“Is there anything else you can tell me about the letter?” I ask. “Anything that worried you?”
He shakes his head. “God, I don’t remember all the details. She kind of caught me up on family stuff. How fast little Amos was growing. She said everything was fine. I do recall that she talked a lot about the guy. She was definitely into him.”
“Did she say anything that made you concerned for her safety?”
“No.”
Disappointment digs into me. “Did you write her back? Call her?”
“I wrote her a letter.” His face screws up. He brings his fist down on the counter. “I wish to God I’d had the courage to drive down.”
“What did you say in your letter?”
He blows out a breath, composes himself. “I hooked her up with an Amish guy near Millersburg. He runs a sort of . . . underground railroad for young Amish men who want to leave the Plain life.” He gives me a sage look. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you about this, Chief Burkholder. The man is Amish. He’s married to an Amish woman and they have six children. If anyone finds out what he does, he’ll be excommunicated.”
For the first time, Aaron’s reticence makes a certain amount of sense. “What’s his name?”
“Ed Beachey.
I’ve never met Ed, but I know of him. “He owns a small cattle operation down the road from Miller’s Pond.”
Aaron nods. “Ed gives these kids a place to stay. He gives them food. Counsels them. I told Mary to contact him.”
“Did she?”
“I checked. Ed says she never did.”
“You know I’ve got to verify all this with Ed,” I say.
“No one knows he helps young men leave the Amish way of life. If it gets out, he’s going to think I betrayed him.”
“I’ll let him know you didn’t have a choice.” I sigh, feeling deflated. “If you remember anything else that might be important, call me.” I turn to leave. I’m midway to the living room when Aaron stops me.
“Chief Burkholder?”
I turn back to him.
“I just remembered something that might help.” He looks more animated as he crosses to me. “She mentioned something about meeting her guy out at Miller’s Pond.”
“She wrote about it. In the diary.”
“Well, then you probably already know that one day when she was waiting for him, she carved their initials in a tree.”
I stare at him, aware that my pulse is spiking. Initials won’t solve the case, but they might help identify the boyfriend. “Do you know where the tree is? Near the water? The path? Parking area?”
He grimaces, shakes his head. “She didn’t say. Just a tree. That’s all I know.”
I stare at him a moment longer. I’m still not sure if I like him, but one thing that’s clear to me is that he loved his sister. “This would have been a lot easier if you’d just come clean from the start.”
He closes his eyes briefly and in that instant I know he blames himself, at least in part, for his sister’s death. Maybe for the deaths of his entire family.
“Nothing’s going to bring them back,” he says.
“No, but sometimes telling the truth helps you sleep at night.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Miller’s Pond, and I always forget how pretty it is. The dam is on the east side. Below the dam, a greenbelt thick with trees runs along Painters Creek. To the west is a cornfield. On the north side, a hay field is hip high with alfalfa. To the south, the yellow-green carpet of a soybean field stretches as far as the eye can see.
The pond itself is a good-size body of water. People swim here in the summer. They ice-skate in winter. Lovers park here at night. Teenagers drink and smoke dope. The area is secluded with no official parking area. The only thing that keeps the place from getting crowded is that you have to walk half a mile down a wooded path to get to the water.
Ed Beachey’s place was on the way, so Tomasetti and I stopped by to ask him if Mary Plank had sought his help. The Amish man claimed she never contacted him. I believed him. I wanted to assure him his secret was safe with me, but I’ve learned the hard way not to make promises I might not be able to keep. Another dead end.
I told Tomasetti about my conversation with Aaron on the drive over. Neither of us is very optimistic about finding the tree with the initials. But with the case stalled and the clock ticking, he wasn’t opposed to a quick look-see.
“Pretty heavily wooded area.” He parks in front of the guardrail.
“I thought we could walk the path, see if anything pops out at us.” I slide out of the SUV. It’s so quiet I can hear the bees buzzing around the goldenrod and dandelions in the bar ditch.
