Take the Bait

by S. W. Hubbard

  Henry kept up a cheerful chatter throughout lunch, and afterward offered to take him to meet Michael Heine, the community steward.

  On the way down the dirt lane to the steward’s office, Frank and Henry encountered four little boys standing on the rails of a fence that enclosed a small herd of goats. The goats maa-ed excitedly, pushing one another aside as they tried to reach the boys’ outstretched hands.

  “Children!” The harshness in Henry’s voice surprised Frank. “You know that is against the rules!”

  The boys hopped off the fence, their heads hanging guiltily.

  “Now, go back to Anna and tell her what you have been up to.”

  Frank watched as the boys scurried off, then observed his formerly genial host. His irritation seemed out of character. “Are those goats important to what you do here?”

  “They are valuable animals; we’ve been breeding them selectively.”

  “I guess you don’t want the kids getting too attached to them, huh?”

  “We do not keep animals as pets, or assign them human qualities. Animals are a resource that God has given to Man.” Henry answered him politely but still seemed distracted by what the children had done.

  Henry snapped out of his mood as they stopped before a small, square building. “Well, here we are,” he said. “The steward works here.”

  There were certainly no perks attached to the steward’s leadership position, for his office was as spartan as any low-level bureaucrat’s might be. Michael Heine sat behind a large beige metal desk. Frank marveled at the man’s orderliness: three stacks of manila folders awaited his attention, but the only paper visible was the spreadsheet he was currently evaluating.

  “Michael, I have brought Mr. Frank Bennett to meet you. He has driven here all the way from Trout Run to buy the book of Eberhard Arnold’s writings.”

  Michael stood up immediately and extended his hand in greeting, his eyes alight with pleasure. “So, you are interested in our founder.”

  “Yes, and in your community here.” Frank was eager to head off any long historical discussion. “Henry invited me to lunch, and then we saw some of your gardens and your farm animals on the way over here.”

  Henry nodded to Frank. “I am very happy to have been able to show you some of our work. Now, I will leave you with Michael. Good-bye.”

  “Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable.” Michael sat in a hard wooden chair opposite Frank. “Tell me how you came to be interested in the Bruderhof.”

  Frank was about to launch into the tale of his brother the minister back in Missouri again, but the steward’s sincerity and genuine goodwill brought him as close to embarrassment as he was capable of getting. He glanced away from Michael’s placid, gray gaze. “Look … I …haven’t been entirely truthful with you. I said I came here looking for this book—” Frank lifted it from his lap—“but really, there’s this young girl, Janelle Harvey, who’s been missing from home for almost a week.”

  Michael looked at him quizzically. “The name sounds familiar. I think I have seen a sign, perhaps in the hardware store in New Paltz.”

  “That’s right. She’s from Trout Run, but the fliers are posted all over the state.”

  “And you are her father?” Michael asked with concern.

  Frank hesitated. How could he tell the man that he was a police officer working undercover to infiltrate their community? No matter how he tried to explain, it would come out sounding ridiculously suspicious and sordid in these idyllic surroundings. “No, I’m …a family friend.” Before Michael could inquire too closely about this, Frank pressed on. “You see, before Janelle disappeared, she had been writing a school paper on Utopian religious communities. We found a mention of your bruderhof in her notes, and we know that she spoke to some folks from your community who she met hiking around Trout Run.”

  Michael looked puzzled, so Frank elaborated. “She had been worried about something at home. We thought it might be possible that she asked you for help—maybe came here for refuge.”

  “You think we would harbor a runaway child at Silas!” Anger animated Michael’s serene face, then, as quickly as it had appeared it was quashed. “I am sorry that I raised my voice, but you must understand some things about our community. First, one must be an adult to join. Even our own children do not become members of the community until they are grown and can make the proper judgment and commitment of their own free will.

  “We get many curiosity seekers here,” Michael continued. “People think we are some sort of cult—they wonder about our way of life. That is why we take such pains to instruct outsiders in our beliefs.

