Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (147 page)

Moon knows the story is ending.

He strikes the matches, begins to recite.

“Here are maidens, young and fair.”

One by one the match heads ignite.

“Dancing in the summer air.”

A warm radiance fills the world.

“Like two spinning wheels at play.”

Moon drops the matches to the ground. The man steps forward, ties Moon’s hands behind him. Moments later Moon feels the soft rope coil around his neck, sees the gleaming knife in the man’s hand.

“Pretty maidens dance away.”

Moon is swept from his feet, high into the air, moving skyward, heavenward. Below him he sees the beaming faces of the swans, of Anne Lisbeth, of Thumbelina, of Karen, of all the others. He sees the canals, the displays, the wonder that is StoryBook River.

The man disappears into the forest.

On the ground the matchlight flares brightly, burns for a moment, then grows dim.

For Moon, there is now only darkness.

97

Byrne and Vincent searched the grounds directly adjacent to the schoolhouse, flashlights held over weapons, finding nothing. The tracks leading around the north side of the structure had been Josh Bontrager’s. They dead-ended at the window.

They walked along the banks of the narrow canals that snaked through the trees, their Maglites cutting thin beams through the utter gloom of the night.

After the second turn of the canal they saw the footprints. And blood. Byrne caught Vincent’s eye. They would search on separate sides of the six-foot-wide channel.

Vincent crossed the arching footbridge, Byrne stayed on the near side. They hunted through the turning tributaries of the canals. They came upon the decayed displays, all decorated with fading signs:
THE LITTLE MERMAID. THE FLYING TRUNK. THE STORY OF THE WIND. THE OLD STREETLAMP.
Real skeletons sat on the displays. Rotting clothes swaddled the figures.

Minutes later, they came to the end of the canals. Damgaard was nowhere in sight. The trellis that spanned the main canal near the entrance was fifty feet away. Beyond that, the world. Damgaard was gone.

“Don’t move,” came a voice directly behind them.

Byrne heard the rack of a shotgun.

“Put the weapons down nice and slow.”

“We’re Philly PD,” Vincent said.

“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself, young man. Put the weapons on the ground
now.
”

Byrne understood. It was the Berks County sheriff ’s department. He glanced to his right. Deputies moved through the trees, their flashlights slicing the darkness. Byrne wanted to protest—every second they delayed was one more second Marius Damgaard had to get away—but they had no choice. Byrne and Vincent complied. They put their weapons on the ground, then their hands on their heads, interlaced their fingers.

“One at a time,” came the voice. “Slowly. Let’s see some ID.”

Byrne reached into his coat, produced his badge. Vincent followed suit.

“Okay,” the man said.

Byrne and Vincent spun around, retrieved their weapons. Behind them stood Sheriff Jacob Toomey and a pair of younger deputies. Jake Toomey was a grizzled fifty, thick neck, country crew cut. His deputies were both 180 pounds of deep-fried adrenaline. Serial killers didn’t come to this part of the world that often.

Moments later a county EMS crew ran past, heading to the schoolhouse.

“This all has to do with the Damgaard boy?” Toomey asked.

Byrne laid out the evidence quickly and succinctly.

Toomey looked out over the theme park, then at the ground.
“Shit.”

“Sheriff Toomey.” A call came from the other side of the canals, near the park’s entrance. The group of men followed the voice, reaching the mouth of the canal. Then they saw it.

A body swung from the center bar of the trellis that spanned the entrance. Above the body, was the once festive legend:

S ORY OOK RIV R

Half a dozen flashlights illuminated Marius Damgaard’s corpse. His hands were tied behind his back. His feet were just a few feet over the water. He was hanging by a blue and white rope. Byrne also saw a pair of footprints leading off into the forest. Sheriff Toomey dispatched a pair of deputies to follow. Shotguns in their hands, they disappeared into the woods.

Marius Damgaard was dead. When Byrne and the others trained their flashlights on the body, they also saw that he had not only been hanged, he had been gutted. A long gaping wound ran from throat to stomach. Entrails dangled, steaming in the frigid night air.

Minutes later, the two deputies returned empty-handed. They met their boss’s stare, shook their heads. Whoever had been here, at the site of Marius Damgaard’s execution, was gone.

Byrne looked at Vincent Balzano. Vincent turned on his heels and ran back to the schoolhouse.

It was over. Except for the steady dripping from Marius Damgaard’s mutilated corpse.

The sound of blood becoming the river.

98

Two days after the uncovering of the horrors in Odense, Pennsylvania, the media had all but set up permanent residence in the small rural community. This was international news. Berks County was not ready for the unwanted attention.

Josh Bontrager endured six hours of surgery. He was in stable condition at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center. Nicci Malone had been treated and released.

