Sworn to Silence - Linda Castillo

“So we’re just going to question him?”

“I’m going to question him.”

That elicits a smile. “Right,” he says.

The lane curves left and a white clapboard farmhouse looms into view. Like most Amish farms in the area, the house is plain but well kept. A split rail fence separates the backyard from a chicken coop and pen. I see a nicely shaped cherry tree that will bear fruit in the spring. Beyond, a large barn, grain silo and windmill stand in silhouette against the predawn sky.

Though it’s not yet five A.M., the windows glow yellow with lantern light. I park next to a buggy and kill the engine. The sidewalk has been cleared of snow and we take it to the front door.

The door swings open before we knock. Isaac Stutz is a man of about forty years. Sporting the traditional beard of a married Amish man, he wears a blue work shirt, dark trousers and suspenders. His eyes flick from me to T.J. and back to me.

“I’m sorry to bother you so early, Mr. Stutz,” I begin.

“Chief Burkholder.” He bows his head slightly and steps back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”

I wipe my feet on the rug before entering. The house smells of coffee and frying scrapple, an Amish breakfast staple consisting of cornmeal and pork. The kitchen is dimly lit, but warm. Ahead, a mantel clock and two lanterns rest on a homemade shelf built into the wall. Lower, three straw hats hang on wood dowels. I look beyond Isaac and see his wife, Anna, at the cast-iron stove. She is garbed in the traditional organdy kapp and a plain black dress. She glances at me over her shoulder. I make eye contact, but she looks away. Twenty years ago, we played together. This morning, I’m a stranger to her.

The Amish are a close-knit community with a foundation built on worship, hard work and family. Though eighty percent of Amish children join the church when they turn eighteen, I’m one of the few who didn’t. As a result, I was put under the bann. Contrary to popular belief, shunning is not a type of punishment. In most cases, it’s thought to be redemptive. Tough love, if you will. But it didn’t bring me back. Because of my defection, many Amish do not wish to associate with me. I accept that because I understand the ideology of the culture, and I don’t begrudge them in any way.

T.J. and I enter the house. Always respectful, T.J. removes his hat.

“Would you like coffee or hot tea?” Isaac asks.

I’d give up my side arm for a cup of hot coffee, but decline the offer. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about something that happened last night.”

He motions toward the kitchen. “Come sit next to the stove.”

Our boots thud hollowly on the hardwood floor as the three of us move into the kitchen. A rectangular wood table covered with a blue-and-white-checkered tablecloth dominates the room. In its center, a glass lantern flickers, casting yellow light onto our faces. The smell of kerosene reminds me of my own childhood home, and for a moment I’m comforted by that.

Wood scrapes against the floor as the three of us pull out chairs and sit. “We received a call last night about some of your livestock,” I begin.

“Ah. My milk cows.” Isaac shakes his head in self-deprecation, but I can tell by his expression he knows I didn’t come here at five A.M. to censure him about a few wayward cattle. “I have been working on the fence.”

“This isn’t about the livestock,” I say.

Isaac looks at me and waits.

“We found the body of a young woman in your field last night.”

Across the room, Anna gasps. “Mein gott.”

I don’t look at her. My attention is focused on Isaac. His reaction. His body language. His expression.

“Someone died?” His eyes widen. “In my field? Who?”

“We haven’t identified her yet.”

I see his mind spinning as he tries to absorb the information. “Was it an accident? Did she succumb to the cold?”

“She was murdered.”

He leans back in the chair as if pushed by some invisible force. “Ach! Yammer.”

I glance toward his wife. She meets my gaze levelly now, her expression alarmed. “Did either of you see anything unusual last night?” I ask.

“No.” He answers for both of them.

I almost smile. The Amish are a patriarchal society. The sexes are not necessarily unequal, but their roles are separate and well defined. Usually, this doesn’t bother me. This morning, I’m annoyed. The unspoken Amish convention does not apply when it comes to murder, and it’s my job to make that clear. I give Anna a direct look. “Anna?”

She approaches, wiping her chapped hands on her apron. She’s close to my age and pretty, with large hazel eyes and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. Plain suits her.

“Is she Amish?” she asks in Pennsylvania Dutch, the Amish dialect.

I know the language because I used to speak it, but I answer in English. “We don’t know,” I tell her. “Did you see any strangers in the area? Any vehicles or buggies you didn’t recognize?”

