After the Storm

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  He leaves his place at the door. Instead of sitting beside me, he reaches down and takes my hand, pulls me to my feet. Hot tears sting my eyes when his arms go around me.

  “I screwed up,” I whisper.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Tomasetti, I’m scared.”

  He kisses my temple, runs his hand down the back of my head. “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “We’ll figure it out.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Every couple of weeks I hold a roll-call type meeting with my officers. The department is small—only four full-time officers, including myself—and most days only one of us is on duty at any given time. Roland “Pickles” Shumaker is my auxiliary officer. He’s a decade or so past retirement age and usually puts in about ten hours a week, most often working the school crosswalk. I communicate with my officers via e-mail as well as cell and radio, and we keep each other up-to-date on the goings-on in Painters Mill and Holmes County. But as chief, I feel face time is vital, especially for a small department whose members don’t always see each other, for everyone to sit down and talk and maybe even do a little cutting up.

  Tomasetti and I didn’t get much settled last night. We didn’t make any decisions or discuss the future or what this means in terms of our relationship. Still, I’m feeling more at ease this morning, and I realize the simple act of telling him the truth lifted a weight from my shoulders. I no longer have to deal with it alone.

  I’m standing at the podium in our ragtag meeting room. Most of the reports I’ve heard this morning are about tornado damage and cleanup. We had a couple of instances of after-hours looting, mostly to businesses that sustained damage, and a couple of reports of fraudsters posing as home-repair companies trying to bilk the people whose homes were damaged by the storm.

  I end the meeting with an update on the investigation into the remains found at the barn.

  “Holy shit,” Skid mutters. “Death by hogs.”

  “That’s something out of a horror novel,” T.J. adds.

  The statement is followed by enthusiastic nodding of heads.

  “Are we looking at foul play?” Glock asks.

  “Even if the actual death was an accident—a fall into the pen, for example—an unknown individual may have made an effort to hide the body.” I look at Skid. “Nolt worked for a while at that big hog operation down in Coshocton County.”

  “There you go,” Glock says.

  “Hewitt Hog Producers,” Pickles puts in.

  I nod at them and return my attention to Skid. “I want you to get me the name and contact info of everyone who worked there in the two-month period leading up to Nolt’s disappearance. Check for criminal records and warrants, too.”

  “You got it.”

  “So if Nolt somehow ended up in the pen with those hogs,” Glock says, “how did his body end up buried beneath that old barn?”

  “That’s a twenty-minute drive,” Skid adds.

  “Maybe Nolt had some kind of disagreement with one of his coworkers,” T.J. says. “Maybe there was an argument or a fight and Nolt ended up in the pen. The coworker panicked. Dumped his body in the crawl space of the barn.”

  “If it was an accident, why not call the cops?” Pickles asks.

  Skid grins at the old man. “Not everyone’s as smart as you, Pickles.”

  “Maybe he had a warrant,” Glock offers.

  “Maybe the hog operation was breaking some law,” T.J. says. “Pollution or some EPA regulation.”

  “We need to look at all of that.” I glance down at my notes. “Almost every witness I’ve spoken with about Leroy Nolt thought he was seeing a woman. Interestingly, he didn’t tell anyone her name or reveal her identity. Not to his family. Or his best friend. Or coworkers.”

  Pickles shrugs thin shoulders. “First thing that comes to mind is that she was married.”

  “Nolt’s sister, Rachel Zimmerman, saw him with an Amish girl a couple of weeks before he went missing,” I tell them. “Unfortunately, she can’t identify the girl. We need to ID her.” I pick up a photo of the ring Dr. Stevitch sent and hand it to Pickles. “The FA found this ring at the site. It looks like a woman’s engagement ring. We think the deceased had it on his person at the time of his death.”

  Pickles tilts his head back and looks at the photo through his bifocals. “You know, there used to be a little jewelry store here in Painters Mill. Can’t recall the name, but they used to sell cheap jewelry. Closed years ago.”