  “Infrequently, outsiders come to us wishing to join, but no one is permitted to join the group, even as a novice, unless they are certain that living in community is the true path that God has called them to.” Michael spread his large, strong hands, as if showing Frank the path. “People who are at loose ends … who do not know which way to turn … they are not in a position to make a lifetime commitment.”

  Frank nodded. He believed the man. After all, if the Bruderhof had been harboring Janelle or trying to brainwash her, they would hardly have been so open in inviting him to look around.

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I can see now that I was mistaken,” Frank said. “But I wonder, would it be possible for me to meet the group that Janelle spoke to in Trout Run?”

  Michael regarded Frank with some skepticism.

  “I’m just curious what she might have asked them about,” Frank went on. “It might help me …” His voice trailed off. What? He wasn’t sure himself.

  But Michael’s essential generosity won out over his doubts. He gestured for Frank to follow him and explained as they walked that the young people in the community were very fond of hiking. They took day trips all around the area to hike—winter, summer, spring, and fall. In a barn filled with tractors, trucks, and a large van, Michael introduced Frank to a young man who looked a few years older than Janelle.

  “Lucas always drives the van on hiking trips. Perhaps he will remember this young woman you are looking for,” Michael said.

  Lucas listened intently as Frank showed Janelle’s picture and described the location where Kim and Melanie said the encounter with the Bruderhof hikers had taken place. Before Frank had finished speaking, Lucas began to nod. “Yes, I remember the young woman. She was very friendly.”

  “What did she ask you about? Do you recall?”

  “She asked if we had been raised in the community. I told her, yes. And she asked if anyone from outside ever joined, or if anyone ever left. And I said yes again. And then, this was funny, she asked did the men and women get married and live as families?” He laughed. “And I said, yes, what other way is there?”

  • • •

  “Chief Bennett, may I have a word, please?”

  Doris had launched into an elaborate and wholly incomprehensible pantomime the moment Frank walked into the Town Office after returning from the bruderhof, and now he understood why. Clyde Stevenson stood inside Frank’s office, his arms crossed and his foot tapping.

  “Sure, Clyde,” Frank said with a slightly forced smile. “Has Doris given you a cup of coffee?”

  “This isn’t a social call, Bennett,” Clyde said as he shut the door pointedly in the secretary’s face. “I’m here to find out what could possibly justify your slanderous attack on Bob Rush!”

  “Attack? All I did was ask him if Janelle Harvey had ever confided in him about her problems.” Frank struggled to keep his voice level and almost succeeded.

  Clyde chose to ignore this. “You implied that there was something improper going on between them.” Without waiting for a reply he rattled on. “Do you know how lucky we are to have a man of Bob Rush’s caliber as our pastor here? Do you realize how long our church was without a minister before we were fortunate enough to recruit Reverend Rush? For two years we had to depend on Reverend Sikes from the Bristol Presbyterian church to drive over here to lead one quick
service a week. Why, when he married Katie and Paul Malone, he forgot their names in the middle of the ceremony.

  “Anyway, that’s all beside the point,” Clyde said, as if someone else had been doing all the talking. “I want to know what you think you’re trying to prove, alienating our minister when you’re supposed to be finding out who kidnapped Janelle Harvey!”

  Frank exhaled slowly before he allowed himself to speak to the little man pacing up and down in front of him. “I’m obligated to follow up every lead that I get, Clyde,” he said. “When I learned that Bob Rush might have been someone Janelle would turn to with her problems, naturally I had to ask him about it.”

  “And who, may I ask, provided you with this so-called lead?” Clyde demanded.

  “Melanie Powers,” Frank said wearily, anticipating Clyde’s reaction.

  “And you would accept the idle gossip of that, that person over the word of an ordained minister?”

  “I have news for you, Clyde. A big part of police work is based on so-called idle gossip, because it’s human nature to talk. And it’s my job to listen—to everything.”

