by Rachel Ford
I set the lid back and glanced around the site again. Something was wrong. Something was off.
Day’s vehicle was here. He’d had only one, because he was the only adult at the site. Three bicycles were here: an adult man’s bike, and two kids bike’s, a girl’s and a boy’s. So they hadn’t driven anywhere.
The obvious answer was that they’d walked. There were hiking trails everywhere, and trails leading to the beach and concession stands and ranger station. So if they were gone, and their bikes and vehicle were here, well, they must have walked somewhere.
Except that didn’t explain yesterday’s food. That didn’t explain a full pack of hotdogs sitting on the grill, untouched. It didn’t explain set plates that no one had touched.
It didn’t explain why the site looked like the family had simply vanished into thin air.
I did a quick survey of the area, looking for evidence that they were litterbugs, that they left things wherever they were as they finished with them. That could explain it, if the kids had changed their minds about hotdogs, and Day had been too lazy to clean up the mess.
But they weren’t litterbugs. The site was neat. Almost obsessively neat. The coolers were arranged in a perfect line under shade. The tents were arranged at exact angles from each other. Supplies were lined up neatly and orderly, according to size and shape.
By the far corner, they had three separate bins for recyclables. One held glass, the other paper, and the final cans. A trash bin completed the setup.
These weren’t litterbugs. These were clean freaks. Fastidious, attentive to detail, obsessive even.
So why the hell had they decided to leave garbage littering their site?
Only one answer: they hadn’t. Something – or someone – had intervened. Something – or someone – had forced their hand.
Aaron Tesch, I thought. He’d posted bail. He was out and about, him and his friends. They’d want payback. That was for damned sure.
But would they be stupid enough to try to get it?
Not sober, I thought. Tesch had already had his ass kicked, and they’d all been arrested or evicted. Guys like that were bullies. They liked to hit people who didn’t hit back.
But maybe, if they got liquored up enough, and angry enough, they could work themselves up to it. And it might not be just Tesch this time. It might be Tesch and his buddies.
* * *
The room across the hall, the one adjacent to the Carters’, was unlocked. So was the one adjacent to that, directly across from the bathroom. Neither contained much in the way of weapons. The five bedrooms all had closets, and two of the three new closets had pipes like the one I’d pulled out of our closet.
The other had a newer system of shelves made of some kind of thin, bendable metal, painted a bright white.
One of the bedrooms had an old-fashioned armchair, with wooden legs and arms and an upholstered seat and seatback. It creaked and wobbled, and I suspected would be fairly easy to disassemble. We could get a good club out of it. Maybe two or three good clubs: one for Cody and me, and one for Paige, just in case she needed.
And, failing that, we could always pry out another pipe. They were long and a little ungainly to wield. But they’d deliver a hell of a powerful blow.
But before we went any further, we needed to scout the attic. So we headed to the trapdoor. It was painted white, like the ceiling, but it was made of wood rather than plaster. It had a tiny handhold by way of a handle, and nothing more.
Cody and I both examined it. Then we shrugged, and I pulled on the handle. It slid noiselessly downward, and a retractable ladder glided down after it: wooden steps and well-oiled metal hinges, all soundless.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Cody did too.
“After you,” he said.
So I climbed the ladder and hoped like heck it wouldn’t creak.
It didn’t. Unlike the stairs, that long years of use had worn until they screamed with every movement, the ladder was sturdy, with solid planks that had apparently seen very little use. I understood why when I reached the landing.
There were big, broad dormer windows here on two sides. But it was an attic, half-finished and only modestly furnished. Maybe not furnished at all, since all the pieces looked old. Maybe the furniture had been put in storage.
The rest of the stuff certainly had been. There was an ancient chest, maybe one that had come from the Old Country, wherever that was for the Miller’s ancestors. England, or Scotland maybe.
It had a flowing, floral design painted on brown wood, and lettering so faded it was barely visible. It said Helgesen, 1867. Not Scottish or English, then. Not this ancestor, anyway. This ancestor had been Norwegian or Danish.
There were two wooden dining chairs with intricate work on the backs and legs. Maybe the leftovers from a set otherwise worn out or given away or downsized.
There was some kind of cradle or basinet with a big hood over the top: very old-fashioned, and very dusty.
There were guns, too, and for a moment, I hoped we’d solved the problem of weapons. There was a bolt action Mauser rifle and Luger P08 handgun, along with a box of WWII memorabilia: medals and photos and souvenirs, and a uniform for a Corporal Miller.
All of which was about as much use to us as the guns, because they were nothing more than relics too – dusty, ancient and untended. Even if we’d found ammo – and we didn’t – I wouldn’t have tried them. Not without a thorough cleaning and inspection.
Cody took the pistol anyway. “You never know,” he said. “Maybe we’ll need to bluff.”
I didn’t argue. I figured he’d end up shot if he tried to bluff with that, but I didn’t plan for that to be an option anyway. We were going to ambush the dinner crew, and take their weapons by force, before they ever knew what hit them.
And we wouldn’t be bluffing.
