A Child Is Missing (28 page)

The suspect died in Long Creek Regional Hospital of a wound suffered in a shoot-out with lawmen who had cornered him in a remote area of forest near the border of Hill and Deer counties, not far from Pennsylvania. He had never regained consciousness.

The
Gazette
has learned that investigators believe the man was Steven Sewell, and that the mysterious burn scars on his face were suffered in a controversial 1970 raid by Long Creek police on the “hippie” colony in the woods a half mile outside of Long Creek.

Long Creek Police Chief Robert Howe, reached at his home last night, would neither confirm nor deny that the bizarre woods hermit had been identified. “We may have an announcement soon,” he said before cutting short a telephone conversation.

The man tentatively identified as Sewell, believed to have been in his early to mid-forties, is thought to have been burned critically when flames consumed several shacks and tents at the colony the night of May 7, 1970, just three days after Ohio National Guardsmen fired on students at Kent State University.

The fires, the cause of which was never established conclusively, killed three inhabitants of the colony, including a young woman who was living with Sewell. The woman, Jo Stryker, perished in the flames, despite repeated efforts by Sewell and others to save her. She was later found to have been pregnant.

The raid, carried out after repeated complaints from conservative residents of Hill County about the freewheeling lifestyle of the colony's members, prompted a special state investigation. No police officers were ever indicted, although a special grand jury criticized “the conduct of a few officers who were not adequately supervised.”

The police who carried out the raid defended it as a legitimate attempt to root out drug traffickers and users. Members of the colony did not dispute that there was widespread drug use—some were boastful of their marijuana-growing ability—but they insisted that some raiders deliberately torched their tents and shacks.

Autopsies confirmed that the three who were killed in the raid had been using drugs a short time before. Several of the injured were also believed to have been using drugs. At the time, police officials linked the inability of some shack and tent residents to escape the flames to drug-induced lethargy.

Despite the lack of indictments against police officers, the raid was a major embarrassment to the Long Creek police and the Hill County Sheriff's Department, which also took part in the operation.

There were reports last night, from sources familiar with events of the still-unfolding kidnapping case, that hospital officials were acquiescing to the police department in delaying an announcement of the tentative identification of the suspect. The police are said to believe that a delay of even a day would mean less intensive publicity. Indeed, the small army of print and electronic journalists that descended on this normally quiet town has already begun to thin.

Identification of the suspect would still leave several major questions unanswered, notably the whereabouts of the ransom money and the other kidnapper or kidnappers. Nor would identification of the suspect who died last night begin to explain his supposed role in the abduction and burial of Jamie Brokaw and the elaborate ransom demands.

Special Agent Gerald Graham of the FBI had been working closely on the case, but he left Long Creek shortly after the victim was recovered. He explained his somewhat puzzling departure by saying that his mission was essentially accomplished with the recovery of the missing boy.

The tentative identification of the suspect as Steven Sewell reportedly came about because several longtime aides at Long Creek Hospital who recalled treating the injured from the 1970 raid took note of his disfiguring facial burn scars.

It was not known why the man believed to be Sewell chose to live in isolation in a remote forest area with only a dog for company. But he did it without attracting much attention, perhaps partly because of a sad fact of life in rural Hill and Deer counties, where the sight of poorly dressed men, women, and children is commonplace. Poverty is as old as the hills there, and as enduring.

Twenty-seven

Will tried not to smirk as he walked into the briefing room. Reporters were filing in, taking their seats in the folding metal chairs. Some ignored him, or pretended to. A couple glanced at him and looked away quickly. One came up, poked him playfully in the ribs, and said, “Congrats.”

Will smiled and said thanks.

The chief came in, and the room went quiet. Frowning, the chief read a statement (hastily prepared after the telephone interview of the night before, Will was sure), which said that his department was still trying to establish the identity of the suspect, who had died the previous night.

“Contrary to published reports, which are premature, we have not ascertained the subject's identity,” the chief said woodenly. “At this time, I can confirm that we are trying to determine if the subject was one Steven Sewell. We are still trying to establish that fact.”

“Chief, will you be able to make the I.D. through computerized fingerprint records, assuming that the guy might have had an arrest record for drugs?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the chief said. “The subject had some burn scars on his hands.”

“Chief, you are not saying that the published report was incorrect, are you?” asked a reporter in the front row.

“Not at this time,” the chief said.

Will allowed himself to feel smug. His story had been on target. No, a bull's-eye. Hands down. Damn, he thought, this is more fun than watching over an office and tiptoeing around the publisher all the time.

The rest of the briefing was short and routine. There were no other surprises, no more answers to the nagging riddles.

So he probably would go home tomorrow. He was looking forward to that, yet he was sad, too. Covering a big story could be … fun. There was no better word for it. It was why he had gone into the newspaper business.

Will would do some more reporting and writing—on his own, if need be. This time, he meant it.

He had time to spare before filing his story. Energy to spare, too. There was something he wanted to check into, just for the hell of it.

He found the same editor he had seen before at the
Long Creek Eagle.
The editor sportingly congratulated Will on his exclusive story and said sure, no problem, he could have access again to the
Eagle
's clips and microfilm.

There was no way Will could keep secret what—rather, whom—he was interested in. Although he had become somewhat familiar with the
Eagle
's information-storage system on his last visit, he would still need help. The morgue clerk, a middle-aged man with a limp, reacted courteously enough, but Will thought he saw a flicker of doubt on his face as Will asked him for the clips on Richard Brokaw.

But the clerk retrieved the clips, arranged more or less in order in an inch-thick manila envelope, and Will began to sift through them. They told the story of a young man from Hill County who succeeded at just about everything he tried: class president and football star in high school, football star and engineering major at Cornell, cable-television entrepreneur back home in Long Creek.

