Pray for Silence (6 page)

I can tell by everyone’s expression that’s where they want to be, on the street, hunting the killer. But we all know the investigation starts here, with the evidence. “I briefed the sheriff’s office. They’ve stepped up patrols. T.J.’s been apprised; he’s out there, too.” I direct my attention to Glock, raising my voice to be heard above the drone of the generator. “Did you clear the outbuildings and silos?”

“Clear.”

I look at Skid. “Did you search the creek area behind the barn?”

He shakes his head. “No one there.”

“Tire tracks? Footprints?”

“If anyone was down there, he didn’t leave us squat.”

“We’ll go over every inch of this place again once the sun comes up. No one does this kind of crime without leaving something behind.”

Though the barn doors are open, the diesel exhaust from the generator is thick enough to choke a rhinoceros. No one’s complaining. I think I can speak for everyone in the room when I say the smell of exhaust is preferable to the stench of blood.

“As soon as we finish here,” I say, “we’ll start canvassing and talking to neighbors. Hopefully, someone saw something.”

“You going to call BCI?” asks Glock.

BCI is the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Identification out of Columbus, which is about a hundred miles west of here. It’s a state agency run by the attorney general’s office that offers a multitude of resources to local law enforcement, including a state-of-the-art lab, computer databases, crime scene technicians and field agents. The town council called the agency for assistance last year when a serial murderer stalked Painters Mill.

That’s how I met field agent John Tomasetti. He was instrumental in helping me close the Slaughterhouse Murders investigation ten months ago.
The case was a nightmare, especially for me because of my personal connection to the killer. Tomasetti got me through it. He’s a good cop and an even better friend, and it’s him I think of this morning.

“I’m going to request a CSU to help process the scene.” I pull my cell phone from my pocket. “Maybe they’ll be able to pick up hair or fibers.”

The three cops nod in approval. But I know they’re feeling territorial about this case. The atrocities committed against this Amish family have angered and outraged them. While they appreciate any help, they don’t want some other agency encroaching on their turf.

“Chief Burkholder?”

I glance over to see Doc Coblentz standing next to one of the corpses. He looks grim and shaken, and I acknowledge that there is a small, selfish part of me that doesn’t want to go over there. Some crimes are simply too terrible for the eyes to behold, the mind to comprehend. But the part of me that is a cop knows information is my most powerful tool.

Dropping my cell back in my pocket, I force my legs to take me to him. “What do you have?”

For a moment the doctor stares down at the floor, his expression troubled. And I realize with some surprise this veteran man of medicine is so upset by what he’s seen that he can’t speak.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says after a moment.

I’m aware of my team watching us from the doorway. It’s an uncomfortable moment. I’m not very good at offering comfort. I’m not even very good at receiving it. I give the doc a minute, and then I ask the question that’s been eating at me since I saw the bodies. “Do you know the cause of death?”

My question snaps him back. “I can’t be positive until I get them on the table, but I have a theory.” He glances toward Glock. “Have you photographed and documented everything?”

Glock gives a nod.

The doctor turns his attention back to me. “These two girls suffered long, horrific deaths, Katie. Look at this.”

We move closer to the nearest victim, Mary Plank. She’s about fifteen years old with the slender body of a girl on the brink of womanhood. Not yet an adult, not a child, but that special place in between. She probably still played
like a kid. But her adult dreams were just forming in her head. She was pretty, with a kind face. It’s unbearably difficult to look at her and think of how she must have been. Sweet. Innocent. Undamaged by life. I can’t imagine the horrors these girls must have endured. I cannot fathom such brutality.

Gently, he places his hand against the girl’s lower abdomen, between the pubis bone and the navel. With a long, cotton-tipped swab, he indicates the jagged mouth of a hideous wound. Something pink and watery peeking out. Using a wad of gauze, he wipes away some of the blood, and I discern the dark smudge of bruising around the wound.

“The clean lines here indicate the wound was probably made by a knife or some other very sharp instrument,” the doc says.

“She was stabbed in the same area multiple times?” I ask.