The initial FBI reports indicated that Marius Damgaard had murdered at least nine people. No forensic evidence had yet been found that tied him directly to the murders of Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite.

Damgaard had been committed to a mental-health facility in upstate New York for nearly eight years, from the ages of eleven to nineteen. He was released after his grandmother had been taken ill. Within weeks after Elise Damgaard died, his killings resumed.

A thorough search of the house and grounds turned up a number of gruesome finds. Not the least of which was that Marius Damgaard had kept a vial of his grandfather’s blood beneath his bed. DNA tests matched it to the “moon” drawings on the victims. The semen belonged to Marius Damgaard himself.

Damgaard had masqueraded as Will Pedersen, and also as a young man named Sean at Roland Hannah’s ministry. He had been counseled at the county mental-health facility where Lisette Simon worked. He had visited TrueSew many times, choosing Sa’mantha Fanning as his ideal Anne Lisbeth.

When Marius Damgaard learned that the StoryBook River property—a thousand-acre area Frederik Damgaard had incorporated as a township called Odense in the 1930s—had been condemned and seized for back taxes, and that it was scheduled for demolition, he felt his universe began to crumble. He decided to lead the world back to his beloved StoryBook River, making a trail of death and horror as directions.

ON JANUARY 3,
Jessica and Byrne stood near the mouth of the canals that snaked though the theme park. The sun was out; the day portended a false spring. In daylight, it looked drastically different. Despite the rotting timbers and crumbling stonework, Jessica could see how it had once been a place where families had come to enjoy its unique atmosphere. She had seen vintage brochures. It was somewhere she might have brought her daughter.

Now it was a freak show, a place of death that would draw people from all over the world. Perhaps Marius Damgaard would get his wish. The entire complex was a crime scene, and would remain so for a long time to come.

Were there other bodies to be found? Other horrors to discover?

Time would tell.

They had sorted through the hundreds of papers and files—city, state, county, and now federal. One witness statement stuck out for both Jessica and Byrne, a statement unlikely ever to be fully understood. A resident of Pine Tree Lane, one of the access roads leading to the entrance to StoryBook River, had seen a vehicle that night, an idling vehicle just on the shoulder of the road. Jessica and Byrne had visited the spot. It was less than a hundred yards from the trellis where Marius Damgaard had been found hanging and eviscerated. The FBI had taken footwear impressions leading to and from the entrance. The footprints were made by a very popular brand of men’s rubber overshoe, available everywhere.

The witness said the idling vehicle was an expensive looking green SUV with yellow fog lamps and extensive detailing.

The witness did not get a license plate.

OUTSIDE THE MOVIE
Witness,
Jessica had never seen so many Amish people in her life. It seemed that the entire Amish population of Berks County had come to Reading. They milled about the lobby of the hospital. The older folks brooded, prayed, observed, shooed the children away from the candy and soda vending machines.

When Jessica introduced herself, they all shook her hand. It seemed that Josh Bontrager had come by it honestly.

“
YOU SAVED MY
life,” Nicci said.

Jessica and Nicci Malone stood at the foot of Josh Bontrager’s hospital bed. His room was filled with flowers.

The razor-sharp arrow had slashed Nicci’s right shoulder. Her arm was in a sling. The doctors said she would be IOD—injured on duty—for about a month.

Bontrager smiled. “All in a day,” he said.

His color had returned; his smile had never left. He sat up in bed, surrounded by about a hundred different cheeses, breads, jars of preserves, and sausages, all wrapped in wax paper. Homemade get-well cards abounded.

“When you get better, I’m buying you the best dinner in Philly,” Nicci said.

Bontrager stroked his chin, apparently considering his options.
“Le Bec Fin?”

“Yeah. Okay.
Le Bec Fin.
You’re on,” Nicci said.

Jessica knew that
Le Bec
would set Nicci back a few hundred. Small price to pay.

“But you better be careful,” Bontrager added.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know what they say.”

“No, I don’t,” Nicci said. “What
do
they say, Josh?”

Bontrager winked at her and Jessica. “Once you go Amish, you never go back.”

99

Byrne sat on a bench outside the courtroom. He had testified countless times in his career—grand juries, preliminary hearings, murder trials. Most of the time he had known exactly what he was going to say, but not this time.

He entered the courtroom, taking a seat in the first row.

Matthew Clarke looked about half the size he had been the last time Byrne had seen him. This was not uncommon. Clarke had been holding a gun and guns made people appear bigger. Now the man was craven and small.

Byrne took the stand. The ADA led him through the events of the week leading up to the incident where Clarke took him hostage.

“Is there anything you’d like to add?” the ADA finally asked.