A Child Is Missing (24 page)

He could feel the helicopter go up, up, up. He couldn't keep his eyes open. It was all like a dream. A good dream.

“So,” Jerry Graham said as the sound of the copter faded, “how the hell did you get here, Will?”

“I walked.”

“You bastard. And what do I do with you now?”

Will thought for only a moment. “You trust me. I've kept some stuff off the record.”

“So you have.”

“And now I get my payback.”

“Fair enough. The pool reporters are being briefed right about now. They'll be brought up here in a while to have a look. I don't want them to see you.”

“Oh, they'll find out I was here.”

“And be jealous.”

“I hope so.”

“Hmmm. Wait here, Will.”

Graham went to talk to a group of lawmen: the Long Creek police chief, two men wearing Sheriff's Department badges, a couple of men Will didn't recognize, and Raines. As Will watched, there seemed to be an argument: Graham against everyone else.

Will looked all around. Blood on the snow was fading to pink where the man had fallen wounded. Then Will noticed a second, smaller spot of blood some yards away.

Graham was on his way back.

“It's settled, Will. You'll come with me. Ready for a hike?”

“Where, Jerry?”

Graham pointed. “That way. We think the screwball came from that direction. We're going to backtrack for a while, using dogs, and see if we can find where the boy was kept. Stick to me like glue, Will. I just told my buddies that we'd have better control over you if you were with me.”

“Thanks, Jerry.”

Just then, two deputies with German shepherds came by. Will was reminded of something. “Jerry, I thought the guy who had the boy was supposed to have had a dog with him.”

“A deputy thought the dog might be going for the child, Will. So he shot him.”

The other spot of blood, Will thought. “Where's the animal?”

“Crawled away. Gut-shot, probably. Crawled away to die.”

That almost made Will sick. “Couldn't one of those fat-ass deputies take a few minutes to find him, for Christ's sake?”

Graham looked at him sadly, and for the first time Will saw that the agent was exhausted. “We can't plan everything, Will. A lot of shooting, a lot of chaos. The dog's gone, and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it. This case has taken everything I have. More.”

“What now?”

Graham said that he and several other investigators would try to retrace the tracks for clues as to where the boy had been kept. Will could accompany them, observe everything, if he agreed to keep some details out of his stories.

“What kind of details, Jerry?”

“I don't know yet. Things that might be crucial at the trial. Or trials. Don't forget, we're still looking for at least one other kidnapper.”

Something about that didn't wash. “Don't bullshit me, Jerry. You just have the traditional FBI man's approach of wanting to control everything.”

“I could send you back to Long Creek right now.”

He means it. Will knew from the voice. “I'll do it your way if I have to, Jerry.”

“Let's go.” Graham put his hand on Will's shoulder. It was a conciliatory gesture. “You know how the bureau works, Will.”

“Yeah, I do. After all, J. Edgar Hoover's only been dead about twenty years.”

Twenty-three

Will lost track of time and distance as he and Graham walked through the woods. They were a little behind the main group of trackers, and Graham kept in touch with them by radio. They could hear the deep barking up ahead.

In places, the ruts left by the sled, the man's tracks, and his dog's tracks were unmistakable. In other places, depending on the contour of the land and its exposure to the wind, the trail was all but obscured.

The agent's radio squawked. “Graham here.… Roger. I'm coming. Something up ahead, Will.”

The FBI man and Will caught up to the trackers, who stood in a small semicircle around a spot on a slope where the snow beneath the freshly fallen flakes was packed down. The dogs sniffed constantly and tugged at their leashes.

“They must have spent the night here,” Graham said. “Lucky they didn't freeze to death.”

Will and Graham stood back a few yards as an officer took photographs from several angles and another jotted notes on a clipboard.

When they were done, they pressed on, led now as much by the dogs as by the tracks, which were getting harder to spot. It was almost midafternoon, and Will was functioning on adrenaline. But Jerry Graham was his age; if he could still move, so could Will. All of Will's mental and emotional circuits were going: As a man, he was elated that the boy had been rescued; as a newsman, he was elated over a big story. He absorbed new details even as he arranged the old ones in his mind.

