Is it possible she’s somewhere here on the property?”
“A little girl?” She fingers the collar of her dress. “Lord no. There’s no child here.”
“Is it possible she’s with your son or daughter-in-law?”
“What on earth would they do with a child? Why would they even have a little girl?”
I translate for the sheriff.
“All right.” Pallant looks from me to Tomasetti. “I’ve got a female deputy on the way to look after Mrs. Detweiler while we search the place. If you’d like to go ahead and start, I’ll stay with her.”
“Sure thing.” Tomasetti turns and takes the stairs to the second level.
Doubt whispers in my ear as I start toward the kitchen. Is it possible I’m wrong about this? Not only is the property not owned by the Vernon Detweiler we’re looking for, but Irene Detweiler seems credible and genuinely confused by news of the missing girl. Is she telling the truth about her estrangement from them? Is her son living elsewhere? Are the dates coincidental?
The kitchen is a large room and the heart of the house. What looks like a picnic table is covered with a plain tablecloth. A lantern flickering in the center throws off a dim glow. There’s a sink to my right. Thin predawn light slants in through the window. A cast-iron skillet on the stove. A roll of paper towels. There’s no refrigerator. No pantry. Pulling my mini Maglite from my jacket pocket, I move on to the mudroom.
It’s a narrow, cluttered space. Hooks for coats on the wall. A door that leads outside. Through the window I see our vehicles and the deputy with his flashlight beyond. I run the beam of my flashlight along the hanging coats. A barn coat. A woman’s slicker. Three of the hooks are unused. There’s a pair of dirty, adult-size sneakers on the floor. Rubber muck boots. None are large enough to be a men’s size thirteen. I even check the floor for loose boards that might lead to a crawlspace. But there’s nothing there.
I walk back to the living room to find a female deputy standing next to the sofa where Irene Detweiler sits. She’s a big woman, tall and substantially muscled, with blue eyes, buzz-cut blond hair, and the tail end of a tattoo peeking out of the uniform cuff at her wrist.
I cross to her, introduce myself, and we exchange a quick shake.
“Sheriff went out to help search the barns,” she tells me.
Tomasetti jogs down the stairs, Maglite in hand. “Upstairs is clear,” he says.
“Attic?” I say.
“Nothing there.” He crosses to me. “You want to take a look around?”
Anxious to get outside, I’m already striding toward the door.
* * *
The gray light of dawn hovers atop the tree line to the east as Tomasetti and I make our way to the hog barn. Two more cruisers are parked in the driveway. Rain pours from a low sky and I’m relieved we had the forethought to bring slickers. We find Sheriff Pallant, and two deputies, flashlights in hand, running a dozen or so hogs from the barn. The smell of manure hits me like a sledgehammer when I walk in the door. To my left, one of the deputies wades through muck, arms spread, herding the last of the hogs through the lower half of a Dutch door and into the muddy pen outside. None of the men look too pleased to be here.
Pallant is smoking a cigar and saunters over to me. “You still think this mystery couple has a kidnapped child somewhere on this property?” he asks.
Skepticism rings hard in his voice; I feel that same doubt crowding my own certainty. “I don’t think I’m wrong about this.” I’m aware of Tomasetti standing a few feet away, watching the exchange. Even the deputy has paused. “It’s the best lead we’ve got,” I tell them.
After a moment, the sheriff sighs. “Well, we’re here. We got the warrant. Let’s do our jobs. If there’s a kid here, we’ll find her.”
While the deputies and sheriff continue their search of the hog barn, Tomasetti and I move on to the bank barn. Rain patters against our slickers as we wade through mud and clumps of grass and weeds. Tomasetti slides open the big door. It’s a massive structure. The interior is dark and dusty and jammed full of ancient farming implements—a wooden wagon, a manure spreader, a rusty harrow, and a beat-up galvanized trough.
“We don’t have enough manpower to search a farm this size,” I say as I step inside.
“We’ve