A Dark Path #2
I enter a dimly lit mudroom that smells of lye soap and woodsmoke. An old-fashioned wringer washer sits in the corner. A lantern flickers atop an antique-looking dry sink. Water from my slicker drips unceremoniously onto the floor, but the Amish woman pays it no heed.
“Did you find him?” I ask.
Erma Kline is in her early forties. She’s wearing a black dress that falls nearly to her ankles. A matching cape. A black bonnet over her prayer kapp. All of it punctuated by an expression suffused with worry.
“No,” she tells me. “We’ve searched the house and barn. He’s such a little thing. Just two years old. I don’t know where he could have gone.”
Movement in the doorway to the kitchen draws my attention. I see two preteen girls peeking out at me, their faces drawn and uncertain.
“We checked the attic again,” one of them says in Deitsch. “He’s not there.”
The Amish woman closes her eyes, presses a hand to her stomach. “Mein Gott.” My God. “Check the cellar again,” she tells them. “Take a lantern so you can see.”
“Ja.” Both girls dart away, their feet pounding as they run to the cellar door.
Nodding, I speak into my shoulder mike. “Ten-twenty-three,” I say, letting my dispatcher know I’ve arrived on scene. “Ten-thirty-one,” I add, using the ten code for “missing juvenile.” “Two-year-old Amish male. I need County out here. Lights and siren. Expedite. Who’s on duty this morning?”
“Glock,” Margaret tells me, referring to Rupert “Glock” Maddox, one of my most experienced officers.
“Tell him to get out here.” I think about the weather conditions, the swollen creek, and another layer of worry settles over the first. “Call the fire department. See if you can round up some volunteers.”
“You got it.”
“We could use some dogs, too. I think the sheriff knows a guy with bloodhounds.”
“Roger that.”
In the beat of silence that follows, the battery of rain on the tin roof is deafening, and I can’t help but think of a two-year-old frightened and alone in such horrendous conditions.
I’m anxious to join the search, hoping we’ll find a wet and crying toddler straightaway.
I’m about to ask for a description, his clothing and height and weight, when the door behind me whooshes open.
“Mamm! Any sign of him?”
I turn to see a young Amish woman burst inside.
She’s wearing a black coat over her dress, black bonnet, and soaked to the skin.
She’s shaking violently beneath her coat.
Whether it’s from cold or fear or both, I don’t know, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
Water and tears stream down a face permeated with panic.
She blinks at me and then turns her attention to her mother and chokes out a sob. “He’s not in the barn!” she cries. “I don’t understand. Where could he have gone in such a short period of time?”
Up until now, I’d assumed the missing boy was Erma’s son. But there is a terror unique to a mother. I know even before asking that this young woman is the one who’s lost her son.
“You’re his mamm?” I ask in Deitsch.
“Ja. I’m B-Bonnie.” Her face screws up and she presses a hand over her mouth as if to smother a cry. I guess her to be in her late teens. “It’s Little Joe! We have to find him. It’s cold, and he isn’t wearing his coat. He’s so little. All this rain…”
She starts toward us, but staggers, thrusts out her arms to break an impending fall. Erma and I rush to her, grasp her arms on either side. The young woman is cold to the touch, vibrating from head to foot, and beginning to hyperventilate.
“Let’s get you into a chair,” I say.
Erma and I help her to the kitchen table. She slumps into a chair, then tries to rise, but her mother presses her back.
“You just settle down for a minute,” the older woman tells her. “I’ll get you some water.”
I don’t tell them we may not have a minute to burn.
Instead, I move around the chair so I’m facing her, set my hand on her shoulder and squeeze gently. “When’s the last time you saw Little Joe?”
“I put him to bed around eight thirty last night. I got up once, around two A.M., and he was fine, sound asleep in the bassinet.”
“When did you notice him missing?” I ask.
“I got up to feed the cows at four and he wasn’t there.” A fresh round of tears streams from her eyes. “At first, I figured he’d crawled into bed with Mamm and Datt or maybe one of my sisters, but I checked right away and he wasn’t there.”
“Has he ever done anything like this before?” I ask.
“Never.”
Erma hands her a glass of water, shoves it into her hands. “Take a nice long sip now, you hear?”
The young woman obeys, then sets the glass on the table. “I can’t bear the thought of him out there all alone,” she whispers.
“We’re going to find him,” I assure her. “There are a lot of people out there looking. The sheriff’s office is on the way.”
She nods, but her eyes are chasms of a terror she can’t contain. At some point her teeth have begun to chatter. She’s crying and swipes repeatedly at the tears with shaking hands.
