The Magic Hour

Chapter 1: Harbinger

"It was not exactly dark, but a kind of twilight or gloaming. There were neither windows nor candles, and he could not make out where the twilight came from, if not through the walls and roof."

                                    —Childe Rowland

 "The voices melted into the twilight and were mixed into the trees, and when I thought of the words they too melted away, and were mixed with the generations of men."

                                     —William Butler Yeats

NATHAN BYRNE WALKED up the steps of the police station and stopped before the polished steel and glass doors. An icy wind swept past him, sending debris flying down the street. He looked over at the coffee shop he'd just left. The commuters were starting to show up. He'd missed them by inches.

    The sergeant at the desk was grinning wildly, waving a paper at him as he came inside.

    "Hey, Nate, been waiting for you. Got a good one. Guy lost in the woods. Then he was taken, you know, by a shiny silver something or other. His fishing partner saw the whole thing."

    "Detective Byrne to you," Nathan said, knowing it was a futile demand. "What the hell are you talking about, Manny?"

    The sergeant couldn't stop smiling. "It's all in here," he said, handing the paper over. "Captain says you're the one to look into it."

    "I'm not Missing Persons, as you and he know. So give it to someone else."

    "No can do. Captain wants to see you right away. Soon as you arrived, he said."

    Nathan studied the sergeant. He sighed and folded the piece of paper carefully and then shoved it in his pocket. "Right." As he walked away he added, "Wipe that hyena grin off your face or I might think about doing it for you." He heard the smothered laugh all the way down the corridor to the captain's office.

    It was a nice office, a thick rug on the floor, pale ivory walls, and windows that let in daylight. His own ancient desk in the small room he shared with seven other detectives didn't have the same ambience at all, he thought. He knocked on the half-open door.

    "Nathan, come in, come in." The captain was tending to a plant on the windowsill. Unsuccessfully, if the plethora of dry leaves that covered the floor nearby was any sign.

    "Waste of time," he said, gesturing to the near lifeless plant. "My wife insists I need something green around. More trouble than it's worth. So, what do you think? How's it looking? I want you out there right away, but tell me what you see now, based on the report."

    "I haven't read the report," Nathan said. "I just got here."

    "Then read it now, for God's sake, man!" The captain moved away from the window and sat down in his soft, high-backed chair.

    Nathan pulled the paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and began to read. When he finished he looked up at his superior. "It looks like a straightforward, run-of-the-mill case for Missing Persons, same as I told the sergeant."

    "Did you look at the name of who went missing? What, is it too early for you to figure this out? Do I have to do that for you?"

    Nathan stared at the man. It was unusual behavior for the captain. He reread the note. This time the name jumped out at him—Henry Jacobson. Their very own local hero. A man who'd saved three children from an elementary school fire a few years back. He also just happened to be the captain's wife's uncle, mad as a hatter in the opinion of some, owing to an early ingestion of mercury from his work in a coal plant. Wasn't mercury the same chemical used by hatters for making hats back in the 1800s? Nathan wondered. Now where had he picked that up? The captain's wife adored the man, and the captain loved his wife.