Sworn to Silence - Linda Castillo

“Detrick has them out in the cold, digging around in pig shit.”

No pun, but I hate the idea of Detrick assigning the shit jobs to my officers, especially Pickles, who’s getting up in years. “Detrick pushing his weight around?”

“Strutting around like he just arrested Jack the fuckin’ Ripper. Says he’s going to take all of us on some big hunting excursion if we tie this thing up nice and tight.”

“Nice incentive if you like plugging deer.”

“Most of his guys are into it. I guess Detrick used to be some big shot hunting guide in Alaska.”

“Detrick, the great white hunter.”

Glock doesn’t look impressed. “How are you holding up, Chief?”

Thoughts of Tomasetti flash in my mind, but I quickly ban them. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m absolutely certain Jonas Hershberger is innocent.”

Glock blinks at me, clearly surprised. “He’s a strange bird.”

“So is Terry Bradshaw, but that doesn’t make him a psychopath.”

“We’ve got a shitload of evidence.”

“I know Jonas, Glock. He doesn’t drive. Doesn’t have access to a snowmobile. There’s no way he did those murders.” I think about that a moment. “Did you check to see if he relocated during that sixteen-year period?”

“He’s been in the same house since he was a kid. Inherited it when his parents were killed in a buggy accident eight years ago.” He pauses. “We did find a couple of fifty-gallon drums he used to burn trash. We sent ash samples to the lab to see if he burned the clothes.”

“Did you find any porn or S&M videos? Sex toys? Instruments of torture? Anything like that?”

“No, but he slaughters pigs on site. He’s got knives. Knows how to use them.”

“A lot of the Amish do their own slaughtering for meat. My dad butchered cattle.”

“So how do you explain the evidence?”

“I can’t. I know it’s damning. It just . . . doesn’t feel right. For example, the sixteen-year gap and then three murders within a month. What was the trigger?” I pause. “Have you talked to Jonas?”

He nods. “Detrick and I questioned him for about an hour this morning. At first he wouldn’t speak English, just Pennsylvania Dutch. When he finally did start talking, he denied everything. Gets all offended when we ask him about the women. Detrick came down on him pretty hard, but he didn’t crack.”

“What do you think?”

“He’s so damn stoic and reticent. Hard to figure him out.”

“He have a lawyer?”

“Hasn’t asked for one.”

I nod, troubled by the thought of Jonas alone and at the mercy of Nathan Detrick.

Glock rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “Jesus, Chief, we sure miss having you around. I’d feel a hell of a lot better with you in running the show.”

Tears threaten so I take a swig of coffee.

“I heard Detrick had a closed-door meeting with Janine Fourman and Auggie Brock the night before you got the axe,” Glock says.

“How do you know?”

“Secretary over at the city building called after she heard what happened to you. I’m just reading between the lines, but I’ll bet Detrick wasn’t there to talk about the fuckin’ weather.”

Anger fires inside me when I think of all the things that might have been said and everything I stand to lose because of it. “That son of a bitch.”

“You heard from Tomasetti?”

The heat of a blush climbs up my cheeks. It’s a stupid reaction. Glock doesn’t know Tomasetti and I spent the night together. Still, I can’t meet his gaze. “I think he left early this morning.”

“Really?” He laughs outright, obviously surprised by my reaction. “You and Tomasetti, huh? I’ll be damned.”

“Probably best if we don’t go there.”

He clears his throat and focuses his attention on the mess spread out on the kitchen table.

“I’m following up on a couple of things,” I say.

“I didn’t think you were balancing your checkbook.”

“Tomasetti left me with some crime-matching stats. I’m working on the change of locales angle.”

“Anything?”

“Not yet. But there’s a lot of ground to cover.” I pause. “Any word from the Johnstons?”

“Funeral is tomorrow.”

I nod. “How’s LaShonda?”

“Big as a frickin’ house.” A grin splits his face at the mention of his very pregnant wife. “Gonna be any day now.”

“Give her my best, will you?”

“Will do, Chief. I gotta git.” He starts toward the door, opens it and steps outside. “Gonna get slammed with snow.”

“Yeah.”

“Give me a call if you need anything.”

He disappears around the corner, and I’m suddenly engulfed by an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I feel isolated and cut off, as if I’m the only person left on earth. As the snow swirls down from a cast iron sky, I’m reminded of how much my life here in Painters Mill means to me—and how much I stand to lose if I don’t fight for reinstatement.

