“Enough rage to shoot his brothers and torture his sisters?”
“That’s my stumbling block. I can’t see him doing that.”
“Okay, what else do you have?”
“Home invasion–type robbery. Things go bad. The killings could have been an afterthought. Or it could be a hate crime.”
“You’re keeping all your options open.”
“Nothing seems to be a good fit.”
“Yeah, well, our jobs would be a lot easier if murder ever made sense.” He picks up the journal from my desk. “She never names the lover?”
I shake my head. “Doesn’t give us anything.”
“Sounds like maybe he told her to keep her mouth shut.”
“Probably. He was manipulating her. She certainly had cause not to tell her parents, especially after the way they reacted to Aaron’s announcement that he was gay.”
Tomasetti pages through the journal, then sets it back on my desk. “You develop any kind of profile on the boyfriend?”
“I think he’s English. Older than Mary. Twenty-five to thirty-five years old. Charming. Manipulative. Dabbles in drugs. Maybe some amateur photography.”
“Photography?”
“He took some photos of her.”
He arches a brow. “You mean porn?”
“Maybe. I think he may have drugged her, too. She writes about it, but it’s not real clear.”
“You check the Internet for pics?”
“I haven’t Googled ‘Hot Amish Chicks,’ if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. People have all sorts of strange fetishes. Nuns. Feet. Whips and chains.” He shrugs.
All I can think is that I should have already pursued that angle. I hit Speaker on my phone and dial T.J. He picks up on the first ring. “We think Mary Plank’s boyfriend might have been taking pornographic photos of her. He may have been posting them online. I want you to go out there and see what you can find. You might start with some of the search engines. Check out some of the porn sites. You might also check to see if any of them have an Amish slant.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re asking me to surf Internet porn sites? Jeez, this has gotta be a first.”
“Probably the last, too.”
He sighs. “Okay, I’m on it.”
I disconnect and look at John. He’s got penetrating eyes. The kind that are hard to meet. Harder to hold. Impossible to read. I sense there’s something going on with him. Some internal discord I can’t put my finger on.
“Tell me about the brother,” he says.
I give him the rundown on Aaron Plank. “He lives with his partner in Philly now.”
“Bad blood between him and his parents?”
“He says no.”
“With his entire family dead, what else is he going to say?”
“There is one person I can think of who might know something about family dynamics.”
Tomasetti raises a brow.
“Their bishop back in Lancaster County,” I say. “I’m waiting for a call back now.”
“Worth a shot.” He nods. “What else?”
“Glock’s checking hate crimes.”
“Hard to imagine someone hating the Amish.”
“It happens. Unfortunately, a lot of it goes unreported.”
“What kind of stuff are you talking about?”
I shrug. “Some people don’t like the buggies because they’re slow and hold up traffic. Or they think the Amish are stupid. They equate pacifism with cowardice.” I shake my head. “I’ve seen buggies run off the road. People have thrown rocks at the horses to spook them. I’ve even heard of some teenagers throwing fireworks at the horses. A few don’t like the religion.”
“Or they just hate for the sake of hating.”
He’s staring at me again. That shouldn’t bother me. I’ve been in this man’s bed. He’s held me. Kissed me. Made love to me. Yet here I am, uncomfortable and squirming beneath his gaze. Turning slightly in my chair, I look out the window, not sure what to say next or how to feel.
“How have you been, Kate?”
“Fine. Working a lot.” My answer is a little too quick. I’m nervous about his being here, and he knows it. I turn back to him. It’s been two months since I last saw him, but it seems like a lifetime. “How about you?”
“Saving the world.” He smiles. “Living the good life.”
I nod, not believing a word of it. “How long can you stay?”
“Till we close the case.”
I want to ask him if he’s up to the task, but I know the question will only piss him off. I admire and respect Tomasetti. Too damn much if I want to be honest about it. But he’s been through hell in the last two and a half years. He’s a troubled man with shadows so deep I haven’t been able to penetrate them. He might say otherwise, but I’m not convinced he’s up to working this case.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say after a moment.
