Death Falls (9 page)

“I know what
Apollo 11
is,” Nick said, bristling. “Was that the night Charlie Olmstead vanished?”

“It sure was. July twentieth, 1969.” Owen jerked his head toward the TV across the room. “And what’s going on in China right now was going on in America back then. I raise you five.”

A raise. Of course. Nick should have seen it coming. Kat, apparently, had. Clenched in her hand was a five spot, which she threw onto the table with an audible growl.

“So my dad was there first,” she said. “Do you know for how long?”

“A few minutes, I guess. It was about quarter to eleven. I met up with him at the end of the street. He told me that Ken Olmstead just reported his son missing and that we should have a look around the creek and bridge.”

“Why there?” Nick asked.

“Because that’s where Mr. Olmstead said Charlie was heading. How many cards do you want?”

Nick got rid of the four and the seven. They were replaced by a six and a ten. Still a crappy hand, especially compared with the one card Owen took.

“I raise you another five,” he said.

Nick dropped his cards. “I fold.”

Grinning again, Owen Peale lunged for the money and slid it toward his side of the table. “Feel free to ask me another question.”

“Was Ken Olmstead also there when you arrived?”

“He was. So was a neighbor. Mort Clark. They looked around with us for a little bit before going back home to tell Mrs. Olmstead the bad news. The chief and I continued looking.”

It was Kat’s turn for another question. “Did you see anything unusual?”

“Other than Mrs. Olmstead clutching her baby in the rain and getting hysterical?”

“When did this happen?”

“About fifteen minutes later. Right after I spotted the boy’s bike in the water. She came out of nowhere and ran onto the bridge.”

“Did she see the bike?”

Owen had collected the cards and was shuffling them again. For a man pushing seventy-five, his hands were quick. The cards seemed to dance in his capable fingers, a blur of reds and blacks.

“I told her not to look. Just in case the boy was dead nearby. But she saw it anyway. Then, while we were standing there, the bike broke free and went over the falls. That was the moment all of us realized the same thing probably happened to the boy.”

Nick took note of his word choice. “Probably?”

“At that point, it wasn’t a certainty,” Owen said. “Still isn’t.”

“What do you think really happened?”

“Ante up.”

Kat dug into her wallet and huffed. “I’m out of fives and I only have three ones. After that, it’s all twenties.”

“Don’t worry, Officer,” Owen said, grinning. “I can make change.”

Kat reached across the table and traded a twenty for four fives. She placed one of them on the table.

“The bike went over the falls,” Owen continued as he dealt Nick his new cards. “I saw it with my own eyes. So did the others. And I think everyone jumped to the same conclusion without asking one basic question: How did the bike get there?”

“Charlie Olmstead rode it into the creek,” Nick said. “That was the official ruling, right?”

“It was. But when was the last time you heard of someone riding their bike into a creek?”

“Never,” Nick said. “But it was dark.”

“It certainly was.” Owen stared at him expectantly. “You raising or checking?”

Nick examined his hand. It was much better than the previous one—a nine, a ten, a jack, and a queen. The odd card out was a five of clubs that he intended to get rid of immediately. “I’ll raise you five.”

This time, Kat shook her head before placing the money on the table. “I’m keeping track of how much you owe me.”

“Think of it as a donation,” Nick told her.

“Donation, my ass.”

Owen called, tossing in his own money. “It was also raining that night. Made the ground soft.”

“That only boosts the argument that Charlie lost control and accidentally went into the water.”

Nick placed the five of clubs facedown on the table and Owen drew him a new card. It was a king. He had a straight on his hands.

“Sounds to me,” Owen said, “like you think the Olmstead boy went over the falls.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Nick replied. “I only know what I’ve been told.”

“Then what if I told you that in that soft ground I mentioned, well, there weren’t any tire tracks, bike or otherwise, leading into the water. So if Charlie Olmstead was on that bike when it went in, then he must have been levitating.”

“How do you think the bike got there?”

“Someone tossed it in,” Owen said. “After grabbing the boy.”

Nick’s mind spun so rapidly that he actually started to get dizzy. During the course of the day, he had slowly come to accept the official story about Charlie Olmstead’s disappearance, mostly because there was no evidence to refute it. Until now.

