The Shack Read online

  A potential crisis had been averted. Or so Mack thought.

  4

  THE GREAT SADNESS

  Sadness is a wall between two gardens.

  —Kahlil Gibran

  Mack stood on the shore, doubled over and still trying to catch his breath. It took a few minutes before he even thought about Missy. Remembering that she had been coloring in her book at the table, he walked up the bank to where he could see the campsite, but there was no sign of her. His pace quickened as he hurried to the tent-trailer, calling her name as calmly as he could manage. No response. She was not there. Even though his heart skipped a beat, he rationalized that in the confusion someone had seen to her, probably Sarah Madison or Vicki Ducette, or one of the older kids.

  Not wanting to appear overanxious or panicky, he found and soberly informed his two new friends that he couldn’t find Missy and asked if they would check with their families. Both quickly headed off to their respective campsites. Jesse returned first to announce that Sarah had not seen Missy at all that morning. He and Mack then headed for the Ducette site, but before they reached it Emil came hurrying toward them, a look of apprehension written clearly on his face.

  “No one has seen Missy today, and we don’t know where Amber is either. Maybe they’re together?” There was a hint of dread in Emil’s question.

  “I’m sure that’s it,” said Mack, trying to reassure himself and Emil at the same time. “Where do you think they might be?”

  “Why don’t we check the bathrooms and showers?” suggested Jesse.

  “Good idea,” said Mack. “I’ll check the one nearest our site, the one my kids use. Why don’t you and Emil check the one between your sites?”

  They nodded and Mack headed at a slow trot toward the closest showers, noticing for the first time that he was barefoot and shirtless. What a sight I must be, he thought. He probably would have chuckled if his mind wasn’t so focused on Missy.

  Arriving at the restrooms, he asked a teenager emerging from the women’s section if she had seen a little girl in a red dress inside, or maybe two girls. She told him that she hadn’t noticed but would look again. In less than a minute she was back, shaking her head.

  “Thank you anyway,” said Mack, and he headed around the back of the building where the showers were located. As he rounded the corner he began calling loudly for Missy. Mack could hear water running, but no one responded. Wondering if Missy might be in one of the showers, he began pounding on each until he got a response. He succeeded only in severely scaring a poor elderly lady when his door banging accidentally opened her shower stall. She shrieked, and Mack, with profuse apologies, quickly shut the door and hurried on to the next one.

  Six shower stalls and no Missy. He checked the men’s toilet stalls and showers, trying not to think about why he would even bother looking there. She was nowhere and he jogged back toward Emil’s, unable to pray anything except “Oh, God, help me find her… Oh, God, please help me find her.”

  When she saw him, Vicki rushed to meet him. She had been trying not to cry but couldn’t help it as they embraced. Suddenly Mack desperately wanted Nan to be there. She would know what to do, at least what the right thing was. He felt so lost.

  “Sarah has Josh and Kate back at your campsite, so don’t worry about them,” Vicki told him between sobs.

  Oh, God, Mack thought, having totally forgotten about his other two. What kind of a father am I? Although he was relieved that Sarah had them, he now wished even more that Nan were here.

  Just then, Emil and Jesse burst into camp, Emil appearing relieved and Jesse looking as tense as a wound-up spring.

  “We found her!” exclaimed Emil, his face lighting up, then turning somber as he realized what he had implied. “I mean, we found Amber. She just came back from taking a shower at this other place that still had hot water. She said she told her mom, but Vicki probably didn’t hear her…” His voice trailed off.

  “But we didn’t find Missy,” Jesse added quickly, answering the most important question. “Amber hasn’t seen her today either.”

  Emil, all business now, took charge. “Mack, we need to contact the campground authorities immediately and get the word out to find Missy. Maybe in the ruckus and excitement she got scared and confused and just wandered away and got lost, or maybe she was trying to find us and took a wrong turn. Do you have a picture of her? Maybe there’s a copy machine at the office and we could make a few copies and save some time.”

  “Yeah, I have a snapshot of her in my wallet.” He reached for his back pocket and for a second panicked as he found nothing there. The thought flashed through his mind of his wallet sitting at the bottom of Wallowa Lake, and then he remembered that it was still in his van after yesterday’s trip up the tram.

  The three headed back to Mack’s site. Jesse ran ahead to let Sarah know that Amber was safe, but that Missy’s whereabouts were still unknown. Arriving at camp, Mack hugged and encouraged Josh and Kate as best he could, trying to appear calm for their sakes. Changing out of his wet clothes, he threw on a T-shirt and jeans, some clean dry socks, and a pair of running shoes. Sarah promised that she and Vicki would keep his older two with them and whispered that she was praying for him and Missy. Mack gave her a quick hug and thanked her, and after kissing his children he joined the other two men as they jogged toward the campground office.

  Word of the water rescue had reached the little two-room camp headquarters ahead of them, and everyone there was in high spirits. This changed quickly as the three took turns explaining Missy’s disappearance. Fortunately the office had a photocopier, and Mack enlarged half a dozen pictures of Missy, handing them around.

