Sworn to Silence - Linda Castillo

There’s enough tension in the air to strangle a snake. I don’t need to look around to know all eyes are on us. Personality conflicts during high-stress cases are expected, particularly when more than one agency is involved. But I don’t want to be perceived as a cop who would jeopardize a case because of territoriality issues. I learned a long time ago the value of choosing my battles. This is a battle I’m probably better off not fighting.

“You drive,” I say, and start toward the door.

Dwayne Starkey lives on a small farm surrounded by rolling hills and tall, winter-dead trees. At one time the house had been nice, but as Tomasetti drives down the lane I notice the peeling siding and sagging roof. An old blue pickup is parked behind the house.

“Looks like he’s home,” Tomasetti says. “Keep an eye on the doors.”

He parks the Tahoe a few yards behind the pickup, blocking the driveway should Starkey try to make a quick exit.

“Do you think we should get a warrant first?” I ask.

“Don’t need a warrant to talk to someone.”

“If I like him as a suspect, I’ll want to search the place.” I look past the house where a dilapidated barn lists like a ship trapped in arctic ice. “I don’t want to screw this up. If he’s our guy, he could be doing the murders here.”

“If we like him, we’ll get the warrant.”

I glance at the back door in time to see the curtains part, then quickly fall back into place. “He spotted us.”

“I’ll take the front,” Tomasetti says.

Cold assaults me when I exit the vehicle. The sidewalk isn’t shoveled and my feet crunch through ankle-deep snow. In my peripheral vision, I see Tomasetti continue around to the front. I thumb the snap off my holster when I reach the back door. The top half of the door is glass. A crack runs through it and someone repaired it with duct tape. Dirty blue curtains gape about an inch. Through the gap I see an old freezer and circa 1970s cabinets.

I rattle the glass with my knuckles. “Dwayne Starkey! This is Kate Burkholder with the Painters Mill PD! Open up.”

I wait thirty seconds and knock again, harder. “Come on, Dwayne, I know you’re in there. Open the door!”

The door swings open. I catch a whiff of something vaguely unpleasant and find myself facing a small man with greasy hair, a receding hairline and a mustache the color of spicy mustard.

“Dwayne Starkey?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Kate Burkholder. Painters Mill PD.” Keeping my right hand close to my weapon, I pull out my badge with my left and hold it up. He stares at it long enough to make me wonder if he knows how to read. “I need to ask you some questions.”

“This about those kilt women?”

“What makes you think that?”

A hard laugh rattles from a cigarette-rough throat. “I know how you cops think. Somethin’ bad goes down and you want to hang it on the first con you see.”

“I just want to ask you a few questions.”

He looks undecided. “You got a warrant?”

“I can have one in ten minutes if you want to do it that way. It’d be a lot faster if you just open the door and talk to me.”

“I probably shouldn’t without my lawyer.”

A familiar baritone voice comes from behind Starkey. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t need a lawyer.”

I look past Starkey and see Tomasetti standing in the mudroom. I want to ask him what the hell he’s doing in Starkey’s house, but Starkey beats me to the punch.

“Who the fuck’re you? What’re you doin’ in my house?”

“I’m the good cop, Dwayne. I suggest you stop being a shithead and cooperate with Chief Burkholder. Believe me, you don’t want to piss her off.”

Starkey looks at me. “How the fuck did he get in my house?”

I’m wondering the same thing, so I don’t even try to answer. “Dwayne,” I begin, “we just need a few minutes of your time.”

Starkey steps back. He wears grungy jeans. A shirt with old sweat stains. He looks like he wants to run. I glance down at his feet and see dirty white socks. If he breaks for the door, he won’t get far.

I push open the door and step into a mudroom that smells the way Starkey looks, an unpleasant fusion of cat shit, body odor and cigarette smoke.

Starkey looks from me to Tomasetti and back to me. “I know my rights so don’t try any shit.”

“You have the right to sit the fuck down.” Taking the man by the scruff, Tomasetti muscles him into the kitchen and shoves him into a chair.

“Hey!” Starkey complains. “You can’t do that.”

“I just want to show you how much we appreciate your cooperation.”

I step into the kitchen. The stench of rotting food and animal feces punches me like a fist. An obese cat watches me from atop a 1970s refrigerator. I watch my step when I cross to Starkey.

“You still work at the slaughterhouse, Dwayne?” I ask.

