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request help from the media. We usually get the best response from local TV news.”
    “I’ve seen those stories about some poor old soul who wanders away from a nursing home in their PJs. I don’t think my father falls into that category.”
    “Something has obviously happened, Ms. Barton,” said Ray, standing up as well. “Your father’s unique style of dress will have put him on the radar of lots of people around here, even if they don’t know him. I think we should request help from the public. The media is always ready to cooperate.” Barton was silent for a few moments, staring at her hands, left over right on the conference table. She looked up at Ray. “Okay, let’s do it. What else?”
    Ray glanced at his watch. “I’d like to go over to your father’s house, with your permission and in your company, to have a quick look around, and then make sure the place is secure.”
    “Yes. Then what?”
    “First thing tomorrow morning, Sue Lawrence, our detective who does crime scene investigations, will carefully check your father’s house and the surrounding grounds to see if there’s anything that might give us a clue to his disappearance. I’ll also organize a search of the immediate area, starting with a tracking dog, and then a search team. Give me about five minutes to write a press release. I’ll send it out immediately, and later I’ll add his photo to a revised release. If it starts running on the eleven o’clock news tonight, we’ll be getting calls and e-mails from the public in the morning. How about your father’s dog?”
    “Big Al? I’ve got him in the car. He’s pretty frantic.”
    “What type of dog is he?”
    “He’s a papillon mix who thinks he’s a great Dane. He and Dad are so close, I can’t…” Her eyes suddenly overflowed with tears.

 
    5
     
     
     
    Starting her engine to get the heater going , Sue keyed 411 North Second Street, Sandville, into her GPS. When the map appeared on the screen, she pulled out onto the highway and headed south toward the sparsely part of the county. Simone, the Cairn terrier, roused herself from a fleece blanket and stood, her paws against the side window, peering out at the passing countryside.
    Cedar County was divided into four sectors by the department. The northern part is a wooded and rolling landscape with miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and many beautiful inland lakes—some quite large, some little more than puddles. Away from the resort areas, cherry and apple orchards and vineyards cover the gently undulating hills and valleys. The southeastern part of the county has neither the topography nor the fertile farmland that enables the rest of the county to prosper. Land that was briefly farmed after the end of the lumber era had lain fallow for almost a century. Scrubby forests of oak, pine, cedar, and maple slowly reclaimed the territory. Once flourishing villages became nothing more than crossroads –– deserted cemeteries and a few dilapidated buildings of a long-departed population. Of the hundreds of square miles in the department’s jurisdiction, only two deputies—road patrol officers—were routinely assigned to the southern sector.
    It took Sue less than twenty-five minutes to reach Sandville. She parked briefly on Main Street and looked around, comparing the data of the GPS with the current reality of the place. Her computer screen displayed a six-by-six grid of streets, the county line running down the center of six blocks of a paved two-lane road, also known as Main Street. From her parking spot, it appeared that the only houses remaining were in the most central area of the town. The largest structure was a vacant, two-story cinderblock building. Two display windows, one of which had duct tape running along the lines of a bad fracture, faced the deserted street. The window in the entrance was boarded over with a piece of plywood, the blackening top layers delaminating at the edges. Across the street was another