I go back to the VICAP report. It makes for grim, monotonous reading. Murder. Rape. Serial crimes with all the disturbing details that go along with them. By six o’clock the words begin to blur. My eyes feel as if they’ve been filled with sand. I’ve been on the phone so much my ear aches. Still, I’ve got nothing. Doubt begins to gnaw at my earlier resolve. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Jonas Hershberger is guilty. Twenty years have passed since I knew him. I know firsthand that time and events can change the course of a person’s life. Look at me.

Stymied, I go to the cabinet above the fridge and pull out the bottle of Absolut. I pour too much into a tumbler and take that first dangerous sip. Back at my laptop, I try to log in to OHLEG to check on my earlier inquiries only to find my account has been disabled.

“Damn it.” My last law enforcement tool is gone. I stare at the screen, frustrated and angry, with no idea where to go from here.

On impulse, I pull up a popular search engine and type “carving,” “abdomen” and “exsanguination” and hit enter. I don’t expect much in the way of useful information. Too much weird crap on the Internet. I get links to excerpts from novels, some bizarre short story, a college thesis on the media and violence. I’m shocked when I see a link to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I click and read.

THIRD BODY WASHES UP ON THE TANANA RIVER

Alaska State Troopers say the body of an unidentified woman was found late Tuesday by a group of hunters. The woman is Caucasian and appears to be in her late twenties. According to Trooper Robert Mays, “her throat was cut” and she had “ritualistic carvings on her abdomen.” This is the third body discovered along the bank of the remote Tanana River in the past six months and valley residents are alarmed. “We’re keeping our doors locked,” says Marty West, a Dot Lake resident. “I don’t go anywhere without my gun.” The body has been sent to Anchorage for an autopsy.

I stare at the screen, my heart pounding. The similarities are too striking to ignore. Nothing had come up on VICAP, but that’s not too unusual; the database wasn’t widely used by local law enforcement until recently. Some of the older data wasn’t entered into the database at all due to lack of manpower.

A glance at the clock above the stove tells me it’s nearly eight P.M. Alaska is in the Alaskan Time Zone, which is four hours earlier. I google the Fairbanks PD for a phone number and dial. After being transferred twice, I’m told Detective George “Gus” Ogusawara retired seven years ago. I ask if he knows where Gus is living. He refuses to give me a number, but tells me to try Portland or Seattle.

I go back to the Internet. Lucky for me, Ogusawara isn’t a common name. I start dialing and get the right man on my second try. “Is this George Ogusawara?” I begin.

“Who want to know?” A tenor voice with a strong Asian accent.

Quickly, I identify myself as chief of police. “Were you an investigator in Fairbanks?”

“I was a detective in Fairbanks, ma’am. I retire as Detective Lieutenant seven years ago. Now that you know you have the right fellow, what you want to know?”

“I’m investigating a series of murders similar to the ones that happened in Fairbanks back in the early 1980s.”

“Bad medicine, those murders. Give everyone nightmares, including me. What you want to know?”

“I understand the killer carved something on each victim’s abdomen.”

“Before he torture and kill them, yes. Guy a sick motherfucker, let me tell you.”

“The report I’m looking at doesn’t say what he carved. I was wondering if you recall what it was.”

“Even a hard-assed cop like me don’t forget something like that. He carve numbers. You know. Roman numerals. One. Two. Three. Like that.”

“Was the killer caught?”

“He the only reason I don’t retire until I’m too old to enjoy myself.” He pauses. “You think you got him down there?”

I don’t want to tell him too much. Already, I’ve crossed a line by telling him I’m chief of police. “I’m not sure. Is there anything else you can tell me about these murders?”

“They the worse thing I ever see. Real bad guy, this killer.”

“You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”

He starts to say something, but I hang up. My mind races with the information I’ve just been given. Three similar murders in Alaska, over three thousand miles away. Is there a connection? Could it be the same killer? If so, what took the killer from Ohio to Alaska and then back to Ohio?

I go back to the search engine and pull up everything I can find on the Tanana River Killer. I’m reading a small article from the Tanana Leader when a name stops me cold.

Nate Detrick, a guide for Yukon Hunting Tours, discovered the

body and contacted police . . .

I almost can’t believe my eyes. What are the odds of similar murders that happened thousands of miles apart touching the same man’s life twice? In some small corner of my mind, a memory pings my brain. A statement Glock made earlier.

