Kate Burkholder: Gone Missing Part 13

CHAPTER 9.

"He's either a d.a.m.n good liar or he's telling the truth," Tomasetti says as he makes the turn onto the highway that will take us to the motel.

"I believe him," I say. "At least with regard to Noah Mast."

"Seemed kind of nervous."

"You were snarling at him."

"I wasn't snarling." But in the dim light of the dash, I see his mouth curve.

Feeling the drag of thirty-six hours without sleep, I look out the window. "No one seems like a good fit."

"Until we find someone more viable, we've got to go through the motions." He glances away from his driving. "You hungry? There's a restaurant down the road from the motel."

"I saw it. The Flying Buck." Having not eaten since last night, I'm starving. "And it's a bar, Tomasetti, not a restaurant."

"Since our restaurant choices are limited, we could probably have a beer with a burger without breaking too many rules."

"No shots, though."

"Suits would probably frown upon that."

It's nearly ten o'clock when we pull into the gravel lot of the Flying Buck. Our headlights wash over a single vehicle, a nondescript Camry that looks as if it's just been waxed. The building itself is actually a double-wide mobile home painted in green camo. A hunting mural depicts two Labradors bounding through water and two orange-vested hunters taking aim.

A gravel walkway takes us to a covered porch scattered with tables for summertime dining. We enter through a thick wooden door capped with a set of twelve-point antlers. The interior is dim and smells like dozens of other bars where I've spent too much time-a combination of cooking grease, liquor, and cigarette smoke. An old Allman Brothers song about one more silver dollar crackles from a single overhead speaker. The bar is to our right, an ancient slab of wood that's seen more than its share of calloused elbows, slurred speech, and spilled beer. A hunched old man in a cowboy hat sits with his leg crossed over his knee, smoking a pipe. The rest rooms are in the back. A sign says SIT THE h.e.l.l DOWN. We choose a table at the rear.

Tomasetti pulls out my chair for me. I want to believe he's doing it because he's a gentleman. But I know he will never sit down in any public place with his back to the door. Some people might call that paranoid. Not me. Maybe because I know if some crazy s.h.i.+t walks in with a gun, Tomasetti will be ready.

A skinny waitress with blue-gray hair and bony legs rushes to our table and slaps down menus. "Hi, folks. You here for dinner or drinks?"

"Both," Tomasetti says. "And not necessarily in that order."

She chuckles. "That's what I like to hear. What can I get for ya?"

We order two bottles of Killian's Irish Red and burgers with fries, and the waitress hustles away.

"What bothers me about Stoltzfus," Tomasetti begins, "is that he's put himself in the position of having access to disgruntled Amish teenagers."

Something scratches at the back of my brain, but I can't quite reach it. "Child predators operate much the same way."

"And he's had contact with at least one of the missing."

The waitress returns to the table with our beers and two frosty mugs. "Be right back with those burgers."

Tomasetti pours. We pick up the gla.s.ses and, watching each other over the rims, drink deeply. It's the first alcohol I've had since the Slabaugh case six months ago, and I don't want to acknowledge how good it goes down.

I'm still thinking about Stoltzfus when my cell vibrates against my hip. I glance down at the display, expecting another frantic call from Auggie. I'm surprised to see a name I don't recognize on the display.

I answer, saying, "Burkholder."

"This is Suzy Fisher."

Surprise ripples through me at the sound of her voice. Not only is it unusual for an Amish person to use the telephone but it's also late-well past bedtime for an Amish woman. "h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Fisher. Is everything all right?"

"I'm sorry about the lateness of the hour," she says breathlessly. "But I couldn't sleep. I took the buggy to town to use the pay phone there." She chokes out the words, as if her throat is too tight. "Eli doesn't know."

"It's okay," I tell her. "What is it?"

"I didn't tell you something today that I should have. I think it might be important."

"About Bonnie?"

"Ja." Only then do I realize she's crying. "Bonnie loves babies. She loves children. She's so excited about teaching at the school in the fall."

I wait, knowing there's more.

"Chief Burkholder, she was confused about the baby."

"What do you mean?" But even as I voice the question, realization dawns. "She didn't want the child?"

"We would have loved the child."

"Mrs. Fisher, did Bonnie talk about terminating the pregnancy?"

"It goes against our belief system." She begins to cry in earnest. "I tried to talk her out of it, but she was so ashamed. So determined to do this thing. It was the last time I saw her."

The words shock me. Most Amish believe abortion is murder. During my lifetime, I've known two Amish women who terminated pregnancies. One of them, though she confessed her sin before the congregation, felt so condemned by her peers, she ended up leaving the Amish way. The other committed suicide.

"Mrs. Fisher, I know it wasn't easy for you to come forward with this," I tell her. "Thank you. I think this could be important."

"Please find her for us, Chief Burkholder. We don't care about her mistakes. We just want her back."

"I'll do my best," I tell her. "I promise."

The line goes dead. I take my time clipping my phone to my belt, then turn my attention to Tomasetti and recap the conversation. "She never told her husband."

"It sounds like these two girls-Bonnie Fisher and Annie King-were behaving way outside of Amish norms," Tomasetti says after a moment.

I nod in agreement, thinking of the third girl, whose family was killed in the buggy accident. "It would have been helpful to talk to Leah Stuckey's parents to see if she was somehow acting out, too."

"Might have helped us figure out if their behavior somehow ties in to their disappearances."

"We both know certain kinds of behavior can put people at risk." I shrug. "But does it connect the cases?"

"We've got too many threads, and none of them ties to anything."