  My interest quickens. “How long ago?”

  “Gosh, Chief, that place probably closed fifteen or twenty years ago. Only reason I remember is I bought Clarice a charm bracelet there once when she got pissed off at me.” He slaps the photo against his palm. “Daisy’s. That was the name.”

  “See if you can run down the owner,” I tell him. “Show that photo and find out if they sold that ring. We need the name of the customer.”

  Pickles’s chest puffs out a little. “I’m on it.”

  “Chief, do you think this mystery woman was involved in his death?” T.J. asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him. “It’s something we need to look at.”

  “Can’t see a female moving a body,” Skid says.

  “Or body parts,” Glock interjects.

  “The whole hog thing doesn’t sound like the kind of crime a woman would commit,” Pickles adds.

  “The Nolt family is Mennonite, aren’t they?” Glock asks.

  I nod. “If the girl was Amish, maybe he felt he couldn’t tell anyone because her parents didn’t approve.”

  “Or his parents.” From her place at the door, Mona adds, “Could be a source of conflict between the families.”

  A thought pings at the base of my brain. Something I’ve seen or heard recently. Something to do with the Amish. I reach for the thought, but it slips away and then it’s gone. “T.J., I want you to talk to the people who live near the barn on Gellerman. See if any of them were living there thirty years ago. Maybe someone remembers seeing something.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  I tell them about my conversation with the surgeon who repaired Nolt’s broken arm. “Hopefully, the serial numbers will be a match and we’ll have a positive ID.” I gather my notes, tuck them into the folder, and look out at my team. “Thanks for coming in, everyone.” I glance over my shoulder at Mona. “Thanks for staying late to be here.”

  She grins and gives me a funky salute.

  Folder in hand, I leave the meeting room and start toward my office. I stop at the coffee station, distracted, trying to recover the thought that left me, when I hear someone come through the front door. I glance over to see a short man with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard approach the dispatch station. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a slightly tattered fedora. He’s familiar; I’ve seen him around town, but I have no idea who he is.

  Lois stands and addresses him. “Can I help you?”

  “Chief Burkholder?” he asks.

  Her eyes slide toward me. She’s wondering if I’m available. I set down the cup I’ve just filled and approach him. “I’m Chief Burkholder,” I say. “What can I do for you?”

  He shoves a large white envelope at me. The instant my hands close around it, he grins. “You’ve been served. Have a nice day.”

  I look down at the envelope. It’s addressed to me with the return address of a law firm. Even before opening it, I know what it is. The parents of Lucy Kester have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against me and, possibly, the police department and the township of Painters Mill.

  Around me, the reception area has gone silent. Vaguely I’m aware of Lois speaking to a caller. Mona is standing between dispatch and the coffee station, where she’d been texting, but now she’s looking at me. Skid and T.J. and Pickles are standing outside their cubicle area, where they’d been talking. Even they have gone silent, all eyes on me.

  Glock, who’d been at
the coffee station, comes up beside me. “Everything okay, Chief?”

  “Probably not,” I mutter.

  “I heard about Kester.” He takes a sip of coffee as if all of this is routine. We both know it isn’t. “You’re aware that Ohio has a Good Samaritan law, right?”

  He’s the second person to remind me of that. While I appreciate the sentiment, I know that even with such a law in place, a lawsuit of this nature could cause problems. And it could be expensive, not only for the township but me personally.

  I raise the envelope and smack my hand against it. “I need to take a look.”

  “Damn ambulance chasers,” Pickles mutters.

  Skid motions toward the door where the courier just left. “I knew I should have given that squirrely little son of a bitch a ticket the other day instead of a warning.”

  Leave it to my team to make me smile when I’m facing a situation that’s not the least bit funny. I appreciate it nonetheless. “I don’t think that would help in this situation.”

  “Yeah, but it would have made all of us feel better,” Glock says.

