Death Falls (18 page)

Making her way back to the ladder, Kat imagined herself and James having to share such confined quarters. Sometimes they had enough trouble staying in the same house, let alone a room as large as a prison cell. Being cooped up like that would make them both stir-crazy, and there was even room for a third.

Kat stopped, left foot on the bottom rung. Clearly, Mort Clark had built the shelter because he was worried about all the things everyone else was worried about in the fifties. Commies. Bombs. Aliens. If such unthinkable things occurred, he wanted to have a place where he and his wife would be safe.

Yet there were three bunks in the bomb shelter. Not two. That meant Mort was concerned about someone else besides his wife. Why else would he have an extra bunk in his bomb shelter? Who that person was and what it could mean, Kat had no idea.

Climbing out of the hatch and slamming the door shut behind her, she thanked Ginger for showing her the place.

“It’s lovely, but I think I’m going to pass.”

Ginger frowned. “You don’t like the house?”

Kat liked the house just fine, even though she had no intention of buying it. What she didn’t like was that she still knew next to nothing about the people who had once lived in it.

For lunch, Kat fetched a pizza from a cut-rate place next to the Shop and Save and took it back to the station. She and Lou shared it, each of them sitting on opposite sides of her desk and grabbing a slice. It was skimpy on the pepperoni and heavy on the grease, but Kat didn’t care. She was so hungry that cardboard with tomato sauce would have felt like a feast.

“How much do you know about the Clarks?” she asked Lou between bites.

“Not very much. Mort used to work for the mill. And Ruth made a mean lemon meringue pie.”

“That’s not really the information I was looking for.”

“You ever try to make lemon meringue?” Lou asked. “That’s not a skill to be trifled with.”

“I was hoping for someone who knew more about them.”

“They’re out there. In fact, they get together every morning at the diner.”

Lou was talking about a group of old-timers who crowded a corner booth every weekday at the Perry Hollow Diner. They were called the Coffee Crew, although Kat wasn’t sure if they came up with that name themselves or were given it by the diner’s frazzled waitresses. Consisting of retirees and former mill workers, it was a constantly evolving bunch. Members died off and were replaced by new faces. Only one man seemed to always be there year after year. As a result, he was the group’s de facto moderator, always prompting a discussion of the weather or a complaint about the government.

“Norm Harper?” Kat asked.

“The one and only,” Lou said. “I guarantee you can catch him there tomorrow.”

She hoped that good old Norm, who rivaled Lou herself in gossip prowess, would be able to shed some light on Mort and Ruth Clark. Kat still didn’t think they had anything to do with the missing boys. They were far too old for something like that, especially considering the fact that Bucky Mason, the last boy on their list, vanished in late 1972. But she was uncomfortable with her lack of knowledge about them. They were a giant question mark, as out of reach as Lee Santangelo and just as unknowable as Eric’s next-door neighbor.

“Would Norm also be able to tell me something about Glenn Stewart?”

Lou cocked an eyebrow. “You think he’s somehow wrapped up in all this?”

“I think he has the potential to be. He’s been cooped up in that house for so long that I’m not sure anyone remembers what he was like before Vietnam. Or knows what happened to him when he was there.”

“He moved here in 1966,” Lou said. “Was shipped off to Vietnam in 1967. Came back crazy a year later. Norm should be able to fill in the blanks.”

Kat mentally made plans to intercept Norm Harper at the diner the next morning. Maybe the offer of a free breakfast would refresh his memory. She then reached across her desk and grabbed more pizza.

“Are you sure you want that second slice?” Lou asked.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, now that Eric Olmstead’s back in town, you might want to watch what you eat a little bit. Don’t want the melons to get so ripe they spoil, if you catch my drift.”

“I think I do,” Kat said. “And I’m kind of repulsed.”

Lou clucked in that motherly way that made Kat feel simultaneously exasperated and blessed. “Don’t be prudish. Everyone knows you and Eric were hot and heavy for a time in high school. And now he’s back. You’re spending a lot of time together. And, from what I hear, he’s looking mighty fine.”

