Sworn to Silence - Linda Castillo

“How did she pass?” Ezra’s ravaged eyes bore into mine.

“She was murdered,” I reply.

Bonnie gasps. “Mein gott.”

Ezra stares at me as if I’m lying. I’ve known him most of my life. He’s a decent, hardworking man who’s had more than his share of hardship. But I know he’s got a temper.

“I do not accept that.” Though the room is cold, I see sweat on his forehead. Red blotches climbing up his neck.

“I’m sorry,” I offer.

He bows his head, places his fingers against his forehead and presses, as if he’s trying to shove his nails beneath the skin.

“Ezra, who is the bishop of your district?” I ask.

“David Troyers.”

A church district is made up of about twenty to thirty families. A bishop, two or three preachers and a deacon share leadership roles within each district. I know David Troyers. And I know he’s one of the few Amish who has a telephone.

Ezra raises his head and struggles to compose himself. “We want to bring Ellen home.”

“Of course,” I say in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“Where is she?”

“The hospital in Millersburg.”

“I want to bring her home.” A sob escapes him even as he struggles to square shoulders bowed beneath the weight of unbearable grief.

“Let me drive you to the hospital,” I say.

“No.”

“Ezra, Millersburg is nearly ten miles away.”

“No!” He shakes his head. “Bonnie and I will take the buggy.”

He is so immersed in grief, I doubt he realizes the round-trip will take hours. I look at Bonnie for help; she stares back. Unshed tears glitter in her eyes. She has her hand over her mouth as if trying to hold in the screams that echo inside her.

“It’s twenty degrees outside,” I say. “These are special circumstances, Ezra. Please, let me drive you.”

Bonnie rises abruptly. “We will go with you.”

“No!” The Amish man slams his fist down on the desktop. “We take the buggy!”

I’ve had plenty of bad days in my life. For the most part, I take the bad with the good and hold close the belief that in the end it all balances out. It’s going to take a lot of good days to zero out today.

I couldn’t convince Ezra to let me drive them to the morgue. So I did the only thing I could and followed them in the Explorer. The trip and the identification of Ellen’s body took over three hours. It’s after midnight now. I’m tired and discouraged and so cold I can’t imagine ever being warm again. I should go home and try to get some sleep, but my mind is wound tight. I have no desire to waste precious hours tossing and turning.

“Notifying next of kin is always the worst.”

I glance at Tomasetti in the passenger seat and frown.

He doesn’t notice. “When you see some dipshit gangbanger lying in pieces on a gurney, you think the world’s a better place. But something like this . . .”

“That’s cynical,” I reply.

“Yeah, but it’s the truth.”

“I don’t share your view.”

“You just haven’t been a cop long enough.”

Tomasetti has been my shadow tonight. A quiet presence I resent more than I should. The irony that I will be the one to bring him up to speed on the case doesn’t escape me.

“You going to follow them home, too?” he asks.

“The roads are bad. I don’t want them out on a night like this.”

He turns his attention back to the window where winter-dead cornfields crowd the road. The night is clear and still, with the temperature falling to near zero. The stars play peekaboo as high clouds skid across the sky.

I called David Troyers, the Augspurgers’ bishop, on the way to the hospital. One of the things I loved about being Amish was the support families receive from their neighbors, especially when tragedy strikes. It comforts me knowing there will be a family waiting for Ezra and Bonnie when they arrive home. Tomorrow, that family will assume the farm and household chores, feeding the livestock and cooking meals and helping to plan the funeral.

Ezra’s horse maintains a steady clip all the way to the Augspurger farm. When the buggy turns into the long lane, I flash my headlights in farewell and head toward town.

“Where to now, Chief?”

I glance over to see Tomasetti looking at me with those dark, intense eyes. Eyes that are difficult to meet, but once you do it’s even more difficult to look away. I see damage in those eyes, and I wonder briefly about its source. I wonder if mine reveal the same thing. It’s tough to be a cop without sustaining some kind of damage.

I’m certain I’ve never met him before tonight, but his face is familiar. “I can take you to your motel or back to the station,” I say. “Your choice.”

“The station’s fine.”

“You a night bird?”

His mouth twists. “Insomniac.”