We finished our survey of the attic. We found lots of ancient housewares, and old kids’ toys, and old-time clothes. Some of it was only a few decades old. Some of it predated the trunk. Half of it was junk. The other half would be an antique collector’s dream come true.
But we found what we needed among the kids’ stuff. One of the Millers somewhere along the line had been a baseball aficionado. There were cards and signed balls, and a kid’s uniform – and a bat. A strong, sturdy, wooden bat.
I lifted it, and hefted it, and took a practice swing. I imagined Jimmy’s head in the empty air. I swung hard and imagined the heavy wood meeting its target.
A perfect weapon. Brutal and deadly, an instant kill.
“You play baseball?” I asked Cody.
He nodded. “Little League.”
“You any good?”
He nodded again. “It was a lot of years ago, but yeah, I was.”
“Good. Then you can use this.”
He stared at the bat dubiously. I could see the doubt in his eyes.
“Unless you want the pipe.”
“No,” he said. “Just…I don’t know if I can do it. I mean, what if they send up the woman, Shannon?”
“What if they do?”
He stared at me. “You want me to hit a woman with a baseball bat?”
“In the head, as hard as you can.”
“Jesus.”
“If you do it right, she’ll never see it coming, and she won’t feel a thing. It’ll be game over, lights out, before she knows what hit her.”
He fidgeted. “I don’t know.”
“She’s got a gun, Cody. She will use it on you if that’s what it takes to stop you – you, and Paige. And what do you think they’re going to do with Avery? You think they’re going to take care of him? Feed him, change his diaper?”
“Of course not. I’m not an idiot, man.”
I didn’t respond to that. I just shrugged. “It’s you or her.”
“Maybe they’ll let us go when they’re done, like they said.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go back to your room and wait. If you’re willing to take your chances, that’s you
r call. But I’m not going to wait for them to decide they can’t let us go after all, since we saw their faces and know their names. I’m going to do something about it.”
“Maybe we can use the guns,” he said. “You know, bluff. Turn the tables. Make them think we can shoot them now.”
“They strike you as the surrendering kind, then?”
He didn’t answer that.
“Listen, Cody, the only use those guns are going to be for us is as a club. Anything short of that is begging to get shot. With a working gun. A loaded gun.”
He went silent for a long time. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t think I can kill a woman.”
“Okay,” I said again. “Then I’ll do it. You’ll take the right side, I’ll take the left. If Shannon comes up, I take her. If it’s two guys, we take whoever’s closest to us. Alright?”
He thought again, then nodded. “I think that’ll work. But – you sure you can do it? Kill a woman, I mean?”
“I know I can,” I said.
“How? Because you were in the army?”
“Because she threatened my family. They all did. So either, they’re going to be smart, and surrender; or they’re going to be stupid, and die. Their choice.”
Chapter Twenty
We came down and found Paige and the kids waiting impatiently. “What happened? What did you find?” she asked.
Cody explained briefly. She lingered on the guns the same way he had, lamenting the fact that we didn’t have ammunition. “That would have been so perfect.”
Finally, though, I got them to focus on the rest of the plan. “We need to get you and the kids upstairs,” I said.
“Upstairs? We’re already upstairs.”
“In the attic.”
Her face fell. “In the attic?”
“He’s right, sweetheart,” Cody said. “It’s a safety thing. We don’t want you – any of you – on the same floor as guys with guns.”
“But you’re going to take the guns from them.”
“If it all goes according to plan. If it doesn’t, well, at least then you’ll be safe.”
“And we’re going to fake them out,” I said. “We’ll open a window in one of the rooms. Tie some blankets together like you made a blanket ladder and everything. So they’ll think you’re gone already, for a little while anyway.”
“They’ll know we’re not as soon as Avery starts crying. And you know he will, sooner or later.”
“I know,” Cody said. “It’s not a perfect plan. But maybe they’ll go out searching, trying to find you. Maybe they’ll think it’s too late, and you got away, and they’ll just run. Or maybe you can get downstairs and call the police.”
“You want me to try to get downstairs, after they shoot you? Are you out of your mind?”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “I know it’s not perfect,” he said again. “But if we mess up, and we’re both dead, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it? At least you have some kind of fighting chance, right?”
She said nothing to that. She just stared at him like he’d lost his mind, like she didn’t know what to say.
“But we’re not going to get shot anyway,” I said. “It’s just a precaution.”
“If it’s just a precaution, then why do we have to leave?”
“Because stray bullets kill. Because civilians die in crossfire all the time. And we don’t want anyone to die,” I said.
“I don’t want to die,” Daniel said.
“Me either,” Maisie said.
“You won’t,” I said. “You’ll wait in the attic. And everything will be okay.”
* * *
Deputy Austin Wagner, 11:25 AM
I took pictures of the site and I talked to the site neighbors. There weren’t many of them, now that Tesch and his buddies had packed up. But I found an elderly couple called the Petersons from Minnesota, and a pair of families from Waupaca County – siblings and in-laws, on adjacent lots.
