In the Land of Milk and Honey (21 page)

He did have white snakeroot in the car, which they might
find if they searched it. But why would they? And anyway, it was hidden in the spare tire compartment. There was no danger at all in simply parking here.
Suck it up.

So he watched for over an hour. There was no sign of cops or anyone else. The Yoders didn't have any locks on the barn. He didn't see a dog either.

The father took out some farm wagon, put a couple horses on it, and took off for one of the fields. Two boys went on the wagon with him. Later, two women in Amish dresses came out and put clothes on the line, and there was a different young girl too, maybe twelve.

Any of them could see him, parked as he was down the road, if they only looked. But they didn't seem to be paying any attention. Finally. They were acting like they
should
be acting. Maybe it was the watchfulness that had been a fluke. Maybe he was getting paranoid.

The sun sat low in the sky like a bloated, diseased orange by the time the father drove the wagon back and he and the boys started unhitching the horses. By then, the watcher's shoulders had relaxed and he felt perfect—calm and so fucking clear. He felt like he could do
anything
.

After dark, he decided. Sunset was around eight
P.M.
He'd looked it up. These farmers went to bed early, especially since they had no TV or computers. He'd wait until nine
P.M.
It would be dark around the barn. Very dark. Then, if it still looked clear, he'd make his move. For now, it was time to
disappear.

The hardest thing I've ever done was to watch the killer drive away. Grady and I discussed it over the headset. I was in the Yoder's barn, watching out of one of the windows in the hay loft. Grady was in the house.

“He might have something incriminating on him. What do you think, Harris?” Grady had sounded edgy, ready to move.

God, I wanted to grab him as well. What if we'd been made? What if he didn't come back? This might be the closest we ever got to him. And it
was
him. I knew it.

But the guy didn't seem to notice anything wrong. He hung out by his car for over two hours. If he'd known he was being watched, he would have left right away.

The old conundrum of cats and cops everywhere—pounce now? Or wait?

“He's doing recon. He might not have the snakeroot on him,” I said in a low voice over the headset. “And even if he does, a smart lawyer might be able to explain it away. I think we should wait. He'll be back. And I want to nail this bastard with such an airtight case he won't be able to shift to scratch his ass.” Ah, yes. These tense situations did bring out the colorful lingo I'd learned as a New York cop.

“You want a selfie with him, the plant, and the cow?” Grady half teased.

I smiled. “Yes, sir, that's what I want. We have someone down the road to grab his license plate number, right?” His car didn't have a front plate, so I hadn't been able to get more than the basic make and model through the binocs.

“Yeah, we'll get it. We've got someone walking a dog at the end of the road.”

“Then we can trace him if we have to. But for God's sake, let's not scare him away now.”

“Roger, Harris. We'll wait.”

He was about to sign off. I spoke up. “Everyone okay in there?”

“Everyone's fine, don't worry. The family's inside for the day now, and no one's getting past the uniforms in the front room. Over and out.”

Good. Grady and I had debated the merits of sending the children away for the entire operation. But we both knew the killer was drawn to kids. It was important that the family looked normal from the outside. And our killer wasn't a gunman. He shouldn't be a direct danger to anyone on the property except
the cows. I was still glad Grady and two uniformed officers were in the house.

In my pocket, my cell phone vibrated. I put one hand on it but didn't get it out. My attention was focused on the road. The Corolla drove out of sight at a leisurely speed.
Please get the license plate number
, I thought,
and don't make him suspicious.

The guy would be back. We'd left too tempting a target.

With a sigh, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and checked the screen. It was a number I didn't recognize. It was the second time today that number had dialed me and not left a message. We were in the middle of the most important sting of my career. If it wasn't urgent, I wasn't going to allow myself to be distracted by it. I put the phone back in my pocket.

One of the police techs came up to the loft by the ladder and regarded me.

“Are the lights set up?” I asked.

“Yup. All rigged to go off with a single click.”

“And they're well hidden?”

“The best we could manage, which is pretty damn good. This barn has more nooks and crannies than a Triscuit.” The tech laughed at his own joke. “Wanna come look?”

I did.

—

The watcher parked his car near a tree a few hundred yards from the Yoder farm at nine
P.M.
exactly. The sunset had faded to inky darkness. There was only a sliver of a moon in the sky, and the
country road had no lighting. The only lights visible as far as the eye could see were the dim lantern lights in the windows of the farmhouse and those of the farmhouse of a distant neighbor. There was no light in or around the barn.

The watcher got out of his car and removed his backpack from the trunk as quietly as he could. He started toward the farm at a jog, sticking to the grassy shoulder.

