A Child Is Missing

by David Stout

  “Will, it looks like this is where Jamie Brokaw was kept. Can you believe this?”

  As unobtrusively as he could, Will took out his notebook and began to jot down what he saw. The snow covering had been brushed away. Visible through the opening where the hatch cover had been were two woolen blankets, their folds frozen not just with snow but what looked like urine and feces; pieces of waxed paper and several chunks of bread, some frozen and with the peck marks of birds who had discovered them after the hatch was open; several candy wrappers; a jug of now-frozen water; and a flashlight.

  Will made notes on all of it, in a hand that trembled from cold, fatigue, and emotion.

  “Don’t this beat all,” one lawman said quietly.

  Will wrote that remark in his notepad, wrote down the time of day, wrote how a somber hush had fallen over the gathering. Then he saw something that stunned him, and he knew he would have to include it in his story. He even knew what he would say, word for word:

  A veteran FBI agent cried as he stood in the woods beside the frozen pit that had been the hiding place of a kidnapped boy, a pit that almost became a grave.

  Will waited until he thought Graham had composed himself. Then he approached him and said quietly, “Do you have any comment, Jerry?”

  To Will’s surprise, the agent did. “You can say that this is one of the cruelest, rottenest things I’ve seen in twenty-plus years of law enforcement,” Graham said. “Write that down and quote me on it.”

  The agent turned to walk away, stopped, looked Will in the face. “Another thing,” Graham said, almost shouting. “We’re going to find everyone responsible for this, and I personally will do all I can to see that they fry in the chair. One way or another.”

  With that, Graham stomped off through the snow. Will watched him take the Long Creek police chief aside. The two conferred for a minute or more; then Graham came back to Will. “We’re trying to decide how much longer to look. It won’t be daylight forever.”

  “Jerry, do you know who actually shot the guy?”

  “A Deer County deputy, we think.”

  Will didn’t feel like pressing him for the name just then.

  “Sir, isn’t it likely that the suspect lived right nearby? I mean, if he had the little boy in the ground here, he must have chosen a place with easy access.…”

  It was Raines. Will could tell that the cop rubbed Graham the wrong way.

  “As long as the dogs are still interested, sir, I think we should continue. We might be very close.”

  “Okay, Raines. You might be right. A while longer, then.”

  A small group of investigators stayed by the pit, taking measurements and pictures. The dogs led the rest of the searchers through the snowy woods. Will stayed near the rear of the group. He hoped something would happen before time got really critical for him to make first-edition deadline. Over-head, there was the sound of helicopters. Will heard the squawk of radios.

  A little while later, Will heard excitement up ahead. Then he saw Graham coming back to get him. “We found a cabin, Will.”

  It stood in a small clearing and had been assembled partly from logs, partly from discarded building materials. The tin cans jingled as the men stooped to get under the twine strung around the structure.

  The dogs sniffed intently, then growled as they strained on their leashes.

  “Hold on, everybody!” Graham shouted. “We’ve got footprints.”

  Will stood on tiptoes to see over the shoulders of the deputies in front of him. Beneath the overhang of the crude roof, Will saw man-size footprints and several much smaller ones-clearly a boy’s. They had been frozen in the early snow and because of the overhang and the wind direction had not been obscured by the later snowfall.

  Will heard the click of camera shutters, saw Graham make some notes, saw a deputy cordon off the section with the prints.

  Some yards away, at the edge of a clearing, Will saw the beginnings of a snowman. How crazy.…

  Graham pushed the door open, peered inside, and said, “Son of a bitch. Someone’s been living here, all right.”

  Will watched the agent step across the threshold, then kneel down and laboriously take off his boots. Then he stood up and took off his heavy jacket. “Please note for the record that I have removed my footwear prior to a preliminary search of these premises. Just so some smart-ass defense lawyer can’t say later that I introduced foreign material. That last is off the record.”

  For several minutes, Graham was inside. As inconspicuously as he could, Will pushed his way to the front of the crowd gathered around the door. He caught a glimpse of the interior—dim light, crude wooden furniture, crammed shelves—and the odor of old wood smoke. And Will thought there was something else: a smell of dog, and of a man who lived alone.

  Graham put his boots on again, said something to a couple of men near him, and stepped outside.

  “Any sign of any ransom money?” Will said.

  “Negative,” Graham said. “But I didn’t do a thorough search. We’ll take this place apart.”

  “Are you sure the boy was held here?” Will said.

  “I’m not sure of very much right now,” Graham said. “But I think our strange friend lived here. There’s dog food inside, and there’re some blankets and some cushions near the fireplace. Some dirty dishes and food leftovers.”

  “Should we get a warrant before we toss the place?” It was Raines, standing off to the side.

  Graham looked to the Long Creek police chief and said, “What do you think?”

  “We could seal it off and wait,” the chief said. “Warrant’s no problem.”

  Graham seemed to think about that for a moment. “Let’s do it that way. I think we have probable cause anyhow, but we’ll leave no loopholes.”

