A Dark Path #3
A sense of urgency pushes us into a jog. Spotlights leading the way, we come upon a rail fence and climb over it, land in standing water on the other side. There, we separate by a few yards and continue toward the trees that grow in profusion around the pond.
“Little Joe!” I call out the boy’s name as we approach.
I listen for a voice or cry, but the slap of rain against the ground drowns out all other sound.
Glock and I reach the pond. It’s a large body of water, an acre or so, and is surrounded by a profusion of weeping willow trees.
I wade through cattails, my beam sweeping left and right.
I stop in water up to my knees, skim the rippled surface with my beam.
A few yards away, Glock runs his beam along the muddy bank.
“I got nothing,” he calls out. “No footprints.”
I motion for him to go left. I go right. Fighting my way through mud and reeds, I sweep my beam from side to side, looking for any sign that the boy came this way. The only movement I see is a fat raccoon looking for a meal.
“Little Joe!” I call out.
I’m thinking about how best to set up a grid when the rumble of swiftly moving water surmounts the thrum of rain.
I shine my light ahead. A sinking sensation grips my chest when I see water cascading over a small spillway.
I walk toward it. I almost can’t believe my eyes when I see the water rushing down a deeply cut gorge toward Painters Creek a hundred yards away.
“Chief!”
I turn to see Glock kneeling, his spotlight illuminating an object on the ground. I go to him. It’s a sneaker, covered with mud, lying on its side, laces splayed, inches from the water’s edge.
Glock looks up at me, his mouth tight. “That’s about the right size for a two-year-old.”
“Oh, no.” I kneel beside him, not feeling the cold of the mud on my knee. “Doesn’t look like it’s been here long.”
“Yep.”
I rise and look around, take in the proximity of our location to the spillway and streaming water. “If he slipped or went into the water, he may have been washed over that spillway and gone into Painters Creek.”
“Damn, Chief.” Glock rises, scrapes water from his face, blinks to clear his vision. “We gotta go look.”
I hail Dispatch. “Ten-seven-eight,” I say, using the code for “need assistance.” “Ten-thirty-nine,” I add, letting them know an emergency response is needed.
I pull a plastic bag from my equipment belt, use it to pick up the sneaker, and, turning the bag inside out, I drop both into my slicker pocket.
Glock is already picking his way down the hill, sliding in mud, but he’s athletic and strong and maintains his balance.
I follow, slipping, trying mightily to avoid a fall.
The roar of the water increases in pitch as we near the creek.
When I reach the base of the hill, I run my beam over the water’s surface and I can barely believe my eyes.
Painters Creek has metamorphosed into a whitewater rapid.
The saplings that grow along the bank are barely visible, their tops bent as the current tries to tear them from the ground.
Debris, vegetation, and uprooted trees tumble in the churning brown brew, ramming anything that stands in the way.
“I’ve lived in Painters Mill my whole life,” Glock tells me. “Never seen it like this.”
Hoping for a glimpse of a little boy clinging to a tree or some floating object, we shine our beams across the tumultuous surface and along the bank, listening.
“Little Joe!” Three times, I shout his name.
Next to me, Glock cups his hands on either side of his mouth and does the same.
The only sound that comes back at us is the thundering deluge of water, and a forlorn voice inside my head warning me to brace myself because there’s a very real possibility this situation will not have a positive outcome.
The eastern sky lightens to the color of ash as Glock and I fight through heavy brush and a foot of standing water.
We’re ten feet apart, beams sweeping left and right.
A few yards away, Painters Creek thunders east. The temperature hovers around fifty degrees.
A far cry from freezing, but cold enough to put even an adult into hypothermia if they’re wet.
“There’s the bridge.” Glock points.
I look ahead to see the hulking form of the old steel-truss structure.
A shiver passes through me when I notice that the water is just a couple of feet from engulfing the roadway.
Trees and debris have piled up on the upriver side, adding to the damming effect.
I close my eyes against the thought of a child being swept beneath the bridge—or God forbid getting caught in all that debris.
Tilting my head, I speak into my shoulder mike and hail Dispatch. “Ten-forty-seven,” I say, using the code for “emergency road repair.” “The bridge over Painters Creek on Township Road 49.”
“Roger that,” comes Margaret’s voice.
“I want the road blocked to all through traffic. Call every officer at home. Get them out here. I want all hands on deck.”
