I address him first. “You up to speed on this?”
“Skid filled me in.” He whistles. “Unbelievable.”
I speak to all of them now. “On the chance the killer is an outsider, someone passing through town, I contacted the State Highway Patrol.”
“You think that’s the case?” Glock asks. “Or do you think he’s local?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh, frustrated by the lack of leads. “We have to assume he’s local for now.”
Four heads bob nearly in unison.
I turn my attention to Glock. “CSU find anything?”
Glock scoots his chair closer. “Tomasetti sent two technicians. They were still working the scene when I left. Found a slew of latents. Some could be from the family. Blood evidence was done. Got a partial off the bloody print on the door.” He looks down at his notes. “They found two slugs so far, including the one in the basement that went through the floor. Looks like the fucker who did it picked up his brass.”
“Of course he did,” I say dryly. “They able to get footwear impressions?”
“They were working on that. Tech thinks they’ll get some decent impressions.”
“Any latents on the instruments found in the barn?” I ask.
“Smears.” Glock frowns. “No prints.”
“That sucks,” Skid says.
“Hair?” I ask, hopeful. “Fibers?”
“Both. They vacuumed the house and the tack room in the barn. Bagged everything and sent it via courier. Won’t know anything until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Keep on the footwear thing. If we can figure out what kind of shoe and match it to someone in town . . .”
“You bet.”
“Have the bodies been transported?” I ask.
“Paramedics were loading up when I left the scene. Doc Coblentz borrowed a resident from Cuyahoga County to assist with the autopsies. They’re going to work through the night.”
“That will speed things up.” In the back of my mind, I wonder if Tomasetti will drive down. I wonder if I should have filed an official petition for assistance. “Were the techs able to give you a caliber from the slugs?”
“Not definitively,” Glock says. “But it was a small caliber. Probably a twenty-two. Could be a thirty-two or nine millimeter. They’re sending the Beretta to the lab for testing.”
I address Glock. “They get a serial number?”
“Filed off,” he says.
“That’s interesting,” says Skid.
“Yeah.” I scan the faces of my team. “What else do we have in terms of evidence?”
“The instruments in the barn,” T.J. begins.
“The speaker wire,” Skid adds.
“Until the lab gets back to us,” I tell Skid, “why don’t you call around, see who sells speaker wire here in town?”
He nods.
“Anyone find any money?” I ask. “Valuables? Was anything grossly out of place or broken?”
The men shake their heads. “Aside from the bodies, there didn’t seem to be a damn thing outta place,” Pickles says. “Nothing looked as if it had been tossed.”
I tell them about my conversation with Bishop Troyer. “Bonnie was evidently concerned about her daughter, but no one knows why.”
“Might be a good idea to talk to her friends,” Glock says.
“Can you follow up on that?” Get me a list? I ask. “I’m going to talk to the owner of the shop where she worked.” I look at my team. “We need a motive.”
“Murder for the sake of murder,” Glock says. “It looks like whoever did it went in there to kill.”
“And torture,” Pickles adds. “Seems like that was a big part of it.”
I nod. “I agree.”
“What about robbery?” Skid looks around the room. “Maybe the murders were an afterthought. They went in for money or valuables, saw those two girls . . .” He shrugs. “Acted out some kind of twisted fantasy.”
It’s a stretch, but I’ve had too much experience with the utter senselessness of murder to dismiss it out of hand.
T.J. speaks up for the first time. “Do the Amish use banks?”
“Some do. Some don’t.” The perfect assignment for him comes to me. “See if the Planks had an account at Painters Mill Credit Union or First Third Bank and Trust. If the bean counters balk, get a warrant from Judge Seibenthaler.”
“Will do.”
I look at Pickles; I’m thinking about drugs now, a silent scourge that affects many small towns, no matter how postcard perfect the façade. Back in the 1980s, he worked undercover and singlehandedly busted one of the biggest meth labs in the state. Despite his age, he’s always ready for action, the more the merrier, and if he gets to pull his sidearm, it’s an bonus. “You still on top of our friendly neighborhood meth guys?”
“Some.” Leaning back in his chair, he unwraps a toothpick and sticks it between his lips. “You think this is drug related?”
“Something ugly like this happens, and drugs come to mind.” All eyes swing to me. “It’s a desperate, money-driven business.”
“Amish might be easy pickin’s.” Pickles chews on the toothpick. “Being pacifists and all.”
He’s right; generally speaking, the Amish renounce any kind of violence. “If some crackhead found out the Planks kept money at the house, they might think they could make off with some easy cash.”
Glock pipes up. “How would anyone know the Planks kept cash on hand?”
All eyes turn to me, and I know they’re wondering how the social crevasse that exists between the Amish and English might have been traversed. “Maybe one of the Planks mentioned keeping cash at the house while they were in town. Maybe the wrong person overheard and decided to rob them.”
Skid looks doubtful. “You mean like ‘My grandma keeps ten thousand dollars cash in her broom closet’?”
I shrug, knowing it’s a stretch. But you never know when a stretch might become the real deal.
“Maybe it started out as a burglary,” Glock says.