  “All right,” the chief said. “I want a couple of men to stay here for a while.”

  Off to the side, Will saw Raines put up his hand. “I’m available, Chief.” Raines’s face sagged in disappointment as the chief ignored him and pointed to two older cops close by.

  Graham came over to Will. The agent’s face was drawn. “I have to go back and give a briefing to your competitors, Will. They’ll get a look at the shooting scene and the hole and the cabin. I won’t give them anything you don’t have.”

  “I know. And thanks.”

  But Graham had already turned and walked back to the police chief, with whom he conferred in nods and whispers. If Will got the chance, he would tell his old friend how grateful he was: If Will had had to wait with the pool reporters to see everything—or, far worse, if he had had to wait back in Long Creek with the main pack of journalists waiting to be briefed by the pool reporters—he wouldn’t have been able to do much for the Gazette’s early edition. Now he could.

  But first he had to get back to Long Creek, or at least get to a phone. Ideally, he would get a ride back to town and use the time in the car to study his notes and do a rough outline.

  It was no time to be shy. Will went up to Graham and said, “Jerry, I need your help one more time.”

  “A ride back to town, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “They train us in press relations.” Graham chuckled ruefully. “Chief, do you have a chauffeur you can spare?”

  Will winced at that, but embarrassment was a luxury he couldn’t afford right now.

  The chief looked at Will as though he was a nuisance. “What’s wrong with the guy you rode out with?”

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with him,” Will heard himself say. “I’ll take a ride from anyone who’s willing.”

  “Raines? Give our journalist friend here a ride back to town. Okay?”

  “Whatever you say,” Raines said, scowling.

  “I appreciate it,” Will said. He needn’t have bothered with the thanks, because Raines had already started walking.

  The way back to the snowmobile was shorter than Will had expected. Long before he thought he would, Will spotted th
e clearing. Of course: Raines had had no need to be cautious on the walk back; he’d been able to take the most direct route.

  Raines started the machine, put on his amber glasses, and motioned for Will to get on.

  There was a lot less activity back at the Rod and Gun Club that had been the base of operations. Will looked for the food truck but couldn’t find it.

  “What’s wrong, Shafer?” Raines said impatiently.

  “I was hoping to get a doughnut or roll to eat in the car. I’m famished.”

  “You’re out of luck.”

  Prick, Will thought.

  But when they got in the car, Raines said, “Want half a roast beef sandwich?”

  “God, yes.”

  “I got a thermos of coffee in the backseat. Extra cups in the glove compartment.”

  They stayed put for a few minutes as Raines warmed up the engine. Will ate and drank as the heater kicked in. He’d been even more hungry than he’d realized. “I owe you,” he said.

  “So buy me a beer sometime.”

  “You got it.” It might be a chance to pick his brains about the police department.

  The ride back was quick. The snow had been cleared from most of the main roads, and the salt spreaders had been out. Raines didn’t say much for a while, and Will used the quiet to arrange his thoughts and his notes. High in the story, he would have to say something about the unanswered questions.

  “A crazy case,” Will said. “What the hell would he want with a little kid?”

  Raines snorted. “The old man is rich.”

  “Right.” But Will wondered: How would this screwball woods hermit have known that? And what about the different postmarks on the ransom note? And where was the money?

  “Do you have any theories?” Will asked.

  “Off the record? Who the hell knows. People who do things like this don’t think and act like real people, you know.”

  “Why do you suppose he dug the boy up?”

  “Got softhearted, maybe. Or needed the company. Or went soft in the head.”

  “In the head?”

  “Sure. Best thing to do would have been to leave the kid there. If he didn’t want to get caught.”

  “That’s another thing,” Will said. “The FBI and cops had said no more money would be delivered until there was a sure sign the boy was safe.”

  “So?”

  “So doesn’t it seem that if the kidnappers went to the trouble of digging the boy up, they would have taken his picture and mailed it in?”

  Raines said nothing for a long moment, then replied, “Okay, suppose this guy in the woods was taking the kid somewhere for that very thing. To a new hideout, I mean.”

  Will had no answer for that, but he couldn’t help thinking that the hole in the ground was about the best hiding place imaginable. As he relaxed in the warm car, he thought about the research he’d done in the Long Creek Eagle’s library. He thought about the two kidnappings in which the victims had been buried underground, how one of those cases had ended in rescue and the other in death. He thought about the 1950s kidnapping in the Midwest, in which a little boy had been killed and some of the ransom had disappeared. And he thought of two other cases from years before, one in central Pennsylvania, the other in Montana. Young women had been seized in the wilds by crazed men who lived in the woods and mountains. Both had been rescued.

  Finally, he thought of two other kidnappings, one of a little boy in New York, the other of a youth somewhere in the South. The boy had been taken off the street, the youth dragged out of his home by a gunman as his parents watched. No ransom demand had been made in either case. Neither victim had ever been seen again.

  It was true: The only “professional” kidnappers were full-time terrorists. But the amateurs were just as cold-blooded. God only knew what their motives were. And nothing was too strange or too horrible to be imagined.

