The Cedar Abbey
by Ed Lynskey
When the thunderstorm slammed into them, Sharon Knowles had just hung up her cell phone. Captain MacSorley and she were seated in her 1990 Nova parked just behind the shelter. 
"Is Becky coming?" Tension deepened MacSorley’s already craggy scowl. 
Lightning flashing before their eyes, Sharon let the peal of thunder crash and fade to a dull rumble. "She just got off work and will bring the Australian shepherd. I told her we'd wait."
Ropes of rain lashed the windshield. Sharon put on the wipers. Beyond them, white river rapids thrashed over black rocks. Behind them, the old canal gathered some of the run-off.
"That one called Argus?" MacSorley wanted to know. "The dog experienced from Oklahoma City?"
Sharon nodded. "He's Becky's best trained canine. What don't you try and relax? At least give them a chance to show what they can do."
MacSorley cracked his window. The air was twenty degrees cooler. "Sorry if I'm grumpy. This field work is more taxing than I remember it being."
"Your chose to come," Sharon pointed out. "One of your detectives could've handled this with me."
MacSorley jutted his jaw an inch. "Nope," he said. "Any case involving kids I'll be in the thick of. Maybe I've lost a step or two, maybe I'm long in the tooth, but I can sure as blazes still investigate a crime scene."
"We haven't established this is a crime scene," said Sharon. "All we have is a child missing for thirty-two hours who was last seen in this vicinity."
MacSorley's features clouded with strong dark emotion. "Call it an ugly hunch, but I'm resigned to expect the absolute worst occurred here. Becky's canine will only confirm it."
"Then I'll dissent," said Sharon, "and hope for the absolute best." 
MacSorley arched a gray, bristly eyebrow. "I regret the day you ever earned a P.I. license and left my department."
"But you know my help is always a phone call away," Sharon said.
"That's my god-daughter in you talking," he said. A pride underlay the declaration.
They sat in silence, waiting and watching the drench pound the trees and ground. Sharon let the wipers scrape back and forth. If need be she'd fire up a perimeter of pine knot torches and work through the night. MacSorley was anchored by the same mindset. Her knees throbbed from hiking and stooping. Blisters pocked her feet. She could only imagine how MacSorley, twenty-five years her senior, was holding up. 
"Run the details again," said MacSorley.
"Amber Peabody, age 9. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Petite frame. Wore a 'Virginia Is For Lovers' T-shirt, denim shorts, and red KEDS sneakers. Her mother was a traffic fatality last October. Drunk driver. Amber likes playing in the woods. Teachers say she's an introvert, something of a loner."
"Set the stage for how Amber's father claims it went down. They first arrive here." MacSorley's head gestured at the shelter, an open lean-to with a flat tarpaper roof supported by four cedar post columns. A picnic table was underneath it. All around them was a white natural sand.
Sharon continued the thread. "Her dad breaks out a rod and reel, casts and catches a few bass, somehow forgets about Amber. She wanders away, never returns."
MacSorley flew his door wide. "Let's stretch. I think better on my feet anyway."
They strode around to stand at the front grill. The rain had slackened. With wet hair plastered to her head, Sharon was a bipedal muskrat. Despite the olive drab Army poncho, her clothes were soaked through. Nothing eaten since breakfast, hunger clawed her ribcage. Fatigue helped to dent its fervor. None of this bothered her much. A girl had been missing for thirty-two hours. MacSorley and she were back where they'd started from. Time was slipping away. MacSorley was a good, tough cop. His Black Irish moods, however, often left him too pessimistic, too unimaginative, and too enraged. 
MacSorley drew out his 9 mil, ejected its magazine, wiped off both pieces with his handkerchief. They were left no drier but busy hands distracted his mind overheating with possible scenarios. He established eye contact with her. "Sharon, pretend you're nine-year-old Amber. I’ll play her dad."
"I've just arrived on site, excited to spend time with you," said Sharon. "We've been talking the whole way. Spirits are high. The day is sunny and warm."
"Right. Except I know thunderstorms are forecasted and I crave to get some fishing in. Now what happens?"
Sharon imagined what ensued. "You order me to stick close by, don't goof off near the water. After a while, I grow bored with watching you fish. The river is off-limits, so I'm compelled to search elsewhere for amusement."
MacSorley's extended arm swept 180 degrees, ended up indicating the canal. "You hike this way. Okay, how about this? I loose my temper, flip out, and tee off on you."
Sharon said, "I hope you're wrong. Let's check the canal again."
They went over and climbed the steep bank. At the top, they halted. A green scummy water stagnated in the deepest channel. Raindrops plopped off overhanging branches. The pecky smell of decayed wood pricked their noses. A blue jay squawked overhead.
"This is where I keep hitting the wall," said MacSorley. "Where does a nine-year-old girl now disappear? The canal is virtually without water. Look. No footprints, no disturbed mud, no trail of any kind. Nothing."
Just then, the cell phone on Sharon's belt beeped. She answered, presented the phone to MacSorley whose hardening face shot adrenaline through her midsection. Her fingers and toes tingled. One of the search-and-rescue teams had happened across something.
"That was the state database in Richmond. Amber's father has a criminal record." MacSorley clipped the next words. "Sexual assault on a minor."
Sharon re-secured the cell phone. "Don't share with me what you're thinking. I'm getting the same vibes. And they're not very pretty."
MacSorley lifted his sore gaze across the canal excavated in the 1830s for transport, then was obsolete a few years later by the advent of railroad and steam engine. "I know this is the hot zone. Now I'm forced to rely on this flea-bitten mutt to corroborate it."
