Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

“ CAN YOU PLEASE let me drive?” begged Poe.

“That’s not happening,” said the driver.

“Well, then, at least push it! This is an emergency!”

Poe and Marple sat in the back of the courtesy limo as it made its way north from the city. The chauffeur had been expecting a simple return trip to Brooklyn. Instead, they’d commandeered him and his vehicle for a mission to rural Putnam County, more than an hour out of his way.

“Don’t worry,” said Marple. “We’ll pay the extra charges.”

Poe heard the driver mutter under his breath. “Damn right.”

As the enormous Lincoln got up to speed, Marple plumbed her iPad for any information on the incident. Police feeds. Social media. FBI threads. “Nothing,” she said. “How did your source find out about this?”

“Margaret,” said Poe, “you know I can’t give away all my secrets.” He looked out the window as the scenic Hudson Valley rolled by. Poe considered Marple and Holmes his closest friends in the world. He trusted them with his life. But there were still select pockets of information he kept to himself. Bank accounts. Safe houses. And contacts who could be trusted to feed him information about crimes minutes after they were committed.

In some ways, he rationalized, his secrecy was for their protection. It gave them plausible deniability in case he ever needed to go rogue. Besides, there might come a time when he’d need to disappear altogether, and for that he would need his own private network. People only he knew.

The car turned off the main road onto a narrow two-lane. “Up there!” Poe called out to the driver.

The GPS coordinates had led them to the middle of nowhere. Brown farm fields ran off in every direction, interrupted here and there by a patch of green or a thin stand of trees.

Poe knew from his on-the-road research that the nearest town was Tompkins Corners, population 9,000—about the same as the number of people who lived in a single Manhattan block. He’d been told to look for law enforcement in this spot, and his intelligence was correct. There was a lone police car blocking the road straight ahead, and two young officers standing in the road.

When the massive stretch pulled to a stop near the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office unit, the two officers bent down to peer through the tinted windows.

The driver craned his neck around. “What’s going on? What are we doing here?”

“Relax,” said Marple, patting the back of his seat. “Enjoy the scenery.”

Poe turned to Marple. “Welcome to the country,” he said. “I think the last time these guys saw a limo was on prom night.”

“Be nice,” said Marple. “If you treat them like rubes, we’ll get nowhere.”

As Poe and Marple exited the car, another local police unit pulled up, lights flashing. A female officer and her male partner climbed out. The woman gave Poe and Marple a quick once-over. Then the limo.

“Kardashians in town?” she asked.

Marple held out her private investigator’s ID. Poe did the same. He decided to let Marple do the talking.

“I’m Margaret Marple. This is my partner Auguste Poe. We’re private investigators from New York, working a kidnapping case. Six babies went missing from a Manhattan hospital almost three nights ago.”

One of the cops from the first car spoke up. “Well, what we’re missing here is a school bus. Not babies. Third graders.”

“How many kids?” asked Poe.

“Five,” said the female cop. “Plus the bus driver. They were near the end of the run.” She stood with her legs apart, hands on her hips. Power stance. She jutted her chin out as she spoke. “How’d you two find out about this so fast, all the way down in the city?”

Suddenly, the country air filled with the sound of sirens. Everybody looked to the south. A pair of state trooper SUVs appeared over a crest, bracketing an unmarked blue sedan. They pulled to a stop on the other side of the road. The sedan door whipped open.

Poe groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding…”

Captain Graham Duff crossed the road in three long strides and stopped in front of the two PIs. “How in the name of hell did you two get here first?” he asked.

Marple smiled. “In case you haven’t heard, Captain, we’re very good at what we do.”

Poe looked across the road to see if Helene Grey was in any of the vehicles. She wasn’t. He felt partly guilty, partly ashamed, and partly relieved. He wasn’t quite ready to face her yet.

Duff turned to the quartet of local cops. “Graham Duff, NYPD,” he said. “Whatever information you have to share about this case, you share it with me.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Marple and Poe. “And whatever you do, keep them away from the parents.” Poe wasn’t surprised at Duff’s final dig. “Folks up here can’t afford them anyway.”