by Blake Pierce
A small dirt road meandered up the hill as well, cutting through a grove of thin saplings, as if they’d been planted recently.
He frowned at the road, spotting tire tracks. Was he heading the right way?
He could still hear the voices of the search party, and in the distance, he even heard a whistle. The sound of barking. The others had found something.
Diedrich felt a flash of excitement. Maybe it was their group. He hoped they’d found it. Found what, though? He still wasn’t quite sure what they were looking for. The instructions had been vague. Weapons, anything out of the ordinary. Blood.
He shivered at this last one.
He didn’t remember this road, and certainly didn’t remember the tire tracks. Diedrich sniffed. He hated cars. The vehicles had polluted the planet for years now without anyone doing anything about it. Sometimes, when he had to, he would hitch rides with his friends, but mostly he liked to bike around.
Still, if there was a road, that meant there were people nearby. Besides, the sounds of the voices seemed to be coming from this way… through the trees.
“Juergen!” he called. “Michael!”
No responses now. The voices had faded again. Now, he was certain he was heading the wrong way.
He traveled hesitantly up the road, then paused at a switchback, beneath some of the small, recently planted trees. He was about to turn back when he spotted something. A short distance along the switchback, along the road, hidden behind the trees, he spotted a blue van with its hood up.
Diedrich frowned. At least he’d found the source of the tire tracks. The van looked older, which meant it was a gas guzzler. Great.
He was in the middle of turning back again when he saw someone fumbling around in the front of the car, moving beneath the hood.
The person was muttering to themselves, and shivering. They weren’t wearing a jacket.
Diedrich’s frown deepened. In this weather, without a jacket, frostbite could set on in minutes. It was far too cold to be broken down on the side of the road in the woods.
He glanced at the whistle dangling from his chest, and the orange vest. He glanced over his shoulder, trying to track the voices through the trees. But then, as the man beneath the hood yelped, bumping his head against the overhanging hood and emitting a cry of pain, Diedrich moved back up the road, following the switchback and disappearing amidst the trees. He moved closer to the blue van, hesitant.
“Guten tag?” he said.
The fellow by the car turned sharply, surprise written across his face. He had to be in his late fifties, with silver hair and a receding hairline. His eyes were wrinkled from smile lines, and something about his face seemed warm, kind. Diedrich felt a sudden surge of relief.
There was no telling what kind of weirdos one might find in a forest. He approached the stalled vehicle and the kind-looking stranger.
“Hello,” Diedrich said. “Are you all right?”
He glanced past the gray-haired man through the windshield. He spotted a baby’s car seat in the back. The vehicle looked to be quite well-maintained. At least there was that. Gas would kill the planet, but the dispenser was pretty.
He wrinkled his nose, trying not to let his thoughts display. “Can I help?” he said.
The man with the smiling eyes gestured with an ungloved hand toward the front of the vehicle.
Diedrich leaned over, glancing in. He didn’t know much about cars, but he wanted to pay the tribute of polite attention. The older man crossed his arms and leaned over, muttering, “Thank you for stopping. But I’m not sure what’s wrong. It’s just not starting.”
Diedrich leaned in closer, examining where the older man was now pointing with a finger.
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “You see that wire, is that supposed to be unhooked like that?”
The older man leaned in, murmuring in surprise. “Goodness, I think you found it. No. That shouldn’t be like that.”
The older man hesitated for a second and then bent over completely, his trembling fingers, affected by the cold, probing at the wire, trying to adjust it.
Diedrich shifted, feeling the whistle sway across his chest. He looked on in interest, watching as the fellow fumbled with the wiring and clicked the thing back into place.
The last thing Diedrich heard was the man muttering quietly, his hands in view, bent over under the hood, when there was a sudden shuffling behind him, and an explosion of pain across the back of Diedrich’s head, before he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The car grumbled, kicking up dust as it pulled into the parking spot on the dirt road. The area was cordoned off with small flags attached to a thin wire, no bigger than coat hangers, the green and red fabric designating the parking spot for the campground in the forest.
Above them, stapled between two trees, a large, arcing wooden sign with bright white letters read, “Double Hill Campground.”
“This is the place?” Adele said.
John turned off the engine and pushed open the door, already stepping out into the campground. Over his shoulder, he said, “You said you wanted a place that didn’t keep a registry. This place is cash only. They don’t ask for names or IDs. I figure that fits the bill good enough.”
Adele exited the car; there was the click of locks and the lights flashed.
“Good enough place to start,” she said.
John hesitated, leaning against the car. Then, in a nonchalant way, he cleared his throat and said, “Where’s our vibrant, delightful Beatrice Marshall? I miss her company and conversational prowess.”
Adele tried not to roll her eyes. “Marshall bowed out last minute. Said something came up at BKA.” As she spoke, though, some of her annoyance at John failed. She scratched her chin and looked at him. “She hasn’t shown up in a while. Think perhaps BKA is giving us the dodge?”
