Little Girl Gone (9 page)

“Are you from HR?” Afton asked. The woman was in her late forties, polished, and exuded a tight HR look. A look that said,
I can fire your ass if and when I feel like it.

The woman offered another thin smile. “That's right. I'm Betty Randle, director of Human Resources.”

Afton glanced at the printed sheet. It looked sketchy at best. “This isn't very much.” She let her dissatisfaction show through.

“Well,” Betty said. “Mr. Binger is no longer employed by our company, so we don't exactly keep tabs on him.”

Max, meanwhile, had hung up his phone and pulled the paper across the table so he could read it. “This is it?”

The woman pursed her lips. “I'm afraid so.”

“We'd appreciate it you could scrape together a few more details,” Afton said.

Max pulled out a business card and handed it to Betty. “E-mail the poop to me when you get it done, okay?”

“I'll try,” Betty said. “But I'll have to clear it first.”

“Do that,” Afton said.

“I'll send Andrew to get you.” Betty was clearly anxious to make her getaway.

When Andrew showed up, he was even less chatty than before. “This way,” he said, giving a cool, perfunctory smile.

As they backtracked their way past the labs, Afton caught up to him and matched him stride for stride. “Do you like working here?” she asked.

“The benefits are excellent,” Andrew said.

“But do you
like
it?”

“Who wouldn't?”

Five minutes later they were out the door and back into the cold. For some reason, it suddenly felt refreshing to Afton.

“What a creepy place,” she said.

“Bunch of tight-asses,” Max said.

“It's like they all have a great big secret they don't dare let out.”

“Maybe they do,” Max said.

“Or maybe they're all just terrified of losing their jobs. Or their excellent benefits.”

Max checked his watch as they crossed the parking lot. “What we should do if we have time is stop by Hennepin County Medical Center and talk to that babysitter.”

Afton nodded. “Ashley something.”

“FBI talked to her yesterday, but it wouldn't hurt to check in again.”

“I heard she was strong-armed pretty hard,” Afton said.

Max's phone hummed and he hitched up his parka to unhook it. “She sustained some cracked ribs, a broken nose. She's supposed to undergo surgery tomorrow.” He held the phone up to his face. “Montgomery here.”

“Maybe I should drive on the way back,” Afton mused to herself, then saw that Max had suddenly stiffened and hunched forward, as if he was trying to concentrate more fully. Something was cooking. And it probably wasn't a pepperoni pizza for his kids.

“Just now?” Max asked, and then fell silent again. He was starting to nod and his eyes fluttered nervously. “Okay, I'm maybe twenty minutes out.” He listened some more. “Yeah,” he said, his voice terse. “Will do.” He clicked the Off button on his phone and turned toward Afton, looking grim.

“What?” she asked.

“That was Thacker. He just got a call from the Goodhue County Sheriff's Department. Two hunters reported finding the body of an infant in a stand of woods just east of Cannon Falls.”

Afton felt her heart lurch into her throat.
Oh no.

“Thacker wants me to jump on it immediately,” he continued. “There's a helicopter waiting at Holman Field.”

Afton made a split-second decision. “Can I ride along?”

Max jabbed a finger at her. “You think you're up to it?”

“Of course I am.” Afton felt a trickle of excitement mingled with dread. A dead infant. Was it Elizabeth Ann?

Max popped the doors on his car and they tumbled in.

“I guess Portia Bourgoyne's hysterics shook something loose after all,” Max said as he cranked the engine over hard and rocketed out of the parking lot.

“God help us,” Afton said.

H
OLMAN
Field, also known as the Saint Paul Downtown Airport, lay in a low area, bordered on the north and the east by the Mississippi River, which flowed through downtown Saint Paul and then hooked south. Prone to flooding, the airport had only three small asphalt runways, which were used mainly for private aircraft. But the Minnesota National Guard did training runs there and a few government craft were stored in its hangars, since the airfield was barely two miles from the state capital and its surrounding legislative buildings.