“Did you tell anyone about this?” Kat asked. Taking a seat next to Nick, she leaned forward with anticipation.

“I told your father,” Owen said. “Not that he needed telling. He noticed the lack of tracks, too.”

“But why wasn’t any of this in the report? Certainly the two of you should have investigated it further.”

“We did. We interviewed everyone who lived on that street. Even that crazy neighbor of theirs, although he wouldn’t let us inside. We had to talk to him through the screen door.”

“The report said Mr. Stewart claimed to be asleep at the time,” Nick said. “Did you really believe that?”

“We had to,” Owen said. “We knew there was no one to confirm or deny it. Besides, taking the Olmstead boy would require him leaving his house. And you’re more likely to see Howard Hughes rise from the dead and give you a lap dance than be invited into Glenn Stewart’s place.”

Nick had a habit of creating mental files about cases, crimes, and suspects. It helped him organize his thoughts and keep ideas on track. Owen Peale’s Howard Hughes line was immediately secured there, but not because it had anything to do with the Olmstead case. He simply wanted to be able to use it someday.

“What about the Santangelos?” he asked. “The report mentioned a disparity in testimony about whether Becky Santangelo was home or not.”

Owen waved the words away like he was swatting at a fly. “That was just a simple misunderstanding. Maggie said she spotted Becky in an upstairs window. I think she saw someone, but not Mrs. Santangelo, if you get my meaning.”

Nick most certainly did. “Lee was having an affair?”

“That was the assumption, which is why I left it out of the report. What Lee Santangelo did in his spare time was none of our business. Although why he’d want to step out on someone as fine as Becky is beyond me. I’d turn into a foxhound for a piece of that tail.”

“You should change the subject,” Kat told him, “before I decide to shoot you.”

Owen shrugged off the threat. Nick decided that, scam artist or not, he liked the man.

“What did the Clarks have to say?”

“Not much,” Owen said. “They were asleep. Ken Olmstead woke them with the news that Charlie was missing. Mort Clark joined the search. Ruth went to watch the baby. Even though their house was closest to the creek, they heard nothing. Not even a splash.”

“That leaves the Olmsteads,” Nick said. “Did you interview them alone or together?”

“Together. Although there seemed to be tension between them. Angry glances. Crossed arms. Stiff posture. There was some bad body language going on.”

“Do you think some of that was grief?” Kat asked.

“Yes. And blame. It seems Maggie was sleeping when Charlie left the house. That put Ken Olmstead in charge.”

“What was he doing?”

“He said he was resting, too. On the couch. Awake but with his eyes closed. He said it was about nine thirty when Charlie asked if he could ride his bike outside. Mr. Olmstead told him he could, but to make it quick. Again, with his eyes closed.”

“So he never actually saw Charlie leave?” Nick said.

“No.”

Owen continued recounting his conversation at the Olmstead residence, painting a picture of a very unhappy household. He told them how Maggie faulted her husband for not going outside with Charlie. Ken said he couldn’t go because, since Maggie was asleep upstairs, that meant an infant, Eric, would have been left unattended. When Maggie said he should have just roused her from sleep to watch the baby, Ken countered by saying they both knew that wasn’t an option.

“I don’t know what he was referring to,” Owen said. “When his wife disagreed with him, Ken responded with only one word—bathtub.”

Nick had no idea why that innocuous word would have been significant, but it must have meant something to Maggie and Ken Olmstead. He tossed it into his mental file, just in case it popped up later.

“Did you mention the lack of bike tracks to the Olmsteads?”

“We told Mr. Olmstead about it the next day,” Owen said. “He decided it was best not to tell Maggie, knowing she’d get worked up over it.”

“Did he have any ideas as to why there weren’t any leading to the water?”

“He wondered if the reason there were no tracks was because the rain washed them away. Chief Campbell agreed that it made sense. And since the bike had already been found at the bottom of the falls, all of us started to suspect the obvious had happened. So when Ken asked us to focus more on trying to find his son’s body, that pretty much ended the investigation. I wrote up my report. The search party went on for a few more days. And Charlie Olmstead’s body might still be out there somewhere.”

