The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel

by Linda Castillo

  I hit my lapel mike. “Jodie?”

  “Go ahead, Chief.”

  “Call T.J. and get him out here.”

  “Ten four.”

  “And run Dale Michaels through LEADS.” I spell the name. “And while you’re at it, pull everything you can find on the Hochstetler case from 1979, will you?”

  “Got it.”

  Watching the scene apprehensively, Belinda Harrington approaches me. “What’s going on? Did someone shoot my dad?”

  I give her a hard look, noticing the boat-size purse at her side, the bulky jacket, and I realize she has plenty of places in which to secrete a weapon. I don’t think she shot her father or wrapped a rope around his neck and strung him up. But I learned a long time ago that taking things at face value is never a good idea when there’s a dead body involved.

  “We believe your father may have sustained a gunshot wound shortly before his death,” I tell her.

  “What? But … oh my God. He was hanging. Who would do such a thing?”

  “Mrs. Harrington, does your father own a handgun?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you know what kind?”

  “It’s big and black.” She shrugs. “I don’t know anything about guns.”

  “Do you own a firearm, ma’am?”

  “My husband does.” Her eyes narrow. “Why are you asking me that?”

  I step closer. “Do you mind if I take a quick look in your purse?”

  “What? Why?” But she makes no move to stop me when I reach out and ease the purse from her shoulder.

  “Just routine,” I tell her, “since you were first on the scene.” She starts to protest, but I keep her busy with questions while I open the bag and quickly determine there’s no weapon inside and hand it back to her. “Did your father have any recent arguments with anyone, Mrs. Harrington? Did he have any enemies?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, not that he mentioned. Most everyone liked my dad.” But her brows go together. “Wait. I think he had some kind of problem with his neighbor. The couple that lives south of here. Their dogs were always loose and getting in my dad’s trash.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “It’s been kind of ongoing, I think.”

  Taking her arm, I guide her toward the door. “What’s the neighbor’s name?”

  “Seymour.”

  “Is that a first or last name?”

  “I don’t know. He just goes by Seymour and my dad didn’t like him much. That’s all I know.”

  I nod. “Did your father have any kind of connection to anyone with the name Hochstetler?”

  She looks at me blankly. “Not that I know of.”

  “Did he keep money or valuables here at the house?”

  “I don’t know. He probably kept some cash on hand. And there are plenty of nice things in the house. He remodeled the place after my mom divorced him.”

  “How long ago did they divorce?”

  “Oh gosh, eight years maybe?”

  “Any tension between them?”

  She shakes her head. “Divorce is probably the best thing they ever did for each other.”

  “Did he have any work done on the house recently? Or hire any casual laborers? Anything like that?”

  “Did that remodeling six or seven years ago.” She shrugs. “He’s handy and liked to tinker, so he did a lot of the work himself.”

  “Does your dad have a cell phone?” I ask, knowing that many times it’s helpful to check incoming and outgoing calls.

  “He just upgraded his iPhone.”

  “You’ve been a big help, Mrs. Harrington.” I motion toward Glock. “Officer Maddox will walk you to your vehicle. This is a crime scene now, and we need to protect any evidence.”

  A round of fresh tears well in her eyes. “My poor dad. Shot like some old dog.”

  I give Glock a nod and he gently ushers her toward the door. “This way, ma’am.”

  I watch them disappear into the rain and then tug out my cell and hit the speed dial for Tomasetti, knowing he can get a crime scene unit out here faster than I can. Worry flickers inside me when he doesn’t pick up, but I presume he’s in the shower or on another line. I call my dispatcher instead. “Call BCI and request a CSU. Tell them we’ve got a possible homicide.” I give her the address. “Check County records and get me the names and contact info of Michaels’s neighbors. I’m particularly interested in a neighbor with the first or last name of Seymour. See if he’s got a sheet.”

  “Okay, Chief.”