  * * *

  I’m no lawyer, but it doesn’t take a law degree to know the lawsuit is going to become a serious issue. Not only is Kester suing the township of Painters Mill and the police department, but me personally. Despite Ohio’s Good Samaritan law, I’ll have no choice but to participate in the proceedings. I’ll be forced to pay for a lawyer and invest the time and energy into defending my actions the day Lucy Kester died. Though I’ll probably be cleared of any wrongdoing, there’s always a chance that I won’t, an outcome that would affect me not only on a personal level but could jeopardize my position as chief.

  I skim the details of the lawsuit: On or about the afternoon of June 3, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder, who was off duty at the time, entered the badly damaged premises of Paula and Nick Kester at 345 Westmoreland in Painters Mill, Ohio. Burkholder, who is a certified emergency medical technician, proceeded to assess the seriously wounded infant, four-month-old Lucy Ann Kester, and, against EMT training protocol, moved the child without the aid of a neck brace or backboard. As a direct result of Burkholder’s decision to move the infant patient, Lucy Ann Kester expired four hours later at Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg. According to the Holmes County Coroner’s autopsy report, the infant child, Lucy Ann Kester, had suffered from a fracture of the vertebra prominens. It is asserted that had the deceased infant been moved with the assistance of a backboard or neck brace, she would have likely survived the ordeal.…

  The lawsuit goes on for several more pages, but I don’t read them. For the hundredth time I’m reminded that while Ohio’s Good Samaritan law may protect me legally, it doesn’t protect me from my own conscience.

  I want to talk to Tomasetti and run all of this by him. It scares me how much I need him at this moment. It scares me because if the time ever comes when we’re not together, I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I’ve come to rely on him a little too much. That scares me, too.

  I dial Mayor Auggie Brock’s office number from memory. He picks up on the first ring sounding perturbed, and I know even before asking that he’s been served, too. I ask anyway. “Did you get served?”

  “I did,” he says. “You?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “The loss of a young life aside, Kate, this is not good PR for Painters Mill or the PD. We’re a tourist town, for God’s sake.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “No.” The thought sends a quiver of uneasiness through my gut. “Do we have someone on retainer?”

  “Seitz and Seitz.”

  Hoover Seitz is a brilliant attorney, but it’s common knowledge around town that he enjoys his happy-hour martinis a little too much.

  Auggie sighs, already moving on to his next immediate problem. “We don’t have the budget for a damn lawsuit.”

  I want to believe he’s just venting his frustration, but in some small corner of my mind I know there’s a possibility he won’t back me on this. He’ll be forced to pay for the legal defense for my department, but not me personally. It could wipe me out financially.

  “Auggie,” I say firmly, “I expect your support on this.”

  “Of course I’ll support you, Kate. I’ll do everything I can, but if the money isn’t there, it isn’t there.”

  I curb a rise of anger, even though I know there are already too many emotions tangled up in this mess.

  “If you get any media inquiries, send them to my office,” he tells me.

  “All right.”

  “And for God’s sake, call Hoover before happy hour starts.”

  * * *

  After a brief conversation with Hoover Seitz, I’m feeling marginally better about the lawsuit. He assures me that the legal counsel for the Kester family—a firm out of Columbus known for taking cases like this one pro bono—is on a fishing expedition and using the bereaved parents’ grief to earn a little blood money. Chances are they’ll settle out of court, the cost of which will be covered by the township’s liability insurance. Everyone gets a little money. Happy ending for everyone. Except, of course, Lucy Kester.

  I spend an hour poring over every piece of paper and report I’ve amassed so far in my ever-growing John-Doe-aka-Leroy-Nolt file. I still don’t have cause or manner of death, but when I look at all of the information as a whole, I believe it indicates he met with a violent end. The presence of a garbage bag where the bones were found tells me someone moved and/or tried to conceal the body. If Nolt’s death was due to some innocuous farming accident, anyone with the common sense of a toad would have called the police—unless they directly or indirectly caused his death. But who would have a reason to murder a twenty-year-old Mennonite man?

