by Ritter, Todd
“I’m practically there.”
Nick had made plans to meet Tony at the entrance to Camp Crescent, hopefully with some state troopers to back them up. Nick would sit back—not by choice—while Tony and his men in blue raided the camp and brought Craig Brewster in for questioning. If he was feeling chatty, they might have a confession to all six crimes by sunset.
“What can I do?” The question was vintage Kat—always wanting to be a part of the action.
“Right now, all you can do is wait,” Nick said. “I’ll call you as soon as Tony slaps the cuffs on Mr. Brewster.”
He ended the call and surveyed the highway. Up ahead was the turnoff that led to Camp Crescent. A state police patrol car blocked the exit. Inside was a trooper with a clenched jaw and aviator shades. He waved Nick through after he gave his name.
Nick passed through two more state police checkpoints on the stretch of dirt road between the highway and the camp. Their mission was twofold—to keep any unauthorized vehicles from coming in and, more important, to keep Craig Brewster from getting out.
Six more patrol cars sat outside the entrance to Camp Crescent, along with Tony Vasquez’s unmarked vehicle and a SWAT team van. The place was crawling with troopers loading their firearms and strapping on body armor. A handful had gathered near the metal gate that blocked the road, watching a SWAT team member dismantle it with a circular saw.
Nick parked at a safe distance and got out of the car. Tony was by his side in an instant.
“We’re going to head up there soon,” he said, tightening a Kevlar vest across his chest. “You stay here and I’ll report back once we bag the bastard.”
Nick followed him. “I should go with you. I’m the only one here who’s seen the camp. I know the layout. This Brewster guy gave me the grand tour earlier today.”
Tony shook his head. “Sorry, Nick. Gloria would have a shit fit if she found out.”
“I understand,” Nick said. “It makes sense. I merely saw all of the places Brewster could potentially be hiding. But with all that Kevlar on, you should be fine if the guy decides to use the shotgun he was carrying.”
Tony didn’t reply. He merely walked over to the SWAT van and whispered something to the team leader. When he returned, it was with a second Kevlar vest, which he tossed in Nick’s direction.
“You can be a real pain in the ass, Donnelly.”
Nick leaned his cane against the car and slipped into the vest. “I know.”
“I’m not sure what you think you can get out of this,” Tony said, watching him straighten the vest and tighten the straps at the sides. “You know you can never be a cop again.”
“I’m not doing it for me,” he told Tony. “I’m doing it for Charlie Olmstead.”
*
Kat wasn’t good at waiting. Not in airports. Not in doctor’s offices. And certainly not for phone calls regarding the arrest of a man who might have killed six little boys. The nervous energy struck as soon as she got off the phone with Nick. To pass the time, she hopped on to the Internet, only to be greeted by an unwanted headline on CNN’s Web site: CHINESE ASTRONAUTS TO LAND ON MOON WITHIN THE HOUR.
She logged off without even reading the article. The headline told her everything she needed to know.
Thrumming her fingers along the surface of her desk, she reviewed everything she knew about Mr. Brewster. At one point, he had been engaged to Jennifer Clark and, if her resemblance to Charlie was any indication, had gotten her pregnant. The resulting baby ended up with Ken and Maggie Olmstead, through reasons unknown.
Then there were the crimes themselves. On July 20, 1969, Craig came to Perry Hollow and took Charlie. That made a little bit of sense. Kat could easily see a father shut out of his son’s life going to extreme measures to retrieve the boy. But what did he do with him after that? And what about the five others who were missing? Why did Craig Brewster target them?
When the phone rang, Kat lunged for it. She answered with a breathless “Please tell me you got him.”
The caller wasn’t Nick. It wasn’t even a man. Instead, Kat heard a hesitant female voice say, “Chief Campbell?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Jocelyn Miller.”
“Sorry about that,” Kat said. “I was expecting an important call.”
“Well, consider this an important call.”