John shrugged back. Beneath his breath, as they moved away from the car, he muttered, “She can give me the dodge any time she wants.”
Adele ignored her partner. She glanced around, spotting a couple of the campsites past the wooden office near the sign. The office was little more than a cabin, with two windows and no porch. Beyond it, she spotted an RV and one trailer. Parked in two of the spots, there were the telltale tinted windows of vans converted into mobile homes.
“Should we start with the office?” John said, nodding toward the cabin.
“Actually,” Adele said, “I’d like to speak with the tenants. Like you said, cash up front, no names or IDs. Not sure we want the office to clam up and start telling their tenants to do the same.”
John nodded, swirling his finger in front of his face in a small circular motion, and then pointed it at one of the RVs behind the main cabin. “I choose you,” he said once his finger settled.
Together, the two agents walked across the dusty ground, moving along the dirt trails and heading between the trees towards the indicated RV.
As they approached, they passed a water spigot, around which two civilians were chatting with empty water containers at their feet. A young woman, perhaps in her late twenties, had the water running, the faucet turned as she filled up one of her jugs.
The other, a young man about the same age, was waiting his turn politely, listening as the woman was telling him something about a movie she’d watched the previous night.
As Adele and John approached, though, the two campers looked over and frowned. They took in Adele’s suit and John’s attire. They looked them up and down and both fell silent, listening to the running sound of water.
As Adele stood in the dust amid splotches of mud created by errant droplets from the spigot, she felt like she had perched herself on shaky ground. To her surprise, she found herself missing the concrete, the glass, the rigid structure of the buildings back in Paris and San Francisco. The trees around her, the dust at her feet, the haphazard campgrounds circling the old cabin, brought with them a sense of uncertainty. A lack of roots. If anything, Adel
e thought this should appeal to her. It was something John had once accused her of. He’d said she was someone who didn’t like roots, who moved often. These folk and their RVs, with their water containers and their casual conversations out beneath the open sky, should have felt like birds of a feather. And yet Adele felt isolated, alone. A strange sensation. She couldn’t trace it, and now wasn’t really the time. But as she acknowledged the two campers by the water spigot, she couldn’t help but feel that out here, in the woods, there was a lack of structure. A lack of substance, of something beneath the surface, a vitality, a rigidity. The law, where she worked, it served as a backbone for society. Here, on shaky, dusty ground, her badge, her job, was a liability. A threat of authority. She could sense the distrust emanating from these two, like heat from a furnace.
The woman’s water jug was overflowing. Streams of liquid seeped past her hand and splattered on the ground, creating more mud.
The young man nudged her and muttered something. The woman quickly looked down, blushed, and pulled her jug away, replacing it with a second, smaller container,
The drumming sound of water in the bottom of the echoing plastic stretched the silence between them, until the young man looked at John, and said, “Can we help you, Officer?”
John raised an eyebrow to Adele.
“I’m sorry,” she said in German. “He doesn’t speak German.”
The young man’s eyebrows rose even higher. He shared a knowing look with the girl next to him. If anything, if possible, their postures became even more defensive. They seemed to lean closer together, or at the very least further away from John and Adele.
“Is he American?” said the young man with a tone of scorn.
The young woman chuckled beneath her breath, but the sound was drowned out by the tumbling water.
“No,” Adele said. “He’s French. Are you two German?”
The young man nodded once. The woman glanced at John again, taking in his tall, handsome form, and seemed to like what she saw. She smiled at John and then glanced bashfully toward the RV, and hesitated. A second woman had appeared in the frame of the RV, glancing toward them. Adele turned her attention back to the young woman still eyeing John.
“Might I have your name?”
Instantly, the woman frowned. She said, “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Adele held out her hands in a placating gesture. “I wasn’t implying you had. Sorry. Let me start over. We’re here on missing persons case. A girl, a few years younger than you two. We found her a couple nights ago, wandering the highway. There’s a manhunt searching for who might’ve taken her.”
The young man frowned. “Taken her?”
Adele said, “Yes. She went missing five months ago. Spent some time in this area, the Black Forest.”
Now the woman in the doorway of the RV was starting to approach, a peculiar look on her face. She seemed caught somewhere between curiosity and distrust. Her two friends were both glancing back at her, and Adele caught the faintest shake of the head from the boy. This stopped the second woman in her tracks for a moment, and she hesitated between two trees leading from the campsite. But then she seemed to find her own will and pressed on, approaching them.
Adele glanced back at the nearest campers. “Look, we don’t mean any harm. We’re not here to cause trouble.”
“We paid for the campground,” the young man said quickly. “You can ask the governor.” He nodded toward the cabin.
“The governor? Is that what you call the campgrounds director?”
“His name is Mr. Rosenbaum,” said the girl, quickly. “He knows we’re here. We paid.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Adele said. “Seriously, I’m here about Amanda Johnson. There are a few other names I was wondering if you’d mind telling me if you’ve heard of them.”