“Only the family was home and all of a sudden it’s a robbery,” T.J. adds. “Maybe they didn’t want witnesses.”
“That doesn’t explain the torture aspect.” I look from man to man. “If our perp went in for money or valuables, that level of violence just doesn’t fit.”
Glock weighs in with, “Or maybe the perp figured on robbery and didn’t give a damn who got hurt. They do a home invasion, decide not to leave any witnesses. Maybe this killer is some kind of psychopath, high on God only knows what, and it turned into a fuckin’ melee.”
Pickles pulls the toothpick out of his mouth and uses it to make his point. “If the killer went into that house at night, surely he knew the family was home.”
The direction our collective minds have gone makes me think of hate. Hatred of the Amish is unfathomable to most, but I know it is a cancer that is all too active. I wonder if hate could be part of this. Or all of it. “What about a hate crime?” I venture.
“Definite possibility,” Glock says.
I meet his gaze. “Check into hate crimes against the Amish in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana in the last two years. I want names and addresses. That gets into federal territory, so the feds will have records.”
“I’m on it.”
I turn my attention to Pickles. “Who are the biggest dealers in the area?”
Pickles knows the answer off the top of his head. “Jack Hawley got popped two years ago with a key of coke. Did eighteen months at Terre Haute. Word is he’s hanging with his old friends.”
“These guys never learn,” Glock mutters.
I jot the name on my pad. “Who else?”
“We know that goddamn Harry Oakes is selling meth. Got a network the size of New fuckin’ York. But he’s one paranoid son of a bitch. I can’t see him doing this kind of thing.”
“Who else?”
“The Krause brothers.” Pickles gives a nod. “They’re cooking shit out at their old man’s farm. H
ouse is derelict, so they moved a trailer home out there. Lights are burning in those barns half the damn night.”
“Where’s the old man?”
“Sent him to an old folks home down in Millersburg.”
“Huh.” I think about that a moment, tap my pad with my thumb. “These names are a starting point. Let’s go knock on some doors. Feel them out.”
Glock sits up in his chair. “You want me to go with you?”
I shake my head. “I’ll take Pickles.”
The former Marine looks alarmed. “Those Krause boys’ve got guns out there, Chief.”
I don’t have anything against guns in general. I have faith in our constitution, and I believe a law-abiding citizen has the right to keep and bear arms. If I hadn’t had access to a weapon seventeen years ago, I wouldn’t be here today. Still, as a cop, I know that in the wrong hands a gun can become an instrument of death in a split second. “We’re just going to rattle some cages,” I say. “See what runs out.”
“Chief, with all due respect . . .”
Pickles bristles at Glock’s concern. “We can handle it.”
I cut in before the situation escalates. “Pickles and I will take care.”
He nods, but doesn’t look happy about us going out alone.
I look at T.J. “I want you to canvass the area around the Plank farm.” Gaining useful information via canvassing is a long shot since many of the Amish farms in the area are more than a mile apart. Many will not speak openly to the English police. But with nothing to go on and the clock ticking, it’s worth the time and effort. “Ask about the family. Friends. Relatives. And see if anyone saw any strange vehicles or buggies in the area. Find out which homeowners keep firearms and what kind. Make a list.”
“You got it.”
Skid gives me a puzzled look. “What about me?”
“If I were you, I’d go home and get some sleep,” I tell him. “We’ve got a long stretch ahead and it might be a while before you get another chance.”
CHAPTER 8
Pickles and I hit the Krause place first. The farm sits on a dirt road four miles north of town. A decade earlier, Dirk Krause farmed soybeans, corn and tobacco. But as he got up in years and his capacity for physical labor dwindled, the farm fell to ruin. Instead of taking over the operation, his twin sons, Derek and Drew, let the fields go to shit. They sold the International Harvester tractor—for drug money more than likely—and leased the land to a neighbor. Talk around town is that the two sons, in their twenties now, work just enough to eke by. The brunt of their income is derived from selling crystal meth.
“You really think these losers had something to do with murdering that family?” Pickles asks as I turn the Explorer into the long gravel lane and start toward the house.
“Since we don’t have squat as far as suspects, I thought talking to them might be a good starting point.”
I park behind a rusty manure spreader surrounded by waist-high yellow grass. To my left, an ancient barn with weathered wood siding and a hail-damaged tin roof leans at a precarious angle. To my right, the house squats on a crumbling foundation like an old man in the throes of a cancerous death. Every window on the north side is broken. The back porch door dangles by a single hinge.
“Good to see they’re keeping up the place.” I slide out of the Explorer. The buzz of cicadas is deafening in the silence of the old farm.
“Place used to be nice,” Pickles grumbles as he gets out. “Looks like a goddamn junkyard now.”
“Except for that.” I point.
In stark contrast, a brand new fourteen-by-sixty trailer home with a satellite dish and living room extension perches on an old concrete foundation. A bright red barbecue grill lies on its side outside the front door, ashes and chunks of charcoal spilling onto the grass. A few feet away, four metal chairs and a brand-new cooler form a semicircle. A white Ford F-150 gleams beneath the carport. I think of a pistol in the hands of a paranoid meth freak and find myself hoping neither man is crazy enough to shoot at a cop.
