Pray for Silence

CHAPTER 3

I’m standing on the back porch one puff into a Marlboro I bummed from Skid when a police cruiser hauling a small trailer barrels down the lane. Light bar and siren blaring, it slides to a halt behind my Explorer, stirring a cloud of dust that alternately glows blue and red, lending yet another layer of surreality to an already surreal scene.

Rupert “Glock” Maddox gets out of the car and goes around to the trailer, opens dual rear doors and pulls down a small ramp. A former Marine, Glock has the dubious honor of being Painters Mill’s first African-American police officer. He’s built like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, can shoot the hair off a groundhog, and is one of the best cops I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. As I start toward him, I hope his levelheadedness will balance out the jagged emotions roiling inside me.

He rolls a portable, diesel-powered generator down the trailer ramp, then watches me approach. Under normal circumstances, he’d probably give me a hard time about smoking. I might have tried to hide the evidence if I hadn’t been standing in the midst of a crime scene. I figure both of us are too distracted by what we face in the coming hours to bother with something so mundane.

“Must be bad if you’re smoking,” he says.

“It’s bad.” The words feel like an obscene understatement.

“I would have been here faster, but I had to pick up the generator and lights.”

“It’s okay.” A sigh shudders out of me. “None of these people are going anywhere.”

“You get the shooter?”

“I’m not exactly sure what we’re dealing with yet.”

He looks at me a little too closely as I drop the butt on the gravel and crush it out with my boot.

“Could be a murder-suicide,” I clarify.

“Shit.”

I motion toward the generator. “Get some lights set up, will you?” I start toward Skid’s cruiser. “I’m going to talk to the witness.”

I’ve met Reuben Zimmerman several times over the years. He’s a quiet, serious man, one of the few Amish I know who does not have children. He and his wife, Martha, own a small house on a couple of acres down the road. Reuben is a retired carpenter and spends most of his time building decorative birdhouses and mailboxes for the Amish tourist shops in town.

I open the back door of the cruiser and bend slightly to make eye contact with him. Zimmerman leans forward and looks at me. “Did you find Bonnie and the other children?” he asks.

Though Skid had only been following departmental procedure, I’m dismayed to see the Amish man’s hands cuffed behind his back. I pull the key out of my belt. “Turn around, and I’ll take those off for you.” I speak to him in Pennsylvania Dutch, hoping it will help break down the barrier of mistrust that exists between the Amish and the English police. This morning, I need his full cooperation.

Turning, he offers his wrists. I insert the key and the handcuffs snick open. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

He rubs his wrists. “I help with the milking.”

“Why does Amos need you when he has two sons?”

Zimmerman looks perplexed by my question, but only for a moment. “He has twenty-two head of cattle and milks twice a day. I deliver the cans to Gordon Brehm in Coshocton County.”

His answer is consistent with the absence of a milking machine and generator in the barn. Without refrigeration, there’s no way to keep the milk cold, therefore it cannot be sold as grade A for drinking. Stored temporarily in old-fashioned milk cans, it can only be sold as grade B for cheese-making, which would require a buggy trip to the local cheese-maker in the next county.

I tilt my head and snag his gaze. “Reuben.” I say his name firmly, letting him know I want his undivided attention. “I need you to tell me everything you saw when you arrived this morning.”

He nods. “I arrived early, so I sat on the back stoop for a few minutes. Usually, there is lantern light inside. Amos and I have coffee. Sometimes Bonnie fries scrapple. This morning the house was dark.”

“So you went inside?”

“I knocked, but no one answered.” He gives a small smile. “I thought, Er hot sich wider verschlofe.” He overslept again. “So I went inside.”

“How did you get in?”

“The back door was not locked.”

My brain files that away for later. Many Amish don’t lock their doors at night. It’s not that locks go against the Ordnung in any way; most simply don’t see the need. And it’s not just the Amish who are lax. I’d estimate half the folks in this county don’t lock up before going to bed. Having been a cop in a large, metropolitan city for six years, I don’t share the mind-set. I snap my dead bolts into place every night with the glee of a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Did you see anyone else inside the house?” I ask.

