“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell Mona to notify the sheriff’s office. Let them know what’s going on and get some patrols out. Tell her to brief T.J., get him out patrolling. Until we figure out what happened here, we’ve got to assume there’s a cold-blooded son of a bitch out there with a gun.”
As Skid speaks into his radio, I look at the two dead girls, and I feel the crushing weight of my responsibility to them settle onto my shoulders. I’ve heard veteran cops talk about life-altering cases. Cases that haunt a cop long after they’re closed. I’ve had cases like that myself. Cases that fundamentally changed me. Changed the way I view people. The way I perceive my job as a cop. The way I see myself.
Standing there with the stench of death filling my nostrils, I know this is going to be one of those cases. It’s going to take a toll. Not only on me, but on this town I love and a community that’s already seen more than its share of violence.
CHAPTER 3
I’m standing on the back porch one puff into a Marlboro I bummed from Skid when a police cruiser hauling a small trailer barrels down the lane. Light bar and siren blaring, it slides to a halt behind my Explorer, stirring a cloud of dust that alternately glows blue and red, lending yet another layer of surreality to an already surreal scene.
Rupert “Glock” Maddox gets out of the car and goes around to the trailer, opens dual rear doors and pulls down a small ramp. A former Marine, Glock has the dubious honor of being Painters Mill’s first African-American police officer. He’s built like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, can shoot the hair off a groundhog, and is one of the best cops I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. As I start toward him, I hope his levelheadedness will balance out the jagged emotions roiling inside me.
He rolls a portable, diesel-powered generator down the trailer ramp, then watches me approach. Under normal circumstances, he’d probably give me a hard time about smoking. I might have tried to hide the evidence if I hadn’t been standing in the midst of a crime scene. I figure both of us are too distracted by what we face in the coming hours to bother with something so mundane.
“Must be bad if you’re smoking,” he says.
“It’s bad.” The words feel like an obscene understatement.
“I would have been here faster, but I had to pick up the generator and lights.”
“It’s okay.” A sigh shudders out of me. “None of these people are going anywhere.”
“You get the shooter?”
“I’m not exactly sure what we’re dealing with yet.”
He looks at me a little too closely as I drop the butt on the gravel and crush it out with my boot.
“Could be a murder-suicide,” I clarify.
“Shit.”
I motion toward the generator. “Get some lights set up, will you?” I start toward Skid’s cruiser. “I’m going to talk to the witness.”
I’ve met Reuben Zimmerman several times over the years. He’s a quiet, serious man, one of the few Amish I know who does not have children. He and his wife, Martha, own a small house on a couple of acres down the road. Reuben is a retired carpenter and spends most of his time building decorative birdhouses and mailboxes for the Amish tourist shops in town.
I open the back door of the cruiser and bend slightly to make eye contact with him. Zimmerman leans forward and looks at me. “Did you find Bonnie and the other children?” he asks.
Though Skid had only been following departmental procedure, I’m dismayed to see the Amish man’s hands cuffed behind his back. I pull the key out of my belt. “Turn around, and I’ll take those off for you.” I speak to him in Pennsylvania Dutch, hoping it will help break down the barrier of mistrust that exists between the Amish and the English police. This morning, I need his full cooperation.
Turning, he offers his wrists. I insert the key and the handcuffs snick open. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
He rubs his wrists. “I help with the milking.”
“Why does Amos need you when he has two sons?”
Zimmerman looks perplexed by my question, but only for a moment. “He has twenty-two head of cattle and milks twice a day. I deliver the cans to Gordon Brehm in Coshocton County.”
His answer is consistent with the absence of a milking machine and generator in the barn. Without refrigeration, there’s no way to keep the milk cold, therefore it cannot be sold as grade A for drinking. Stored temporarily in old-fashioned milk cans, it can only be sold as grade B for cheese-making, which would require a buggy trip to the local cheese-maker in the next county.
I tilt my head and snag his gaze. “Reuben.” I say his name firmly, letting him know I want his undivided attention. “I need you to tell me everything you saw when you arrived this morning.”