“I bet you tell all the agency guys that.”
I smile.
A rapid knock sounds, then the door swings open. Glock steps in. His eyes widen when he sees Tomasetti. His gaze darts to mine. “Sorry, Chief, I didn’t know you had a visitor.”
“It’s okay,” I say, relieved for the interruption. “What do you have?”
Nodding at Tomasetti, he approaches, passes a sheet of paper to me. “Get a load of this.”
I scan the paper. It’s a ten-year-old police report from Arcanum, Ohio, a small town near the Indiana state line. Four men, all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one, were arrested for severely beating an Amish man and cutting off his ear. The ear was never found, and therefore could not be reattached. One of the men, James Hackett Payne, later confessed to having eaten it. Each of the men was later convicted and sentenced to five to eight years in prison. My pulse kicks when I see that Payne, now twenty-nine, is living in Painters Mill.
“He did extra time on the hate crime designation,” Glock says.
“I’ll bet that improved his outlook on life.” I pass the paper to John.
He scans the report and frowns. “It’s a stretch going from felony assault to mass murder.”
“Eight years in prison is a long time for anger to fester into rage,” I say.
“What the hell kind of person eats a guy’s fuckin’ ear?” Glock asks no one in particular.
“Twisted son of a bitch,” Tomasetti mutters.
“I don’t get the hate thing,” Glock says.
I shrug. “Some people see the Amish as easy targets.” Both men’s gazes swing to me. “They refer to the Amish as clapes for ‘clay apes.’ It’s a derogatory term that somehow relates to farming. The incidents against them are known as clape-ing.”
Glock shakes his head. “I can’t believe it happens enough for someone to coin a term for it.”
I glance at him, knowing that as an African-American cop, he’s experienced a few hate-related incidents himself.
“You got an address on this guy?” Tomasetti asks impatiently.
Glock grins. “You bet.”
I rise. “Let’s go talk to him.”
“Going to wear my fuckin’ earmuffs,” Glock says.
CHAPTER 14
James Hackett Payne lives on the south side of Painters Mill in a three-story brick home that looks old enough to be historical. Surrounded by ancient maple and sycamore trees, the house sits on a large lot set back from a tree-lined street. A dilapidated privacy fence tangled with honeysuckle runs the perimeter of the backyard. I park curbside and we disembark.
“He live alone?” Tomasetti asks.
“To the best of my knowledge,” Glock replies. “Inherited the house when his dad died last year.”
“What’s he do for a living?” I ask.
“He’s on some kind of disability,” Glock answers.
“Mental or physical?”
“Doesn’t say.”
“Terrific,” Tomasetti mutters.
I start dow
n the sidewalk toward the house. The place had once been grand, but years of neglect have turned it into a big, ugly eyesore. The front yard is a collage of tall grass matted with orange and red leaves. From where I stand, I see a detached garage at the rear. I take the concrete steps to the wraparound front porch and cross to the door. I press the doorbell, then open the storm door and knock.
“Creepy fuckin’ place,” Glock comments.
“Creepy fuckin’ guy,” Tomasetti adds.
A minute passes, but no one answers. “You guys hit the neighbors,” I say. “I’m going to check the back.”
Tomasetti and Glock exchange looks.
“For God’s sake,” I snap, “I’m just going to check the garage to see if there’s a car inside.”
Nodding, Glock cuts across the yard to the neighboring house. Tomasetti gives me a look I can’t quite read, but heads in the opposite direction.
Leaves rustle at my feet as I cut through the grass toward the back of the house. I try to see in the window as I pass a small side porch, but the curtains are drawn. The place has the feel of a vacant house. No car parked out front. The leaves aren’t raked. Yard is a mess. The curtains are drawn. I walk through the neighbor’s yard along the privacy fence, which is too high for me to see over the top. Reaching the alley, I go left toward the garage.