“Just Amos . . . and the two boys.”

“What about outside? In the yard? Or the barn?”

“I saw no one.”

“Any vehicles or buggies?”

“No.”

“Have you noticed any unusual behavior from Amos? Has he been under any pressure? Or talked to you about any problems?”

“Amos?” The Amish man shakes his head. “No.”

“Was there any disharmony within the household?”

“No.”

“Were there any problems between Amos and Bonnie? Or between Amos and the children? Problems with outside friends? Money problems, maybe?”

He shakes his head so vehemently, his beard flops from side to side. “Why do you ask these things, Katie?”

“I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

Zimmerman stares hard at me. “Amos lived his life in the spirit of Gelassenheit. He was a good Amish man. He was modest and yielded to God’s will. He worked hard. And he loved his family.”

“Did the Planks have any enemies?” I ask. “Were they involved in any kind of dispute?”

Another emphatic shake. “The Planks loved their Amish brethren. They were generous. If you needed something, Amos and Bonnie would give it to you and were happy to go without themselves.”

But I know that even decent, God-loving Amish families keep secrets.

For a moment, the only sound comes from the blast of the generator on the back porch and the chorus of crickets all around us. Then Zimmerman whispers, “Are Bonnie and the other children all right?”

I shake my head. “They’re gone, too.”

“Mein Gott.” Bowing his head, he sets his fingertips against his forehead and rubs so hard the skin turns white. “Who would commit this terrible sin?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do not understand God’s will,” Reuben says.

I don’t think murder is what God had in mind for the Plank family, but since my views aren’t popular among my former brethren, I remain silent. “I’m going to have one of my officers drive you to the station so we can take your fingerprints. Can you do that for me?”

“But what about the cows?” he asks. “They must be milked.”

Dealing with cattle is the least of my worries this morning. But having grown up on a farm much like this one, I know the animals must be dealt with. “I’ll have Bishop Troyer send some men over as soon as possible. They’ll take care of the milking.”

He nods. “It is the right thing to do.”

It’s no small sacrifice for Zimmerman to ride in an English police car; it’s against the Ordnung, the rules set forth by the local church district, but he nods. “I will help any way I can.”

I close the car door and cross to my Explorer. Opening the rear hatch, I pull out my crime scene kit. It’s not very high tech. Just a box of latex gloves, disposable shoe covers, a sketch pad and notebook, a stack of miniature fluorescent orange cones used for marking evidence, a roll of crime scene tape, a couple of inexpensive field test kits, and the new digital camera I recently had approved for purchase by the town council.

I find Glock on the back porch, marking the bloody handprint for the CSU, a work light in his hand. “Zimmerman any help?” he asks over the drone of the generator.

I shake my head. “He didn’t see anything.”

“You believe him?”

“For now.”

We enter the kitchen. After being outside in the fresh air, the reek of death is suffocating. Setting the kit on the table, I remove a small tube of Vicks and dab it beneath my nose.

I offer it to Glock, but he refuses with his usual, “Can’t stand the smell.”

It’s an ongoing joke that usually garners a laugh. We don’t laugh this time around.

Quickly, we don latex gloves and shoe covers. This kind of crime scene is every cop’s nightmare. It’s spread over a large area, some of which is outdoors, which makes the collection and preservation of evidence extremely difficult. Even though I’m not yet sure exactly what we’re dealing with—a mass murder or murder-suicide—I opt to err on the side of caution and preserve as much of the scene as possible.

I hand the camera to Glock. “Photograph everything before you touch it. You know the drill.”

Nodding, he takes the camera. Neither of us speaks as we cross through the kitchen to the living room. Stopping in the doorway, I shine my Maglite on Amos Plank.

“Bad fuckin’ scene,” Glock says.

“It’s worse in the barn.”

He casts a questioning look at me.

I tell him about the teenaged girls.

