Booger McLain took the letter from Ron Wilkinson’s hand. Then he made a promise. “I’ll follow up on this letter. If your daughter is being held at that carnival, I’ll bring her back,” he said.
The assurance, the confidence in Booger’s voice brought a smile to Ron Wilkinson’s face. He instantly knew that he had gone to the right person for help.
The next day Booger began researching the Fischer Family carnival. He went to the Cape Girardeau library and went through old newspapers looking for information about the Wilkinson girl’s abduction making a note of any interviews or information relating to the carnival and its owners. He found references to previous accidents and three notable disappearances of children that had gone to the carnival.
He researched the history of the Fischer family business. He read about the merger of the Brown and Fischer families into one large carnival business. The accidents and the disappearances had all occurred after the merger. That reinforced Booger’s belief that Dudley Brown was behind Abby Wilkinson’s disappearance.
He looked into Dudley Brown’s life. He read about the death of his daughter and son-in-law in the fire. That accident opened the door for Dudley to buy into the Brown Family carnival.
It was hard for Booger to imagine, but Dudley was the person that benefited the most from the death of his daughter. Sure, on the surface, it appeared that Justin and Bryan Fischer benefited the most because they inherited the carnival from their parents. But, looking a little deeper, Booger saw that Dudley was the one that gained the most. He had control of the carnival now.
It was likely that Dudley knew the Fischer twins were too young, too inexperienced to manage that carnival. It was palatable that Dudley planned to let them run the carnival into the ground so he could come in and take over, Booger thought.
The thing that was difficult for Booger to understand was that it was not what he did. Dudley didn’t wait for the carnival to completely collapse. He didn’t buy the Fischer twins out. Instead, he formed a partnership with them. He went to great lengths to be a silent partner. His name was not on any of the carnival’s ownership documents.
There had to be a reason for that, Booger thought. Why didn’t he want to be listed as an owner?
Booger looked into both the Fischer twins. He learned about Justin’s difficult birth and how it had affected his life. He learned how Bryan had protected his brother and how he was the face of the carnival. Then he discovered Justin’s death certificate. He had died in a small town in Western Kansas. The death certificate only said that he died of natural causes. He was only twenty-seven years old. Bryan Fischer and Dudley Brown had complete control of the carnival now.
Was it possible that both of them were involved in the abduction of Abby Wilkinson? Booger wondered.
Booger researched every city and town the carnival traveled to since their stay in Connorville. Then he looked for crimes and disappearances that happened at the same time the carnival was in town. It took a while, but Booger discovered a disturbing pattern. There were reported disappearances of women and children, mostly street people and homeless from larger towns and cities located close to the areas where the carnival was located. Witnesses reported seeing a man dressed completely in black talking to them. They reported the women and children got into a white, unmarked van willingly, and then the van drove away.
Booger was certain that the tunnel he had discovered underneath the haunted house was used to move Abby Wilkinson.
It is very likely that the tunnels have been used to move other people, women and children that have been abducted from the streets. Homeless people appeared to get in the van of their own free will, Booger thought.
He reasoned that the only plausible reason homeless mothers with their children would willingly get in a van with a stranger was if they felt safe, if they felt someone was going to help them, offer them food, shelter, and clothing.
Molly Baker was a name that Booger came across when he was researching homeless people that had gone missing in cities where the carnival stayed. Molly was a teenage runaway from a good home just outside Cincinnati. Her parents were distraught when she left home. They went looking for her on the streets of downtown Cincinnati. When they had no success, they hired a private detective to look for her.
According to a newspaper article written in the Cincinnati Times, Duce Buckner, the detective hired by the family, located two homeless people who remembered Molly being approached by an older, heavy-set man and after a brief conversation, she got in a white van with the stranger. They never saw her again.
Booger decided to travel to Cincinnati. He spoke to Molly’s parents.
“We haven’t heard from her since she left home,” her mother said. “She was upset with us because we wouldn’t allow her to see her boyfriend. He was bad news, involved in drugs, and a high school dropout. She ran away with him. A few days later, her boyfriend left her and came back home. We confronted him. He said they had an argument, and he decided to come back home. He didn’t want to stay on the streets anymore. We asked him to take us to where she was. He did. But she wasn’t there anymore. That’s when we hired a private detective, Duce Buckner, to look for her. But he had no success either.”
David Clark, Molly’s father, spoke up. “I’m convinced her boyfriend had something to do with her disappearance. I think the son of a bitch killed her and disposed of her body. That’s what I told the police. They brought him in and interrogated him. They even gave him a lie detector test. They said he passed. I don’t think they are looking at him anymore. Hell, I don’t think the police are doing anything to find her or find her killer.”
“David,” his wife screamed, “Don’t talk like that. We don’t know that Molly is dead.”
