A Child Is Missing (11 page)

Soon, they emerged from the evergreen stand and were climbing up a steep slope carpeted with decayed leaves and dead limbs. Will could see the sky overhead—gray, cold, wet—and then they were back under evergreens, but shorter ones this time.

Except for the wind, which rocked the evergreen boughs and rattled the bare branches of the leaf-bearing trees, the woods were quiet. So fear shot through Will like a current when he heard the rustle in the brush just up the hill from them. Graham heard it, too, because, as fast as Will could flatten himself against the slope, the agent had unslung the rifle and was aiming it uphill.

“Shhhh,” Graham said softly.

Will could smell the rotten leaves as he pressed his face to the slope.

The noise from above came again, louder and closer. Will raised his head very slightly, enough to see Graham squinting into the rifle sight. Suddenly, Graham lifted his face off the rifle stock and smiled broadly. “Go home, Bambi.”

Will looked up in time to see the white tail just before the deer bounded out of sight. Of course, he thought. It had to be an animal, for God's sake. But Will's legs were shaking.

Graham stood up, slung the rifle over his shoulder again, and they went the rest of the way to the top. The agent checked his compass, then pointed to his left. “If I'm right, Will, we just have to walk a couple hundred feet this way. Then we can hunker down.”

Will followed Graham along the ridge line. To his right and below, Will heard a gurgling creek. They picked their way through decades-old pine trees. Then they came to a small clearing.

“As promised, Will. This little open space. A deputy from Deer County gave me pretty good directions. Their sheriff has three guys planted around here. Plus six guys from Hill County and Long Creek, if you count me.”

Looking down from the clearing, they could see the tops of trees, and beyond them a short expanse of brown field. And beyond the field, clearly visible, a stretch of dirt road.

“That's Logger Hill Road over there, Will. In a while, a police car is going to come by and toss a bundle off to the other side of the road. Just about dead center in our line of sight.”

The view reminded Will of the vista from a hole on the Bessemer Country Club golf course. The road was a good quarter of a mile away. Anyone on the road, or near it, would probably not see anyone on the ridge line above, yet Graham and Will had an unobstructed view.

“I didn't see anyone else, Jerry.”

“The idea was for people to get in place well ahead of time.”

“So there's a lot of eyes looking where we're looking?”

“Yep. Seems all the cops and deputies around here hunt and fish. Easy for them to do a stakeout like this and stay out of sight, Will. I'm just a city boy.”

“Me, too.”

After scrounging a bit, they found places to sit that weren't too wet or uncomfortable.

“Thanks for keeping your word on the stories, Will. Not breaking confidence. Not that I thought you would.”

“You're welcome.” Several seconds went by before Will realized something. “You've seen copies of the
Bessemer Gazette,
then.”

“A place on the main drag, about three blocks from police headquarters. They sell out-of-town papers. Not to mention numbers and cheap cigars.”

“That's good to know. About the out-of-town papers, I mean. I know my paper has had distribution problems over here in Long Creek.”

“You still don't know how long you'll be around here, Will?”

“No. I've been here longer than I expected. I need to do some laundry, in fact.”

“I'll point out a laundromat when we get back. Maybe we can have dinner and a couple of drinks later.”

“I'd like that.” Sitting in the wet almost-quiet of the woods, Will knew he would have to decide for himself when to go home. There was no one at the
Gazette,
except for the publisher, who would decide for him.

Lord, he thought. My problems are nothing. I worry about When I can go home, and Jamie Brokaw's parents are wondering whether their child is alive.

A car came into view on the road, and Graham tensed as he peered into his binoculars. “Just an old clunker, Will.”

Now they could hear the car's grinding, sputtering engine. It took the sound a second or so to reach them, so that the car seemed to be ahead of its own noise.

The car passed out of view.

“Depressing around here, isn't it, Will?”

“Yes. I can see why people want to leave. Are the cops really as bad as they seem?”