“I ain’t missed a day since I started.”

“What do you do there?”

“Look, I got a clean record there.” He points at Tomasetti. “I don’t want you cops fuckin’ things up for me.”

Tomasetti slaps his hand away. “Answer the question.”

“I’m the sticker.”

“What’s a sticker?” I ask.

“I stick the steer in the neck after he’s stunned.”

“You cut its throat?”

“I guess you could put it that way.”

“You like doing that?” Tomasetti asks.

“It pays the bills.”

Something crunches beneath Tomasetti’s shoe as he steps into the living room. “You gotta go to school for that?”

Starkey glares at him. “Fuck you.”

“Dwayne,” I snap. “Cut it out.”

He looks at me as if I’m dense. “That guy’s an asshole.”

“I know.” I’m aware of Tomasetti moving around the living room, but I never take my eyes off of Starkey. “Where were you Saturday night?”

“I don’t remember.” His attention is on Tomasetti, and I wonder if Starkey has something to hide.

For the first time anger stirs. Two women are dead and this filthy little man is doing his utmost to make our job as difficult as possible. Leaning over, I smack the side of his head with my open hand, forcing his attention to me.

“You can’t hit me like that,” he says.

“Then pay attention. Where were you were Saturday night?”

“I was here. Rebuilt the transmission on the El Camino.”

“Was anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Were you here all night?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever been to the Brass Rail?”

“Everyone’s been to the Rail, man.”

“When’s the last time you were there?”

“I dunno. A week ago.” His brows knit. “A week ago Sunday.”

“How well did you know Amanda Horner?”

“I don’t know no Amanda Horner.” He’s starting to look nervous, like he’s finally taking this seriously. “You guys can’t pin no murder on me. I didn’t do it.”

“You raped a woman fourteen years ago.”

“The little bitch lied, man.”

A burst of anger goes through me. Before I even realize my intent, my hand shoots out and I slap him open-handed. “Watch your mouth.”

He rubs his cheek. “That chick was a tease. Drunk. Fucked up on coke. She wanted it.”

“She was twelve.”

“I didn’t know that! I swear. She looked like a grown-up woman. Tits out to fuckin’ here.” He makes a slashing sign a foot from his chest. “And she wadn’t no virgin like she claimed.”

Disgust ripples through me. My temper hammers at the door, but I don’t let it out. “How well did you know Ellen Augspurger?”

“Don’t know her neither.”

“If I find out you’re lying, I’ll come down on you so hard you’ll wish you were back in prison.”

“I swear I don’t know her. Either of them.”

“You on probation?”

“What do you think?”

“You like porn?” Tomasetti breaks in.

Starkey cranks his head around. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Kiddie porn? You keep it in the house?”

“I don’t do that shit.”

“No, I’ll bet you’re an S&M kind of guy, aren’t you?”

“This is bullshit. You can’t talk to me that way.”

“Dwayne,” I cut in, “do you keep knives in the house?”

He blinks again, as if he’s having a difficult time keeping up with our questions. “Everyone has knives.”

“You hunt?”

He leans back in the chair, balancing himself on two legs. A laugh rattles from his throat. “Can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“You think that’s funny?” I ask.

“Kinda, me being the sticker and all.”

My molars grind. I lunge, slap my hands down on his shoulders, and shove hard. He tries to come forward in the chair to regain his balance, but he’s not fast enough. The chair tips back and he lands hard on his back.

“You fuckin’ cunt!” He snarls the word as he scrambles to his feet. “You can’t—”

I set my hand on my baton. “One step and you’re going back to Mansfield.”

The words freeze him in place. But he’s pissed. His face is the color of raw meat. A vein pulses at his left temple. He wants to hit me; I see it in his eyes. Part of me wishes he would try.

“Kate.”

I barely hear John’s voice over the drum of my heart. I know losing my temper is counterproductive. I tell myself I’m pushing Starkey because I want him rattled. The problem is that while Dwayne Starkey is a lowlife piece of scum, I don’t think he’s the man we’re looking for.

I jolt when Tomasetti’s hands come down on my shoulders. I know he can feel the tremors running through me. I don’t look at him. “Easy, Chief,” he says quietly, then steps up beside me and holds a computer disk out for Starkey to see. “Nice desktop you’ve got, Dwayne. Big-ass monitor. I’ll bet the graphics are killer. How much memory you got in that thing?”