I’m used to dealing with all sorts of people, but Tomasetti makes me vaguely uneasy. I want to think I’m immune to his weird thousand-yard stare, but I’m not. Not tonight, when my secrets are in the forefront of my mind.

“So who called you in?” I ask after a moment.

He answers with the nonchalance of a man discussing the weather on a sunny day. “Norm Johnston. The mayor. And the woman with the big mouth.”

Janine Fourman. I nearly smile at his apt description. “The Three Musketeers.”

“They gunning for your job?”

“They want the murders to go away.”

“Is that why they left you out of the loop?”

I cut him a hard look. “They left me out of the loop because they don’t want these murders scaring away the tourists.”

“I’m glad you cleared that up for me,” he says.

The sarcastic sneer in his voice pisses me off. I’ve known a lot of cops like him over the years. Veterans, usually. Older. They have experience, but they lack the humanity that would otherwise define them as good cops. The more they see, the less they feel. The less they care. They become cynical and bitter and apathetic. They give all cops a bad rap.

“So how long have you been chief?” he asks.

“Two years.”

“You a cop before that?”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I didn’t work at the Cut and Curl, if that’s what you’re asking.”

One side of his mouth curves up. “This your first murder?”

“Norm Johnston tell you that, too?”

“He said you were inexperienced.”

His candor surprises me. “What else did he tell you?”

He looks amused. “Are you pumping me for information?”

“Just the truth.”

“Telling the truth usually gets me into trouble.”

“I get the feeling you don’t mind.”

He looks out the window for a moment, then turns his attention back to me. “So what’s your experience?”

I lift a shoulder, let it drop. “I was a cop in Columbus. Six years in patrol. Two as a detective. Homicide.”

Even in the dim light from the dash, I see his brow arch. “They didn’t mention that.”

“Didn’t think so. What about you?”

“Narcotics, mostly.”

“Detective?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Since dinosaurs roamed the earth. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one of them.” He smiles.

I resist the urge to smile back. “You look familiar.”

“I was wondering when you were going to get around to that.”

I’m not sure what he means. “Get around to what?”

“You’re not up on your pseudo-celebrities, are you?”

A vague memory tickles the back of my brain. A newspaper or television story out of Cleveland or Toledo about the murder of a cop’s family. Home invasion. A decorated cop going rogue . . .

I can’t hide my surprise when I look at Tomasetti.

“Yeah, I’m him.” He looks amused. “Lucky you, huh?”

Unable to meet his penetrating stare, I look back at the road. “Toledo? Last year?”

“Cleveland,” he corrects. “Two years ago.”

“I followed the story some.”

“You and half the state.”

I want to ask him if he did it, but I don’t. The general consensus among law enforcement was that John Tomasetti had snapped. He’d gone after the man responsible for the murder of his family and exacted revenge. No one could prove it, but that hadn’t kept the DA from putting him in front of a grand jury.

“How did you end up at BCI?” I ask after a moment.

“The commander wanted me gone, gave me a recommendation. The saps at BCI didn’t know what they were getting.” He gives me a dry smile. “Do you want to get drunk and talk about it?”

“You need to drink to talk?”

“Most of the time.”

We drive for a while in silence, and then he asks, “It’s not easy to pass that detective’s exam, Chief. What made you give up all that glory for small town police work?”

I shrug, feeling self conscious. “I was born here.”

He nods as if he understands. “How is it that you’re fluent in German?”

He’s referring to my conversation with the Augspurgers. “It’s Pennsylvania Dutch.”

“Obscure language.”

“The Amish speak it.”

“Plenty of Amish in this part of Ohio.” I sense him studying me, wondering.

“There are more Amish in Ohio than Pennsylvania now.” A statistic he probably doesn’t give a good damn about.

“They offer Pennsylvania Dutch at the community college here or what?”

“My parents taught me.”

I see his mind combing through that. He’s not sure what to make of it. What to make of me. Had the circumstances been different, I might have enjoyed the moment. He doesn’t want to ask. But a man like John Tomasetti doesn’t necessarily give a damn about political correctness. He earns points with me when he finally asks, “You Amish, or what?”

“Was.”

“Huh. Johnston mentioned you were a pacifist.”

“In case you’re not reading between the lines, Johnston is full of shit.”

