Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

by Castillo, Linda

  Tomasetti jabs a thumb at Noah Mast’s room a few feet away. “We need to talk to him, too.”

  “I’m going to examine him now,” the doctor replies. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Same rules apply. Don’t upset him and keep it short.” With that, he walks away and disappears into Noah Mast’s room.

  Tannin looks at me. “I understand you spent some time with this girl in the tunnel.”

  “Just a minute or so before I went for help,” I tell him. “And I stayed with the hostages while the locksmith cut off the shackles.”

  “Did I hear right when someone told me you used to be Amish?” he asks.

  I smile, but the expression feels tired on my face. “You heard right.”

  “I’m not opposed to your taking her statement.” He looks from the deputy to Tomasetti and back to me. “She might be more comfortable if you ask the questions to night.”

  “I’m game,” I tell him.

  He motions toward the door and the three of us walk into Bonnie Fisher’s room. She looks small and pale and vulnerable lying in the hospital bed with an IV hooked up to her arm. It’s a vast improvement over the wild-eyed, desperate girl I discovered in the tunnel. Her hair is still damp, and I suspect a nurse must have helped her shower after leaving the ER. The only physical signs that betray the ordeal she went through in the tunnel are the sores on her mouth and the purple bruises on both wrists.

  But while the girl’s physical wounds are minimal, I suspect the damage to her psyche is significantly worse. Bonnie Fisher now possesses the face of a victim. There’s a shadow in her eyes that denotes a certain loss of innocence, and I know she no longer believes the world is a safe place or that people are fundamentally good.

  “Hey.” She offers a tremulous smile when she sees me and lifts her hand. “It’s you.”

  “Call me Katie.” I give her hand a squeeze. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just took a shot of tequila,” she tells me. “Less the burning throat.”

  “The doctor told us he sedated you. He said it would help you sleep.”

  “I’m afraid to go to sleep.” She looks out the window at the rain and darkness beyond and a shiver moves through her body. “I’m afraid when I wake up, I’ll be back in that place.”

  “You’re not going back into the tunnel. You’re here and you’re safe. Okay?”

  She nods.

  “Did the doctor tell you that your parents are on their way?”

  “The nurse told me. I can’t wait to see them.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I want my mamm.”

  “I know, honey.” I reach out and squeeze her arm. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

  She looks beyond me at Tomasetti and Tannin, but her gaze drops away quickly. “I guess.”

  I pull up the chair next to the bed and tug out my notebook. “Bonnie, we need to know how you got into the tunnel. Can you tell us about that?”

  She reacts to the question as if trying to avoid a physical blow, sinking more deeply into the bed, pulling the sheet and blanket up to her chin. “It seems like a long time ago.”

  I nod in understanding. “Take your time.”

  The silence stretches for a full minute before she finally speaks. “I was riding my bicycle to work at the joinery,” she begins. “It was just starting to get light. I was late and in a hurry. There was a car behind me, following too close. I kept pedaling, but I remember being annoyed that a driver could be so rude when he had plenty of room to go around. You know how the tourists are. Always in such a hurry… .” Her voice trails off and she looks out the window.

  “What happened next?” I ask.

  “The car hit me. The back wheel went out from under my bike and I lost control, went into the ditch.”

  “Were you injured?”

  She chokes out a laugh. “I was angry and set on giving the driver a piece of my mind.” Her expression sobers, and I know her memory is taking her back.

  “The old man was just standing there,” she whispers, “looking at me with this creepy expression.”

  “Who was the old man, Bonnie?”

  “Deacon Mast.”

  “Perry Mast?”

  She nods. “We were only allowed to address him as ‘Deacon.’ ”

  “What kind of car was he driving?”

  She shakes her head. “It was old and blue, I think.”

  I think of the old Ford LTD I discovered in the shed and continue. “What happened next?”

  “I accused him of driving like a maniac.” A breath shudders out of her. “Deacon Mast … the old man, he made like he was sorry and wanted to help me. When he was close, he stabbed me with the needle.”

  “What kind of needle?”

  “The kind we vaccinate the calves with.”

  “A syringe?”

  She nods. “I thought he was crazy. I screamed and tried to get back on my bicycle. But what ever he put in that syringe made me sleepy, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move.”

  He drugged them, I realize. “Was he alone?” I ask.

  “I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Everything was kind of like a dream after that. But I’m certain he put me in the trunk. I remember riding in the dark.”

  “Did he bind your hands or feet?”

  “My hands were tied. I remember because my wrists were raw when I woke up.”

  “Where were you when you woke up?”

  “I was there.” Her face crumples and she looks down at the bruises on her wrists. “In that awful tunnel.”

  I press on, suspecting she will soon reach a point where she’s either too upset to speak or succumbs to the sedation. “Was there anyone else in the tunnel with you?”

  “The crazy girl. I think her name was Ruth.” She raises her gaze to mine. “Did you save her, Katie?”

  “We did.”

  “There was another girl, too. Leah.” She slurs the name, and I realize the sedative is pulling her down. “But she never woke up, and they took her away.”