“What’re you doing in my bedroom, man?” Starkey whines like a schoolboy who’s just been told he’s going to be paddled. “He’s not allowed to look through my shit.”

I shrug, but I want to punch Tomasetti. One badly behaved cop is enough.

“It was in plain sight.” Tomasetti looks up from the disk. “Delilah’s Double Date. Huh. I think I missed that one.”

“Ain’t no law against X-rated movies,” Starkey says.

“That depends on how old the stars are.” I look at the disk. “Delilah looks kind of young.”

“Just a kid,” Tomasetti agrees.

Starkey jabs a finger at the disk. I see grime beneath his nails. “I bought that good and legal.”

“What else do you have on your computer?” I ask.

“I ain’t got nothin’ I shouldn’t have. I’m fuckin’ rehabilitated.”

Tomasetti shakes his head. “We just want to know about the women.”

“Don’t know those kilt women, man.”

I jab my finger in his face. “Put your coat on.”

Starkey’s eyes go wide. “You can’t take me to jail! I ain’t done nothin’!”

“You’re going to show us your barn, Dwayne,” Tomasetti snaps. “Put on your coat or I’ll drag you out there without it.”

The barn is a dilapidated structure one windy day away from becoming a pile of rubble. Starkey takes Tomasetti and me down the unshoveled sidewalk. I notice footprints in the snow and I wonder why he goes to the barn when he doesn’t own livestock.

I get my answer when he slides open the door and we step inside. A yellow El Camino, its paint as glossy as the day it was driven off the showroom floor, sits on cinder blocks with its hood open. Four aluminum wheels lean against a support beam. Beyond, a lawn chair squats next to a rusty fifty-gallon drum. From atop the drum, a radio blasts an old Eagles song. An aluminum pie tin overflows with cigarette butts.

“Nice place,” Tomasetti says.

“This is where I was Saturday night.” Starkey points at the El Camino. “That there’s the car I been working on.”

“You into junkers?” Tomasetti asks.

“That ain’t no junker, man. She’s a classic.”

I move deeper into the barn, find myself looking for a snowmobile. I check the dirt floor for track marks, but find nothing. The air smells of moldy earth and motor oil. I spot a tarp in the corner, cross over and lift it. Dust motes flare and a circa 1965 John Deere tractor looms into view.

Disappointment presses into me. I wanted Starkey to be our man. He’s a convicted rapist. A pedophile. A man with an appetite for porn and God only knows what else. But his height tells me he’s not the man who attacked me in the woods last night. He doesn’t fit the profile. He’s not organized. Not highly intelligent. As desperately as I want to solve this case, my gut tells me he’s not the killer.

I stride toward the men and point rudely at Starkey. “Don’t leave town.”

“I’m on parole. What do you think I’m going to do? Take a fuckin’ Hawaiian vacation?”

I start toward the door. “Let’s go.”

I reach the Tahoe first and climb in. In the relative warmth of the cab, I suddenly feel as if I haven’t slept for a week. A dull ache hammers at the base of my skull.

Tomasetti pulls out of the driveway and heads toward town. I stare out the window at the bleak landscape and try not to let the heat and low hum of the engine lull me to sleep.

“He’s not our guy,” Tomasetti says without looking at me.

“I know.”

“Most serial killers have an above-average IQ.”

“Rules out Starkey.” I glare at Tomasetti. “Next time you feel like going Dirty Harry, do it on your own time, okay?”

He looks at me as if I offended him. “You’re the one who hit him.”

“I smacked him upside the head to get his attention.”

“You kicked his chair out from under him.” Shrugging, he returns his attention to the road. “I was impressed.”

I catch myself grinning. Under different circumstances, I might have liked John Tomasetti. I may not agree with his tactics, but I know he had my back in there. Before I can analyze further, he makes a quick turn into the parking lot of McNarie’s Bar. It’s one of two drinking establishments in Painters Mill, a dive replete with red vinyl barstools, half a dozen booths and a jukebox from 1978 with all the original music selections.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

“I could use a drink.” He swings open the door and gets out.

“A drink?”

He slams the door.

I shove open my door and slide out. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. We have work to do.”

Glancing at his watch, he keeps walking. His stride is so long, I have to jog to keep up. “Damnit, John, we need to get back to the station.”

“This won’t take long.”