“Ten-four. Chief, I just received a call from Auggie Brock. Water’s about to swamp the Tuscarawas covered bridge, too. County has crews and volunteers with sandbags, trying to save it.”
Auggie Brock is the mayor of Painters Mill. The Tuscarawas Bridge is a historic fixture. If it’s swept away, not only will everyone on the west side of it be stranded, but we’ll lose one of our most beloved historical sites.
“Keep me posted,” I say, and end the call.
We reach the bridge. Glock traverses the ditch and climbs up to the gravel shoulder.
I do the same, then cross the bridge, aware of the boil of water scant feet below, keeping my beam on the upriver side.
The creek hasn’t yet crested. There’s no question of if the water will swamp the bridge, but when—and how much damage will be left in its wake.
Though it’s barely dawn and the rain is still coming down hard, there’s enough light for me to see the gravel pullover ahead.
I’m nearly there when I spot the tire ruts.
They’re fresh and deep; someone has been here recently, within the last couple of hours I’m guessing, because the rain hasn’t yet eroded them.
“Glock!” I shout as I rush to them.
I reach the ruts, shine my light. There are two. Large vehicle. Deep and filled with water.
“They look fresh.”
I turn at the sound of Glock’s voice to see him approach.
“No more than a couple hours,” I say. “Or they would have been washed away by now.”
“About the time the kid went missing?” he says in a low voice.
We squat for a closer look. For the span of several heartbeats the only sound comes from the rush of water and the clang of debris striking the bridge.
“Ground is soft,” he comments. “Vehicle sunk in deep.”
“Looks like the driver pulled over.” I stand, shine my light in a circle. “No way to tell which direction he went.”
“Why the hell would someone be out on a night like this?” Sighing, he gets to his feet. “At three or four o’clock in the morning?”
“And why here?”
“Maybe someone looking for the boy?” His voice isn’t hopeful.
“Most of the farms in the area are Amish,” I tell him. “Those ruts are definitely not from a buggy.”
“Chief, what the hell is that?”
I follow his stare to a small object on the ground, partially obscured by standing water. I bend and pick it up. A quiver of uneasiness goes through me when I realize it’s a child’s toy. A carved wooden horse. Amish-made. The kind of toy that might be given to a young Amish boy.…
Glock’s eyes meet mine. “That hasn’t been here long, either,” he says.
I pull a plastic bag from my equipment belt and drop the horse into it. “Snap some photos of those ruts,” I tell him. “Call County. See if anyone has reported finding a little boy.”
“You got it.” He pulls out his cell.
“Keep looking.” I sigh. “I think it’s time I had another talk with the family.”
Instead of going through the field, I take the road back to the Kline house to save time.
Two buggies pass by me going in the opposite direction.
I’m pleased to see that the Amish community has come out in force to help with the search.
While the men and older boys are out looking for Little Joe, the women have likely come together inside to help in whatever way they can, cooking and cleaning, praying, and offering emotional support.
As I jog toward the house, my suspicion that this may not be a simple case of a toddler wandering away niggles at the back of my brain.
Is it possible this is something even more sinister?
The thought of a kidnapping makes me queasy.
Stranger abductions are rare, but they’re also the most dangerous type.
For the first time it occurs to me I haven’t met the boy’s father.
No one has mentioned him. I’d assumed he was out searching.
By the time I push open the back door and step into the mudroom, I’m convinced I didn’t get the whole story from the family.
I’m met in the mudroom by a plump Amish woman in a wine-colored dress, a dishcloth flung over her shoulder, a smear of flour on the front of her apron.
“Guder mariye,” I say as I brush past her. Good morning.
I hear her mutter something beneath her breath as I step into the kitchen. Erma stands at the sink, washing dishes. One of the preteen girls I met earlier sits at the table, spooning oatmeal into her mouth.
“I need to speak with you,” I say to Erma.
She spins to me, hope jumping into her face. “You found Little Joe?”
I shake my head. “Where’s Bonnie?”
“I’m right here.”
The woman in question appears in the doorway. I take her measure, picking past the despair on her face, the red nose and cheeks, and eyes swollen from crying. Instead, I focus on any telltale signs of deception, all the things that didn’t occur to me when I arrived on scene forty-five minutes ago.
“I need to talk to both of you.” I let my eyes flick to the girl at the table and the woman I passed in the mudroom. “Alone.”