A Child Shall Lead Them (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 6)

by Flora, Kate;

  His sister gave him the password.

  He logged in, then checked his niece’s Facebook messages. A long back and forth with Dylan. He could almost picture the two of them, Cherry passionate and wheedling, Dylan cautious and protective. He knew why Dylan had agreed to do something so foolish. Cherry wouldn’t back down, and his protective son wouldn’t let her go alone. If Dylan hadn’t agreed to drive, Cherry would have found someone else. Someone Dylan wouldn’t trust to be careful or resourceful.

  He then checked the school handbook that Sandy had placed on the desk. Astonishingly, in a time when everyone was extremely protective of their faculty and staff, Rosetta Pinette’s phone number was listed.

  He called her, identifying himself as a police officer to the man who answered. A moment later, she was on the phone, and he explained why he was disturbing her in the middle of the night.

  “Larry is good with the kids,” she said, “but he doesn’t interact much with staff or faculty. His performance is on my list to review this summer. But I’ve never seen any signs of a threat to our girls. Or any kind of inappropriate interactions.”

  He didn’t say anything, and she added, in a lower voice, “But then, we both know, don’t we, Detective, that that is how predators work. How can I help?”

  He explained about the false identities, the missing students, and their urgent need to locate Lawrence Cashman. He read her the address he’d gotten from dispatch, and asked if she knew whether it was correct.

  “It’s correct. That is, it’s the address we have in our records, too. But I believe that Larry also has a camp somewhere on a lake. I think he takes his senior advisees there for a cookout during graduation week.”

  “I need an address,” he said. “As soon as possible.”

  “I know you do,” she said. “Let me make some calls and get back to you.”

  “I’ll get back to you” was phrase cops heard far too often, usually without any further response. He could only hope that this time would be different. She sounded like she meant it.

  While he waited for her to call him back, and his sister paced and stared daggers at him, he called Kyle and Perry to give them a head’s up that he would need them soon. He wasn’t about to go up against a man who had killed at least three people without some backup. Going into dangerous situations without backup or telling someone where you were going was stupid policing 101. Cops on TV did it all the time, which was one reason he couldn’t watch cop shows. True, sometimes you just had to act, but in most situations, there was at least time to give dispatch your destination.

  He got a laconic, “Terry Kyle” and an eager “Stan Perry,” and told them to saddle up and he’d be back to them soon with a destination. Then he went back to waiting for Dr. Pinette’s call, poking around on Cherry’s desk as he waited. Nothing in her FB chat, and nothing on her desktop. But Burgess was a cop, so he also checked her wastebasket. He didn’t find an address, but he did find the impression of a hand-drawn map, which he illuminated with light pencil. It wasn’t much use if he didn’t know where he was going, but it would be a big help once he got an address.

  Sandy’s pacing was driving him crazy. “Can you go pace in the living room, please? It’s distracting,” he said.

  “Can you go find my daughter, instead of standing here like a big lump? I thought you were a detective.”

  “I am a detective. But I’m not psychic, Sandy. Maine’s a big state with a lot of lakes. If I’m going to find the right camp, I need more to go on than that the guy has a camp on a lake. You know what would help?”

  “What?”

  “If you could make me some coffee. It’s already been a long night, and it won’t end anytime soon. Coffee would help,”

  “You want me to bake a cake, too?”

  “Just go make the fucking coffee, Sandy, okay?”

  His sister stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  He tried not to get sucked in, but Sandy had spent a lifetime pushing his buttons, and she was always worse when she was stressed.

  His phone rang. Dr. Pinette.

  “Detective Burgess, I think I’ve got an address for you. It’s from a former student, and she was a little shaky on the details. But here’s what she told me.” She gave a series of directions, which he wrote down. “I left a message for another student, one who is a bit more reliable, but I don’t know when she’ll get it, if she’s asleep. I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  It was a sketchy set of directions, but he thought that, along with Cherry’s map, he could find the place.

