they realized that there was no plan that worked. Christopher was the only one who lived close enough to the woods to sneak away at night. Their moms were with them every day after school and on weekends, and they would never allow another sleepover.
“Boys and girls, get ready with your balloons!” Mrs. Henderson called out.
“Come on, guys,” Special Ed said. “We’ve got a Balloon Derby to win.”
The boys held their balloons for Christopher. He tied his balloon to theirs. The four looked over at Brady Collins and Jenny Hertzog, whose popular friends had so many balloons tied together, it looked like the movie Up! But Christopher and the Avengers didn’t care. They were best friends again.
“One. Two. Three! Go!” Mrs. Henderson cheered.
All of the children let their balloons go. The white sky was filled with little dots of color like a painting. The sky was beautiful and vast and quiet as a prayer. Christopher looked up at the floating cloud. White like the plastic bag. The words came to him in an instant.
A snow day.
The headache stopped with the answer. Christopher hadn’t realized how much pain he was in until it was gone.
“What if we had a snow day, guys?” Christopher asked.
“That would work!” Special Ed said. “Too bad you don’t control the weather, Chris.”
That night, after his mother fell asleep, Christopher marched out to the woods. He walked right up to the white plastic bag.
“I don’t know if you’re real or not. But if you exist, you have to help me finish the tree house. And if you don’t exist, then I will stop building it. I don’t care if my head explodes. Because I am not doing this alone anymore. I need proof. So, talk to me. Please, talk to me.”
In the silence that followed, he stared at the white plastic bag, floating silently on the low-hanging branch. Christopher’s voice rose.
“This is your last chance. I need a snow day to finish the tree house. So, you better make it snow, or I swear I will never believe in you again.”
Chapter 32
A blizzard.
God dammit, the sheriff thought. The last thing I need now is a blizzard.
The weatherman predicted two inches of snow. He was off by a foot. The schools had already been closed for the day. Mill Grove Elementary. Both middle schools. The high school. The snow was so bad that even the Mt. Lebanon School District closed down as opposed to saddling its youth with one of their legendary “three-hour delays (no morning kindergarten).”
The kids were outside with their sleds and their snowmen. The sheriff would have much rather been a kid running around with a sled than a grown-up trying to figure out if the town would have enough money in the budget for additional road salt. When he was a kid, he hated the salt that took away the snow. Now he hated the salt even more.
Because it took him away from the case.
Maybe it was the fact that it involved Kate Reese’s kid. Maybe it was the fact that the sheriff was used to a city pace, and as much as he initially wanted the quiet life of a small town, he wanted to do real police work again.
Whatever it was, it seemed like the more time he spent in those woods, working the crime scene and looking for clues, the more engaged, focused, and passionate he felt. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that he was almost becoming smarter. Because even with all the distractions, he was able to turn four basic pieces of information…
A boy.
Eight years old.
Fifty years ago.
Buried alive.
…into a near-positive ID of the child. He would need a DNA test to confirm it. But he was almost sure of the victim’s name.
David Olson
The sheriff sat at his desk. He opened the cold-case file and unfolded the brown, faded Missing poster. David Olson was such a cute little boy. Big cheeks. Big smile. Even with the missing front teeth.
The same missing teeth they found on the skeleton.
The sheriff moved the poster aside and looked at copies of all the newspaper clippings from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the old Pittsburgh Press before it shut down. There was even a mention of it in the local Pennysaver.
According to the papers, David Olson was at home with his older brother and the brother’s girlfriend. His parents were downtown, enjoying a show at Heinz Hall after a dinner at the Duquesne Club. According to the initial police report, the older