Free The Shadow's Edge by Patrick Dakin

involve Callie.
                  “Croop,” Jessup continued, “has been absent since yesterday, the very time your wife was reported as missing. He was found within six hundred yards of where we found her abandoned vehicle. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how this looks.”
                  Obviously Croop’s car and Miles’ pickup were accounted for, leaving Callie on foot. “But if Callie’s involved, where is she?” I wondered.
                  “A fair question,” Jessup responded. “One possible answer is in Mitch Fuller’s pickup. He and his vehicle are also missing.”
                  Before I could begin to process what this might mean a Virginia State Trooper knocked on Jessup’s office door and then opened it. “Our people at the scene just phoned to say they’ve found some evidence we should see. We’re heading back out there now.”
                  “I’ll be right behind you,” Jessup replied.
                  “Can I come with you, Chief?” I asked.
                  “No,” he said sharply. “It’s a murder scene. In case you need reminding, you are no longer a police officer.” Then he pointed a finger at me. “And you are not to go anywhere but the hotel until I get back.” He hurried out, leaving me to ponder events on my own.
                  What the hell was going on?
                  Callie could be another victim. She could be the perpetrator. Or neither.
     
                  I was in my hotel room about an hour later, attempting without success to make sense of the little I had so far learned about events out on Thornhill Road, when I heard a hard knocking at the door followed by a stern voice calling out, “Maine State Police.”
                  When I opened the door two very large uniformed officers stood there with their hands poised near their holsters. “Mr. Parmenter?” the one on the right said.
                  “Yes.”
                  “Come with us please.”
                  This didn’t sound quite right. “Am I under arrest?”
                  “We’ve been told to bring you to the Colville Police Department. That’s all.”
                  “So I’m not under arrest?”
                  “Sir,” the cop on the left said, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which is it going to be?”
                  Both these guys looked like they could qualify as offensive linemen on a pro football team.
                  I chose the easy way.
                 
                  I was delivered to a Maine State Police Sergeant named Terese Manochet who was waiting for me in Chief Jessup’s private office. Manochet was a fiftyish, confident type who did not believe in wasting time or words. She was leaning against Jessup’s desk and I sat facing her while the two troopers stationed themselves directly behind me.
                  “Okay, Mr. Parmenter,” she said, “we need to verify something. Where exactly were you between 10 a.m. and noon yesterday?”
                  This whole process was pissing me off to a huge degree but I knew better than to let it show. The best way to deal with these people was to answer their questions quickly, honestly, and without rancor. “I was on a Greyhound bus out of Augusta from approximately 10:15 a.m. until it arrived here in Colville at … I believe approximately 11:45. When I got off the bus I walked to Mollie’s Diner where I had lunch. I finished in about twenty minutes. A waitress named Kat served me who I’m sure will be able to confirm this.”
                  Manochet stared intently at me during my response. “Do you have a bus ticket stub we could see?”
                  Ticket stubs were not the kind of thing