“First I’ve heard of that.” He pauses, thoughtful. “Is this Weaver girl credible?”

“I think so,” I tell him. “She’s scared. Probably on Schrock’s radar.”

“That’s not good. At this point she may be the closest thing we have to a witness,” he says.

“She sneaks out at night and runs around all hours. Doesn’t have much in the way of supervision. Maybe you could give CPS a heads up and have them pick her up.”

“Sounds like the right thing to do,” he says. “We can sort it out later with the parents.”

The solution isn’t ideal; Marie sure as hell isn’t going to like it, but there’s no other way for us to guarantee her safety.

“About Schrock,” I say. “I just want to go out to his farm and take a look around.”

“Yeah, and I want to lose sixty pounds.”

“He won’t know I’m there, Dan. Just a quick in and out, and no one will be the wiser.” I pause, getting my words in order, formulating my argument. “It’s a huge property with several buildings. I want to know what he does out there when he thinks no one’s looking.”

“You know if you see something, we won’t be able to use it against him. There’s this little glitch called a warrant.”

“I’m aware—”

“What the hell are you going to do if someone catches you on the property?”

“It’s dark,” I say firmly. “There’s a lot of cover. If something unexpected happens, I’ll play innocent. Tell them I took a wrong turn. Got off the trail. Got lost.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Dan, there’s a young woman with a new baby out there.”

He falls silent for a moment and then says, “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

“Not when I’m right.”

“You going to go right now?”

“Yep.”

“All right.” He heaves an unhappy sigh. “You got one hour. If you don’t call, I’m going to drive out there, hunt you down and drag you out myself.”

I’m about to pop off a smartass reply, but he hangs up on me.

*   *   *

Ten minutes later I’m out the door and walking west on Swamp Creek Road. The snow has stopped, but it’s brutally cold. The sky is overcast, but the clouds are thin enough for a hazy moon to light my way.

An hour isn’t much time when I’ve half a mile to travel on foot just to get there, so I take advantage of the absence of traffic and jog. If a car or buggy happens by, I’ll duck into the woods until it passes.