  I think of the body I stumbled over, and I wonder if that’s the girl Bonnie is speaking of. Perhaps she succumbed to the physical and psychological stress and fell ill. I wonder if Mast dragged her aside like a bag of garbage and left her to rot in the cold and dark… .

  “Did you see Mast’s wife, Irene, at any point?” I ask.

  “The old lady. She brought us food. Scrapple, mostly. And bread. She’s not unkind, but my mamm is a better cook.”

  I smile. “Did you ever see a young man?”

  Her brows knit. “No, but I heard male voices sometimes.”

  “Did Deacon Mast tell you why you were there?” I ask. “Did he ever say why you’d been taken into the tunnel?”

  “He said we were there to pay penance and confess our sins. He said he was going to save our souls.” She stares at me, her expression stricken, as if she can’t quite believe the words she has just uttered. “I think he was crazy,” she whispers.

  “I think you’re right. I close my notebook and slide it into my pocket. “Get some rest.”

  “Mast used the car to make contact. He used it as a weapon or to stage an accident. Then he shot them up with some kind of drug to subdue them, threw them into the trunk, and took them to the tunnel.”

  Tomasetti, Deputy Tannin, and I are standing outside Noah Mast’s hospital room, preparing to go inside for his statement.

  “To save their souls.” Tannin makes a sound of disgust.

  Tomasetti narrows his gaze on me, poses a question that’s been eating at me since the beginning. “But how did Mast know about these teenagers? How did he find out they were troubled?” he asks. “These kidnappings are fifty to one hundred miles apart. The Amish generally don’t use phones. How did he find out about these so-called troubled kids?”

  “He was a deacon,” I tell them.

  Tannin nods. “I knew he was some kind of elder.”

  “Is that re
levant?” Tomasetti’s gaze is sharp on mine.

  “Deacons are usually the ones who convey messages of excommunication,” I tell them. “The bishop sends them into the church district to find out who the transgressors are.”

  “Because of his position within the church district,” Tomasetti says, “he was able to find out who was breaking the rules. He considered these kids transgressors.”

  “Even though they weren’t baptized,” I tell them.

  “Being the insane son of a bitch he was, maybe Mast decided that didn’t matter. He took it upon himself to save their souls, the rules be damned.”

  “Probably the best explanation of motive we’re going to get,” Tannin says.

  “I’ll double check with the bishop tomorrow to see if Mast was indeed an ordained deacon,” I tell them.

  Tannin motions toward the door of Noah Mast’s room. “Maybe his son will be able to shed some light on all this, too.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Noah Mast watches us enter, wary as an animal whose den is being invaded by predators. He’s wearing a hospital gown. A stainless-steel IV stand next to the bed holds a bag of clear solution, which drips steadily into his arm. The lower half of his body is covered, but despite the blankets, I discern the boniness of his legs and the sharp points of his knees. His hands are clean, but they’re dotted with scabs. His skin is so pale, I can see the blue of his veins. The sight of him reminds me of photographs I’ve seen of Holocaust survivors.

  “Hello, Noah.” Tomasetti stops a few feet from the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.” His eyes are the color of pewter. They’re glassy and rheumy, like an old man’s. “I don’t know what the fuss is all about.”

  I’m aware that Tannin is moving unobtrusively to the wall adjacent to the bed. He leans against it, his arms crossed in front of him. I move beside him, giving Tomasetti the floor.

  “I’m John,” he says, showing his badge. “I’m with the police.”

  “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “I’m just here to ask you some questions.”

  Noah’s eyes flick to me and Tannin, then back to Tomasetti. “W here are my mamm and datt?”

  “I want to talk to you about your parents. But we need to get some questions out of the way first.” Tomasetti lowers himself into the chair next to the bed, leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “I understand you were living down in the tunnel on your parents’ farm. Is that true?”

  “Ja.”

  “How long have you been living there?”

  Noah glances out the window, where rain streaks down, as if he wants to scramble out of bed and take a running leap through the glass. “I’m not sure. A long time, I think. I didn’t have a way to mark time.”

  “How old were you when you started living in the tunnel?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “How old are you now?”

  “Twenty-seven.” He offers a tentative smile. “Mamm brought me German chocolate cake for my birthday.”

  I hear Tannin’s quick intake of breath. I feel that same shock echoing through me. It’s inconceivable that his parents kept him in that tunnel for nine years.

  “Did they force you to live down there?” Tomasetti asks.

  “I reckon so.”

  “Did they tell you why?”

  “I fell prey to sin.” The matter-of-fact tone makes his answer all the more bizarre.

  “How so? What did you do?”

  “Once, I was with a girl—you know … doing things. Bad things.” The Amish man’s eyes drop and he searches the sheets covering him, as if he’s too ashamed to meet our gazes. “You know …” His left leg begins to jiggle. “I kissed her. Touched her. We … you know.”

  Tomasetti nods. “You had intercourse with her?”

  “Ja.”

  “What’s the girl’s name?”

  “Hannah Schwartz.”

  I take out my notebook and jot down the name. In the back of my mind, I wonder if she’s missing, or dead.

  “Did your parents find out?” Tomasetti asks.

  He looks down, nods. “Datt came into the barn and found us.”

  “What did he do?”