Detrick used to be some big-shot hunting guide in Alaska.

That’s when I remember this isn’t the only place the sheriff’s name has come up in the course of my research. Curious, I go to the Holmes County Auditor’s Web site. An honest-to-God chill sweeps through me when I see that in September 1994, Nathan Detrick and his wife, Grace, sold their 2,500 square foot home in Millersburg.

I don’t dare acknowledge the connection my mind has just made. This has to be a coincidence. Nathan Detrick is a cop. To suspect him would go beyond ridiculous. He’s above reproach. Above suspicion.

Or is he?

Detrick is one of a handful of people who moved away from Painters Mill during the sixteen-year period. I now know he lived in Alaska where three similar murders occurred. I’ve been a cop long enough to realize this warrants follow-up.

I look down at my hands to find them shaking. I know I’m wrong about this. Coincidences do occur, and I’m an idiot for looking at Detrick. But the sheriff fits the profile far better than Jonas. My cop’s gut tells me to keep digging.

Remembering the list of snowmobile registrations I asked Pickles for yesterday, I quickly rifle through the papers on the table until I find it. It’s a typed list of names of people who own blue or silver snowmobiles registered in Coshocton and Holmes Counties. Midway down, Detrick’s name appears. He owns a blue Yamaha.

“No way,” I whisper. “No way.”

I go back to the computer and start looking at Detrick in earnest. Half an hour into my search, I discover a newspaper story in the Dayton Daily News from June 1986 about a bright young police officer who recently relocated from Fairbanks, Alaska, to join the Dayton Police Department. Donning full dress uniform, flanked by his wife, a handsome young Detrick smiles for the camera. The story is dated two months after the last murder in Alaska.

I begin looking for similar murders in and around Dayton during the time Detrick was there. I hit a dozen Web sites, one leading to the other—newspaper, television and radio Web sites, a few nonrestricted law enforcement sites, even a Crime Stoppers—but I find nothing. Only when I expand my search to the surrounding states do I hit pay dirt. A story in the archive section of The Kentucky Post from March 1989 snags my eye.

BODY FOUND ON RIVERBANK IDENTIFIED

The nude body of a woman found last week by a jogger on the bank of the Ohio River has been identified as twenty-year-old Jessie Watkins. According to Kenton County Coroner Jim Magnus, the woman’s throat was cut. Covington Police and the Kenton County Sheriff’s Office are “aggressively seeking the perpetrator,” said an unnamed law enforcement source on Monday. Watkins, a known prostitute, was last seen leaving a bar in Cincinnati. Investigators have no suspects at this time.

I pull up a map Web site and plug in the cities of Dayton, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky. Covington is about an hour’s drive from Dayton. Doable in one evening with time to spare.

Next, I do a random search for similar crimes in Michigan, but I strike out. Undeterred, I try Indiana. For an hour, I go from site to site to site. Just when I’m about to give up, I find a buried story on the murder of a young migrant worker, whose body was found in a cornfield between Indianapolis and Richmond.

MIGRANT WORKER FOUND MURDERED

Police have few clues in the murder of thirty-one-year-old Lucinda Ramos, whose body was found in a cornfield not far from Interstate 70 near New Castle on Monday. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” said Dick Welbaum, the farmer who nearly ran over the body with his tractor. An anonymous source with the Henry County Coroner’s office said there were “ritualistic carvings” on the victim’s body. When asked about the possibility of a cult, Mick Barber with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office offered no comment. He did say that the sheriff’s office is working in conjunction with the New Castle PD as well as the State Police to find the person or persons responsible.

The term ritualistic carving sticks in my mind. A check of the map site tells me New Castle, Indiana, is an hour and twenty minutes from Dayton. I pull up the Indiana State Police Web site and dial the main number. Within minutes I’m on the phone with Ronald Duff in the Criminal Investigation Division.

I identify myself as the chief of police and cut right to the chase. “I’m wondering about a murder you investigated back in 1988. Vic’s name was Lucinda Ramos.”

“I’ve killed a lot of brain cells since then. Let me pull the file.”

He could have refused to talk to me because I’m using my home phone. Sometimes if a cop isn’t certain of who he’s talking to, he’ll call them back at the police department. I’m guessing it was the fact that I’m looking at a cold case that prompts him to speak to me without verifying my credentials.