Anna shakes her head. “I didn’t see anything. It gets dark so early this time of year.”

It’s true. January in northeastern Ohio is a cold and dark month.

“Will you ask your children?”

“Of course.”

“You think one of the gentle people is responsible for this sin?” Defensiveness rings in Isaac’s voice.

He is referencing the Amish community. They are for the most part a pacifistic culture. Hardworking. Religious. Family oriented. But I know anomalies occur. I, myself, am an anomaly.

“I don’t know.” I rise and nod at T.J. “Thank you both for your time. We’ll see ourselves out.”

Isaac follows us through the living room and opens the door for us. As I step onto the porch, he whispers, “Is he back, Katie?”

The question startles me, but I know I’ll hear it again in the coming days. It’s a question I don’t want to ponder. But Isaac remembers what happened sixteen years ago. I was only fourteen at the time, but I remember, too. “I don’t know.”

But I’m lying. I know the person who killed that girl is not the same man who raped and murdered four young women sixteen years ago.

I know this because I killed him.

Cumulus clouds rimmed with crimson churn on the eastern horizon when I park the Explorer on the shoulder behind T.J.’s cruiser. The crime scene tape is incongruous against the trees, locust posts and barbed wire. The ambulance is gone. So is Doc Coblentz’s Escalade. Glock stands at the fence, looking out across the field as if the snow whispering across the jagged peaks of earth holds the answers we all so desperately need.

“Go home and get some sleep,” I say to T.J. His shift began at midnight. In light of the murder, sleep is about to become a rare commodity for all of us.

I shut down the engine. The cab seems suddenly quiet without the blast of the heater. He reaches for the door handle, but doesn’t open it. “Chief?”

I look at him. His little-brother eyes are troubled. “I want to catch this guy.”

“Me, too.” I open my door. “I’ll call you in a few hours.”

He nods and we get out of the Explorer. I start toward Glock, but my mind is still on T.J. I hope he can handle this. I have a terrible feeling the body he found this morning isn’t the last.

Behind me I hear T.J. start his cruiser and pull away. Glock glances in my direction. He doesn’t even look cold.

“Anything?” I ask without preamble.

“Not much. We bagged a gum wrapper, but it looked old. Found a few hairs in the fence. Long strands, probably hers.”

Glock is about my age with military short hair and two-percent body fat on a physique that puts Arnold Schwarzenegger to shame. I hired him two years ago, earning him the honor of becoming Painters Mill’s first African-American police officer. A former MP with the Marine Corps, he’s a crack shot, possesses a brown belt in karate, and he doesn’t take any shit from anyone, including me.

“Find any prints?” I ask. “Tire tracks?”

He shakes his head. “Scene was pretty trampled. I was going to try to lift some impressions, but it doesn’t look promising.”

Capturing footwear impressions or tire tracks in snow is tricky. Several layers of a special wax must first be sprayed onto the impression to insulate it. That prevents the loss of detail from the exothermic reaction of the hardening dental stone casting material.

“Do you know how to do it?” I ask.

“I need to pick up the supplies at the sheriff’s office.”

“Go ahead. I’ll stay until I can get Skid out here.” Chuck “Skid” Skidmore is my other officer.

“Last I heard he was laid out on a pool table with some blonde at McNarie’s Bar.” Glock smiles. “Probably hungover.”

“Probably.” Skid is as fond of cheap tequila as Rupert is of his Glock. The moment of levity is short lived. “Once you lift the impressions, get imprints from all the first responders. Send everything over to the BCI lab. Have them run a comparison analysis and see if we have something that stands out.”

BCI is the acronym for the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in London, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. A state agency run by the attorney general’s office, the bureau has a state-of-the-art lab, access to law enforcement databases, and a multitude of other resources that may be utilized by local police agencies.

Glock nods. “Anything else?”

I smile, but it feels unnatural on my face. “Think you could postpone your vacation?”

He smiles back, but it looks strained. If anyone is deserving of some downtime, it’s Glock. He hasn’t had any measurable time off since I hired him. “LaShonda and I don’t have any big plans,” he says, referring to his wife. “Just finishing up the nursery. Doc says any day now.”

We study the scene in companionable silence. Even though I’m wearing two pairs of socks inside waterproof boots, my feet ache with cold. I’m tired and discouraged and overwhelmed. The press of time is heavy on my shoulders. Any cop worth his weight knows the first forty-eight hours of a homicide investigation are the most vital in terms of solving it.

