with her. She told me that he'd decided to move on."

"Yeah, Pete was always like that. But you say he was here for her funeral?"

"Evidently, he'd come back and was working as her handyman again. In fact, the way I hear it, she left her place to him."

"Her place?"

"Well, she was elderly. Her husband was dead. So were her two children. I suppose she thought of Pete as the closest thing she had to family."

"Sounds like a kind old lady."

"Generous to a fault. And over the years, as she sold off portions of the farm her husband had worked-it was the only way for her to survive after her husband died-she made sure to let eighty acres around her house go wild for a game preserve. Believe me, the way this town's expanding, we could use more people like Mrs. Warren to preserve the countryside."

"Reverend, I'd appreciate two favors."

"Yes?" He looked curious from behind his glasses.

"The first is, if you see Pete before I do, for heaven's sake don't tell him that we've spoken. If he knows I'm trying to see him, I'm afraid he'll get so upset that he might leave town."

"Your argument was that serious?"

"Worse than you can imagine. I have to approach him in the right way and at the right time."

"What's the second favor you want?"

"How do I find Mrs. Warren's place?"

9

Two miles along a country road south of town, I reached a T intersection. I steered to the left, and as the minister had described, the paved road became gravel. My tires threw up dust that floated in my rearview mirror. Tense, I stared ahead, hoping that I wouldn't see a car or a truck coming toward me. The countryside was slightly hilly, and at the top of each rise, I was afraid that I'd suddenly come upon an approaching vehicle and that he'd be driving it. Maybe he wouldn't pay attention, a quick glimpse of another driver, but maybe he paid attention to everything. Or maybe he wouldn't recognize me with my beard, but if he did, or if he recognized Kate's Volvo (Jesus, why hadn't I thought to bring another car?), I'd lose my chance of surprising him. I'd have even less chance of finding Kate and Jason.

Sweating, my shirt sticking to my chest, I saw the expanse of thick timber and undergrowth that the minister had said would be on my left. I passed a mailbox, a closed gate, and a lane that disappeared into the forest. Mrs. Warren's house was back there, the minister had said, where she could watch the deer, the squirrels, the raccoons, and the rest of what she'd called "God's children" roaming around the property. Relieved that I hadn't seen anybody and hence that no one had seen me, I kept driving, more dust rising behind me. At the same time, I couldn't help worrying that the reason I hadn't seen any activity was that Petey wasn't there, that he'd moved on. Petey. Yes.

Each X ray had shown a particular tooth with four roots that grew in distinctive directions. The child's had been smaller and less pronounced than the man's. Nonetheless, it hadn't been difficult to see that one had evolved into the other. Not that I'd relied on my opinion. Before going to the various churches, I'd made sure to be at a dentist's office when it opened. With cash I'd gotten from a local bank, I'd paid the dentist a hundred dollars to examine the X rays before he attended to his scheduled patients. He'd agreed with me: Man and boy-the X rays had belonged to the same person.

So there it was. The man who'd claimed to be my brother had told the truth. The FBI had been wrong. Lester Dant hadn't assumed Petey's identity. Petey had assumed Lester's. But that disturbing discovery settled nothing. The reverse. It prompted far more u

This was clear. After Petey had tricked the police into thinking that he was heading west through Montana, he'd taken Kate and Jason in the reverse direction-back to Woodford. Because he no longer had to lay a false trail by abandoning vehicles that he'd car-jacked, it wouldn't have been hard to avoid capture. All he had to do was carjack a vehicle that had a license for a distant state. The driver wouldn't have been expected for several days. By the time he or she was reported missing, Petey would have reached Mrs. Warren's property and hidden the car. Meanwhile, he'd have switched license plates several times and hidden the car owner's body somewhere along the interstate.