Hodder eyed another body bag being carried from the woods. “Where did they all come from?”
“Providence House for one,” Dina said. “When I talked to Mary Hilfiker, she told me the kids there came out of nowhere and vanished the same way, and she had no resources to track them. She told me that in this country nearly a million go missing every year. A child abandoned with no one who cares, that’s the perfect prey.” She leaned over as if she were going to be sick. “What I can’t understand is why they’d hire someone like Bell.”
“If they did a background check-and they probably did-they wouldn’t find anything. He managed to keep his record clean,” Hodder said.
“How do you know?” Dina asked.
He shrugged. “My town. I know things like that.”
Terry Olafsson and a state investigator came from the wood shop. Isaac Stokely, head of security for the Copper River Club, was with them. The investigator led Stokely toward the A-frame cabin. Olafsson walked to Hodder’s Cherokee. He stood a few paces away and stared down at the cigarette butt Dina had tossed.
“Looks like the wood shop I’ve got at home,” he said. “Smells like it, too. Shavings, sawdust. Always meant good things to me. Not anymore. There’s a trapdoor in the floor of Stokely’s: leads to a small cellar room, a cinder-block bunker kind of a thing, no bigger than a jail cell. There’s a cot, slop bucket, video equipment, some bloody kids’ clothes wadded up and thrown in a corner.”
He stopped. The line of his mouth went taut. He looked pale.
“The minute you go down there you can feel it. It’s like the walls are soaked full of all that horror. It’s quiet as a tomb, but Christ, I swear you can hear the screams. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“What about Isaac Stokely?” Hodder asked. “Was he involved?”
Olafsson shook his head. “Claims he knows nothing about it. He’s cooperating. We’ll have to wait and see, but I get the feeling he really didn’t know anything. He seems just as horrified as the rest of us. He’s definitely not protecting his brother.”
“It’s isolated here,” Cork said, indicating the clearing with a wave of his hand. “Controlled access. The security patrols skirt this area. Bringing in a drugged child in a car trunk-”
“Calvin Stokely drives a Dodge Ram with a camper shell,” Hodder put in.
“There you go. A perfect setup until one of the children, a kid with a strong will to survive somehow gets herself free and runs. Gets lost maybe or is being chased and stumbles into the river.”
“I can’t sit here anymore,” Dina said. “I’ve got to do something.”
“What?” Hodder asked.
“Find Charlie.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. You coming?” she said to Cork.
“On the ATV?” He winced. “I don’t think so.”
Hodder moved toward the driver’s seat. “I’ll give you both a ride. They don’t need me here. You can make arrangements to pick up the ATV later.”
Olafsson put his hand on the door before Hodder closed it. “It would be a good idea to be available at your office, Ned, in case they decide they want some more information on the locals.”
“Will do.”
Cork and Dina settled in, slammed doors.
“A BOLO’s been issued for Calvin Stokely,” Olafsson said through Hodder’s open window. “There aren’t a lot of roads in this part of the U.P. We’ll get him.”
He stepped back and Hodder swung the Cherokee around and headed out of the clearing toward the road that would take them to the gate a couple of miles away.
“So Stokely left the Copper River Club yesterday and never came back,” Cork said.
“That’s how the log at the gate reads,” Hodder confirmed. “His dog was hungry, too, which would tend to verify that he didn’t return.”
“Why stay away?” Cork said. “Nothing had been discovered yet that would incriminate him.”
“Probably he killed Bell and panicked.”
“And he killed Bell because…?”
Hodder shrugged. “Maybe he thought Bell was ready to break, spill the beans. Maybe they argued. Who knows?”
Dina was quiet in back, staring out the window at the trees that lined the road like a wall of flame.
They stopped at the gate. Hodder spoke to the guard.
“Still pretty quiet, Wes,” he observed of the empty road beyond the gate.
“Until the media gets hold of this, then all hell’ll break loose,” the guard replied.
“What do you think?” Hodder jabbed a thumb back in the direction of all the activity.
Wes leaned against the Cherokee and spoke through the window. “Nobody’s asked me yet, but I always got the willies around Calvin. Hell, he wouldn’t have the job if it weren’t for his brother and we all knew that. We all knew better than to go near his place, too. I mean, the guy freaked. Big duh, huh? Heads are going to roll up here. You want a job as chief of security, there’s sure to be an opening, Ned.”
“Say, Wes,” Cork said. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Who’s he?” the guard asked Hodder.
“Somebody whose question you should answer,” Hodder replied.
The guard said, “Shoot.”
“Does it say on your log when Calvin Stokely left yesterday?”
“I’d have to check.”
“Check,” Hodder said.
Wes went into the guardhouse and came out half a minute later. “He got off duty at three, split from the Club at three-thirty.”
“Thanks. One more question,” Cork said. “Anybody visit Calvin Stokely on a regular basis?”
“Only one I can think of. A drinking buddy from Marquette. Guy name of Delmar Bell.”
“That’s it?”
“Believe me, Stokely wasn’t the kind who’d have a lot of friends. And anybody who visited would have to come through here, so I’d know.”
“Thanks, Wes,” Cork said.