  “This is great, Dr. Pinette. If you do learn more, please call me. Meanwhile, I’ll work with this.”

  He called Kyle and Perry and set a meeting place. Then he headed out, stopping in the kitchen, where Sandy was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the coffee maker. No coffee making was in process.

  “I’ve got an address. I’m going to check it out. Can you give me Cherry’s cell number? I’m not sure I have it.”

  She gave him the number, then followed him into the living room. “Wait. I’m coming with you.”

  “No. You’re not. This is a police operation. The person we’re looking for has a gun and he may have other armed persons with him. I am not taking you into that. And I’m not taking you anywhere in that damned bathrobe.”

  She looked down at herself, surprised to find she wasn’t dressed. Then she buried her head in her hands and sank onto the sofa. “Just find her, Joe. Please.”

  And Burgess went to find her.

  Forty-One

  It was still raining, which had its pros and cons. Pros like being able to approach a cottage unheard because of the sound of the rain. Cons like someone could approach them unheard. And cons like how rain interfered with visibility and their ability to communicate with each other. It also made navigation on unmarked camp roads difficult. It seemed like half the camps in Maine were located on dirt tracks designated only by fire road numbers. He didn’t know if that would be true here. He had imprecise directions, not route numbers or house numbers.

  If time were on their side, and if it were daytime, they could confirm the address and camp location at the town office. But town offices weren’t available to the midnight musketeers. They were flying mostly blind, and that did nothing to enhance their safety.

  He met up with Kyle and Perry in the parking lot of a twenty-four hour convenience store and made a plan. They would ride together in the Explorer. They would park at a spot they estimated was maybe a quarter of a mile from the camp, and approach on foot from there. They had notified dispatch of their destination, and contacted the local police and explained their situation. Some available officers would be sent to monitor the road and provide back up if they needed it. Burgess and the shift commander on duty agreed that local officers would wait at the parking spot unless they were called on for assistance.

  Police departments were usually glad to offer assistance, and it was courtesy to let a department know if you were conducting an operation on their turf. Burgess appreciated it. He just didn’t want to put anyone at risk if it wasn’t necessary. The local shift commander said he was sure that Cashman had a boat, and asked if they’d like him to contact the wardens to cover an escape by water. Burgess decided they’d try to disable any boats on their own, but thanked him for the offer.

  With no way of knowing whether Cary McCann was their quarry’s friend, or prisoner, they didn’t know how many adversaries they might be facing or how difficult it would be to safely extricate two over-ambitious teenagers, if those teenagers were even at the site.

  It was unnerving to face so many variables.

  They drove without their usual banter. Everyone was so bone weary by this time that they just wanted to get in there, do the job, and get out with everyone in one piece. That seemed like a lot to hope for. The possibility of armed adversaries, injuries to themselves, or of finding Dylan and Cherry injured or dead, weighed heavily on all of them. Even
the adventurous Stan Perry, famous for larking off on his own and taking crazy risks, was subdued. He was a father now, and about to be a husband.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Burgess told them. It was ridiculous, but he had to say it. This was his family’s mess. Except of course that it wasn’t. They were also here looking for a suspected killer and the man they suspected was his accomplice—a man who had, perhaps, stuffed his own wife in a duffle bag and left her to die in a hot garage. The unanswered questions, and the mysteries of this case, loomed over them like a black cloud, a cloud that would be there until the bad guys were caught.

  “Hey, Joe,” Kyle said suddenly, “how’s your monster doing?”

  “Kicking up a bitch of a storm. How’s yours?”

  “I fed mine a gallon of Pepto-Bismol,” Kyle said, “and the little bugger went to sleep.”

  “What are you talking about?” Perry said. “Do I really have to do this with two old guys who’ve gone off their rockers?”

  “Nope,” Kyle said. “You’ve got to do this with two esteemed colleagues, because you want to be in on it when we rescue Joe’s errant family members and catch the bad guys.”

  Perry grunted and the car went silent again until the GPS told them it was time to park and get out of the truck. As they were getting out and gathering their weapons, flashlights, and other useful stuff, a local police car slid in behind them and two officers got out.