  Two possible motives come to mind, the first being drugs. Thirty years ago, methamphetamine was a rising star among dope dealers. Cocaine, marijuana, and an array of bootlegged pharmaceuticals were big business, too, even in rural areas like Painters Mill. If Nolt liked to “live his life on the fast road,” as his parents had asserted, and he was anxious to make money, a drug deal gone bad is a reasonable scenario.

  But the drug angle doesn’t sit quite right. When parents tell me their child isn’t “into” drugs, I invariably take that information with a grain of salt, because the parents are always the last to know, usually right after the local police department. In this case, however, I believed Sue and Vern Nolt. And I believed Clarence Underwood—despite his being an ex-con with a history of drug use himself—when he told me Nolt never used or sold drugs.

  The second scenario lies with the as-yet unidentified woman Leroy had purportedly been involved with. The Amish woman Rachel Zimmerman saw him with. Was she underage? A minor? Was she married? Is that why they kept their relationship secret? Either scenario fits. Infidelity is a common motive for murder and has driven many a man to violence. Is that what happened in this case? Who was the woman? Does she know what happened to Nolt? And what became of her? Is she still living in the area?

  I blow an hour looking through missing person reports for Amish and Mennonite females between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five who disappeared about the same time as Nolt, but I strike out. It isn’t until I’m rereading the notes from my meeting with Leroy Nolt’s parents that I’m finally able to put my finger on the thought that’s been hovering just out of reach. The Amish quilt hanging on the wall at the home of Sue and Vern Nolt. According to Sue Nolt, her son gave it to her for her birthday shortly before he disappeared. Where did he get it? Amish quilts are extremely labor intensive—and they’re not cheap, some costing upward of a thousand dollars. How is it that a twenty-year-old man, who’s working at the local farm store and trying to save money, was able to afford an Amish quilt for his mother?

  Energized by the thought of fresh information, I snatch up my phone and call the Nolts. Sue picks up on the third ring. “Oh, hello, Chief Burkholder.”

  “I’m sorry to bother yo
u again,” I begin, “but I was going over my notes from our earlier conversation and realized I forgot to ask you about the quilt.”

  “Quilt? You mean the one Leroy gave me for my birthday?”

  “Do you know where he got it?”

  “I don’t know. Always assumed it was from one of the shops in town.”

  “Would you mind taking a look at it for me? Sometimes the quilter will stitch her initials somewhere on the quilt.”

  “I’ve never looked, but I’m happy to check if you’d like. Hang on a sec.”

  I hear her set down the phone. Distant voices on the other end. I wait, tapping my pen against the folder. Two full minutes pass before she comes back on the line.

  “Well,” she begins, “I wasn’t tall enough to reach the top two corners, so I had Vern take it down and, sure enough, the quilter embroidered her initials in the corner.”

  “What are the initials, Mrs. Nolt?”

  “A.K.,” she tells me. “They’re embroidered right into the fabric in brown thread.” She sighs. “Whoever it is, she does fine work.”

  I thank her for checking, end the call, and write the initials on a fresh sheet of paper. A.K. I search my memory for the names that have been mentioned in relation to this case, but I come up blank. I page through my notes and reports, looking for a name to match the initials, but there’s nothing there. Is A.K. the girl Leroy Nolt had been seeing at the time of his death? Was she a quilter? Or is A.K. the mother or a relative of the girl? Or am I wrong about all of this and in the weeks leading up to his death, Leroy shelled out a thousand dollars to buy his mother a quilt for her birthday? The itch at the back of my brain tells me no.

  I pull out the list of hog raisers my dispatchers assembled, and I scan it for Amish and Mennonite names beginning with the letter “K.” But none of the Amish last names begin with that letter. Either there are none or, more than likely, the Amish didn’t report in with their information.

  Frustrated, I toss the list onto my desktop and sigh. That’s when I realize there’s one more resource I can utilize to find the name of the quilt maker, even an old quilt—and it’s within walking distance of the police station.