Free A Witness Above by Andy Straka

from trying to help your daughter.”
    “That's decent of you.” I meant it.
    “I got to tell you though, I've got another problem. And you coming up with that body right now doesn't exactly help.”
    “Oh?”
    “We had Dewayne Turner in custody the night before he disappeared, a few weeks back. … Picked him up for loitering.”
    I wondered if they'd strong-armed Turner the way they did the kid in Cahill's the other night.
    “Turner used to be a player in the drug trade around here. Served some juvie time when he was still a minor. Some folks are saying he got churched, that he hadn't been dealing for awhile, but I'm not so sure I buy into all that. Anyway, we didn't find anything on him that night. Questioned him but we had to turn him loose.”
    “Where's your problem then?”
    “Problem is, we can't find anyone who saw him again after he left our jail.” He stared at me for a long hard second.
    “Which leaves you trying to explain why a black teenager, last seen in your custody, disappears and eventually turns up dead a hundred miles away.”
    “You got it. What's worse. Turner's older brother is a newspaper reporter. Already threatening to bring in the NAACP to investigate and God knows who else.”
    So the Affalachia County Sheriffs Department had a public relations problem. Unless the sheriff wasn't laying all his cards on the table either. Maybe there was a cover up. Maybe Cowan was the dirty one. Maybe we were just two dirty guys together.
    “How did you arrest Nicole?”
    “That was different. Call came in on the Crimeline yesterday. You know, one of these deals where we offer a reward for information and all. ‘Cept this caller wanted to stay anonymous. Nothing unusual about that. A male. Claimed he knew where somebody was hiding a stash of powder. Said the Pavlicek girl had it in her car, a red BMW convertible. Inconspicuous, right?”
    “So you stopped her.”
    “Of course. But not before she give us a good chase. Doin’ about ninety. We figure she must have panicked. Deputies pulled her over outside her mama's place. Found the coke under one of the wheel wells.”
    “How much?” I said.
    “Couple of keys.”
    “Decent dollars.”
    “Yeah. And your daughter ain't exactly known to be desperate for money.” He looked at me skeptically. “How about you?”
    “I'm not broke, but I might have a hard time scraping up enough to finance a couple keys of coke on a moment's notice.”
    “Uh-huh.” Cowan stood. Now that we were buddies, he turned and surveyed the night view out his window. “You want to know something? That girl of yours has had a better chance than most around here to make something of herself. Her stepdaddy, you know—nothing personal now, Frank—he was like a rock for that kid. But you take George Rhodes out of the equation …”
    “Sounds like you know the family well.”
    He shrugged, sat down again and put his big black walking shoes up on the desk. “ ‘Bout as well as I know everybody around here, I guess.” The ail-American cop thing again. “Your little girl's been hanging with the wrong crowd, I can tell you that.”
    “Anyone in particular?”
    “Turner for one. That kid was trouble. I don't care what those church people say. There's a girl too, a year or two older than yours. Name's Regan Quinn. We've busted her for possession a couple times. Went to high school with Nicole but never finished. Works down to the White Spade now.”
    “I know the Spade.” Quinn must have been the young woman talking with Nicole the other night.
    He shrugged. “Some things don't change.”
    “Nicole been arraigned yet?”
    He shook his head. “Still trying to piece our facts together.”
    “How about a lawyer? Her mother hire one?”
    “Right,” he said. “Shelton Radley. I believe he also handled George's estate.”
    Shelton Radley had been practicing law in Leonardston for over thirty years, had been George Rhodes's attorney. He was honest, as far as I knew. Except