  They introduced themselves. Burgess introduced his team. Then the older of the officers, a seasoned guy with smart eyes, said, “What do you want us to do?”

  “Block the road and stop anyone from leaving,” Burgess said. “Hopefully, this will go down quietly, but we’re not sure what we’re dealing with.”

  “Okay. But don’t be heroes, okay? Call us if you need us.”

  “We will,” Burgess said. He hoped his heroic days were behind him.

  They all exchanged phone numbers, then the three musketeers headed for what they hoped would be Lawrence Cashman’s cottage. They walked quietly, Burgess in the lead. Their phones on vibrate. Guns in one hand, flashlights ready in the other. Eventually, the road forked, a driveway going right, the rest of the road going left. According to the map he’d found in Cherry’s room, they wanted to go right. Down the gravel track, around a bend, and up ahead they could see three vehicles parked. One was the black town car. One was Chris’s car. The third, a white van, was a mystery.

  “I’ve got this,” Perry said, creeping forward until he could read the plate, then stepping back around the bend to call dispatch. They stood still as statues, surrounded by the infuriating buzz of mosquitoes, while Perry made the call.

  “It’s registered to Annie McCann,” he said.

  Which didn’t tell them much, since they knew Annie McCann wasn’t inside and hadn’t driven the vehicle here. But maybe her husband had. Had he drugged his wife, left her to die in that duffle bag, and then driven here? And why? To make an escape plan with Cashman?

  “Okay,” Burgess said. “Stan, you go around to the waterfront and see if you can disable any boats you find there. Disable or set adrift. Terry, you take the back. I’ll slip up along the far side and see if I can see in the windows.”

  Quietly, their three black figures moved through the darkness. It was a foul night, but the lack of a moon or stars meant they were much harder to see in the darkness. There were no lights to the rear of the cottage, but they could see light spilling out the front rooms.

  Burgess moved slowly along the side of the house until he reached a lighted window. He raised up and peered in. He was looking into a large open room with rustic pine paneling and a big stone fireplace flanked by two large picture windows looking toward the lake. There was a door beside the fireplace leading out, Burgess thought, to a deck or a porch. Two men were standing at the far end of the room, talking. One was Cary McCann. The other was Lawrence Cashman. Dylan lay on the floor in front of the fireplace, a pool of blood around his head. Cherry was on the couch facing the fireplace, bound with duct tape, tears running down her face, her eyes on the silent figure on the floor.

  As he watched, he saw Dylan’s eyes open, then close again. Alive! Stay still, he beamed the thought at his son. Play dead. Don’t give them any reason to hit you again.

  How many times had he observed scenes like this, with a bad guy or guys, and hostages? Willed the best result? Wished he could he transmit his thoughts into another head, calm a terrified victim? Ten? Twenty? Dozens? It was always tense. Always affected his breathing. But never like this. Parenthood with Dylan came to him slowly, in increments. He’d never had what Stan Perry was experiencing—the awesome responsibility of the birth of his baby.. The huge and magical moment of greeting a newborn. He hadn’t known about Dylan—the child of a girlfriend who’d suddenly moved away and never told him why—for almost the first fifteen years of his son’s life. But to his amazement, these attaching moments kept happening. And now this: Dylan the instinctive rescuer acting on impulse, without the knowledge or experience to handle the situation. Burgess had to somehow arrest Cashman and McCann without getting his niece or his son killed. Hopefully without getting anyone killed.

  Seeing his son lying there, injured, possibly gravely, and Cherry so terrified, brought out a searing, protective rage. He wanted to burst through the window into the room and shoot both men. He stepped on his anger. He hadn’t kept himself and others alive over the years by yielding to his impulses. Tension wrapped him so tight it hurt to breathe.

  He didn’t trust that Cashman and McCann were the only bad guys here. People had seen a Hispanic male driving the white van, so there might be a third man. He hoped that was all. For all he knew, Cashman and company had a small army to help them run their dirty business.