"Okay, loose that lousy attitude." Sharon spoke while guiding MacSorley by the elbow back down. "Here comes Becky. Remember, she's does this on her own time, her own resources. She never earns a dime."
"Great," said MacSorley. "Nancy Drew the amateur sleuth and Rin Tin Tin. Mother of Mercy help us."
"You'll look ridiculous eating crow," Sharon tried to joke.
MacSorley grinned a curved slash. "I only eat my crow with a pinch of salt, girl." 
The van Becky piloted next to the Nova was battered and wobbled on a bad suspension. Becky yanked on the emergency brake, swung out sturdy boots, and hopped to the sand. Sharon and she embraced, patted each other's backs. MacSorley, not as familiar with Becky, shook hands, his monosyllabic grunts intended to sound enthusiastic if not grateful.
"Off the bat, we're contending with a double whammy," said Becky. A few inches shorter than Sharon, she was stouter and put herself across as no nonsense. She packed a sidearm, a .32. She also wore a dark shirt, britches tucked into those black leather boots. Sharon noticed MacSorley, after sizing up these aspects, surrendered a little of his outward hostility.
"How do you mean, double whammy?" asked Sharon.
Becky undid the rear double doors, unlatched a wire buffer. A robust shepherd dog pounced out, paced off leash about them, primed to work. "Today's heat radiated the scent up into the air. Then the showers flattened the scent."
MacSorley muttered something unintelligible.
"Captain MacSorley," Sharon said, "meet Argus, ace cadaver dog."
Becky said, "I beg to differ about the ace designation. We've enjoyed modest success. To date, as a tandem, we've notched 13 finds. Intact bodies to scattered parts to bone fragments."
"Can you sic Argus to sniff out along the canal?" asked MacSorley. “That’s where I think little Amber is buried.” He gave Becky Amber's floppy hat to imprint the target scent. 
"Captain, please exercise patience and restraint." Sharon's mocking tone tried to lighten the mood.
"I don't mind scouting from there," Becky said. "Sweep across to the river. Sharon gave me the particulars over the phone. Let's have at it." She directed the dog to the canal. "Argus, seek! Seek!"
The Australian shepherd, obeying her command, dashed off. Chest thrown forward, tail twitching straight up like a whip aerial, Argus didn’t let up. His nose traveled a few inches over the ground. Back and forth he tramped, intent to zero in on the desired scent. MacSorley, hands on hips, boots planted apart, surveyed the shepherd's movements. Not too shabby, he thought. The search dog reminded him of a blue tick hound scaring out rabbits and quail to nail at hunting season. 
From the corner of his mouth, MacSorley spoke to Sharon, "I hate to say this, but I'm praying that pooch doesn't signal a positive hit."
Breathless, Sharon straightened the poncho. "I had another thought." 
"What?"
"Maybe we're dealing with a runaway."
"The girl escapes. The pervert dad can't chase her down. We do the legwork. Reunited, he has another opportunity." MacSorley nodded, not hopeful. "Could be, could be. Except I'll block any kind of father-daughter reunion." 
Argus scanned the tangled slope. Anxious looks stayed affixed on the dog. It panted, eyes bright and eager to please. Becky urged Argus to press on and locate the telltale scent. The three investigators started to ford the canal, the soft ooze sucking their feet up to the ankles. A retch-worthy stench sailed up their nostrils.
"After mucking through this gunk," said MacSorley, "that cur had better made it worth my while."
Stopping, Sharon crouched at the knees, shaded her eyes with a hand. "See . . . through that sassafras bush. See it?"
Bent over, MacSorley followed her astonished gaze. Further up around a bend, a sycamore log had fallen across the canal. 
The dog veered out of the canal bed, deviated to the log bridge. In a ragged queue, they tagged along. Becky folded up the leash in her hand. "Work, Argus!" she said. "Atta boy. Go, now, go. Work it."
On the opposite side, they invaded the second growth forest dissipating to a stand of ancient cedars. The smell here was tangy and green. Bark peeled off cedar trunks like snake skins shed in dry, lank strips. Their footfall was hushed on moist, mushy needles. The late afternoon sun was blotted by the dense cedar boughs above them. A sharp chill circuited through Sharon's backbone about the same time MacSorley hoisted out his 9 mil.
Barking, Argus grew agitated dodging between the trees. "He's excited," said Becky. "We have to hurry to stay up with him. He's on to something."
They trotted up a gradual ridge, gasping for breath. Becky shouted, "Argus, heel!" The search dog loped half-way down the far flank of the ridge, barking and growling. Becky, Sharon, and MacSorley scuttered over large stones to crest the ridge. Without stopping, they scrambled down to a cedar huge and old as a dinosaur. Argus yelped again, its paws scratching the earth. At the cedar's front, Sharon discovered a crevice. The trunk was hollow. 
Sharon poked her head through, spotted a small girl curled up asleep on a pallet of dried soft moss. Candy bar wrappers were strewn around her. The air was warm, the space snug. Aromatic fragrance of the cedar tree's heartwood was intoxicating and restful. The girl wore a T-shirt and denim shorts. She also had on a pair of red KEDS sneakers.
"Captain! Becky!" shouted Sharon. "Our wayward little girl has been found."
Later on the way down the rutty, narrow lane, Sharon jounced along behind Becky's van. Amber rode with her four-legged rescuer. Muttering, MacSorley was brushing dried mud from his pants cuff. Sharon reached to the gear console, plucked up something, and dropped it in MacSorley's lap.
MacSorley blinked at three salt packets. “What’s this for?”
Sharon laughed. "For when you eat that crow." 
THE END