The overhead door is closed, so I walk past it to the gate, push it open. The gate opens to the backyard. The first thing I notice is the knee-high grass and the cracked sidewalk that leads to the house. A broken clay pot lies on its side just off the porch. From where I stand, I can see a broken window that’s been repaired with duct tape and a garbage bag.
“James Payne?” My adrenaline zings as I start toward the door on the east side of the garage. “This is the police. I need to talk to you.”
The window is blacked out with some kind of paint. Someone went to extremes for privacy. That makes me nervous. From where I stand, I discern music coming from inside, a haunting tune from some nineties grunge band. I hit my mike. “There’s someone in the garage out back. Come on around.”
“On the way,” comes Glock’s voice.
Knowing Tomasetti and Glock are less than a minute away, I cross to the door and knock hard enough to hurt my knuckles. “Police! Open up!”
No one answers.
Annoyed, I try the knob. To my surprise, the door isn’t locked so I push it open. The music becomes deafening. I feel the bass rumble all the way to my stomach. I don’t know what to expect from Payne. But considering the violent nature of his past crime, I set my hand on my .38.
The smells of paint and burning candles assail me when I step inside. James Hackett Payne stands fifteen feet away with his back to me. It takes my shocked brain a second to realize he’s naked, mainly because nearly every inch of his well-muscled body is covered with intricate tattoos.
For a terrible moment I think the red covering his hands is blood. Then I spot the massive painting before him and realize it’s paint.
“James Hackett Payne?” I shout to be heard above the music.
He turns slowly, making no effort to cover his nudeness. I notice a dozen things about him simultaneously. He’s got peculiar eyes that remind me of Charles Manson, only the color is blue and so light they’re almost white. He’s either bald or shaves his head and there’s a tattoo of a wolf on his scalp. I wonder if he’s some weird offshoot of a skinhead. I see spatters of paint on his chest. He’s aroused; his member stands at half-staff and has a smear of red paint on it.
“Would you mind putting on your pants, sir? I need to talk to you.”
He stares at me with an intensity that makes the hairs on my arms rise. He doesn’t smile, but I see amusement in his eyes. “Of course.”
He gestures toward a pair of sweatpants draped over the back of a chair. I nod and step back. I don’t want this strange son of a bitch getting too close. I hit my lapel mike. “I’m 10-75.”
Never taking his eyes from mine, he crosses to the chair. “Had I known you were coming I would have dressed.”
“Had I known you were going to be naked, I would have called.”
Glock and Tomasetti enter the garage. I glance over to see both men’s eyes widen at the sight of Payne. They’re seasoned cops; it takes a lot to shock them. I almost smile when I realize Payne has succeeded.
One side of his mouth pulls into a half grin as he jams his legs into the sweat-pants. “My work arouses me,” he says matter-of-factly. “I prefer to paint . . . uncovered. It puts me closer to my art.”
I glance at the painting he’d been working on and another layer of shock goes through me. It’s a stark painting with violent streaks of red, black and yellow. I discern the image of an Amish woman in the throes of childbirth. Two Amish males kneel between her knees, devouring a horribly deformed newborn.
I make eye contact with Payne. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
He ties the drawstring waist. “Ask away.”
Frowning, Tomasetti crosses to the stereo on the workbench and turns it off. Silence fills the studio. Payne glares at him. Tomasetti stares back, maintains his poker face.
“Where were you Monday night?” I ask.
“Here. Working.”
“Can anyone substantiate that?”
He smirks. “God.”
I tamp down a rise of annoyance. “Do you know any members of the Plank family?”
A slow smile creeps across his face. “No.”
“You think something’s funny?”
“I just figured out what this is about.”
“What’s that?”
“I guess I’m a suspect.” He shrugs. “Am I?”
“You committed a hate crime against an Amish man ten years ago.”
Another smile. “So that automatically makes me a suspect in a mass murder?”