By now, the third woman was within earshot. She was still a few paces away and was hovering, stepping in and out as if there were an imaginary circle full of energy shocking her every time she drew too close.
John was staring at the girl, expectantly. Adele, though, kept her gaze averted, allowing the girl to approach at her own speed.
“Amanda Johnson, Catherine Waters, Ross Ortega, and Yusuf Yazici,” she said, rattling off the names of the four people who’d all gone missing from Ms. Schroeder’s hostel. “We have a few others. Here, my partner has a list.”
She gestured to John and he reached into his pocket and unfolded the printed out piece of paper. They’d managed to compile more than sixteen names who’d gone missing in the area who fit the age range in the last three years.
John extended the list.
The boy and girl gave it a cursory glance, but didn’t seem to spend much time. They both shook their heads. “No idea,” the boy said.
“Do you mind taking a longer look?” Adele said. “Those people are all still missing. There’s a chance we can find them. But we need help.”
The boy crossed his arms, turning back toward the water spigot and adjusting his own container beneath the faucet. The girl, though, frowned, her face creasing in thought. A flutter of worry seemed to cross her countenance, and she leaned in, reading the list closer this time.
As she did, though, she slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know them. We only started coming through here a few months ago.”
“We?” said Adele. “This is your boyfriend?”
The young woman made a face. “No.”
The young man made an equally disgusted face.
Adele decided she wasn’t interested in deciphering this. “And you’re sure you don’t know any of those names?”
The young man shrugged. “A lot of people come through these areas. A lot. I know at least six of my own friends who have been here in the last year. It’s a popular spot. Quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
He inhaled a bit, looking away from the faucet and glancing at the trees. In that single breath, inhaling through his nose and leaning back like a rooster who just crowed, he seemed to refresh himself, his chest puffing out.
In that same instance, Adele felt a stab of frustration.
“You don’t know any of those names on that list. Not one?” she said.
The girl leaned in again, politely compliant. The boy rolled his eyes, but at a growl from John, he also glanced at the list. Again, both of them shook their heads.
Adele sighed. It had been a long shot. She knew that in the last three years, thousands of people had made their way through these forests. Tens of thousands. Sixteen names was a long shot.
She decided to switch tack. “Around the area—you said you’ve just been coming here for a few months; did you come here in the summer?”
The girl nodded. The boy didn’t say anything.
“And in that time, around the campgrounds, has there been anyone strange? Especially someone older. Someone who came by, and made you feel uncomfortable. Maybe asking inappropriate questions. Spent too much time looking, just gave you a bad vibe?”
The boy muttered something beneath his breath and chuckled. The girl flashed a smile toward him and muttered, “So rude.”
“What?” Adele said.
The girl shook her head. “Nothing, he was making a joke about a friend of ours. But no, seriously it’s nothing.”
Adele’s frustration was mounting again, but before she could express it, the third party now made her way completely from the RV and was standing only two paces from the water pump. She cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me.”
She spoke with an accent. Adele looked over. “Yes?”
The girl cleared her throat. Still with an accent, she spoke in clipped German. “You’re asking about strange people around here?”
Adele nodded. “Yes, might I ask where you’re from?”
The girl’s brow crinkled a bit at the question, but quietly, she said, still in German, “London. I’m here for winter break. But that’s not important. There is a strange person around here.”
The boy glanced back at her and gave the faintest shake of his head.
“They should know,” the Londoner said, frowning.
The male camper returned the frown.
The girl from London looked away from him and fixed her gaze on Adele.
“Look, not everyone around here trusts cops. We don’t come here to have more rules. We like the lifestyle. But sometimes there are others who might ruin it for us. People who are predators.”
Adele was now staring directly at the girl. John seemed to have picked up on Adele’s interest and was also following her gaze.
“So there’s someone like that around here? Someone who makes you feel uncomfortable?”
The girl nodded adamantly. “Yes, I don’t know his name, but…” She coughed and said quickly, “Some of the girls around here call him Stinkeye.”
Adele stared. “Stinkeye?”
The girl nodded. “It’s not very polite. Yes. But he spends a little bit too long looking at us when he comes through. Makes some of us uncomfortable. Akianne here,” she began, nodding toward the first girl by the water pump. Before she could continue, though, the girl turned around, scandalized, and snapped, “Shut up.”
But now Adele turned on Akianne as well. “Have you had an experience with this Stinkeye?”
Akianne leaned against the water pump, watching the boy fill his final jug. She frowned crossly at her friend again, but then looked at Adele.
“Nothing serious. But a few nights ago, I was getting something from the car, and he came up behind me.”
Adele stared. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head quickly, emphatically saying, “No, nothing like that. But it was just weird. He started asking all sorts of questions. About myself. Things he had no business knowing. Things about where I lived. If I had a boyfriend.”
The second girl shuddered, visibly shivering where she stood. The boy now had a frown on his face and was glaring at the mud. “All right,” Adele said. “So this fellow you call Stinkeye came up and asked inappropriate questions. What time was it?”