Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

“Oh, hey, Chief.” Mona backs out from beneath the desk, a Swiffer duster in one hand, a power cord in the other.

“Phones up and running?” I ask, only mildly concerned.

“Never unplugged the switchboard or dispatch station.”

Lois plucks a dust bunny from Mona’s hair and the two women break into laughter. I laugh, too. It starts as a small chuckle and then turns into a belly laugh powerful enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“What’s so funny?”

I turn, to see Pickles and Skid standing just inside the front door. On the other side of the room, Glock leans against the cubicle divider, his arms crossed, shaking his head.

“We’re not rightly sure,” Lois mutters, and we break into a new round of laughter.

Skid studies the tangle of wires beneath the desk. “That shit looks like a fire hazard.”

I cross to the coffee station and fill my mug. The Mast story made the morning news shows. Anchors from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego have been carrying it ad nauseum all morning. I know my team is wondering how much is true and how much is sensationalism.

“Everything quiet on the home front?” I ask as I turn to face them.

Skid makes a sound of annoyance. “Garth Hoskins ran a stoplight out on Hogpath Road and T-boned old man Jeff ers’s pickup truck last night.”

“Anyone hurt?”

He shakes his head. “I cited Hoskins.”

Garth Hoskins is eighteen years old and drives a 1971 Mustang fastback that has more horses than the kid has brain cells.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say.

The room falls silent, all eyes landing on me. I tell them everything I know about the case. “Apparently, Perry and Irene Mast suffered some kind of breakdown after their daughter committed suicide. For reasons unknown, they held their son responsible and imprisoned him. They began preying on troubled Amish teens.”

“How many dead?” Glock asks.

“Four,” I tell him. “Coroner’s office is still there.”

“How’s Sadie Miller doing?” Lois asks.

“I’m going to drive over there and take her final statement in a few minutes,” I tell her.

My cell phone vibrates against my hip. I see Tomasetti’s name on the display and hit TALK as I start toward my office. “You make it home okay?”

“Been here a couple of hours,” he tells me. “What about you?”

“Letting myself into my office now.” I toss my keys on my desk. “Any news?”

“Noah Mast is missing. He left the hospital this morning and no one has seen him since.”

“That’s odd. They checked the farmhouse? The tunnel? Sometimes people go back to the places they’re used to, even if those places are unpleasant.”

Tomasetti makes a sound that tells me he’s not convinced. “If he doesn’t turn up in the next hour or so, the sheriff’s office is going to put out an APB.”

“You don’t think he hurt himself, do you?”

“Nothing would surprise me at this point.” He pauses. “Have you talked with Sadie Miller yet?”

“I’m heading out to the farm now. I’ll send my report your way as soon as I get everything typed up.”

I find Esther Miller in the backyard of her farm house, hanging trousers on the clothesline. A wicker basket full of damp clothes sits at her feet. She smiles around the clothespin in her mouth when I approach.

“Guder mariye,” I say, wishing her a good morning.

“Wie bischt du heit?” How are you today?

She looks like a different woman. Her eyes are bright and alive, and I can tell she’s truly happy to see me. Dropping the trousers back into the basket, she crosses to me, throws her arms around me, and clings.

“Gott segen eich.” God bless you. She’s not crying, but I feel her trembling against me. “Thank you for bringing her back to us.”

After a moment, feeling awkward, I ease her to arm’s length and offer a smile. “How is she?”

“Good. Happy, I think.” She blinks back tears. “She’s to be baptized in two weeks.”

“I’m happy for you.” But I feel a pang in my gut. I think of Sadie’s passion for her needlework and the part of her that will be lost when she takes her oath to the church, and I realize something inside me mourns its loss.

“I need to get a final statement from her, Esther. Is she busy?”

“She is in the barn, feeding the new calf.” Bending, she reaches for the trousers, pins them to the clothesline. “Go on, Katie. She’ll be happy to see you. I’ll be out as soon as I get these clothes hung.”

I take the crumbling sidewalk to the hulking red barn. The big sliding door stands open. The smells of fresh- cut hay and horse manure greet me when I enter. An old buggy in need of paint sits in the shadows to my left. I hear Sadie singing an old Annie Lennox song, and I head toward where the sound is coming from.

I find her in a stall. She’s holding an aluminum pail with a large nipple affixed to the base. A newborn calf with a white face sucks greedily at the nipple, his eyes rolling back as he gulps and nudges vigorously at the pail. The sweet scent of milk replacer fills the air, and for an instant the familiarity of the scene transports me to the past.

“He’s cute,” I tell her.

Sadie looks up from her work and grins. She’s wearing a light blue dress with a white apron and kapp. There’s no sign of the girl who was fighting on the bridge just a few days ago. The transformation seems to go deeper than clothing. There’s a peace in her eyes I didn’t see before. “He is a she and her mamm has decided she wants nothing to do with her.”

“She might come around.”

“Maybe.” She looks down at the calf and smiles. “I kind of like bottle-feeding her, though.”

We watch the animal in silence for a moment and then I ask, “How are you doing?”

She doesn’t look at me. “Fine.”

“Your mamm tells me you’ll be getting baptized soon.”

“After everything that happened with . . .” Her words trail off. “I think it was God’s way of telling me the path I should take.”

“That’s good, Sadie. I’m happy for you.”

The calf’s mouth slips from the nipple. We laugh when she makes a slurping sound and reattaches.

“I need to ask you some questions about what happened,” I say.

Sadie nods, but she still doesn’t look at me. “Are they in jail?”

“They’re dead,” I tell her.

Her mouth tightens. “They were crazy.”

“I know, honey.” I pull my note pad and pen from my pocket. “I need you to tell me what happened, Sadie. From the beginning.”

She continues to watch the calf nurse, but all semblance of plea sure is gone from her expression now. “I was walking on the road, down by that old horse farm.”

“The Reiglesberger place?” I ask.

She nods. “I was standing by the bridge when I noticed an old car parked alongside the road. The man was walking around, calling for his dog. He told me the dog’s name was Benji and that he’d jumped out the window and run away. He asked me to help him find it.” A breath shudders out of her. “So we walked the ditch for a few minutes, calling for him. When my back was turned, he rushed me and stabbed me with something sharp.” Using her right hand, she reaches around and rubs her left shoulder. “At first, I thought it was a knife. I thought he was going to kill me, so I ran. But I got woozy—I mean, like I’d been drinking or something—and I could barely walk. The next thing I knew, he got back in the car and he rammed me with it.” She indicates her right hip. “Bumper hit me here, and I went flying.”

She takes a deep breath, as if to garner the full force of her determination, and keeps going. “He dragged me to the car. I tried to fight, but by then I could barely move.” She shrugs. I guess I passed out after that. When I woke up, I was in the tunnel.”

Her breathing is elevated. Beads of sweat coat her upper lip. She’s no longer paying attention to the calf, but lost in a nightmare I suspect she’ll be dealing with for quite some time.