For the first time Glock pipes up. “You ate your vic’s ear, buddy. That’s fuckin’ off-the-chart strange.”
Those weird eyes dart from me to Glock and back to me. “I paid my dues for that.”
“So you know the Plank family?” I repeat. “Have you had any dealings with them?”
“I don’t deal with the Amish.” He lowers his voice. “Too much inbreeding. Half the kids are retards. All that bundling, I guess.”
That’s when I know that while this man might have paid his debt to society, the time he spent behind bars did nothing to cure the cancer of hatred that runs thick in his blood. Images of the Plank family flash in my mind. Mary’s journal filled with so many hopes and so much pain. I think of the children, so innocent and with so much life ahead, and I want to tear into Payne with my bare hands.
“If you lie to me about anything we talk about today,” I say, “I’m going to make you regret it.”
Amusement rises in his eyes. “That’s right. You’re the Amish cop. How extraordinary. I’ll bet you have a soft spot for them, don’t you?”
I ignore the jab. “What kind of vehicle do you drive?”
He doesn’t appear to hear the question. “I’ll bet your family tree doesn’t have many branches, either, does it?” An ugly emotion flashes in his eyes. “Did you leave the faith because you didn’t want to marry a cousin? Or did they kick you out for being a dyke?”
I know better than to let a loser like Payne push my buttons. I’m well aware of the array of problems inappropriate conduct on my part can bring down on an investigation. But I’m also a human being and my tolerance has been stretched to the limit.
I lunge, ram the heels of both hands into his chest and shove him hard. Caught off guard, Payne reels backward, arms flailing. His foot catches on a rubber mat, and he goes down on his backside.
“Amish cunt.” In a split second he’s back on his feet. I hear Tomasetti and Glock move in, but they’re not fast enough to stop me. I yank out my baton, snap it to its full length and swing. I aim at his left shoulder, but he ducks and the baton rakes a glancing blow across his back. Payne dances backward, snarling.
r /> Two hands come down on my shoulders, fingers digging into my skin. “Kate, goddamnit.”
I barely hear Tomasetti’s voice over the wild beat of my heart. “Get off me!” Red crowds my vision, a rainbow of fury that spreads through me like a storm.
“Crazy bitch.” Payne’s lips peel back, revealing canine-like teeth.
I’m aware of Tomasetti dragging me backward. Payne starting toward me.
Glock steps between us, thrusts a finger at Payne. “Back off.”
Payne glares at Glock. “She assaulted me! She can’t do that! I’m a fuckin’ law-abiding citizen!”
At the door, Tomasetti stops dragging me. But he doesn’t release me. His fingers slide down to my biceps and he gives me a shake. “Pull yourself together,” he growls.
I can hear myself breathing hard. In the back of my mind, I know I screwed up. I acted like some hotheaded rookie. I broke one of the cardinal rules of police work and hit a suspect without cause. The anger pulsing inside me doesn’t give a damn.
Payne jams a finger at me. “You fuckin’ cops are all the same. A bunch of fascist pigs. I ought to sue you.”
Tomasetti sighs. “I didn’t see her do anything wrong.” He looks at Glock. “Did you?”
Glock shakes his head. “I saw Payne go after her.”
Payne’s face turns deep red. “I’m glad those Amish freaks are dead! Serves them right for being a bunch of hypocritical, incestuous bastards! How’s that, bitch?”
My vision tunnels on Payne’s face. I can almost feel my hands closing around his throat. My heart knocks so hard against my ribcage my chest hurts. I think of those dead kids, and I want to strangle him with my bare hands.
“Kate.” Tomasetti’s fingers squeeze my biceps. “Let it go.”
I thrust a finger at Payne. “Don’t leave town.”
“Or what? What are you going to do about it? Hit me? Your days as a cop are numbered, bitch.”
John pushes me toward the door. I dig in my heels, but he muscles me across the threshold and onto the sidewalk. “Cut it out,” he snaps.