Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

He lowered the rifle. “She’s sick. Go to bed.”

“I’m scared.”

“It’s just a storm.” He motioned toward the door, his hand shaking violently. “Go on now.”

Turning on her heel, she padded barefoot toward her room. A tiny figure clad in white. An angel with fat little hands and baby hair.

He raised the shotgun. Tears squeezed from his eyes as he leveled it at her back. Finger snug against the trigger. No choice. Dear God, help him …

He pulled the trigger.

The firing pin snicked against the primer, the sound barely discernible over the pound of rain against the roof. Disbelief punched him. He lowered the shotgun, stared at it, incredulous that it had betrayed him.

Vaguely, he was aware of the girl letting herself into her bedroom. The click of the latch as the door closed behind her.

Panic wrapped gnarly fingers around his throat and squeezed. He stood there, a maniacal laugh trapped and choking him. He weighed his options, tried to decide what to do next. But it was too late to act. Time to go.

Taking a final look at the bed, he backed from the room, bumped into the door. Then he was in the hall. Shotgun at his side. The knowledge that he’d screwed up hammering at the base of his brain.

Go back, the voice inside his head chanted. Finish it. Kill her.

By the time he reached the steps, his entire body shook uncontrollably. Breaths labored as if he’d run a mile. The voice at the back of his brain urging him to go back into the bedroom and finish it.

Coward, whispered an accusatory little voice. Coward!

He took the steps two at a time to the living room. Boots heavy against the floor as he crossed through the kitchen. A sound of anguish tore from his throat as he reached the mudroom. Lightning flickered outside the window as he set the shotgun in the corner where he’d found it.

Thunder cracked, like the final shot that hadn’t come.

And the ground shook with the knowledge of what he’d done—and what he hadn’t.





PART I

That’s all we may expect of man, this side

The grave: his good is—knowing he is bad.

—Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book





CHAPTER 1

The Tuscarawas covered bridge is a Painters Mill icon. In spring and summer, tourists flock to the little-used back road for photos, for lunch with the grandkids, or just to spend a few minutes strolling the ancient wooden structure to ponder who might’ve walked the very same spot a hundred and fifty years earlier. Couples have been married here. Children have been conceived. High school yearbook photographs have been snapped. The Amish regularly set up their wagons on the gravel pullover to sell baked goods and fresh vegetables to Englischers anxious to fork over their cash for a sampling of the plain life.

I’ve passed through the old bridge a thousand times over the years, and I’m ever cognizant of its beauty, its historic significance, and its importance to the tourism segment of the town’s economy. The magnitude of the latter echoed loud and clear in Mayor Auggie Brock’s voice when he called me earlier this morning. In addition to the bridge being a favorite of locals and tourists alike, the place has recently become the target of graffiti artists and home base for a multitude of other illicit activities. I know that by the end of the day I’ll have the town council breathing down my neck.

I park in the gravel pullover, take a final swig of coffee, and shut down the engine. As I get out of my city-issue Explorer, the whooit-whooit-whooit of a lone cardinal echoes among the treetops of the hardwoods that flourish in the greenbelt of the Painters Creek floodplain. Through misty shafts of sunlight, I see the footpath that leads down to the water’s edge.

My boots crunch through gravel as I approach the bridge. Shadows envelop me as I start across it. The smells of ancient wood, the muddy dankness of the creek below, and new spring foliage greet me as I traverse the structure. Pigeons coo from the rafters above, their droppings marring the sills of the half dozen windows that run the length of it.

I’m midway across when I spot the graffiti. A tinge of indignation rises in my chest at the utter mindlessness of it. It’s the usual fare. Fuck you. Eat me. Panthers suck. (Panthers being the name of the high school football team.) There’s even a swastika. All of it haphazardly spray-painted in colors ranging from royal blue to safety orange. To my relief, there are no gang symbols. That’s one segment of the criminal element that hasn’t reached Painters Mill despite the recent emergence of a booming meth trade.

I cross to the nearest window and look down at the creek fifteen feet below. The moss-green water swirls as it meanders south. I see the silver flash of a sunfish. Large stones a few feet beneath the surface. The olive-green hues of the deeper pools in the center of the creek. I know the depth there because eighteen years ago, I jumped from this very window on a dare. I walked home in a soaking-wet dress and stinking of creek water. Mamm didn’t understand why I did it, but she allowed me to change clothes before my datt came in from the field. She knew that sometimes his punishments were too harsh for the crime.

A pigeon takes flight as I reach the opposite end of the bridge, the high-pitched whistle of wings harmonizing with the birdsong in the forest. I turn and look down the length of the bridge. Beyond, my Explorer bakes in the sun, the engine ticking as it cools, heat tendrils rising off the hood like steam from a cup.

I should be baffled by the advent of graffiti in such a revered, bucolic place, but I’m not. I might’ve grown up Amish, but I was not as separate from the rest of the world as my parents wanted to believe. I was certainly not immune to bad behavior. For a short period of time, I was one of those mindless, angry teens, bent on making my mark—any mark—however self-defeating or destructive.

I stroll to the center of the bridge, look up at the rafters where a huge red swastika grins down at me. I shake my head in disgust, imagining some drunken idiot standing in the bed of a pickup truck, a can of spray paint in hand and a head full of rocks. Whoever did this wasn’t in any hurry; they took their time and reached places that required some effort.

I continue on to the other side of the bridge and I can’t help but wonder about all the things this place has witnessed over the years. When I was a kid, my grossmuder told me some places have memories. At the time I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about and I didn’t necessarily care. Only now, as an adult, do I appreciate her wisdom.