He was starting to worry a little about time. At some point, he would try to get to a telephone—
any
phone, if he didn't get back to Long Creek in time. He would talk his way into a farmhouse if he had to. He would file a story for the first edition of the next day's paper even if he had to stand dripping from melting snow in a stranger's kitchen and dictate it off the top of his head.

“How're you holding up, Will?”

“I'm making it. So far.”

“The next time someone says you have to get out of the Northeast to find really rugged country, I'll shoot him.”

“Jerry, what about the other kidnappers? There's at least one more.”

“That's why I'm praying that our screwball friend doesn't die, Will. We need to talk to him.”

“How bad is he?”

“Bad enough.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not a lot. Average height and build, in his forties. Looks and smells like he lives in the woods. And he has burn scars.”

“Burn scars?”

“All around his face, Will. Something bad happened to him. A long time ago.”

“Thanks for taking care of me, Jerry. I mean, not shutting me out.”

“Hey, I owed you. We're both old enough to know the manual doesn't cover everything. In your job or mine.”

“God no, it doesn't.”

The snow had stopped altogether, and the clouds were breaking up. Graham's radio squawked again. Will couldn't decipher the message, but Graham's eyes went wide in astonishment.

“Roger, I'm coming as fast as I can. Rope it off. Oh, and get a canopy over it in case the snow starts again.” Graham shook his head. “You'll find this hard to believe, Will.”

The lawmen stood around the grave-size pit, studying the rusting hot-water tank that lay within. Judging by the dimensions and depth of the hole, the tank had been buried with some care, then dug up again in haste. The snow had covered much of the dirt, and the big clumps of earth that remained visible stood out like chocolate against a pristine white.

The tank had been equipped with a door, really a metal hatch with hinges and a lock. While somewhat crude, the hatch looked efficient enough. The cutting and refastening had obviously been done by someone used to working with metal—or so it seemed to Will, who was totally unhandy with tools and never could remember the difference between soldering and welding. The hatch and its lock had been broken off, probably with a shovel or crowbar, and lay next to the tank. Will found it odd that the hatch, obviously fashioned with such care, had been ripped off in haste. Had the kidnappers lost the key?

“Will, it looks like this is where Jamie Brokaw was kept. Can you believe this?”

As unobtrusively as he could, Will took out his notebook and began to jot down what he saw. The snow covering had been brushed away. Visible through the opening where the hatch cover had been were two woolen blankets, their folds frozen not just with snow but what looked like urine and feces; pieces of waxed paper and several chunks of bread, some frozen and with the peck marks of birds who had discovered them after the hatch was open; several candy wrappers; a jug of now-frozen water; and a flashlight.

Will made notes on all of it, in a hand that trembled from cold, fatigue, and emotion.

“Don't this beat all,” one lawman said quietly.

Will wrote that remark in his notepad, wrote down the time of day, wrote how a somber hush had fallen over the gathering. Then he saw something that stunned him, and he knew he would have to include it in his story. He even knew what he would say, word for word:

A veteran FBI agent cried as he stood in the woods beside the frozen pit that had been the hiding place of a kidnapped boy, a pit that almost became a grave.

Will waited until he thought Graham had composed himself. Then he approached him and said quietly, “Do you have any comment, Jerry?”

To Will's surprise, the agent did. “You can say that this is one of the cruelest, rottenest things I've seen in twenty-plus years of law enforcement,” Graham said. “Write that down and quote me on it.”

The agent turned to walk away, stopped, looked Will in the face. “Another thing,” Graham said, almost shouting. “We're going to find everyone responsible for this, and I personally will do all I can to see that they fry in the chair. One way or another.”

With that, Graham stomped off through the snow. Will watched him take the Long Creek police chief aside. The two conferred for a minute or more; then Graham came back to Will. “We're trying to decide how much longer to look. It won't be daylight forever.”