  The Wallowa Lake campground has 215 sites divided into five loops and three group areas. The young assistant manager, Jeremy Bellamy, volunteered to help canvass, so they divided the camp into four areas and each headed out armed with a map, Missy’s picture, and an office walkie-talkie. One assistant with a walkie-talkie also went back to Mack’s site to report in if Missy turned up there.

  It was slow, methodical work, much too slow for Mack, but he knew that this was the most logical way to find her if… if she was still on the campgrounds. As he walked between tents and trailers, he was praying and promising. He knew in his heart that promising things to God was rather dumb and irrational, but he couldn’t help it. He was desperate to get Missy back, and surely God knew where she was.

  Many campers were either not at their sites or in the final stages of packing up to head home. No one he asked had seen Missy or anyone looking like her. Periodically the search parties checked in with the office to get an update on the progress, if any, that each was making. Nothing at all, until almost two in the afternoon.

  Mack was finishing his section when the call came in on the walkie-talkies. Jeremy, who had taken the area nearest the entrance, thought he had something. Emil instructed them to put a mark on their maps showing where each had left off, and then he gave them the site number where Jeremy had called from. Mack was the last to arrive, and he walked in on an intense conversation involving Emil, Jeremy, and a third young man Mack did not recognize.

  Emil quickly brought Mack up to speed, introducing him to Virgil Thomas, a city boy from California who had been camping all summer in the area with some buddies. Virgil and his friends had crashed after partying late into the night, and he had been the only one up who saw an old military-green truck heading out the entrance and down the road toward Joseph.

  “About what time was that?” Mack asked.

  “Like I told him,” Virgil said, pointing his thumb at Jeremy, “it was before noon. I’m not sure how much before noon, though. I was kinda hung over, and we really haven’t been paying much attention to clocks since we got here.”

  Pushing the picture of Missy in front of the young man, Mack asked sharply, “Do you think you saw her?”

  “When the other fellow first showed me that picture, she didn’t look familiar,” Virgil answered, looking again at t
he photo. “But then, when he said that she was wearing a bright red dress, I remembered that the little girl in the green truck was wearin’ red and she was either laughing or bellerin’, I couldn’t really tell. And then it looked like the guy slapped her or pushed her down, but I suppose he coulda been just playin’ too.”

  Mack felt paralyzed. The information was overwhelming to him, but unfortunately it was the only thing they had heard that made any sense. It explained why they had found no trace of Missy. But everything in him didn’t want it to be true. He turned and started to run toward the office, but he was halted by Emil’s voice.

  “Mack, stop! We’ve already radioed the office and contacted the sheriff in Joseph. They’re sending someone here right away and putting out an APB on the truck.”

  As he finished speaking, as if on cue, two patrol cars pulled into the campgrounds. The first headed directly for the office, while the other turned into the section where they all stood waiting. Mack waved the officer down and hurried to meet him as he emerged from his vehicle. A young man who looked to be in his late twenties introduced himself as Officer Dalton and began taking their statements.

  The next hours saw a massive escalation in response to Missy’s disappearance. An all-points bulletin was sent out as far west as Portland; east to Boise, Idaho; and north to Spokane, Washington. Police officers in Joseph set up a roadblock on the Imnaha Highway, which led out of Joseph and deeper into the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. If the child abductor had taken Missy up the Imnaha—only one of many directions he could have gone—the police figured they could get pertinent information by questioning those coming out. Their resources were limited, and rangers in the area were also contacted to be on the lookout.

  The Phillipses’ campsite was cordoned off as a crime scene and everyone in the vicinity was questioned. Virgil offered as much detail as he could about the truck and its occupants, and the resulting description was flashed out to all relevant agencies.

  The FBI field offices in Portland, Seattle, and Denver were put on notice. Nan had been called and was on her way, being driven by her best friend, Maryanne. Even tracking dogs were brought in, but Missy’s trail ended in the nearby parking lot, increasing the likelihood that Virgil’s story was accurate.

  After forensic specialists had combed through his campsite, Officer Dalton asked Mack to reenter the area and carefully look to see if anything was out of place or different from what he remembered. Although already exhausted by the emotions of the day, Mack was desperate to do anything to help and deliberately focused his mind to try to remember whatever he could about the morning. Cautiously, so as not to disturb anything, he retraced his steps. What he would give for a do-over: a chance to have this day start again from the beginning. He would be glad to burn his fingers and drop the pancake batter all over again if only he could take back the events that followed.

  He turned back to his assigned task, but nothing seemed to be different from what he remembered. Nothing had changed. He came to the table where Missy had been busy. The book was open to the page she had been coloring, a half-finished picture of the Multnomah Indian princess. The crayons were also there, although Missy’s favorite color, red, was missing. He began to look around on the ground to see where it might have fallen.

  “If you’re looking for the red crayon, we found it over there, by the tree,” said Dalton, pointing toward the parking lot. “She probably dropped it when she was struggling with…” His voice trailed off.

  “How can you tell she was struggling?” Mack demanded.

  The officer hesitated but then spoke, almost reluctantly. “We found one of her shoes near there, in the bushes where it was probably kicked off. You weren’t here at the time, so we asked your son to identify it.”