The principal’s tone was stone-cold serious, and it made Kat feel like her heart was simultaneously sinking into her stomach and leaping into her throat. Physically impossible, yes, but psychologically common.
“Did something happen with James?”
“Yes,” Jocelyn said. “There’s been an incident. You need to come to the school immediately.”
*
Nick rode in Tony’s car, following the SWAT van as it rolled slowly through the forest. They kept the speed to a minimum in the hope it wouldn’t alert Craig Brewster to their presence until they got closer. Surprise was their friend. Otherwise, Camp Crescent’s former owner could be greeting them with a few hellos from his 12 gauge.
The plan was for the SWAT guys to enter the camp’s former headquarters first. Since the building now served as Craig’s main residence, it was where they’d most likely find him. Tony and a few troopers would move in after them and do the cleanup work—the cuffing, the Mirandizing, the hauling to the police car.
Nick was to remain in the vehicle unless it was an emergency. Tony was adamant about that point. But as the trees cleared, revealing the camp spread out before them, he pressed a Glock into Nick’s hands.
“Just in case,” he said.
Nick accepted the gun without a word and tucked it into the waistband of his pants.
The convoy picked up speed once they reached the sign welcoming them to Camp Crescent. Soon they were barreling toward the headquarters, the SWAT van kicking up bits of gravel that bounced off Tony’s windshield. Members of the SWAT team started leaping out of the vehicle before it screeched to a halt next to the cabin’s front porch. One of them burst through the door as if it was made of construction paper. Two others immediately followed. Another group stomped across the porch to the other side of the cabin, their boots sounding like hoofbeats against the floorboards.
“It’s go time,” Tony said as he threw open the car door. Before hopping out, he turned to Nick. “Remember. Emergencies only.”
Nick gave a sarcastic salute. “Go get him, tiger.”
He watched Tony and his group of troopers disappear into the cabin. Through the windows, he could see SWAT guys bursting into rooms and searching behind doors, in closets, under furniture. A few had reached the second floor and were doing the same thing. Nick heard the barking of orders and the slamming of doors—the music of the hunt.
While the SWAT guys continued to make noise, Nick noticed movement on the lower left-hand side of the cabin. It was a basement window, flapping open about two feet off the ground. Poking through it were twin cylinders of steel—the barrel of a shotgun being pushed outside. Right behind it was a head, then shoulders, then a torso. It was Craig Brewster, squeezing through the window to make his escape.
Shotgun lodged under his arm, he crawled away from the cabin on his stomach. After about ten yards he climbed to his feet and started to sprint deeper into the camp. Nick got out of the car, yanked the Glock from his waistband. He assumed this was the kind of emergency Tony was referring to.
“Hey!”
He hoped the yell would either make Craig stop or get the attention of the troopers inside the cabin. It did neither. Instead, the suspect gained speed while the SWAT team made more noise. Nick shouted again before resorting to the last thing he wanted to do.
He started to run.
The first step hurt. The second and third hurt like hell. All the steps that followed hurt like fucking hell. Nick’s knee felt like it was on fire—an all-encompassing pain that brought tears to his eyes.
Yet he couldn’t stop, not with Craig heading into an area thick with trees. If the
camp owner made it to the woods, they’d never be able to find him. So he continued on, trying to minimize the pain. He still used his cane, stabbing it into the grass as he moved. But it only slowed him down and didn’t blunt the pain that was now shooting up and down his entire right leg. He let go of it, the pit bull handle dropping to the ground as he continued on without it.
Shedding the cane made his leg hurt even more. But it also made him faster. By gritting his teeth and letting out a ferocious grunt with each step, he was able to gain on Craig, who had run into the pine-dotted area where the camp’s cabins were located.
By the time he reached the area, Nick’s face was drenched with sweat. So were his clothes, which had started to cling to his skin. His chest rose and fell as he panted for breath. And his knee, well, Nick didn’t want to think about the damage down there.