There was no one around. No one at all.

He was nervous, scared. It seemed like, every time he did this, it felt more dangerous. Part of him wanted to turn around, go back to his car, and drive away. But the thought of another large family, of adding ten or more to his body count, drove him onward. Fuck it. No guts, no glory.

When he reached the farm's driveway, he paused, checking everything out one more time. He didn't see a living soul outside the house. No sign of life in the barn. No barking dog. He darted across the gravel drive in the shadows and headed for the closed barn door. He carefully squeezed the iron latch, opened the door, and slipped inside.

He heard the cows before he saw them. Yoder had a small herd, at least six. They were in a stall at the back of the barn. The watcher moved toward them over the cool concrete floor. The darkness inside the barn gave him confidence. He could barely make out the aisle in front of him, but that meant he couldn't be seen either.

He reached the stall and saw big dark cow eyes staring at him. He slung his backpack off his back, unzipped it.

“Hey, cows!” he whispered. “Guess what I have for—”

The lights went on like a thousand suns, blinding him. From beyond the glare he heard a man's voice shouting, “Freeze!”

—

We got him!

I had my gun out and trained on the figure in the black hooded sweatshirt. The lights our tech crew had strung up in the barn were even brighter than I'd anticipated, and my eyes were fighting to adjust. I blinked rapidly, not wanting to lose sight of our perp for a second. I didn't dare turn my head to look for Hernandez on my left, or Schmidt, a uniformed cop, on my right. The perp hadn't moved, hadn't raised his hands, just stood absolutely still, his back to us, a partially unzipped backpack in his hands.

What if he had a gun in there?

“Drop it!” I yelled. “Drop the backpack! Now!”

“Harris,” Grady's voice crackled in my ear.

“We've got him,” I muttered, not wanting to be distracted. The guy still hadn't moved. He was slightly built, but something in the tension of his body told me he was capable of lethal violence.

“Be careful,” came Grady's voice, urgent. “One of the Yoder kids got out somehow. Get that guy cuffed and then
guns down
.”

Oh shit. Oh no.
Hannah and her family were supposed to be well guarded and safe. I'd promised Hannah personally. The possible ways this could turn disastrous flashed through my mind in an instant, more instinctual knowing than words or even mental pictures.

“Drop the backpack!” I screamed again. “Drop it or we'll shoot!”

I saw Sadie at the same instant the perp did. Unfortunately, he was much closer to her, and he was fast.

There was another barn entrance near the cow stall, and they'd taken care of that door. One of the uniformed cops, Davis, was supposed to have locked it from the outside as soon as the perp entered the barn so he couldn't escape that way. Davis was also supposed to be watching the outside of the barn to make sure no one got in or out.

But Sadie was small, and she knew the barn the way only a child could know it. Somehow she'd gotten past Davis. There was a heavy rubber flap in the wooden barn wall on the feeding aisle, not far from where the perp stood. It pushed inward, and Sadie crawled through, back legs first.

Oh God, no!

Before I could shout a warning to Sadie or make up my mind to just shoot and wound the perp, he moved. He hurled the backpack toward us as a distraction and dove for Sadie.

“Don't shoot!” I shouted. My voice sounded amazingly calm. “There's a child! Don't shoot!”

Then he had her. He picked Sadie up and clutched her to his chest as a shield. His face was still hidden by the hood, and now by Sadie's head as well. One eye looked past Sadie toward me, but it was mostly in shadow. He held a large knife at Sadie's throat. She froze, her eyes round with shock.

Oh God, please, no.

It was my worst nightmare. He held not just any Amish child, but Sadie Yoder, a little girl I adored, and Katie's sister. And it was my fault. I'd used Hannah's friendship to orchestrate this. Sadie had probably come out to the barn looking for me.

I didn't pray often, but a prayer erupted in my mind.
Please, God, don't let him kill Sadie. Please let me stop him. Please.

Three guns were trained on the man in the hoodie and the child, including, I realized, my own. I took a deep breath and slowly lowered my gun.

“You're gonna let me go. I walk away or the girl dies,” the perp said. They were his first words, and he was talking low, clearly trying to disguise his voice. But there was a quaver of fear there. “Back off or I'll do it. I swear to God I will.”

I knew he would. He'd kill Sadie with absolutely no remorse. But I also knew that if we let him walk, if we let him escape by using her as a human shield, if he got her into his car, he'd kill her anyway. As far as I was concerned, there was no way in hell he was taking Sadie Yoder out of this barn.

