Jessica quickly skimmed the obituary, soon finding what she was looking for.
''Services will be held at St. Stanislaus, followed by interment at the Briarcliff Cemetery,'' she read out.
'Does it have an address?' Bontrager asked.
Jessica had to enlarge the image. Her eyes scanned the file. 'Here it is. It's at 122 Sawmill Road.'
They looked at each other. 'Any ideas where that is?' Bontrager asked.
'No,' Jessica said. 'Hang on.'
She tapped over to her Google Maps app, put in the address. Soon a map appeared with a big red push pin at the center.
'Oh hello.'
'Where is it?' Bontrager asked.
Briarcliff Cemetery was a small suburban graveyard that abutted a number of large estates. One of them belonged to Christa-Marie Schцnburg.
They turned onto Sawmill Road. The darkness was complete. A fine mist coated the ground; the headlights barely cut through the miasma. The road was serpentine, and more than once Jessica had to slow the car to a crawl. According to the GPS the back entrance to Briarwood Cemetery was approximately a mile ahead.
They took a slow bend to the right.
'Stop!' Bontrager yelled.
Jessica hit the brakes. 'What is it?'
'Back up.'
Jessica put the car in reverse. She backed up slowly for fifty feet or so. As she did, she saw what had caught Josh's eye. On the right side of the road were tire tracks cutting through the high grass, leading into the woods. A pair of small trees had been recently knocked over and splintered. Jessica angled the car so the headlights shone into the forest. There, about twenty feet in, was a vehicle, its motor still running. The lights were off but they could see warm exhaust spilling into the cold night air.
Jessica looked over at Bontrager. They drew their weapons, exited the car, walked down the culvert, up the other side. As they stepped closer to the vehicle Jessica saw more of it. It was a van.
A familiar van.
Chapter 87
Lucy Doucette remembered a time when she was about four or five. Her mother had worked for a few months at a Dollar General and the money had flowed in. They were rich. That Thanksgiving they had a Jennie-O turkey breast, gravy, Hungry Jack mashed potatoes. All her favorites.
The thought of it made her stomach clench. She could not remember the last time she had eaten.
She had made slow progress on the plastic band around her wrists. She wasn't anywhere close to being able to slip her hands out. Not yet.
Ever since the van had stopped, a few minutes ago, she had lain motionless. She didn't know where they were or what was happening. It was better to be still for the moment.
At first she thought it was her imagination, but she heard footsteps. Footsteps approaching.
Lucy held her breath.
Chapter 88
They approached the van, weapons drawn. Jessica took the driver's side, Josh Bontrager flanked right, a few paces behind. The immediate danger was the threat from the back doors.
At the rear bumper Jessica stopped, raised her left hand, made it into a fist. Bontrager stopped. Jessica put her ear to the back doors, listened. Silence from within.
Jessica held up five fingers. Bontrager nodded.
Jessica crept up to the driver door, counted down silently from five. There were no lights in the van, so the side mirror did not reflect the inside. She held her weapon in her left hand, trained on the door, slid her right hand along the panel.
On four she opened the door, stepped to the left in attack stance, weapon leveled. The driver's seat was empty, as was the seat on the passenger side. Keys in the ignition.
Bontrager opened the passenger door on five, pointed his flashlight inside the van. Behind the driver's seat were a pair of side racks. Strapped into them were David Albrecht's equipment — tripods, equipment cases, lights, microphone stands, a short ladder.
Jessica flipped on the van's interior light.
There was no one inside.
Near the back doors they could see the video camera on its side.
The camera was on, the blue rectangle of the flip-out LCD screen glowed. Jessica took a single latex glove out of her pocket, snapped it on. She crossed to the back of the van, opened a door. Reaching in, she tilted the camera back onto its side. There had to be two dozen buttons.
'Do you know how to operate one of these?'
'Sort of,' Bontrager said. 'I took the video of my cousin's wedding last year.'
'There's video at an Amish wedding?'
'My cousin left the church. She married English.'
Bontrager put on a glove, looked closely at the camera for a few moments. He hit a button. They heard a whirring sound, then a click. The side of the camera opened.
'There's no tape,' Bontrager said.
Jessica scanned the back of the van, looking for a tape. Then she went back to the front of the vehicle, searched through the console and the glove compartment. Empty.
'Sometimes there's a memory card,' Bontrager said. He clicked a few more buttons. Different menus flicked by on the LCD screen. 'Yeah, the card's still in there.'
Bontrager thumbed a few more buttons, the screens ticked by. He hit a button. A video copied to the memory card began to play.
There were only twenty seconds or so of video and audio, but it was chilling. The video showed someone walking up to the camera along a dark lane. The camera was shaky, showed the figure from the shoulders down.
'It's you,' a voice whispered. Was it Albrecht speaking? Impossible to tell.
Without another word, the door of Albrecht's van was yanked open. The video spun into a collage of images: trees, night sky, the side of the van.
The image then became a stationary shot along the ground, showing Sawmill Road stretching out into the darkness. This continued for a few moments before the screen went black.
Bontrager stepped a few paces away from the van, pointing his flashlight at the ground. 'Jess.'
Jessica walked over. On the trunk of a fallen tree was a small pool of blood. A few more drops on the grass led deeper into the woods, over trampled branches.
Weapons in hand, the two detectives stepped into the forest.
Chapter 89
Lucy couldn't move. She was lying on a cold stone floor. A draft was coming from somewhere. She had been yanked roughly out of the van, walked down some stairs, and deposited on the floor. Then she heard a door slam and a lock turn.
