It was a thing she could never have ever wished for in her past, but now she wished for death to take her, and yet there remained a residual of hatred and anger for Purdy that made her want to kill him first. But how?
An army of black-and-white cars with sirens blaring descended like locusts on the Purdy farmstead, one running down a RE/MAX For Sale sign as they converged on the house and bam. Two teams moved with precision training, each knowing its objective: one to control the house, the other to control the bam. They easily poured into the house, the doors unlocked and one swinging on its hinges. There, Sheriff Chester Dunkirk immediately felt the utter loneliness of the place, the emptiness of the old farmstead, as if the walls shouted its desertion. Still, he called out for Purdy and Mrs. Purdy to show themselves. “No one's going to harm you. It's Chester Dunkirk and Deputy Bailey Dobbins. The State Patrol's got some questions for you, Isaiah, Eunice.”
Deputy Dobbins added, “Come on, now. You know me. I come only to help you out whenever you got problems over this way. Just come on out of hiding now and answer the sheriff's questions. Just step out now.”
There was no response, save the pounding of men charging up the stairwell to Purdy's second story. Everyone knew the fierce regard many of the area farmers held about anyone, lawman or not, coming uninvited onto their property and especially into their houses. Every man here understood he could be shot at any moment should old Isaiah come through a door blasting two shotgun barrels full of buckshot at the officers, and given the allegations against the old man…
One patrolman now stuck his head over the rail and shouted down, “All clear up here, Sheriff! Nobody at all.”
Others poured into the basement. Again the report came back: no one, not a sign of life and no sign of the abducted judge. “Nobody walking.”
Sheriff Dunkirk repeated the words in a mutter of frustration. “Nobody walking. Hope Gorman's team's done better out at the bam.”
Meanwhile, team two had a problem getting into the bam. It appeared locked from inside.
“ Careful, you men! Purdy may be armed and dangerous!” shouted Chief Virgil Gorman, in charge of the second strike force. “Place could be booby-trapped as well,” came another shout. Men poured through the back door now and some had scaled through windows they'd broken out, and one had scaled a rope and was into the loft overhead. They brought flashlights to bear on the expansive bam, searching every comer and inch for any sign of anyone or anything untoward or out of place, or any sign of disturbed earth. Nothing save the pantheon of instruments found in any bam: rusty rat traps, harnesses, ropes, cans filled with nails, stalls standing empty, and a floor of mildewed hay.
No coffins.
No one tied to a post.
No blood or bodies dangling from rafters.
A few scurrying mice.
A lieutenant, who had deferred to the town sheriff's rule at the house, had rushed out to Gorman, shouting, “Nothing up at the house. Beds are made; place is neat as a pin, like it hasn't been lived in for some time.”
“ Son of a bitch!” shouted Virgil Gorman, a sixth- generation Iowan policeman, who purely hated it when an Iowa man broke the laws of man or God. He had never met Purdy, but he knew the area around Iowa City and the Falls; the area harbored Purdys up and down the roads. He'd have to have his men fan out and talk to every goddamn one of them about this man Isaiah Purdy, see who knew what, and if anyone might be harboring him. He tried to imagine anyone cruel enough to conceal and shelter Purdy while the man buried this poor woman alive.
“ Fan out with the dogs! By daybreak, I want every inch of this property scoured for anything smacking of freshly dug earth! You got that!”
A chorus of yes sirs responded. Like a well-trained machine, the men broke into teams.
Gorman shouted at the Iowa City sheriff, Chester Dunkirk, saying, “Chester, you sure we got the right farm here?”
“ This is Isaiah's place, all right. Don't rightly know where his wife's got off to. I expected to at least find her up at the house, but she's nowhere to be found. The house is strange, like someone's lived there just yesterday but no longer. Cups, saucers, food scraps, but no people, and no feeling of people.”
“ Now what?” asked one of the patrolmen, his hat in his hand.
“ Now I gotta tell these people in Houston and in Washington, D.C., that their information was wrong and their warrants useless.”
The young lieutenant standing by said, “Suppose maybe Purdy's still on his way back here, Chief? Sir?”
“ Maybe… but we can't take that chance. Search high and low. And Marty, put a cruiser out on 1-80 and one on that old dirt road that runs betwixt here and Three Comers. Only roads he can take down through here. Watch for anything smacking of the vehicle the Feds put the APB out on. If he is still transporting this judge, we'll get the damned old fool.”
“ Right, Virgil. On it.” Virgil Gorman stared Dunkirk down and said, “I gotta call this lady doctor in D.C. and this fellow Stonecoat in Houston with the bad news. Keep everyone looking for anything outta the ordinary, Chester. Don't take anything for granted.”
At the same instant, someone shouted out, “Grave site! Gawl-darn grave site here!”
Everyone converged on the shouter and the circle of light his flash beam made over a mound of freshly dug earth. “Break out your shovels, boys!” shouted Gorman. Many of the officers had by order brought their shovels along for the grisly work, and they set the spades to working now, the dirt flying like a black water spray.
Still, they could not work fast enough for Gorman, who wanted this nightmare not to be happening in his rural jurisdiction. “Get that damned generator and field light out here. Get some of them damn car lights on this spot!” he ordered. “Get it dug up, you men! Now! Now! Now!” shouted Gorman, pushing past Dunkirk and the others. “Dig her out!”
The younger, stronger men bent to the work, tearing at the recently disturbed earth. The excited young officer who had first discovered it dug ferociously while saying, “The dogs first picked up animal tracks around it. Told me animals been sniffing around here. Then my light picked up the fact the dirt here 'bout didn't look pat, you know. All stirred up, you know, darkest patch in the moonlight.”
A field light came suddenly on, flooding the grave site and the men working at the gruesome task of disinterring the body were suddenly surround by their own giant shadows.
Someone handed Virgil Gorman a cellular phone, saying, “It's that Texas cop, Virgil. He wants to know what's happening. Told him only you could say.”
Gorman snorted like a walrus at this, took the phone, and spoke into it. “Stonecoat? We got bad news and- whoa… hold on… and on top of the bad news, we got more bad news. First off, Purdy is not here and nowhere to be found. Second, we've discovered a single grave site and are in the process right this moment of shoveling it empty for a look- see. You understand?”
“ Gotcha, Chief.” At his end, Lucas Stonecoat conveyed the bad news, a chorus of despair replying and filtering through the line all the way to Iowa.
“ I want to stay on the line until you ID Judge DeCampe, sir,” Lucas said to Gorman.
“ I fully understand, Lieutenant Stonecoat. Will keep this line open. We have the Feds on the other line. I gotta tell them what's up.”
Gorman switched lines and was on the phone with Jessica Coran now. He brought Jessica up to date, adding, “We have a faxed photo of DeCampe. As soon as we have verification she is… you know… in the grave out here, we will let you know.” He held up the phone to the grunting and the sound of dirt flying. “We're doing it without benefit of a backhoe, so it'll take a little bit.”
“ Thanks, Chief Gorman. Anyone from our field office in Davenport arrive yet?”
“ Negative on that. Sorry we don't seem to have any good news whatsoever for you folks.”
Gorman felt painfully aware of the chorus of grunts, snorts, cursing, and gravel-tossing relayed through his open line to Dr. Coran. He felt an acute sense of disappointment at the situation, at his inability to do anything ultimately useful, as he assumed the woman was long dead, and at the depths to which human depravity sank, and in particular one lone Iowan. He wondered if this Isaiah Purdy might not actually have been born elsewhere and migrated to the state, but he rather doubted this, too.