  The image of his daughter fighting off some perverted monster was like a fist to the stomach. Almost succumbing to the sudden blackness that threatened to smother him, Mack leaned on the table to keep from passing out or throwing up. It was then that he noticed a ladybug pin sticking in the coloring book. He snapped to awareness as if someone had opened smelling salts under his nose.

  “Whose is that?” he asked Dalton, pointing to the pin.

  “Whose is what?”

  “This ladybug pin! Who put that there?”

  “We just assumed it was Missy’s. Are you telling me that pin was not there this morning?”

  “I’m positive,” asserted Mack adamantly. “She doesn’t own anything like that. I am absolutely positive that it was not here this morning!”

  Officer Dalton was already on his radio, and within minutes forensics was back and had taken the pin into custody.

  Dalton took Mack aside and explained. “If what you say is correct, then we have to assume that Missy’s assailant left it here on purpose.” He paused before adding, “Mr. Phillips, this could be good news or bad.”

  “I don’t understand,” responded Mack.

  The officer again hesitated, trying to decide whether he should tell Mack what he was thinking. He searched for the right words. “Well, the good news is that we might get some evidence off of it. It’s the only thing we have so far linking him to the scene.”

  “And the bad news?” Mack held his breath.

  “Well, the bad news—and I am not saying that this is the case here—but guys who leave something like this usually have a purpose in leaving it, and it usually means that they have done this before.”

  “What are you saying?” Mack snapped. “That this guy is some kind of serial killer? Is this some sort of mark he leaves behind to identify himself, like he is marking his territory or something?”

  Mack was getting angry, and it was evident by the look on Dalton’s face that he was sorry for even mentioning it. But before Mack could blow, Dalton received an incoming call on his belt radio patching him through to the FBI field office in Portland, Oregon. Mack refused to leave and listened as a woman identified herself as a special agent. She asked Dalton to describe the pin in detail. Mack followed the officer to where the forensic team had set up a work area. Holding the ziplock bag in which the pin had been secured, Dalton concentrated on describing it as best he could, while Mack eavesdropped from a position slightly behind the group.

  “It’s a ladybug stickpin that was stuck through some pages of a coloring book, like one of those pins a woman would wear on her lapel, I think.”

  “Please describe the colors and the number of dots on the ladybug,” directed the voice over the radio.

  “Let’s see,” said Dalton, with his eyes almost up to the pouch. “The head is black with a… uhh… ladybug head. And the body is red, with black edges and divisions. There are two black dots on the left side of the body as you look down from above… with the head at the top. Does that make sense?”

  “Perfectly. Please go on,” the voice said patiently.

  “And on the right side of the ladybug there are three dots, so five in all.”

  There was a pause. “Are you sure there are five dots?”

  “Yes, ma’am, there are five dots.” He looked up and saw Mack, who had moved to the other side to see better, made eye contact, and shrugged his shoulders as if to ask, Who cares how many dots?

  “Okay, now, Officer Dabney—”

  “Dalton, ma’am, Tommy Dalton.” He looked up at Mack again and rolled his eyes.

  “Sorry, Officer Dalton. Would you please turn over the pin and tell me what is on the bottom or underside of the ladybug?”

  Dalton turned the pouch over and looked carefully. “There is something here engraved on the bottom, Special Agent… uh, I didn’t get your name exactly.”

  “Wikowsky, spelled just like it sounds. Is it some letters or numbers?”

  “Well, let me see. Yeah, I think you’re right. It looks like some kinda model number. Umm… C… K… 1-4-6, I believe; yeah, Charlie, Kilo, 1, 4, 6. It’s tough to make out through the Baggie.”

  There was silence on the other end. Mack whispered to Dalton, “As
k her why or what that means.”

  Dalton hesitated and then complied. Again there was an extended silence on the other end.

  “Wikowsky? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Suddenly the voice sounded tired and hollow. “Hey, Dalton, are you someplace private where you can talk?”

  Mack nodded with exaggeration and Dalton got the message. “Hold on a sec.” He put down the pouch with the pin and moved outside the area, allowing Mack to follow. Dalton was already way beyond protocol with him anyway.

  “Yup, I am now. So tell me, what’s the scoop on this ladybug?” he inquired.

  “We’ve been trying to catch this guy for almost four years, tracking him across more than nine states now; he’s been continually moving west. He’s been nicknamed the Little Ladykiller, but we have never released the ladybug detail to the press or anyone else, so please keep that on the downlow. We believe he’s responsible for abducting and killing at least four children so far, all girls, all under the age of ten. Each time he adds a dot to the ladybug, so this would be number five. He always leaves the same pin somewhere at the kidnap scene, all with the same model number like he bought a box of them, but we’ve had no luck tracking down where they originally came from. We haven’t found one of the bodies of any of those four little girls, and although forensics has come up with nothing, we have good reason to believe that none of the girls have survived. Every crime has taken place at or near a camping area, with a state park or reserve close by. The perpetrator seems to be an expert woodsman and mountaineer. In every case he has left us absolutely nothing—except the pin.”