“Damn.” I see his cop’s eyes taking in Plank’s unbound hands. The proximity of the handgun to the body. The exit wound at the back of his head. Like any good cop, he’s making judgments based on what he sees. “You think he did this?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the most honest answer I can give. By all appearances, Plank went berserk, murdered his family, then put the gun in his mouth and blew his brains out. But the part of me that is Amish, that will always be Amish no matter how far I stray, can’t fathom an Amish man—an Amish father—inflicting these horrors upon his family. Granted, I didn’t know Amos Plank. But I do know the Amish culture. I know violence is not part of it.

While Glock snaps photos, I walk the living room, trying to envision what might have happened. I study the position of the bodies. The wounds. The proximity of the Beretta to Amos Plank.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

It’s a keenly unsettling feeling to share such a small space with so many dead, particularly those who’ve suffered a violent death. In the periphery of my consciousness, I’m aware of Glock moving around, snapping photos. I see the flash of the camera. I hear the click and whir of the shutter, the high-pitched whine of the battery charging between shots.

“Chief.”

I glance at Glock to see him kneeling, looking at something on the floor. I cross to him as he snaps the shot.

“Got a partial print here.” He takes a second shot.

I pull one of the evidence markers from my coat. “Plenty of tread.”

“Looks like a boot. Men’s. Size nine or ten.”

I arch a brow. “You’re good.”

“That’s what my wife says.”

We exchange small smiles, and I’m glad I have him to help me keep things in perspective. I kneel beside him, study the print. It’s a partial, the front half of a shoe or boot. “Where did he pick up that blood?” I wonder aloud.

“Had to have stepped in it somewhere.” Glock glances my way. “I didn’t see any other prints.”

“Gotta be.” I rise, look around, heartened by the promise of evidence.

He shoots a final photo, gets to his feet and we look around. He walks slowly toward the small boy on the other side of the room and snaps a shot.

I go to the nearest body and kneel. It’s not easy looking at a dead teenaged boy. He’s lying facedown, his hands bound behind his back. His head is turned to the side and I see blood in his hair. Bits of brain matter and tiny white bone fragments from his shattered skull spatter the floor. His lips are parted. I see blood between his teeth. The small pink nub of a tongue that’s nearly been bitten off. Though I used the mentholated petroleum jelly, the reek of urine and feces repulses me.

Then I notice the binding at the boy’s wrists and my petty discomforts are forgotten. It’s some type of insulated wire. Speaker wire, I realize. Something an Amish man would never have in his home or anywhere else. The double knots are tied off neatly. The wire is tight enough to cut skin.

The fact that the killer used speaker wire niggles at me as I go to the kitchen. Who would have speaker wire on hand? Someone putting a sound system into their home? Their car or RV? Someone who works with audio or sound systems? Computers maybe? I’m working the possibilities over in my head when Glock calls out.

“I think I found where he picked up that blood.”

I walk to him and he motions down at the dead little boy. “There’s blood on that rug. I’d say the killer stepped on the rug and tracked it.”

He’s right. Disappointment presses into me. “I was hoping we’d find a better print.”

“Never that fuckin’ easy.” He snaps several shots of the blood-soaked rug.

I go to the kitchen and pull the sketch pad from my kit. Back in the living room, I begin a crude illustration of the scene, concentrating on the location and position of each body. I’m not a very good artist, but combined with the photos, this depiction will be a good record of how we found the scene.

I go to Amos Plank’s body. He, too, lies facedown with his head turned to one side. The pool of blood surrounding his head glitters beneath the work light. I kneel next to him. “Glock, did you get photos of the father?”

Lowering the camera, he comes up beside me. “A half dozen or so from different angles.”

That gives me the go-ahead to move the body. “Help me roll him over,” I say.

Squatting next to me, Glock places his hands on the dead man’s left hip. I put my hands on his left shoulder. “Go,” I say and in tandem we roll him onto his back.

A cup or so of blood spills from his mouth when his head lolls. Glock and I move quickly back to avoid getting biohazard on our clothes. Plank’s face goes beyond macabre beneath the stark light. I see several broken teeth. Gray-black powder burns around his lips. Nostrils filled with coagulated blood. Jaw broken, mouth hanging open. A tongue shredded by a bullet.