“Jerry, do you know who actually shot the guy?”

“A Deer County deputy, we think.”

Will didn't feel like pressing him for the name just then.

“Sir, isn't it likely that the suspect lived right nearby? I mean, if he had the little boy in the ground here, he must have chosen a place with easy access.…”

It was Raines. Will could tell that the cop rubbed Graham the wrong way.

“As long as the dogs are still interested, sir, I think we should continue. We might be very close.”

“Okay, Raines. You might be right. A while longer, then.”

A small group of investigators stayed by the pit, taking measurements and pictures. The dogs led the rest of the searchers through the snowy woods. Will stayed near the rear of the group. He hoped something would happen before time got really critical for him to make first-edition deadline. Over-head, there was the sound of helicopters. Will heard the squawk of radios.

A little while later, Will heard excitement up ahead. Then he saw Graham coming back to get him. “We found a cabin, Will.”

It stood in a small clearing and had been assembled partly from logs, partly from discarded building materials. The tin cans jingled as the men stooped to get under the twine strung around the structure.

The dogs sniffed intently, then growled as they strained on their leashes.

“Hold on, everybody!” Graham shouted. “We've got footprints.”

Will stood on tiptoes to see over the shoulders of the deputies in front of him. Beneath the overhang of the crude roof, Will saw man-size footprints and several much smaller ones-clearly a boy's. They had been frozen in the early snow and because of the overhang and the wind direction had not been obscured by the later snowfall.

Will heard the click of camera shutters, saw Graham make some notes, saw a deputy cordon off the section with the prints.

Some yards away, at the edge of a clearing, Will saw the beginnings of a snowman. How crazy.…

Graham pushed the door open, peered inside, and said, “Son of a bitch. Someone's been living here, all right.”

Will watched the agent step across the threshold, then kneel down and laboriously take off his boots. Then he stood up and took off his heavy jacket. “Please note for the record that I have removed my footwear prior to a preliminary search of these premises. Just so some smart-ass defense lawyer can't say later that I introduced foreign material. That last is off the record.”

For several minutes, Graham was inside. As inconspicuously as he could, Will pushed his way to the front of the crowd gathered around the door. He caught a glimpse of the interior—dim light, crude wooden furniture, crammed shelves—and the odor of old wood smoke. And Will thought there was something else: a smell of dog, and of a man who lived alone.

Graham put his boots on again, said something to a couple of men near him, and stepped outside.

“Any sign of any ransom money?” Will said.

“Negative,” Graham said. “But I didn't do a thorough search. We'll take this place apart.”

“Are you sure the boy was held here?” Will said.

“I'm not sure of very much right now,” Graham said. “But I think our strange friend lived here. There's dog food inside, and there're some blankets and some cushions near the fireplace. Some dirty dishes and food leftovers.”

“Should we get a warrant before we toss the place?” It was Raines, standing off to the side.

Graham looked to the Long Creek police chief and said, “What do you think?”

“We could seal it off and wait,” the chief said. “Warrant's no problem.”

Graham seemed to think about that for a moment. “Let's do it that way. I think we have probable cause anyhow, but we'll leave no loopholes.”

“All right,” the chief said. “I want a couple of men to stay here for a while.”

Off to the side, Will saw Raines put up his hand. “I'm available, Chief.” Raines's face sagged in disappointment as the chief ignored him and pointed to two older cops close by.

Graham came over to Will. The agent's face was drawn. “I have to go back and give a briefing to your competitors, Will. They'll get a look at the shooting scene and the hole and the cabin. I won't give them anything you don't have.”

“I know. And thanks.”

But Graham had already turned and walked back to the police chief, with whom he conferred in nods and whispers. If Will got the chance, he would tell his old friend how grateful he was: If Will had had to wait with the pool reporters to see everything—or, far worse, if he had had to wait back in Long Creek with the main pack of journalists waiting to be briefed by the pool reporters—he wouldn't have been able to do much for the
Gazette
's early edition. Now he could.