Sworn to Silence

CHAPTER 15

It’s nearly three P.M. when I leave the Huffman place. I feel like I’ve spent the morning in hell. Three hours at the scene have wrung me out until there’s nothing left. On the outskirts of Millersburg, I call Lois. I can tell by her voice she’s stressed. “We got media here, Chief. I swear to God these people are curling my hair.”

I don’t tell her there are probably more on the way. “I need you to set up a press conference.”

“You’re going to invite more of them?”

“You know what they say about keeping your enemies close.”

“You are a glutton for punishment.”

“Let’s do it at the high school auditorium. Six o’clock.”

“You got it.”

“Call all of my officers and tell them we’re meeting at four o’clock. The room you set up. That’s going to be our command center.” I name each member of my small force, including Mona. “Notify Detrick and Tomasetti, too.”

“Tomasetti that Mafia-looking guy?”

Her description elicits a smile. “And check to see if there have been any missing persons reports filed. White female. Twenty to thirty years old. Blonde. Start with the five-county area. If you don’t find anything there, go to Columbus, Wheeling, Massillon, Canton, Newark, Zanesville—”

“Slow down.”

“Steubenville. Check with county and city agencies.”

“Okay, I got it.”

“Patch me through to T.J., will you?”

The line clicks. T.J. picks up an instant later. “Hey, Chief.”

“Did you get the statements from the teenagers?”

“Lois is typing them now.”

“Anything on Patrick Ewell?” Ewell was the man who paid cash for a box of condoms at the Super Value Grocery.

“I ran a background.” Paper rattles. “Ewell, Patrick Henry. Thirty-six years old. Lives on Parkersburg Road with his wife, Marsha, and two teenage kids. No record. No arrests. Not even a frickin’ speeding ticket.” The pitch of T.J.’s voice changes. “Get this, Chief. He works at the slaughterhouse.”

It’s a tenuous connection, but I’m just desperate enough to follow up. “Find out what he does there. And find out if he was at the Brass Rail on Saturday.”

“You got it.”

I’d rather talk to Ewell myself, but I need to get the second victim identified first. “See if there’s a connection between Ewell and Amanda Horner.”

“Okay.”

I consider everything we know about Ewell. “Why would a married man with two grown kids buy a box of condoms?”

“Uh, birth control?”

“You’d think for a couple married that long, they’d have a better method.”

T.J. clears his throat. That a man of twenty-four years is embarrassed by such talk fills me with hope that the world is not as bleak as it feels at the moment. “Thanks, T.J.”

“Don’t mention it, Chief.”

I feel slightly more human as I pull into the parking lot of Pomerene Hospital. I double-park near the entrance. Sleet patters my head and shoulders as I jog toward the revolving doors. The redhead at the information desk eyes me with a little too much interest as I pass. I send her a passable smile, but she turns her attention back to her computer.

The hospital basement is hushed and not as well lit as the upper floors. My boots thud dully against tile as I pass the yellow and black biohazard sign. I push through the set of swinging doors and see Doc Coblentz in his office, sitting at his desk. “Doc?”

“Ah, Chief Burkholder. I’ve been expecting you.” Wearing a white lab coat and navy slacks, he rises and crosses to me. “Any ID on the victim yet?”

“We’re checking missing persons reports.” I take a deep breath, trying to prepare for what comes next. “Do you have a prelim?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve got her cleaned up. I did the initial exam. If you’d like to take a look.”

That’s the last thing I want to do, but I need to identify this young woman. Somewhere out there, loved ones are worried. She may have children. People whose lives will be irrevocably changed by her death.

I go directly to the alcove. Hanging up my coat, I quickly don a gown and booties. The doc is waiting for me when I emerge. “The cuts on her abdomen do appear to be the Roman numeral XXII.”

“Postmortem?”

“Antemortem.” He starts toward the second set of swinging doors, and we enter the gray tiled room I’ve come to despise.

Three stainless steel gurneys are shoved against the far wall. A fourth gleams beneath a huge overhead light. I see the outline of the body beneath a blue sheet and brace.

Doc Coblentz snags a clipboard off the counter. Sliding a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat, he looks through his bifocals and jots something on the form, then returns the clipboard to the counter. “I’ve been a doctor for the better part of twenty years. I’ve been coroner for nearly eight. This is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.”

Gently, he pulls down the sheet. Revulsion sends me back a step as I take in the brownish-green hued skin. Her mouth sags open; I see her tongue tucked inside. The wound at her neck is a black, gaping mouth.

My eyes are drawn to the Roman numerals on her abdomen. The carving is crude, but the similarities to the wounds on Amanda Horner’s body are unmistakable. “Cause of death?”

“The same. Exsanguination. He cut her throat and she bled to death.”

I need to get a better look at her. I want to see her hair, her nails, her toes—anything that might help me identify her, but my feet refuse to take me closer.

“He raped her. Sodomized her.”

“DNA?”

“I took swabs, but there wasn’t any fluid.”

“He wore a condom?”

“Probably. I’ll know more when I get the results back.” The doc sighed. “He tortured this girl, Kate. Look at this.”

Rounding the gurney, he crosses to the counter and picks up a stainless steel tray about the size of a cookie sheet. “This was inside her rectum.”