  I ring off in time to hear the coroner call my name. I walk back over to where he’s kneeling next to the body, his gloved hand hovering near the bullet wound. “I’m guessing, Kate, but I’d venture to say the slug penetrated the stomach. If that’s the case, there’s no way he walked from the house to the barn after sustaining this wound.”

  I scan the interior of the barn, trying to get my mind around what might have transpired. “Is it possible Michaels was already hanging, perhaps by his own hand, and someone entered the barn and shot him?” I ask the doc.

  “Possible, but doubtful,” he replies. “There’s only a small window of time that he was alive, after he was hanged. Once the carotid artery and jugular veins are blocked, unconsciousness would have occurred within minutes. Death may have taken another ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Maybe someone shot him to disable him and then strung him up,” Glock says as he comes through the door.

  “Hell of a way to kill someone,” Maloney adds.

  I look down at Dale Michaels’s body. “Unless maybe someone thought he deserved it.”

  CHAPTER 4

  It’s nearly 4 A.M. when I arrive home, exhausted and in need of a shower. Once the coroner’s office transported the body to the morgue, Glock and I spent three hours searching both the barn and the house. As is always the case when murder is suspected, the question of motive is forefront in our minds. That question was addressed, at least in part, when we found eighty bucks and a gold class ring lying in plain sight on a night table. In the study, there was a sleek MacBook Pro, which I sealed in an evidence bag and sent to the lab. A flat-screen television in the living room. All those items are coveted by thieves: they’re valuable, easy to transport, and quick to sell. And I was able to comfortably rule out robbery as the motive.

  One item of interest that we didn’t find at the scene was Dale Michaels’s cell phone. I even dialed the number, hoping to hear the ring, but to no avail. Often, it’s helpful to know with whom the victim spoke in the days and hours before death. According to his daughter, the cell phone should have been somewhere on the premises. Did he leave it somewhere? Lose it? Or did someone take it?

  Another thing we couldn’t explain was the locked house. If Michaels had been working or tinkering on some project in the barn, why would he lock the door? Crime is relatively low in Painters Mill and, for the most part, throughout Holmes County. Neither Glock nor I could think of a logical reason why Michaels would lock the house if he was going to the barn. In addition, there was no evidence that he’d been working on any kind of project in the barn. There were no tools out of place, nothing being repaired. We finally landed on the possibility that he may have been in the barn to feed and water the chickens. Still, why lock the house?

  It was after 2 A.M. when the CSU arrived. I’d turned the scene over to them and was about to leave when I realized we hadn’t yet looked at Michaels’s Lexus. It was there that I found our first clue: blood in the trunk. Initially, we had surmised Michaels was accosted in the barn, shot, and while he was incapacitated, hanged from the rafters, all of which would have taken a good bit of time and effort. The discovery of blood in the trunk—which was later determined to be human—changed everything and raised a slew of new questions.

  If the blood is determined to be Michaels’s, how did he end up in the trunk of his own car? Did someone accost him on the highway, put a bullet in him, throw him in the trunk, then transport him back here and string him u
p in the barn?

  We also discovered tire tracks in the barn. The crime scene unit took plaster copies of the tread, but they looked to be a match to Michaels’s Lexus. Because the vehicle was part of the crime scene, I had it towed to the sheriff’s department impound, where it will be processed by the CSU.

  Because of the late hour, I’d considered spending the rest of the night at my house in Painters Mill, if only for a shower and a couple hours of sleep. I still own the place and most of my furniture is still there, including my bed and a few linens. But by the time I left the scene, all I could think about was getting home and spending a few hours with Tomasetti.

  The house is dark except for the back porch light and the bulb above the stove, which he keeps on for me when he knows I’ll be arriving home late. I let myself in, anticipating a shower, a warm bed, and the feel of him solid against me as I drift off to sleep. The aroma of homemade spaghetti—onions, green peppers, and garlic—still lingers when I enter the kitchen, and I smile because I like this new life I’ve stepped into. The domesticity. Having someone I can count on. Someone I look forward to seeing at the end of the day. Someone I love …

  Leaving my boots next to the door, I set my keys on the counter and drape my holster and jacket over the back of a chair. I’m midway to the stairs where our bedroom is when a voice comes out of the darkness.

