A search of the house confirmed that Eric McNamara was gone. The only occupant of the house was the old man, and it looked as though he had been alone for some time. It was amazing that he had summoned enough strength to break out of his room-he was fortunate that the house was old and some of the wood was rotting. Diesel went out to search the barn, while Butts called for Social Services to come get Mr. McNamara.
Diesel's search of the grounds turned up nothing, so they had to assume Eric had gone somewhere with Charlotte. Whether she was dead or alive was something Lee didn't want to speculate on; they could only hope she was still alive. As for Krieger, he was beginning to lose hope that she would ever be found alive.
The first thing they did was call both the New York and Jersey state police to put out an APB. Their geographic profiling of the victims turned out to be right. Sure enough, Eric owned his own car, but was part of a conglomerate of limos operating out of Fleet Car Service, located in Riverdale-just a few blocks away from Spuyten Duyvil. It was easy enough to get the car's plate number; they just had to hope it was in time.
"Who knows which way he went?" Butts said. "Let's call Pennsylvania, too."
That made sense. They were so close to the border, and he might have decided to flee west with Charlotte. There was no telling where he had gone-or whether he had taken Krieger with him as well. They gathered in the kitchen to decide their next step.
"Do you think the old guy knows anything?" Diesel asked. He had made a peanut butter sandwich for Mr. McNamara, who sat at the white-painted kitchen table gobbling it down, smacking his lips, taking large gulps of cold milk in between bites. Eating for him was a messy business, given his physical limitations; Lee tried not to watch. The old man kept looking up at the three of them, as if afraid they might leave him.
Butts leaned down and spoke loudly and slowly to the old man, as though he were an imbecile.
"Do – You – Know – Where – Your – Son – Went?"
The old man narrowed his eyes and chewed his sandwich, spewing bits of bread in every direction.
Butts straightened up and stretched his back. "You think he knows anything about Krieger?" he asked Lee.
"Ask him."
Butts leaned down, his face closer to the old man's ear. "Did – You – See – A – Tall – Redhead? With – A – German – Accent?" he shouted.
McNamara stared at him.
"The kid keeps him locked in his room," Diesel said with disgust. "He probably doesn't know a thing."
"Eric probably went somewhere he feels comfortable,"
Lee said. "Somewhere near water. But that could be anywhere."
He leaned against the kitchen counter and gazed at a framed photograph on the opposite wall of a waterfall. It was a romantic picture, the water cascading gracefully down a series of ledges, smooth and white as clouds in a summer sky. In the foreground, a young man smiled at the camera, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. He took a step toward the picture, to see if there was a caption, but there was none. He turned to Mr. McNamara.
"Is this your son?"
The old man nodded, his mouth full of sandwich. "Do you know where this is?" Another nod, in between slurps of milk. "Does he go there often?"
Mr. McNamara began gesticulating and making strangled attempts at speech. Then his eyes lit up, and he pointed at his glass of milk.
"What's he doin'?" Butts asked.
The old man leapt from his chair, yanked open the refrigerator, grabbed a stick of butter, and held it out triumphantly. The consumption of food had apparently energized him. He pointed to the butter, then back at the glass of milk.
"Butter-milk?" said Diesel.
"Buttermilk!" Lee cried. "Buttermilk Falls!" He seized Mr. McNamara by the shoulders. "The photo-it's Buttermilk Falls?"
The old man opened his mouth and made a sound that was his version of a laugh, though it was more like the mooing of a dyspeptic cow.
"What's Buttermilk Falls?" Butts said. "You know the place?"
"It's up the Delaware, near the Water Gap," Lee said. "It's a county park with hiking trails. I went there once or twice as a teenager." What he didn't say was that his first trip there was with his father.
"You think he took her there?" Butts asked, frowning.
"I think it's very possible," Lee replied.
"Yeah, but why drag her all the way up there?"
"There's been a progression in his killing-from a bathtub to the East River to Spuyten Duyvil, each location has been successively more dangerous and turbulent."
Mr. McNamara began nodding vigorously, making strained yelping sounds.
"You think he went there?" Butts asked him.
The old man nodded some more, looking at each of them, his face earnest.
"Did he tell you he was going there?" Lee asked.
McNamara hesitated, then grabbed a pencil from a canister on the shelf and wrote on his napkin. I saw his hiking map!
"You heard the man," said Butts. "He wouldn't be trying to protect his son, would he?" Diesel asked.
"When he's been lockin' him up for God knows how long?" Butts replied. "C'mon-let's go!"
As they started out through the dining room, Lee thought he heard something-a faint scratching sound, like a mouse in the woodwork. He turned to Butts.
"You hear that?"
Butts listened. "Naw, I don't hear anything."
But Lee heard it again-a rustling, like a small animal burrowing inside the walls. "There it is again," he said. "I think it's coming from-from there." He pointed to one of the paneled dining room walls. A sudden loud clattering came from somewhere behind the walls, like the sound of cans being overturned.
Lee stepped closer to the wall and ran a hand over the wood, which was coated in peeling blue and white paint. He moved along the wall, pressing and tapping on the panels one by one. When he reached the end of the wall, he noticed the last panel sounded different-more hollow, somehow. Then he saw the floor-it had a deep scratch in the shape of a half-moon. He realized all at once that what he was looking at was not a wall, but a door.
His heart jackhammered against his chest as he pushed against the panel where it met the wall-and it gave way. A narrow stone staircase snaked down to a hidden basement-perhaps originally built as a hideout from the Indians who roamed these lands in the nineteenth century when the house was built.