No, they hadn’t seen Day or his kids today. The Petersons had seen them on their bikes yesterday. They’d seen them head out and come back. They hadn’t noticed anything since then.
I got the impression that they were the type to notice. They were retirees in their early sixties, athletic but here to enjoy nature and people watch more than work themselves into a sweat.
The families from Waupaca, I was less sure about. They had eight kids between them, five from the sister and three from the brother. They looked like they had their hands full. They hadn’t noticed the bike ride the day before.
“To be honest,” the brother said, “I’m just glad the family down the road cleared out. The ones with all the SUV’s and the crying baby. I did my time, three times over. If I’m never woken up by another screaming infant, it’ll be too soon.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what they were thinking,” the sister-in-law said. “Who brings a baby camping?”
Which got a back and forth started between sister and brother. Apparently, the sister with the five kids and the brother-in-law had taken their kids camping when they were young.
“Should we have not left the house for the last ten years?” the brother-in-law asked.
The sister-in-law shrugged and made a face, like maybe that wasn’t the worst idea she’d ever heard. “Well, I guess it all comes down to what you’re comfortable with. Some parents just seem to forget that they’re not the only ones who pay for a site, is all.”
“And some parents seem to forget that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” the brother-in-law said.
Which earned a, “What does that mean?” from the sister-in-law, and a, “Jesus, not this again,” from the brother.
At which point I closed my notebook and left them to argue among themselves. The last thing I heard was the brother-in-law running through a litany of offenses committed by the brother’s kids. I was pretty sure I heard him say something about a shattered patio door and a trip to the emergency room. Whose door, and who ended up in the emergency room, I didn’t know.
But I figured that, the way things were going, there might be another vacant site before long. Maybe two.
I headed to the beach next, just in case. No sign of them.
So I drove to the ranger station. The kid on duty was named Kyle. He seemed friendly enough, though not entirely thrilled to have the cops back at the park. “No trouble, I hope?”
I shook my head and told him I didn’t think so; I was just following up on one of the witnesses. Then I asked about Owen Day’s site: Had there been any trouble? Had they heard anything about the Days planning to leave early?
Kyle had no idea who I was talking about. He had no notes, except those relating to the fight the night before. He had plates resulting from that on a blacklist. Day’s name wasn’t on the list.
“So no early checkouts, or weird situations other than that?”
Here, he hesitated. “I can’t really tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s confidential. You don’t have a warrant, do you?”
“No one’s in trouble, Kyle. I just need to talk to the guy. He’s a witness.”
Still, he hemmed and hawed. On one level, I got it. People came to relax and get away from it all. Not get drawn into murder investigations.
But Day was still a witness, and I had reason to be mildly concerned about his well-being. So I tried a different tact. “Okay, let me ask you this: have you had any reports about missing hikers or bear sightings?”
That got his attention in a quick hurry. Missing hikers was never good. Bear sightings in conjunction with missing hikers? First, there’d be searches, and news stories.
Then there’d be discovery – maybe of a starving, sunburned tourist, who wandered off trail and got lost. The stories would focus on how he ate beetles or berries or whatever to survive. That was the best case scenario. Not great, because it meant your park was the kind of park where someone could get lost and so turned around they had to
survive on beetles or berries or whatever. But workable, definitely. People like stories of survival, and the idea of modern man living like his ancestor, living off the land and so on and so forth. There were whole genres of television and movies and books about that kind of thing. A workable outcome.
The middle-ground scenario still involved finding a live camper. But not in an inspiring story of survival. Maybe they’d fallen and broken something. Maybe they’d impaled themselves on a tree branch. Maybe a bear had chased them up a tree. Whatever the particular issue, your camper needed rescuing, and maybe hospitalization. Maybe years of aftercare, with lifelong complications. Not a romantic survival story. A real-life one.
Worse case scenario, of course, was finding a body: someone who fell off a cliff, or drowned, or otherwise ended up dead through an accident. Maybe they’d been drinking and rock climbing. Maybe they had a medical condition. Maybe they offed themselves deep in the woods. Not a charming story; not a survival story. The wrong kind of headlines.
And worst case? Well, that got back to bears again. Not that bears were a huge concern in Sheboygan county. Black bears were the only species native to Wisconsin, and the Department of Natural Resources classified the population density as transient in Sheboygan – below abundant, and common, and even rare.
Not much of a threat, then. Not much of a possibility at all. But not impossible. So Kyle sat up straight and went a little pale. “Bears? Dude, there’s no bears here.”
“So you haven’t had any reports?”
“Of course not. There’s no bears here.”
I hemmed and hawed. “Look, one of your campers – him and his niece and nephew haven’t been seen in over twenty-four hours.”
“This Day guy you were talking about?”
I nodded.
The kid tapped away on his keyboard, and then he shook his head. “No, they’re still checked in. The only checkout we’ve had in that loop since yesterday was the Carters. No one else.”
“Okay. And no notes or anything like that? No one mentioned seeing anything out of the ordinary, or hearing anything strange?”