I risked a glance at Hernandez. He looked back, his face rigid with determination. I shook my head slightly. Then I took one step forward so the perp would focus on me. I let the gun go lax in my hand, hanging down at my side. Suddenly, the knot of terror in my stomach eased, and I felt a warm wave of calm.

“Rob Myers!” I called out. “We know who you are. Even if you escape this room, it's over.”

That surprised him. I heard him gasp, and he drew back half a step. The hand that held the knife shook dangerously. “How?
How did you know?” Strangely, he sounded curious, even pleased.

I'd found out an hour ago, when I couldn't stop thinking about the calls from that unrecognized number and had decided to return them. The caller had been James Westley. He reluctantly told me a story about a guy in his high school who'd wanted to talk about James's paper on milk sickness after he'd presented it in class. The guy had been obsessed about it. That high school student was now Amber Kruger's intern.

“That doesn't matter, Rob. The point is, we know who you are, we know your car, and we know where you live. We know your mother.”

“Then I've got nothing to lose, cunt!” He sounded angry now. He pushed the knife tighter against Sadie's throat. She whimpered, her big eyes pleading with me. But she didn't struggle, didn't move, didn't cry out.
Good girl.

I spoke fast. “Rob, wait! If you hurt that little girl, if you even start to use that knife, we
will
shoot you. Dead. That's not what you want, is it? You want to be able to tell your story. The famous raw-milk poisoner. Maybe there'll even be books and movies. You'll want to be around for that. If you die now, you lose it all.”

Rob hesitated. That one eye stared at me.

“Come on.” I lifted my chin with more casual confidence than I felt. “Don't be foolish. You've done all this work, now you're not gonna benefit from it? Was that really your plan?”

He tightened his grip on Sadie, but the knife, I noticed,
moved farther away from her throat. “You'll shoot me anyway,” he said doubtfully.

“No, Rob. We won't shoot an unarmed man. Toss the knife down and let me come over to you. I'll stand in front of you while you put Sadie down. Then I'll handcuff you. I swear, no one will shoot you. We'll put you in a squad car and take you to the station. All right?”

He glared at me, shifting from foot to foot. His eyes darted to Hernandez and then to Schmidt, both of whom still had their guns trained on him.
Keep calm, boys.
But keep the pressure on.

“This is it, Rob,” I urged softly. “You either die right here, or you go to jail.”

“I'm not done. I wanted a higher body count.”

I felt a wave of absolute hatred.
Body count
. All of those dead individuals were nothing to him but notches on his belt. But I couldn't let it show. “You are done, Rob. There's no way we'll let you continue now. It's done tonight, one way or the other. Die in this barn or surrender now. Your choice.”

He thought about it a few seconds more. “Okay. But you walk over here first. Without your gun. I'm not tossing my knife until you're in front of me, blocking their shots.”

“I can do that.”

I heard Hernandez hiss my name, but I ignored him. And, yes, with a psychopath like this, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that he'd think that adding a female cop to his
body count
would be a good way to check out. But I had to take that chance.

“I'm just going to put my gun down and get my cuffs.” Slowly, I bent my knees and placed my gun on the floor, both of my hands visible. Then I raised one hand, and with the other slowly fished a pair of cuffs from my pocket and held them up. “All right?”

Jerkily, he nodded, still holding Sadie and the knife.

It felt like I crossed a football field one slow step at a time to get to them, worried that at any moment he'd change his mind and kill Sadie. The knife was so close to her throat. The other cops wouldn't be able to stop him, not with me in the way.

Finally, I was close enough to hold up the cuffs. “Okay? Let go of the knife and then Sadie. Turn around and let me cuff you, and you'll walk out of here, Rob. I promise.”

I could make out his face now, under the hood. He looked back at me, his light blue eyes darting nervously between me and the cops behind me. Such an ordinary-looking young man.

If you're going to go for broke and kill anyone, come after me
, I thought.

But Rob gave a jerky nod. He opened his hand and let the knife fall to the floor, where it landed with a clang. He let Sadie go, pushing her away and turning quickly. He held his hands behind his back, shoving them up, fingers splayed as if to show he was unarmed. He seemed anxious to get cuffed so he wouldn't be shot. His faith in the police department was almost touching. For a second, the images and smells from the Kinderman home roared through my mind and I wanted to kill him anyway. I could pick up the knife and do it. It would be easy. But the urge lasted only a second before reason caused it to dissipate. I wasn't the only
person he'd hurt, and whatever justice he had coming, it wasn't mine alone to dispense. Besides, I would never leave Sadie with a memory like that.