He turned to Butts and motioned him over, a finger to his lips. The detective pulled his gun from its holster and crept toward the stairs.
"Shouldn't you call for backup?" Lee whispered, but Butts shook his head and started down the steps. Lee followed, searching for a light switch, but found none.
There, at the bottom of the stairs, they found her. Bound, gagged, and exhausted, Elena Krieger sat on the cold stone floor, crumpled amid a pile of overturned paint cans. When they removed the gag, she shivered so violently she could barely speak.
"Did he hurt you?" Butts said, dispensing with the formalities of greeting.
"N-no, I'm okay," she said through clattering teeth, but she didn't look okay. She tried to rise, but her legs failed her and she collapsed into their arms.
"Easy, easy," Lee said, removing his light jacket to wrap it around her shoulders.
They called for Diesel, who scooped her up in his powerful arms and carried her up the steps as though she were a child.
"Now," Butts said, turning to Lee. "That waterfall in the picture-can you get us there?"
"I think so. Do you have a map of Jersey in your car?" "Of course," Butts replied. "Never go anywhere without it."
"Good. We'll start off on the River Road." "What are we waitin' for?" Butts said, fishing out his car keys.
"What if we're wrong?" Diesel asked, Krieger still in his arms.
"We'd better pray we're not," Lee answered as the three of them hurried out toward the car. Mr. McNamara followed close behind, braying like a mournful donkey. Lee was getting used to his vocalizations, and understood this was his way of saying Don't leave me.
"Don't worry, Mr. McNamara," he called over his shoulder. "Someone is on their way to take care of you."
The Social Services ambulance was waiting outside, and they handed Krieger over to them to be whisked away, protesting, along with Mr. McNamara. Ignoring the stares of the social workers, they climbed into the old Ford and headed west on County Road 604. The car rattled through the old covered bridge that used to enchant Laura as a child-she always dreamed of living in the little green cottage next to it and being, as she called it, The Bridge Keeper. Lee would tease her, saying that a covered bridge didn't need a keeper, but she always insisted that it did, and that would be her job.
When they reached the Delaware they took the River Road north, following the river until County 519 cut away from the shoreline. They took that all the way into Sussex
County, at which time Lee unfolded the state map and studied it carefully. The entire western section of the county was a great swath of parkland known as Stokes State Forest. Right in the middle of it was Wallpack Center-and just below it, Buttermilk Falls.
"Okay," he said, "got it. Just follow Wallpack Road."
The forest was dotted with lakes and creeks connecting them, and in the middle, where three streams met, was the Falls.
"Okay," Lee said as they traveled north on Route 206. "Any minute now-there! Turn left on Struble Road."
They did, following that to an intersection with a cemetery, where they turned left again. If Butts and Diesel thought the cemetery was a bad omen, they didn't say anything. The trailhead was just up the road on their left. Parked in the lot across the road was a black limousine with a New Jersey license plate.
"Looks like we were right," Butts said as he swung the big Ford in next to it. He drew his revolver before cautiously opening his driver's side door, but there didn't appear to be anyone in the limo. They all got out of the car and tried looking in, but the windows, were heavily tinted, and they couldn't see anything.
"I'm gonna call it in to the local cops," Butts said, taking out his cell phone. "Shit," he said, after stabbing at the buttons for a minute. "No damn signal."
"Should we break in?" Diesel asked.
"As an officer of the law, I wouldn't do something like that without a search warrant," Butts remarked, "but if a private citizen were to do that while I wasn't looking, I would have no way of stopping him."
He proceeded to stare off toward the woods. Diesel whipped a long thin wire out of his pocket, inserted it into the passenger side keyhole, and within seconds, had the door open, leaving no scratch marks.
"Jesus," Butts said with undisguised admiration. "How did you do that?"
"Practice," Diesel said, peering into the front of the van.
There was nothing especially remarkable about the car. Other than the gray tinted windows, which were rather sinister, it appeared to be an ordinary limousine, much like any other. The interior was clean and swept, devoid of clutter. There were two paper Oren's coffee cups in the holder up front, and a couple of granola bars on the passenger side seat. In the back, a khaki sleeping bag was laid out on the seat.
"So that's probably where he kept her," Butts remarked, looking at it. He was very careful not to touch anything, maybe so he could deny having participated in the break-in if it ever came up in court. Cops had to be very careful about these things-without probable cause, a search like this could completely sabotage a case once it came to trial. Lee had seen it happen on more than one occasion, and figured Butts had seen it even more.
Diesel wasn't so delicate-he climbed inside the limo and sniffed around a bit.
"Don't touch anything," Butts instructed. "They might be dusting for prints later."
Diesel nodded. He took a Kleenex from his pocket, and put it between his fingers before picking up the corner of the sleeping bag. He turned it over and looked underneath, revealing a roll of duct tape. He climbed out and dusted off his hands.
"I don't see any blood-but he probably used the duct tape to help subdue her. Well," he said, "shall we go up the trail?"
"Yeah," Butts said. "Let's go."
They crossed the road to the trailhead, where a wooden sign stood at the entrance.
Buttermilk Falls Trail
2 MI. TO FALLS
Lee looked at Butts. "It's very steep. You up to it?"
The detective snorted. "Get on with it, for Christ's sake."
With Lee leading the way, the three of them started up the trail as a brisk wind whipped the tree branches, and the sky began to darken. Within minutes they heard the patter of raindrops on the canopy of leaves above them. Soon the droplets began to thicken, piercing the cover of the forest and falling upon their faces and shoulders, quickly soaking through their clothing.
"Great, just great," Butts muttered as he trudged behind Lee. "That's all we needed."