  “We prayed and then he made Hannah leave. Then he took the buggy whip to me.”

  A sigh hisses from Tomasetti’s lips. “He hit you with the whip?”

  “He made some marks is all. On my legs, my rear end. You know.”

  “How old were you at the time?”

  “I dunno.” He shrugs. “Fourteen or fifteen. It was a long time ago.”

  Tomasetti nods. “What else did your father do to you when you were bad?”

  “Sometimes he took me to the tunnel. Put me on the wall.”

  “What do you mean by ‘put me on the wall’?”

  “With the chain, you know.”

  “He chained you to the wall?”

  “Ja.”

  “How long did he make you stay there?”

  “Well, it depended on how bad I was. Sometimes an hour.” He shrugs bony shoulders. “A week.”

  “How often were you bad?”

  Noah looks down at his hands, picks at a scab. “All the time. I tried to be good. I tried to abide by the Ordnung and God’s laws. But sometimes I could not.”

  “Why did your datt move you into the tunnel permanently?”

  The Amish man raises his hand and bites at one of his nails. His leg jiggles faster beneath the sheets. “He blamed me for what happened to Becca.”

  “Is Becca your sister?”

  “Ja.”

  I write down the name, then the word sister beside it.

  “What happened to her?” Tomasetti asks.

  “She killed herself.”

  “Why did your parents blame you?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Did Becca ever misbehave?”

  “No. Never. Becca was perfect.” He lowers his face into his hands and begins to cry. “She was like an angel.”

  Tomasetti gives him a moment. “So, after Becca died, they moved you into the tunnel and you lived there permanently?”

  “Ja.”

  “Did they ever let you out?” he asks.

  He raises his head, rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “They brought everything I needed down to me. Meat and bread. Water. Milk. Mamm read the Bible to me.”

  Tomasetti stares at the calluses on the man’s wrists. “Did they keep you chained?”

  “Most of the time. But only because I tried to leave.”

  “Were there others down there with you?”

  Noah doesn’t answer immediately. It’s obvious he’s trying to protect his parents, despite the cruelty they inflicted upon him, the years they stole from his life. “I never saw them. But I could hear them sometimes. You know, crying.”

  “Do you know any of their names?

  The Amish man shakes his head.

  “Were there girls and boys?”

  “Girls, I think.”

  Tomasetti nods. “Do you know why your parents put them there?”

  “I figured they did something bad and needed to be brought back. Same as me.”

  “How did your parents find the girls?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Do you know how they got the girls into the tunnel?”

  “I think God brought them.”

  Tomasetti looks down at his hands, laces his fingers, unlaces them. “Noah, about your parents … I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  “What do you mean?” The Amish man pushes up in the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. The gown shifts, and I see a swirl of hair on a sunken chest and shoulders that are bony and sharp.

  “Your parents were killed earlier today. I’m sorry.”

  “What? Killed?” His mouth opens. I see yellow incisors and molars in the early stages of decay. “You mean they are dead?”

  “I’m very sorry,” Tomasetti says.

  “But how can that
be? I saw them this morning. Mamm brought me milk, like always. They weren’t sick. Why are you saying these things?” He looks at me as if expecting me to dispute the words. When I don’t, he collapses back into the pillows and looks up at the ceiling, his chest heaving. “I don’t believe you. They would not leave me.”

  Without looking away, Tomasetti reaches for the plastic pitcher of water on the tray and pours some into a cup, hands it to Noah.

  The Amish man doesn’t look at us as he sips. When he finishes, he relaxes back into the pillow and closes his eyes. “I cannot believe they are gone. How did they die?”

  “Your father was sick—”

  “But he was fine!”

  Tomasetti touches his temple. “He was sick inside his head, where you couldn’t see it.”

  Noah Mast puts his face in his hands and begins to sob.

  The Whistle Stop Tavern in Monongahela Falls is nestled in a warehouse district between the Grand River and a busy set of railroad tracks. In keeping with the train theme, the establishment is housed inside an old railroad car. The interior has been renovated and made into a bar and restaurant—heavy on the bar—and reeks of fried onions and cigarette smoke. The smell should repel me, but I have an affinity for places of disrepute and I’ve spent too much time in dives just like this one not to be attracted to it now.

  Six booths line the left side of the car. The benches are the requisite red vinyl; the tabletops are Formica, with chrome strips on the sides. The bar itself looks like a ramp that was once used to schlep goods onto railway cars. It’s a massive slab of scuffed wood and runs the length of the car. The lower part of the bar, where red and chrome stools are lined up like colorful mushrooms, is covered with gum—the chewed variety—and I realize that at some point over the decades, it became a weird kind of tradition for patrons to stick their gum to the wood.

  It’s after midnight and the place is deserted. We find a booth at the rear and order coffee. The bartender is a large bald man with arms the size of tree trunks. He has a spiked dog collar around his neck, and there’s a tattoo of a pit bull on his right bicep. But he’s fast and friendly, and within a couple of minutes he delivers two steaming mugs.

  Tomasetti smiles as he picks up his cup. “You think there’s a matching leash?”

  “I’m betting his wife keeps it in the night table next to the bed.”