Kat couldn’t disagree on that point. She knew from her brief, humiliating glimpse that morning that Eric looked more than fine. Still, she had to nip this particular rose of gossip in the bud before it bloomed all over Perry Hollow.

“I’m simply helping him find out what happened to his brother.”

“That’s very noble,” Lou said, snapping the pizza box closed over Kat’s hand. “But there’s more to it than that. You know it. I know it. And I hope Eric knows it, too.”

Kat wriggled her hand from beneath the box’s lid, sliding out a slice of pizza. She held it in front of Lou defiantly, ready to take a massive bite. She didn’t get the chance. Instead, her phone rang, forcing her to set the pizza down on her desk, where it was promptly snatched up by Lou.

Glaring at her, Kat answered the phone. “Chief Campbell.”

“Rumor has it you’re investigating Charlie Olmstead’s disappearance.”

Normally when a caller didn’t identify himself, Kat assumed it was Nick. This time, however, it was someone else. But, just like with her friend, she recognized the voice.

“Mayor Hammond,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I am. So the rumors are true.”

“Would you care to tell me why?” Burt asked. “For a police department in dire need of another officer and new patrol cars, looking into a forty-two-year-old case seems like an odd use of manpower.”

Kat could have told the mayor about how it was looking less and less likely that Charlie went over the falls. Or about the other missing boys. Or about the small but very real possibility that another kid could go missing the next day when China’s astronauts took their first steps on the moon. Instead, she said, “There’s been a new development in the case.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to bother Becky and Lee Santangelo about it,” Burt said. “Becky just called my office hopping mad.”

“So you want me to stop investigating just because the town’s most important resident got angry?”

“That would be my preference, yes.”

Kat pressed a hand to her cheek. It was warm. No doubt from the anger steadily building up inside her. Other than her ex-husband, only Burt Hammond managed to get her so mad so quickly.

“Well, I won’t do it,” she said. “Besides, I’m not the only person investigating it. The state police are involved. So you’re going to have to talk to them.”

“The state police?” The mayor sounded flummoxed by the news, which slightly cooled Kat’s anger. “What the hell kind of new development are you talking about?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. But you can tell me what you remember about the Olmstead boy’s disappearance.”

“Nothing,” Burt said. “It was decades ago.”

Kat had a feeling the mayor wasn’t telling the truth. He seemed to be hedging, which was never a smart thing to do when talking to a cop. Police sensed it the same way a dog smelled bacon.

“Yes, but you were alive at the time. How old were you in 1969? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“I was nineteen,” the mayor said. “And I don’t recall anything other than the fact that the boy fell over the falls and was never seen again.”

“Other people remember more,” Kat told him. “Which is why I’m not going to halt the investigation, no matter how much you want me to.”

“You’re the chief of police.” Burt’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “You do what you want. But I’m warning you. Don’t bother the Santangelos again.

He hung up without another word. Holding the suddenly silenced phone, Kat noticed that Eric had entered the station and was now standing at the threshold to her office.

“That looks familiar,” he said. “I spent the past hour the same way.”

“I guess you couldn’t get in touch with your dad.”

Eric shook his head and stepped into the room. He was calmer than when Kat had last seen him and was moving with a renewed sense of purpose.

“But I promised I’d tell you when I made a decision about Charlie’s grave marker.”

“And?”

Eric gave her a half smile that was more sad than amused. It was obvious he didn’t like or want to be in this position. Yet he was, and he responded with appropriate authority.

“Whatever is down there, let’s dig it up.”

The last place Nick wanted to be was in another park, especially one a hundred times the size of Fairmount’s little green. All that open land. All those trails, trees, and pathways. It meant only one thing—more walking.

“You ready?” Tony asked as Nick emerged from the car.

“No.”

The trip to Lasher Mill State Park had taken them barely fifteen minutes. Even with Tony driving, it wasn’t enough time for Nick to rest his leg. His knee, which had seen more action in the past two days than the previous two weeks, was still throbbing. But he had to push on.