  “Kate.”

  I startle and spin. I spot Tomasetti’s silhouette against the living room window. He’s standing ten feet away, something in his hand. I have a sort of sixth sense when it comes to his frame of mind, and I know immediately something has changed since I left a few hours ago. There’s an edge in his voice that unsettles me. Something else in the way he’s standing there, not moving.

  I start toward him, suddenly needing to touch him. To make sure he’s really there. That he’s okay. That we’re okay. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  I stop a couple of feet from him, wishing I could see his face. That’s when I notice the bottle in his hand. The careless way he’s holding the neck. I smell cigarettes and whiskey on his breath and I know whatever it is that has changed, it’s bad. “What’s wrong?”

  “Joey Ferguson walked today.”

  The words strike me with the force of a physical blow. Joey Ferguson is the last living person involved with the murders of Tomasetti’s wife and children three years ago in Cleveland. According to the evidence and witness statements, he hadn’t participated in the assaults on Nancy Tomasetti or the two preteen girls, Donna and Kelly. But he’d driven the getaway car and he’d helped set the house on fire afterward. The fire that ultimately killed them. The trial had been over a year ago. Tomasetti had taken the stand and painted a horrific picture for the jury, telling them what he found the night he came home to a burning house. That when he’d left that morning, he’d been a husband and father of two. When he arrived home that night, his family was dead, murdered by a career criminal intent on intimidating a cop who’d dared cross him. The media had capitalized on every minute of it, running photo after photo of Tomasetti’s pretty wife and his curly-haired little girls, sensationalizing a brutal triple murder that had destroyed a family, shocked the country—and sent Tomasetti spiraling out of control.

  But the evidence against Ferguson was sketchy. We’d been relieved and left with a sense of closure when he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to thirty years in prison. But his high-profile, high-powered attorney immediately appealed. Tomasetti hadn’t talked about it. Not once. We didn’t discuss it or let it into this new life we’ve built for ourselves. But I know he followed the proceedings.

  “What?” I blurt. “How?”

  “He got off on a chain-of-command technicality.”

  For an interminable moment, I can’t speak; I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to reconcile this or help him deal with it, and I’m filled with a sense of injustice and impotence.

  “I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but he moves back slightly. “What can I do?” I ask.

  “Thanks, Kate, but I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do. It’s done.”

  For the span of a full minute, the only sound comes from the tap of rain on the roof. The water running through the spouting. The slap of it against the ground as it overflows gutters that are clogged with leaves. And for the first time in the four months that I’ve been living here with him, I feel something lonely and cold surround me.

  I reach for the lamp on the end table.

  “Don’t,” he says.

  I motion toward the bottle at his side. “That’s not going to help.”

  “Yes, it is.” His laugh is a harsh sound. “I know that bucks conventional wisdom, but believe me, it’s helping.”

  “I know you’re hurting—”

  “That’s not quite the right word.”

  I don’t agree with him. A man can’t endure the kind of hell he did without pain becoming a constant in his life. But I don’t argue. “Tell me what to do.”

  When he doesn’t respond, I gesture in the direction of the door. “Let’s sit on the porch and talk.”

  “I’m not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed.”

  “Then we can just sit.”

  “I’m not very good company right now. Why don’t you go on upstairs and get some sleep?”

  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  He utters another laugh. “I don’t think that’s up to you.” As if realizing the words were harsher than he intended, he softens. “Look, I’m all right. I just need some time alone to think. That’s all. You’ve got an early morning. Go to bed. I’ll join you in a while.”

