Missing Persons

53

Doyle’s excavation was a work of thoughtful engineering.

The length of the subterranean construction wasn’t exactly mind-boggling; the distance between the south side of Doyle’s basement and the north side of the Miller home was only about fifteen feet. And this wasn’t a highway tu

The slope of the tu

A flimsy remote-control unit jerry-rigged from a garage-door opener would have allowed Doyle to operate the winch from any location in the tu

Simple. Elegant.

Building the tu

And the snow thing?

Mystery solved.

54

“You should close that door,” I said, after Sam had followed me back downstairs into Doyle’s theater.

He hesitated, his bushy brows burdened more with aggravation than curiosity. But he complied. The chatter from the rest of the house disappeared as the door settled against soundproofing gaskets in the jamb.

I stepped across the room. Without fanfare I raised my elbow and pressed on the edge of the movie screen. The frame swung open on its long hinge, revealing Doyle’s portal.

Sam stepped closer and leaned inside. He said, “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

Sam did what I had done, although he pulled on fresh latex first. He lifted himself up into the opening behind the movie screen, flicked on the light switch, and stared. I watched his eyes move from the dirt cave, to the angle iron tracks, to the string of holiday lights, to the winch, to the sled.

I couldn’t be sure, of course, but I thought that he was adding things up the same way I had. He didn’t say a word at first; he just shook his head slowly. Admiration? Frustration? Amazement? I couldn’t tell.

After a couple of minutes silently going over the specific elements and the implications of Doyle’s tu

“A tu

“But you thought it was in the crawl space?”

“That was my guess. I figured that was most likely. I thought we’d find the opening underneath the plastic in there.”

“You going to tell me how you knew?” he asked.

“No.”

“How did you find it?”

“Boredom. Luck.”

“Tell me how you knew about it.”

“I probably shouldn’t have disclosed the tu

For the time being he appeared to accept that. He put his hand on my shoulder, the act of a friend, and said, “Come on. We need to clear out. It’s hurry-up-and-wait time.”

“Why?” I didn’t want to leave; if he’d let me, I was pla

“This isn’t exactly covered by the search-warrant request we made. I have to amend it and go back to Judge Heller.” He paused, filling his ample cheeks with air and exhaling loudly before he spoke again. “And now I’m going to need a fresh warrant for the Millers’ house to see how this thing looks from the other end.”

He sounded weary. “I thought you’d be excited about this,” I said.

“You’re thinking Mallory, right?” He looked back up at the opening in the theater wall. “This is how she got out of her house that night? This is the answer to the snow puzzle?”

“Sure. You have to admit that it adds a whole new dimension.”

“I’ve told you before: The fact that the kid didn’t leave any footprints in the snow the night she disappeared doesn’t mean anything. What’s important about this tu

“What we still don’t know is why. Why did the guy living next door want this kind of access?”

Sam had a point. “He certainly went to a lot of trouble, didn’t he?”

“This is the sort of thing bank robbers used to dig to get into a vault full of cash. But if Doyle Chandler wanted to bust into the Millers’ house to steal, why do all this? People bust into houses all the time. And they get away with it, neighbors even. They pick locks, break windows. But this tu

“Mallory?” I said in reply to Sam’s question.

“Yeah, maybe it’s that simple, maybe he was a perv. Time will tell.”

“What if your underlying assumption is wrong, Sam? What if she didn’t run? What if Doyle took Mallory out through the tu

Sam closed his eyes and his body stilled as though he were narcoleptic and he’d suddenly started sleeping standing up. For a moment even the act of breathing wasn’t apparent. Finally, he opened his eyes and said, “Again, why? There are easier ways, and there’s a lot we don’t know.”

“Like?”

“Like… where does this thing come out in the Millers’ house? Why didn’t we spot it last month? That house got more attention than the new girl at a titty bar.”

“You weren’t looking for a tu

Sam eyed me suspiciously. “You didn’t go down there, did you? To the other end? Tell me you didn’t mess with this evidence.”

“I went no farther in than you did.”

I waited in the vacant living room while Sam went through the house ordering all the search perso