The guard stepped back to the box and lifted the gate.
“What was that all about?” Ned asked.
“Just fishing,” Cork said. “You never know.”
Heading back to the resort, they were quiet. Jewell’s Blazer was parked in front of Thor’s Lodge, and she came out as Hodder pulled up.
“I thought they needed you at the clinic,” Cork said.
“I couldn’t concentrate. They called in someone to cover. What’s going on?”
“Let’s go inside,” Cork said.
She sat stunned, her hand over her mouth as if stifling a scream. Except for “Oh dear God,” she’d said nothing as Cork explained what they’d found.
“Charlie,” she gasped at last. “Was there any sign of Charlie?”
“No.”
“But they still don’t know where Stokely is?”
“That’s right. They’ve issued a BOLO.”
She stared at him without understanding.
“Be on the lookout.”
Ned, who stood awkwardly near the front door, hat in hand, said, “They’ll get him, Jewell. As for Charlie, she’s a smart kid. I’m sure she’s just hunkered down somewhere, waiting this out.”
Jewell eyed him hopefully. “You think so? Where?”
He returned her gaze for a moment, then had to look away.
“If Stokely has her,” Jewell said, “will he hurt her?”
It was the question they’d probably all been asking themselves, but only Jewell had spoken it. She grabbed for her purse and pulled out her cigarettes. “Damn!” She crumpled the empty pack, stood up, and began pacing. “We have to find her.”
“We don’t know where to look, Jewell,” Hodder said gently. “She could be anywhere.”
“The first time she vanished, she was hiding in an old mine she and Ren knew about. But I checked it this morning on the way to Stokely’s cabin,” Dina told them. “She wasn’t there.”
Hodder settled his hat on his head. “Look, I need to get back to my
office in case the state investigators want to talk to me. On the way, I’ll swing by Max’s trailer and then I’ll check the old lumberyard next to it. I’ve been thinking it might be a place Charlie would hide. Bunch of abandoned buildings and all.”
Jewell nodded. “You’ll let us know what you find?”
“I will.” He offered a comforting smile before he left.
Jewell stood at the window watching him drive away. “I should have done more,” she said to herself.
“You’ve done everything you could, Jewell,” Cork assured her. “What those men did at the Copper River Club nobody could predict.”
“The signs must have been there. We just didn’t see them. Maybe we didn’t want to see them.”
Cork hobbled to her and put his arm around her. “Ren will be home from school in a little while. You need to get yourself together for him.”
“Do you have tea?” Dina asked.
“In the cupboard to the left of the sink,” Jewell replied.
“Jewell, the police are doing everything they can,” Cork said.
She pressed a hand to her forehead. “There’s got to be something more.”
In a few minutes, the kettle began to whistle. As Dina was pouring boiling water into cups, she said, “We could hit the roads ourselves, see if we spot his vehicle. According to Ned, Stokely drives a Dodge Ram pickup with a camper shell. Any idea what color, Jewell?”
A look of horror slowly twisted Jewell’s face. “Oh God, no.”
“What is it?” Cork said.
“I saw him. I saw him last night. He drove past Ned’s office when we were there with Charlie. Why didn’t I think of it then?”
Dina came quickly from the kitchen. “When we were there with Charlie, you said? So it was before she ran?”
“Yes. Before.”
Dina’s mouth settled into a grim line. “This changes things. We’d better let Ned know.” She pulled out her cell phone. “What’s his number?” Jewell gave it and she punched it in. “Ned? It’s Dina Willner.” She listened a moment. “Okay… Look…” She explained the situation. “I know, I know… Yeah, we’ll be here.” She ended the call.
“So?” Cork said.
“He just checked the trailer. Nothing. He’s going to call the state police out at the Copper River Club and let them know about Stokely’s truck last night, then he’ll check the lumberyard and head back to his office.”
“And we’ll do what?” Jewell asked. “Just sit here doing nothing? I don’t think so.”
“I’m right there with you,” Dina said.
In his chair, Cork shifted his weight to his right butt cheek, hoping to relieve some of the discomfort in his left leg. “And what is it you intend to do exactly? Where do you start?”
“I don’t know,” Jewell shot back.
“All right, here’s something to think about, something that’s been rolling around in my head for a little while,” Cork said. “Hodder-and maybe the investigators, too-believe Stokely’s a likely suspect for the murder of Delmar Bell. I don’t think so.”
Dina crossed a leg over her knee and leaned toward him, looking intrigued. “Why?”
“The timing doesn’t work. Yesterday I heard Olafsson say the TOD-time of death-on Bell was between three-thirty and four. If the gate log is correct, Stokely left the Copper River Club at three-thirty. It’s a good forty-five minutes to Marquette. Unless he flew, Stokely wouldn’t have made it in time to kill Bell.”
“So Calvin didn’t kill Del,” Jewell said. “So what?”
“So who did?” Cork said.
“What does it matter?”
“It matters,” Dina said. Understanding blossomed in her green eyes. “It matters because it means Bell and Stokely weren’t in it alone.”
“There are others?” Jewell looked fearful, momentarily defeated. “God, who?”
