Free Chasing Amanda by Melissa Foster Page A

with a boy’s mind.”
    “That’s what I’ve heard, sort of,” she offered.
    “He wasn’t retarded, not that we could tell anyway. It seemed he was just slow. He would talk slow, move slow, he even thought slow, taking sometimes ten minutes before he would answer questions, but when he answered, he was, or he seemed, one hundred percent certain of his answers.”
    “Did anyone in the community have trouble with him before Kate Plummer went missing?” Molly asked.
    “No, no, not really.” As he shook his head, his chin jiggled. “Never heard much about the boy.” Detective Brown looked thoughtful. “It wasn’t till the Plummer case that we had any trouble with him.” He looked away, then back at Molly, “But then again, they never do appear dangerous, now, do they?”
    Molly shrugged noncommittally.
    Officer Brown continued, “But he knew the details about little Kate Plummer, that’s for sure.”
    “Do you think he heard someone else talking about it, or that there could have been some other explanation?” she asked.
    He gave her a stunned look. “He did it. He took that little girl and killed her.” He stared at Molly until she became uncomfortable and looked down.
    Molly bristled at the coldness of his words, and began to feel sick to her stomach. The body of six-year-old Amanda—
    “Pastor Lett,” he let out a little laugh, “she was really something. She kept insisting that Rodney had some sort of sixth sense.”
    The hair on the back of Molly’s neck stood on end. She gathered her courage and reminded herself that Amanda was not Tracey. “Sixth sense?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. It sounded like a load of horse manure to me. You know, the older sister trying to save the younger brother type of thing.” He looked around the room, fidgeted as if he were getting tired of the conversation. He leaned back in his chair, which Molly was sure would send him flying backwards, but it didn’t, and said, “The guy didn’t really have an alibi, either, if I remember correctly. I think he said he was at home when Kate was taken. I don’t remember anyone being able to corroborate that story for him.” He sighed heavily, “People came to fear him very quickly.”
    Molly readjusted her position, feeling as though she wanted to run out of the room, cover her ears, and forget the whole thing, but Officer Brown’s voice reeled her back in.
    “Pastor Lett found him that night and took his body to Delaware before we could even file a formal report. Said she was too upset to wait for the medical examiner to come by. Said she couldn’t take all of the red tape anymore.” He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. “She was gone within minutes of the phone call to the police, far as we could tell. She called later that evening, saying they were burying her brother the next morning and apologizing for taking off so quickly.”
    “She must have been upset, but isn’t there some protocol for such an event? I mean if he was killed, then wasn’t there a murder investigation?” Molly asked.
    “Yes, indeedy, there was. We searched the house, dusted for prints and all, and came up with nothing more than a broken window in the rear, which is how we think the murderers got in. We found boot prints in the house, several, in fact. Farm boots, the type that all the men in these parts wear. There were no solid leads. It sort of died out. In fact, people were happy to have closure at that point, and the Wilmington Police Chief followed up with the Lett family on their end.”
    “But, Kate, what happened to her?” she spoke quickly, wanting answers faster than he could give them.
    “Well, we continued the search for her. Took his clues, in fact, of a dark cold place. We searched the woods, crevices at Sugarloaf Mountain, trails, and boroughs. We found nothing at all. After a few weeks, we all assumed she was gone—dead, I mean—and that he had disposed of her. The case on