Tomasetti gets out and slides on his sunglasses. “If you’re thinking foot-wear impressions or tire treads, we’re a month too late.”
Our gazes meet over the hood of the vehicle. “I know it’s a long shot, but if we can find the initials, it could help.”
He nods, but I can tell he’s not sold on the idea. “If we don’t find the initials, at least we have a good supply of trees to bang our heads against.”
“Pragmatist.”
The Tahoe is parked in gravel. The asphalt ended about a quarter mile back. There’s not much room for parking, but I can tell by the amount of trash on the ground that plenty of people come here. Where the weeds meet the gravel, broken glass shimmers like hot diamonds beneath the sun. I see dozens of tire tread imprints. Candy bar wrappers. A used condom. Most people are pretty good about picking up after themselves. But not the slobs. I’ve been standing in the sun for less than a minute and already I’m sweating beneath my uniform.
“Okay. So we’ve got a few thousand trees to check.” He opens the Tahoe door, digs around for a moment, emerges with two Wal-Mart bags, passes one to me. “Here’s your evidence bag.”
“You’re pretty resourceful, Tomasetti.” I take the bag. “You a Boy Scout?”
“Got kicked out for smoking when I was nine.”
“Figures.” But I smile. “You wouldn’t happen to have gloves, would you?”
He ducks back into the Tahoe and comes out with a handful of tissues. “These’ll have to do.”
“You BCI guys are high tech all the way.” I take a couple of the tissues, tuck them into my back pocket.
Sighing, he works off his suit jacket and tosses it onto the front seat. He is wearing a light blue shirt beneath the jacket. The armpits and back are wet with sweat. He takes a moment to loosen his tie. I see chest hair peeking out of his collar and it reminds me he’s got just the right amount of it.
“Anything else we should be looking for while we’re here?” he asks.
I shake my head. “They came here several times. They drank wine, had sex.”
“The boyfriend smoke?”
“She didn’t mention it, but Evelyn Steinkruger said Mary came back to work once smelling of cigarettes.”
“Even if we find a butt, chances are there won’t be any DNA. Even if there was, it isn’t against the law to smoke out here. Won’t do us any good in terms of the case.”
“Unless the DNA matches the DNA found inside her body.”
“Good point.” He rolls up his shirtsleeves. “Let’s see if they left us anything to work with.”
We begin in the gravel parking area. I walk the perimeter where flying insects swarm in hip-high weeds. It’s late in the season so everything is yellow and dry and coated with a thin layer of gravel dust. Tomasetti walks the dirt track that leads back to the main road, checking the bigger trees along the way. I use one of the tissues to pick up a candy wrapper and place it in the Wal-Mart bag. All the while my brain chants the word futile.
It takes us fifteen minutes to scour the area. I’ve netted a handful of candy and gum wrappers, a plastic water bottle and a crushed Skoal can. Wiping a drop of sweat from my temple, I look around, trying to put myself in Mary’s head. Ten feet away, Tomasetti looks the way I feel: hot and discouraged.
>
“She was breaking the rules by being here,” I say. “She would have wanted privacy.”
“He probably wouldn’t want to be seen with her.” He walks over to me. “Let’s check the woods.”
We head down the dirt path cut into the woods. The trees offer shade, but the mosquitoes have decided we’re fair game. No one officially maintains the path; it stays open due to the amount of foot traffic. Once or twice a year, one of the local farmers cuts down any overgrown saplings or bushes with his tractor and Bush Hog.
As we trudge into the woods, I try to put myself in Mary’s shoes. She was young, Amish and involved in an illicit love affair. Where did they walk? What did they touch? Did they leave anything behind?
“They drank a bottle of wine,” I say after a few minutes. “He brought her lunch once. They watched the stars.”
“Something concrete would be nice,” Tomasetti grumbles.
“Initials would be a great start.”
“A lot of damn trees.”
“A lot of damn bugs.”
