Dark Lie (9781101607084) by Nancy; Springer Page A

out, but the young cop did not come with him. She was swiveling her head again, running her mental camcorder all around the bedroom. Her scanning eyes caught on the squares of notebook paper lying on the mattress and the floor like overlarge confetti. “Were those papers hidden under the mattress too?”
    â€œYes, but they don’t have anything to do with—”
    â€œMay I see them, please?”
    Reluctantly Sam picked up a few of Dorrie’s high school flame’s love letters and handed them to Officer Chappell. Scanning them, the young black woman murmured, “Bubba! Hold the phone.”
    Trying not to show his annoyance—okay, his jealousy of the letters his wife had kept under the mattress—Sam repeated, “Those don’t have anything to do with, um, with anything.”
    Officer Chappell said, “I hope not. Whoever wrote these is a very unstable, potentially violent individual.”
    Having seen nothing but sweetness and sexual heat in the content of the notes, Sam blinked. “Where do you get that from?”
    â€œVery revealing handwriting.” The young woman appeared unflinchingly serious. She believed in handwriting analysis? Sam restrained an impulse to roll his eyes.
    â€œEven though the subject uses printing instead of cursive, because printing reveals less,” she elaborated. “But still, any individual who prints this large has to be egotistic, if not a megalomaniac. And look at the way he ignores the lines, like saying rules don’t apply to him. No margins for this guy. He squeezes words to the very edge. No foresight, no impulse control. But what’s really concerning—”
    Sam interrupted, “Officer, um, Chappell, does this have anything to do with finding my wife?”
    â€œI’ll put out a BOLO on your wife and her vehicle right away.” Slipping the squares of notebook paper into the pink folder under her arm, the police officer stood with pen and steno pad poised. “Make, model, color, license?”
    Sam recited the information. Probably Dorrie didn’t know her own license plate number, but he did. He reeled it off.
    â€œDo you know what your wife was wearing?”
    â€œUm, almost certainly a dress like one of those in the closet.”
    â€œDescription of your wife?”
    â€œUm, she has beautiful eyes—”
    â€œHeight? Weight? Identifying marks or scars?”
    Sam sighed. “Five foot five, about a hundred ninety pounds. She has what they call a malar or butterfly rash on her face.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œButterfly rash. They call it that because it makes a pattern kind of like butterfly wings on her face. She has lupus. She had to take steroids, and they gave her puffy cheeks. And fatty deposits on her midsection.”
    â€œLupus?”
    And so on. Eventually the young policewoman put her notes away and inquired again about Dorrie’s computer. When Sam led her to it, she immediately packed it into its case, included the squares of notebook paper and the pink folder, and asked in a perfunctory way, “May I take these with me?”
    Now all of a sudden things were moving too fast, and Sam found himself wishing Officer Chappell would revert to her earlier plodding pace. He felt his voice rise as he said, “Those are private things of Dorrie’s. I’d rather you didn’t.”
    The young woman replied with an earnest look, “I think they’re important. If I have to get a warrant and return for them, it will waste time I could spend trying to find your wife.”
    Having been raised never to swear left Sam with very little recourse to vent his feelings. Not trusting himself to speak, he raised his hands in a frustrated gesture that the rookie policewoman rightly interpreted as capitulation.
    â€œI’ll get on this right away.” Swinging the computer case the way an excited child swung a book bag, she added, “One more