I stifle the little voice telling me to turn around and go home as I kill the engine and get out. Snow stings my face and blows down my collar as I traverse the lot and head for the entrance. Shoving open the heavy wood door, I step inside. The familiar smells of cigarette smoke, old wood, and spilled beer greet me like scruffy old friends. A classic Allman Brothers tune rattles from huge speakers mounted on the back wall. Two men sit on opposite sides of the bar, watching a football game on the tube. At the rear of the room, a young man with a goatee plays pool with a woman in tight blue jeans and a faux-fur coat.
I go to the last booth, where the bulb in the pendant light that dangles above the table is out. Taking off my coat, I sit facing the door. My butt has barely hit the bench when McNarie walks over to the table. He’s a large man with a full beard and a dingy white hair that reminds me of a dirty polar bear. Tomasetti once said he’s a dead ringer for Jerry Garcia.
“I hear them three Amish folks drowned in that pit didn’t get down there all by themselves.” Without looking at me, he sets a shot glass filled to the rim with Absolut and a Killian’s Irish Red on the table.
“That’s what the coroner says.” I reach for the shot glass first and down the vodka in a single gulp. The burn rips down my throat like a fireball. Shuddering, I set the empty glass on the table.
McNarie refills it without prompting. “You know who done it?”
“Not yet.” I give him my full attention. He’s got small brown eyes set in a big puffy face. The white beard partially conceals a scar that bisects his right cheek and runs downward toward his chin. It looks like someone slugged him with a bottle and McNarie never bothered with stitches. I ran a check on him when I first started coming here. Ten years ago, he did a year in prison for felony assault. A few years later, he did two more years on a felony weapons charge and possession of a controlled substance. He’s kept his nose clean since.
He lives on an old run-down farm north of Millersburg and rides his Harley into Painters Mill nearly every day, weather permitting. He owns this place and does a good business. He’s behind the bar every time I come in. I like to think this man is proof that the system works and that he’s been rehabilitated. Or maybe he just decided it was easier to make a living inside the law.
“You hear anything?” I ask.
He sets a pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter on the table. “No one’s talking about it.”
I think about the escalation of violence against the Amish, decide to ask him about that, too. “Did you hear about the burning buggy incident today?”
“I heard.”
“Anyone bragging about it?” I smile, but it feels wan on my face. “Or have a sign taped to their back that says ‘I Did It’?”
His chuckle sounds like the growl of some rogue lion. “A few days ago, a couple of young guys come in—longhaired types. Laughin’ their asses off ’bout doing some shit to an Amish person.”
My heartbeat trips a couple of times. “You know their names?”
“Never seen ’em before.”
“You get specifics on what they did?”
He shakes his head. “Just caught snatches of what they was saying.”
“Do you know what they were driving?”
Another shake. “No, but I’ll keep my eye out.”
I watch him walk away, wishing he hadn’t left the Marlboros, because I know I’m going to smoke them.
Settling into the booth, I sip the beer and light the first cigarette. I watch the twenty-something couple play pool at the rear. They laugh and flirt, and for some reason that makes me feel old. Go home, Kate, that small voice of reason whispers. I silence it, down the second shot, then light another cigarette.
I watch the game and listen to the jukebox and think about the Slabaugh case. I think about family dynamics and my mind moves on to the kids. Mose, just seventeen years old and doing his best to fill his father’s shoes. Salome, only fifteen and trying desperately to keep the family together. And then there’s Ike and Samuel, little boys who should be out on Miller’s Pond playing ice hockey and building snow forts. Instead, they’re crying for their dead mamm and datt and a future that’s as uncertain as the outcome of this case.
I think of Adam Slabaugh, a widower living alone, an Amish man excommunicated from his church and family, an uncle estranged from his niece and nephews. Loneliness can be a powerful force in a person’s life, especially if they’ve lost something precious. Adam lost his wife. Is he cold-blooded enough to murder his own brothers and his sister-in-law in order to gain custody of the children?
I’m midway through my second Killian’s when the door swings open. I glance up absently to see two men enter with a gust of wind and a swirl of snow. Surprise ripples through me at the sight of a Holmes County Sheriff’s Office parka. McNarie’s is a far cry from a cop bar. It’s unusual for any law enforcement to stop in, especially this time of night. Mild surprise transforms to something a hell of a lot more powerful when I recognize the second man. Long black coat, tall frame with an athletic build, dark hair shot with gray at the temples.
John Tomasetti makes eye contact with me at about the same time recognition kicks in. The jolt of his gaze runs the length of my body—an odd mix of shock and guilt and a thread of pleasure that goes all the way to my toes.
Motioning for the bartender to bring drinks, he crosses to my booth and looks down at me. “Hey, Chief.”
“Don’t tell me you just happened to be in the neighborhood,” I manage to say.
“Something like that.”
He’s looking at me a little too closely with those hard, dark eyes, eyes that invariably see too much—things I don’t want to share. It’s a struggle not to squirm beneath that gaze.
Sheriff Mike Rasmussen saunters to the booth. “Chief Burkholder.”
Rising, I shake hands with him. “Sheriff.”
Rasmussen slides into the bench across from me.
Tomasetti sticks out his hand. “Nice cave you’ve got here, Chief.”
I accept the handshake. “Welcome back to Painters Mill, Agent Tomasetti.”
“I take it you two know each other,” Rasmussen says.
One side of Tomasetti’s mouth curves, and he slides in next to me. “We do.”
I’ve known John Tomasetti for almost a year now. We met during the Slaughterhouse Killer investigation last January. He’s a good man, a good cop, and a powerful force to me and everyone around him. That case was an intense time for both of us, and somehow we ended up not only lovers, but friends. In the months since, our relationship has evolved, deepened, and I can honestly say the connection we share goes beyond anything I’ve ever experienced with another human being. But neither of us is very good at the relationship thing. We use our jobs as a guise to see each other, but we’ve been discreet; few people know we’re involved.
“I tried to return your call,” I say to the sheriff.
“Probably better to brief you in person anyway,” Rasmussen says.
McNarie arrives at the table, sets three Killian’s in front of us, then hustles away.
“What brings you to Painters Mill?” I direct the question to Tomasetti. What I really want to ask is: Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?
“Sheriff Rasmussen requested our assistance.” He motions toward the sheriff. “I’ll defer to him to give you the details.”
Leaning forward, Rasmussen sets his elbows on the table and clasps his hands in front of him. “I know you’re well aware that in the last couple of months there’s been an increase in crimes against the Amish, Kate.”