Midway to the pond, I find a lone sock and toss it into my bag. Ahead of me, I hear Tomasetti slapping at mosquitoes and I smile. We don’t speak as we work. The only sounds come from the chatter of sparrows, the high-pitched whoit-whoit-whoit of a cardinal and the occasional call of a bobwhite quail. We don’t pass anyone, and I realize Miller’s Pond is quiet this time of day, this time of year. The kids are in school. Most adults are working. Come four o’clock, the elementary age kids will invade the place like a swarm of ants. The high school kids will park their muscle cars in the gravel lot and spend the afternoon smoking cigarettes, stealing kisses and flirting. Later, Dad might walk down to toss in a line and hope for a bass. Where would have Mary and her illicit lover gone?
It takes us twenty minutes to cover the half-mile trail. I check every tree along the way, but the initials M.P. are nowhere to be found. The woods open to the dam. I netted a total of six items, none of which is promising. My brain keeps telling me to stop wasting time and get back to the station where we can work an angle that might actually pan out.
I’m sweating profusely as I take the steep bank to the pond. The body of water covers about two acres. A big cottonwood tree and two huge rocks mark the north end. A derelict dock sags on the south side. On the west side, the water is shallow and green with moss. Two long-dead stumps twenty feet from the water’s edge act as lace-up benches in the wintertime. Beyond, the cornfield rattles in the breeze.
“You ever skinny-dip here as a kid, Chief?”
I glance over to see Tomasetti come up the dam. His face is damp with sweat. A mosquito bite stands out on his jaw. But he looks good when he’s mussed. Details I shouldn’t be noticing.
“Never skinny-dipped. Did plenty of ice-skating, though.”
“Hot enough to swim today.”
“Water will be cold. We had frost the other night.” I smile. “Are you asking me to skinny-dip with you?”
He grins back. “Water looks kinda mossy.”
“City slicker.”
“We could forget about the water and get naked in that cornfield over there.”
I laugh.
He smiles, but I can tell by the way he’s looking at me he’s not kidding. One nod from me, and he’d be all over me. The realization conjures a weird flutter in my chest.
He looks at the bag I tied to my belt loop. “Find anything?”
“Not really.”
He holds up his Wal-Mart bag. “I found a SpongeBob Lego and a chewed-up dime.”
Disappointment presses into me as we start back down the dam. The incline is steep and both Tomasetti and I skid part of the way. We enter the woods, and the mosquitoes descend on us like hyenas on prey. I’m going to need a shower by the time we get back. Of course, there won’t be time for it.
We walk in silence. I’m only keeping half an eye on the path now, glancing occasionally at the larger trees we pass. I’m anxious to get back to the station. I want to run through the vehicle registrations a second time. I need to talk to Barbereaux’s girlfriend to verify his alibi. I want a DNA sample from James Payne. Rob Lane, too.
I pick up the pace. The path curves and then straightens. The parking area comes into view twenty yards ahead. I see the hood of the Tahoe and dented steel of the guardrail. The telephone poles that run along the road. The trees open up and we step into bright sunlight. Heat slams down on me like a hot cast-iron skillet. I feel wilted and dirty as I head toward the Tahoe. I’m stepping over the guardrail when I notice the bottle propped against the shady side of a post.
I bend, pick it up using one of the tissues. The lower half of the bottle is basket covered. The label is crinkled, peeling and stained, nearly indecipherable. My brain pings when I see the word Chianti.
“I think I found something,” I hear myself say.
Tomasetti comes up behind me, looks at the bottle. “If you’re thirsty, I’m more than happy to take you to McNarie’s.”
“Mary and her lover drank a bottle of wine right here at Miller’s Pond a few weeks ago. She mentioned it in her diary. I’ll have to check, but I think she mentioned the wine was from Italy and said something about the bottle.”
He looks skeptical. “Kind of a long shot.”
“There’s only one place in town that carries this kind of Chianti,” I tell him. “Hire’s Carry-Out, a little place out on Highway 83. I’ve got a date, in the diary. If they can identify the buyer, we might get a name.”
