Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

“Ja.”

“Did they ever let you out?” he asks.

He raises his head, rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “They brought everything I needed down to me. Meat and bread. Water. Milk. Mamm read the Bible to me.”

Tomasetti stares at the calluses on the man’s wrists. “Did they keep you chained?”

“Most of the time. But only because I tried to leave.”

“Were there others down there with you?”

Noah doesn’t answer immediately. It’s obvious he’s trying to protect his parents, despite the cruelty they inflicted upon him, the years they stole from his life. “I never saw them. But I could hear them sometimes. You know, crying.”

“Do you know any of their names?

The Amish man shakes his head.

“Were there girls and boys?”

“Girls, I think.”

Tomasetti nods. “Do you know why your parents put them there?”

“I figured they did something bad and needed to be brought back. Same as me.”

“How did your parents find the girls?”

“I dunno.”

“Do you know how they got the girls into the tunnel?”

“I think God brought them.”

Tomasetti looks down at his hands, laces his fingers, unlaces them. “Noah, about your parents . . . I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“What do you mean?” The Amish man pushes up in the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. The gown shifts, and I see a swirl of hair on a sunken chest and shoulders that are bony and sharp.

“Your parents were killed earlier today. I’m sorry.”

“What? Killed?” His mouth opens. I see yellow incisors and molars in the early stages of decay. “You mean they are dead?”

“I’m very sorry,” Tomasetti says.

“But how can that be? I saw them this morning. Mamm brought me milk, like always. They weren’t sick. Why are you saying these things?” He looks at me as if expecting me to dispute the words. When I don’t, he collapses back into the pillows and looks up at the ceiling, his chest heaving. “I don’t believe you. They would not leave me.”

Without looking away, Tomasetti reaches for the plastic pitcher of water on the tray and pours some into a cup, hands it to Noah.

The Amish man doesn’t look at us as he sips. When he finishes, he relaxes back into the pillow and closes his eyes. “I cannot believe they are gone. How did they die?”

“Your father was sick—”

“But he was fine!”

Tomasetti touches his temple. “He was sick inside his head, where you couldn’t see it.”

Noah Mast puts his face in his hands and begins to sob.

The Whistle Stop Tavern in Monongahela Falls is nestled in a warehouse district between the Grand River and a busy set of railroad tracks. In keeping with the train theme, the establishment is housed inside an old railroad car. The interior has been renovated and made into a bar and restaurant—heavy on the bar—and reeks of fried onions and cigarette smoke. The smell should repel me, but I have an affinity for places of disrepute and I’ve spent too much time in dives just like this one not to be attracted to it now.

Six booths line the left side of the car. The benches are the requisite red vinyl; the tabletops are Formica, with chrome strips on the sides. The bar itself looks like a ramp that was once used to schlep goods onto railway cars. It’s a massive slab of scuffed wood and runs the length of the car. The lower part of the bar, where red and chrome stools are lined up like colorful mushrooms, is covered with gum—the chewed variety—and I realize that at some point over the decades, it became a weird kind of tradition for patrons to stick their gum to the wood.

It’s after midnight and the place is deserted. We find a booth at the rear and order coffee. The bartender is a large bald man with arms the size of tree trunks. He has a spiked dog collar around his neck, and there’s a tattoo of a pit bull on his right bicep. But he’s fast and friendly, and within a couple of minutes he delivers two steaming mugs.

Tomasetti smiles as he picks up his cup. “You think there’s a matching leash?”

“I’m betting his wife keeps it in the night table next to the bed.”

“There’s a thought I don’t want in my head.” He tips the mug. “Here’s to interesting characters.”

“There are plenty of us to go around.”

We sip coffee, comfortable with the silence. The last hours have been intense, and we both know it will take some time to decompress.

“You haven’t talked about what happened in the tunnel,” Tomasetti says after a moment.

The truth of the matter is, I haven’t had a chance to think about the time I spent underground with Perry Mast. Now that the adrenaline is flagging and exhaustion is setting in, I realize those minutes were probably some of the most terrifying of my life.

“The worst part was having to leave those girls behind,” I tell him. “They were terrified I wouldn’t come back for them.”

“I guess they don’t know you as well as I do. Remind me to give you shit later about risking your neck, will you?” But there’s no rancor in his voice.

“Bad habit of mine.” The smile feels phony on my lips, but I don’t bother trying to disguise it. Maybe because I’m tired. Maybe because I trust him, even with the part of me that isn’t always on the up-and-up.

I think about the case and all the strange places it has taken us. I think of the body I found in the tunnel, and I wonder if the parents know of their dead child yet. I wonder if the news will give them comfort or closure, or if the not knowing was better because they still had hope.

“Did the coroner have any idea how long that girl had been dead?” I ask.

Tomasetti shakes his head, gives me a reproachful look. “You couldn’t have saved her, Kate.”

“If we’d figured this out sooner, we might have—”

“Cut it out.” He softens the words with a smile. “Those three girls are alive because of you. Because of what you did. You listened to your gut and you went into a dangerous situation. A lot of cops wouldn’t have done that, so stop beating yourself up.”

The television above the bar changes to a newscast, and the bartender reaches for the remote and turns up the volume. Neither of us looks at the TV, but we listen.

According to the Lake County sheriff’s office, a local Amish man shot and killed his wife this afternoon and then turned the gun on himself. The sheriff’s office isn’t releasing details, but according to reports, a number of hostages were being held in an underground room. The hostages, several of whom have been missing for quite some time, are recovering at a hospital in Cleveland. No names have been released. . . .

Tomasetti sets down his mug and walks over to the jukebox, digs change from his pocket, and makes a selection. A few seconds later, Red Rider’s “Lunatic Fringe” rattles from the speakers, drowning out the newscaster’s voice.

Neither of us wants to talk about the case. But it’s part of the decompression process. I sense the weight of it between us.

Tomasetti breaks the silence. “I heard from the CSU earlier,” he tells me. “They found more remains. Bones. In the hog pens.”

The hog pens. The meaning behind the words creep over me like a snake slithering around my neck. “Have any of them been identified?”

“I don’t know if the lab will be able to extract DNA from the bones. We’re going through cold missing-person cases, but I think identification is going to take a while.”

I nod, thinking about the Masts, what might have driven them to commit such horrific deeds. “We talked to them, Tomasetti. Why the hell didn’t we know something was wrong with them?”

“Insanity isn’t always obvious.”