Turning in an awkward hop-step, he took stock of his surroundings. He was in the middle of a small clearing, surrounded by five cabins. There was no sign of Craig, which meant he had either sprinted impossibly fast into the woods or was now hiding in one of the cabins. Nick assumed it was the latter, and examined each of them.
Of the five, two were merely the remains of cabins—collapsed walls, crumbled roofs, weed-choked entrances. The other three were better hiding places. Although ravaged by time, they were still standing. Which was more than Nick could say about himself. He was leaning on his left leg so much that he was afraid he’d tip over.
He picked the cabin to his immediate right and shouted at it.
“Craig! You should just come out now! The other guys are going to be here any second and they’re meaner than I am.”
He risked a glance over his shoulder toward camp headquarters in the distance. The SWAT search had moved from the cabin to the surrounding area. To get their attention, he thrust the Glock into the air and fired.
Craig Brewster fired back.
Nick didn’t see which cabin it came from. He only heard it—a thunderous blast that echoed through the trees—and felt it. The rush of air seemed to come from all directions, raining buckshot. Nick leaped to the ground, covering his head.
Behind him, he heard distant shouting and rapid footfalls coming from the rest of the camp. Tony and the SWAT team. They had heard the gunfire and were now coming to the rescue. No matter how fast they got there, it wouldn’t be fast enough.
Lying on his stomach, Nick squirmed through the dirt. The cabins were quiet again. Craig could have been in any of them. Or none of them. Nick didn’t know for sure.
Craig fired again. The blast, which hit the ground to Nick’s right, sent clumps of earth spinning through the air. Bits of it landed on his face as he rolled in the opposite direction. Another shotgun blast followed, this time to Nick’s left, forcing him to roll back to his original spot.
Gripped by panic, he flipped onto his back, legs apart and bent at the knee. It hurt like hell again, but Nick held the position, raising his head and shoulders off the ground. He thrust the Glock straight ahead, pointing it between his knees.
He aimed at the cabin in front of him. Its door was open, a gaping mouth waiting to spit out another scalding blast of buckshot.
Nick fired first. Two shots. Right into the cabin.
Sounds rose from inside the cabin to his left. A bump. A click. A half-caught breath.
He twisted his body and popped off two shots into that one, not caring that the sounds might have been coming from somewhere else or part of his imagination. He did the same thing with the cabin to his right.
One shot.
Two shots.
Then a brief moment of silence before the SWAT team flooded the area. Flat on his back, Nick watched their boots stomp across the forest floor as they swarmed each cabin. When he looked up, he saw Tony Vasquez standing over him.
“Were you hit?”
Nick shook his head.
“Good.”
Tony helped him to his feet and handed him his cane. Nick clutched it the same way a crack addict held his latest stash. He wasn’t ever letting go of this puppy again.
All around them, the SWAT guys emerged from the cabins, reporting that all was clear. Only one cabin failed inspection—the second one Nick had shot into. A member of the SWAT team poked his head through the open door and bellowed, “He’s in here!”
Tony rushed to the cabin. Nick hobbled. Stepping inside, he saw four bunk beds, a dead mouse, and the names Bobby, Kevin, and Joe carved into the wall. It was the cabin Dwight Halsey had vanished from, and slumped in a corner was Craig Brewster.
The shotgun lay on the floor at his feet. Tony swooped in and grabbed it while Nick got a better look at Mr. Brewster. He was still alive, but barely. Each breath was a ragged stream that hissed through his beard. A hand was on his chest, clutching at his heart.
Nick looked for signs of bleeding. There weren’t any. The bullets had missed him, meaning something else took Craig down.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Nick said. “He’s having a heart attack.”
THIRTY
Jocelyn Miller’s office was a glass-walled cube that sat just inside the front entrance to Perry Hollow Elementary School. Like specimens in a petri dish, anyone sitting in the office could be seen by those entering and exiting the building. So when Kat rushed into the school, the first thing she saw was the back of James’s head as he sat inside this administrative fishbowl.