“Worth a shot.” But he doesn’t look too excited. Maybe because it’s not a crime to drink cheap Chianti here or anywhere else.
Still, it’s worth a try. I drop the bottle into the bag, and we start toward the Tahoe. Without realizing it, we’ve picked up the pace. Two bloodhounds that have caught a scent, however faint.
Neither of us speaks again until we climb into the Tahoe. Tomasetti starts the engine, throws the vehicle into reverse. “So how do we get to Hire’s from here?”
I call T.J. from the road and ask him to get Mary Plank’s journal off my desk and skim through it for an entry that mentions wine. After several minutes, he finds it.
He reads, “ ‘September 22. He came to my window! I shouldn’t be, but I was so happy to see him. I sneaked out and we bought some wine. Then he took me to Miller’s Pond. We watched the stars and he gave me my first wine lesson. The bottle was in a cute little wicker thingie and came all the way from Italy! He’s so sophisticated. Later, we made love. I told him I want to marry him. I want to tell Mamm and Datt about us. He got a little angry and told me they wouldn’t understand. But I need their blessing, even if I am to leave the church. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do!’
“Jeez.” T.J. sighs. “Poor kid.”
I tell him about the bottle. “Tomasetti and I are going to swing by Hire’s Carry-Out.”
“Anything I can do on my end, Chief?”
“Let’s just hope they keep decent records.”
CHAPTER 19
Hire’s Carry-Out is located near the intersection of Highway 83 and Township Highway 62. The store carries staples like milk, bread, soda and cold cuts. But the brunt of their business is derived from the drive-through where they sell cold beer, wine and cigarettes. When the nearby speedway holds a race, the drive-through line has been known to back up traffic for a quarter mile.
I busted Art Hire a couple of years ago for selling a six pack of Little King’s Cream Ale to a fifteen-year-old girl. He claimed she looked like an adult. Since he’s old enough to know a size-C bra cup doesn’t necessarily signify the legal drinking age, I threw the book at him. As I pull into the parking lot, I know it’s probably optimistic to hope he doesn’t hold a grudge.
The bell on the door jingles when we enter. The first thing I notice about the place is the smell. Old wood and dust with an underlying hint of freezer-burned meat. We make our way past shelves filled with bread and packaged pies. Art Hire sits behind a counter next to the drive-through window cash register.
Above him, a baseball game blares from a small television mounted on the wall. He’s smoking a brown cigarette that looks inordinately thin in relation to his bratwurst-size fingers.
He’s a heavyset man with small, piggish eyes and full, feminine lips. He looks up from a copy of Muscle Car magazine as I make my way toward the counter and gives me a what-did-I-do-now look. Something tells me he hasn’t forgotten about the selling-beer-to-a-minor incident.
“Mr. Hire, if you have a few minutes I’d like to ask you some questions,” I begin.
His teeth are the color of ripe corn. “You’d think with seven murders on your hands, the police in this town would have better things to do than hassle law-abiding citizens.”
Ignoring the jab, I pull the bottle from the bag and set it on the counter. “Is this from your store?”
He squints at the bottle. “How would I know?”
“Because you’re the only place in town that sells this kind of Chianti.”
Looking put out, he pulls a pair of readers from his shirt pocket, slides them onto his nose and leans forward to squint at the label. “Runs about five ninety-nine a bottle. Don’t sell a whole lot. Most of our customers prefer plain old Bud.”
“I need the customer’s name.”
“The only way we’ll have that is if they paid with a check or credit card. If he paid with cash, you’re shit out of luck.”
“Can you pull the records?” I ask. “I believe I have the date it was purchased.”
“Maybe.” He lifts a beefy shoulder, lets it drop. “How far back?”
“September twenty-second.”
His expression turns smug. “We only keep records for a month.”
“What about security cameras?” Tomasetti asks.
“Can’t afford cameras.” He sneers at me. “Not with the cops in this town breaking my balls. That fine cost me five hundred bucks.”