“Some people don’t like the religion and see them as fanatical or cultlike. Some don’t like them because the horse and buggies hold up traffic.” I shrug. “You name it and there’s probably some nutcase out there who thinks it.”
“Have you ever dealt with any kidnappings with regard to the Amish?” McNinch asks.
I shake my head. “Suspects?”
Bates shakes his head. “Nada.”
“Anything at any of the scenes?” I ask.
“We don’t have a scene,” Tomasetti replies. “These kids disappeared without a trace. We don’t know where the actual kidnappings—if, in fact, that’s what we’re dealing with—took place.”
I look down at the file. The part of me that is a cop is intrigued by the puzzle. I want to know what happened and why. I want to find the person responsible, go head-to-head with whoever it is. I want to stop him. Bring him to justice. But the more human part of me—the part of me that is Amish and knows the culture with such intimacy—is outraged by what has been done and frightened by the possibilities. “What about the victims? Aside from being Amish, do they share any other common threads?”
“Not that we’ve found, but we’re still gathering information,” McNinch says.
“Analyst is looking at everything now,” Tomasetti adds. “Once we arrive on-scene, we’ll talk to the families. That’s where you come in.”
I nod. “That’s where we’re going to get the brunt of our information. The families. Friends.”
“We haven’t been able to get our hands on photos,” Bates adds.
“Most Amish won’t have photos of their children,” I tell him.
He stares at me blankly, and I realize he’s probably not an Ohio native. “Most Amish don’t like to have their photos taken,” I tell him. “They feel it’s a vain display of pride. Some of the more conservative have biblical beliefs that keep them from having any kind of likeness done.”
“We’ve brought in the state Highway Patrol,” Bates says. “They wanted photos, but all we could give them were physical descriptions.”
“If the parents will cooperate, we may be able to get a sketch done,” I offer as an alternative. But everyone knows a sketch takes time and isn’t as helpful as a photo.
“Say the word and we’ll get someone down there,” Bates says.
Tomasetti glances at his watch, and I know he’s sending his superiors a not-so-subtle message to hurry this along so we can get on the road.
“Has local law enforcement talked to the parents?” I ask.
Tomasetti nods. “I talked to the sheriff. He didn’t get much. Apparently, the parents are as baffled as we are.”
McNinch scrubs a hand over his head. “No reflection on small-town law enforcement, but I suspect these people are out of their league. You know, small departments with minimal resources. They’re under-staffed. The sheriff sold vacuum cleaners before he took the job, for Chrissake. No offense, Kate, but the majority of these guys just don’t have the experience for this kind of investigation.”
“None taken.” I smile at him. “Just FYI, I’ve never sold vacuum cleaners.”
McNinch chuckles. “Then you’re not out of your depth.”
I hope not, a small voice inside me whispers.
CHAPTER 4
Fifteen minutes later, Tomasetti and I are on the road in his Tahoe, heading east on the Ohio Turnpike toward Buck Creek, Ohio, where the most recent disappearance took place. The town is located near the Mosquito Creek Wilderness area in the northeastern part of the state. It’s about an hour from the Richfield office, through pretty countryside dotted with small towns, farms, and miles of tall hardwood forest. Tomasetti drives well over the speed limit, which takes a bite out of the drive time. At Newton Falls, we cut north on Interstate 5 and pass through Cortland, then take a less-traveled state highway toward Buck Creek.
Fifteen minutes later, a sign welcomes us: THE HUNTING CAPITAL OF OHIO, POPULATION 1,200. The first thing I notice about the town are the trees. Ancient buckeyes, maples, and elms line the main drag, their massive trunks nearly obscuring the buildings from view. We pass a manufacturing park where Erie Overhead Door and Whittle Plastics share a gravel lot that’s jam-packed with cars and trucks. The downtown area is quaint, with redbrick storefronts, hanging pots over-flowing with petunias, and an old-fashioned cobblestone street. We pass half a dozen antiques shops, two sporting-goods stores, a bank that looks like something out of the Bonnie and Clyde era, and The Early Bird newspaper.
We turn left at the traffic light, pass a massive Lutheran church and the Buck Creek High School, home of the Fighting Panthers, and then we’re on a twisty two-lane road, heading out of town. Trees encroach onto the shoulders of the road, the canopies blocking the sun, so that only the occasional shaft of light flashes across the windshield. It’s cooler here, perhaps because of our proximity to the lake, and Tomasetti flicks off the air conditioning. I’m in the process of opening my window when his cell erupts.
He thumbs a button, then growls his name into his Bluetooth. “Where?” he snaps after a moment. Then: “We’re on the way.”
He ends the call, then shoots me a look. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?” he asks.
“Let’s start with the good,” I reply.
“I just took a call from the sheriff. We have our first scene.”
“That is good news.” Other than catching someone red-handed, or finding the missing, having a scene from which to extract evidence is the best news we could receive at this point. “What’s the bad news?”
“There’s blood. According to the sheriff, a lot of it.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“Locals are there, looking around. I’m going to get a CSU down here.”
“How far?”
“A couple of miles from here.”
“That’s one of the things I like about small towns,” I tell him. “Never far to the scene of the crime.”
A mile down the road, we turn onto a narrow asphalt track. A quarter mile in, a Trumbull County sheriff’s cruiser with its emergency lights flashing is parked on the gravel shoulder. Two additional cruisers straddle the road at haphazard angles, blocking both lanes. A uniformed deputy drops orange caution cones to divert traffic. Another strings yellow crime-scene tape, using the trees that grow alongside the road and the tops of the cones to cordon off the area.
Tomasetti stops a good distance from the scene and pulls onto the gravel shoulder. We exit simultaneously and head toward the nearest cruiser.
The air is cool and clean and filled with a cacophony of birdsong. We’re in the midst of a forest that turns midday into twilight. The thick underbrush forms a seemingly impenetrable wall on both sides of the roadway. The area is shadowed and humid and has the feel of some vast wilderness—or a place where something bad could happen and no one would ever know. Aside from the occasional crackle of a police radio, it’s so quiet, I can hear the buzz of insects.
“I’m sorry, folks, but the road’s closed.”
I look up to see a large man in plainclothes striding toward us, his expression grim. He’s about forty years old, with a military buzz cut and a handlebar mustache that looks touched up to cover the gray. He’s wearing khaki trousers, a white shirt with the underarms sweated through, and a leather shoulder holster with a nice-looking Taurus .380 sticking out of its leather sheath. He looks more like the Hollywood version of a private detective than a county sheriff, and I get the impression he’s a hit with the ladies—a fact that doesn’t elude him.
He motions in the direction from which we came. “You’re going to have to turn around and take the township road.”