Kat got a look at the front of him once she entered the office. His head was tilted back, nostrils stuffed with tissues in an attempt to stem a bloody nose. Drops of crimson spattered his shirt.
“Little Bear? What happened?”
Deep down, she already knew. The bullying James had been experiencing at school had been taken to another, more dangerous level.
“Chief Campbell?” It was Jocelyn Miller, standing outside the windowless room where her desk was located. “May I have a word?”
Kat joined the principal in the office, slamming the door behind her. “Who did this to him?”
Jocelyn offered her a seat. Kat remained standing. She was too angry and racked with guilt to sit.
“I’d like to talk about James,” the principal said.
“And I want to talk about the punk who beat him up.” Kat started to pace, crossing the office in restless strides. “My son is out there bleeding and you’re going to tell me who did it.”
“I’ve been an educator for twenty years,” Jocelyn said with infuriating calmness. “In that time, I’ve observed a lot of children. I think I know them pretty well. They’re emotional creatures. Quick to anger. Quick to get upset. But also, thankfully, quick to be happy again.”
“Could you please just tell me what’s going on?”
Jocelyn raised a hand, asking for patience. “Sometimes, kids do things that they know are wrong. Lying. Cheating on tests. Sometimes they steal. And sometimes they bully other kids. Why do you think that happens?”
“I have no idea,” Kat said.
“The first reason is that kids don’t understand the consequences of their actions. They just know the benefits.”
“And the other reasons?”
“They’re more complex. And they’re related. Care to guess what they are?”
Kat didn’t, especially not where the kid hitting her son was concerned. Whoever it was, and most likely his parents, were no-good trash, pure and simple.
“Anger and poor parenting,” she suggested.
“Close,” Jocelyn said. “It’s more like power and attention. Children know they have no control over this world. They’re always being told what to do, what to eat, when to go to bed. It’s for their own good, of course, but they don’t know that yet. So they sometimes pick on others because it’s something they can control. And sometimes they do it because they feel like they’re not getting enough attention at home. The bad behavior and the bullying are often a subconscious plea for attention from their parents.”
If the principal’s goal was to wear Kat down, it worked.
She plopped into a chair, saying, “I just want to know what happened. Tell me the name of the punk who’s been picking on James and I’ll take it from here.”
Jocelyn crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair and contemplated Kat. “I can see why there’s a problem.”
“Excuse me?”
“A problem,” Jocelyn repeated. “With James.”
“James is just fine. It’s this other kid who’s been taking his lunches and hitting him that’s the problem. Yet for some reason I’m the one sitting in the principal’s office being given the emotional profile of a bully.”
“Chief Campbell.” The principal’s voice rose just a notch, enough to make Kat sit at attention. “Your son just sent another student to the hospital. So, in my experience, James is the bully.”
*
Eric remained seated for the rest of the afternoon. He was too stunned to move. Or eat. Or drink. He barely had enough energy to stare at the patch of sunlight brightening the dining-room table, which moved and stretched as the day progressed. Sometimes there’d be silence, long pauses in which the sunlight edged forward an inch or two. But for the most part, the dining room was filled with the sound of his father’s voice, revealing just how he and Maggie had come to take possession of a little boy they named Charlie.
His mother, he learned, had lived in their house her entire life, growing up across the street from her best friend, Jennifer Clark. The two were inseparable. They shared clothes, makeup, secrets. When they were older, the girls would sometimes sneak away to Sunset Falls, where they sipped beer until they got dizzy.
One night, a boy from nearby Mercerville came with them. His name was Ken Olmstead.
“Your mother was the prettiest girl I ever saw,” Eric’s father said. “I was in love with her the first time I laid eyes on her.”
They were an item all through Maggie’s senior year and engaged by the time she graduated high school in 1958. They were married that August and made plans to move to Florida. Ken had distant family there, who offered to rent them a small house in the Keys starting in January 1959. There, they would build a life together, just the two of them.
