Chapter 3
POLICE Headquarters was a madhouse for the next hour or so. What Inspector Regan had feared had come to pass. They had a bona fide missing persons case, with two positive identifications and a formal demand for the person of one Hope Martin.
The department faced charges of gross negligence, false arrest and one thing and another. In addition there was a veritable barrage of phone calls from without, all purporting to identify the missing girl. At least half of these were utterly worthless. The other half identified the girl as either one or the other of her two counterparts. Hope Martin herself was still missing.
In Hammerschlag’s office the battle raged, Hammerschlag and Regan versus the Misses Faith and Charity Martin. McCord, on the sidelines, sucked at a dead pipe.
He was