Afton stepped out of Max's car onto the frozen tarmac and was immediately greeted by a man in a brown snowsuit emblazoned with a yellow Minnesota State Patrol patch. He gestured for her and Max to follow him and hastily ushered them around the side of a squat green building and out to a waiting helicopter, which looked like a big flying bubble. Two people of unknown gender, dressed in insulated suits, facemasks, and white helmets, were busy prepping the helicopter for its journey south to Cannon Falls. As Afton and Max approached, the copter's rotors began turning, churning up swirls of snow devils and creating a deafening racket.

Afton felt a tug at her sleeve and turned to face a nervous-looking Max.

“What?” she yelled over the noise.

“I'm not the best flyer in the world,” he shouted back. A hand crept across his stomach. “Sometimes I get air sick.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“In case you want to sit on the other side of the cab, so I don't throw up on you,” Max said.

She dug in her handbag and pulled out a plastic baggie that held two peeled carrots. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.

“Carrots help fight air sickness?”

“No,” she said. “Barf into the baggie.”

He nodded. “Good thing it's a short trip.”

Afton couldn't possibly have felt more differently. She'd never been in a helicopter before, and even with the possibility of a very bad outcome, she was eager to hop aboard for the flight. Maybe it was the daredevil in her DNA, but the one lesson she'd learned from rock climbing was that the best views, the most spectacular views, were always seen from above.

A technician quickly helped Afton and Max don chunky helmets and gave a brief orientation on how to work the headsets. Feeling like she'd suddenly joined the Special Forces, Afton climbed into her seat and buckled in. Max took a seat across from her, raised a fist in solidarity, and buckled himself in, too.

A voice crackled through Afton's headset: “Welcome aboard, Detectives.” She smiled when she heard that title even though it was inaccurate. The voice continued: “My name is Captain Mark Travers. Myself and Lieutenant Shoney will be flying you today.” His hands were flipping switches and his head swiveled back and forth even as he continued his preflight talk. “We'll take a path down the Minnesota River until we're just east of MSP International. At that point we'll head due south to Cannon Falls.” The communications snapped off, then came on again briefly. “Sit back and relax and we'll have you there in no time at all.”

Afton grinned from ear to ear when she felt the skids lift off the tarmac and they began their wobbly ascent. Soon, they were climbing higher, nose up, rotors screaming, as they lifted over the airport and flew out over an open expanse of snow. It appeared that the scrub of trees ahead were going
to scrape the bottom of the helo as the gray, turgid river came into view, but they blasted over the naked branches unscathed.

The helo headed downstream over the partially frozen water. Below, large chunks of ice and floating trees bobbed along in the river's swift, unbreakable current. Each year, a handful of people were swept into the river and pulled beneath the great expanses of ice, never to escape. Afton couldn't imagine the horror of being trapped with no way to break free, hypothermia setting in, lungs screaming for a sip of air that would never come.

Banking left, the helo left the river flyway and moved south across a vast urban expanse consisting of straight-line streets and freeways, new housing developments, shopping centers, and golf courses, all looking soft and puffy under six inches of fresh snow.

Strong winds buffeted the helicopter as they gradually left the outer ring suburbs behind and eased into the rural area between The Cities and Cannon Falls. Afton watched as small forests, red barns with silver silos, and vast open spaces spun by below.

Max groaned loudly as a gust of wind shook them and they swayed and dipped like a fishing bobber on a lake filled with whitecaps.

“You doing okay?” Afton asked. Up front she could hear faint chatter as the pilot conversed with someone in ground control.

Max nodded. “Yup. No problem.”

Yet
, Afton thought.

Despite the turbulence, the flight felt way too short for her. Cannon Falls was only thirty-five miles south of Saint Paul, so they were already riding lower, beginning a gradual descent. Just when she was wondering where they were going to set down, the helicopter swung around and she saw a sheet of undisturbed snow, and then metal bleachers and a scoreboard that announced, H
OME
OF
THE
B
OMBERS
.