“I got that.” He whistles. “A gun-toting, cursing, former Amish female chief of police. I’ll be damned.”

The parking spaces in front of the police station are blissfully vacant when we arrive. I walk in to see Mona reclined at the dispatch station, her high-heeled boots propped on the desk. She’s holding a half-eaten apple in one hand, a forensic science book with a CSI-esque cover in the other. She’s tapping her foot to a Pink Floyd remix she has turned up too loud. She doesn’t hear us come in.

“I guess working graveyard has its benefits,” I say.

She fumbles the book and drops the apple. Her boots slide off the desk. “Hey Chief.” To my surprise, she blushes. “Damn book’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She whips out the messages. “Phone was ringing off the hook until about twenty minutes ago.”

“I guess people gotta sleep.”

“Thank God. The crazies are starting to call. Psychic from Omaha claims she was a victim of the Slaughterhouse Killer in her first life. Oh, and some whack job from Columbus called to tell you Amish women shouldn’t be police officers.” She crumples the pink slip and shoots it into the wastebasket. “I set him straight.”

“Thanks.” I take the messages. “Will you do me a favor and make some coffee?”

“I could use some myself.” Her eyes fall on Tomasetti—and stick. I know the look of feminine interest when I see it, and I’m surprised. He doesn’t exactly fall into the nice-looking category. His eyes are too intense. His mouth is thin and snarlish. His nose is slightly hooked. He’s probably not much over forty, but his face sports the lines of a man who’s lived hard and long.

What is it about young women being attracted to men old enough to be their fathers? “Mona, this is John Tomasetti with BCI out of Columbus.”

He extends his hand to Mona. “Nice to meet you.”

Her smile widens as they shake. “We’re glad to have you on board.”

Rolling my eyes, I start toward my office. Once inside, I shed my coat and flip on my computer. While it boots, I dial Glock. “Anything on Lapp?” I ask.

“Nada. Either he keeps his nose clean or he’s dead.”

“Keep digging.” I reassure myself it was an offhand comment; Glock can’t possibly know Lapp is dead. If he’s dead. “Did you guys find anything at the Augspurger farm?”

“There were some old tracks, but they were almost totally obscured by new snowfall and drifting.”

“Were you able to get impressions?”

“No impressions. No prints. Either he’s lucky or he knows all of our tricks.” He pauses. “We canvassed, but no one saw anything. This guy’s a fuckin’ ghost.”

Tomasetti enters my office holding two cups. I motion for him to sit. “Thanks for the update, Glock. Get some rest.”

“You, too.”

I disconnect. Tomasetti sets one of the cups in front of me and takes the chair adjacent to my desk. “If you’re trying to win over my undying admiration with coffee,” I say, “you just scored a few points.”

“I could make another pot.”

I give him a passable smile.

He doesn’t smile back. “They turn up anything?”

I recap my conversation with Glock.

He rubs his hands together like a man preparing for a meal. “You have time to show me what you have so far?”

“It’s not much.” I hand him the old Slaughterhouse Killer file. “This is the file from the early nineties.”

Pulling reading glasses from his breast pocket, he opens the folder. While he reads, I rise and cross to the fax machine. Sure enough, Doc Coblentz has sent the preliminary autopsy report for Ellen Augspurger. I scan the particulars as I take it to the copy room.

Death is attributed to a deep incised wound of the neck severing the carotid artery. Cause of death: exsanguination.

No photos were faxed, but I don’t need them. I see it all when I close my eyes. Her partially decomposed body hanging from the ceiling beam at the Huffman farm. The grief-ravaged faces of Bonnie and Ezra Augspurger as they try to absorb news of their daughter’s death.

I think of my own secrets and what might have happened all those years ago had I not picked up my father’s shotgun and defended myself. I could have been Ellen Augspurger or Amanda Horner, my butchered body reduced to a cold piece of evidence. Staring down at the report, I think about Daniel Lapp and I wish to God I’d shot him in the head instead of the torso.

Tomasetti looks up from the file when I return to my desk. He’s scribbled notes on a legal pad. “What’s your theory on this?” he asks.

“It’s either the killer from before, or we have a copycat on our hands.”

“This is no copycat.”

“How can you be so sure?”