I divide my attention between the two women. “Can you give me a quick description of the boy? His size. What was he wearing?”
“He was in his sleep shirt,” Bonnie tells me. “It’s white flannel. Gray socks.” She gives his approximate height and weight, then emits a sob, catches herself, struggles to regain her composure. “He’s afraid of thunder.”
I quickly jot the description in my notepad, keep going. “You’ve searched the house and barn?”
“Twice,” says the older woman.
“Any other outbuildings?”
“Just that old chicken house,” she tells me. “We’ve looked there, too.”
“How many people are out there searching for him now?” I ask.
“My husband, Joseph, is on foot,” Erma tells me. “Our neighbor is in his buggy, on that two-track between our farms. Our oldest son saddled one of our buggy horses to search the field in the back.”
“Datt and I searched the barn,” Bonnie adds. “Even the loft.” Her face screws up. “It’s like he just disappeared.”
An ominous rumble of thunder punctuates the statement.
There are more questions to be asked, information to be confirmed, but with a two-year-old unaccounted for and a creek about to breach its banks, the rest can wait.
“I’m going to look for him,” I tell them.
“Me, too.” Bonnie tries to get to her feet.
Erma won’t hear it. “You’re soaking wet.”
“I can’t sit here and do nothing while Little Joe is out there in all that cold and rain!” Bonnie cries.
I make eye contact with her. “I’d like for you to search the house again. The barn. The chicken house, too. Sometimes kids find a place to hide and fall asleep.”
Nodding, Bonnie fights tears. “I’ll do anything,” she sobs. “I just want him back.”
“Get yourself dry.” I reach out and touch her shoulder. “Try to stay calm. We’ll find him.”
The sound of her sobbing follows me to the door.
Lightning splits the sky as I run to the barn. I enter, take a moment for my eyes to adjust to the murky light. A lantern hanging from a rafter casts a golden dome on an Amish man harnessing a sorrel gelding.
“Mr. Kline?” I call out.
He looks at me over his shoulder, continuing to work, his hands deft and quick. Joseph Kline is a reserved man. He’s serious and quiet, but with a proclivity for sharing snippets of unexpected humor. This morning, he looks as if the weight of the world resides on his shoulders.
“Kate Burkholder,” he says. “You’re here to help us find my grandson?”
I nod. “Any idea where he might’ve gone?”
He lowers his head, gives a single, grim nod.
“There’s a creek that feeds into our pond and then overflows to Painters Creek.
It’s usually just a trickle, but with all this rain…
” His voice trails as if he’s suddenly physically incapable of finishing.
“I didn’t mention it to the women, but I’m worried. ”
A quiver of trepidation moves through me at the mention of a pond. “How far?”
“A quarter mile east of the barn.” He raises his hand, pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a moment to compose himself. “I took Little Joe fishing in the pond a couple weeks ago. He caught a sunfish. He likes the water…” His voice breaks, and he turns, goes back to the harness.
“I’ll check it out.” I hand him my Maglite. “Take this.”
When he raises his gaze to mine, tears shimmer. “You’ll need the light.”
“I’ve got another.”
“Dank.” Thanks. He takes the flashlight, buckles a harness strap, rushing because he knows he can’t get out there quickly enough. I leave him to his work and make my exit.
Rain whips my face as I jog to the Explorer.
Using the fob, I open the rear, grab my spotlight, and check the battery.
I’ve just closed the door when the flash of red and blue lights alerts me to the arrival of a law enforcement vehicle.
I turn to see Glock emerge from his cruiser, yellow slicker shiny and wet in the flicker of lightning.
“Hell of a night to lose a kid,” he says as he approaches. “Any luck?”
“No sign.” I reach him, see the concern in his eyes and realize he’s thinking about his own small children, safe at home in their beds.
Quickly, I update him on the particulars.
“We need to check the creek.” A toddler falling into a rain-swollen creek is a worst-case scenario, one that none of us wants to consider.
But we have to look. If that dire possibility becomes reality, I’d rather it be us who finds him instead of a family member.
I motion east and we start that way at a brisk pace. “The pond is only a quarter mile away and feeds into Painters Creek.”
A curse hisses through his lips. “Damn, Chief. I just heard on the news the creek is about to crest. We’re going to have flooding to contend with.”
“County is en route,” I say, referring to the sheriff’s office. “Once we have more manpower, we’ll set up a grid. For now, let’s walk it. Keep your eye out for footprints or something the kid might’ve dropped.”
He nods. “Two-year-old couldn’t have gotten far.”
Neither of us mentions the reality that tragedy involving that age group usually happens close to home and takes only seconds.