A web of power lines zigzagged around the perimeter of the football field, and in order to make the landing, the pilot would have to fly dangerously close to some of those lines.

“Ho boy,” Max said and closed his eyes.

The wires were growing larger and larger in the cockpit's window, and
Afton was beginning to wonder when and where the pilot would set down. There was a sudden, stomach-lurching drop, as if they were hurtling down forty floors in an elevator. The wires spun by, almost too close for comfort, and then the helicopter bumped once and landed with determination on terra firma.

Afton tore off her helmet and looked around. Across the football field, two Goodhue County sheriff's cruisers sat on an adjacent road, red and blue lights pulsing. She could just make out two men standing in front of the cars in what was fast becoming a murky blue-gray dusk.

“Our next ride is here,” Afton said to Max. She'd been bumped back to reality. Back to investigating a dead baby.

Max pivoted his head around, looking slightly unsettled. He seemed to be trying to take stock of where they were, and if they'd actually landed safely. “Okay,” he said.

Afton handed her helmet and headset to the pilot and said, “Thanks for the lift.”

“I wish it were under better circumstances,” the pilot replied. “But we'll be here waiting for you when you get back.”

Afton and Max ploughed through ankle-deep snow toward the waiting deputies, the warmth of their cruisers, and the sadness they would probably find at the end of this journey. As they neared the cars, the taller of the two men walked out to greet them. He was an imposing figure, rangy and tough-looking in his khaki winter uniform, a Colt .45 stuck on his hip. He offered a gnarled hand.

“I'm Sheriff Jed Burney,” the man said with a deep growl. “This is my deputy Bill Gail.” He shook hands first with Afton and then Max. Then Afton and Max introduced themselves to Gail.

“Sorry to call you down here like this,” Sheriff Burney said. “On such short notice.”

“No,” Max said. “We appreciate it.” He cocked an eye at Burney. “You've been briefed on our case? The Darden kidnapping?”

The sheriff's Smoky Bear hat dipped forward. “We have.”

“That's why we called you guys first,” Deputy Gail said.

Max looked like he was about to say something, but didn't.

The sheriff hitched at his belt. “I suppose we best get to it.”

Afton and Max piled into the sheriff's cruiser—Max in front and Afton forced to ride “perp” in the backseat. Sheriff Burney began an immediate rundown of what he knew so far as Deputy Gail followed behind in the second cruiser.

“The baby was found by a couple of hunters in a woods just north of town,” said the sheriff as they spun down a two-lane road, the snow-covered farm fields stretching out on either side of them. “We got the call maybe an hour and a half ago.”

“There are deer around here?” Max asked. He was a city guy.

“Oh, sure,” the sheriff said. “There're still corncobs laying around in the fields. The deer come out, paw around, and uncover 'em.”

“Corn-fed venison,” Afton said.

Sheriff Burney chuckled. “Except deer hunting season is over. These boys were out after smaller stuff. You know, raccoons, badgers, opossums.”

“Are your hunters still at the crime scene?” Afton asked.

“Right nearby anyway. I have another deputy waiting out there with them. I have to say, the hunters were pretty shaken up.”

“Have you checked all the area hospitals to see if any babies have gone missing?” Max asked.

“All babies are accounted for so far,” Burney said.

“We were told that the baby was found inside a hollow log,” Max said. “How did the hunters stumble on that?”

“Just dumb luck,” Burney said. “They stopped to light a cigarette, saw a piece of something—blanket or fabric, I suppose—kind of sticking out, and they took a closer look.”

“These are okay guys?” Afton asked.

“I've known them both for fifteen years,” Burney said. “I'm positive they're not involved.” He tapped his brakes as they swung around a curve. “Of course, we still have to follow procedure.”

