“Who’s asking?”
She stuck her hand out. “My name is Blair Johnson. I’m with the Department of Children and Family Services oversight division.”
“So Internal Affairs?”
She forced a smile. “Something like that. I’d like to speak to you about the girl you found.”
“I didn’t find her. That was a local fisherman.”
“Yes, let me rephrase. I’d like to speak to you about the girl to whom you administered CPR.”
I frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Obviously, the circumstances surrounding her are less than ideal, so I’ve been asked to step in and monitor the situation.”
“Monitor it for what?”
“Ms. Redding, I’m sure you didn’t fail to notice the unusual manner and location in which the girl was found. And the fact that no one has come forward to claim her or even reported her missing is of great concern to our department. Most children we process have known histories, and that information allows us to make better choices about their care and placement. But given the lack of information in this case and the girl’s loss of memory, we’re left with a bit of a dilemma regarding long-term care, assuming her parents never materialize.”
I frowned. Although everything she’d said rang true, someone about her bothered me.
“Pardon me for saying so, Ms. Johnson, but you look kinda young to be supervising a bunch of social workers who’ve probably been at the job longer than you’ve been an adult.”
She stiffened a bit. “And you, Ms. Redding, look too young to have been one of the CIA’s top agents, but I have it on good authority that is absolutely the case. If you need to know my résumé in order to speak with me, I hold a PhD in psychology from Stanford University.”
“Impressive. So why in the world would you take an expensive and hard-to-obtain degree into the bayous of Louisiana to rake in less than minimum wage when you factor in work hours?”
“Because I grew up in southeast Louisiana, Ms. Redding. And my family has more money than God, so I don’t have to worry about making a living. I have the luxury of indulging my own interests, which happens to be helping children.”
“Good enough. But I don’t know what I can tell you.”
“None of you had ever seen the girl before that night?”
We all shook our heads.
“And no one from the area has recognized her or suggested she might belong to a certain family?”
“No,” I said. “Everyone is at a loss, and Ida Belle and Gertie know everyone in this town.”
“There’s been some suggestion that a religious group took up around here decades back. Do you know anything about them?”
I shook my head. “Only what everyone else knows. They’re supposed to live somewhere out in the swamp beyond Mudbug, but people rarely see them.”
“And no one has ever found their dwellings?”
I looked at Ida Belle and Gertie, who both shook their heads.
“People have tried over the years,” Ida Belle said. “High school kids, mostly. Out on a kick, you know? But no one has ever come up with anything.”
“Why are you asking about some Bible thumpers?” I asked. “Do you think that’s where the girl came from? If so, how the heck did she get to Sinful? Why was she in the middle of the swamp—no camp or boat in sight?”
“Those questions are exactly why I’m here,” she said. “Children who’ve been raised in those stringent religious organizations often have special issues to work through.”
“You can call it a cult. Everyone else does.”
“However you’d like to label it, we want to make sure we can address those issues should her memory return.”
“And make sure she wasn’t being abused in case someone from the cult comes to claim her.”
“Yes. Obviously.”
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t give you more information. I really would like to help the girl. She’s far too young to be on her own and it scares me to think about what she’s probably already been through to have arrived at the place she did. I heard a social worker removed her from the hospital.”
“Yes, well, they can’t keep her there without medical reason. She’s been temporarily placed until we can sort her case better.”
“And you’re overseeing that sorting?”
“That’s correct.” She pulled a wallet out of her purse and handed me a card with her name and phone number on it. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”
We stood next to the SUV and watched her walk away. She climbed into a brand-new BMW sedan and drove off.
“What the heck was that?” Ida Belle asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I don’t like it.”
“She kinda gave me the willies,” Gertie said. “Isn’t a social worker supposed to be more warm and fuzzy?”
“Technically, she’s monitoring social workers, not working as one,” Ida Belle said. “So I’d assume a lack of warm fuzzies is required if you’re sitting in the judgment seat. But the whole thing felt off.”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “But she’s on the same train of thought we are, and I have to wonder how she got there. The people who might have ideas about what we’re up to aren’t talking about it.”
“No,” Ida Belle agreed. “It’s certainly not impossible for two people to come up with the same idea, but considering she’s not local, someone would have had to send her off in that direction.”
“It wasn’t Hermes,” Gertie said. “He can’t find his butt with both hands. And even if he got a clue, no way would he make it known.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Might have to share the glory.”
I looked at the card again and the receding taillights headed out of Sinful and toward the highway. “Let’s try to speak to June first thing tomorrow morning. If this woman is legit, she would have talked to June, right? Tried to talk to the girl?”
“You would think,” Ida Belle said.
But something made me unsure.
My cell phone sent me jolting out of a dead sleep and I leaped out of bed, grabbing my pistol as I went. By the time my feet hit the floor, I’d zeroed in on the reason for the sound, and Merlin, who was used to, but still disapproving of, my antics, glared at me with one eye, then promptly tucked his head under my pillow and went back to sleep.
I grabbed the phone. Harrison. Three o’clock a.m.
This couldn’t be good.
“A call came in tonight in Mudbug from June Nelson,” he said as soon as I answered. “A prowler around her house. Dispatch sent out a unit, but they didn’t find anything.”
“Crap! I was hoping we’d have a couple days to work with before they tracked the girl down.”
“So was I, but looks like no luck on that one.”
“How do you know about the call? I thought you were traffic only.”
“The night unit is two rookies. It’s a stupid setup, and not the one Carter structured for Mudbug, I can assure you. But that idiot Hermes has been shifting everyone around. Honestly, I think he’s doing it just to hack us all off. No one wants him here.”