“Looks like someone’s home,” Pickles says.
“Let’s do some rattling.” I start for the trailer.
I’ve had a couple of run-ins with the Krause brothers in the three years I’ve been chief. I arrested Derek twice, once on a drunk and disorderly charge after a fight broke out at the Brass Rail Saloon. He got off with a fine and probation. The second time, however, he did time for assaulting a nineteen-year-old woman, beating her so severely she had to be hospitalized. I witnessed some of the assault and happily testified against him. I’ve kept my doors locked and my sidearm handy since he was released last spring.
I’ve never arrested Drew, but I know him by reputation. I pulled his sheet before leaving the station. He did time at Mansfield for possession of meth with intent to sell. No arrests since, but as far as I know he’s just been lucky. I’m pretty sure both men are in the drug business up to their hairy armpits.
The curtains at the window move as I climb the steel stairs. Standing to one side—in case whoever’s inside thinks I’m a space alien and decides to shoot me through the door—I knock on the storm door. My right hand rests on the .38 in my holster. I’m aware of Pickles behind me, his breathing slightly elevated. I can feel the adrenaline coming off both of us.
The door swings open, and I find myself looking at a chest the size of an SUV, DD cups and enough hair to make a fucking coat. I have to look up to meet his gaze.
“Derek Krause?” I recognize him, but I ask anyway.
“Who wants to know?”
His eyes are frighteningly bloodshot. His breath smells like week-old road-kill. The body odor that wafts up from beneath his armpits is strong enough to make my eyes water. “The police.” I show him my badge.
“Oh, it’s you.” He looks past me at Pickles and smirks. “What’d you do? Raid the fuckin’ old folks home?”
Pickles offers a harsh laugh. I don’t take my eyes off of Krause. “I need to ask you some questions.”
He looks down at me as if considering ramming his fist through my skull.
“Step outside,” I say.
“You got some kind of warrant?”
“We just want to ask—”
“Then I ain’t steppin’ nowhere.”
My teeth grind. Behind me, Pickles swears. I raise my hand slightly to silence him. “We just want to talk to you.”
Derek tries to close the door. I ram my boot into the space. “Get out here and talk to us, or I’m going to come back with a warrant and tear this place apart.”
“I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Nobody said you did.”
He shoves open the door. I step back just in time to avoid getting hit in the face with it. “Down there.” I point to the base of the trailer steps.
Sighing, he shoves past me. I glance at Pickles. He points covertly at his gun and raises his brows. You want me to shoot him? That makes me smile.
“What do you guys want with me?” Krause asks, shuffling down the steps.
I follow, hoping he’s not in the mood to fight because he’s huge. Two-fifty. Six-four. The last kind of guy I want to get into a scuffle with. “Where were you last night?” I begin.
“Here.”
“Can anyone collaborate that?”
“My dog.”
“Someone who can talk?” Pickles spits out his toothpick.
Derek sneers at him. “No.”
I motion toward his vehicle. “Nice truck. Yours?”
He turns his attention to me. “It gets me around.”
“Where do you work?”
“Farnhall.”
Farnhall is a manufacturing firm in Millersburg that makes oil filters. “What do you do there?”
“I work on the line.” Another sigh that reminds me of a bored teenager. “What’s this all about?”
“Do you know the Plank family?”
“Never heard of no Planks.”
“Where was your brother last night?”
“Dunno.”
Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Derek, come on. Work with me.”
“Look, I ain’t his fuckin’ keeper, all right?”
“Was he home?”
“Yeah, he was here.”
“What time?”
He lifts a big shoulder, lets it drop. “Eight. Nine o’clock.”
“Which was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Pickles mutters a word that sounds like dipshit.
Krause looks over the top of my head at Pickles and snarls. “At least I’m not half senile like you, old man.”
“That’s enough,” I snap. “Why aren’t you at work today?”
“I’m sick, man. Got a stomachache.”
“You don’t look sick.”
His massive shoulders lift, then drop. “Well, I am. Had the squirts all morning.”
I raise my hands to shut him up. “Where’s your brother now?”
Derek looks away. “Dunno.”
“He’s on probation, isn’t he?” I know he is, but I pose the question, anyway.
His gaze goes wary. “I guess.”
“Look, I can make this easy. Or we can do it hard. It’s going to be a lot better for both of you if you cooperate. Now where is he?”
“He’s at the bar, man. He’s not s’posed to be, so cut him some slack, will you?”
“If he didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t have a beef with him.”
“You cops always got a beef with us.” Shaking his head, he puts his hands on his hips. “Can I go now?”
“Don’t leave town.”
“Fuckin’ cops.” Turning away, he slogs up the steps and disappears into the trailer.
I look at Pickles. “Nice young man.”
Pickles grins. “You think he’s scary, you should see his mama.”
“Big lady, huh?”
“No, just hairier.”
There is an underground society that runs beneath the Norman Rockwell–façade of most small towns, and Painters Mill is no exception. While regular folks are working at their jobs, paying their bills and raising their families, others are selling drugs, getting high and generally leading lives of crime.