Page 40 of Shamed

I address T.J. and Pickles. “Before you guys call it a day, I want you to talk to them again. Expand your canvass to ten miles. Hit a few more farms out that way.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I look at my female officer. “Mona.”

She straightens, all business. “Chief.”

“There’s a service station two miles down the road from the intersection of Goat Head Road and CR 14. Stop in on your way home and see if they have security cameras. If they do, check the angle, see if it captures the street. If it does, get a copy of the last seventy-two hours.”

“I’m on it,” she says.

I go to the next man. “Glock.”

Rupert “Glock” Maddox is the first African American to grace the ranks of the Painters Mill PD, and he’s my most solid officer. With two tours in Afghanistan on his résumé, a calm demeanor, and a boatload of common sense, he’s my go-to guy when I need a job done right. Last I heard, his wife, LaShonda, is due any day now with their third child.

“Skid and I cleared the outbuildings at the Schattenbaum place. Didn’t look like anyone had been in those old barns for years. No footprints. No disturbed dust. Nothing. CSI with BCI looked around as well and concurred.” He glances at his notes. “We set up a grid of the back pasture, drafted a couple of deputies from County, walked it twice, but there was nothing there.”

“Anyone go out there with dogs?” I ask.

“County did,” he tells me. “No hit in the back of the property, but the dogs did hit on a scent in the front, near where you found the tread marks and blood. BCI jumped on it. Took those plasters. Sent blood samples to the lab. County also went over the area with a drone but got nothing.”

“I found out this morning that the blood is the same type as the little girl’s,” I tell them. “We’re still waiting for DNA.”

A stir goes around the room. Blood from a victim is never good news.

“Glock,” I say, “where did the dogs lose the scent?”

“At the road, a few feet from where you spotted those tire tracks.”

Which means our subject may have put the girl in his vehicle and fled the scene. The thought makes me sick to my stomach.

I look at Skid. “Get with the IT guy who does the website for our department. Tell him to create another page, something prominent, and put out a call for the public’s assistance. Any motorist or pedestrian who was in the area of the Schattenbaum farm yesterday between noon and five P.M., ask them to call. Tell them they can remain anonymous. Use our main switchboard nonemergency number. Or they can use the website to give us any information. There’s a five-hundred-dollar reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.”

Skid nods, thumbing notes into his cell. “You got it.”

I look out at my small team of officers. “Glock and I talked to RSOs,” I tell them, referring to registered sex offenders, and I turn my attention back to Glock. “I want you and Skid to hit it again today. Talk to the same guys, and then expand the area.” I turn to the map and indicate a larger circle. “Talk to all RSOs within a twenty-mile radius.”

Glock gives me a two-finger salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

I look at T.J., then shift my attention back to Mona. “At some point this morning, you two need to go home and get a few hours’ sleep.”

“No problem,” T.J. mutters.

I consider filling them in on the mystery surrounding Elsie Helmuth’s birth certificate, but since I don’t have a viable theory yet and nothing has been substantiated, I opt not to muddy the waters. “I’ll be speaking with the Helmuths again this morning. My cell is on day and night. Mandatory OT until we find that girl or catch this son of a bitch.”

CHAPTER 9

Seventeen hours missing

On the drive to the Helmuth farm, I pass several men on horseback, Amish men and boys who’ve saddled their buggy horses to search the ditches and culverts and wooded areas near the Schattenbaum place. Men clad in camouflage jackets ride ATVs through open fields and the floodplain that parallels Painters Creek, searching rugged terrain not easily accessed by vehicle or on foot. All of these volunteers have likely been at it since first light. Despite the cold block of dread that’s taken up residence in my gut, it warms me to see that the community—Amish and English alike—has come out in force to find a missing little girl.

I’ve just pulled into the Helmuth lane when my cell erupts. I glance at the display: HOLMES CNTY CORONER.

I take a breath and brace. “Hi, Doc.”

“I’m about to start the autopsy on Mary Yoder.”

“Anything preliminary you can tell me?”