Livor mortis has set in; the right side of his face is dark purple. Lividity occurs when the heart stops and blood, no longer being pumped, settles to the lowest part of the body. The bruise-like discoloration begins as early as half an hour after death and becomes more pronounced with time. It’s my first clue with regard to his time of death.

“Looks like he’s been dead at least an hour,” I say.

“If people knew what bullets did to their fuckin’ faces, we’d have a hell of a lot less suicides,” Glock comments.

The bullet wound appears to be self-inflicted. It entered via his mouth and exited out the back of his head, shattering his skull and taking a good bit of brain with it. Some might think it an apt end for a man who’d just murdered his family in cold blood.

“If he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger,” Glock begins, “wouldn’t the concussion send him backward? Wouldn’t he land face-up?”

“Usually, that’s the case,” I say. “But if he was leaning forward. Clutching the weapon. Head down.” I ward off a chill the image conjures. “There may not have been enough momentum.”

“Hell of way to go.”

“Why would an Amish man have speaker wire?” I’m mostly thinking aloud. “He probably doesn’t own a stereo or TV. He didn’t even use a milking machine or generator for his dairy operation.”

“Hard to figure.” Glock shrugs. “Maybe he got it on sale somewhere or someone gave it to him. Uses it because it’s strong.”

“He has baling twine in the barn. Why not use that?”

“What are you getting at, Chief?”

I’m not sure how to express the thoughts running through my head without sounding prejudiced. But experience has taught me to listen to my instincts. Right now that little voice in my head is telling me this scene may not be what it looks like.

“I can’t see an Amish man doing this,” I say after a moment.

“The Amish are human, too,” he says. “They have tempers. Limits. They snap.”

He’s right. It’s rare, but the Amish have killed before. In 1993, Edward Gingerich murdered and then eviscerated his young wife. It’s one of only a few documented cases on record.

“This doesn’t add up,” I say. “The level of violence. The handgun. The torture of the daughters. The speaker wire.”

“Hard to swallow when it’s the parent killing his kids.”

Glock is one of the best cops I’ve ever known. He has loads of common sense, good instincts, and enough experience under his belt to know appearances can be deceiving. He’s tough and loyal, sometimes to a fault. Last January, when we were investigating the Slaughterhouse Killer case, he risked his job to support me after I was fired by the town council. Above and beyond the obvious, one of the things I admire most about him is that he will give his honest opinion—even when he knows it’s not what I want to hear.

“Are you telling me you think someone else came in here, shot them, and then made it look as if the father did it?” he asks.

“Sounds like a crazy theory when you put it that way.”

Glock looks down at the body, but I feel the weight of his attention on me. “When I was a stationed in North Carolina, this crazy fucker cut up his kids and put them in a Crock-Pot with sweet potatoes. Later, when the shrink asked the guy why he did it, he told him he loved them too much to let them live.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

He shrugs. “That’s my point. You can’t make sense of something that doesn’t, no matter how hard you try.”

I know he’s right. Crimes like this baffle the mind. They break your heart. They’ll tear you up inside if you let them. One of the old timers I worked with as a rookie once told me it’s the cops who spend too much time trying to figure it out who end up going the way of Amos Plank.

“You don’t want to get inside a mind like that,” Glock says. “Talk about a scary fuckin’ place.”

The slamming of the kitchen door garners my attention. I look over to see the coroner, Dr. Ludwig Coblentz, standing in the kitchen, holding a suitcase-size medical bag. Wearing a cream-colored windbreaker over a flannel pajama top and tan Dockers, he looks like a cross between the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy. But what he lacks in physical presence, he makes up for by being damn good at what he does. He’s one of five doctors in Painters Mill and has been acting coroner for nearly eight years.

“Tell me this isn’t as bad as what it sounded over the phone,” he says.

“It’s probably worse.” I meet him in the kitchen and we shake hands. “Thanks for getting here so quickly.”

He sets his medical case on the kitchen table. “How many?”

“Seven. The whole family.”