However misguided they were, Nick understood the actions of Kat’s father and Deputy Peale. Other than the lack of tracks, there was no real reason to suspect foul play was involved. Nor did he think the request by the Olmsteads was out of the ordinary. They were sad. They were grieving. They were trying to make sense of a senseless situation.

He and his parents had gone through the same thing after his sister vanished. Waiting for months. Riding a stomach-churning tide of hope and despair. Having an official police declaration that Sarah Donnelly had died in a tragic accident would have allowed them to stop questioning and start recovering. Nick suspected the Olmsteads just wanted to do the same.

Only one of them never stopped questioning.

“Maggie Olmstead,” Nick said to Owen. “You told her about the lack of tracks, didn’t you?”

Owen hedged slightly. “I did. Years later. Long after her son’s case had been closed.”

“How much later?” Kat asked.

“Early seventies. Maybe 1973. I was through with police work by that time. She came to my house late one night. She had her son with her. Eric. He was asleep and Mrs. Olmstead was carrying him. Other than the boy’s size, it was just like the night Charlie vanished. She asked me if I thought Charlie really went over the falls or if he might have been kidnapped.”

“But how would she even know to ask you that?”

“Beats me,” Owen said with a shrug. “But something gave her that idea.”

“And you told her what you just told us?” Nick asked.

“For the most part.”

“How did she react?”

“Stoic,” Owen said. “I got the feeling she had been expecting that answer. And disappointed, like I had let her down. Which I did, I guess. Every time I see a missing child on the news, I can’t help thinking about that Olmstead boy and if I had failed him.”

Nick didn’t need to ask him any more questions. Even though Owen Peale hadn’t told him exactly what he wanted to hear, it was enough. Nick knew the Charlie Olmstead case was anything but closed. Standing and stretching his bum leg, he thanked Owen for his time.

“Now, wait a minute,” the former deputy said. “You can’t just walk away in the middle of a hand.”

“The game is over, Mr. Peale. Keep the money.”

“I don’t want to keep it if I haven’t earned it.”

“Fine.” Nick huffed as he returned to the table and revealed the straight that had been hiding in his hand.

Owen turned over his cards—a three of hearts, followed by four aces. Raking the winnings toward him, he gave Nick a shit-eating grin that let Nick know he had just been played.

“Guess I earned it after all,” he said.

The drive back to Perry Hollow was unusually quiet as both of them processed the information they had gleaned from Owen Peale. For Nick, that meant flipping through his mental notes, focusing on words that didn’t make much sense on the surface.
Falls. Bike. Bathtub.
But he knew they were related somehow, just as he knew that Charlie Olmstead’s disappearance wasn’t what it seemed.

Kat knew it, too. Nick could tell by the way she gripped the steering wheel and worked her jaw, lost in thought.

“I don’t understand,” she eventually said, “why my father …”

Although her voice drifted off into silence, Nick knew what she was trying to say. She wanted to know why her father would just drop the issue of the missing tire tracks.

If Nick had been working the case, there’s no way he would have stopped investigating. Family request or not, there was no reason to ignore even the slightest bit of evidence in a missing child case. But he also understood the actions of Kat’s father. More important, he understood his mind-set.

“You shouldn’t think less of him,” Nick said. “Your father probably truly believed Charlie went over the falls, most likely because the alternative was unthinkable to him.”

He remembered how dazed Kat had seemed following the first Grim Reaper murder. She was still tough, of course, and impressively smart for a local chief, but Nick had also registered the shock in her eyes and disbelief in her voice. She couldn’t fathom something so terrible happening in her tiny town.

“Cops don’t ignore the facts just because they don’t like them,” Kat said. “And the fact was, there should have been tire tracks leading into the water.”

“But there weren’t,” Nick countered. “There was no boy, either. Just a bike at the base of a waterfall. So, given two choices and knowing your town’s crime statistics, which one would you believe? That the boy was abducted or that he somehow rode his bike into the water and went over the falls?”

Kat’s face was expressionless as she stared out the windshield. “I hate when you’re right.”