“That’s what we have to figure out,” Cork replied. “If Stokely’s disappeared, maybe it’s because somebody’s hiding him.”
“Or he’s hiding from somebody so they won’t take care of him like they took care of Bell,” Dina said.
“Or they’ve already taken care of him like they took care of Bell,” Cork added.
“What about Charlie?” Jewell asked.
“I don’t know,” Cork said. “But if we understand who else is involved, we might stand a better chance of finding her. Let’s backtrack a little. You suspected Stokely and Bell in the first place because of the murder of the runaway girl twenty years ago. You told me Ned described a football celebration of some kind, followed by drinking at a cabin somewhere. The kid who confessed to killing her picked her up on the way home. Maybe Bell and Stokely were with him and had a hand in it. That was your thinking, right?”
“Yes,” Jewell said.
“So far, it seems pretty reasonable, especially in light of everything that’s happened since we started asking questions. But what if there was someone else with them that night?”
“Who?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Let’s figure a normal car, big, strapping football players. Four, maybe five could have fit in comfortably. Bell, Stokely, Messinger, and one or two more. Who could the extras have been? Start with an assumption that they were football players on the championship team. Add that it’s somebody who still lives in the area. And finally somebody able to come and go at the Copper River Club without raising a lot of suspicion.”
Dina said, “That’s why you asked the guard at the gate about Stokely’s visitors.”
“The state police will get around to asking the same question.”
“He said Stokely didn’t have visitors,” Dina pointed out. Then she looked at Jewell. “Was his brother, Isaac, on the team?”
“No, he graduated several years before. He was long gone to the military by then.”
Cork asked, “Who else is still around who was on the team?”
Jewell closed her eyes to think, but it was Dina who answered. “Ned Hodder.”
“It’s not Ned,” Jewell said sharply. “I’d know.”
“Give me another name, then,” Cork told her.
“I can’t think,” Jewell said a little desperately.
“You have a high school yearbook?” Dina asked.
“Yes.”
“Get it. Maybe it’ll help.”
Jewell went up to her bedroom and came back down carrying a big yearbook that said Bobcats in green across the front. She sat on the sofa and flipped through the pages. “Here,” she said. “The football team photo.”
The photograph was pretty standard yearbook fare: the whole team suited in their gear and seated on the bleachers of the football field, coaches standing on either side. Jewell’s finger went slowly over the list of names below. It went all the way to the end without stopping.
“Well?” Dina said.
“Calvin, Del, and Ned,” she said, defeated.
“Hodder visits the Copper River Club regularly. He wouldn’t raise a lot of suspicion,” Cork pointed out.
“Yesterday when we went to see him, he wasn’t at his office,” Dina added. “We called him, and he said he was checking on a break-in outside of town. He could have been on his way back from killing Bell.”
“Not Ned,” Jewell said again, but with less conviction.
“I like the guy, too, Jewell,” Cork told her. “And I wouldn’t mind being wrong. But for Charlie’s sake we need to check it out. Where does he live?”
“His family’s always had a place southwest of town, an orchard. Ned lives there alone.”
“Dina and I will go.”
“I’m going, too,” Jewell said. “If it’s Ned, I want to know right away.”
“What about Ren?” Dina asked. “Won’t he be home from school pretty soon?”
“With the hours I work, he almost always comes home to an empty house. I’ll leave him a note. He’ll be fine.”
“What if he’s heard about Stokely’s secret cemetery?”
“I don�
��t think he has. Gary Johnson wasn’t even up there. If our local newsman doesn’t know yet, nobody else does.”
Cork bent and withdrew the Beretta from the holster still strapped to his ankle. He checked the clip. Dina did the same with her Glock.
“Oh Christ,” Jewell said. “You’re not going to shoot him.”
“Are you with us?” Dina asked.
Jewell took a deep breath. “Yes.”
44
D ina parked her Pathfinder on the side of the road at the edge of the orchard. They couldn’t see the house, which was deep in the trees.
“If Stokely’s there,” Cork explained, “we don’t want him to spot us coming. We’ll approach through the trees. Jewell, maybe you should stay here. Things could get tricky.”
“I’m going with you,” Jewell said.
“Then you need to do exactly as we say.”
Jewell nodded. She was scared. The whole situation, all the horrible possibilities, terrified her. But she absolutely didn’t want to be left behind.
They closed their doors quietly and crept into the orchard, circling carefully toward the back of the house. Ned’s father, who’d been a lawyer, had kept up the orchard as a hobby, and as a teenager Jewell had spent many fall afternoons hired-along with other of Ned’s friends-to harvest the fruit, which the Hodders sold from a roadside stand. The apples were Northern Spy and McIntosh, still Jewell’s favorite varieties. Ned had often lamented his own inability to keep the orchard in shape, but he was alone in the house and busy with his duties as constable, so the fruit simply fell to the ground. This late in the season, most of the apples had already fallen, and the rotting fruit filled the orchard with a vinegary smell.
As soon as they could see the house, they paused, hidden in the trees.
“I don’t see a vehicle anywhere,” Dina said.
“Garage?” Cork pointed toward a small structure just east of the house.
Jewell nodded.
He indicated the other outbuilding. “Equipment shed?”
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