Free The Psalmist by James Lilliefors

himself on a corner of her work station, breathing audibly as he looked on impassively. Stamps was a large, square-­shouldered man with pale skin. The whole Stamps family was tall and fair. His two girls were sports stars at Tidewater High.
    â€œHuh,” he said afterward. He stood. “Kind of weak, isn’t it?”
    â€œWell, we don’t know yet.”
    â€œTell me about it again.”
    â€œWhich part?”
    He nodded once at her computer monitor. Often, Stamps’s eyes glazed over as ­people explained things, but he registered the general topic so he could circle back if necessary and ask them to tell him “again.”
    Together, they watched the man pulling out the nozzle and ducking his head away.
    â€œHe looks familiar, somehow,” Hunter said.
    â€œHe does.” Stamps sighed ambiguously. At the door, he turned. “Oh, and say, have you done anything with those numbers yet? The numbers on her hand?”
    â€œNot yet.” She raised her eyes to his. The sheriff, no doubt, had briefed him on it. “We may send them to other agencies this afternoon or tomorrow.”
    â€œThink it could wait another day or two?” He moved a step closer and assumed a hushed tone: “The only reason I mention it, there’s something brewing that the sheriff wanted to talk with us about. He’s the one requesting it.”
    â€œHe hasn’t requested it to me.”
    â€œNo, I know.”
    Hunter felt the back of her neck bristle. She’d left four messages now for Sheriff Calvert and twice driven to his office downtown, only to be told he wasn’t in. But she didn’t want to show her anger or frustration to the state’s attorney, so she pretended to smile.
    â€œI don’t know the details,” Stamps said. “Apparently, someone saw something, but won’t talk to anyone other than the sheriff.” His sentence ended with the inflection of a question mark.
    â€œHaving to do with Robby Fallow, by any chance?”
    â€œIt may be. I really don’t know.”
    â€œI’ll talk with the sheriff,” Hunter said. “If there’s some new information he has, it would need to come through this office, of course.”
    The state’s attorney held up his hands in a surrender position.
    Hunter’s phone began to ring.
    â€œWe’ll talk,” Stamps said.
    She nodded, took a deliberate breath and answered the phone: “Hunter.”
    â€œThis is Luke Bowers.”
    â€œOh. Yes, hello.”
    â€œI think I’ve figured it out.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œThe numbers. I think I know what those numbers mean.”
    â€œOh,” she said, looking at where the state’s attorney had just been standing. “Excellent.”

 
    Chapter 10
    A MY H UNTER’S OFFICE was near the end of a long, wide, shiny-­floored corridor. Night and day from the dingy brick police building on Main Street, now set for demolition, where anyone could walk in and wander the halls: citizens, criminals, crazies; all had done so at one time or another. Here, you entered through an X-­ray scanner into a glass atrium with four security cameras; a guard called ahead for authorization, issued a visitor badge, and you waited for your escort. Everything smelled of plastic and plaster and new construction.
    Hunter welcomed Luke with her professional handshake and led him down the long hallway. In her office, she motioned for him to sit. Luke set his old Bible on her desk. The room had an odd smell, he thought, like french fries.
    He took a quick inventory: charts and laser print photos on a corkboard, a timeline with tiny print handwriting. Three computer terminals set up on the desk. He liked the austere aura of efficiency here, which seemed to fit with the directness of her eyes. The only personal photos were of a black and white tuxedo cat and one that seemed to be her parents, standing stiffly beside a waterfall, taken