  Clyde pursed his thin lips so tightly that they all but disappeared in his pale face. “Rumor mongering,” he hissed, “is not what the town council hired you for. We thought we were getting an experienced law enforcement professional.”

  Frank did not deign to defend himself. This two-bit town had gotten far better than it deserved when they hired him. One mistake, one mistake in a twenty-year career, and now he had to put up with idiots like Clyde second-guessing him at every turn! He went on the offensive. “Just why is it that Bob Rush came running to you to complain as soon as we had our little conversation?”

  “Pastor Bob did not come running anywhere. I just happened to be at the church for a finance committee meeting and he mentioned it to me. As an elder of the Presbyterian church and a member of the town council, I felt it was my duty to speak to you about the way you’re running this investigation.”

  “Well, consider me spoken to,” Frank replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think there must be some reports of masked intruders on the outskirts of town that I need to look into.”

  “I do not appreciate your sarcasm, Mr. Bennett.” Clyde glared at him through his steel-rimmed glasses. “The council will expect a full report from you at the next meeting. And there better be some real progress on this Harvey case, or we’ll just see about breaking your contract!”

  11

  “HEY!”

  Walking back to the office with coffee and a sticky bun from the Store to comfort him after the encounter with Clyde, Frank heard the cry, but assumed it was directed at someone else.

  “Hey, Mr. Policeman!” This could only be meant for him, so he stopped to look around. The green was deserted.

  “Over here.” The high-pitched voice was not particularly loud, but it carried. Frank finally traced it to a tiny figure leaning on the fence of the house that faced the west side of the green. Etta Noakes and her house were even more immutable fixtures in Trout Run than the Store. She had been born in the mansard-roofed Victorian nearly one hundred years before, and had lived there all her life. The house itself predated her by another half century, or at least the front of it did. About thirty feet wide, it had grown to twice that depth as various lean-tos and porches had been added on, enclosed, and gradually subsumed into the main structure. Like her house, Miss Noakes was cloaked in an air of genteel decay.

  As he walked toward her, the old lady said, “Agnes tells me you’re good at finding things.”

  Frank had found Agnes Guttfreund’s stolen lawn mower last summer, and the old biddy had been singing his praises ever since. “Well, if I were half as good at finding people as I am at tracking down lawn mowers, Janelle Harvey would be home by now.”

  “Oh, her.” Miss Noakes waved a gnarled hand as if shooing a blackfly. “She’ll come back. Those girls always do.”

  Frank plopped into a weather-beaten Adirondack chair and studied the old woman curiously. Her pure white hair stood up around her head like a dandelion gone to seed, and the motley assortment of cardigans, shawls, and socks she wore made her seem even smaller than she was. “What makes you so certain?” he asked.

  “Young people always think their troubles are tied to a certain place. They expect to outrun their trouble. But when they get where they’re going, they find their problems are there, too, so they come back,” Miss Noakes said simply as she looked past Frank’s shoulder to study the comings and goings on the green.

  The old gal was sharper than she looked. He only hoped she was right about Janelle.

  “So, what is it that you want me to find?” Frank asked.

  “Petey, my cat.”

  Frank watched as a gray tiger-striped cat threaded his way carefully through a tall stand of pussywillow in Miss Noakes’s overgrown garden. He revised his judgment; maybe Etta just had momentary flashes of lucidity. “He’s right there,” Frank said gently, pointing the cat out.

  Miss Noakes did not even turn her head. “That’s Mr. Tibbs. Petey is the one who’s been stolen. He’s solid white, with a black tail. I always say that somewhere there must be a black cat that got Petey’s white tail.”

  “Well, he probably just wandered off ma’am—cats do roam. He’ll be back. I’ll sure keep an eye peeled on my rounds in case the poor fella got … well … hit or something.” Frank put his hands on the arms of the low chair, preparing to rise, but the look of withering scorn that Miss Noakes fixed on him caused him to sink back into his seat.