“Oh, yes and no. With some of them, their heart's in the right place. Just not a lot upstairs. Some others seem pretty shrewd, but I don't know how honest they are.”

“Do you have anything to base your suspicions on?”

“Other than the rumors that reach the bureau? Just my gut. It has a ping in it sometimes, Will. I believe in instinct. It's got nothing to do with stars or sheep entrails. It's the sum of all I know about law enforcement and people, from my life as well as my work, trying to tell me something.”

Will decided to wait until later to tell Graham about his clash with the police chief.

They waited some more. It grew dark in the woods behind them, even though they could still see clearly to the road.

“Any time now, Will.”

Just then, another car came into view. Graham peered into the glasses. “That's him, Will.”

Graham's radio crackled. “This is Messenger One. Slowing down.”

“Messenger One is the deliveryman, Will.”

The radio crackled again, one voice after another.

“Deer Watcher One here; we see you.…”

“Deer Watcher Two, I have you in sight.…”

“Long Creek Two, we see you.…”

Finally, Graham spoke into the radio: “Eagle Visitor here. I have you in sight.”

Graham handed Will the binoculars. “I can look just as easily through the gun sight, Will.”

Will peered through the glasses. Suddenly, the car was amazingly, startlingly close. The driver got out carrying a bundle, then kicked the door shut. The sound seemed to take forever to reach Will's ears. The man looked up the road, then down it. Then he walked to the edge and tossed the bundle into the brush, where it rolled a couple of times before nestling to a stop in the tall, wet grass.

Through the glasses, Will watched the man get into the car; again, the noise of the door closing seemed a light-year away.

The car drove away.

“We'll wait for a while,” Graham said. And into the radio: “Eagle Visitor here. I have the bundle in sight.”

“Deer Watcher Two. So do I.”

“Long Creek One. I see it.”

Will breathed as slowly and evenly as he could to keep the glasses steady. He could see it clearly; if he ignored the distance distortion of the binoculars, the bundle seemed only half a football field away. A chill ran down his backbone.

“Jerry, the kidnapper could be watching right now. Just as we are.”

“Possible.”

“There's real money in the bundle?”

“A quarter mil. Small bills, just like the note said.”

“Marked?”

“I can't hear you, Will.”

“Are they mar—?” Will caught on, and shut up.

After a long moment, Graham said, “We have lots better technology for things like that than we did when I first joined the bureau, Will. Can't tell you any more.”

Slowly at first, then rapidly, the gloom of the woods crossed over them, darkening the field between them and the road, then making it harder to see the road itself.

“Here, Will.” Graham handed him the other pair of glasses. “Funny thing about these, Will. They actually work better when it's darker.”

Graham took out the other scope, put it on the rifle in place of the day sight, then settled back to watch.

Minute by minute, Will's view through the night binoculars grew sharper. Will was looking at a world of sickly green, a world in which a few things stood out sharply and darkly. One of those things was the bundle.

Soon it was completely dark in the woods. Will was warm enough in his hunter's clothes, but he could feel the descending chill on his face.

Time passed. Will put down the glasses now and then to relieve his eyes, but Graham squinted constantly through the rifle scope.

Will was about to ask how much longer they would wait when Graham said into the radio, “This is Eagle Visitor. I think I'm going to call it a day. Are we all clear on the surveillance?”

“Deer Watcher Two here. Roger.”

“Long Creek One. Heading home. I see my relief coming up the hill.”

Graham stood up. “That bundle will be watched constantly, Will. We have teams of watchers set up around the clock. Part of me wants to stay here and look through the telescope.”

“And the other part?”

“That part says I've been working sixteen hours a day and need my rest in case I have to make life-or-death decisions. My guess is that one of the kidnappers will find a way to get that bundle and not get caught. That's off the record.”

“Understood. They have the cards, then. The kidnappers.”

“They have the boy, Will. If I had a chance to grab one of the kidnappers without the other—well, right now I don't think I'd do it. A day or two from now, especially if things change, or maybe if they don't change, I might think differently. For now, maybe we can get a glimpse of whoever picks up the bundle. A photograph, too, if we're lucky.”