  Through the rain, he heard faint sounds of splashing that were probably Perry taking care of the boats. Then, over the roar of the rain, he heard another sound, the soggy squash of footsteps coming his way. He melted back into the space by the bay window and turned his head to hide the white of his skin, watching from the corner of his eye. The footsteps got closer. And closer. Burgess stayed still, a skill he’d mastered in the jungle long ago.

  He waited until the man was right beside him, then turned and grabbed him, one arm around his neck, the other across him mouth. He dragged the struggling man to the rear of the house and down past the bend in the driveway.

  Kyle joined him there, producing a roll of duct tape and binding the man’s arms and legs.

  “How many of you are there?” Burgess whispered.

  The man didn’t answer.

  Burgess shifted his arm just slightly, putting pressure on the man’s shoulder. The man winced but stayed silent. He increased the pressure and the man’s eyes opened wide, watering with the pain.

  “How many?” Burgess repeated.

  Still no answer. He increased the pressure until the man was almost whimpering. “Those men in there—McCann and Cashman—will be spending the rest of their lives in prison for the rape and murder of children,” he said. “You’re a part of this, so you go, too. And life means life. Things will go better for you if you cooperate. The choice is yours.”

  He waited, but evidently this man was more frightened of Cashman and McCann than of anything Burgess could say. They didn’t have time for persuasion. Cherry and Dylan were in there with two armed and ruthless men.

  They put duct tape over the man’s mouth, dragged him into the woods, and duct taped him to a tree. A search of his pockets yielded a cell phone, a folding knife, and some cash, but no identification.

  “Let’s try to remember where we left him,” Kyle whispered just loud enough for the man to hear. “Lotta hungry bear around here.”

  They were almost back to the house when they heard footsteps again. Could be Stan Perry. Could be another bad guy. They faded back into the bushes and waited. A moment later, a small man appeared, holding a gun out in front of him like he was waterskiing. Burgess stepped out to block the
man’s path, while Kyle grabbed him from behind. Burgess twisted the gun from the man’s hands and they dragged him back around the bend. Once again, Burgess asked his question. Once again, he got no answer. They left bad guy number two on the opposite side of the driveway, fastened to another tree.

  “Hope there aren’t too many of them,” Kyle whispered. “I’ll run out of duct tape. What did you see inside?”

  “The kids are there. Dylan’s lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Cherry’s tied up on the couch.”

  “Do you think…” Kyle began. Then stopped.

  “He’s alive.”

  “We should check on Stan. He should be done by now.”

  By unspoken agreement, Burgess took the right side of the house and Kyle the left. They met no more patrolling men with guns. When they reached the front of the house, they stayed to the sides in the shadows, avoiding the center of the lawn where light spilled out from the house. They slipped down the lawn to the dock. They could see two boats drifting away. There was no sign of Stan Perry.

  Then Kyle whispered, “Over there. By the tree.”

  Off to the side, where one wet black tree stood out from the rest, there was a crumpled black lump. Hunched and slow, they crossed the lawn to the lump. It wasn’t Stan Perry. They used a bit of Kyle’s duct tape to make sure the man caused no more trouble, then returned together to the window Burgess had looked in before.

  McCann and Cashman had moved to the center of the room and were staring out the picture window. Cashman looked concerned. McCann looked like he was saying something reassuring. In the far corner, Stan Perry was slowly edging his way into the room.

  Forty-Two

  “Oh fuck!” Kyle whispered. “There goes Stan again. I thought having Autumn might have changed him.”

  “You take the back. I’ll take the front,” Burgess said. No time to do anything more. He took a moment to send a text to the officers out at the road, saying they needed backup and an ambulance. Kyle had already slithered away, quick and silent. Burgess moved to the front of the house and quietly mounted the steps to the porch, his voluble knee letting him know it was tired of all this stomping around and ready to quit for the day. He moved past the first window, and past the big brick chimney, gun up and ready.