  All the same, when he got a chance he would corner Jerry Graham and ask him point-blank how he felt about this case. Too many things made too little sense.

  Twenty-four

  By the time they neared the outskirts of Long Creek, Will had changed his feelings about John Raines entirely. The cop apologized for having been curt—“It’s just the pressure of the case, plus the bullshit of the department,” Raines said—and said again that maybe he and Will could have a beer.

  Will sensed an opening. “Are you really that unhappy with the department?”

  “Yup. Run by political hacks and brothers of political hacks, if you get my drift.”

  Will did: the chief and his detective brother. “Why do you stay?”

  “I don’t plan to forever, believe me. That’s off the record.”

  “Of course.”

  “I came to Long Creek because I wanted to get into police work. When I was first trying to break in, the state police weren’t hiring because of the budget problems. So I figured, okay, I’d get a job in a small town while I waited for an opening with the state.”

  “And you did.”

  “And I did. That was a couple years ago, and I don’t mind telling you it’s been disillusioning. Nepotism, ticket fixing for politicians, you name it. Bastards…”

  “I suspect that stuff goes on in most police departments.” Will paused. “Did you ever think it might go beyond ticket fixing?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Bigger corruption.”

  “Such as?”

  “Fixing accident reports.”

  Raines looked straight ahead through the amber glasses. “You’ve been doing some digging,” he said quietly.

  “A little. More than a little.”

  “What got you started?”

  Without getting specific, Will told him he was suspicious about Fran Spicer’s accident, about the drunk-driving charge and the blood test. He told him about the confrontation with Carmine Luna and finding Luna dead in his apartment.

  “Yeah, I heard the scuttlebutt about that Luna guy,” Raines said. “Goddamn junkie. Working for a hospital, too. And you think he framed your friend.”

  “Let’s just say I have my strong suspicions.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I was afraid you’d ask that. I don’t really know. Maybe so someone else who flunked his DWI test that night wouldn’t get hit with a charge.” Will offered that as an opener, knowing full well that it didn’t explain what had happened to Fran in the first place.

  “What kind of driver was your friend?” Raines asked. “I mean, do you have any notion why he cracked his car up if he wasn’t loaded?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Not yet. You’re not done looking, I take it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Will told Raines as matter-of-factly as he could about Spicer, how their relationship had changed over the years: first, Spicer the seasoned newsman and Will the cub reporter learning from him; later, Will the assistant city editor dealing with Spicer as an equal; later still, Will the executive editor, taking care to be respectful and solicitous toward his aging and not altogether reliable subordinate.

  “And then you wind up making his funeral arrangements,” Raines said.

  “Yes.”

  “Sad. But was he ever DWI before?”

  “Yes.” Will thought back to a night in Bessemer several years before, when Fran had clunked three parked cars and registered .19 for blood alcohol. Will had been relieved when the publisher, worried about the paper’s being ashamed, had ordered him not to run the story, even though holding it out of the paper had gone against Will’s ethics.

  “So he might have done it again,” Raines suggested.

  “I don’t know.” Now Will told him some of what he’d found out about Fran’s stop at the liquor store, the time of the accident, what a doctor had said about the blood-alcohol level.

  Raines seemed to digest all of it before saying, “You may be dealing with more than just a crooked hospital technician. You know that.”

  “It occurred to me.”

/>   “So watch your ass while you’re around here.”

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “You seem to have the FBI on your side.”

  “I told you, Jerry Graham and I go way back. I think he’ll solve this kidnapping before he’s through. Solve the rest of it.”

  “The other kidnapper?”

  “Yes.”

  They pulled up to Will’s hotel. Just before he got out, Will said, “As long as we’ve been talking off the record, isn’t there something that smells about this whole hermit thing?”

  “In what way?”

  Will told him the thoughts he’d been turning over: The newspaper-pasteup ransom demands, the different postmarks, and the abduction of the boy by a pair of shotgun-toting thugs on the highway didn’t seem to fit in with a strange duck who lived alone in the woods.

  “Okay, Shafer,” Raines said grudgingly. “But how did he wind up with the boy? And if he didn’t have something to hide, why did he take a shot at that hunter who first spotted him?”

  “I admit, those are good questions. Here’s another: Where’s the ransom money?”

  “With the other kidnapper, no doubt. Assuming there’s only one more.”

  “Maybe. I’m assuming Jerry Graham has you guys keeping your eyes and ears open for anyone departing the area in a hurry without a good reason.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Will dashed inside, changed into dry socks and shirt, called his office, and told the city desk that he had story material no one else had, that he would write about fifteen hundred words for the first edition (he had about two hours to do it), and that he’d polish it up in time for the second edition, which was distributed in the immediate Bessemer vicinity.

  “Will,” a fretting Tom Ryan said, “are you sure you can do it, or should I get together a wire story in case?”

  Count to ten, Will told himself. “I’ll do what I said I would, Ry, and I’ll do it on time. I’m going to police head-quarters now.” He picked up his portable computer and dashed out the door.