I can’t bring myself to look at the object. I can’t even meet the doctor’s eyes. Instead, I lower my head slightly and rub at the ache between my eyes. “Postmortem?”

“Ante.”

Taking a deep breath, I force my gaze to the tray. The object is a steel rod, about half an inch in diameter and ten inches long. There’s a tiny eyehook on one end. The other is tapered. It looks homemade; I can see where whoever made it used some type of grinder to shape it.

“Foreign object rape?” I ask. In the back of my mind, I wonder if the killer is impotent. If maybe he’s gone to a urologist for erectile dysfunction treatment. I make a mental note to check it out.

“I don’t think that’s how or why he used this object.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’s some type of homemade electrode.” He picks up the object. “There’s copper here. See?” The doc runs a gloved finger along the length of the steel. “I worked for an electrician part-time when I was in high school. Copper is one of the best conductors of electricity.”

I don’t know much about the dynamics of electricity. I do know it can be used for torture. While in the academy, I remember reading about the Mexican drug cartels using those kinds of tactics when they wanted to make an example of someone.

I look at the doc. I see the same outrage and disbelief in his eyes that I feel clenching my chest. “So this killer may have some electrical experience. At the very least, he tinkers.” It’s much too benign a word for a person who designed an instrument of torture. Tinkering is the kind of thing your dad does on Sunday afternoons in the garage. Monsters don’t tinker.

“This explains the burns Amanda Horner sustained.”

“Yes.”

“Why would he leave it?” I wonder aloud. But in the back of my mind, I know. He’s proud of this vile device. He wanted us to find it.

The doc shakes his head. “That’s your area, Kate, not mine. I can definitively tell you he tortured her with this, probably with an electrical charge.”

For the span of a full minute, the only sound comes from the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the hum of the refrigeration units. I try to rally my thoughts, get my questions in order, but my mind doesn’t cooperate. “I’ll add that to the profile we’re building.”

I stare at the deep grooves cut into her wrists. The bloated abdomen. Her hands and feet. I try to see her as she must have been when she was alive. That’s when it strikes me that neither her nails or toenails are painted. This woman is totally unadorned. No highlights in her hair. Her earlobes aren’t pierced. No jewelry.

She is plain.

A dozen vehicles jam the street in front of the police station when I pull up. I see a ProNews 16 van parked in my reserved space and I’m forced to park half a block away. I slap a citation beneath his wiper on my way in.

Inside, the place is a madhouse. Both Lois and Mona stand at the dispatch station, manning a switchboard gone wild. T.J. sits at his cube, the phone to his ear, his back to the room. Glock slouches in his chair in his cubicle, his fingers pecking at the keyboard. I wonder where Skid and Pickles are, and realize they’re probably still at the Huffman place.

Steve Ressler spots me. His cheeks glow red as he rushes toward me. “Is it true there was a second murder?”

“Yes.” I don’t stop walking.

He keeps pace with me. “Who’s the victim? Has she been identified? Has the family been notified? Is it the same killer?”

“I gotta work, Steve,” I say. “Press conference at six.”

He tosses a dozen more questions at me, but I push past him and head to my office.

“Chief!” Mona’s hair is wilder than usual. Heavy on the eyeliner. Pink shadow. Clashing red lipstick. She’s ready for the cameras.

“How long has it been like this?” I ask.

“A few hours. I stayed to help Lois.”

“I appreciate that.” Across the room, Steve Ressler gives me the evil eye. “Everyone behaving?”

“Ressler’s a pushy asshole. Norm Johnston’s off the chart.”

“Tell anyone who asks there’s a press conference at six in the high school auditorium.”

“Gotcha.”

In my office, I flip on my computer and grab a cup of coffee while it boots. My phone rings. I look at it to see all four lines blinking in discord. Ignoring all of them, I dial Lois.

“Did you check missing persons reports?” I ask.

“Nothing, Chief.”

I think about the young woman at the morgue. I should be surprised no one has reported her missing. But I’m not. “Remind everyone of the meeting at four.”

“You mean the one that was supposed to start ten minutes ago?”

“And send Glock in, will you?”

“Sure.”

I’m still thinking about the second victim when Glock walks in. “What’s up?”

“Close the door.”

He reaches behind him and the door clicks shut.

“I need you to drop everything,” I begin.

He moves to the visitor chair and sits. “All right.”

“This is just between you and me, Glock. No one can know what you’re doing or why. And I can’t tell you everything.”

“Tell me what you can and I’ll run with it.”

Relief flits through me that he trusts me enough to work blind. “I want you to dig up everything you can on a man by the name of Daniel Lapp.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s local. Amish. No one has seen him in sixteen years.”

The time frame doesn’t elude Glock, and for the first time he looks surprised. “He’s Amish?”

“People assumed he fled the lifestyle.”

“He got family here?”

I nod. “A brother. I’ve already talked to him.”

“He give you anything?”

“No.”

Glock studies me a little too closely. “You going to tell me why we’re looking at this guy?”

“I can’t. I just need you to trust me, okay?”

He nods. “Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

Just like that. No questions. No objections at being left in the dark. I feel a pang of guilt. Like maybe I don’t deserve that kind of trust.

“This a priority?” he asks after a moment.

“The highest,” I answer, and hope to God he can find what I could not.