“Not stabbed. I believe he opened her abdominal cavity.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I can’t imagine.” He shakes his head. “Who knows what goes on inside the mind of a man capable of this kind of brutality.”

“Can you tell me what killed her?”

“I can’t be sure until I perform the autopsy, but judging from the amount of blood from this wound, it appears as if this is the fatal wound. She probably bled to death.”

“She was alive when he did this?”

“Her heart was still beating. She may have been unconscious due to shock and blood loss. She could have been drugged, so I’ll run a tox.” He motions to her face. “She isn’t gagged; believe me, she would have screamed.”

I imagine I can hear those screams now. “Why?” is all I can manage.

“I don’t know. Perhaps he was trying to retrieve a bullet,” the doctor suggests.

“Maybe.” But the theory doesn’t ring true. It takes a special kind of cold-blooded to cut open a human body. “Seems like it would have been easier to dispose of the body.”

He heaves the sigh of a heavily burdened man. “I don’t know if it’s significant, but this wound is very close to her uterus.”

A shudder runs the length of my body. Unwanted images scroll through my brain. “I wonder if that’s somehow symbolic.”

“Could be.”

“Or maybe he’s a sadist and hates women.”

The doc shrugs. “That’s your area of expertise, not mine.”

I motion toward the second victim. “What about the other girl?”

The doc moves to the second victim. Annie Plank. She was sixteen years old. Slightly heavier. Not as pretty as her sister. It breaks my heart to see these two young lives cut short.

With the same gentle deference he used with the sibling, the doc sets his gloved hand against her abdomen. The area has been wiped clean, and I spot the stab wounds immediately. These wounds are higher, just below her rib cage.

“She was stabbed. Three times, it looks like. I’m guessing, but I would venture to say at least two of those penetrated the stomach.”

“Same weapon?”

“That would be my guess.” He grimaces. “But I’m not convinced that’s what killed her.”

“What do you mean?”

Reaching up with a gloved hand, he gently rolls back an eyelid. It goes against every primal instinct I possess, but I force myself to look. The eyeball is milky and sticky-looking. The outside corner is bloodred. My perspective is not clinical, but one of outrage, sadness and disbelief that something this unspeakable could happen in my town, a place where people should be safe. I can feel my emotions knocking at the gate. My heart beating in my face. Sweat breaks out on the back of my neck, but I’m cold to the bone.

“The red area on the conjunctival surface is called petechial hemorrhages,” the doctor explains.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard that term. “She was strangled?”

He shakes his head. “There are no visible ligature marks on her neck. No bruising.” He indicates a thin white line just to the right of her mouth, across her nose and on her left cheek. “I’m guessing here, Kate, but I would say this is some type of adhesive.”

“They taped her mouth?”

“And nose, evidently.”

“They smothered her?”

“I can’t say that definitively at this point, but asphyxiation would be my best guess.”

“They tied her up. They stabbed her multiple times. And then smothered her to death.” The words are so twisted, so ugly, it hurts me to say them. All too easily, I can put myself in this young woman’s place. I can imagine her terror and panic with a clarity that scares me. All I can think is,
How could somebody do this to another human being?
The part of my mind that clings to some semblance of innocence poses the question. Another side of my brain that will never be innocent again knows the answer. There are monsters living among us. People who look no different than you and me. But they lack a fundamental component of the human species: a conscience.

“Did you get a temp, Doc?” I ask.

“I did.” To prevent biohazard contamination of his notebook, he snaps off a glove and tugs the small pad from an inside pocket. “Ninety-four point six degrees.”

I do the math. “These two girls were the last to die.”

“An hour, maybe two, after he killed the people inside the house.” He sighs. “It’s possible the younger girl may have lingered a while, Kate. Particularly if the COD is exsanguination. She would have fallen unconscious.” He shrugs.

I try to look at this through the eyes of a killer, but the perspective makes me feel dirty and guilty and decayed. “Why did he kill these two girls differently than the others?” I say, thinking aloud.

The doc arches a brow as if to say,
Don’t ask me.