“I’d better get those supplies,” Glock says after a moment.

I watch him traverse the bar ditch, slide into his cruiser and pull away. I turn back to the field where drifting snow whispers across the frozen earth. From where I stand, I can just make out the bloodstain from the victim, a vivid red circle against pristine white. The crime scene tape flutters in a brisk north wind, the tree branches clicking together like chattering teeth.

“Who are you, you son of a bitch?” I say aloud, my voice sounding strange in the predawn hush.

The only answer I get is the murmur of wind through the trees and the echo of my own voice.

Twenty minutes later Officer Skidmore arrives on the scene. He slinks out of his cruiser toting two coffees, a don’t-ask expression, and a half-eaten doughnut clutched between his thumb and forefinger.

“Why the hell can’t people get murdered when it’s seventy degrees and sunny?” he mutters, shoving one of the coffees at me.

“That’d be way too convenient.” I take the coffee, pop the tab and brief him on what we know.

When I’m finished he considers the scene, then looks at me as if expecting me to throw up my hands and tell him the whole thing is a big, ugly prank. “Hell of a thing to find out here in the middle of the night.” He slurps coffee. “How’s T.J.?”

“I think he’ll be okay.”

“Fuckin’ kid’s gonna have nightmares.” His eyes are bloodshot and, as Glock had predicted, I realize he’s sporting a hangover.

“Late night?” I ask.

He has powdered sugar on his chin. His grin is lopsided. “I like tequila a lot more than she likes me.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Skid lost his job with the police department there because of an off-duty DUI. Everyone knows he drinks too much. But he’s a good cop. For his sake, I hope he can get a handle on it. I’ve seen booze ruin a lot of lives, and I’d hate to see him added to the heap. I told him the day I hired him if I caught him drinking on the job I’d fire him on the spot. That was two years ago and so far he’s never crossed the line.

“You think it’s the same guy from back in the early nineties?” he asks. “What did they call him? The Slaughterhouse Murderer? The case was never closed, was it?”

Hearing the sobriquet spoken aloud raises gooseflesh on my arms. The local police and FBI worked the case for years after the last murder. But as the evidence grew cold and public interest dwindled, their efforts eventually slacked off. “It doesn’t feel right,” I offer noncommittally. “It’s hard to explain a sixteen-year gap in activity.”

“Unless the guy changed locales.”

I say nothing, not wanting to speculate.

Skid doesn’t notice. “Or he could have been sent to prison on some unrelated charge and just got sprung. Saw it happen when I was a rookie.”

Hating the speculation and questions, knowing there will be plenty more in the days ahead, I shrug. “Could be a copycat.”

He sniffs a runny nose. “That would be odd for a town this size. I mean, Jesus, what are the odds?”

Because he’s right, I don’t respond. Speculation is a dangerous thing when you know more than you should. I dump my remaining coffee and crumple the cup. “Keep the scene secure until Rupert gets back, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

“And give him a hand with the impressions. I’m heading to the station.”

I anticipate the heater as I start for the Explorer. My face and ears burn with cold. My fingers are numb. But my mind isn’t on my physical discomfort. I can’t stop thinking about that young woman. I can’t stop thinking about the uncanny parallels of this murder with the ones from sixteen years ago.

As I put the Explorer in gear and pull onto the road, a dark foreboding deep in my gut tells me this killer isn’t finished.

Downtown Painters Mill is composed of one major thoroughfare—aptly named Main Street—lined with a dozen or so businesses, half of which are Amish tourist shops selling everything from wind chimes and bird houses to intricate, handmade quilts. A traffic circle punctuates the north end of the street. A big Lutheran church marks the southernmost section of town. To the east lies the brand-new high school, an up-and-coming housing development called Maple Crest and a smattering of bed-and-breakfasts that have sprung up over the last couple of years to accommodate the town’s fastest growing industry: tourism. On the west side of town, just past the railroad tracks and mobile home park, is the slaughterhouse and rendering plant, the farmer’s mercantile and a massive grain elevator.

Since its inception in 1815, Painters Mill’s population has remained steady at about 5,300 people, a third of whom are Amish. Though the Amish keep to themselves for the most part, no one is really a stranger, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’s a wholesome town. A nice place to live and a raise a family. It’s a good place to be the chief of police. Unless, of course, you have a vicious, unsolved murder on your hands.