“Good God.” With the quick hands of a man who is as comfortable with his tools as he is in his own skin, he opens the leather case, works both hands into latex gloves, then slips a plastic, apron-like gown over his jacket and ties it in the back. Bending, he slides his Hush Puppy–clad feet into disposable shoe covers, pulls a small black vinyl case from the medical bag and looks at me over the tops of his glasses. “Show me the way.”

“We’ve got three in here. Two in the yard. Two more in the barn.” Motioning for the doc to follow, I enter the living room.

He heaves a sigh that sounds as old and tired as I feel. “I’ve been coroner for a while now, but I swear to God I’ll never get used to seeing dead kids.”

“The day you get used to that is the day you stop being human,” I respond.

“Or find another line of work,” Glock adds.

The doctor goes to the nearest victim, the teenaged boy, and kneels, setting the case on the floor next to him. “Some additional light would be helpful.”

The work lights we set up earlier dispel much of the darkness, but they’re not bright enough for the kind of work the doctor needs to do. Crossing to him, I shine my Maglite onto the victim.

The doc glances up at me, his eyes huge and troubled behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “Have you photographed the bodies?”

“We’ve got everything documented,” Glock says. “You can move them if you need to.”

Gently, the doc sets his hands on the boy’s head and shifts it slightly. From where I stand, I see blood-matted blond hair. The doc’s gloved fingers separate the hair revealing a neat, round hole the size of a pencil eraser a few inches above his nape. “This is the entry wound. This child was shot from behind.”

“Any idea what caliber of bullet was used?” I ask.

“I can guess.” He prods the scalp surrounding the hole. I see the pale flesh giving way beneath his fingers. Blood seeping from the hole, sucking back in when the pressure is released. “Judging from the size of the wound and the extent of skull fracturing, I’d say we’re talking about a small caliber handgun. Close range.”

“Can you be more specific than that, Doc?”

“Twenty-two caliber. Maybe a thirty-two.”

“Nine millimeter?” I ask.

“Maybe. I can’t say for certain yet.” With the same gentleness with which he would handle a newborn baby, he turns the boy’s head. Pink fluid leaks from the boy’s left nostril. “Exit wound might help narrow it down.”

My pulse kicks when I spot the hole in the wood floor. I look at Glock. “Get down in the basement, see if the slug went all the way through. I’ll keep my beam on the hole. If the bullet went clean through, you’ll be able to see the light.”

“You got it.”

I look down to see the doc once again turn the victim’s head. The left side of the boy’s face is purple with lividity. The doc presses two fingers into his cheek. “Livor mortis isn’t fixed.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means he’s been expired at least two hours, but not longer than ten. Livor becomes fixed after ten hours.” Once again he presses two fingers into the purple flesh of his cheek. “When I press here, the skin whitens, then refills. If he had been dead over ten hours, the livored area would remain stained.”

“Can you narrow it down any more than that?”

“Body temp will tell us a lot.” Turning, the doc digs into his tool bag and removes a pair of blunt-tipped shears. With the impersonal efficiency of the professional he is, he cuts away the boy’s trousers and underwear. Seeing the boy’s skinny, white body is unbearably sad. All I can think is that he should be alive. He should be laughing, teasing his younger brother, and annoying his older sisters.

“Kate?”

I jolt at the sound of the doctor’s voice, and I realize he’s handing me the clothes, waiting for me to bag them. Giving myself a mental shake, I go to my crime scene kit in the kitchen, dig out a large paper bag, snap it open. Back in the living room, I cross to the doc and hold open the bag while he drops the trousers inside. I jot the date, time and the name of the victim on the label.

“The body temperature drops between a degree and a degree and a half per hour.” The doctor slides a specially designed high-tech thermometer into the boy’s rectum. “This preliminary body temp will give you a ballpark idea of when he died. Once I get them to the morgue, I’ll get a core reading from the liver, which is more accurate.”

“Is it possible he lingered for a while after he was shot?”

“This child died instantly.”

The timer on the thermometer beeps. He withdraws it and squints through his bifocals at the reading. “Ninety point six.”

Quickly, I do the math. “That puts us between five and a half and eight hours ago.”

“Correct.”

I glance at my watch. “It’s six-thirty A.M. now, so time of death was probably between ten last night and twelve-thirty this morning.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Can I borrow your scissors a sec?” I ask.