Glock comes up beside me. “Maybe this guy’s a sexual sadist. Came here for the girls, killed the rest of the family because they were potential witnesses or they were in the way.”

I look at Doc Coblentz. “Were the girls raped?”

The doc nods. “There’s some chafing visible, but the lighting is too bad for me to draw any kind of definitive conclusion. I really don’t want to rule on that until I get them to the morgue.”

I study the two dead girls. “There’s a definite sexual element to this,” I say. “But I think there’s something else. Something obscure we’re missing.”

“Like what?” Glock asks.

“I’m not sure. There’s something about way the bodies are displayed. The fact that they’re nude. The torture aspect.” I’m thinking aloud now. Brainstorming. Throwing out theories and ideas. “It’s visual. Almost a theatrical element to it.”

Glock is good at this and we play off of each other. “Was this premeditated?” he asks.

“If he stalked them, he would have known the rest of the family would be here,” I say. “He would have known he’d have to kill them, too.”

“Maybe his compulsion is so strong, collateral damage didn’t matter.”

Doc Coblentz cuts in. “This killer spent a good deal of time torturing these two young women.” He tugs a fresh glove from his crime scene kit and works his fingers into it. “Look at this.”

Glock and I follow him back to Mary Plank’s body. Using a fresh swab, the doctor indicates a series of bright red abrasion-like marks on her buttocks, thighs and breasts. “Those are burns.”

“From a cigarette?” My mind is already jumping ahead to the possibility of DNA on a butt.

“Propane torch.”

“Sick motherfucker,” Glock mutters.

Nodding grimly, the doc directs my attention to several stripe-like bruises about the buttocks and back. “I believe these bruises were caused by that small bat.”

“He burned them. He beat them. Raped them.” I feel that quivery sensation again, as if my stomach is slowly climbing into my throat. “And then he killed them.”

For a moment the only sound comes from the
chug, chug, chug
of the generator.

Turning away from the girls, I address Glock. “Bag all of those tools and courier them to BCI. I want it there by the time the lab opens for business.”

Glock is already reaching for the crime scene kit where the bags and labels are stored. “I’m on it.”

“I’m going to make the call.” I sigh, knowing that as bad as this day has been, it’s probably going to get worse.

Pulling out my phone, I leave the tack room. Skid and Pickles are standing
outside the door. Both still wear gloves and shoe covers. In an effort to preserve the scene and prevent the contamination of evidence, I’ve limited the number of people allowed in the barn and house to me, Glock, Skid, Pickles and Doc Coblentz. It will be up to us to deal with the dead.

“The doc is going to need some help getting those bodies down,” I say.

The men aren’t happy about the assignment; I recognize their green-around-the-gills expressions. But they’re far too professional to complain.

“I want you fully geared, including hair caps. I want the victims’ hands bagged.”

Without waiting for a response, I walk briskly down the aisle. My boots thud with a little too much force against the packed dirt floor. I’m shaking by the time I reach the door. Once outside, I can breathe again, and I stand there, gulping air. After a moment I’m feeling calmer, and I notice that the eastern horizon is awash with color. Beyond, the leaves of the maple tree rattle in a cool breeze. In the driveway, three ambulances wait to transport the dead. All of these things remind me that I’m still alive, and that even in the face of death, life prevails.

I dial John Tomasetti’s home number from memory. We’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship for about ten months now, but neither of us is very good at the relationship thing. Probably has to do with the amount of baggage we’re toting around. Of course that didn’t keep him from trying to get me into bed. It didn’t keep me from succumbing when I probably shouldn’t have.

To say we both have issues would be an understatement. Most of Tomasetti’s stem from the murders of his wife and two children two and a half years ago in a horrific act of revenge by a career criminal. The parallels to this case don’t elude me, and I realize that’s why I’ve been putting off the call. He’s a strong man, but even the strong have a breaking point.

But I need his help. His expertise. His instincts. His support. If I’ve learned anything in my years in law enforcement, it’s that the living come first. We can always deal with the dead in our nightmares.

He answers on the third ring with a curt utterance of his last name. He’s cranky upon waking. I wish I didn’t know that about him.