Lights flashing, the cruiser flew past farm fields that expanded all the way to the graying horizon. A purple bruise of encroaching night was
already settling around them, while a small blob of orange descended in the western sky.

Sheriff Burney turned off the main highway and onto a gravel road. He slowed a little, but not much. These back roads were obviously familiar to him.

“I've been sheriff here for almost nineteen years and things just keep getting worse,” he told them. “When I first came here, my kids were little and we were looking for that hometown feel. My wife and I fell in love with this place. It's got great people, good schools, amazing scenery. There are places along the Cannon River, gorgeous little green groves of aspen and spruce, where you'd swear you found a little sliver of heaven.” He sighed heavily. “Now we've got dead babies in our woods. A couple weeks ago we had to bust a meth lab just south of here.”

“Times are changing,” Max said.

Burney nodded. “And not for the better.”

*   *   *

A
mile up the road, Afton could see two cars and a beige pickup truck. Blue and red lights flared like strobes in a dance club against the mass of foggy exhaust that enveloped the vehicles. As they rolled closer, a sense of dread began to build within her. This was it. The investigation was about to get as visceral as it could get.

“Martha's here,” Sheriff Burney said.

“Who's Martha?” Afton asked.

“Local doctor and part-time county coroner,” he said as they crunched to a stop.

Afton gazed across an expanse of field toward a dense-looking stand of woods. It was going to be cold out there. She pulled up her collar, snugged her stocking cap down over her ears, and climbed out. The cold bit into her hard and she regretted that she wasn't dressed properly for this kind of work. Her boots were more fashion than function. Fine for a day at the office, but not nearly warm enough to walk a half mile in what was probably knee-deep snow. If only she had snow boots and a pair of goggles. And truth be told, an ice ax wouldn't be bad either. Max at least had his parka and a pair of Sorels.

As Afton hurried around the car, one leg slid out from under her and she
nearly plunged into a steep drainage ditch. Knee-deep in snow and struggling, she muscled herself up, then hobbled around to the other side of the car, where hasty introductions were made. The two hunters sat quietly in their pickup truck, looking worried behind steamed-up windows, clearly not eager to get out and mingle with the newly arrived contingent of law enforcement.

Then Sheriff Burney pointed toward a distant tree line and Afton fell in line as he led Max, Deputy Gail, and Martha the coroner toward the woods. Nobody spoke a word as they followed a trail of footsteps across a snow-covered field, where bits of pale yellow corn stubble poked through.

When they were halfway there, another deputy emerged from a copse of trees and waved a hand at them. He shouted something, but the words were indistinct and lost to Afton, who was walking at the back of the pack.

Sheriff Burney turned around and hollered over the wind, “Deputy Seifert says the FBI and their crime scene team called. They just hit town and should be here in ten minutes.”

They continued walking while, all around them, snowdrifts grew and receded, formed at the whim of the ever-insistent wind.

Afton was used to the cold. She'd grown up in Minnesota, where cold was always a factor. In her early twenties she'd been an Outward Bound instructor, even leading some winter campouts in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. She was a skier, a neophyte snowboarder, and thrived on the challenge of ice climbing. Even with all those years of outdoor acclimatization, her feet began to feel numb in the subzero cold. Then the unwelcome sensation settled in her face. Each broken snowflake that struck her forehead and cheeks was a tiny pinprick of pain. She put her gloved hand over her mouth and nose to shield herself and kept slogging. Ice beads began to form on the tips of her eyelashes from each foggy breath.

But the trees were drawing closer and closer. They were almost there.

Five steps into the forest, into a grove of sheltering oaks and cottonwoods, and it felt as though Boreas, the Norse god of the north wind, had suddenly decided to hold his breath. The wind died to a whisper; the cold seemed to ease off a touch. Huge black crows scolded from the treetops as Deputy Seifert pointed out a trail of blue spray-painted footsteps.