Booger left the Clark home and headed to Duce Buckner’s office. The private detective had an office on the second floor of a strip shopping center near mid-town. The area was run down. About half of the stores in the strip center were boarded up. The anchor store was a gun shop. At the other end was a liquor store. Just above the liquor store was Duce’s office. Booger climbed a flight of stairs and knocked on the door.
“Come in. It’s open,” a woman’s voice said.
“I’m Booger McLain. I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Buckner,” he said to the woman behind the desk.
“Yeah, he’ll be with you in a second, hun,” she said. “We saw you come up the stairs.”
The woman behind the desk was a young, Hispanic woman who was attractive but wearing too much make-up and a skimpy dress that showed off her cleavage. A large tattoo of a snake with a rat in its mouth was on her left arm.
“Damn it, Lucy. Let the man in my office,” a deep voice screamed from behind the door.
“Alright, hold your horses, chief,” she yelled back.
Then she stood up and walked over to the door, and opened it.
Booger couldn’t help but notice her legs. Her dress was short and entirely too tight. It ended just below her butt cheeks, and both legs were completely covered in tattoos, colorful words, symbols and drawings that were too numerous to decipher from a quick glance.
“Sit down, Mr. McLain,” the man behind the desk said. “I’m Duce Buckner,” he said, holding out his hand to shake it. “What can I do for you?”
Duce Buckner was a large man with dark, bulging eyes and short, wavy brown hair. When he stood up, Booger guessed him to be about six foot, two inches tall. He was wearing a Cincinnati Reds tee shirt and blue jeans with white socks and tennis shoes.
His desk was messy, papers everywhere and a fifth of Black Jack was nearly half empty. Two paper cups were sitting next to the bottle.
“I understand you were hired to find Molly Clark?”
“Are you a drinking man, Mr. McLain?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good because I sure as hell can’t finish off this bottle by myself,” he said, pouring two paper cups of Jack Daniels whiskey.
“Here, Mr. McLain, bottoms up.”
Booger took a drink. Duce downed his in one large gulp and then poured a second cup for himself.
“Do you mind if I call you Booger, Mr. McLain?”
“Yes, please.”
“Booger, yes, I was hired to find Molly. But I didn’t have any success. I looked for her for nearly three months until her father got tired of paying me. She just vanished off the streets. Her father and the police, for a while, were certain that her boyfriend had something to do with her disappearance.”
“What do you think, Mr. Buckner?”
“Call me Duce.”
“OK, what do you think, Duce.”
“I don’t believe that kid was involved. He passed the polygraph. He seemed genuinely concerned. I was a cop for nearly twenty-five years before I retired. I’ve interviewed a lot of guilty people. Their eyes always give them away but not this kid. My gut told me he had nothing to do with her disappearance. But you couldn’t convince her father of that.”
“Well, Duce, what does your gut tell you happened to her?” Booger asked.
Duce downed another cup of Jack Daniels and then looked directly into Booger’s eyes.
“I believe she is dead. I think she was taken by someone that promised her something, maybe food, a safe place to stay or something like that. They had to present themselves as someone she could trust because she was seen willingly getting into a white van. I think maybe her abductor was a minister or a policeman, maybe a social worker. Whoever it was, she trusted.”
“I read that two people witnessed her getting in the van. Did they give a description of the person that took her?”
“They both gave slightly varied descriptions, but one of them heard a name. One of the homeless men heard him introduce himself as Dudley.”
Booger’s eyes got big. “I know that name. I think that I know who abducted her. Did the police ever track down that person?” Booger asked.
“Are you kidding? Do you know how many Dudleys there are? They didn’t have a last name. They only had a vague description, and although both of the witnesses agreed about the white van, neither got a license plate number, and neither could even tell the model of the van. The police had nothing concrete to go on. Booger, you said that you think you know the man that took Molly. Who is he?”
“His name is Dudley Brown. He works for a carnival that was set up on the outskirts of Cincinnati when Molly was taken. I think he is responsible for several abductions, including one that occurred in Connorville, MO, in 1993 when I was a detective on their police force.”
“Shit, we need to call the FBI. You need to tell them what we know.”
“Yeah, but not now. They’ll interview us. Then they’ll investigate, get search warrants and by the time they do anything, he’ll have time to dispose of any evidence. I need to go after him now.” Booger stood up and began to leave.
“Just a fucking minute,” Duce yelled. “If you’re going after the man that took her, I’m going with you.”
“No, I don’t need any help.”
“Damn it. I didn’t offer. I’m coming with you. I got paid a lot of money from that girl’s parents, and I’m sure as hell going to provide them some answers. Besides, you can use someone to watch your back.”
“OK, but we’ve got a long way to drive. You’re going to be gone for a while.”
“No problem. Work is a little slow right now anyway.”
