The Girls Are Missing by Caroline Crane Read Free Book Online Page B

remained, filled with rubble and fallen beams from some long-ago fire; the old springhouse, and the newer garage. He switched off the mower and left it there—he could finish it later, this wouldn’t take long—and walked toward the meadow.
    By the time he reached the stone wall, they had vanished. He followed the path until he saw one, a cop. The man wore his summer uniform, a short-sleeved blue shirt, and mirrored sunglasses so you couldn’t see his eyes. He had arms like a pair of clubs.
    “Morning,” said Carl.
    “H’lo,” said the policeman. “You live around here?”
    “Right over there.” Carl nodded toward his house. “Gilwood’s the name. You picked a nice hot day to be out here trekking through the woods.”
    “Didn’t exactly pick it,” the policeman replied. “It picked me.
    Cliches were a sign of a limited mind. Carl managed to conceal his distate.
    “What are you looking for?” he asked. “The other little girl?”
    The mirrored glasses reflected the sky. “What other little girl?”
    “The other one that’s missing. Isn’t there another girl missing?”
    “Got no way of knowing she’s anywhere around here,” said the cop. “Or even dead.”
    “Right. That’s why you have to look, isn’t it? Need any help?”
    To his surprise, the cop accepted. “All the help we can get. You probably know this area better than we do.”
    “Be glad to. I was in the middle of cutting my grass.” He hated to think of that scraggly, unfinished lawn. But this could be important.
    “When you guys get thirsty,” he suggested, “how about coming over to my place for a beer?”
    “Thanks,” said the cop, “but we got rules about that.”
    Carl didn’t have his full attention. The man kept looking off in the distance, studying the trees, the knolls, the rocks—at least as far as you could tell from behind those glasses.
    He wasn’t going to find it there. Not in the trees.
    “Coke, then,” Carl said, as a way of calling him back. “We’ve got kids, we have plenty of soft drinks. My wife’ll even make you some iced tea. It’s her specialty, that powdered stuff.”
    The cop granted him a moment of notice. “That’s real nice. Maybe we’ll take you up on it.” Somebody must have flattened his nose once. It had a pushed-in look.
    “Meantime,” Carl reminded him, “you’d better tell me what we’re looking for.”
    “Anything. But just look. Don’t touch. Don’t disturb anything. Mostly what we’re trying to find right now is some sort of cool place. A cave or a cellar, something like that.”
    “What do you want a cave or a cellar for?”
    “Want to know where the body was kept. The girl disappeared the end of May. You got a strong stomach? The corpse wasn’t as far gone as you’d expect in that time.”
    “Really,” said Carl. “What makes you think she died the day she disappeared?”
    “We’re not ruling out anything. It’s just not so easy to keep somebody a prisoner without people knowing.”
    “Okay. And how’s it going to help if you find this place?”
    “It’ll help. Now remember, don’t touch anything. That’s important. I appreciate this, Mr. Gilwood.”
    What a farce, Carl thought as he and three other men fanned out across the meadow, looking for rocks and cave formations—when he knew there weren’t any.
    Small-town cops. Probably never had any case bigger than a lost dog before.
    Down over the next stone wall he could hear the gurgle of the brook. He wondered how long it would take them to start thinking about that brook.

9  
    As assiduously as he scoured the woods and fields, Frank D’Amico watched the people who were temporarily and informally under his command. Some were only high school kids out for a little adventure. Others were red-necks from the lower village, eager to “get” the killer. They were the kind who saw the victim less as a woman than a stolen object.
    Both those types bore watching. So did the people who lived in the