We pause when the waitress sets our burgers in front of us. We both look down at our plates. The food looks good and smells even better. We dig in with gusto.

"Let's put everything on the table," he says.

I go first. "Maybe there's a religious angle."

"The Twelve Pa.s.sages Church," he says. "According to G.o.ddard, they don't like the Amish."

"That could tie in. Annie King had an English boyfriend. Bonnie Fisher was pregnant, had multiple partners, and was considering an abortion."

"That's enough to p.i.s.s off any self-respecting religious fanatic." Tomasetti's tone is bone-dry.

"So we keep everyone with ties to The Twelve Pa.s.sages Church on our list of suspects."

We concentrate on our food for a couple of minutes. Tomasetti finishes the last of his Killian's. I look down at my plate, drag a fry through catsup, running everything we know about the case so far through my head.

"Do you think Noah Mast's disappearance is related?" Tomasetti asks after a moment.

"I don't know," I say honestly. "According to Stoltzfus, he talked about leaving." I think of the place setting for him in the Mast kitchen. "You're checking into other missing-person cases? Cold cases?"

He nods. "If there's something else out there, VICAP will kick it out."

"If it's been reported."

He gives me a sharp look. "Do you think Amish parents might not file a missing-person report if one of their kids went missing?"

"Most would," I tell him. "Initially, they might try to handle it themselves. But I think eventually, when they got scared and the reality of the situation sank in, they'd turn to the police." I think about that for a moment. "That said, there's a large faction of Amish who believe G.o.d will take care of them. If you combine that with a general mistrust of the English, particularly the English police, then I could see a family not making an official report."

"Something to keep in mind."

I nod, move on to other possible scenarios. "What about the photographer G.o.ddard mentioned?"

"Stacy Karns."

"That conviction and the fact that his victim was a young Amish female definitely puts him on the list." I glance at my watch. "We could pay him a visit."

"I think he'll keep until morning." He gazes steadily at me. "You look tired, Kate. Have you had any sleep?"

"Not much."

He lays a couple of bills on the table. "What do you say we call it a night and check out the Buck Snort Motel?"

The Buck Snort Motel is located on the main highway two miles outside Buck Creek. Set back from the road in a heavily wooded area, the motel is comprised of a dozen or so cabins replete with picnic tables and a community pit barbecue. Lights burn in two of the cabins. As we pull into the gravel lot, I see a group of kids sitting at one of the picnic tables. The motel office is a larger cabin with a huge front window and the requisite red neon sign that blinks VACANCY. A smaller sign boasts FREE MOVIES.

Tomasetti parks adjacent the office and kills the engine. "I'll check us in and grab the keys."

Without waiting for a reply, he's out of the Tahoe and striding toward the office. I watch him, vaguely aware that I'm admiring the way he moves, when it strikes me that I have no idea what kind of sleeping arrangements have been made-or how the night is going to play out. When we've worked together in the past, our relations.h.i.+p has never been an issue and we've never let it interfere. The investigation always takes precedence. This case is different in that both of us are away from home base, and I can't help but wonder if it's going to get in the way.

The door swings open, startling me. Tomasetti slides in, then cranks the engine. Without looking at me, he drives to the farthest cabin and parks. "I'm in cabin twelve. You're in eleven."

"So we're neighbors." Without looking at him, I reach into the back for my overnight bag.

He stops me. "I'll get that for you."

"Sure. Thanks." I make my exit before I start blabbering and watch as he opens the rear door and pulls out both our overnight bags.

We walk to cabin 11, and he unlocks the door, then pa.s.ses me the key. The first thing I notice is the bed. It's a full with a camouflage pattern spread and a headboard made of deer antlers. A night table holds a single lamp, the base of which is constructed of antlers. Camo curtains. Hunting art on the walls-ducks and deer and Labrador retrievers. But the room is neat and smells of clean linens and cedar.

"I believe this is the most antlers I've ever seen in one place," I say.

"Might be a problem if you're a restless sleeper."

I laugh. "Better than mounted heads on the walls."

"Heads are probably in my room." Chuckling, he sets my bag on the bed, then quickly checks the bathroom. "Coffeemaker in the bathroom," he tells me when he emerges.

On the small table near the window, a handwritten sign tells me the room is equipped with free Wi-Fi. I see a hookup for a laptop and a pad of paper printed with the motel's name and logo. "All the comforts of home."

An awkward silence falls. The rise of tension is palpable. I look at Tomasetti and find his eyes already on me. For the span of a full minute, neither of us speaks, and neither of us looks away.

"So how are we going to do this?" he asks after a moment.

The question needs no clarification. "I don't know," I say honestly. "I'm kind of out of my element here."

"Me, too," he says. "I'm used to traveling alone."

"I'm used to you sneaking into my house through the back door in the middle of the night."

He laughs.

Time freezes for the span of several heartbeats. I feel the weight of his stare, the power of my attraction to him. I sense the importance of this moment, the discomfort between us.

We've slept together before in the course of an investigation. We work well together despite our personal relations.h.i.+p. But this is my first consulting gig, and it feels different. It feels ... premeditated.

"I don't want to screw this up," I say after a moment.

"You won't," he says quietly. "You can't."

"Maybe we should just take it slow."

He nods and steps back. Some of the intensity leaches from the moment, and I can breathe again.

Bending, he brushes his mouth against mine. "Careful with that headboard." He walks to the door and turns to face me. "Get some rest, Chief, and I'll see you in the morning."

I stand there vibrating and breathless for a full minute after he closes the door, not sure if I'm relieved he's gone or disappointed I let him go.