  “Agnes said you were a little slow to catch on, but that eventually you’d figure things out. Petey is not a young, foolish cat. He’s lived here next to the green all his life, and he’s never been hit by a car. As for roaming, a few years ago that young vet fella fixed him”—Miss Noakes made a hacking motion with her hands—“and since then Petey’s never had the urge to leave the yard. No, he’s been stolen, sure enough, and I want you to find who did it.”

  Frank knew when he’d been checkmated. “All right, Miss Noakes. I’ll look into it. But don’t get your hopes up. A cat could be”—Frank sighed and looked at the mountains that surrounded the green—“anywhere.”

  “That’s what you said about Agnes’s mower, and you found that, didn’t you?” Miss Noakes got up and marched back into her house.

  Frank walked glumly back to the Town Office. The coffee he’d bought would be cold by now, and what good was a sticky bun without a decent cup of hot coffee? He’d be forced to drink some of Doris’s sludge, he supposed.

  “That was an awful long coffee break,” Earl reproached Frank as he entered the office.

  “I was taking a citizen complaint. Miss Noakes thinks I’m the man to find her lost cat.” Frank slid down in his chair and balanced his coffee cup on his chest. “The council may want to fire my ass, but the little old ladies of this town think I’ve got the touch. If worse comes to worse, I can spend the rest of my career tracking down lost crochet hooks and missing eyeglasses.”

  Frank continued to gaze into the crystal ball of his coffee cup. “Hey, Earl.” He sat up with a lurch. “When Clyde was in here defending Bob Rush, he made a big point of how lucky Trout Run was to get him. How did a little church like ours get a minister from Yale?”

  “My Aunt Thelma was on the selection committee—she never shut up about it. Bob was associate pastor at some big, fancy church in Westchester. Said he got tired of ministering to the rich and wanted to be the head pastor of a small church, so he accepted the call. Why?”

  Frank’s answer was interrupted by the sound of a truck screeching to a halt outside the building, followed by slammed doors and pounding footsteps. Frank rose to open his office door, sure that whoever had arrived at the Town Office in such a hurry had come to see him.

  Jack Harvey practically fell into Frank’s arms as the door swung in. “Look what came in the mail today!” he gasped, breathless from his sprint. “It’s a ransom note! Now you’ll belie
ve me when I tell you Janelle was kidnapped!”

  As Frank took the envelope, Jack’s and Earl’s excited chatter receded in the background. “How many people have handled this?” he asked as he crossed to his desk and took out a pair of disposable latex gloves from a box. He struggled to put them on, his fingers suddenly feeling huge and clumsy. Could he have been totally off base after all? Time seemed to have stopped and he had the oddest sensation of watching himself sit down at his own desk.

  “No one’s touched it but me,” Jack said. “I picked up the mail on my way home from work, and came straight here after I read that.”

  Despite Jack’s impatience, Frank took the time to study the outside of the envelope: plain white, low quality, standard number 10 size. Jack Harvey’s address was typewritten on the front, with no return address. The letter was postmarked from Saranac Lake, with yesterday’s date.

  Carefully, Frank removed the single typewritten page from the envelope. Earl leaned over his shoulder and they read together:

  Dear Mr. Harvey,

  I got your daughter. She ain’t been hurt yet. It will cost you $10,000 to get her back. She says you ain’t rich, so you can have some time to raise the cash.

  On May 2 at dawn, put it in a red napsack and leave it under the porch of the old deserted ranger’s cabin on Mt. Henry. If all the money is their, I’ll let Janelle go.

  Earl looked up in awe when he finished reading, but Frank kept his head down, studying the document without comment for almost five minutes. Jack, unable to contain himself any longer, finally broke the silence.

  “Well, what do you think? What’re you going to do?”

  “I’m going to take this right over to the state police lab. They’ll dust it for prints, examine the paper and the typewriting, and look for any other identifying marks. It’s unlikely that anyone at the post office in Saranac will remember this letter, but we’ll ask anyway.”