“Of course.” He passes them to me.

I reach for the boy’s wrist, cut through the speaker wire, and drop the wire into a second evidence bag. “Quite a bit of bruising at the wrist,” I comment.

The doctor grimaces. “This poor boy struggled.”

“I need to bag his hands so the CSU can check beneath his nails for DNA.” When I glance down at the victim’s hands, I see that the fingers are claw-like and rigid. “He’s in rigor?” I ask.

“Not yet. Rigor usually starts with the face, the jaw, the neck.”

“But his hands . . .”

“Cadaveric spasm more than likely. That happens when the victim experiences extreme agitation or tension in the moments before death.”

I don’t want to think about the horrors this boy endured before his death. I’ve been a victim of violent crime; I’ve seen my share of violence. But I cannot imagine the terror and helplessness of being bound, watching every member of your family systematically shot and knowing you’re next.

The doc moves to Amos Plank. I know it’s an emotional response, but I feel inordinately repulsed by the elder Plank’s body. Not because of the condition of his corpse, but because of what he may have done to his family. There’s a part of me that feels as if the man doesn’t deserve the reverence with which we handled the dead boy.

“Did you move him, Kate?”

I nod.

“Is he your shooter?”

“I don’t know. Looks that way.”

“Since we’ve some question as to whether or not this man is the perpetrator of these crimes and time is of the essence, I’ll go ahead and get a core temp for you now. It’s much more accurate this way and you’ll be able to get to work on a time line.” The doctor tugs up the man’s shirt and exposes his abdomen.

Though entering middle age, Amos Plank is a lean man. I can see the outline of his ribs from where I stand. Minimal body hair. White skin that has seen little sun.

“You might want to note that there are no visible lacerations or bruises about the abdomen.”

“Duly noted.”

“I’m going to make a small incision.” The doc places his hand flat against the abdomen, pulls the skin taut. Using a scalpel, he quickly makes the incision just below the lowest rib, about half an inch long. A line of blood appears as the skin opens, but the wound does not bleed. Next, he inserts the stem of a long digital meat thermometer, guiding it upward to just under the rib cage.

“Going to take a minute or so,” he says. “I’ll continue with the exam.”

Setting his hands on the head of the corpse, he gently moves it from side to side. “Rigor has set in about the face and neck. Eyes are cloudy.”

“Any idea when you might get to the autopsies?” I’m thinking about the two girls in the barn. I want to know how they died. If they were sexually assaulted.

“I’ll juggle some appointments and begin immediately.”

I’m watching the doctor examine the dead man’s hands when a shadow on the corpse’s wrist snags my attention. Grabbing my Maglite, I train the beam on the wrist. I almost can’t believe my eyes. Just above the hand, a faint bruise encircles the wrist.

“Is that a bruise on his wrist?” I ask.

Doc Coblentz looks at me over the tops of his glasses, then his eyes follow the beam of my flashlight. His brows knit as he stares at the marks. “It certainly looks like it.”

Before even realizing I’m going to move, I reach for the corpse’s arm. I feel cold flesh through the thin latex of my glove. The stiffness of the joint associated with the early stages of rigor. In the stark light from my Maglite, I see clearly the circular pattern of the bruise.

“It’s the same bruising pattern we found on the boy’s wrists,” I say.

Something pings in my head, like a piece of puzzle I couldn’t make fit finally clicking into place. Realization trickles over me like ice water. Everything I thought I knew about this scene flies out the window. “He was bound,” I murmur.

The doctor is already looking at the other wrist. From where I kneel, I can see the bruising there, too. The doc shoots me a grim look. “I don’t believe we’re dealing with a suicide here, Kate.”

“The killer staged the scene,” I whisper.

“That appears to be the case.”

I think of the mother and baby lying dead in the yard, and a chill runs the length of my body hard enough to make me shudder. I think of the two girls in the barn, the evidence of torture, and all I can think is that there’s a cold-blooded killer running loose in my town. A monster with a bloodlust for killing and an appetite that has spiraled out of control.