Tony agreed with his theory about Dennis Kepner’s abduction. They both thought the boy had been grabbed in the thicket of trees, dragged to the street that ran behind it, and tossed into a vehicle parked at the curb. Nick had been hoping for a similar setup at the state park to explain how Noah Pierce could have vanished just as easily.

No such luck.

The area surrounding the rectangular parking lot was a wide swath of grass. Three sides of it were studded with picnic tables, fire pits, and open grills. That afternoon, all of them were empty. The fourth side was open lawn that sloped for several hundred yards to the shore of a massive lake. Nick spotted a boat launch at the bottom, also empty, and to the far right, a crumbling building that had once been painted red but was now a weathered rust color. Sitting on a stone foundation, it jutted over the water.

“That used to be a gristmill,” Tony said with the authority of a tour guide. “This whole area was once a working mill. When it closed during the Great Depression, it was turned into a state park. Hence the name.”

Leaving the parking lot, they set off down the long slope to the lake. Nick’s knee practically screamed at the beginning of the descent. To drown it out, he tried to picture the entire area covered in snow. It was probably pretty, if you were into that kind of thing. Snow-drenched treetops. The icy white expanse of the lake spreading out below. And this never-ending slope that his knee hated but that every kid would love, especially if they had a sled handy.

“The day Noah vanished was a Friday,” Tony said. “It had snowed the night before. School was canceled. And this spot was notorious for its sledding.”

Nick’s mental image of the scene grew more crowded. He pictured kids and parents alike streaking down the hill and continuing out over the frozen lake—every kid’s wintertime dream. Only it had turned into a nightmare for one of them. Because among the crowd, unrecognizable in a parka, ski cap, and gloves, was someone who had more than fun on his agenda. And thanks to the failure of
Apollo 13,
his wait had been very, very long.

They had reached the lake and were standing on its rocky bank as water licked at their shoes. The opposite shore looked to be a mile away. Definitely not far enough for a sled to reach, no matter how fast it was going and how much ice it glided over. Whoever took Noah Pierce did it in the immediate area.

“What are the details?” Nick asked Tony. “Since you seem to already know them.”

He sat down on a nearby rock, stretched out his leg, and listened as Tony told him everything from start to finish. Noah Pierce, age nine and an only child, had been sent to stay with his grandparents in Fairmount while his parents finalized a particularly nasty divorce. On that fateful Friday, they drove out to Lasher Mill State Park with a thermos of hot chocolate and a Flexible Flyer sled strapped to the roof of their station wagon. It was cold, so Noah’s grandparents parked facing the lake and sat inside the car, listening to the radio as they watched the boy go up and down the hill.

“They lost sight of him,” Tony said, even though Nick had already assumed that. Losing sight of a child was always the first chapter in an abduction story. “They said he was wearing a black snowsuit. Just like every other kid sledding that day.”

According to Tony, Noah’s grandparents got out of the car and looked for him. Others soon joined the hunt, including a park ranger. No one knew where he had gone because no one had been watching him. All they found was his sled, abandoned near the old gristmill.

“That evening,” Tony said, “several hours into the search, the park ranger took a snowmobile out onto the frozen lake. He discovered a hole in the ice about a quarter mile from shore. The immediate assumption was that Noah had fallen in and drowned.”

“End of story?” Nick asked.

“Not quite. The police started to question that theory when spring arrived, the lake thawed out, and no body appeared.”

Nick shook his head. Replace the lake with a waterfall and Tony could have been reciting the story of Charlie Olmstead’s disappearance.

“You mentioned his parents were going through a messy divorce,” he said. “Did the report say how messy?”

“No custody disputes, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It was exactly what Nick had been thinking. A staggering number of abductions in the United States were committed by parents locked in battles over custody. Some fled the country and made national headlines. Most were settled by the local police. In the case of Noah Pierce, it was a moot point.

“Both of his parents were in Florida at the time,” Tony said. “Friends, coworkers, and divorce attorneys all confirmed it.”

“And his grandparents?”

“They were clean. Other parents in the park testified to seeing both of them get out of the car with Noah, give him his sled and hot chocolate, then get back inside the vehicle. Neither of them left it until an hour later, when they realized they no longer knew where he was.”