Deputy Presser wrote something in his tiny notepad. Dale noticed that the deputy’s fingers went white with the tension of holding the pen and that the fingers bent almost concave in the same too-tight way that some of his students at the university had held their pens while taking notes.

Dale cleared his throat. “I didn’t actually make the call,” he said. “I was. . . well, I sort of lost consciousness again when I got to the gas station. I just asked the night man there to call the police and then I sat down on the floor next to the frozen foods until your deputy arrived. Not Deputy Reiss. The other one.”

“Deputy Taylor,” said Deputy Presser.

“The sheriff’s not involved?” asked Dale. He had been relieved to the marrow of his bones when C.J. Congden had not responded to the call.

“No, sir,” said Presser. “The sheriff’s taken his family up to Chicago for the holidays. He’ll be back day after tomorrow. Did you say you knew the sheriff, Mr. Stewart?”

“A long time ago,” said Dale. “We went to school together. A long, long time ago.”

Deputy Presser looked up at this, then made a note in his notepad.

“Jesus Christ,” said Dale, shaking with fatigue and the aftereffects of shock, “aren’t you going to get some people to look for Michelle? Those. . . animals. . . might have dragged her anywhere. She could still be alive!”

“Yes, sir. Come daylight, we’ll have some folks out there. But tonight we’ve still got to get some things straight. You say she drove a white Toyota pickup truck?”

“A Tundra, I think,” said Dale. He looked up at the two deputies. “It must still be parked there at The Jolly. . . at the farm.”

“No,” said Presser. “When Deputy Taylor and Deputy Reiss here drove out to the old McBride place, there was no white pickup. No vehicle whatosever. . . except for your Toyota Land Cruiser, of course. Which started right up when Deputy Reiss tried it with the keys you gave him.”

Dale could only frown at the two men for a moment. “No pickup?” he said at last. “No other car?”

“No, sir,” said Deputy Presser, jotting notes again. “Are you sure you saw the vehicle you say Miz Staffney arrived in?”

“Yes,” said Dale. “Wait. . . no. I don’t remember seeing her truck yesterday. But. . . I mean. . . she had to have driven there, right? It’s too far to walk from town. . .” For a wild moment, Dale felt his heart hammering with hope. Michelle must have not been hurt too badly if she could have driven her truck away. Then he remembered the snarling and snapping of the hounds and his heart rate slowed, the surge of hope fading. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Did you check her house in town?”

“Yes, sir,” said Presser. “We checked the house you told us about. There’s no one there. No vehicle in the drive there, either.”

Dale breathed out and looked down at his hands where they lay as heavy and clumsy as poorly executed clay sculptures on his thighs. His chinos were filthy and spattered with his own blood.

“You say she arrived at the farmhouse in the daylight, though?” asked Deputy Presser.

“Late morning,” said Dale. “Or very early afternoon. I was sleeping late. She woke me. We started cooking the dinner shortly after she arrived.”

“And you never noticed what vehicle Miz Staffney arrived in?”

“No,” said Dale. He looked the young deputy in the eye. Then he turned his gaze on the younger deputy, who stared back while chewing his tobacco. “Look, I asked earlier, but neither of you answered. Did you find blood there? Torn clothing? Signs of a struggle?”

“We found blood where you hit the door,” said Deputy Reiss, moving the chaw aside with his tongue. “We found that sports jacket you talked about. It was all tore up, just like you said.”

“And Michelle? Was there any sign of. . . of the dog attack?”

Before the younger deputy could answer, Deputy Presser raised the notepad to silence him again. “Mr. Stewart, we’re going back out to the McBride place now, to look around again. We’d like your permission to search the house itself. Deputy Reiss there stood in the kitchen and shouted in to see if the lady was inside, peeked in a couple of rooms, but we’d like your permission to really search in the house. Could be, if she was hurt, she might be in there out of sight somewhere.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Dale, struggling to get up.

“No, sir, that’s probably not a good idea,” said Deputy Presser. “The doctor here says that it might be better, because of the knock on your head, if you stayed in the hospital until tomorrow noon or so for observation.”

“I’m going,” said Dale. He held on to the back of his chair, blinking away the dizziness that came with the waves of headache.

“Your call, Mr. Stewart,” said Deputy Presser. He and the other deputy led Dale through the empty ER, past the curious nurses and interns, and outside to where a Sheriff’s Department car idled in the driveway, its exhaust roiling up and surrounding them like fog.

Dale rode in the back of the cruiser and felt like a prisoner—wire mesh grille between him and the two silent deputies up front, no window or door handles in the back, and the stink of urine and desperation rising out of the ripped upholstery. Evidently even small counties like Oak Hill’s and Elm Haven’s had their problems. Dale felt his heart begin to pound heavily as they drove up the lane to The Jolly Corner, the dead trees gaunt at the edge of the headlights.

Deputy Taylor was waiting in his idling vehicle. For a minute the four men stood in the dark side yard, the three deputies talking softly among themselves while Dale’s gaze flicked repeatedly to the night-dark fields beyond the dim glow of the lights. “Could I have the keys?” he asked.

“Pardon?” said the deputy who had shown up at the KWIK’N’EZ hours earlier. Taylor was short and fat.

“Car keys,” said Dale. He took them from the deputy and crawled up into his Toyota SUV. The truck started immediately. Dale turned on the overhead light and found his cell phone where it had slipped down between the center console and the passenger seat. He thumbed its on switch, but the display showed the charge depleted. Dale slid the phone into his shirt pocket and joined the three deputies on the stoop. He was cold and shivering without a jacket.

The kitchen was just as he and Michelle had left it after dinner—dishes rinsed but piled on the counter, the apple pie cold next to the empty coffee cups. Dale remembered that Michelle had turned off the coffeemaker before they had gone upstairs.

Deputy Presser stepped over to the stove and pulled the Savage over-and-under shotgun from where it had been propped against the wall. He broke it open, removed the unfired.410 cartridge, and raised his eyebrows while looking at Dale.

“I kept the gun loaded because of the dogs,” said Dale.

“So you’d seen them dogs before,” said Deputy Reiss from where he stood looking into the empty dining room.

“I told you both that I’d seen the dogs before. Just never so. . . big.”

Deputies Presser and Reiss exchanged glances. Dale noticed that Presser had slipped the shotgun cartridge in his jacket pocket. He handed the weapon to Deputy Taylor, who remained standing by the outside door.

“I’m freezing,” said Dale. “I’m going to go downstairs to get a sweater.”

“We’ll come with you,” said Deputy Presser. To Taylor, he said, “Larry, you look in the rooms up here.”

The basement was, as always, warmer than the upstairs. Dale pulled a heavy wool sweater from his stack of clothes near the bed and slipped it over his head while the two deputies looked around the room, shining their flashlights behind the furnace and peering into the empty coal bin. Michelle was not hiding anywhere.

Upstairs again, Deputy Taylor reported that there was nothing on the first floor. Presser nodded and stepped into Dale’s study. “What’s that mean?” asked the deputy, pointing his heavy flashlight at the IBM ThinkPad’s screen.