The Fischer Family carnival had spent nearly three weeks in Topeka. They would be pulling up stakes and moving to a new location in less than a week. The tunnel underneath the haunted house had served its purpose. There were only two people remaining in the cages in the room on the right.
Lindsey Morgan and her daughter Sharon were taken from a street just south of downtown Topeka. Lindsey was a single mother, unemployed from her job at a daycare center. When she could no longer pay her rent, they lived in her car for several months. When it was towed away, they moved to the streets. Only one shelter serviced the homeless of Topeka. The government had cut funding. Donations only covered a portion of the cost. They had few beds, and the food lines started gathering several hours before the two meals were served each day. Food ran out long before everyone was served.
Lindsey Morgan had family that could have helped. But they abandoned her when she gave birth out of wedlock. The man that she met on the streets offered her and her daughter food, shelter and a job. She was desperate. The stranger seemed to care. She believed him. She was wrong.
He took her to the carnival in a white van. “My name is Dudley,” he told her. “I manage the carnival that just moved to town. We need extra help. I can give you a job and a place for you and your daughter to stay. There is plenty of food, and you’ll get a chance to rebuild your life.”
She had prayed for a second chance at life, for an opportunity. She thought Dudley was an answer to her prayers. She was wrong. Dudley had an adoption request, someone that requested a daughter that was two to three years old, preferably with blond hair and blue eyes.
Sharon was two years old. She had blond hair and blue eyes. She would generate a large adoption fee. Unfortunately for her mother, Dudley had no need for her. Unless one of his family members wanted to take her as a wife, she would find her final resting spot in the room on the left.
The shelter that Dudley had promised was a closet in his trailer. The food he gave them contained sleeping pills, enough to put Lindsey and her daughter asleep long enough to move a small room underneath his trailer. Justin was alerted that a pick up was ready. He moved Lindsey and her daughter from the other end of the tunnel to the room on the right, to the cages, which became their new home until the adoption arrangements were completed.
Over the years, Dudley had completed dozens of adoptions. He had made hundreds of thousands of dollars from his adoption fees. Clients that went to his website on the dark web were willing to pay exorbitant fees to avoid traditional adoption, to get exactly the type of child they wanted.
The adoption payments were made through a bank transfer to an offshore account in the Caribbean islands. It was an account that now had a hefty balance, enough for Dudley to retire comfortably to an island of his choice.
The adoption of Sharon and Abby would be his last. He would retire after those adoptions were completed. He had an end game, a plan that would allow him to disappear, that would allow him to move to the Caribbean and not need to look over his shoulders, wondering if someone would come looking for him.
The Howard Johnson motel on interstate 70 was just about halfway between Cincinnati and Topeka. It seemed like a good spot for Booger and Duce to spend the night. Besides, it was nearly two in the morning when they reached the outskirts of Indianapolis. A few hours of sleep and they could get an early start the next morning.
They were lucky. The motel only had two rooms available. Attendees to a convention in the area had claimed most of the rooms. The two available had plumbing issues that prevented them from being rented out earlier that day. The problems were resolved just hours before Booger and Duce arrived, and the rooms were made available.
Five minutes after check-in, they were in their rooms. A quick nightcap from a bottle of Jack Daniels that Duce brought with him, and to bed, they went.
The two rooms were on the same floor but on opposite sides of the building.
“Meet you in the coffee shop next to the motel at 7am sharp,” Booger said to Duce.
“Damn, buddy. I’ll barely have time for a nap,” Duce said. “I’ll need to nap in the car.”
“Don’t plan on it,” Booger replied. “You’re driving the first few hours, so I can nap.”
It was an unseasonably warm and muggy night. Bugger’s room was hot and smelled like old mothballs. He turned the air conditioner on high. It smelled like burned rubber and gave an awful racket. Booger took a shower while he waited for the air conditioner to cool the room down. The room was outdated, with flowery wallpaper, old shag carpeting, cheap furniture and a bed that was as hard as a slab of concrete. The bedspread was dirty. It didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a long time.
“Hell, it’s too warm for a cover anyway,” Booger said to himself as he threw the bedspread onto the floor. “At least the sheets are clean.”
The room still wasn’t cool after nearly thirty minutes. Booger turned the air conditioner as high as it would go. The smell that came out of it was nasty. He lay in bed and tossed and turned for what seemed like most of the night until pure exhaustion overtook him, and forced him to sleep.
The alarm he had set by his bedside went off at 6:30am. It felt like he had just fallen asleep.
“Well, a few strong cups of coffee, and I’ll be just fine,” he said to himself.
He quickly changed into his clothes and walked to the door to leave. That’s when he saw the note pushed underneath the door. On a plain white piece of paper, the handwritten note said:
The answer to Abby’s disappearance and the disappearance of dozens of other children can be found on the dark web. Inside it, search for a website, Little Angels Adoptions.
The note was signed by Ginger.