All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 246

246

Alabama State Troopers swept through the town of Grace Falls, moving from door to door, flashing photographs and checking garages. They blocked the two roads in and out of town as they waited for Dallas County cops. Agents from the FBI office in Birmingham were deployed. The rain fell in waves so heavy flak jackets were zipped and caps pulled on as boots trudged mud.

When they came to Main Street they split into four teams and tried to maintain calm as riled-up locals headed home to fetch shotguns and hunker down till both storms passed.

Inside the Moon Under Water Diner they found a waitress named Katie Mitcham sitting out back, seeing off the last of a night shift with a coffee, a cigarette, and a level of amusement that pissed State Trooper Sadler off something rotten as he crowded her beneath a sun canopy sagging with the fall.

“We’re looking for this man,” Sadler said, and Katie took the

photograph from him and squinted.

“Nice looking.”

“He’s a murderer.”

She looked some more as he waited, and then she shook her head. “I ain’t seen nobody like that.”

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