Clearly, Richard Brokaw had never meant to be limited by the isolation and decay of his hometown. In fact, he had used that very isolation to make himself wealthy, by bringing cable television into the region. Apparently, a lot of people who couldn't afford decent clothes or dental work could afford cable.

But there was something missing from the story of Richard Brokaw's life, and Will wandered out to the tiny newsroom to ask about it.

“Tell me,” Will said to the same helpful editor, “where are all the clippings on Richard Brokaw's divorce?”

The editor smiled sheepishly. “There aren't any.”

Will was surprised: a bitter divorce involving a prominent local citizen, and no coverage? “No clips at all?” Will said. “Not even when the divorce decree was handed down?”

The editor continued to smile. “Richard Brokaw is a very big man around here. I mean
very.
He didn't want his divorce covered, so it wasn't.”

Of course. Will had been momentarily naïve. If there was anything he was familiar with, it was the care and feeding of sacred cows—and how often they succeeded in keeping things out of the paper.

Will thanked the editor for his help and left.

He didn't know what he was looking for—nothing important, probably—but having struck out at the
Long Creek Eagle
made him all the more determined. When he had first driven into Long Creek, he had noted the location of the county courthouse. That was his next stop.

The courthouse had been built in the same era as the Long Creek Hospital. The inside smelled of old marble, wood, and cigar smoke. After a couple of bum steers, he found the right office—really, a corner of a corner of an office.

He waited at an ancient wooden desk for a minute or more until an old man appeared from a warren of filing shelves. He was short, froglike, with white hair and skin. Will wondered whether he ever got any sunshine.

The man looked at Will through glasses as thick as storm windows and said, “Help you?”

“I understand this is where divorce decrees are filed.”

“Yep.”

“I'd like to see the paperwork in the case of
Brokaw, Richard
versus
Celeste.”

“Nope.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said nope.”

“It's public record, isn't it?”

“Yep.”

“Then I demand to see it.”

“Nope.”

Will felt his head spinning. This is like Alice in Wonderland, he thought. “Let me get this straight. You agree that it's public record, but you won't let me see it.”

“Mister, you're just a stranger standing in front of me. You got no control over what happens in this courthouse. Now, Richard Brokaw has a lot of say in who gets elected county commissioner.…”

“And who around here gets to keep their jobs.”

“You got it. That's why you don't get to see them divorce papers.”

Will started to say something about filing a freedom-of-information suit, or getting a court order (a court order! He was standing powerless in the courthouse, where he was a total stranger!), then thought the better of it.

Ears burning with anger and humiliation, he turned and walked away without saying anything. From now on, he'd have to be more understanding when his reporters couldn't get information. He'd just had a stinging reminder: whether something was public record or not, you couldn't get it—when you wanted it, at least—unless someone gave it to you.

He stopped again at the police station to see whether there was anything new (there wasn't), then decided to stop at the same diner where he and Casey had gone. That reminded him: He had to say good-bye to Casey. He didn't know whether he was sad or relieved, or both.

He ordered coffee and chili, which went well with the cold, gray midday. Still smarting over being defeated by Richard Brokaw—that was how he thought of it—he wondered whether his pride was getting in the way of his judgment. Did the details of Richard Brokaw's divorce really matter if they had nothing to do with the kidnapping?

Okay, Will thought. Suppose, just suppose, Brokaw arranged to have his own kid snatched. My God, could that be? But Brokaw had looked so heartbroken at the press conference. Sure, and he could have made his eyes red by chopping onions. But why kidnap his own son?

Will left a generous tip, complimented the cook for his four-alarm chili, and headed out into the cold. Earlier, he had heard something that stuck with him. Now what the hell was it? He has the best shrinks in the world to straighten out the kid's head.

A reporter had said that about Brokaw. It was true. He could hire a lot of shrinks, get them to straighten out his traumatized son, maybe fix it so the boy wanted his father all the time.…

Will, Will. Give it up. That's too fantastic. Isn't it? Is it? So what's the big secret about the Brokaw divorce? And how does that forest freak fit into it? Or maybe he was never supposed to fit into it at all.…

He was still wondering when he pulled into the hotel's tiny parking lot. As he got out of his car, a bigger car pulled in right alongside his.

Two men got out and confronted him.

“You're Will Shafer?” one said.

“That's right.” Cops, Will thought. I have to keep my head. Can't give them a chance to use their authority. Something familiar about one of them. Had Will seen him at the police station? He wasn't sure.

Twenty-eight

“Mr. Brokaw would very much like to see you. Right away.”

Will was flabbergasted. “Sure. Should I follow you?”

“We'll take you and bring you back.”

A rear door was held open, and Will settled into the back of a Lincoln Continental. Soon, the car was in one of the few sections of Long Creek that didn't look shabby. The driver turned into a driveway that led to a low gray-modern structure with an edifice as much glass as stone. The car kept going, all the way to the rear, where it made a ninety-degree turn, then another, and proceeded down a short ramp. At the bottom, a metal door rolled open automatically, and the car entered the bay.

“Welcome to the home of Twin Counties Cablevision, Mr. Shafer.” It was Richard Brokaw, standing next to the car in a thousand-dollar gray suit and looking totally in charge despite the lines of fatigue and worry that creased his face. “Tony, you'll take Mr. Shafer back when he's ready.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, from the newspaper pictures, Will recognized the smaller man as Tony, the chauffeur who had been driving Jamie Brokaw home the night of the kidnapping.

“Hello,” Will said, shaking hands with Brokaw and trying not to betray his intense curiosity: What did the guy want?

Brokaw smiled ever so slightly. “Please, Mr. Shafer. Won't you come with me? Thanks, guys.”