The farm sat in a little valley through which a narrow creek meandered, emerging from some spindly pine trees growing along the southern reaches of the Catskills. There was an old frame farmhouse on a rise, and a barn that looked to be of the same vintage, alongside a newer outbuilding of painted steel that appeared to be a warehouse, and a large shed in the back with an overhanging roof. There were goats in a pasture field beyond the shed. A brown and white pony grazing. Chickens roamed the property at will. An orchard of a couple of acres, the trees heavy with apples, grew to the north of the house.
The green GMC truck was backed up to the warehouse. With the binoculars Bell could see the plate number clearly.
He had parked on the two-lane blacktop a quarter mile away, leaving his car beneath a rise in the road, out of sight of the farm. He’d been there since before dawn, thinking that the woman might be heading for a market somewhere, to sell a little produce, and maybe make a call from a pay phone in the process. The truck hadn’t moved though. Bell had waited, hunkered down in some cottonwoods alongside the road, watching. Just past daybreak an older man with long hair tied back in a ponytail had come out of the house and walked to the shed to milk the goats. He’d gone back inside and a little while later a woman had appeared. She was built somewhat like the woman in Lily Walker’s headless photos; Bell would not have been surprised if she was the same person. What did surprise him was the fact that the woman had a little girl with her. Both were carrying baskets of some sort and they went into the henhouse.
Bell lowered the binoculars. The girl was roughly the same age as Vanessa Jackson and from that distance she looked like the girl he’d seen in the photos. But why would Vanessa Jackson be free to wander around the farm? It was pretty damn quick for Stockholm Syndrome. Too quick, in fact, even for someone that young and impressionable. It couldn’t have been the Jackson girl, which meant that the woman obviously had a daughter of her own. That was an interesting twist. Was she keeping the kidnapped girl at the house and if so—how could she explain that to her own daughter? Maybe the Jackson girl wasn’t even at the farm. Bell hadn’t considered that.
Twenty minutes or so after the woman and the girl went back into the house with their baskets, the woman came out again. She climbed on an old gray tractor and hitched it to a trailer, loaded with empty bushel baskets, and drove the rig into the orchard. A few minutes later the old man came out of the house and walked out to join her. They spent the rest of the morning picking apples from wide wooden ladders.
Bell had brought along a thermos of coffee and a ham sandwich. He watched the two all morning long, occasionally taking a break to walk back to the car to sit down. Once he fell asleep for a few minutes and when he woke up, he’d forgotten where he was. Remembering, he hurried back to the rise. The woman and the man were still in the orchard. Bell watched and wondered what to do. He was reluctant to approach the house unannounced. He didn’t need anyone panicking at this stage of the game.
The two went inside a few minutes after noon, and a half hour later the woman emerged. She walked to the warehouse, where she’d parked the tractor and wagon and proceeded to load a half-dozen bushels of apples into the back of the cargo truck. She got into the truck and drove off, heading north. Bell jogged back to his car and followed.
She drove into the town of Monticello and parked at the rear of a grocery store called Mountain Foods. Bell drove past her as she got out of the truck and kept going, turning into a lot across the street. He watched as the woman rang a bell on the loading dock and then thirty seconds later a man appeared. He had a red beard and long hair, done in a braid. The two of them unloaded the bushel baskets and carried them inside.
When the woman came out a little while later Bell was leaning against the front fender of the truck, waiting for her. Stepping down from the dock, looking at some paperwork in her hand, she didn’t see him until she was a few feet away. She was tanned and fit, in her thirties, brown hair and eyes. Her name was Jo, according to the DMV. Not Joanne or Joanna. He watched as she gave him the once-over, her eyes wary. Bell was wearing jeans and an old Yankees T-shirt, Jeter’s number. He didn’t look like a cop, or maybe he did. It didn’t matter now.
“Headed to the market?”
“There’s no market here today,” the woman named Jo said. She opened the truck door.
“But there’s always a market somewhere,” Bell said. “There’s one in Greenfield. One in Elmira.” He paused. “Hershey, Pennsylvania has a market.”
She stopped, staring at the truck’s interior. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do.”
She closed the door. Before turning to him, she took a moment to scan the area around them. Seeing if he was alone.
“Who are you?”
“NYPD,” Bell told her. “I’ve been watching your house since dawn. I didn’t want to approach you there because I didn’t know the situation. I didn’t want anybody panicking.” He paused. “I still don’t.”
He waited for her to say something. She was looking at the ground now, at the cracked concrete of the loading area.
“He’s never going to apologize,” Bell said. “You must know that.”
She looked at him, then past him again.
“Did you see him on TV last night?” Bell asked.
Jo waited a long time and finally nodded.
“That’s what you’re dealing with.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this moment,” Bell said. “I was hoping that you and I could find a way to resolve this situation without involving a whole lot of law enforcement.”
“How would we do that?”
“The little girl’s mother would agree to anything to get her daughter back. I have a feeling that you and her could figure something out. I’m sure you know exactly how she feels. You’re a mother yourself, right?”
Jo gave him a puzzled look. “No, I’m not.”
“I just assumed,” Bell said. “I saw you with the little girl this morning.”
Jo hesitated. “That was Vanessa.”
“That was Vanessa?” Bell repeated. “So—she’s free to come and go?”
“Not really. It’s complicated. It’s—it doesn’t matter. Tell me how this would work.”
“I need to talk to Rachel Jackson.”
“What about the asshole?”
“We leave the asshole out of it.” Bell was beginning to like the woman, in spite of everything. “I assume you’ve figured out by now that he’s more interested in getting himself elected than getting his daughter back.”
“Yeah, and all I’m doing is helping him along.”
“Which wasn’t your intent, I’m sure,” Bell said. “Tell me something—what’s your connection to Laureltown?”
Jo exhaled heavily. Bell got the impression that she’d been holding everything in for quite a time now and it was all coming out in a rush. He thought she might start crying.
“My goddaughter,” Jo said.
With that, Bell thought he might start crying.
“All right, let me talk to the mother. You realize she doesn’t have to tell anybody anything, not if the two of you can come to an agreement. She’s not required to press charges. The police don’t need to know your name.”
“You know my name.”
“I’ve been removed from the case. I’m just here as a concerned citizen.”
“What about him?” Jo asked. “She’ll tell him.”
“He might be the last person she would tell,” Bell said. “Okay, I need to go talk to her. I need you to trust me on this but I also need to trust you. Give me your word you won’t grab the girl and try to run.”
“I got no place to run to,” she told him.
She turned and opened the truck door again. Bell started to walk away but stopped. He came back as she was climbing into the cab, pulling shut the door. The driver’s window was down.
“Two things I have to ask,” he said. “First, why did you use your real plates that day in Williamsburg? That’s how I found you.”
She shrugged. “Phony plates, I was afraid I’d get pulled over. With the kid in the back, I couldn’t take that chance.”
“I thought so,” Bell said. “Number two—who’s the man who helped you grab the kid? I know it’s not the old guy at the farm.”
“No.”
“Who was it? And don’t tell me it was Bill Driscoll.”
“I won’t,” she said and started the truck and drove away.