Shamed by Linda Castillo

Author:Linda Castillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER 13

Forty-eight hours missing

In the early stages of a case, a cop never really knows if the premise they’re operating on is right or wrong or somewhere in between. The longer I’m here in Crooked Creek, the more pronounced the feeling that my time might be more wisely spent in Painters Mill. Every minute that passes is one more minute that Elsie Helmuth is gone, that her life is in jeopardy. My gut is telling me I need to be there, at the heart of the investigation, looking for her. Not here where facts are scarce and no one seems to know shit.

The theory that two Amish bishops and a midwife transported a baby to Painters Mill, perhaps against the wishes of the baby’s mother or without her knowledge, seems outlandish. The Amish are not in the business of stealing babies. Certainly not the bishops or elders.

But as I pull onto the county road and head south, Miriam Helmuth’s words replay in my head. They brought her to us. In the middle of the night. This screaming, red-faced little baby.

A baby that may have come from Crooked Creek.

Shoving my doubts aside, I plug the address for Sadie Stutzman into my GPS, but quickly discover that some of the roads aren’t on the map. Half a mile from the river, I realize why. The road isn’t really a road at all, but a narrow dirt track crisscrossed with tire ruts. The ground is muddy, so I put the Explorer in four-wheel drive and press on.

The first property I pass is an abandoned mobile home that was apparently swept off its foundation at some point by floodwaters and never put to rights. It’s green and white, striped with rust, and sits at a cockeyed angle against a huge tree that prevented it from being carried downstream. As I pass by, I realize the power of the current bent the mobile home nearly in half.

Mud pings inside the Explorer’s wheel wells as I approach the neighboring property. I see a small frame house covered from foundation to roof with vines. At first, I think the place is abandoned—another casualty of hard times and a river with an insatiable appetite for anything bold enough to stand too close. Then I spot the loafing shed at the rear; a horse and several goats graze in a tumbling-down pen someone has slapped together with stock panels and wire. An Amish buggy sits at the back side of the shed. It doesn’t look as if it’s been used in a while.

The mailbox slants at a precarious angle, as if the water encroached and tried to push it downstream. There’s no name, just two numbers someone smeared onto the post with a finger and some paint. I glance at my GPS. The two numbers match, so I pull in and park next to a big clump of pampas grass, its golden spires jutting six feet into the air.

I take the cracked sidewalk to the steps. Stepping onto the front porch is like entering a cave.

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