  I stand there, debating, trying to figure out who needs whom, because at that moment my need for him is twisting my gut into a knot. “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m okay. I can handle this. I’ve handled worse.” He shrugs. “I don’t want to bring this to what we have here. Just give me some space, all right?”

  It’s difficult, but in the end I opt to honor his request. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  When he leans close and presses his mouth against mine, his lips are cold.

  * * *

  I wake before daybreak to find Tomasetti gone. At some point during the early morning hours—without coming into the bedroom to say good-bye—he got into his Tahoe and left. Usually, if for whatever reason we don’t connect during the day, he’ll leave a note next to the coffeemaker. That’s become our routine for touching base when we don’t actually see each other. This morning there’s no note. He didn’t even make coffee. The house is cold and damp, and when I walk into the kitchen, I’m accosted by an unbearable sense of aloneness.

  I make a pot of coffee, lingering longer than I should in the hope he’ll return. When I dump yesterday’s grounds in the trash, I find the empty bottle of Crown Royal along with a half a dozen cigarette butts. Neither are a good sign.

  I tell myself not to worry and remind myself that Tomasetti is a strong man with a good head on his shoulders. Chances are, he went to his office at the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Richfield because he couldn’t sleep and wanted to get a jump on his day. But I am worried. I know Tomasetti. He’s come a long way in the three years since his family was killed. But I’m ever aware that he has a dark side. An unpredictable side that, in the past, has been triggered by pain and injustice and all those gnarly emotions in between.

  I’m the only person in the world who knows what he did in the months following the deaths of his wife and children. I know he turned to pills and alcohol—and spent some time at a mental health facility. I also know he took the law into his own hands and the killers paid hard for what they’d done. The knowledge isn’t a burden; I’m glad he trusted me enough to share it, but this morning it’s at the forefront of my mind. Right or wrong—moral or not—I’ve learned to live with what he did. Maybe because I understand his motives. Because I know he’s a good man, and
like him, I see the world in stark black-and-white.

  The need to call him is powerful, but some inner voice advises me to wait. A call from me now would be seen by him as evidence of my lack of trust, an admission of my fear that he’s going to fall off some emotional cliff. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t fully trust him.

  I arrive at the police station at 7 A.M. to find my third-shift dispatcher, Mona Kurtz, sitting cross-legged on the floor near her desk, several files spread out in front of her. She’s wearing her headset and tapping her foot against the floor to Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over.” She looks up when I enter and grins sheepishly. “Hey, Chief.”

  “Morning.” I pull a stack of message slips from my slot.

  “You’re in early this morning.”

  “Murder makes for a busy day.” I glance through my messages. “Anything else come back on Dale Michaels?”

  “Guy didn’t even have a speeding ticket.” Rising, she reaches for a manila folder next to the switchboard and passes it to me. “I started a file, but there’s not much there.”

  “What about the Hochstetler file?”

  “Jodie couldn’t find it. She thinks it’s locked up in your office.”

  Tucking the file under my arm, I stop at the coffee station to fill my cup and then head to my office. I’m doing my utmost not to think about Tomasetti, but even with an unsolved homicide on my hands, I’m not doing a very good job of it.

  At my desk, I open the file and find Glock’s report along with a couple of dozen photos of the scene. I read the report twice and then take a few minutes to look at each photo. Of the body. The scene. And the mysterious Amish peg doll, including a shot of the name inscribed on the base. HOCHSTETLER. And I know this is one of those cases that won’t give up its secrets easily.

  I go to the file cabinet, kneel, and tug open the bottom drawer. At the rear, where several cold case files are collecting dust, I find the Hochstetler file and take it back to my desk. It’s a thick folder containing dozens of reports from several law enforcement agencies. The Holmes County Sheriff’s Department. The Ohio State Highway Patrol. The Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. And, of course, the Painters Mill PD. Ronald Mackey had been chief back in 1979. Homicide investigative procedures have improved since, but he did a good job with documentation and included several dozen Polaroid photos of the victims—what was left of them—and the scene.