Will stretched his legs for the walk back, took one last look through the glasses at the bundle.

“Let's go,” Graham said, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and turning on a flashlight. Graham checked his compass and charted a more direct route back to the car.

Graham said little on the drive back to Long Creek, and Will wondered whether it would be a good idea to forget about having dinner with him. But once back to town, Graham made a point of driving Will past the laundromat, past the newsstand that sold out-of-town papers, past a restaurant that advertised steaks.

“Not bad food there, Will. Shall we meet there in, what, an hour and a half?”

“Great. Time enough to get a shower and do my laundry.”

Graham swung by the Long Creek Inn to let Will off. “Jerry, thanks for taking me along. I'll see you in a while.”

Back in Deer County, the woods were completely dark, for the moon was masked by the clouds that shed a rain turning to sleet. The woods were quiet, save for the rain. The birds and animals had all sought cover. Those that slept at night were just trying to stay dry and warm. As for raccoons and other nocturnal creatures, few took notice of the form that appeared by the bundle. It was just about the time that Will and Graham were finishing a steak dinner and getting set to move over to the restaurant bar to compare the stories of their lives.

The deputy who should have seen the form, that of a well-built man of medium height, had been stomping his feet up and down to keep warm while he smoked a cigarette. By the time he trained his scope where the bundle should have been, the bundle wasn't there.

The deputy immediately began rehearsing his story in his mind. He would say that he caught only a glimpse of the man, not enough for a good description.

The man had easily hoisted the bundle to his shoulder and headed into the woods. He didn't turn on a flashlight until he was deep in the trees. He knew the way.

Fourteen

It was cold in the car, and Will could only hope he'd guessed right. He figured the nurse would leave the hospital by the main entrance when her shift was done, but he couldn't be sure. Nor could he be sure she'd leave on time.

Shivering in the dark, Will cursed himself. Why hadn't he just thought to look her up in the phone book and called her at home? Because you don't even know if she's listed, or how she might be listed, he told himself. So wait.

Finally, Will saw her under the light of the arch at the door. His heart rose, then sank just as quickly: She was walking out with another nurse. Damn! Will had to see her alone.

Then the two nurses smiled and waved good-bye to each other. One made a sharp turn away from the hospital, into the darkness. The one Will wanted walked straight toward his car.

Will got out and stood in the street. “Heather Casey?”

“Oh!”

“I'm sorry to startle you. It's Will Shafer again. Can we talk a minute?”

“Oh, it
is
Mr. Shafer.”

“Call me Will. I just need a minute of your time. Can I give you a lift?”

“Oh, no thank you. I live just a short way from here, and I usually walk. Why don't you leave your car here and stroll with me. There's a little place we can stop for coffee.”

Will was pleasant but evasive as they walked a block and a half. Heather Casey pointed to a narrow door next to a dim and grimy window. “It's not as bad as it looks,” she said.

The diner was long and narrow, more shadows than light, and it smelled of decades of fried eggs and hamburgers. Heather Casey nodded and smiled at a skinny man of sixty or more who stood behind the counter next to a grill. The man wore an apron that had been white a hundred launderings ago. He frowned at Will, then picked up his spatula and slid some meat patties around the hot metal.

“If you're hungry, the food in here is not bad, believe it or not,” Casey said.

She led Will to a booth at the back, past a couple of tired old men who sat hunched over their soup.

“Long Creek's not much to look at, is it?” she said after they were settled in the booth.

She picks up what a person's thinking, Will thought. “I guess it has some of the same problems Bessemer has,” he said.

“Oh, more. More, I'm afraid. At least Bessemer's on the lake. Here, we're not only economically depressed but landlocked. Time-locked, too.”

The man who'd been at the grill was standing by their booth. Now Will saw that he had a bad eye; it was almost opaque, and it seemed to be looking away from Will while the good eye stared right through him.